Top UPSC Coaching

28 Feb Significance and Need of Unfettered intellectual ambience : An analysis in changing political scenario on the occasion of National Science Day

Posted at 28 Feb 2022 in Current Affairs by Dr. Anshul Bajpai 0 Comments

0 Likes

Context :

The Government is organizing a Science Week, ‘Vigyan Sarvatra Pujyate’, as a prelude to National Science Day on February 28.
In the Indian political scenario the free, intellectual ambience is not only the need of the country academically but also it is only tool which gives birth to free and logical thinking (scientific outlook) through which a nation can progress comprehensively

Introduction :

28th Feb is celebrated as the national Science day . On this occasion C. V Ram had invented the impact on the rays of light beam deflected from the molecules . The programme appears to have been designed to make youth be proud about India’s scientific achievements.
But we should know the real spirit of science which is to develop logical and critical thinking in a free atmosphere .
In the present modern days , in the changing atmosphere of the political system, this is the big challenge to create and promote the atmosphere of free thinking . Because of greediness, fear and favor , our intellectuals generally deviate towards the will and ideology of the government or the respective authorities and compromise with logic and critical analysis.
Using this opportunity as nationalistic mission is rather unfortunate. On the contrary, this event should be used to celebrate the true spirit of science that defies all types of intellectual curtailments, thus promoting critical thinking in our academic centers.

Dissent is the soul of science.
The scientific outlook seems like the rebellion outlook .Freeman Dyson in his book, The Scientist as Rebel, makes it very much clear that science is the mixture of two different opposite ideologies.
Science is a mosaic of partial and conflicting visions. The common element after the analysis of two contradictory things is the science .
This is not a western term . It is more Indian and Arab or Japanese or Chinese . Khayyam, a renowned Arab mathematician and astronomer wrote that science was a rebellion against the intellectual constraints of Islam.
He further described science as a rebellion which he expressed more directly in his incomparable verses….”

Free spirit of thinking is necessary for the comprehensive development of society. Dyson writes that “Science is an alliance of free spirits in all cultures rebelling against the local tyranny that each culture imposes on its children.”
Galileo Einstein Nicolaus Copernicus is the person who dared to think freely and called the rebellion of the state, however they are now recognized by the world. And their free thinking brought the reforms in Europe which not only changed the picture of Europe but also the picture of the entire World. The one of the main reason of the prosperity of the Europe is only the Scientific outlook / atmosphere of the free thinking
Development of the scientific outlook is maintained in our Fundamental Duties. R.A. Mashelkar, the Ex Director-General of the CSIR wrote in a journal issued by the CSIR in 2010 why India is unable to break the mediocrity barrier. He concludes that tradition-bound countries such as India need to free themselves from the cultural chains of the past to foster original thinking.
We should develop the spirit of free thinking among our children also so that they would be helpful in the evolution of some ideas of the betterment of the society

Conclusion

Indian intellectuals are sufficiently capable to develop scientific outlook among themselves as well as among the children of India . But some time, because of the fear and favor they slightly tilted towards the demand of the authority/ government and of the political party if they are associated with them.
They Should overcome this type of the biasness. There is a huge need of the atmosphere in which the spirit of free thinking could be evolved so that the comprehensive development could be speeded up in a country.

Source – The Hindu (Editorial)

GS : Paper 1 ,2 and Essay