Write a note on the People’s Science Movement.

A Brief History: The year 1987, was an important mile-stone in the history of science movements in India. For the first time 26 People’s Science Movements (PSMs) from all over India came together under one umbrella and organized a nation-wide “Bharat Jan Vigyan Jatha”–All India People’s Science March. As a part of this programme, a team of activists from IGCAR and MAPS undertook a “Science Jatha” to villages in Chengai district. Shri C.V. Sundaram and the district council member in the National Literacy Mission guided the Chengai district level activities. As an off-shoot of this event, many activists and volunteers were identified at various levels. These people became the back-bone to foster the Literacy Mission that came into being after two years. The Department of Atomic Energy played a crucial role in supporting this endeavour.

During 1990, the International Year of Literacy, a nation-wide program namely “Bharat Gyan Vigyan Jatha” was launched with the support from MHRD under the auspices of National Literacy Mission. The erstwhile director Shri S.R. Paranjpe gave patronage to this event. This event instilled confidence to take up the literacy project in Chengai-Anna district.

There are four areas identified for a future programme of action as the basis for initiating a PSM in the country. Let’s learn about them in detail below: 

Health: Lack of national care has produced severe health issues throughout the nation: the highest TB prevalence in the world, over 1.5 million children dead each year before their first birthday, nearly 500 million lacking sufficient nutrition, along with the second highest number of people living with HIV/AIDS. Growth of HIV/AIDS is a particular concern since there isn’t a secure infrastructure to measure the virus’ spread and impact, particularly with women in rural areas. While prevalence isn’t high, the country is extremely susceptible to a massive epidemic if left unchecked. And with the advent of this programme the health issues are solved up to some extent very easily.

Education: Indian education is suffering from many problems. There are many and many school, collage, university in India likes IIMs, IITs, AIIM and Many other university, collage and institute where science, medical, business, computer, engineering, media etc and a lot of carrier builder offered in India although there is a big education problem is that many of students could not get a higher education in case of money problem. There is a huge student population in India so many students could not appear in the collage/university after passing the entrance exam because there is seat limit in higher education collage and a high fee structure. And more and more student in India belongs to middle class family. This programme is working at a very big stage for solving this epidemic of Indian education.

Environment: Environmental issues in India include various natural hazards, particularly cyclones and annual monsoon floods, population growth, increasing individual consumption, industrialization, infrastructural development, poor agricultural practices, and resource mal-distribution have led to substantial human transformation of India’s natural environment. An estimated 60% of cultivated land suffers from soil erosion, water-logging, and salinity. It is also estimated that between 4.7 and 12 billion tons of topsoil are lost annually from soil erosion. From 1947 to 2002, average annual per capita water availability declined by almost 70% to 1,822 cubic meters, and overexploitation of groundwater is problematic in the states of Haryana, Punjab, and Uttar Pradesh. Forest area covers 18.34% of India’s geographic area (637000 km²). Nearly half of the country’s forest cover is found in the state of Madhya Pradesh (20.7%) and the seven states of the northeast (25.7%); the latter is experiencing net forest loss. Forest cover is declining because of harvesting for fuel wood and the expansion of agricultural land. These trends, combined with increasing industrial and motor vehicle pollution output, have led to atmospheric temperature increases, shifting precipitation patterns, and declining intervals of drought recurrence in many areas. And with the programme like PSM this problem is somehow seems to be vanished from the environmental scenario of our country.

Art: A great deal of issue takes place in the past to impart art as a medium of communication in the country. The Uttarakhand Sangharsh Vahini had been using art in its various struggles first against deforestation and similar issues but now embracing all aspects of the people’s struggles.

Some Fundamental Issues

India is home of the world’s third largest scientific workforce. Yet, in India you will find most obscurantist teachings which verge on medieval vitalism ( and New Age obscurantism) i.e., nature as animated by a dis-embodied life force which has the attributes of consciousness ñ being peddled by any number of modern gurus who cater to the upper class, English educated urbanites. There was a tradition of Marxist philosophy of science which emphasized sensory experience and naturalism to question the soul-stuff. But it died when its major proponent (Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya) died.

Another minor but important point about science for the people movements: In the absence of regular schools which can teach elementary science in a non-religious idiom, all the many campaigns to “bring science to the people” are mere band-aids.

Activities of PSMS

The PSM activities are classified into four broad categories:

(a) Science and Communication: The activities include science publications, popular science lectures, street plays and school science activities. Cultural forms of communication are extensively used in the Kala Jathas. One of the sustained activities of the Haryana Vigyan Manch has been its campaign against superstitions and myths. For children, in particular, science popularisation by the PSM organizations have been through children’s science festivals, children’s science projects, quiz contests, science tours and children’s science books. Science and Communication have been sufficiently established to feed all, to educate all to the university level, to give health for all, to render all people live comfortably as any high income group, to ensure conservation of resources by 100 fold.

(b) Policy Critiques: The idea being that a detailed critical understanding of developmental policies empower people’s organizations to intervene in decision-making. Sustained interventions in the area of S&T policy and management are required if a people-oriented science-society linkages are to emerge. 

(c) Development Interventions: Specifically, for instance in the area of health, the interventions of the PSM have resulted in the withdrawal of a number of hazardous drugs from the market and initiation of legal action on a number of other drugs. The groups have also been active in the area of health education and more recently in decentralized health planning. The PSM groups have been able to intervene effectively in the decision-making process in several instances.

(d) Technology Development: Some examples of such initiatives are: wireless in local loop for telecommunications, the computer and village information software, bio-mass as replacement for cement/concrete in civil constructions, windmills and bio-mass based energy systems, non-chemical inputs to boost agricultural productivity, improved small-scale mechanized looms, small-scale oil presses and other food processing units and mechanized black smithy.

Some Prominent PSMS in India

Now let us know about some prominent PSMs in India.

Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad (KSSP): Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad is a people’s science movement of Kerala, India. At the time of its founding in 1962 it was a 40-member group consisting of science writers and teachers with interest in science from a social perspective. Over the past four decades it has grown into a mass movement with a membership over 40, 000, distributed in more than two thousand units spread all over Kerala. The original objective at the time of the founding of Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishad (KSSP) was limited to publishing scientific literature in Malayalam, the local language, and popularizing science. However it was soon realized that publication and giving lessons alone were not enough to popularize science and extend its benefits to the common people.

Tamil Nadu Science Forum (TNSF): Tamil Nadu Science Forum, TNSF works in areas of literacy, health, education, women’s empowerment, science popularization, agriculture, enterprise development, water management, ecology, environmental issues, rural technology and application of information technology in villages. TNSF is initiating 1500 village libraries across. To help the programme get off the ground and reach a minimum critical size of 1500, TNSF is planning to subsidize the first round of books to these libraries.

Tamil Nadu Science Forum was started in 1980 by scientists. Now it has grown into a peoples movement and has a membership of 12000 including scientists, Farmers, Teachers, Women–people from almost every walk of life.Its programmes include science popularization and publication, literacy and continuing education campaigns, intervention in primary education, women’s development, and development interventions in health and income generation.

Medico-Friend Circle (MFC): Medico-Friend Circle (MFC) is a nation-wide group of socially conscious individuals interested in the health problems of people of India. Since its inception in 1974, MFC has critically analyzed the existing health care system in India and has tried to evolve an appropriate approach towards health care which is humane and which can meet the needs of the vast majority of the people in the country.

MFC tries to foster health workers to uphold human values and aims at restructuring the health care system. It offers a forum for dialogue, debate and sharing of experiences with the aim of realizing its goal and for taking up issues of common concern for action.  

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