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1984 18: 109Contributions to Indian SociologyVinod K. Jairath the Indian scientific community−−In search of roots

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In search of roots—the Indian scientific community

Vinod K. JairathIndian Institute of Technology

Kanpur

Science and technology have become essential features of all modem andmodemising societies today and play a dominant role in every scheme ofsocial change. In India, the development of scientific and technologicalinfrastructure was accorded a high priority in the planning process soon afterindependence. But the social scientists in India and sociologists, in particular,have almost completely ignored this aspect of social life. It has become

imperative not to ignore it any longer as science and technology are increas-ingly shaping the lives of the people, on the one hand, and on the other,there is a growing feeling that science and technology have failed in theirpromises. _

The ’crisis of science’ is not a purely Indian phenomenon today nor is it arecent phenomenon in India. It has its roots in nineteenth century colonialIndia but the crisis has deepened in the recent past as a result of developmentsat the national and international levels.The ’traditional’ Western society was transformed through the religious,

industrial, and political revolutions during a period of about four hundredyears. This transformation was also accompanied by the Scientific Revolutionwhose economic worth was recognised and the results utilised on a largescale only from the late nineteenth century. The new industrial leaders of theworld between the two World Wars were the U.S.A., Germany and theSoviet Union who systematically used research and development (R & D) tobuild ’science-based’ industries and increase the productivity enormously.Thus, increasingly, the prosperity of the advanced industrial nations came tobe associated with large investment in scientific research, among otherfactors. It became an essential element of any development strategy, capitalistor socialist, offered to the newly decolonised nations after the War. India setout to carry forward its ’development’ through rapidly growing investmentin scientific and technological R & D.

The decade of the sixties was one of hope and high expectations, or what

by guest on December 29, 2013cis.sagepub.comDownloaded from



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Jean Jacques Salomon has called ’The Age of Pragmatism’ (1976). Gradually,in the seventies (’The Age of Questioning’), the bubble of rapid growth

,

burst in the Western countries and there was a widespread disillusionmentwith the miracle of science. In India, too, the role of scientific research andthe scientific community began to be questioned. The perception of failureof science and the scientific community has been spreading in the country inrecent years.The main question posed in this paper is: why has the scientific tradition

not taken firm roots in ’modem’ India despite a large quantitative growth inscientific personnel, investment, and institutions? In the first section, thevarious ways in which the ’crisis of science’ in India has been perceived isoutlined. N:odern science was implanted in India during the colonial periodas a result of the influence of modem western civilisation on a section of theIndian society. Thus the question arises whether the present crisis wasinherent in the way modem science was introduced into India. In order to

explore this, the history of scientific growth and institution-building duringthe colonial period is traced in the next section.

In the third section, the fact of very rapid growth, under the patronage ofthe State, since independence is noted and the character of this growthassessed. It is seen that the gradual, relatively uniform, development of thescientific community during the colonial period is disrupted after independ-ence resulting in a division and fragmentation of the community. A new setof institutions have cropped up where research is conducted into the ’frontier’areas of science. Members of these institutions have firmly established theircontrol over the science policy machinery of the State. These changes haveresulted in the utter neglect of the universities~which form the foundationof a scientific culture and a strong independent scientific community in allthe advanced countries. An explanation of this change from the colonial tothe post-independence period has been explored, in the last section, in termsof the interrelation between the Reformist, the Revivalist and the Radicaltraditions which originated during the colonial period. This approach alsoappears to explain the character of different perceptions of the ’crisis ofscience’. It is a preliminary attempt and will require much work before amore adequate explanation emerges.

Crisis of science

Any crisis of science has been seen, generally, either as an ‘internal’ crisis oran ’external’ one. Internally, the problem boils down to one of ’Theory-factfit’ or paradigmatic shifts and revolutions and is treated as falling in thedomain of philosophers of science. An external crisis is considered as aproblem of a stagnation or decline of scientific activity in a society and,therefore, a business of sociologists and historians. But a crisis may haveboth these aspects simultaneously, especially when scientific activity is




111

growing and yet its character and direction of development may be challenged.This has acquired increasing importance with the belief that ’knowledge’must be transformed into technology and utilised as a vehicle for socialchange. The crisis of science in India has both the internal and externaldimensions with a complex interrelation. It can be perceived in the followingdistinct ways:

z

(a) Science has developed inadequately. This view can be interpreted inthe following manner:( i) We have not made ’significant’ contributions to the body of

scientific knowledge, and/or(ii) We have not transformed scientific knowledge into technology

effectively. ,

(b) Science has developed inappropriately, which can be interpreted asfollows: Utility and knowledge are related. Precisely because theaspect of technology, according to our needs, has been ignored, wehave been unable to contribute significantly to the body of scientificknowledge.

(c) ’Modem’ science is inherently evil and exploitative and must berejected. A new and humane knowledge system must be evolved.

These three major strands can be clearly identified in the perception ofcrisis of science in India today and can be traced to the three major intellectualtraditions, viz., Reformist, Radical and Revivalist, respectively, whichemerged in colonial India. This link will be analysed in the last section.

Finally, the crisis has manifested itself at two levels:

( i) Repeated criticisms both of working conditions and of performance(or lack of it) of the Indian scientific community.

(ii) At a more popular level, a major debate on the ’Scientific temper’.

The debate has highlighted the crisis most forcefully. It started with the’Statement on scientific temper’ signed by some of the foremost scientistsand social scientists of the country (Haksar et al. 1981). It was a result of’concern at the accelerating pace of retreat from reason’ and sought to findout ’what needed to be done to halt the process of decay of reason andrationality’ in the country. The answer to this problem would be to spreadthe ’scientific temper’ in society which is ’much more than the spread ofscience and technology’. Thus even scientists need a dose of scientifictemper. This is made clear by Dr P.M. Bhargava, one of the signatories ofthe statement, in a recent article wherein he wonders, while attacking’obscurantism’:

What else would one expect when Ministers and other senior politicians,




112

senior scientists such as a past scientific Adviser to the Ministry ofDefence, Secretaries to the Government of India and to the State Govern-ments (and other senior civil servants), educationists occupying seniorpositions such as many vice-chancellors and Chairman of the UniversityGrants Commission, and prominent citizens, believe in one godman oranother, specially in their miraculous and magical powers? (1983a: 6).

The statement invited a scathing attack from Ashis Nandy in his ’Counter-statement on humanistic temper’ where he finds the former to be ’a mix ofsuperstitions, half-truths and cliches’. Nandy criticises the signatories to thestatement for systematically ignoring the evil side of modem science:

The ultimate logic of the statement is the vulgar contempt for the commonman it exudes. That is why it has to ignore the fact that science today is themain instrument of oppression in the world, that 60 per cent of the world’sscientists and most of their funds are spent on destructive technology,

’ , which in turn is used not so much in inter-state warfare as in within-state

oppression.Concurrently, the statement has to whitewash the fact that modem

science today is big business and the modem Indian scientists are mostly a’

new class of compradors, that to be the subjects of such a science and tobe subject to such scientists is to be doubly subject to the national andinternational structures of oppression (1981: Ifr-17).

A large number of scientists/social scientists and groups have since joinedthe debate turning it into one of the most important national debates’ sinceindependence, indicating the existence of a deep crisis.

. Scientific community in colonial India

Our concern here is with the ’modem’ Western science that was implanted inIndia during the colonial period. George Basalla has offered a three-stagemodel of ’the spread of Western science’ from Europe to other countries.According to him:

Three overlapping phases or stages constitute (the) proposed model.During ’phase 1’ the non-scientific society or nation provides a source forEuropean science. The word non-scientific refers to the absence of modernWestern science and not to a lack of ancient, indigenous scientific thoughtof the sort to be found in China or India; European ... means ‘WesternEuropean’. ’Phase 2’ is marked by a period of colonial science, and ‘phase 3’

’ See, for instance, Chattopadhyay 1981, Shiva 1981, Dhawan 1981, Surya 1982, Subbaram1982, Gregorios 1982, Sethi and Mohan 1982, Prasad 1982, Chaturvedi 1982, Madras Group1982, and the whole issue of Yojana 27, 14 & 15, 1983.




113

completes the process of transplanation with a struggle to achieve anindependent scientific tradition (or culture) (1967: 611).

During phase 1, the scientific areas of Botany, Zoology, and Geologypredominate with the non-European societies treated as sources of rawmaterial for the researches of European scientists. Basalla also mentionssocial anthropology in this phase. In this paper, however, I shall confinemyself only to the natural sciences.Phase 2 colonial science is a dependent science. A colonial scientist,

typically, is dependent upon an external scientific culture, ’at least partlytrained in a European institution,’ thus directing his ’interests to the scientificfields and problems delineated by European scientists,’ ’seeks the membershipand honours of European scientific societies and publishes his researches inEuropean scientific journals’. Colonial science lacks in its own mature

institutions of scientific education and research on the one hand, and channelsof effective communication amongst the colonial scientists and with centresof excellence in Europe, on the other. The consequences, according toBasalla, are the following:

Although colonial science will rarely create great centers or schools ofscientific research, open new fields of science, or completely dominatedolder areas of scientific enquiry, it does provide the proper milieu,through its contacts with the established scientific cultures, for a smallnumber of gifted individuals whose scientific researches may challenge orsurpass the work of European savants. These few men become heroes ofcolonial science .... Benjamin Franklin is such a hero (1967: 614;emphasis added).

z

Finally, the transition from phase 2 to phase 3 has its roots in colonialscience itself, apart from the force of political and cultural nationalism.

Although the colonial scientist looks for external support, he does beginto create institutions and traditions which will eventually provide thebasis for an independent scientific culture. A modest amount of scientificeducation will be undertaken by the colonial scientist, he will agitate forthe creation of native scientific organizations, he may work for theestablishment of a home-based scientific journal, and he begins to thinkof his work, and of the researches of his immediate colleagues, as beingthe product of his own nation (Basalla 1967: 617).

Phase 3 is seen by Basalla as one of conscious struggle to build upindependent, autonomous scientific culture, institutions and communitywhich. can operate on an equal footing with the mother countries of theScientific Revolution.




114/

Here it is pertinent to point out that Basalla has formulated his model onthe basis of the events in ‘Eastern Europe, North and South America, India,Australia, China, Japan, and Africa.’ Thus he makes no distinction betweencountries which were politically and militarily colonised and those whichwere not, on the one hand, and between the colonisation of countries likeAmerica and Australia and those like India, on the other. Also he completelyignores the differences in social structure and cultural traditions of countrieswhen modem Western science was implanted there. These are very seriousdrawbacks in Basalla’s ’preliminary’ model, which tells us nothing about thefailures of the underdeveloped nations as against the successes of the non-European advanced countries in creating an independent scientific culture.Here we shall focus our attention on the second and third phases, finallyassessing the problems of the third one in India.There is at least one study (McLeod 1975) which has looked at the

’colonial science’ in India, following Basalla’s model. McLeod has essentiallystudied the relationship betweev the Board of Scientific Advice (B.S.A.) ofthe Government of India and the Indian Advisory Council (I.A.C.) of theRoyal Society, London during 1898-1923. He has suggested that the maininitiative in developing science in colonial India came from the governmentand the scientists who were ’almost all British by birth’. The coordination ofscientific activity was carried out by the B.S.A. under the supervision andguidance of the Royal Society through the I.A.C. But this relationship wasconstantly under strain and ’In the spring of 1909, the smouldering discontentof the scientists in India finally burst into mutiny’. Thomas Holland, one ofthe most active members of the B.S.A. and whose work on geological surveywas criticised by the I.A.C. in 1909 took the lead in questioning the role ofthe I.A.C. in organisation of scientific research in India. ’The Hollandmemorandum of May 1909 was approved by the B.S.A. and transmitted tothe India Office on 3 March 1910. The memorandum, including 4,000 wordsof text and seventeen pages of closely worded enclosures, rebutted, point bypoint, the criticisms n-ade by the Royal Society, over the previous six years.’And Holland concluded that ’the two bodies cannot hope to regard themethods of scientific research in India from the same points of view.’ InAugust 1910, the Royal Society accepted Holland’s proposals, thus setting

- free the B.S.A. from the Royal Society’s ’control’ although a formal rela-tionship continued. According to McLeod, ’During the interwar period,Indian science and scientific education began to acquire a recognizable,independent character, particularly through the Indian Science Congressand the Indian Academy of Science, founded in 1934, and the election ofIndians to the Fellowship of the Royal Society’ (1975: 378-79).There is no doubt that some of the major scientific institutions in colonial

India were created at the initiative of, and sometimes main participationfrom, the scientists who were British or European by birth. And they

. contributed a great deal to the researches relevant to Indian society. The




115

major attempts to bring together the scientists in India, so that they couldeffectively communicate with each other and operate as a community, werethose which led to the formation of the Asiatic Society (1784), IndianScience Congress (1914; the annual Congress since 1914 culminating inIndian Science Congress Association in 1931), Indian Academy of Sciences,Bangalore (1934), and the National Institute of Sciences of India, Calcutta(1935; it later became Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi). Thefirst step was taken by the Europeans of Calcutta: ,

In the last quarter of the eighteenth century, the European investigatorswho were engaged in antiquarian studies, so also in diverse investigationsof the natural history of India, felt the need for meeting together with aview to exchanging their own findings. This necessitated the founding of alearned society, and it did not take long to establish one such. ThirtyEuropean intellectuals of Calcutta met on 15th January, 1784, under thePresidentship of Robert Charles, the second judge of Supreme Court,and resolved to form an association called ’The Asiatick Society’ and tohold weekly meetings every thursday at 7 o’clock (Subbarayappa 1971:495). ,

Similarly, two British scientists, J.L. Simonsen and P.S. MacMohan fromPresidency College, Madras and Canning College, Lucknow respectively,were responsible for initiating the Indian Science Congress in 1914.

It occurred to them that ’Scientific Research in India might be stimulatedif an annual meeting of workers somewhat on the lines of the BritishAssociation for the Advancement of Science could be arranged.’ They,therefore, issued a circular letter in 1911 to obtain the views of seventeentop ranking men of science in India at that time. The general consensus ofopinion being favourable, some of them met at a Conference at theAsiatic Society of Bengal on 2 November, 1912 and inter alia resolvedthat ’the Asiatic Society of Bengal be asked to undertake the managementof a Science Congress to be held annually’ (Mukerji 1964: 572).

-

It may be mentioned here that of the twenty-one scientists who attendedthe First Congress, no less than fifteen were British by birth. The Congressin subsequent years continued to be dominated by the British scientists fromcolleges, universities and Government scientific departments in India but theparticipation and initiative of Indians grew rapidly during the inter-war period.The Indian Science Congress Association took the lead in setting up theNational Institute of Sciences of India in 1935, whereas the Bangalore group,led by Sir C.V. Raman had set up the Indian Academy of Sciences a yearearlier. These two academies had a strong representation of Indian scientists.At present, these two are the only major science academies in India.




116/

However, this picture belittles the contribution of Indians to the processof building scientific institutions in the early phase. The first Indian to takethe initiative in this respect was Mahendralal Sircar (1833-1904) who joinedforces with a Belgian Jesuit priest, Father Eugene Lafont. Father Lafont hadarrived in India in 1865 and started his science lectures at St. Xavier’s

College, Calcutta, in 1866. He introduced experimental demonstrations inhis lectures which increasingly attracted public attention and inspired Indianstudents to take up a career in science. Mahendralal Sircar graduated fromthe Medical College, Calcutta, in 1860 and on being dismissed from theBengal Branch of the British Medical Association for espousing the cause ofhomoeopathy in 1867, started the Calcutta journal of medicine ’to fulfil theneed of a forum to propagate his point of view.’ In the August 1869 issue ofthis journal, he expressed ’the desirability of a national institution for thecultivation of the physical sciences by the natives of India’ (Biswas 1969: 52).And in order to transform this dream into a reality, ’gate collections,’starting on 2 June 1870, from the now famous popular lectures of FatherLafont at St. Xavier’s College, were handed over to hiahendralal Sircar.Donations were offered by several princes and wealthy citizens so that by1876, he had collected more than eighty thousand rupees. Thus, on 13March 1876, the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science wasinaugurated in a house donated by the Government of Bengal. The researchlaboratory of this ’first Indian institute for scientific research’ was founded in1890. It was in this laboratory of the Association that Sir C.V. Raman, theonly Indian (by nationality) Nobel Laureate in Science to date started hisscientific career in 1908.At the turn of-the century, the most important centre of science teaching

in the country was the Presidency College, Calcutta, where J.C. Bose, astudent of Father Lafont and later educated at Cambridge and London, P.C.Ray, educated at Edinburgh had started teaching Physics and Chemistryrespectively since the mid 1880s. Till then, the universities had been merelyexamining bodies. They could undertake teaching only after the new Uni-versity Act of 1904. Subsequently, the key role in building up a soundfoundation for science teaching and research within the country passed on toAsutosh Mookerjee who took up the Vice-Chancellorship of Calcutta Uni-versity in 1906. His model of science education was the German universitieswhich combined teaching with research. During his dominant presence atthe University as a Vice-Chancellor (1906-14; 1921-23), member of theSyndicate (1914-16) and President, Council of Post-Graduate Teaching,(1917), he worked towards the creation of a strong centre of scientificteaching and research.During 1908-22, Calcutta University received donations of Rs 45 lakh

from Indians. Of this sum, Rs 40 lakh was donated for pure and appliedscience. During 1912 alone, Sir Taraknath Palit and Sir Rash Behari Ghost, ,both wealthy lawyers, donated Rs 14 lakh and Rs 10 lakh, respectively, for




117

Chairs in Phy sics, Chemistry, Applied Mathematics and Applied Botany.Raja Guruprasanna Singh of Khaira donated Rs 5.5 take for establishingChairs in Physics and Chemistry, Agriculture, Indian Fine Arts and IndianLinguistics and Phonetics (Bose 1964: 308). In addition, Palit also donatedland and buildings which housed the new ’University College of Science,’ se iup in l 914. A large number of prominent Indian scientists were associated,directly or indirectly, with the University College throughout the colonialperiod. Palit, Ghosh and Khaira, and later Mahendralal Sircar, professorshipsin different areas of science at Calcutta University made it possible for somany brilliant Indian scientists to practise an active career in teaching andresearch.Whereas Sir J.C. Bose, after his retirement from Presidency College in

1915, founded the Bose Research Institute in 1917, Sir P.C. Ray, retiringfrom the same college in 1916, joined the University College in the sameyear as the first Palit professor of Chemistry. Asutosh Mookerjee also took abold decision in offering the first Palit professorship in Physics to C.V.Raman, then an officer of the Indian Accounts Service and a part-timeresearcher at the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science. Raman

joined the University College in 1917. Meghnad Saha and S.N. Bose hadalready joined the Physics department as lecturers, along with several otherbrilliant Indian scientists and mathematicians. K.S. Krishnan came to Calcuttain 1920 from Madras University and became a close collaborator of C.V.Raman. A.K. Biswas has paid homage to these ’heroes of colonial science’in India: -Mahendralal and Asutosh had prepared the ground for scientificresearch in India; Bose and Ray were the early toilers; to complete themetaphor, it could be said that Raman, Krishnan, Saha and Satyen Bosereaped the harvest’ (1969: 93). It may be mentioned here that the Fellowshipof Royal Society was conferred upon J.C. Bose (1920), C.V. Raman (1924),M.N. Saha (1927), K.S. Krishnan (1940) and S.N. Bose (1958).The scientists from the University College then fanned out to other

universities, thus consolidating the science departments all over the country,and also built up new institutions. Satyendra Nath Bose moved to DaccaUniversity first as Reader (1921-24) and then as Professor (1926-45), colla-borating with Madame Curie and Albert Einstein during the interveningperiod, and came back to Calcutta University as Khaira Professor during1945-56 (for these movements, see Singh 1977). M.N. Saha, after KhairaProfessorship at Calcutta University (1921-23), moved out to AllahabadUniversity (1923-38) and then came back to Calcutta University as PalitProfessor of Physics (1938-52). He finally founded the Institute of NuclearPhysics at Calcutta in 1955. D.S. Kothari, another brilliant physicist, obtainedhis M.Sc. at Allahabad University as Saha’s student and finally joined DelhiUniversity as Professor of Physics (1934-48). K.S. Krishnan moved out fromCalcutta to Dacca University as Reader (1928-33) and then came back toCalcutta as the first Mahendralal Sircar Research Professor (1933-42) and




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then as Professor and Head of the Physics department at Calcutta University(1942-47). In 1947, he became the first Director of the National PhysicalLaboratory at Delhi (1947-61). Sir C.V. Raman spent his most creativeyears at the University College of Science (1917-32). He then moved toBangalore as the first Indian Director of the Indian Institute of Science in1933, started the new Physics department and remained there till 1948. In1949, he founded his own Raman Research Institute. Thus a chain-reactionwas set in motion by these ’heroes of colonial science’ and almost everyIndian scientist of repute during the colonial period had some link, direct orindirect, with the earliest scientific establishments described in the foregoing.The Indian Institute of Science at Bangalore is yet another product of

colonial science in India. It formally came into existence in 1909 ’as apost-graduate institution for the promotion of advanced studies and originalresearch’ with the assistance of Sir Dorab Tata and Sir Ratan Tata and theGovernment of Mysore. It had European directors till 1933, when Ramancame to occupy that position. The other Indian scientist of repute at thisinstitute during the colonial period was Homi Jehangir Bhabha, a nephew ofSir Dorab Tata. In 1940, he ’accepted the post of Reader at the IndianInstitute of Science, Bangalore, in charge of a special cosmic ray researchunit set up for him with money given by the Sir Dorab Tata Trust’ (Penny1970: 83). A biographer of Bhabha writes: ’In 1942 he was offered a Chair inPhysics at Allahabad University &dquo;with specially favourable conditions,&dquo; andagain in 1942 Professorship at the Indian Association for the Cultivation ofScience in Calcutta. Both these offers he rejected because he was convincedthat they did not afford &dquo;sufficient scope for ultimately building up anoutstanding school of physics&dquo;. His mind was even then fixed on organisationbuilding’ (Singh 1970: 3). And an ’outstanding school of physics’ he didcreate in the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) founded in1945 under his leadership, partly aided by the Sir Dorab Tata Trust. His rolein building up scientific organisations was much bigger in independent Indiawhich I will deal with later.The other major research institutions in colonial India were set up by the

government to take care of practical problems. The most significant amongthese were the Indian Research Fund Association (later Indian Council ofMedical Research, ICMR) in 1911, Imperial Council of Agriculture (laterIndian Council of Agriculture Research, ICAR) in 1929, and Council ofScientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in 1942.

Thus, by the time of independence in 1947, a fairly well-knit scientificcommunity was emerging. While creating some advanced centres of research,most of the eminent Indian scientists contributed greatly towards strengthen-ing of teaching and research at the universities. And in the process ofinstitution-building, they did not give up active research. The institutionsgrew gradually as and when the need arose and the resources could bemobilised. Thus the development toward building up ’nationalist’ scientificculture moved at a steady pace during the colonial period.




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Scientific community in independent India

The spread of ’modem’ education was gradual during the colonial period.Beginning with the setting up of the first three universities at Calcutta,Madras and Bombay in 1857, the total number of universities in India at the .time of independence was only twenty. During the first twenty-five yearsafter independence, the number of universities jumped to eighty-four.Consequently, the number of individuals trained in science and technologyincreased phenomenally, reaching approximately two million in 1983.The total research and development (R & D) expenditure increased from

a mere 29 crore rupees in 1958-59 to Rs 173 crore in 1970-71 and is nowabout Rs 1,200 crore. As a percentage of Gross National Product (GNP),the R & D expenditure increased from 0.23 in 1958-59 to 0.48 in 1970-71and to 0.66 in 1980-81. The ’total number of scientific and technical personnelemployed in R & D establishments’ increased from 20,724 in 1958-59 to94,686 in 1970-71 and to 1,86,000 in 1980-81.2 These statistics suggest anenormous increase in science and technology (S & T) activity. It should alsobe pointed out here that ’The Central Government provided 78 per cent ofthe total budget utilised for research and development. Eight per cent wascontributed by the state governments and 14 per cent by the private sector’during z1 (Science today, October 1983: 11). Thus the very rapidgrowth in S & T budget personnel, institutions and activity has occurred inindependent India at the initiative of the State.The first step in evolving a science policy and the concomitant institutional

network for implementation was taken by the government, led by JawaharlalNehru. A Scientific Policy Resolution (SPR) was passed in March 1958,following the Industrial Policy Resolution (IPR) of 1956. The strategyadopted for the development of the newly decolonised country was one ofrapid industrialisation with scientific and technological inputs, generatedindigenously. According to the SPR:

In industrialising a country, a heavy price has to be paid in importingscience and technology in the form of plant and machinery, highly paidpersonnel and technical consultants. An early and large scale developmentof science and technology in the country could therefore greatly reducethe drain on capital during the early and critical stages of industrialisation.

Hence the state-led, rapid growth of S & T since 1958. ,In order to work out the modalities of, and evaluate the implementation

of SPR, a Conference of Scientists, Technologists and Educationists (CSTE)was held in July 1958, followed by a second CSTE in August 1963 and a thirdone in November 1970. Also, in 1958, a Scientific Advisory Committee to

2 The figures are compiled from NCST 1973, Science today, October 1983, and Bidwai 1983.




120/

Cabinet (SACC) was fonned which was replaced by a Committee on Scienceand Technology (CoST) in 1968. At the third CSTE, ’Preliminary Report onthe Implementation of Scientific Policy’ prepared by the CoST was discussed.It was decided then to replace CoST by yet another apex body-the NationalCommittee on Science and Technology (NCST/which would prepare adetailed Science and Technology Plan which could be incorporated into theFifth Five Year Plan (1974-79). In 1973, the S & T plan prepared by NCSTwas published by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), whichwas created to oversee its implementation. Thus, by the early seventies, thescience policy had been translated into a concrete plan and integrated withthe overall planning machinery of the country. However. the first formaltechnology policy was formulated by the government only in 1983.The CoST report, discussed at the third CSTE, mentions that 70 per cent

of the central R & D budget is accounted for by five major agencies: D AE(Department of Atomic Energy), ICMR, ICAR, CSIR and DRDO (DefenceResearch and Development Organisation). Even amongst these agencies,there are significant differences in their respective R & D budgets, resultingin, as pointed out m the NCST document, ’a growing mismatch between thedistribution of funds for scientific activity and the economic and socialimportance of the areas of funding’ (NCST 1973: 545), ’whereas the atomicenergy and space programmes alone accounted for 20 per cent of the total

expenditure on R & D in the central sector, medical research, health andfamily planning absorbed only about 5 per cent. While the share of researchand development on defence was 12 per cent, irrigation and power accountedfor less than 2 per cent.’ What trends, then, can be discerned in the growth ofareas and institutions of S & T since independence which also have asignificant bearing on the character of the scientific community?The two state agencies which took off rapidly soon after independence

were the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and theDepartment of Atomic Energy (DAB), out of which emerged, in the earlyseventies, the departments of space and electronics. The atomic energyprogramme, initiated in 1947, was led by Bhabha who was simultaneouslythe Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission; Secretary, Department ofAtomic Energy; Director, Atomic Energy Establishment, Trombay (AEET,later known as Bhabha Atomic Research Centre or BARC); and Director,Tata Institute of Fundamental Research till his death in 1966. On the other

hand, CSIR grew rapidly with a chain of laboratories set up under theleadership of Sir S.S. Bhatnagar, a ’grand-pupil’ of Sir P.C. Ray. Starting

prom scratch, CSIR had 29 research laboratories and institutes by 1964; thenumber has reached 38 in 1983.At least in the initial phases, the characters of the atomic energy programme

and the CSIR appear to be very different from each other. Referring to theproliferation of CSIR laboratories, Bhabha stated: .




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All these laboratories were brought into existence in the same way. Aplanning officer was appointed for planning the work and the building ofeach laboratory. The plan was usually drawn up on the basis of the workof similar laboratories abroad, divided into divisions and sections, and anestimate of the staff required was made on this ba.sis. An attempt to fillthe posts was then made, through advertisement, and through invitationalso in the case of the seniormost appointments (1966: 334-35).

In contrast, Bhabha described his own philosophy of recruiting scientistsand building institutions with the example of TIFR:

’ No organisational chart of the future development of the institute wassubmitted either when it was founded or later, and the philosophy hasalways been to support ability whenever it is found in the fields of workcovered by the institute. Indeed, the philosophy underlying the foundingof the institute was the same as that underlying the Max Planck Institutein Germany: ’The Kaiser Wilhelm Society shall not first build an institutefor research and then seek out the suitable man but shall first pick up anoutstanding man, and then build an institute for him’ (1966: 336).

Bhabha introduced several other new features to his scientific organisa-tions, viz., TIFR and AEET (later BARC), especially introducing greatercollegiateship and teamwork in contrast with bierarchy- ’the main deterringfactor in creating an open climate of criticality and creativeness’-existing inthe universities and the other State-run R & D organisations like the CSIRand ICAR.

In 1963, an Electronics Committee was set up under the Chairmanship ofBhabha which led to a series of hectic activities, finally leading to the settingup of the Department of Electronics (DoE’ in 1970 and the ElectronicsCommission (EC) in 1971. The DoE and EC are among the foremost S & Tinstitutions in the country today. Similarly, during Bhabha’s term, in 1962,the DAE created the Indian National Committee for Space Research(INCOSPAR) under the chairmanship of Vikram Ambalal Sarabhai underwhose leadership the infrastructure for the present gigantic space programmewas established. An independent Department of Space and the SpaceCommission, on the lines of atomic energy and electronics, were formed in1972.These most prestigious and strategic areas of ’Big Science’ (High-energy

Physics, Atomic Energy Programme, Space and Electronics R & D and,more recently, Microbiology and Biotechnology), involving sophisticatedresearch equipment and very high investments-were built up in India by agroup of scientists who were all associated with the TIFR and AEET in theirinitial phases. As Yogi Agarwal writes:




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The influence and clout of the TIFR elite in the scientific establishment isfar greater than its relatively small budget would indicate. This is partlybecause former TIFR professors dominate science policy in India. At thetop of the list is M.G.K. Menon .... Besides Menon, others have left theTIFR to head research institutes like the Physical Research Laboratory(PRL) and the Space Application Centre (SAC) in Ahmedabad, or havetaken up important administrative positions in New Delhi. Moreover,senior professors currently at TIFR form a vocal group who can influencescience policy (1983: 71).

Thus, while the institutions engaged in Big Science (including the IndianInstitute of Science, Bangalore, the five Indian Institutes of Technology’atDelhi, Bombay, Madras, Kanpur and Kharagpur, and a few other researchinstitutes and universities) are prospering, at least financially, being firmlyin the saddle of the country’s science policy establishment, the other R & Dorganisations and most of the universities continue to receive a step-motherlytreatment although they have grown enormously in numbers.For example, in 1981-82, the CSIR’s budget of just over Rs 100 crore ’was

used to fund about 1,800 research projects besides the day-to-day running ofits 38 national laboratories, over a 100 extension centres and regionalstations and the wages and salaries of 4,300 scientists and technologists plusover 10,000 supportive scientific and technical personnel’ (Bhushan 1983:54). Interestingly, it seems that the CSIR, too, is beginning to fall in line withthe science policy establishment. Describing the process of ’rationalisation’that the CSIR is now undergoing, Bhushan writes:

The number of research projects in the laboratories is going to be reducedto about a third of their present strength. Between June 1982 and June1983, for example, the total number of projects came down from 1,800 to1,500. And the aim, apparently, is to bring their number down to only500.

In addition, there will be about 10 major projects, which according toCSIR headquarter sources ’should ideally take up 70 to 80 per cent of thetotal resources of the CSIR.’ These major projects would be in the areasof micro-electronics, materials, coal and coal-chemicals, microbiology,

. and oceanography. And these will all be multi-laboratory multiagency(e.g., government departments, public sector enterprises, etc.) projectsand their budgets will be contributed to by the various agencies involved.The planned budgets of each one of these projects over a seven to tenyear period are expected to be much higher than the present annual

. budget of the CSIR (1983: 57).

Thus it can be seen that the new frontier areas of Big Science havereceived special attention after independence, using up most of the meagre




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national resources for R & D. Simultaneously, a new breed of scientists hasemerged, concentrating enormous bureaucratic power and funds at theirdisposal (and also scientific awards, mostly State controlled). I shall nowexamine the consequences of this growth and direction.

First of all, the CoST report at the third CSTE in 1970 had proclaimedtriumphantly that India had the third largest S & T manpower. This invited agreat deal of cynicism. Now the DST report for 1980-81 tells us that ’thetotal scientific manpower is no index of the country’s research and develop-ment .... Only 1,84,000 of the country’s total scientific manpower (of abouttwo million) are actually employed in research or development institutions.Of these, 64 per cent are employed in administrative and non-technicalpositions.’ Thus the number of S & T personnel actually working in R & D is’only 0.1 per thousand population in India, compared to 0.61 in Korea, 2.8 inthe UK and USA, and about 5 in the USSR (1978-79 figures),’ which meansthat a large part of the growth of science in independent India is a totalwaste. And how do those, who do remain in R & D, perform? Some recentstudies paint a very dismal picture (see, for instance, Mohan 1981, Bhargava1983a and b, Bidwai 1983). Performance in science is generally measured interms of ’productivity’ (for quantity) and ’impact’ or ’citation index’ (forquality). On the basis of two recent articles by Eugene Garfield, in Currentcontents, who ’bases himself on an analysis of the sources and impact of somenine million articles published by 1.5 million scientific authors in the pages ofabout 3,000 journals,’ Bidwai concludes that ’so far as the more importantissue of quality of research work goes, India’s record is somewhere betweenpoor and appalling, even in relation to some third world countries.’

Thus, with some exceptions in areas like molecular biology and theoreticalphysics, Indian scientific community has not performed well despite animmense growth in scientific personnel, investment and institutions. How,then, can we begin to look at this ’crisis of science’?

Discussion

First of all, let us note the contrast between the growth of science in colonialIndia and that in the post-independence period. Science during the colonialperiod grew at a slow natural pace. New institutions were created when theneed for them was strongly felt. The institutional growth was assistedsignificantly by private donations by individuals, many of whom sacrificedtheir life’s savings for the cause of establishing a scientific tradition in’modem’ India. The State’s intervention was at a low level. Top rankingscientists took the lead in building up new science departments in universitiesand setting up new research institutions, never giving up their researchwork. Being at the universities also implies shouldering the serious res-ponsibility of training the new generations in science, thus laying a foundationfor a scientific tradition.




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On the other hand, science grew very rapidly, in terms of personnel,investment and institutions, mainly under the patronage of the State afterindependence. This artificial push led to a quantitative growth at a heavycost to quality, especially in the universities~--the main foundation of anindependent autonomous scientific community in any country-on the onehand, and drew several top ranking scientists~a scarce resource in thecountry-away from research, turning them into bureaucrat-managers ofscience, on the other. Also, a new group of scientists, of which the bureau-cratic-managerial elite is a part, have emerged in independent India whoadvocate research in the latest areas of S & T at the international level.These prestigious areas belong to Big organised Science involving very highfinancial investment and sophisticated technology but have very little directrelevance to the problems faced by Indian society. The consequences of thisdevelopment may be described as ’the plain wife and attractive mistresssyndrome’ as suggested by A.K.~:. Reddy of the Indian Institute of Science.Elaborating on this he writes that ’in keeping with general practice, lavishsums are spent on the mistress while the wife is grudged even a pittance. Nowonder the wife languishes, and loses what little charm she had’ (quoted inBhashan, 1983: 59). And it may be added that, in this process, the entirehousehold suffers.The division between the elite institutions, practising Big Science, and

others in the Indian scientific institutional framework has become the central

problem of the ’crisis of science’ in India today. This is seen clearly in a noteof dissent by H.N. Sethna and K.N. Raj in CoST report presented to thethird CSTE:

The report is unsatisfactory for the reason that it fails to state explicitlywhat is clearly wrong with the organisation of institutions engaged inscientific and technological research. An earlier draft of the report hadreferred to feudalism in this sphere. This to our mind is the correctdescription .... In the few institutions, where the organisational structureand attitudes of scientists to each other have been prevented fromassuming feudal characteristics most of the problems facing scientists arenot found (quoted in Anonymous 1971: 184).

Here Sethna, a TIFR/AEET scientist and later head of the atomic energyprogramme, is clearly referring to the new institutions of Big Science where,according to him, the ’feudal characteristics’ have been eliminated. The restof the scientific institutions are ‘feudal,’-implying bureaucratic-hierarchical.On the other hand, Babulal Saraf, Professor of Physics at the University

of Rajasthan, who earlier spent several years at BARC, argues that:

Planning of research, although essential, has come to our country rathertoo early and too strongly. Out of this has grown the dinosaur of [extreme]




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conformity ... with the result that mediocrity has flourished, and medio-crity is pampered and often honoured. It is time for us to support areasonable proportion of a free growth of creativity through the universitysystem (1983: 9).

It is the absence of a strong autonomous scientific community-which canflourish mainly in the universities, away from State R & D institutionsr-that .leads to dangerous consequences. It becomes impossible for an externalagency to evaluate and question the working and social relevance of the Bigstrategic Science because there is no such effective agency. Thus Sarafbluntly, if slightly exaggeratedly, states that ’if Parliament decides to evaluateand scrutinise the atomic energy programme, it would not find three physicistscompetent in the area and outside the atomic energy establishment or itsaided institutions to do the job. Similar is the situation with space research ordefence research’ (1983: 8).

It is seen, therefore, that the process of building up the foundation of’modem’ science by the ’colonial scientists’ was disrupted after independence.On the still weak foundation, a giant structure has been erected therebyfurther weakening the foundation.

It has been argued that India could take advantage of being a latecomerand thus leap-frog directly into the second half of the twentieth century inthe spheres of science and technology. And, in this context, Japan is offeredas an example. Although it is true that India and Japan started ’importing’modem Western science at about the same time (the middle of the nineteenthcentury), the social structural differences in the two societies are completelyignored.

First, Japan was not a colony and therefore took an independent course ofdevelopment according to its internal’dynamics. Secondly, the social class inpower after the Meiji Restoration in 1868 decided to pursue the developmentof science vigorously and completely institutionalised science education in aplanned manner. Third, there was a community in Japan which was eager tograb the new opportunities emanating from the introduction ’of Westernscience and technology. These were the former samurai, warriors by definitionand a privileged group in the feudal hierarchy, who lost these privileges in1876 under the new regime. Deprived of traditional sources of income, theycompletely dominated the early phase of modern science and engineeringeducation (Nakayama 1977: 48-49). Further, the language of instructionremained Japanese, making it possible to diffuse science to all levels in thesociety. According to Nakayama:

It was once seriously proposed by A. Mori, a thorough exponent ofmodernization and westernization, that the Japanese language should bewholly replaced by English, in order to follow the international standardof knowledge as closely as possible, but his plan was never put into




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practice. If it had actually been enforced, it might have created dualculture with an English speaking high-brow upper class, and it wouldhave blocked or considerably delayed the diffusion of Western scientificculture among the populace who would continue to speak Japanese(1977: 50).

The spread of scientific education at all levels was remarkable: .

.

During the 1870s and 1880s the relative position of science and technologyin the whole Japanese educational curriculum, from elementary school to

’

university level, was much higher than in any other nation. For instance,mathematics and science occupied about one-third of the school curriculumat the lower grades (first four years) and two-thirds at the upper grades ofthe eight-year elementary education, though due to the shortage ofqualified teachers available it was somewhat questionable to what extentthese ideal plans were put into practice. At the university level, too, theemphasis of science and technology was evident in the high percentage ofgraduates in scientific disciplines of Tokyo University (85% in the 1880sas compared to 40% in the 1920s) (Nakayama 1977: 45).

Finally, rapid industrialisation, backed by a strong independent state, aidedscientific growth, especially after World War I when various private enter-prises established their own full-scale industrial laboratories.More recently, after World War II, partly because of international political

circumstances Japan spent nothing on ’Atomic, Space and Defence’ R & D,73 per cent of its R & D expenditure on ’Economic motivated’ research and27 per cent on ’Welfare and Miscellaneous’ R & D during 1963. In the sameyear, West Germany spent 17, 62 and 21 per cent in these categoriesrespectively (Rose and Rose 1970: 136). India, on the other hand, wasspending 32 per cent of its central R & D budget on ’Atomic, Space andDefence’ research during 1970-71 and its share must have grown biggertoday. Such a large proportion was being spent on these strategic areas whenIndia was spending only 0.48 per cent of its GNP on R & D whereas Japanand West Germany were spending 1.4 per cent of their GNP. Even when theEuropeans went ahead with Big Science, they decided to collaborate amongstthemselves because it was too expensive to do only on a national scale. Theexamples are the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, betterknown for its major laboratory as Le Centre Europien pour RechercheNucleaire (CERN), European Launcher Development Organisation(ELDO), European Space Research Organisation (ESRO) and EuropeanMolecular Biology Organisation (EMBO). Why, then, was it necessary for apoor underdeveloped country like India to embark upon strategic R & D onsuch a large scale?

’

The answer, at least partly, can be sought in the character of the Indian




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middle class and cleavages within it, in the overall context of social structuralchange since the country’s coldnisation. The new Indian middle class cameinto existence with the implantation of ’modern’ education in English in theearly nineteenth century. The first Indians to take to English educationcame from well-off families of merchants and the landed aristocracy. Mostof them, mainly in Bengal, were greatly enamoured by the Western civilisa-tion. The ideology of this group was reflected in the Brahmo Samaj foundedby Ram Mohan Roy in 1828. This group represented the ’Reformist’ traditionwhich was politically ’moderate’. The introduction of ’modem’ Westernscience in ’backward’ India was an essential component of their strategy ofdevelopments.The ’Revivalist’ tradition, formally launched by Dayanand Saraswati with

the founding of the Arya Samaj in 1875 in Bombay, was a reaction to the’psychological surrender’ of Reformists to an alien tradition. It was politically’Radical’. Explaining the religious revival in the late nineteenth century,B.B. Misra writes:

Religious nationalism was in fact an expression of the cultural crisisproduced as a cumulative consequence of British rule.The middle class split, the signs of which had begun to appear and

accumulate in the 1890s, was due basically to the two different reactionsto Western influences, which were either of the reformist or of therevivalist character. In their emphasis on the need to reform the traditionalsocial order both agreed in principle. Both were influenced by Englisheducation, by the rule of law, by Christian missions, their methods ofwork and organization. But while the reformists responded favourably toWestern influences, the revivalists regarded them as a serious affront toIndia’s cultural heritage and intellectual pride (1961: 367-68).

Socially and politically, the Reformists tended to alienate themselvesfrom the rest of the Indian society. ’The moderate leaders of Congress ...had no mass backing. The mass appeal of Indian nationalism proceededfrom revivalist leaders’ (Misra 1961: 379).With industrialisation and an increase in the industrial labour force, on

the one hand, and the deteriorating condition of the peasantry, on the other,a new ’Radical’ socialist tradition emerged within the middle class, especiallyafter the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Although the modern Western science was implanted in India by theReformists, the Indian scientists were influenced by the Revivalist and theRadical ideologies, especially in the early twentieth century, in the nationalistupsurge. For example, P.C. Ray and J.C. Bose both started as BrahmoSamajists. Influenced by the nationalist sentiment, Ray started the BengalChemical and Pharmaceutical Works, in 1901, on the one hand, and producedtwo volumes, Hi,story of Hindu cherrcistry, between 1902 and 1905, on the




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other. After his retirement, he collaborated with Gandhi on flood andfamine relief work in rural Bengal. Bose, having done excellent work onelectro-magnetic waves during 1894-99 within the Western scientific

paradigm, switched to ’Responses in the living and non-living’ in order toIndianise his science. He was increasingly influenced by Swami Vivekanandaand Sister Nivedita and finally built his research institute on the image of atemple (Nandy 1980: 54). M.N. Saha, on the other hand, shifted to theRadical tradition. His ’involvement with political movement goes way backto his school days when he was expelled from school because of his associationwith a protest demonstration against the British rule’ (Biswas and Chatterjee1983: 11). Later he worked with P.C. Ray in flood relief and moved over tothe socialism tradition, especially with his visits to the Soviet Union. RobertAnderson, in his Building scientific institutions in India: Saha and Bhabha,emphasises the contrast between the two traditions by writing that Saha’moved into a crowded environment (of Calcutta)’ and was fully immersedin the politics of science in India. Bhabha, on the other hand, ’moved into ascientific vacuum &dquo;and found resources there for creating an autonomousbase ... unconnected with existing institutions&dquo; ’ (quoted in Agarwal1983: 79).By looking at post-independence developments, however, one is forced

to conclude that the Reformists, with a great ally in Nehru, have capturedscientific power in India. The Revivalist and Radical traditions were rendered

peripheral, once the objective of political independence was achieved.Alienated from the social forces at the grass-roots and without sincerelyworking towards a profound social structural and cultural change, the Re-formist scientists went ahead in an attempt to be equals with their internationalcolleagues. The problems within the society and science remain and, in fact,continue to grow because the strength of the foundations has been sapped.The Reformists, therefore, find the ’lack of scientific temper’ in the countryvery frustrating. The Revivalist and Radical forces are once again rising inreaction to the ’cultural crisis’ accumulated by the Reformist strategy ofdevelopment.The interrelation between the Reformist, Revivalist, and Radical tradi-

tions is quite complex today. There are common elements between theReformists and the Radicals, both banking on the power of modern S & T intransforming the society, albeit in very different ways. Both would like tosee the ’scientific temper’ grow in society but through different mechanismsunder radically different social structures. On the other hand, there arecommon elements between the Revivalists and the Radicals. Both are

,

critical of the way S & T is growing in the country, unrelated to the welfareneeds of the majority of the population. Both question the social relevanceof present S & T in India and advocate the creation of People’s ScienceMovement (PSMs) but their understanding of the nature of PSMs is quitedifferent. These differences and similarities tend to create a great deal of




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confusion in the debate on the crisis of science in the country and, therefore,need to be understood clearly in the above framework.The problem is thus, in the ultimate analysis, a political one and can be

resolved only through a political solution based on a sweeping social structuraltransformation. In the absence of such a transformation, Big Science willcontinue to grow unchecked in small islands, unconnected with the vastscientific manpower at the universities and unconcerned with the basicneeds and resources of the society. In this isolation, even the elitist scientificcommunity will tend to become fragmented’ and the elitist scientific institu-tions may also start decaying.

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