Can't compare India with Pakistan: How one country flew to space while another took to terror
India’s foreign minister, Sushma Swaraj’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly has attracted widespread attention, particularly for her comments related to the progress India has made in the knowledge sector in the past 70 years. The minister referred to the role played by Indian Institutes of Technology, Indian Institutes of Management, the Indian Space Research Organisation as well as the success achieved in the field of information technology.
The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) which celebrates its platinum jubilee on Tuesday, among other research councils, too has contributed significantly. Undoubtedly, all these institutions have been major driving forces in India’s quest to become a powerhouse of knowledge in the 21st century.
Between 1945 and 1960, three dozen countries in Asia and Africa were decolonised and became independent. All these countries followed different trajectories of development, but few can rival what India could achieve in science and technology in the decades that followed Independence. This was because of the thrust India gave to science and technology as a key input in the process of nation-building, which emanated from Nehru’s vision and alliance he struck with top scientists.
In British India, scientific institutions were spread in different parts of the country. The undivided Punjab and Bengal had great institutes of higher education which produced scientific leaders like Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar — who founded CSIR under the British rule — Meghnad Saha, Ruchi Ram Sahani, among others. After Partition too, links between the two countries in the field of scientific research remained for some years.
Salimuzzaman Siddiqui was an organic chemist who did his research in medicinal plants at the Ayurvedic and Unani Tibbi College in Delhi at the invitation of founder Hakim Ajmal Khan. Later, he was requisitioned to head a CSIR lab in Kolkata. According to Siddiqui’s biography, prepared by the Royal Society, London, the PM of Pakistan in 1948 wrote to Nehru requesting him to spare Siddiqui for organising science in Pakistan. In 1951, Siddiqui was appointed the chairman of the Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research which established five multi-disciplinary laboratories.
Pakistan also floated atomic energy and space agencies around the same time as India, but with little success. “Looking back, I realise what a difference it made to have a visionary as our leader. Without (Vikram) Sarabhai, India’s space programme might have ended in doldrums like Pakistan’s”, says R Aravamudan, Indian space scientist who was in the first batch of trainees. This — the vision of founding fathers of science — perhaps explains why India stands apart from other nations in science and technology.
(Courtesy of Mail Today.)