In India, the post-independent science and technology (S&T)
system emerged out of debates within members of the scientific aligned
with the Nehruvian vision of modern India, who were also influenced
by progressive ideologies promoted by those aligned with the Left of
the political spectrum in pre-independence India. There was a dominant
position in favour of the creation of a national system of science and
technology which had autonomy from the market as well as the state.
Discrimination shown by the British industry and government had
strengthened the resolve to develop a politically independent system
of S&T to meet the aspiration of actively contributing to the process
of development. Colonial S&T system was largely limited to meeting
narrowly defined needs of the British rulers. Their vision of a national
S&T system was supportive of a politically independent path of
“autonomous development” of industry, power, agriculture, medicine,
education and science for post-independent India which would set its
own directions and priorities. This vision was articulated in the national
planning committee set up through the efforts of Meghnad Saha and
others in the Science and Culture Group in 1938. The national planning
committee functioned under the leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru.
In the immediate period after independence the discourse on
the role and contribution of science and technology took place through
the columns of Current Science, published by the Indian Institute of
Science from Bangalore and in the pages of Science and Culture
published from Calcutta. The need to develop the human resource m 6
for science and technology and the practice of a culture of science in
all creative endeavors was underlined by the a range of leaders across
the political spectrum -- Nehruvian, Gandhian, Left, Ambedkarite, etc.
The nationalist vision of S&T in independent India was anti-imperialist
to the core. In 1948 the Higher Education Commission (Radhakrishnan
Commission) set up by the post-independent government included
the conceptions of how the higher education system should approach
General Education, Technical Education and Education for Rural
Development. This commission incorporated its longest chapter on
rural university and had proposed its own conception of rural
universities after reviewing models available for the development of
agriculture and rural industries in United Kingdom, United States of
America and Denmark. The proposed model was an outcome of
debates carried out with the full participation of Nehruvians, Gandhians
and left oriented scientists like Meghnad Saha.
The paradigm of planning that the Indian government chose
after gaining independence was mostly shaped by the Nehruvian
perceptions of ‘self-reliance’ and ‘development’. Achievements were
reflected in the development of the public sector in R&D and
innovation. This was the period when centres for S&T promotion
such as the Department of Atomic Energy, Council of Scientific and
Industrial Research, Indian Council of Medical Research and Indian
Institutes of Technology were set up. The Indian Council of Agricultural
Research (ICAR) was shaped by the National Education Commission
(Kothari Commission) which submitted its report in 1966. The vision
of the rural university was drastically modified to suit the emerging
needs of Indo-American collaboration in agriculture. The Nehruvian
notions of national development were implemented in a way that
strengthened domestic capital, helped expand the domestic market and
fostered peasant capitalism, all as part of capitalist development during
the period of 1950-1980 in India.
Although developed primarily to promote Capitalist
development, actors who were not part of the political mainstream
aligned to the government, were provided space to struggle against
mainstream policies. There was not only an accommodation of diversity
in the experiments being undertaken on outside the public funded
system, but also within publicly funded research and development
organizations. The emerging scientific community, which had its own heterogeneous interests and diverse visions to offer in the form of
large multipurpose dams, national laboratories, rural university, public
sector and cooperatives, had started its collaboration with the domestic
industry before India became independent. Experiments being
undertaken outside the mainstream system by the Gandhians and the
Left had support from inside the system. Outsiders became insiders in
many instances. When the people of India were mobilized to become
the social carriers of science, technology and development on the ground
(such as through setting up of enterprises such as Bengal chemicals and
through associations such as the All India Village Industries Association)
they were able to receive support from the scientific community in the
mainstream system of S&T.
The space existed for proposing innovations and different types
of experiments motivated by different ideological visions and
understanding of political strategy in India. There was an environment
of active contestations taking place and the mainstream system allowed
the scientific community and these visions to engage to some extent
with each other. India was one of the first few countries in the postcolonial
developing world to formulate an explicit scientific policy
resolution and evolve policy instruments for the development of science
and technology. The selected pathway to industrialization emphasized
industrial upgrading wherein the production of capital goods, energy,
metals and basic chemicals was to receive priority to reduce import
dependence. This initial phase of accommodation of diversity in respect
of institution building for knowledge production, knowledge
mobilization and innovation-making proved to be helpful in not only
uniting the country but also putting the country on its feet. It helped the
country to create a base for the development of industry, agriculture,
education and other sectors on which stand even the accomplishments
of the post-1980 liberalisation phase of economic policies.
कोई टिप्पणी नहीं:
एक टिप्पणी भेजें