I am grateful to the organisers of the 16th International Cencer Congress for inviting me to this special programme on Shrimati Indira Gandhi’s contribution to Science and Technology in India. It is appropriate to hold this Programme in memory of Shrimati Indira Gandhi on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of her martyrdom. It is a tribute to one of the great leaders of modern India and to a world leader who devoted her life to the eradication of poverty and alleviation of human suffering and one who consciously used science and technology towards that noble end.

Indira Gandhi was one of those who looked upon science and technology not as a separate category, but as an integral part of the movement of humanity towards a higher plane of existence, a more harmonious, compassionate ad civilised plane of existence. She once said, “Science today is not merely a search for knowledge. It is a highly organised activity with direct economic, social and military consequences.” He emphasis for India and the world was one the economic and social benefits for which science could be used. She once said:”Sciences must be for harmony. It must be for creativity not destruction.”

It is, therefore, appropriate that this discussion on Indira Gandhi and Science is taking place in the context of the International Cancer Congress now being heldin Delhi. Indira Gandhi was a firm believer in theefficacy of science for conquering disease and ill-helath along with poverty and ignorance. She was aware that along with heart disease cancer has emerged as one of the greatest killers in the Western world. She feared that with “increasing sophistication, industrialisation and rising emotional tensions in daily life, such a situation might well over-take us unless we take appropriate and urgent measures.....” I should say that the situation she has feared has already arrived. It has been estimated that out of all cancer related deaths, about two-thirds are now from the developing countries. Indira Gandhi would have whole-heartedly welcomed the holding of the International Cencer Congress in India and supported its scientificand humanitarian objectives. To-day even after the end of the cold war, the nations are spending more on military-related scientific-technological research than on fightin disease and ill-health. Though six million people are estimatedto be affected every year by this dreaded disease in the world, apart millions affected by other diseases that does not stir nations into action as politically-related events incurring enormous expenditure. 

From the time of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, we had attached basic importance to the advancement of science and technology for the social and economic development of our people, for the eradication of poverty, disease and ill-health ignorance and superstition. Nehru looked upon science as a major intrument in developing our economy and transforming our society. It was hewho launched India’s scientific-technological revolution and held before us the vision of a new India animated by the spirit of science. Indira Gandhi during the sixteen years of her Prime ministership followed this vision and with her purgent sense of practicality realixed some of nehru’s dreams as Rajiv Gandhi after her pursued them with youthful vigour.

If nehru was the father and visionary of Indian science, Indira Gandhi was, as the editors of “Nature” put it, “the heroine” of Indian science. Her part in the building of the scientific edifice has been monumental. She stirred certain excitement of science in the country, gave an extraordinary degree of freedom to the scientists and at the same time introduced accountability and performance requirements. She held periodic discussions with scientists and gave them easy access to her which helpedin circumventing bureaucratic bottlenecks. Sir Winston Churchill once observed that scientists “should not be” on the top but on tap”. That is perhaps the way one can while giving full freedom to scinetists prevent them from becoming a scientific bureaucracy. 

Indira Gandhi institutionalized the role of science in India’s development by setting up a Science and Technology Committee at the Centre and by incorporating the scientific-technological inputs into the main body of the Five year Plans. She strongly encouraged scientist to get involved in the planning and decision-making process. This is a process we will have to entend making science and technology an integral aspect of the Plan instead of being a separate chapter in the Plan documents. We have also got to implement fully Mrs. Gandhi’s idea of having Science and Technology Committees at the State and District levels. Indeed every rural and anti-poverty and employment generation programme from the illage level upwards must have a science and technology dimension in order to provide dynamism to the entire developmental process.

India’s accomplishments in the science and technology field underthe leadership of Indira Gandhi are on any reckoning amazing for a developing country like India. She used to say that people respect India because of its development in science. What we achieved in the fields of atomic energy, space, Ocean Development and defence sciences are a tribute to her vision and drive. The peaceful nuclear explosion of 1974, the development of defence science, especially the Integrated guided Missile Programme and the recent successful launching of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle are high peaks in India’s scientific-technological progress. Our scientists deserve the highest praise on these accomplishments as Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi do in providing the leadership.

On the importance of these scientific enterprises, Mrs. Gandhi once said: “I am often asked why India should concern itself with advanced areas of science like atomic energy and space instead of concentrating on agriculture, elementary saitation and the like, which are the obvious needs of our people. We are taunted about wanting to fly when we cannot feed; our answer is simple, work in these advanced fields is of immense benefit, even necessary, for us.” On another occasion she said: It is much more imprtant to have a solid base than to hae a very sophistacted superstructure.... Even to be able to digest the knowledge that other countries are acquiring, you have to have a base. You can’t have the base unless your scientists have the opportunity of experimenting with and trying out these things at every level.” She believed that all this is necessary for acqiring self-reliance as well as the ability for effective international co-operation. She once asked: “Can a country like that of our size remain a technological client? She also made the shrewd remark that once we have mastered a technology, people would flock to us to offer the same technology on attractive terms.

We all know that Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s contribution to India’s development was not just in the high tech field. Her real obsession was with eradicating poverty and elevating the living standards of the people. It was under her leadership that the Green Revolution took place. Self-sufficiency in foodgrains was an achievement that was basic and dramatic. A well known internation expert, Dr. Haldore Harison, pointed out that in 1965 India produced 12 millions tonnes of wheat. In 1972 it produced 26 million tonnes doubling the production within a period of seven years. He then observed: “I have not heard of any other country or region, anywhere or any time, that has managed to double the production of so large a food crop in so short a time. “ Today the Green Revolution has been further extended and we now produce the all time record crop of food grains of180 million tonnes. It is science and technology that is at the root of this achievement and Mrs. Gandhi tried to apply it to the entire field of rural development. She said: “Rural India thirsts for science.” Our duty today to Indira Gandhi and the nation is to quench this thirst for science in our villages. It is an imense field for scientists as well as administrators to explore and exploit for the benetif of our people.

Indira Gandhi’s contribution to the environmental question is now almost a legend. Mr. Maurice Strong called her “one of the first true planetary leaders.” He added that “Whe was the first leader of any nation to appreciate that the concern for environemt.... had a profound relevance to developing countries.....” While she believed that there was no conflict between environment and development, she frankly higlighted the responsibility of this field. If India is today one of the countries in the vanguard of the environmental movement it is because of the impetus provided by Indira Gandhi. 

Like her great father Indira Gandhi emphasised over and over the importance of scientific attitude and scientific temper in life generally and to the problems facing the nation. “A scientific attitude”’ she said “is basic for any people to live more fully in the contemporary world. It is all the more necessary in the country where groups are waiting for opportunities to incite irrational prejudices in the name of religion, region or language, in a country which has to leap centuries to regain its elan. We wan scientific thinking to destroy the superstition which has darkened our lives.” We need this scientific thinking in the world as a whole, where on the one hand, a movement toward globalisation and one world is taking place, and on the other, narrow loyalties and prejudices are having a field day, and the economically and technologically advanced are more obsessed with the pursuit of power, profits and markets and not so much with the widening inequalities, and with the deprivation and sufferings of almost the majority of mankind. Madame President, this is the time to invoke “the scientific humanism” that Jawaharlal Nehru expounded and Indira Gandhi pursued as a practical policy.