THE NATIONAL NEED ... 20

THE NATIONAL NEED ... 20

If we wish to progress as a nation we must be modern in our outlook. We cannot anymore hold on to archaic beliefs and practices in our bid for national advance. We must be scientific. And it is not good enough for the government to facilitate the progress of scientific research only in certain elite scientific institutions. No, this scientific culture must be made to penetrate the nerve-centre of the masses whence they will spread out to permeate the nervous system of the entire nation.

Superstition must not be given governmental patronage. Religious institutions and religious schools must be allowed to fend for themselves and not given governmental grants anymore to carry on with their regressive indoctrination of children which will potentially produce future fanatics and radical elements, terrorists and what not. The government must not only distance itself from these extreme institutions but must actively promote the reverse culture of science and reason instead of faith and foolishness. But for this the Prime Minister and the Chief Ministers, who supposedly lead the nation and its provinces, must be literate scientifically like, say, an A.P.J Abdul Kalam or a Hamid Ansari. In the absence of scientific education in most of the Ministers who propose progress for the nation, the scenario for political progress or scientific progress in its wake seems a distant call and it is up to individuals on their own to take the initiative to develop groups around them scientifically. Such action, individual but happening everywhere will in no time produce significant changes in the nation's mental make-up and lead the country in the direction of light and learning.

Perhaps we can lift a leaf from the Jewish experience. Although, the Jews are culturally very much Jewish, they are a highly scientific race with reason running high in the polity. Science they have taken to traditionally as their means of earthly empowerment and the tradition continues to this day. Persecuted for millenia by every country in the world where they had their settlements except India of universal acceptance and genuine fraternity, the Jews clung to their holy book and hung on to the hope that one day they would get their Promised Homeland. Right from ancient Egypt to modern Nazi Germany, Communist Russia, imperial Rome, Britain and Arabia, the Jews have only faced persecution and marginalisation in society. Yet, on account of their superior intellect they not only managed to survive but forged their way ahead in every society till they earned for themselves the people's envy and the same old persecution in repetitive cycles. But they never gave up even when were forced to give in to tyranny unleashed on them by kings and emperors, dictators and demagogues, Popes and Caliphs. The Jews clung to their skills, their learning and light, and travelled from one corner of the earth to the other to survive as a race ever fearing fresh persecution and annihilation en masse till their worst fears were realised in the Nazi programme of their total annihilation carried out to clinical perfection.

The Second World War over and the Jews reduced to a tenth of their original population of 6.6 million of which 6 million were annihilated by the Germans in their 'Final Solution' to the Jewish problem, the Jews got their homeland of Israel at last in 1948 after a wait that had lasted several millenia. They now took to the task of building the nation of Israel which had thus far been limited only to the pages of their holy books but was now a palpable reality. Not one moment was wasted but was spent to good use as science transformed this near annihilated brilliant race into a powerful race worthy of envy by the world of inimical Islamic nations surrounding it. From a flock of sheep that meekly went to the gas chamber of the Nazis they became a pride of lions who could meet the adversary eye to eye and restrain it from doing much mischief. But all this was possible only through the power of scientific learning, through reason and not blind, superstitious faith reposed in archaic Semitic scripture whose use they relegated to the socio-cultural domain only. Shall India heed this instance of the resurrected Jewish nation and rise to eminence in a like manner?

Written by Sugata Bose