The scientific fraternity of India and Bengal has been the recipient of glad tidings in recent times. Index rankings by Nature revealed that Calcutta and Bangalore rank among the top 100 ‘science’ cities around the world. The city rankings take into account such important parameters as the concentration of research institutions, investments in cutting-edge research and development as well as the ability to attract global scientific talent. That Bengal’s acumen in the sciences is not to be trifled with was further demonstrated by the fact that as many as six scientists from the state left their mark at the prestigious Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize. There has been something for India’s women scientists too. In a belated, but necessary, step the department of science and technology has declared its intention of ranking the country’s scientific institutions on the basis of the proportion of women employees. Such a step, if implemented properly, could go a long way in addressing the skewed gender ratio in the field of science and research.

But these facts, even though they are encouraging, should not deflect attention from the formidable challenges that confront both the pedagogy as well as institutions of science. Much has been said about the rise in the national gross expenditure on research and development in science and technology but the fact remains that India spends a miserly 0.7 per cent of its GDP on research and development. The corresponding figure for, say, China, India’s regional competitor, is 2.1 per cent. An even greater impediment, however, stems from the zeitgeist of New India. There have been sustained assaults on not just scientific institutions but also the spirit of science by this elected regime. Outrageous cures are being peddled — for the coronavirus and cancer — in the name of indigenous wisdom; the Indian Science Congress was made to listen to ideologues claiming that Ancient India had accomplished, among other feats, the airplane and stem cell research. They must have been inspired by the prime minister, who believes that plastic surgery and in-vitro fertilizations are the result of such primitive wizardry. This ideological contamination of the scientific temper can have dire consequences: a number of rationalists have paid with their lives to uphold the cause of reason. There is then a method in this political madness. Science, which is founded on the principle of objective scrutiny, remains the greatest rival of obscurantism, be it ideological or political.