Scientists should come out of 'secret league': Gopalkrishna

Stating that the people of the country had remained "aloof from laboratories", former West Bengal governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi today exhorted the scientific community to be in a more passionate and spirited realm, rather than in a "secret league".
"The more advanced science gets, the more it becomes exclusive. People of our country have bonded well with the social, political and economic structures, but remain aloof from the laboratories," Gandhi said today at Jawaharlal Nehru University while delivering a lecture on 'Fostering Scientific Temper'.
"Indian scientists are the country's best kept secrets. They live in a secret league," he said, stressing on the need for the scientific world to be a more passionate and spirited realm.

Currently the head of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study in Shimla, Gandhi also touched upon the topic of superstition and the obsession of Indian politicians with such practices.
"The immense faith of our politicians in fostering a scientific temper is visible by the number of rings on their fingers and red bands on their wrists.
"Superstition is not the progeny of intellectual stimulation; it is the pupil of the absentee science teacher and his neglect," Gandhi said.

Citing the examples of Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, the former WB governor said that fostering a scientific temper was all about doing simple things.

"By not scratching one's names on the walls of monuments, being tolerant of varied opinions, to conserve water and electricity, to contradict with civility, to conquer with grace, to acknowledge with generosity, to not denigrate, for me (such things are) not about being a great human being, but developing a scientific temper," he said.
"Leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Mandela showed the world how weapons can be defeated with the power of satyagraha, an apt paradigm for developing a scientific temper," he added.