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The Hindu (Bangalore, India)
May 6, 1999
By Dr C. S. Prakash
The recent well-orchestrated campaign in Europe and in India against
genetically-improved crops indicates a critical need to develop a credible
forum or network to debate new scientific developments and their impact
on society.
The tone of the debates in Europe and India indicate the need to correctly
inform the media, the public and farmers about the diversity issues arising
from new technologies. Scientists, thinkers, ethicists, sociologists,
economists, journalists, environmentalists and citizens need to come together
to debate emerging issues in a civilised and responsible manner, and to
foster creative ideas to enable the progress of the humankind. This would
also ensure that collective of voices of reason will prevail in the face
of paranoid outbursts and prevent destructive anti-science sentiments
from spreading amongst the public. Such an informed debate is particularly
important in India which, unlike Europe, can ill afford to miss the biotech
revolution in agriculture. We cannot forget that India was in dire straits
on the food front in the '60s. It was only the application of science
to agriculture that quickly provided the country with food security, despite
the concerns raised then about high-yielding varieties and hybrids. India
just cannot afford to listen today to 'science-bashing' activists with
pseudo-scientific rhetoric.
India was once a great scientific powerhouse and made enormous scientific
contribution to the world. Albert Einstein once said: "We owe a lot to
Indians who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific
discovery could have been made." Beyond the modern number system, India
has contributed richly to world science, including astronomy, ayurvedic
medicine, meditation and wireless communication. The world's first university
was established in Takshila in 700 BC However, modern India is far from
being a science power and its intellectual resources are not being harnessed
to its full extent. Yet, a small group of Indians overseas have made a
formidable mark on global science and technology enterprises. Expatriate
Indians working in a more nurturing environment have developed tetracycline,
invented gene synthesis, discovered white dwarfs in the universe, created
Pentium chips, and have dominated the IT industry. The best and brightest
individuals are, however, still in India. Think of what they can do if
they had the right environment!
India should rightfully exploit Intellectually Property Rights (IPR)
mechanisms world-wide to enable Indian society to benefit from scientific
knowledge and innovation. While we all feel proud of the accomplishments
of our ancestors and our heritage, xenophobic and paranoid outbursts such
as the recent ones involving turmeric and neem patents, or the burning
of experimental cotton plants under scientific supervision in southern
India, indicate our preoccupation with missing the wood for the trees.
In today's technological world, India will progress only by fostering
a creative and scientific environment that nurtures talent, supports enterprising
individuals and encourages looking critically and dispassionately at controversial
issues. Many of yesterday's controversies are today's success stories,
heart transplants and in vitro fertilization (test tube babies) being
two of them. Modern Indian heroes are not naysayers and opportunistic
sceptics, but individuals of the likes of M.S. Swaminathan, Verghese Kurien,
Sam Pitroda, Abdul Kalam, Vikram Sarabhai, Raja Ramanna, B.R. Barwale,
Ratan Tata, Narayana Murthy, Amartya Sen and CV Raman, Bose, Hargobind
Khorana, Subramanya Chandrashekar and countless others who have made a
difference in India and the world.
A Bold Vision for Indian Science and Technology
Rizwan Salim wrote in The Hindu (May 1, 1997) that "The Indian ruling
elite must feel a 'burning desire" to enter the 21st century in the company
of the industrially advanced nations. Once such fervour has properly taken
hold, a bold, visionary, far-reaching policy must be developed to make
full use of the country's latent intellectual capability, science talent
and creativity. India cannot march ahead without a strong science and
technology base that is indispensable to shape our future.
We need a major national initiative to reorient India's policies in building
its scientific infrastructure. Such a massive overhaul in our strategy
should, in addition to allocation of vast resources for science, include
a change in our mindset to create an enabling environment for empowering
creative people who can advance our society. We should provide greater
reward and recognition to creative and productive scientists, unshackle
the bureaucracy in our scientific system which has stifled the genius
and enterprise of our scientists, facilitate transfer of technology, encourage
participation of the commercial sector in the discovery process through
tax incentives and through links with academia, promote intellectual property
rights (IPR) to reward and foster innovation, and demand more accountability
from scientists and public research institutions. World Bank's prediction
that India will be third largest economic power by the year 2020 after
China, USA and Japan will not come true without such a mammoth reengineering
of our scientific enterprise.
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