The Science Movement in India- A note

The Science Movement in India- A note

K.N.Ganesh, KSSP,

The All India People’s Science Network, the premier science movement in India is completing twenty five years of its existence. We have several creditable achievements during this period, including initiating the Total Literacy Campaign, pursuing post-literacy work through the BGVS, conducting science communication campaigns through the Kalajathas and popular classes,   intervening in several key issues related to science and development and so on. The network emerged as a platform for progressive scientists and science workers of left and democratic persuasion, and drew its inspiration from the experience of a number of science organizations, including Kerala Shastra Sahitya Parishad and Delhi Science Forum.

Since its inception major changes have taken place in the practice of science and the definitions of the interface between science and society in India.  Making use of the setbacks to socialism as a result of the fall of the USSR, the Imperialism managed to wrench itself free from its own crisis, and appeared to provide itself an air of invincibility through slogans of globalization, liberalization as well as structural adjustment programmes. Despite having its own quota of bubbles and crises and finally plunging into a prolonged recession, the myth of globalization of the supremacy of the market has still remained dominant, at least in India.  This has resulted in a series of significant changes of importance to the functioning of the science of the movement. First, welfarism and support to public sector institutions have given way to open support to indigenous and foreign capital, brought in by strategies of infrastructural development, PPP,  liberalization of all public sector enterprises and banks, and FDI in all spheres; second, promotion of transfer of technology and expertise by the MNCs  resulting in the development of crony capitalism, and systematic downsizing and even destruction of indigenous efforts to develop science and technology; third, linking science and technology entirely to the capital a as an accessory to capital accumulation, thereby eliminating  their social functions of alleviation of poverty, degradation and exploitation; fourth, promoting the growth of techno-fetishism that separates technology from  its scientific basis and provides it with a mystique primarily related to its role in capital accumulation and thereby the  enrichment of a section of population and the destitution of the majority; fifth, a clear down grading of the principles of scientific temper, once accepted as state policy and the growth of an atmosphere of permissiveness that allows for the growth of every form of obscurantism, chauvinism and religious fundamentalism, sixth, the resulting growth of obscurantist, antiscience movements and sensibilities that easily accommodate themselves into the ideological framework of the neo-liberal capital. Finally, the logic of capital itself succeeds in destroying the secular, democratic foundations attempted to be built in Independent India, replacing them with the concepts of identity and community, often paraded as’ plurality’.

In order to confront these multiple challenges in the present context the AIPSN and the PSM in general will have to incorporate the following features.

1. Science popularization will continue to be central to the PSM.  However, there appears to be a need to change its emphasis. Presently, all the science popularization campaigns have concentrated on the popularization of the basic scientific concepts and our positions on various issues such as education, health,  technology, energy, environment and so on, which have either supplemented the official  science education , or taken over some aspects of the State Programmes themselves, such as the BGVS. Efforts to put the scientific concepts into practice, that is, the develop People’s Science as common sense have been comparatively less. There is a need to instill conviction among the people that most of their productive activity in agriculture, craft or Industry in fact has a scientific basis, and it is science that has made possible the sustenance of their daily lives. This would include encouragement of the people’s efforts to develop new concepts and technologies to improve their productive output and their living conditions, by using and incorporating existing scientific results. The use of smokeless Chulhas to save energy, use of solid waste management techniques, methods rainwater conservation and purification are examples. Apart from this, there are innumerable techniques and methods used by people themselves as a part of their livelihood, and many of them could be developed as durable devices through scientific input. This means that science population campaigns should be combined with longer programmes that would involve the practice of science. At present organizations like KSSP are only using practical work to demonstrate science at the school level, but the possibility of conducting people’s workshops in specific areas should be explored.

2. Fight against religious obscurantism will have to continue. Often such campaigns are conducted in a rationalist vein, which crate to create impact among the people. Also, the term obscurantism is itself a sort of misnomer, as identity politics has replaced obscurantism and masquerades itself as being ‘scientific’. Identity politics has little quarrel with science, particularly its present technological form, and it tries to bring about a healthy correlation between belief and science, by claiming scriptural authority for all the valid concepts of science. Identity politics is doubly dangerous not only because it claims itself as an autonomous knowledge system, but also it claims that the people following their knowledge system are different from others, thereby undermining secularism, egalitarianism and democracy. Thus the spread of identity politics means the destruction of science as common sense.  Fight against identity politics does not take place by fight against the belief system as such, but through the demonstrating that such a belief system itself is historically contingent and is subject to change and transformation and also by demonstrating the superiority of science as the source of valid knowledge, and its open, ecumenical character.  Such a campaign also will have to stress the secular, democratic conceptions that guide scientific discoveries and their role in the development of a just and egalitarian society. In this respect, there is a need to expose the irrational and unscientific concepts that govern caste divisions, as well as the unscientific, outmoded practices that control sexual relations, family and domesticity

3. In this context, the most important issue that has to be addressed is that of environment. Unfortunately, the entire debate in the science movement has been plagued by the duality of environment and development, stressing the antinomy of environmental and developmental concerns. It should be realized that this antinomy itself is the consequence of the bourgeois mode of development, which sustains by plundering natural resources and nature itself, and forcibly separating people from their means of livelihood. Instead, it is necessary to stress the dialectical unity of human beings with natural resources and energy in forms of labour and production process in general. Thus, conservation and development of natural resources is an essential ingredient in the development of productive forces. As against the short-term, predatory methods used by capital in their accumulation process that destruction of environment and destitution of vast masses of population, we have to stress the long- term strategies that ensure human development and sustenance of natural resources(One has to remember the remark the remark in the Critique of the Gotha programme that both human labour and nature are sources of wealth). Thus environmental issues will have to acquire central position in the PSM.

4. Here the links between scientific knowledge and development will have to be considered. The present bourgeois strategy is to transform scientific knowledge into an instrumental input into the process of capital accumulation. This is shown by the present day propaganda regarding a ‘knowledge society’, which is nothing but a metaphor for the spread of information technologies and network devices that have become convenient instruments in the capital accumulation process. This knowledge society also results in furthering the fragmentation of forms of labour, by separating one form of technical labour using mental, software devices, from other forms of technical labour. The same process can be seen in the spread of communication technologies also , where all forms of art, communication and even information on national and world affairs are filtered through  corporate controlled media giants, which results in the society featured by the ‘manufacture of consent’ to neoliberal Imperialism. Also, it results in the concept of knowledge as property to be owned by capital through patents, copyrights, PBRs etc, that prevent the democratic production and dissemination of knowledge This is not to criticize the technologies as such , but there is a need to turn the utilization of such technologies upside down , enabling them to serve the interests of dissemination of knowledge and information to the people for social transformation, that is, to advance their consciousness and develop their productive capabilities as well as finding new ways for their creative expression. Thus the organized knowledge of the corporate capital including the concept of knowledge as property will have to be contested by democratic forms of dissemination and utilization of knowledge, which will have to be the task of the PSM as well.

5. The rhetoric of ‘knowledge society’ has had significant impact on education.  While PSM has done excellent work in the field of literacy, post-literacy campaigns and have also contributed to the Right to Education legislation, it has been unable to formulate a meaningful position regarding neoliberal reforms being introduced to the system of education as a whole. It has now become clear that the present reforms are not only aimed at the commodification of educational institutions, but also forcing the educational process to serve the short-term needs of capital accumulation, thereby giving up the larger goals set by the educators during the years after Independence. This process of subjecting the entire education process in the country to needs of capital will have disastrous consequences not only for the education system, but to the knowledge dissemination process among the people. In the conditions of identity politics and caste and gender disparities already sweeping the country, this will only result in the consolidation of outmoded, revivalist and irrational knowledge forms and practices among the common people. Educated people will themselves form a population servile to capital with no inkling of scientific temper and the democratic, ecumenical character of science. PSM will have to work towards conceptions of a new scientific and democratic education system, where we treat education , including higher education as a composite whole, and not in fragments, as is done today, and as the bourgeoisie would expect us to do.

6. We initially made some advance in the work on health, through Jan Swasthya abhiyan and attempt to formulate the national health policy.  However, our perspective on health seems restricted to doctors, drugs and the intervention in various Government programmes. While all these are significant, there appears to be a case for viewing health in larger context, as the systematic destruction of generic capabilities of the laboring population through industrial and environmental pollution, solid and toxic wastes, malnutrition and abdominal living conditions, lethal microbes carried by migrating populations, destruction of facilities for clean food, air and water and internal degradation of the body through alcohol, narcotics and irrational sex practices.  Women’s health here acquires considerable importance as they have also to bear task of reproduction and postnatal care, besides being of secondary status with regard to utilization and consumption of resources within the household. Thus the health movement will have to be linked to the larger concerns of the science movement, and has a significant role to play in the practice of science as common sense, as that is the area where both scientific and unscientific practices have contested throughout history.

7. There is considerable interest in gender issues throughout India, particularly due to some recent incidents and that concern is reflected in the PSM also. We made a breakthrough in the work among women in the course of the literacy campaign, but the momentum has not been sustained.  There is also lack of clarity in the place of gender issues in the science movement and as a result, the positions of the activists have swung between materialist, feminist and bourgeois liberal perspectives.  The possibilities for gender activism within the science movement appear to be twofold, one woman as part of the entire society as a worker, producer and hence part of the oppressed or oppressing classes; and second, woman as a gender, whose roles of reproduction and post-natal care imposes on her several restrictions and taboos by the society. Unscientific and irrational concepts pervade both the roles of women, and   are cleverly used by the capital to render women as agency for reproduction, domestic labour and as playthings. Hence, there is need to disseminate the scientific perspective regarding sexuality, health, reproduction and postnatal care, domesticity and the social role of women and to fight against the   influence of both identity politics and the corporate ideology regarding women.

8. The tasks outlined above bring us to the crucial question of the role of the PSM in the production and dissemination of science and technology. At present, several PSMs have their technological centres, some of them do good work in the development and dissemination of people friendly technologies. There is, again, lack of clarity on the objectives and functions of technology dissemination. Some of the technologies, like smokeless Chulah are directed towards sustainable strategies of resource use, whereas others, like the homemade soap and detergent, are aimed at alternate production strategies.  The contribution of the PSM towards research and development should not be to replicate, in a people’s friendly fashion, whatever that are already being undertaken by Government and private agencies, butto facilitate the initiatives by people themselves to develop sustainable alternatives by providing them with adequate science and technology input. The technologies developed and research undertaken by PSM should be directed towards developing long term strategies of human development and resource use, which can be disseminated to develop new forms of production based on science in practice that can alleviate the present miserable conditions of the people and provide them with the necessary science and technology input that they can continue to develop and transform their lives.  The R&D outfits of the PSM have to work together and evolve a work strategy.

9.  There also some confusion regarding the organization and the tasks to be addressed by the PSM. There appears to two differing viewpoints. One is that PSM is the agency to [provide scientific perspectives on all the social issues and campaign on them, and other is that PSM should eschew the element of popular campaign and act as an advisory, consultative agency that undertakes research and dissemination of scientific knowledge. In effect, PSM undertakes popular campaigns and also acts as advisory body. However, there should be clarity regarding this dual role of the PSM both within PSM as well as the democratic movements and population to whom scientific ideas are disseminated.  All PSMs should undertake the fight against identity politics and unscientific, irrational and revivalist ideas prevailing on society, economy and gender, as well as neoliberal ideology and practice that perpetrate destitution, ignorance and misery among the people in all the spheres of activity outlined above. Fight against destructive policies in environment, education and health should assume priority. This is the sphere of activity that PSM should undertake along other fraternal democratic movements. At the same time, PSM should undertake study, research, and dissemination of forms of long term strategies of human development and sustainable use of natural resources that can be used as the basis for alternative development plans to be formulated the progressive and democratic movements all over the country.   Since science is open ended and ecumenical, directed towards the growth of long term strategies, scientific investigations and dissemination cannot be limited by tactical considerations and hence should proceed without restrictions.  Popular campaigns should be based on a broad consensus and unity of action among all concerned that would ensure mobilization of all sections of the people and also ensure maximum spread of science as practice and common s