Intolerance of criticism arising out of irrational faith: VP

Amid the intolerance debate in the country, Vice President Hamid Ansari today said there is "intolerance of criticism and questioning" resulting from irrational faiths and beliefs which are based on unscientific prejudices.
He said while lack of scientific temper has often resulted in instances like individual dissenters being ostracised or killed, and banning or withdrawal ofbooks from circulation.
He rued that even scientists succumb to practises that derogate from scientific temper and noted that our education system was insufficiently equipped to inculcate this thinking in young minds.
Emphasising that public acceptance of scientific temper in the society was a pre-condition for fostering and sustaining the cultivation of innovations and scientific research, Ansari said there was need to create the right ambiance and structures to encourage scientific research and innovation.

"Much too often there is a lack of scientific temper in our daily life. In our family life, we don't approve of questioning. Most parents don't like children asking questions. In schools, from nursery to high school, teachers frown upon children raising questions.
"In colleges and universities, asking questions is often considered 'cheeky' and an attempt by students to cast doubt a teacher's knowledge of the teacher," Ansari said while inaugurating a panel discussion on "Scientific Temper: A pre-requisite for Knowledge based Society."

He said this frame of mind is reflected in our attitude to matters of social custom, inherited tradition and faith.

"Attempts to separate myth from fact, history from mythology, belief from scientifically verified facts, are often frowned upon. Pursuant to it, occult is dubbed scientific and superstition as 'culture'.
"Such approaches have often taken unpleasant and violent turn: books have been banned or withdrawn from circulation, libraries have been burnt, individual dissenters ostracised or killed, social peace disturbed and violence inflicted on citizens," he said.
"In each of these cases, the working assumption is that questioning will hurt sentiments, damage or destroy existing order or structures, undermine faith, disrupt social order," Ansari said.
Stressing that the concepts of justice and fairness are

tied to the idea of equity in development, he said equity has an intrinsic value as some groups face consistently inferior opportunities, economic, social and political, than their fellow citizens, and it translates into the need for equal opportunity and avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes.
"To view rising inequity as merely an inconvenient truth in the saga of India's shining future would therefore be a folly. Without equality, there is unlikely to be much of a future, let alone a shining one," he said.
Ansari also asserted that there is a need to revisit the commitment to investing in social goods.

"We have to move beyond seeing corporate social activity and government welfare schemes as merely a minimum relief for the misery of masses, aimed mostly at neutralising the more aggressive antagonism of those who have lost income and wealth or those whose upward mobility seems permanently blocked," he said.