When student and author-illustrator Ilina Singh researched her subject choice for senior school, she realized she couldn't name any woman scientist apart from Marie Curie. She didn't seem to know any scientists who looked like her—female and Indian. Did India not have any women scientists?
This thought was the inspiration behind her first book, "Gutsy Girls of Science," published by HarperCollins in February 2022.
Seventeen-year-old Singh is a Class 11 student of mathematics, physics and art at the Shri Ram School, Aravali. She was also nominated for the Pradhan Mantri Bal Puruskar for Arts and Culture.
"I came across news stories and a tweet by Union Minister Smriti Irani in 2020, which had pictures of 11 women scientists who the Indian government had recognized," she said. "As I read about them, I was moved and inspired. They were bright but also very brave to stand up to the social prejudices of their times."
Once she began researching their lives, "Gutsy Girls of Science" evolved organically. She started painting the portraits of the women in April 2020, shortly after turning 15. Once friends and family liked the art accompanying the text, she wrote to the prime minister and received an encouraging reply.
"The entire process took me two years. My research went beyond the scientists themselves—I wanted the readers to develop curiosity about the science behind the scientists. That's why each chapter ends with an activity you can do to enjoy and understand the topic a little more. I hope we move the needle on the number of women who follow STEM careers."
Singh's signing amount has been kept safely—she hopes to support the cause of girls in STEM through her earnings from the book.
UNESCO came on board as a partner early in the project.
"I mailed UNESCO Director Eric Falt the portraits I had made with a request for guidance. He invited me to meet him and agreed to come on board as a partner in the project. The entire team at UNESCO guided me over the last two years to make the dream a reality," said Singh.
Among the remarkable women featured in the book are botanist Padma Shri Janaki Ammal, best known for developing a sweeter, hardier hybrid sugarcane that led to Indian self-sufficiency in sugar production, and chemist Padma Bhushan Asima Chatterjee who developed drugs that have been used to treat epilepsy, malaria and chemotherapy, often using her own money for research.
She tells inspiring stories of physicist Bibha Chowdhuri (after whom the star HD 86081 has been renamed), anthropologist Iravati Karve (who travelled to remote areas, undertaking physically taxing work that most women of her time would not), and meteorologist Anna Mani (who turned down a pair of diamond earrings when she was just eight, in favour of the Encyclopedia Britannica series!).
"Lack of women in Indian scientific research is a known fact—against a global average of 33 per cent women in science and research-related jobs, India has only 14 per cent, so it's a long-distance to cover," said Singh. "And the leaky pipeline needs to be fixed at the school level, by teaching children about female role models in science."
"Globally, there is something known as the 'Sculley effect'—young girls who watched the female protagonist in a program named X-Files went on to study science in college. We can't be what we don't see – representation matters."
Neeti Jaychander is a writer, journalist and educator based in Chennai.