Pizarnik y Juarroz: El afán de escribir el silencio

Neha Khanna

Somebody once said to the philosopher Wittgenstein: What a bunch of no-knows we medieval Europeans must have been! Back in the days before Copernicus, to have looked up at the sky and thought that what we saw up there was the Sun going round the Earth, when, as everybody knows, the Earth goes round the Sun, and it doesn’t take too many brains to understand that! Wittgenstein replied:

Yes, but I wonder what it would have looked like if the Sun had been going round the Earth. The point is that it would, of course, have looked exactly the same. What he was saying was that you see what you want to see. Consider also the medieval Londoner or an 18th-century American who, when asked what he thought of the prospect that one day everybody would have his own individual form of

personal transportation, laughed at the idea of the metropolis at a standstill when the streets became, as they surely would, 14 feet deep in horse manure. The concept of any other form of transportation was outside his context.¹ Human history and society have for long been shaped by the changes or rather the revolutions in the field of science, be it the ability to make fire or unravelling the mysteries of producing a crop out of seed strewn on the ground. Over the ages, various technologies have

altered our lives and the social setting in a manner we can only imagine and admire.

It is, indeed, intriguing how technologies that we take to be primitive today changed the course of human civilization during the period in which they were invented. In this chapter, we shall try to look at the impact of science and technology in two sections. We begin with a general discussion on the impact of science and technology policies and their achievements and implications. In the second part, the chapter focuses on information technology policy and its impact on the economy as well as democracy.

A HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Science and technology have been an integral part of the Indian civilization and culture over the past several millennia. Few are aware that India was the fountainhead of important foundational scientific developments and approaches. These cover many great scientific discoveries and technological achievements in mathematics, astronomy, architecture, chemistry, metallurgy, medicine, natural philosophy and other areas. A great deal of this travelled outwards from India. Equally, India also assimilated scientific ideas and techniques from elsewhere, with an open mind and a rational attitude characteristic of a scientific ethos. In the half century since Independence, India has been committed to the task of promoting the spread of science. The key role of technology as an important element of national development is also well recognized. The Scientific Policy Resolution of 1958 and the

Technology Policy Statement of 1983 enunciated the principles on which the growth of science and technology in India has been based over the past several decades. These policies have emphasized self-reliance, as also sustainable and equitable development. They embody a vision and strategy that are applicable today, and would continue to inspire us in our endeavours.²

The British were quick to recognize the role and importance of science, technology and medicine in empire building.³ So the colonial state, even though it claimed to be carrying a disinterested project of civilizing mission, actually came with an ideology, a string of institutions and a set of committed people to serve its ends. Even though the indigenous education in India included instructions in science prior to the advent of the colonial rule, the debate and discussions for the system of education to be adopted concerned primarily what kind of science and technology would eventually be institutionalized in India.⁴ The Indian thinking in response to this was highlighted by an attempt at cultural synthesis. For the educated Indians, then, retrieval of this seemingly lost identity became a precondition for regaining lost sovereignty. Talking about the cultural synthesis enabled them to absorb culture shock and then promised a possible opportunity to transcend the barriers imposed by colonialism.⁵

The two major religious groupings engaged with modern scientific thought from their own vantage points governed by their political, social and economic objectives, not always in isolation from the other.⁶ Within the nationalist movement, the debate on the reconstruction of India heavily centred on the knowledge and use of modern science and technology. While the likes of Madan Mohan Malaviya stressed how India was reindustrialized and carried on a new watchword of scientized technology (icons of which were Japan and Germany because he felt that the British model was inadequate⁷), Gandhi ridiculed the most prized possessions of the West: modernization and industrialization. He seldom used the term science and technology and conveniently replaced it with civilization and mechanization, to which he showed his deep concern. Some of the central tendencies in modern civilization such as massive industrialization, undue importance to technology and science, which altered the concept of labour, made Gandhi a critic of that civilization.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY: THE POST-INDEPENDENCE PERIOD

After Independence, the highlight of India’s development strategy was the adoption of the socialist model of planned economic development, with a great emphasis on capital goods industries. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru ordained the huge multi-purpose projects as the new temples of modern India. This period was soon followed by the first tentative steps in the field of research in science and

technology with the aim of changing the economic pattern in the nation’s countryside, the reference here being made to the increase in agricultural output as a result of the Green Revolution, which relied on newer varieties of seeds and fertilizers, a move towards the mechanization of the Indian agricultural sector. Howsoever slow it might have been, the result was there for all to see.

Scientific and technological activities in India are carried out under the aegis of a wide array of governmental bodies (both central and state level), private-sector participation, non-profit

organizations, etc. These institutional structures with their research laboratories are the main

contributors to the scientific research being carried out in the country.⁸ Agricultural Research

The huge strides that were made in the field of agricultural research and technology related to high-yielding crop varieties that have laid the foundation of the journey from a food-deficient nation to one that has excess production of cereals and other food and cash crops. However, the irony is that while the food stocks of the country are spilling over, we still have pockets of hunger, deprivation and starvation deaths. There is a need to ensure that the benefits of the innovations reach all conceivable comers of the country. A step in this direction are the ‘e-choupals’, which have to be used as tools of information dissemination. There has been talk of the need to give another push to the productive capacity of agricultural sector through a second Green Revolution.

The technology fatigue is seen as a major cause underlying the deceleration in performance of the agricultural sector. Since the Green Revolution in the 1960s there has been no major technological innovation that could give a fresh impetus to agricultural productivity. The absence of productive technology, which also reduces risks, is particularly serious for rain-fed, dry-land situations. In the longer run, growth in agricultural productivity can be sustained only through continuous technological progress. This calls for a well-considered strategy for prioritized basic research, which is now all the more urgent in view of the mounting pressure on scarce natural resources, climate change and also the shrinking availability of spillovers from international public research. We need to usher in a

second Green Revolution by adopting a strategy that frees us from past mindsets. The strategy should be operationalized in the form of challenge programmes in which central institutes and the state agricultural universities work with organic integration.

The Eleventh Plan will have to energize the National Agricultural Research System and improve its capacity to develop and deliver innovative and effective technologies relevant in the current

context and needs. This will require strengthening of the basic research component of its programmes through identification of strategic research pathways in an anticipatory fashion. The exercise must go hand in hand with clearer demarcation of basic research on the one hand, which may not contribute immediately to growth, and strategic research on the other, which tackles well-identified problems in a goal-directed way. The recently established fund for National Strategic Agricultural Research must be expanded in the Eleventh Plan and oriented to stimulate research that responds to a prioritized and well-defined strategy, so that the country’s large, agricultural research system, which successfully launched the Green Revolution in the past, can now be called upon to address newer and more formidable challenges and provide region-specific, problem-solving capacity. A delivery-targeted operational mechanism will have to be designed for its meaningful operation. Clearly, business as usual has no place whatsoever in this framework. The agricultural system also needs to be thoroughly revamped and restructured in the light of advice rendered by high-powered committees chaired

respectively by Dr M. S. Swaminathan and Dr R. A. Mashelkar.⁹ Meteorological Services

The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) was established in 1875. It is the national

meteorological service and the principal agency in all matters related to meteorology, seismology and allied services. The IMD issued the first operational long-range forecast of seasonal south-west

monsoon rainfall (June–September) of India in 1986. The Crop Yield Formulation Unit of the

department has developed statistical models using correlation and regression techniques to forecast crop yields on an operational basis over a large part of India. The Meteorological Department is perhaps also burdened with the most critical form of soothsaying—that of forecasting the monsoons.

These predictions have an effect on the Indian economy that belies any belief that the economy of our country is not solely dependent on agriculture and the rains that feed it.

Apart from this, the Indian plate is notoriously unstable in terms of tectonic movements and has been the cause of many devastating earthquakes. A new challenge that the forecasters were faced with was on 25 and 26 December 2004, when the giant tsunami waves erased out of the face of the earth villages, and with them, extinguished many human lives. That experience prompted the process of making India a part of the Tsunami Early Warning System that operates through a series of warning stations that are connected via satellites. Warnings are sent across to the member country in the event of any underwater tectonic movement or any other development that could trigger a tsunami. This need to use the latest in the field of weather forecasting and supervision of tectonic movement has to be coupled with the developments in the field of communications, so that the news of impending disasters get passed on to the groups that are in the gravest danger.

Atomic Energy

With the world’s reserves of fossil fuels depleting faster than the replenishment rate, there is an urgent need to look for alternative sources of energy that will continue to support the bulwark of economic development in an efficient and sustainable manner. The answer to the energy problems of the future and even the present day lies in the power that remains trapped in the building blocks of nature—the atoms. The Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) was established in 1954 with this specific object in mind. Since then, the DAE has been involved in research in the field of atomic energy technology and its application in the field of agriculture, medicine, industry and even

providing a credible, nuclear-weapon-based military deterrent for the nation. The research centres of DAE are engaged in basic research in relevant areas. In addition, the autonomous research institutes, supported by grant in aid by DAE, are centres of excellence in the field of research ranging from mathematics to computers, physics to astronomy and biology to cancer. India, today, not only uses atomic energy for medical and research purposes but also possesses a credible nuclear deterrent.

This nuclear weapons programme is supposedly our guarantee against any harm coming to our nation from external forces, but the question that begs an answer is this: what is our safeguard against

‘Chernobyl-style’ accidents? We have already paid a huge price for the careless handling of dangerous chemicals in Bhopal in 1982, where more than 25,000 lost their lives and a whole

generation was cursed with a life of disabilities and deprivations. Can we risk a similar accident like the one in Bhopal at any of our nuclear facilities? What is the explanation for the huge expenditure on

newer and better ways of killing fellow human beings, when in large parts of the country, hunger is doing that with a far more horrendous precision. All through 2006–07, the government tried to drum up support from the rest of the world while staking India’s claim to a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council. However, efforts should first be made to provide adequate support against the dangers of hunger, starvation and penury.

The Indian Space Programme¹⁰

Despite being a developing country with the economic constraints that follow with it, India has

effectively developed a credible space programme that has broken new ground and put it in the select group of countries that can design its own satellites and, now, can even launch satellites.

During the formative years in the early 1960s, space research was carried out with the help of sounding rockets. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), the primary body for space research in India, was founded in 1969. In the history of the Indian space programme, the 1970s was the period of experiments with the launch of experimental satellite programmes like Aryabhatta, Bhaskara, Rohini, and Apple. In the 1980s and 1990s, ISRO made impressive strides in building state-of-the-art remote sensing and communication satellites, together with their applications for national development. So far 48 major satellites, have been launched, both low Earth-orbiting ones for remote sensing and geostationary ones for meteorology and communication, half of them form India’s space port at Sriharikota (using its own satellite-launching vehicles). The remote sensing satellites have been extensively used for the monitoring and management of agriculture, forests, water resources, mineral wealth, ocean resources, land use practices, environmental pollution, and natural disasters, and for initiating sustainable integrated development. The geostationary INSAT satellite, likewise, have initiated a new communication revolution in the country, and are now being

extensively used for nationwide broadcasting, telecommunication, education, telemedicine and health care, weather forecasting and disaster management. Recently, ISRO launched Chandrayaan-I, India’s first mission to the Moon (an unmanned exploration), which is a major boost to India’s space

programme. India’s robust launch vehicle programme has enable the country to now offer its services to the outside world. Antrix, the commercial arm of the ISRO, has been marketing India’s space services globally.

What we have discussed above are the research programmes, developmental policies and cutting-edge scientific explorations that have been carried out over the years in India, while the question that we must answer now is how these endeavours bring about a change in the social fabric of the country and how they spawn a new beginning. The answer is not too difficult to find: All the above research programmes have been carried out with one common objective and that is greater good of the greatest possible number, the development in the field of meteorology has helped us in studying the rainfall patterns and its effect on crop cycles. Nuclear energy might be the source of the most horrific killing machine that man ever invented, but it is also true that it can solve all the energy problems that the country faces. Countries like Canada and France have been using nuclear energy to meet their energy requirements and the fact that the levels of pollution due to safe nuclear energy are close to nil is

something that has to be considered specially in this day and age of increased awareness about global wanning and the havoc that it wreaks on our weather systems. The Indian space programme has

enabled us to move to an age of easier and efficient communication and made distances disappear; the huge boom that the Indian service sector has experienced is something that stands testimony to this success story that has added a new feather in its cap.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND ITS IMPLICATIONS

Honey, will you answer the television, am watching the telephone…. As a social leveller.; Information Technology ranks second only to Death.

—Sam Pitroda

Information technology (IT) is considered to be a social leveller in the statement because it has

eliminated distance as a perceptible concept from our lives. This ‘death of distance’,¹¹ a determinant of the cost of communication, will become the single most important economic force to reshape society over the next half century. The history of human civilization, the argument goes, has been governed by three major revolutions in communication. The 19th century saw the easier and faster communication of goods. The 20th century saw cheaper, easier communication and transportation of people and the 21st century is going to be governed by a faster means of communicating ideas. The equation has now shifted from labour intensive to intellectual incentive.

The following section of this chapter is an attempt at assessing this argument. (We open the question up and try to measure up the veracity of the claim.)

Background

With the advent of IT, avenues like e-commerce, e-govemance, e-mails and the e-world emerged, on the one hand, and lots of other e-things made their debut in the Indian e-conomy in the late 1990s on the other, for example e-marriages, e-ducation, e-nvironment studies and e-ntertainment. Even the English language did not remain unaffected by the change with, ‘4m’ replacing the usual ‘from’ in the popular SMS text language. The ‘e’-dominance in our day-to-day lives has grown so much that it has become rare to spot any technology which is 95 per cent e-free.¹²

The IT industry saw daylight in India in the 1980s. It was C = DOT, the technology centre set up in 1984 by Sam Pitroda, that pioneered the ringing out of archaic phone systems country wide and that paved the way for street-corner telephone booths mushrooming in the smallest of towns. This wave of telecom revolution gave birth to 800,000 PCOs in India. In the past one-and-a-half- decade or so, gigantic changes have taken place at the global levels. Information technology is applied in most human activities, be it production or education, defence or war, distribution or production of goods all have become simplified, effective and reliable. Telecommunications not only links all industrial

The IT industry saw daylight in India in the 1980s. It was C = DOT, the technology centre set up in 1984 by Sam Pitroda, that pioneered the ringing out of archaic phone systems country wide and that paved the way for street-corner telephone booths mushrooming in the smallest of towns. This wave of telecom revolution gave birth to 800,000 PCOs in India. In the past one-and-a-half- decade or so, gigantic changes have taken place at the global levels. Information technology is applied in most human activities, be it production or education, defence or war, distribution or production of goods all have become simplified, effective and reliable. Telecommunications not only links all industrial