Science soars and culture plummets

Thanks to the scientific thoughts of Nehru, we have IITs, ISRO, etc., which have now soared our science and technology to such heights as to catapult our country into the super-league of America, Russia and China. But his fond creation of CSIR for promoting research and scientific outlook has sadly seen only partial success; scientific temper could not be inculcated among people. As a result, efforts of those with unscientific thoughts and narrow religious fundamentalism are plummeting our national character of secularism ingrained from ancient times.

While America and Russia have cooled down their Moon missions, and private players like i-space in China, SpaceX and Blue Horizon in the USA have taken over the most advanced work on space, Chandrayaan-2 is a great leap for India. It has set off with its indigenously developed orbiter, lander and rover. The lander, named after the founder of the Indian space programme, Vikram Sarabhai, will separate from the orbiter and gently land on the Moon's surface near its southern pole on August 7; the robotic rover, Pragyan, will then spend 14 days collecting mineral and chemical samples to enable us to understand the development of our entire solar system. A decade ago, our Chandrayaan-1 had already discovered water in the exosphere, surface, and subsurface of the Moon, which is 3.5 billion years old. Now, the mission of Chandrayaan-2, with a modest budget of Rs 978 crores, is to better comprehend the expected distribution of water, ice and other compounds present near the lunar poles, and also the structure of the Moon's interior. It might also convert Moon into a stop-over station for future missions to Mars and other planets.

However, the mission is not just a question of ability and expertise but also of priorities. Other nations which have the technological capacity to do so, such as Germany, France and Japan, do not have space ambitions and their governments do not believe in spending taxpayers' money on them. Their approach to developing nuclear weapons is also the same.

Critics say that a poor nation like India should not be spending money on fancy rockets that do not produce any particular benefit for its citizens other than national pride. But, one cannot ignore the spin-offs that would help the common man and the nation's progress. The spin-offs from NASA have added value to the common man across the globe. For example, the design of a space shuttle fuel pump gave a prototype for a tiny heart pump for implantation in young, critically ill patients. Similar is their collaboration with Pillsbury Company to create a systematic approach to quality control to keep the food free from a wide range of potential chemical, physical and biological hazards for the benefit of consumers worldwide. Memory foam invented to keep test pilots and astronauts cushioned during flights are now being used in mattresses, couches, movie theatre seats, helmets, etc.

As of now, the buy-back approach of ISRO for transfer of technology is generally applied to space-related areas. But, in the spin-off approach, their know-how or underlying technologies can be made available usefully to non-space industries like healthcare, electronics, energy, as well as to agriculture, education, fisheries, etc., apart from homeland security, giving a boost to the economy. Experts say that the transfer initiative of the European Space Agency would be worth emulating. In this, a dedicated office identifies and liaises with a network of technology firms that have a background in innovation management to work as the intermediaries between the Space Agency and industries. A decentralised network would provide a pan-Indian coverage and would create immense job opportunities.

The other aspect in defence of such missions is the promotion of the much needed scientific temperament among people. This is a crucial issue since, while the world is looking at us in awe at our progress in space technology, they are also watching us in dismay for the happenings that represent our unscientific and irrational thinking. Unfortunately, all the work done by CSIR to promote a spirit of enquiry, culture of questioning assumptions etc., has gone in vain. We do not recognise that our ancient people gave us ideas of flying (the Pushpak Vimaan), the atom as the smallest unit of matter, 'zero' in mathematics, etc., using only their searching eyes and inquisitive rational minds. Illiterate masses were told to worship rivers, with the rationale of protecting them but we worship blindly while polluting them whereas, in the West, people keep them unpolluted without any worshipping. Yes, they made errors, because of their limitations. And thus, everything of what they said in the past was not right. But, we need to take lessons from their rational minds and scientific outlook and thoughts, and fertile imagination. Instead, we are allowing superstition, legends, and myths to supersede rationality. In the name of religion, cow-vigilantes lynch people, bigots attack bars and discos, desecrate churches and chapels, etc.; even mullas are beaten, their sacred beard pulled, and are forced to chant 'Jai Shri Ram'.

Our Constitution says, "It shall be the duty of every citizen of India to develop a scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform." But, can we ever promote them when our leaders propagate unscientific and irrational ideas? Earlier, it was the education minister of Rajasthan, and now it is the CM of Uttarakhand who says that a cow exhales oxygen and living in its vicinity would even cure tuberculosis. Pragya Thakur boasts of cursing her tormenter IPS officer to death. At the Indian Science Congress, a Vice-Chancellor stated that Kauravas were test-tube babies. Even PM Modi had once told a group of doctors at a Mumbai hospital that the story of the Hindu god Ganesha showed that cosmetic surgery existed in ancient India. Such is the wisdom that he boasted of having overruled experts during the Balakot airstrike saying that clouds would prevent enemy radars from detecting our aircraft. OK. These are words from people who have not read science. But, what with those who are men of science?

A PG in Chemistry, the BJP MP Satyapal Singh debunked Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. "I don't want to offend people who believe that we are the children of monkeys but according to our culture we are the children of rishis," he said. As HRD minister of state, he had even proposed to make corrections in our educational curriculum accordingly. He should know that the significant aspect of all the scientific findings i.e., DNA, RNA, nucleic acids, proteins, fats, carbohydrates, lipids, etc., are made up of simple chemical elements–hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorus. In turn, these basic building blocks are composed of atoms which are formed during the life activities of a star. A great deal of diversity arises from these few common components. Thus, there is a continuous link from the simplest non-living system of an atom to the most complex living system of the human species, all because of chemical evolution. Satyapal Singh cannot explain where the rishis came from.

We are passing through times when leaders and Yogis with their orthodox ideas are becoming rulers; spreading their rusted ideas in society. Instead of redeeming people from shackles of superstition and ignorance, they are being doomed into the past and orthodoxy, contributing to religious intolerance and violence. Under such circumstances, what to speak of the common man when even educated people become irrationally rigid? Knowing well that the Earth is only a planet, people still want to worship Bhumaata; being aware that man has set his foot on the moon, they still worship it; having clear knowledge that Sun is just one of the small second-generation stars in this immense universe, people still worship it–chanting mantras that were designed when scientific knowledge was virtually non-existent. In this context, with the latest success in science, at least women need to come forward to play a role.

Chandrayaan-2 mission is unique since key leadership positions are held by women scientists, and 30 per cent of the members working on the project are also women. Will they at least become ambassadors of science to promote rationality in the country? To begin with, will they campaign for people to come out of the culture of worshipping the Sun, Moon, Earth, and rivers? Will they follow in the footsteps of their predecessor-astronaut to bring harmony in society and unity in the world?

Speaking at the programme of 50th anniversary of landing on Moon, 88-year-old Michael Collins of Apollo-11 mission recalls that he saw Earth as a little pea about the size of a thumbnail, with the blue of the oceans, white of the clouds, streaks of rust we call continents, nestled into this black velvet of the rest of the universe; a 'fragile' blue marble. He added that the first landing on moon united people on the planet as everyone across the world claimed that it was the achievement of humanity. He thus called for a new era of global cooperation in space, urging people to preserve what is there.

Yes. There should be a realisation of oneness in mankind since all of us are made of the same chemical constituents; same cellular and physical structures; and have originated from the same ancestor–the Cell. We cannot afford to fritter away the infinitesimally small moment of our existence on this Earth. For this, progress in science and progress in scientific thought have to be concomitant.

(Dr. N Dilip Kumar is a retired IPS officer and a former member of Public Grievances Commission, Delhi. The views expressed are strictly personal)