According to Article 51 A(h) of India’s Constitution, it is the fundamental duty of every citizen of India to develop a scientific temper, humanism and spirit of enquiry and reform. It has been adopted after the forty-second amendment in 1976. Perhaps, India is the only developing country in the world whose constitution has adopted this concept.
What is scientific temper? It is an attitude of logical and rational thinking. If one employs a scientific method of decision making in daily life, they are considered to have a scientific temper. It teaches us how to question and why. That everything is subject to enquiry and examination. Nothing is infallible and as much belief as there is evidence for.
Pt JL Nehru wrote in 1946, “What is needed in India is the scientific approach, the adventurous and yet critical temper of science, the search for truth and new knowledge, the refusal to accept anything without testing and trial, the capacity change previous conclusion in the face of new evidence…all this necessary not merely for the application of science but for life itself and the solution of its many problems.”
He believed that superstition and irrational beliefs were widespread in India and could be observed in routine life. Do you find any rationality of having places of worship right on railway tracks or alongside roads? They can be removed only by creating awareness as it carries no logic and reason.
The process of creating awareness should begin at home and schools. Unfortunately, this does not happen in India. As a result, we see many illogical decisions being taken. For instance, recently, the Chief Minister of Hyderabad wanted to move to a new secretariat for reasons pertaining to Vaastu and numerology, leading to a tremendous waste of public money.
So it’s the duty of parents, teachers, elders, etc., to help their children develop a scientific temperament. If people are educated in the scientific method, I believe India will once again be the Vishwa Guru. After all, as the famous theoretical physicist, Abdus Salam once remarked, “Scientific thought and its creation is the common and shared heritage of mankind.”
The author is a freelance writer from Jammu.