NEW DELHI, Aug 14: As India celebrates its 50th year of independence on Friday, a question being asked by the countrymen is why no Indian scientist got a Nobel prize in the post-Independence era.

India's only Nobel winner in science, Chandrasekara Venkata Raman, was a product of British times. So were Srinivasa Ramanujam, the renowned mathematician, Meghnad Saha, the astrophysicist, and Satyen Bose after whom the particle ``boson'' is named.

Historians will note that in spite of hardship and limited funds for research, India under British rule produced more scientific brains than after winning freedom.

As science historian Rajesh Kochhar says, Indian science after Independence ``has grown to be a garden where weeds outnumber flowering plants but all have equal claims on the gardener.''

Independent India invested nearly Rs 1,20,000 crore in setting up a huge infrastructure some 120 universities, institutes of technology, and some 100 national labs which the country's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru called ``temples of science''. But these temples failed to produce gods of the stature of Raman or Bose.

The answer to this is not difficult to find as a PTI survey of the country's leading scientists shows.

Says well-known astronomer Jayant Narlikar, ``Our system in national labs or universities discourages initiative, innovation or inspiration. It is geared to the progress of the average scientist steady and smooth but not exceptional... We as a society are uncomfortable with excellence."

Allowing an excellent university system to steadily decay is realised as a major ``blunder'' of independent India. ``Massive reforms are needed to save these sinking institutions,'' says Chintamani Nageswara Rao, chairman of the Scientific Advisory Committee to the Cabinet.

``A major mistake today is allowing emphasis on private funding of and providing less budgetary support to higher education.

"The adverse effects of neglect of higher education will be seen 10 years later,'' says Valanginan Ramamurthy, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology.

The future of science in India, says Rao, depends on the small percentage of the best young talent residing in a handful of institutions that offer proper facilities for research.

The neglect towards science started since 1990, says Mambillikalathil Govind Kumar Menon. ``The science agencies are decaying. People are not paying attention to science any more as it is not viewed as important or valuable to society.''

This does not mean that Indian scientists have no reason to rejoice the golden jubilee of Independence.

Science in free India wiped out famines, improved life expectancy and brought satellites, supercomputers and atomic power. Food production increased four-fold to 190 million tonnes and India is now the world's second-largest milk producer after the US.

``But research failed to eradicate poverty or control population growth,'' says Govindrajan Padmanaban, Director of the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore.

``We had an excellent opportunity for health development but we allowed infectious diseases and malaria to come back,'' says Vulimuri Ramalingaswami, former Director General of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

The father of Green Revolution Monkombu Swaminathan says he is a sad man on the eve of the 50th anniversary of Independence because ``agricultural policy has shifted from science to subsidies and professionals have practically vanished from the departments of agriculture.''