Mangala ! Mangala ! Mangala !...........in spite of the Nay-Sayers !

A big success for India and all Indians who share the nationalist spirit. In fact the official Chinese reaction has been even better. They have congratulated India as well as themselves!!! Yes, they say, of course it is a big day and success for India but it is also a great day for the entire Asian region as well. I love it. That should be the spirit.

This first time acknowledgement by Chinese was of course a surprise. A very pleasant surprise!!!

But what was NOT surprising was the reaction of the Nay-Sayers in/of India.

Any new step taken by India, any achievement big or small, any new initiative attracts praise as well as flak from many quarters. Of course this is a healthy thing.  Moreover we are a democratic country; everybody is entitled to their own opinions.

This would not be bad, and would be just normal, until I saw some highly educated people from Science/Engineering background, joining the naysayers.

Two main arguments put forth by the highly educated nay-Sayers in condemning the scientific achievement are follows.

1. India is a very poor country and should not be 'wasting' money on such missions like Mars Mission. The huge money spent on MOM could have been better utilised by feeding roti to Bhuke-nange log of India.

2. We are lacking basic humanity. There is so much of misery on the face of the Earth and we are least bothered. Before venturing into outer space we should first learn to be more concerned about humanity on Earth. See there are so many accidents on Earth; we are inefficient in stopping them! Why go to Mars?

(Yes this is coming from people supposedly close to scientific community)

Yes, India is a poor country; we are still a developing country. But this should not be an impediment for human inquisitiveness and endeavor and exploring new frontiers of knowledge. Human misery, suffering, poverty and all have existed as long as the humans have been known to exist. But this has never stopped humans from exploring and knowledge gathering. If humans had stopped all exploring, experimenting and researching until all the basic problems of all humans like poverty are solved permanently, imagine where we would have been.

But the very process of exploring, experimenting and researching is the story of Human civilisation.

These processes initially seemed worthless in reducing human misery, but in a long run this scientific temperament has been a big player in reducing human misery.

India has reportedly spent INR 450 crores for MOM. A very huge figure. Some say this should have been spent in providing roti to bhuke-nange Indians. Yes, Nobel, very Nobel thought. But how much percent of money available with it is the Indian Govt spending on scientific research and development and how much on poverty alleviation?

Is scientific research and development not a way to reduce human misery? Just providing freebies will not remove poverty.

Let us go back in history a little. When the European explorers were discovering ‘new worlds’ (yes right here on the face of the earth), the situation of Europe was not very different from the present day India. May be a slightly better. They were developing fast, but there was also poverty, wars, disease and many miserable things. Still the powers of the day encouraged and sponsored such great missions, the results of which were vastly uncertain. They were never sure if the missions would actually bear fruit. Even if they did would there be any gainful results? But nevertheless they carried on. We now know the results in posterity. Of course there were both good and bad outcomes of this, but mostly humanity benefited from these uncertain explorations.

It was exploring the Earth at that time and now it is exploring the outer space. We never know what benefits it may hold for mankind. But this is no reason to stop the scientific research and exploration.

Imagine, when Neil Bohr was researching on atomic structure, there was unprecedented human misery, even world wars. If he had stopped all research which was not capable of immediately alleviating the prevalent misery, what would be the outcome? I don’t have to repeat how important his work was.

Back home, immediately after independence if Pandit Nehru had thought that India is so poor that we don’t deserve to have a space program or a nuclear research lab and we should spend all our available money only in providing roti to bhuke-nange Indians (and there were lot of such people at that time) what would be the result. The Bhuke-nange log would have got roti, but for how long?

The research in mathematics, abstract science even art do not immediately provide solutions to prevalent misery, but in the long run the application of these researches has gone a long way in alleviating the misery.

Going by the logic of the naysayers we Indians should stop all space research.

I would say let us go a step further, we should be feel ashamed to go on holidays when there are bhuke-nange log in India, we should not be partying, celebrating festivals, spending money on movies, go-karting, ban sports, ban fine arts and all till there are no bhuke-nange log in India. After all we can use this money on providing roti to bhuke-nange Indians.  After all we should become more human to people around us. (Now please do not confuse me with facts about how these industries are providing livelihood to innumerable people, after all they are not bhuke-nange log. When they become bhuke-nange, then we will think about them)

All I would say is that, as much as a Mother Teresa, a Baba Amte or a Vinoba Bhave or a Anna Hazare is important for a society , so also, a Dr Sarabhi, Dr Bhabha, Dr Kalam, a Dr. Devi Prasad Shetty is important, and also a Dada Saheb Phalke, a Sachin tendulkar, a Sri Sri Ravi shankar, a Lata Mangeshkar, a teacher, a cleaner, lawyer, a comedian, a banker and even a money lender is important for the society.

The utility of a research may not be immediately visible, but the knowledge gained is never a waste.

-Sandeep Kulkarni