The Evolving Contours of Scientific Temper in India

Abstract

India was to be founded on a footing of scientific temper, as emphasised by the first Prime Minister. In the 69 years of existence, scientific institutions and universities have grown in multitude and contributed a scientific stock. The last three decades have seen an upsurge in investigations and narratives of the scientific story that the country has tried to script. The present work is an attempt to narrate the story keeping scientific temper as the subject of enquiry. The study makes an attempt to chronicle the combined and cumulative efforts towards making of a scientific India (since colonisation), and graze through the history of international science to understand the evolution of the understanding of scientific temper. It is the first of many iterations that will cumulatively lead to an estimation of Indian Scientific temperament and introduce in the extended imaginary the idea of an obligation of personnel’s and institutions towards the engagement or alienation of science, not just as a profession of the few but as a way of life for the masses.