Biju Dharmapalan
Science is the foundation on which any nation or humanity exists. The development of a nation can be assessed by the developments made by a country in its science and technology arena. We were fortunate to have a pool of leaders and citizens who took science and education as tools for bringing reforms in society. This may be largely due to the great civilisation that existed in this part of the world. Even before Oxford University gave admission to female students, female students from India were enrolled at the University of Calcutta. Fighting against the odds pre-India produced a significant number of internationally acclaimed scientists, including many female scientists. Once India became Independent, our political leaders of the time gave impetus to science and technology as a high-priority area. The quote of our first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, “The future belongs to science and those who make friends with science”, reverberates the common sentiment of our leaders and policymakers of Independent India. When humans strive to make all dreams and fiction into reality, like space colonisation and space travelling, we can very well say that science is the only channel through which we can conquer our universe. This is very well told by our Prime Minister Narendra Modi, “The 21st century is the century of knowledge. Knowledge, science, and education will have the power and strength to embrace the entire universe”. But to achieve this goal, every citizen should be scientifically literate and embrace science in their daily life. It’s a challenging task for a culturally and geographically diverse country like ours.
Even though our scientists have made commendable achievements in post-independent India, scientists and scientific knowledge remained elusive to the common man. Even after enjoying the fruits of science in their daily life, the common man was not able to understand the principles of science. A vacuum remained in the communicating science with the layman across the country. Even though we have hundreds of scientific institutions under various ministries and departments of central and state governments, we have only two institutes that work in the field of science communication. The country’s mandate of science communication and popularisation activities rests with Vigyan Prasar and CSIR-NISCAIR (now renamed CSIR-NIScPR). CSIR-NIScPR mainly concentrated on publishing scholarly publications, popular science magazines and books. On the other hand, Vigyan Prasar has taken science to the masses, primarily through its outreach activities in different parts of the country. Vigyan Prasar is involved in every aspect of science communication- popular science books, magazines, radio, films, television and even through digital media. Vigyan Prasar’s (VP) programme Science on Television, in association with Doordarshan, has received wide acceptance across the country. Science can become people’s science only when they find involvement and appreciation in making science communication.
The science serials/films/documentary films produced by Vigyan Prasar have helped bridge the gap between labs and people. “Science is everywhere and for everyone” is the guiding principle of this activity. In this digital era, the majority of people in the world are receiving science and technology knowledge through new electronic media. Vigyan Prasar has launched the Internet-based science Over-The-Top (OTT) TV channel, India Science (https://www.indiascience.in), supported by the National Council of Science and Technology Communication (NCSTC), DST. India Science is considered one of the best science channels in the world, providing quality authentic content to its viewers.
But these institutions worked mainly from a scientist’s perceptive of science and had lacunas in communicating with every section of people. The main purpose of science communication is to make every citizen in the country scientifically literate in their thinking and actions. For this, we need to build bigger institutions for science communication that has not only people from science as scientists but people from literature, arts, philosophy, humanities, etc also working as scientists. One major issue noticed in present-day science communication and popularisation efforts are that even from the extensive domain of science, it focuses only on a few branches of science, especially basic sciences. Agriculture , health and engineering communication is done separately.
Even in this 21st century, we work in compartments. Even if people do research in their domain, communication with the masses should be made through trained communicators. Science communication itself should be considered a separate domain that needs special attention. There cannot be a common mode of communication across the country. Every part of the country needs custom-made communication modes. One cannot use digital mode while communicating with tribal communities living isolated from the urban areas. For these people, one may need to use folklore or street plays in the regional language. Similarly, we need to design a special strategy while communicating with women folks of the country. Most of the myths and superstitions are propagated through women, especially the elderly ladies in the community. Even while targeting our younger children, we need special attention. A good science communicator can kindle interest even in students who are dissuaded from science. Many children like to read fiction and story books, but they will not read them if we provide scientific facts as part of a science book. If people from science and literature sit together, we can simply difficult to understand scientific concepts in an easy-to-understand manner. Similarly, movies are one thing children love to watch. Many people who have watched Steven Spielberg’s movie Jurassic Park might not have read the original novel written by Michael Crichton. Each person in society is a research sample, and while communicating science, we need to take different approaches.
Science communication would be effective only when people across disciplines sit together and come out with policy decisions. For this, the government need to build transdisciplinary science communication institutes across the country where people from science, literature, arts, philosophy, and humanities work together and are known by the common name ‘scientist’. Only through such institutes can science be brought to every citizen of the country and scientific temper imparted in its true spirit.
(The author is a science communicator and columnist.)
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