Of the eight winners of the top awards in mathematics given away at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Seoul on August 13, the focus in the Indian media has been on three of them, the two Fields Medalists, Indian-origin Manjul Bhargava and the Iranian Maryam Mirzakhani; and the Rolf Nevanlinna Prize winner, Subhash Khot, also of Indian origin. Naturally so because, from a popular Indian perspective, the Indian-origin laureates instill a sense of pride, notwithstanding the fact that their success had little to do with the Indian educational system. The award to Dr. Mirzakhani is awe-inspiring on two counts: one, she is the first woman to be awarded this top award since it was first given 78 years ago and, two, the fact that someone from a nation which is generally perceived to discriminate against the female gender, especially with regard to education, has made that coveted grade. Their backgrounds clearly indicate how important it is, on the one hand, to have good mathematics teachers who are able to spot bright students and, on the other, to have the conducive educational environment for talented youngsters to pursue their interests and give them the necessary freedom to explore beyond the printed curriculum. If Dr. Bhargava had his mathematician-musician mother to mentor him to develop his skills — in mathematics, music and linguistics — without even letting that being hampered by minimum school attendance requirements, Dr. Khot had his mathematics teacher nurturing him and letting him spend time in his house doing mathematics, which facility the school in Ichalkaranji could not otherwise have provided.
Dr. Mirzakhani’s example has called into question the notion that Iranian society prevented girls from pursuing higher education. “While it is true that boys and girls go to separate schools up to high school, this does not prevent them from participating, say in the Olympiads or the summer camps,” she told the Clay Mathematics Institute newsletter in 2008. Tehran, in fact, has a special middle school for exceptionally talented girls, to which Dr. Mirzakhani went and whose “strong-willed” Principal enabled her to participate in the International Mathematical Olympiads in which Iran had never fielded a girl before. This, of course, does not deny the existence of an inherent attitudinal bias against women scientists in general in some societies. The Indian S&T Ministry has established a proven scheme to nurture school students with exceptional talent and also programmes for women scientists to pursue research careers. But, as Dr. Bhargava and earlier the Nobel Laureate Venkatraman Ramakrishnan noted, a change in the societal attitude towards research in the basic sciences, mathematics in particular, has to come about.
