By Ashis
Nandy
Much similar to Vandana Shiva’s
thought-provoking take on Biopiracy, Ashis Nandy’s profound, impactful and
insightful read is a glorious take on yet another aspect of Science which is
quite unknown to the lay – Science as a
Hegemonic Enterprise of the State!
This is quite alarming, by all means, and
hence it becomes all the more imperative to focus on this hegemonic strategy of the State, the world over, especially in the US, as an interesting subject for
study in Cultural Studies too, as the ramifications of Science as a Reason of State are quite disturbing and requires an
intense proby study of sorts!
Although I ain’t gonna sound political
here, still, this introductory essay by Nandy, titled, Science as a reason of State, in quite many ways, reminds me of the
welfare/development policies adopted by States - world over, where farmlands,
people’s habitations, dwelling places are mercilessly grabbed, and a pittance
of a compensation given to the owners!
And in the name of Science as a Reason of State, or a Hegemonic Enterprise of the State, violence is unleashed on the
people when they resist such violent takeovers! Good examples of these we find
in Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Jacinta Kerkatta, G. N. Devy, Gayatri Spivak, Mahasweta
Devi, Thomas King, Judith Wright, et al! Just to name a few!
Well, Ashis Nandy, social theorist, is known
for his critique of the ‘development’ politics in general, and European
colonialism in particular!
He’s traced the politics behind
‘development’ as a strategically ‘scientific’ one, and the scientific has
always been the domain of the state, for reasons well-known!
Ashis Nandy’s points are highly
thought-provoking, in that, they draw the line between the academic and the
professional!
Here goes this thought-provoking essay
for y’all –
The thinking person cannot but notice
that since the Second World War, two new
reasons of state have been added to the traditional one of national
security.
These are science and development. In the
name of science and development one can today demand enormous sacrifices from,
and inflict immense sufferings on, the ordinary citizen.
That these are often willingly borne by
the citizen is itself a part of the syndrome; for this willingness is an
extension of the problem which national security has posed over the centuries.
Defying protests by (and to the
mortification of) pacifists and anti-militarists, a significant proportion of
ordinary citizens in virtually every country have consistently and willingly
died for king and country.
There are already signs that at least as
large a proportion of citizens is equally willing to lay down their lives
heroically for the sake of science and development.
In 1985, one Japanese doctor praised the
atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for the indirect benefits they have
brought to Japan.
In an election held soon after the gas
tragedy in 1984, the affected citizenry of Bhopal returned the same regime to
power that shared the responsibility for the disaster.
Likewise, demands for new steel mills and
large dams often come from the very regions and sectors in the third world
which are most likely to be the first victims of industrialization.
From the halcyon days of Archimedes to
the heady days of early colonialism, science was primarily an instrument, not
an end; certainly not the end of any nation or state.
Even the states which drew the most
handsome economic dividends from the discoveries of modern science and
technology, or justified global dominance by referring to their scientific and
technological power - I have in mind the nineteenth century colonial powers -
did not see science as a reason of state.
The reader may remember popular anecdotes
about colonial adventurers, or scientifically-minded explorers who sometimes
scared off or impressed the natives of Asia and Africa with new forms of black
magic based on the discoveries of modern science.
The civilizing mission of colonialism
thrived on this folklore of encounter between western science and savage
superstitions. But in each such instance, it was science that was put to the
use of the colonial state; the state was not put to the use of science.
The nature of science has since then
changed, and so has the nature of human violence.
Ivan Illich has traced the contemporary
idea of development to a speech President
Harry S. Truman made in 1945. Till then, the word 'development' had had
other associations which had very little connection with what we understand by
development today.
But such was the latent social need for a
concept akin to development that, once Truman gave it a new meaning, not only
did it quickly acquire wide currency, it was also retrospectively applied to
the history of social change in Europe during the previous three hundred odd
years.
In a similar way, we can trace the idea
of science as a reason of state to a speech made by President John F. Kennedy in 1962.
The speech declared one of America's
major national goals to be the scientific feat of putting a man on the moon.
Though mega-science had already become an important concern of the state
during the Second World War, science was, for the first time, projected in
Kennedy's speech as a goal of a state and, one might add, as a substitute for
conventional politics.
A
state for the first time on that occasion sought to out-rival another state not
in the political or military arena, nor in sports, BUT in science redefined as
dramatic technology.
For the first time Kennedy's speech
showed that a wide enough political base had been built in a major developed
society for the successful use of science as a goal of state and, perhaps, as a
means of populist political mobilization.
Spectacular science could be now used as
a political plank within the United States in the ideological battle against
ungodly communism.
India has been a remarkable example of an
open society in which, since the early years of independence, the political
élites have deliberately chosen to see science as the responsibility of the
state and have, at the same time, treated it as a sphere of knowledge which
should be free from the constraints of day-today politics.
Every society decides what content to
give to its politics and what to keep out of politics. The Indian state,
representing the wishes of a powerful section of the nationalist movement and
being led in the early years of independence by Jawaharlal Nehru, a gentleman
Fabian steeped in the nineteenth-century vision of human liberation through
science, decided to keep the practice of science outside politics but ensured
that the scientific estate had a direct, privileged access to the state.
It was as a part of this 'double vision'
that Nehru, the modern élites which gathered around him, and the Indian state
began to build science as a major source of justification for the Indian state
as well as for their political dominance.
That the formula did not keep science out
of politics but only introduced another kind of politics into science is one of
those paradoxes which lie at the heart of the distinctive relationship between
science and society in contemporary India.
Secondly, nuclear scientists were given
enormous scope for research if they moved out of the universities into special
research institutions.
While
universities were starved of funds and allowed to decay, research institutions
were richly funded.
This might not have been a matter of
deliberate policy but it certainly set a context to India's nuclear policy,
because what scientists gained in research opportunities in the new
institutions, they lost in personal political freedom.
As I have already said, the specialized
institutions set up by the state were strictly guided by the requirements of
secrecy and political 'clearance'; they
were expected to be professional, not academic.
In
other words, a systematic split between political and intellectual freedoms was
institutionalized in this area right from the beginning and every young nuclear
scientist was forced to choose between the two kinds of freedom.
Science,
I have said, has become a new reason of state.
The
state and its various arms can kill, maim or exploit in the name of science.
Science
in turn, as a raison d'état, can inflict violence in the name of national
security or development and - this is the change - increasingly under its own
flag and for its own sake. There are now scientists, political leaders and
intellectuals in India - as in other similarly placed societies - who are
perfectly willing to close the polity if that ensures faster scientific growth.
And
there are now scientifically-minded Indian citizens who are as willing to
sacrifice millions of ordinary Indians to advance the cause of science and
science-based development.
In
India, traditional systems of knowledge may not have provided ready-made
solutions to the present crisis of knowledge and power, but they have certainly
become a part of the repertoire of the dissenting movements of science.
Seen thus, the crisis of science in India
becomes, for all practical purposes, coterminous with the crisis of science
globally.
And the crisis of global science, in turn,
becomes an extension of the Indian experience with modern science over the last
150 years.
Just excerpts they are! For more, do read
the book by Nandy!
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