India’s moonwalk may bury a dangerous Gandhian idea

In the wake of the successful Chandrayaan-3 mission, a great deal of interest has been generated in the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It has faced an acute financial crunch right from the beginning, and yet its achievements are admirable. There have been massive media coverage and a zillion congratulatory notes, but a crucial question has not been answered, or even raised: why did ISRO have to suffer frugality in the first place? The low cost of the Chandrayaan-3 mission in particular and of ISRO operations in general is being discussed all over the world. The picture showing the ISRO staff carrying rocket cones on bicycles has gone viral. One reason for ISRO’s institutionalised frugality was that India was a poor country in its early decades after Independence — it still is not much better in terms of per capita income, though a lot of progress has been made, especially after economic reforms in 1991. But there was also a pernicious, insidious, and invidious idea that has done immense harm to the nation: India should remain focused on poverty alleviation and improvement in human development indices (HDIs) instead of getting distracted by fancy activities like space exploration and glitz. This idea keeps making its ugly presence felt in a number of rhetorical questions: In a country where so many people are poor, do we need a space programme? In a country where potable water is not available to millions of people, should we have Formula One? In a country whose rank in the Global Hunger Index is miserable, should there be jazzy functions to promote tourism, investment, etc? The rhetoric exposes the intellectual bankruptcy of those who raise such questions. For, if this line of thinking is accepted in its totality, a lot many things need to be banished from India. It is not just ISRO that would face a shutdown but a large number of other institutes involved in scientific research. The Indian Institute of Science, the National Physical Laboratory, the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research, and other bodies also do not directly help supply potable water to the citizens or improve HDIs. There are so many areas of research — nuclear physics, quantum mechanics, genetic engineering, robotics, nanotechnology, pure mathematics, to name a few — which have no relationship with water supply. So, there is no reason why they should be allowed to exist. Get rid of high science. Dump high art as well. Why should the National School of Drama be there in the heart of Delhi? Why not shut it down, sell off the prime land, and use it to provide potable water to the poor? After all, the poor do not go to watch Beckett, Girish Karnad, or Mohan Rakesh. Ditto with classical dances and music. Ban them till potable water is available in every village. That such idiotic arguments are regularly posited is a measure of the huge distortions in public discourse. The rhetoric of arguers is puerile; their understanding of the real world is deeply and clearly flawed; the suggestions they offer are outlandish. Yet, they get taken seriously, though its virulence has declined in the last few years. The daft and dangerous rhetoric has a distinctively Gandhian provenance. Days before his death, Mahatma Gandhi wrote: “I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much for you, try the following expedient: Recall the face of the poorest and the most helpless man whom you may have seen and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he be able to gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny?… Then you will find your doubts… melting away.” Now Gandhiji was a great leader, but he was not a great thinker. This is the reason that many of his views were not taken seriously even by his followers who ruled the country—for instance, his views on railways and modern medicine. But, unfortunately, his talisman was taken seriously by our political masters—so seriously that it was printed prominently in most officially prescribed textbooks on history and social sciences. Generations of decision, policy, and opinion makers — ministers, bureaucrats, academics, lawyers, judges, journalists, authors, et al — grew up imbibing the talisman (and Leftist theories in general, as most book writers were pinkish intellectuals, but that’s another story). If ISRO scientists could do so well with constraints, they could have done much better and contributed much more to the nation’s progress. A couple of points need to be made here. First, our priorities are often silly. The decision makers were stingy when it came to funding ISRO, but they did spend lakhs of crores of rupees on the revival packages of public sector enterprises and the recapitalisation of public sector banks. Second, there is no sequentiality involved in poverty alleviation and science funding; they can happen simultaneously. At any rate, there is no evidence to suggest that expenditure on science is at the cost of the poor or anti-poverty programmes. It is heartening to notice that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a tech enthusiast. This is the reason that the in-a-country-where… rhetoric has declined in the recent past. The author is a freelance journalist. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost_’s views._ Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram