"Gandhi came too early...we needed
him now’’

ONE of India’s best known scientist-teachers, Padma Vibhushan-decorated Professor Yashpal has done path-breaking research in astronomy, astrophysics and space technology. He helped set up the Space Application Centre in Ahmedabad and was the Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Peaceful Use of Outer Space.

His contribution to education is well known and as former Chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC), he set up various inter-university centres as autonomous institutions which are today important field stations of all the leading educational institutions around the country. Professor Yashpal also set up the Inter-University Consortium for Educational Communication for UGC programmes and later as Member, Planning Commission, he further helped the cause of education by giving it the national status it deserved.

Professor Yashpal has now been honoured with the title of the National Research Professor and is on various governing bodies in the field of astronomy and astrophysics. All of which keeps him as busy as he was in his younger days.

The octogenarian professor took time out of his busy schedule to talk to Sharad K. Soni of the millennium that has just gone by....

‘‘This has been the most remarkable century in which more of everything has happened than in any century before. If I were to talk of science first, the century started with the expounding of the Theory of Relativity by Albert Einstien. Scientists understood the composition of atoms and molecules. Breakthroughs in bio-technology and electronics revolutionised scientific thinking.

The result of all this was advances in all spheres of life. Agriculture, industry, aviation, space technology and communications made rapid strides, changing the very outlook of mankind.

To my mind the progress in communication has been the most important aspect of this century. Telephone and radio came at the beginning of this century which suddenly made the world smaller. The second most important aspect was the discovery of nuclear energy which resulted in lasers, quantum optics, satellites and unfortunately the bomb.

With the bomb, the combat material became more lethal and the century saw the rise of a new and a fiercely malevolent species — modern man as a war monger. The last hundred years may have resulted in tremendous enlightenment but more people were killed in wars and genocides than the total population of this planet at the time of Jesus Christ.

Worse, after World War I, economically and militarily advanced countries sat down to divide the world to decide which parts of Asia and Africa would be free and which would lose their freedom. Those who had the power began controlling the world and dividing it into haves and have-nots.

World War II was the result of largely what happened during World War I. But after that a new consciousness began emerging with the setting up of the United Nations which expounded that everyone has the right to be independent. The process led to decolonisation and India was one of the largest countries to benefit.

During the phase of this de-colonisation and far a long time later, hopelessness gave way to hope and the world started making the transitions into a new era. The Non-Aligned Movement was born and dominance by power was replaced by an era of freedom.

New form of colonisation

Unfortunately even as physical domination ended, in came economic suppression of nations. Advanced countries made use of this new form of colonisation to control poorer nations economically.

That’s the era we are passing through today. The resources of poor countries are flowing out to the rich. In fact, the transfer of wealth from poor to the rich is just begining. That’s because a handful of nations are controlling the currencies of poor countries and people may work as hard as they wish but the worth of their labour is never measured adequately.

The result is that that poor nations are getting poorer and the rich getting richer as they hold the purse-strings of the Third World. And those who defy them are slapped with economic sanctions.

So, at the end of the century, where do we go from here? I personally feel a great amount of protest will soon form by way of public opinion and the world will have to once again sit on a round table and end this economic aggression — what United Nations did to end colonisation.

But talking strictly of India, I don’t think it was the United Nations which changed the view of the British leaders and forced them to grant Independence to India. It was the doing of one man — the tallest man of the century. And that man went by the name of Mahatma Gandhi.

I personally think that no one can match the stature of Gandhiji in this century. But I also feel that he came too early. It is true if Gandhiji hadn’t come at the time he did, it would have been difficult for us to get our freedom but we would have got it some way or the other after some time.

Gandhiji’s relevance

We need Gandhiji now or rather the Gandhian way of thinking in the present times. He had a unique way of solving complex problems. Take pollution, for example. Gandhiji was the first environmentalist of the country who would use even old envelopes to write his letters on, who didn’t waste even a tiny bit of pencil or paper. He recycled everything and said there was enough in this world for everyone’s need but not enough for everyone’s greed.

We need Gandhiji in the present era not just for making us environmentally conscious but we need his wisdom in politics, in economics, in education and in creating a transparent society.

Take education for instance. In the past few decades we have had endless discussions about what’s wrong with our higher education but there are no solutions in sight. That’s because we have separated education from life and that is why we can have a centralised examination system which tests a student’s level of studies from books and not his or her real knowledge. There is no skill formation thus all the riches of our culture are produced by agencies and people who are outside the education system.

Though Gandhiji espoused the concept of production by masses as opposed to mass production and his charkha was symbolic, he was never against modern technology as long as it was not exploitative. He objected to technology of that time because of large British factories which were producing goods like cloth and salt for Indians which they could make at home.

The fundamental ideology of Gandhiji related to economics and education and the creation of an egalitarian society where everybody is a creator of goods or ideas which are used by all.

That’s why I say Gandhiji came half a century too early. A lot of his ideas were far ahead of his times and many could not see his vision. I tend to believe that a whole lot of Gandhian ideas become sustainable now because we have the means for decentralisation. Thanks to the Internet we are amidst the communication revolution via which people, countries, cities and villages can connect to one another.

Towards a decentralised society

In a sense, it’s possible now to follow the Gandhian insight. We have the means to abolish all centres, all cities. It is possible now to have a true decentralised society in this era of globalisation. And the centre of this globalisation can lie anywhere whether it’s education, diplomacy, agriculture or industry.

Once that is done the true Gandhian way of life will emerge. Creativity will come to the fore, exploitation will be eliminated or reduced considerably and the world will finally begin to move towards lasting peace.

In the coming millennium, India has no choice but to revert to the Gandhian philosophy of using not just science and technology but the entire education system for the betterment of mankind. Wherever there’s been a lack of applied education, progress has stopped and brutality has manifested itself in the form of wars and genocides. That’s why the first half of the 20th century was like any other century.

And if we follow the same path which we have followed then the next century will be even more dangerous. Because of technological advances, nations will acquire more powers and exploitation will become rampant. There will be a far greater number of wars than have ever happened in the history as people in advanced countries will become insensitive to the misery of people from the under-developed world. There is always the danger of some leader emerging in an advanced nation who could advocate large-scale genocides in poor countries.

The excuses for such a genocide may be many — that the poor nations are polluting the planet leading to a global warming; or that they are consuming a far more share of the earth’s resources than they are entitled to. There have been voices like that occasionally in this century and these voices can get strident even as the gap between the rich and poor increases.

Revival of religion

But I hope I am wrong. And the next millennium starts on a more positive note. If there are negative things there are also plenty of pluses. I foresee a strong revival of religion particularly in the rich nations where the strains of a luxurious lifestyle are already driving people back to God and religion.

There are certainly going to be serious efforts to save the planet from degradation. There are also strong reasons to believe that in the next century applied education will open new vistas for mankind, making the rich more tolerant of the poor.

I hope this would happen. I hope things would change for the better. Today the world is being dominated by people who know very little about the possibilities of science, technology, economics, ethics and their future potential. I fervently hope the new century will throw up a leader who can combine professional expertise and usher in the brave new world a leader like Mahatma Gandhi. Only then can a vision for a lasting world emerge." — NF