Scientific temper teaches questioning 

Last week, MOS(HRD) claimed that “Darwin’s theory of evolution is scientifically wrong”. However, Satyapal Singh is only one name in the list of ministers (including the Prime Minister and the Home Minister), who have openly questioned modern science without backing their statements with scientific evidence (See Box). Dr Tejal Kanitkar, an Assistant Professor at Tata Institute of Social Sciences and an expert on climate change and energy modelling, in December 2017, spoke at length on ‘how those in position of responsibilities get away after saying unscientific things’.

Speaking at Mumbai Collective, a two-day collective to reaffirm commitment to the constitutional rights and celebrate the ideals of freedom, pluralism, inclusion and tolerance, she attributed ‘politicians getting away after making unscientific statements’ to ‘everyday obscurantism’ and slammed the Sangh Parivar for propagating it. In an email interview with NH, Dr Kanitkar shared her views on the challenges India faces.

You reacted to Satyapal Singh’s statement that Darwin’s theory of evolution could be wrong quite vehemently. Wasn’t it a flippant remark that was best ignored?

Satyapal Singh’s statement is absolutely absurd and irresponsible. His statement is also one in a series of such statements that have been made by those currently in Government. The common reaction among educated Indians to fatwas against watching television, or against women driving cars or carrying mobile phones, is to sneer at societies in which such fatwas are given as underdeveloped, barbaric, medieval etc. The same group of people however remain curiously silent over such statements by people holding responsible administrative positions in our own country. No one wants to undertake the difficult task of questioning our own beliefs and how they lead to such absurdly ridiculous notions as the ones espoused by Satyapal Singh. I, for one, do not want someone, who can make a statement like he did, in charge of higher education in this country.

How do you differentiate everyday obscurantism and extreme obscurantism?

By obscurantism I mean the tendency to prioritise belief and faith over science and rationality. There are dangerous superstitions that exist in society, some of which may even lead to murder in the name of purity and witchcraft. There are other versions that claim to be benign but have a serious impact on the development of scientific temper in society. For example, the practice of wearing a sacred thread is often justified as a personal choice, but it is evidence of the continuing belief in caste hierarchies. The practice of keeping women out of the kitchen during menstruation perpetuates standards of purity and impurity under which women are judged and therefore continues to underline the secondary status of women in society.

How much does the Sangh Parivar contribute to this every day obscurantism in our country?

The development of scientific temper is a social process and requires efforts to create conditions in which it can develop. The development of scientific temper however poses a direct challenge to the regimentation of faith. Women being accorded a subservient, subordinate role in society as a diktat of faith, if open to questioning, can be subject to change. But that section of society which stands to lose from this change opposes it, or tries to subvert it, or failing that tries to appropriate/ co-opt it. In the long list of groups and sections of society that have opposed this change in India, the Sangh Parivar is one example. In recent times however, they pose a more direct threat as compared to anybody else because they are in power. They wield a greater influence and their particular brand of obscurantism and promotion of pseudoscience reaches a wider public as state policy and leads to a more direct impact – for example, in terms of the funding for science being diverted to pseudo-scientific projects such as Panchagavya and AYUSH.

The PM says that climate change is just a state of mind, it isn’t a problem. But in Paris in 2015, he himself had said, “Climate change is a major global challenge. But it is not of our making. It is the result of global warming that came from prosperity and progress of an industrial age powered by fossil fuel.” That indicates that he is aware of the consequences…Why does he still make such statements?

Fortunately, we do not have (at least to my knowledge) in government or bureaucracy, climate change deniers of the variety that are found in the United States. There is some basic agreement on the reality of climate change and its potential impact on us. The Prime Minister’s statement on climate change being a state of mind was made in reference to the reducing tolerance levels of younger generations to climate variability. While this is not the same as denying climate change a ’la Trump, what is problematic in this statement is the underlying message that all that is ‘old’, ‘traditional’, ‘indigenous’, is better than all that is modern (which is thought of as a western import). What this emphasis on the ‘old’ does is to propagate dangerous and untrue claims of the potential of ‘traditional’ ways of life to combat climate change. I say that this is dangerous for two reasons. The first is that climate change is an unprecedented crisis and the claim that we can fight it using traditional knowledge is unfounded. Our demands for our rightful share of the carbon space to achieve reasonable levels of development, as the Prime Minister has himself echoed at international meetings, can then be easily refuted by those who want to deny us this space by saying that ‘traditional ways of life’ would not require higher amounts of carbon space. This then leads us to the second problem – that of the extreme levels of deprivation that exist in our society. By glorifying the traditional and old as examples of our spiritual and respectful relationship

with nature, are we saying that deprivation and poverty did not exist in the past? That in the glorious days of whichever kings that ruled, life was without hardship and drudgery for all sections of society? By glorifying an underdeveloped past, we will do our people a great disservice and inevitably put the burden of climate change mitigation on the poorest sections of society. In effect copy-paste domestically, what the developed countries are doing to us internationally.

Why are we scared of embracing modernity?

In my opinion, faith and by extension religion, provide a certain amount of regimentation, discipline and constancy. They provide a guarantee against change and disruptive behaviour. All these things are considered favourably by those that benefit from an unchanging social order.

A scientific perspective outside of just the practice of science in the laboratory would require us to question everything, even the social world that we have created. Why should one marry within one’s own caste? Why are some people rich and others poor? Why should women not be allowed to work? If we think about who would be made uncomfortable by these questions, we may have the answer for why it is so difficult to inculcate a scientific perspective in society. The refusal to study history objectively, to constantly look for proof of glorious ancient achievements, is a political device to perpetuate the myth that all our current problems are due to external interventions alone and not because of any problems in the way in which we were socially organised. It reaches dangerous proportions in societies where groups with such unscientific approaches also become politically powerful.

How would your modern society be different from the one we are currently living in?

If you want an exact definition of ‘a’ modern society, I cannot give you one. Modernity is relative and changing. My modern society would be free of all forms of exploitation. To begin to build that society we have to actively fight against these forms of exploitation. We are extremely fortunate that our Constitution offers us the opportunity and direction to begin this task. For example, a modern society would eventually be realised when we begin working towards our constitutional requirement to ‘develop scientific temper, humanism, and the spirit of enquiry and reform’. It is not something that can

be created overnight. It will take work. Our job is made easier by struggles of countless people who came before us. Jyotiba and Savitribai Phule had to leave home because they wanted to start a school for women. Dr. Ambedkar had to wage an enormous struggle to achieve what he did and in his time, his ideas were reviled by the very same groups who seek to deify him now to gain political benefit. In recent times, Dr. Dabholkar, Prof. Kalburgi, Com. Pansare, Ms. Gauri Lankesh, were assassinated for speaking truth to power. Taking their work forward will help us build a modern society.

“More Rohiths (Rohith Vemula) must emerge,” you said in one of your speeches. Why does India need more Rohiths to emerge? Rohith Vemula has become a symbol of courage and rebellion. His struggle against a discriminatory administration and his eventual death brought many to the streets and forced a more explicit discussion on caste discrimination in universities that we should have been having earlier. But that is not all. Rohith’s last letter to the world - a letter through which so many of us who did not know him in life, connected to him - spoke of Carl Sagan, science and the human identity. I feel that such an understanding of science and society in its inter-related complexity, violence and beauty, is missing in most scholars of both the natural and social sciences. That is why more young men and women like Rohith are needed, who are not afraid to ask difficult questions and who are willing to fight for change.