Jingoism and Pseudoscience

Jingoism and Pseudoscience

Suresh Kodoor

            Indian Science Congress Association (ISCA) is a professional scientific body under the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India that was established in 1914 to advance and promote the cause of science in our country.  Ironically, the recently held 102^nd conference of the same body brought one of the biggest embarrassments to the Indian scientific community.  The fact that a scientific body was hijacked by a political establishment and used as a propaganda forum to spread their retrogressive and fascist ideology and divisive religious politics made this embarrassment all the more shameful.

  

The saffron brigade, who has been instigating jingoistic nationalism and religious fundamentalism to expand their political base,  has been making use of various cultural, social and political institutions and forums since long to spread their medieval ideology that has no place in a modern democratic civil society. The latest misplaced adventure at the Science Congress shows that the science forums have become the new target of their propaganda machine and part of a new design to invent ‘scientific justifications’ for their absurdities. This new development, which may cause serious damage to the whole scientific fabric of our nation and society if allowed to go unhindered, must be of serious concern to all those who strive to promote scientific temper and who consider science as the lone progressive force for fast forwarding us to an egalitarian and refined society. The scientific community of our country thus has a special responsibility in ensuring that any such moves to project pseudo sciences as the true science, with an ulterior motive of generating wider ‘scientific’ acceptability for a divisive ideology, is strongly resisted and thoroughly exposed.    

       The farce staged in the Science Congress at Mumbai at the behest and with the blessings of the rightist ruling forces is only the latest example in a series of efforts to propagate myths and imaginations as true historical facts.  Portrayal of an imaginative ‘golden era’ and false claims of the existence of a society in the past that could claim cultural supremacy and ultimate mastery on all forms of knowledge is not merely incidental.  Such jingoistic ‘boastings’ are to incite false nationalistic vigor among specific religious segments in an effort to consolidate these groups into a powerful political power-base and to pit them against other communities, ultimately resulting in unrest and hatred among the people. 

   

The path of science does not have place for lies, myths and imaginary tales. The farce enacted at the Science Congress is a path towards stagnation and backwardness, not the one towards progress.   The fact that the conference in which many respected scientists, including Nobel laureates, participated was misused as a propaganda forum did not help to show our scientific community in good light in front of the world.  A conference where serious debates and discussions around science and technology should have been conducted was made into a joke by including sessions like ‘ancient Indian aviation technology’, ‘neuroscience of yoga’, ‘engineering applications of ancient Indian botany’ etc. Central Ministers like Mr. Prakash Javedkar and Dr. Harshvardhan, through their presence and active participation, offered their full blessings on behalf of the government to this national shame. 

None of the presentations under these sessions were even remotely deserved to be presented in a science conference like the one held at Mumbai University.  A former pilot training school principal Anath Bodhas and a Mumbai school teacher Ameya  Jadev were the so called ‘scientists’ who made the claim that the ancient Indians used to fly in every nooks and corners of the sky since almost 7000 years ago. They even claimed that those planes could fly not only forward (like the modern-day planes), but left, right and even reverse!  They went ahead and discussed about the metals and alloys that were used to build those planes. They also provided details about the special clothing the pilots used to wear then (made from vegetations grown under water deep inside the ocean), the helmet pilots wore and even the special diets prescribed for the pilots. The ‘scientists’ claimed that they got all these information from an ancient book called ‘vimana samhita’ authored by Saint Bharadwaj, a book none has seen so far. They went as far as saying that our ancestors flew not only international flights but even inter-planetary voyages. These ‘scientists’ didn’t bother to ask or seek answers to the questions like why none could discover any remains of any such planes on earth till date (I am sure we in all probability may even get to hear about new ‘excavations’ and ‘discoveries’ in the near future!).

The irony is that the very story the saffron ‘scientists’ had brought up in the congress as a new ‘research finding’ was something that was exposed and discredited by the scientists from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (IISc) way back in 1974. Dr.Deshpande, HS Mukunda and their colleagues at IISc in their study ‘A critical study of the work Vymanika Shastra’ had brought to the fore the real story behind the book supposed to have authored by Saint Bharadwaj thousands of years ago. Their journey to find out the truth ended up in unearthing the fact behind this well crafted fiction. 

As per the study by Dr. Deshpande et al, a book named ‘Brihad Vimana Sastra’ was published by an author named Brahmamuni Parivraja in the year 1959. This book has Sanskrit slokas along with Hindi translations. Later, Mysore International Sanskrit Research Center had also published another book by G.R Joyson that included Sanskrit slokas along with English translations. Parivraja had claimed in the preface that his book was based on an original script called ‘yantra sarvaswa’ authored by Maharshi Bharadwaj. However, in subsequent investigation, it became clear that both Parivraja’s and Joyson’s books were based on a common manuscript which was available in the Sanskrit library in Baroda. The author of this original manuscript is someone named Subbaraya Sasthri, who was born in Hosur taluka and later lived in Anekal in the state of Karnataka. He died in the year 1941. The language and narrative style proved that the book must have been written not more than 100 years ago. The research studies concluded that most likely this book was written sometime during 1900-1922. It may be noted that none of the so called ‘airplane designs’ described in Sasthri’s manuscript are tenable as far as its validity to build a working model of a flying machine is concerned (which is absolutely understandable as our knowledge and technology were at a very infant stage in those times). Thus, a tale that was proven baseless four decades ago by the IISc scientists is what is being used by the saffron brigade to propagate falsehood in the name of scientific ‘research’.

With a Prime Minister who claims Lord Ganapathy’s face and the ‘Kavacha Kundala’ of Legendary Hero Karna  are evidences for plastic surgery and genetic sciences being practiced in ancient India leading the pack, such absurdities from his right-wing folks are not surprising at all.  His Ministers are competing to even surpass him in making such nonsensical claims. Minister Dr.  Harshavardhan claimed that it was the Indians who invented Pythagorus theorem and were gracious enough to give away the credit to the Greeks!  He even said that our great grandfathers knew about ‘Bija Ganitha’ (Algebra) but ‘donated’ the knowledge to Arabs to be called ‘Algebra’.  Efforts to place pseudo sciences among the main-stream science, to give science flavors to age-old myths, tales and rituals, to promote Sanskrit as a means of revivalism etc are all part of a well-thought-out strategy of the fascist forces.  Silence of the scientific community against such blatant misuse of nation’s science forums and massive propaganda of falsehood in the name of science will only encourage such forces to continue their efforts to corrupt our intellectual space and to drive away our future generations from being a progressively thinking population.  

Studies and explorations about our past generations and their civilizations should certainly be encouraged and it is to our advantage and common good that we gather knowledge about our past. However, such efforts should be guided within the framework of science and with an objective of adding to the wealth of our common knowledge pool. The contributions of ancient India to the fields of philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, arts, health sciences etc are well recognized by the world and these achievements do not belong to any one group or community. These are all part of our common heritage and every Indian has the right to be proud of being a descendant of such a great civilization.  However, we should be honest and realistic enough to admit that we are way behind the developed societies in this modern era. Our efforts should be to closely watch and understand the trends in science and technology world over and to make full use of those advances to better the lives of our brethren. Living in the imaginary self-created cocoon of the fabricated past glory will only leave us behind in the race towards advancement and progress. Any retrogressive ideology that would lead us and our future generations backwards need to be strongly opposed and defeated. 

(Author is a former Nuclear Scientist at Bhabha Atomic Research Center) 

Suresh Kodoor

sureshkodoor@gmail.com

Scrap the National Skills Registry (NSR)

Scrap the National Skills Registry

Historically, data security and right to privacy had always been one of the least discussed and cared about topics in our country. However, the AADHAR card project changed this landscape significantly. It was the AADHAR that triggered one of the biggest discussions in the recent times in our country on data security and constitutional rights to citizen’s privacy. The widely publicized data collection project prompted extensive scrutiny of the legal rights of the government to intrude the privacy of its citizens. Highest court of the land even directed the centre government to immediately withdraw instructions that made the cards mandatory for availing government schemes and subsidies. The court also directed the UIDAI not to share biometric or other personal information with anyone without the permission of the cardholder. Thus, it should be surprising to know that a similar initiative is being allowed to continue since last a decade unabated and unquestioned. The initiative in question here is nothing but the National Skill Registry (NSR), a centralized database of all the employees in the IT services and BPO companies in India, built and maintained by NASSCOM.  It is high time that the NSR initiative is subjected to the public scrutiny and its legal backing, rather lack of it, be examined. NSR should stop its operation till its legal validity is verified. 

One of the petitions moved in the court against the AADHAR argued that building a system that can search fingerprints is not within the constitutional and legal mandate and scope of UIDAI and fundamentally is against the core reason residents have provided their data voluntarily to UIDAI. However, NSR does the same thing by collecting the finger prints and biometric data of the registrants apart from storing their other identity records. NSR has completed more than 1 million biometric registrations till date. The site has 1.6 million registrations and 148 companies are subscribers to the NSR data today. The prospective employers who are part of the system can view the profiles of the registered professionals along with verification results. As per the NSR’s own admission, ‘companies can always demand access to the employee data in the NSR for processing the CV like how it is asking for references currently’. NSR not only stores the biometric records of the individual but also stores all the details about his/her qualifications and career history, including remarks and reviews from the past employers, which makes it quite vulnerable to misuse and a potential threat to the IT employees. 

The National Skills Registry (NSR) is conceived as a centralized database of all employees of the IT services and BPO companies in India. The NSR database that contains third-party verified personal, biometric, qualification and career information of IT professionals was launched in 2006 and is setup and managed on behalf of NASSCOM, the National Association of Software and Services Companies. As per NASSCOM web site, NSR is an initiative to have a robust and credible information repository about all persons working in the Information industry. The NSR site describes the National Skills Registry as a web based system hosting a fact sheet of information about existing and prospective employees of Indian IT and ITeS / BPO industry which can be used by the IT & ITeS / BPO industry and its clients as a credible source of information about registered professionals who are being employed or put on client assignments. NSR site claims that it develops trusted and permanent fact sheet of information about each professional along with background check reports and it is a security best practice for the industry and assures identity security and industry acceptance to honest professionals. 

An important question was recently posted in one of the leading HR forums by an IT employee that should open everyone’s eyes to the potential misuse of NSR. The question was this; “I am an IT employee with 10 years of service in the industry. Recently I got an offer from a multinational Indian IT Company in Bangalore. However, I had to decline the offer as I got a better offer from another company in the meanwhile. Couple of days back the HR head of the first company called me and threatened me saying if I don’t join them they would report me to the NSR and put a ‘black-mark’ against my profile and I would not be able to get a job in the future in any of the IT Companies. Is this legal and can a company do this?”. It is possible that the HR Manager might have been misusing the name of NSR in this case. However, the possibility of an IT professional facing such a threat is very real.  An initiative likes NSR which lacks transparency and privacy and is heavily in favor of the powerful corporate certainly invokes insecurity and scare among the IT employees.  The IT workforce is skeptical about the data security and access management of the data collected by NSR. They are skeptical on how secure their profile data is with NSR and who all get to see their personal and professional information. An industry that shows scant regard to the labor laws of the land will hardly think of employee’s right and privileges and the employees can’t be blamed for being afraid of the misuse of the information at NSR. Most importantly, an initiative that was started as ‘purely voluntary’ has now become ‘mandatory’, obviously because of the huge imbalance in the power and influence enjoyed by the two parties involved, namely the corporate and the IT professionals. 

 

Most of the companies now-a-days insist that their employees be registered in NSR. They also insist on vendors that their employees should also be registered with NSR if they are to be empanelled or awarded with projects. Though the NSR website says the information is ‘voluntary’, the employees are left with no option but to register with the site as the companies insist the employees should register themselves with NSR. The smaller service providers who rely on their bigger counter parts to get projects are even arm twisted by the biggies through the mandatory NSR registration clause in the contracts. NSR thus becomes one of the most potent tools in the hands of the employers for blackmail and other misuses against the helpless professionals in the IT industry. It also amounts to practicing unconstitutional surveillance on the individual employees and intrusion of their privacies. 

In the case of AADHAR, many quarters, including citizen forums, NGOs and the courts raised concerns that the data cannot be secure at the authority’s hands. The possibility of data collected by the UIDAI being used for commercial purposes without the knowledge or permission of the individual concerned, the inherent vulnerability of a huge national database built up through external contractors and the overall lack of transparency in financing and running the project were all questioned. All those questions are very much relevant to the NSR initiative as well. The NSR should be scrapped immediately as it is fast becoming another tool for the unfair exploitation of the IT professionals and further makes the employees’ position in the industry weaker. 

Suresh Kodoor

sureshkodoor@gmail.com

Gender imbalance makes the corporate climb steeper for women

       None would be surprised to hear that the world we live in is stacked against its lesser privileged sex. Corridors of the corporate, supposed to be adorned by learned men and women, too is not free from this age-old gender imbalance. The recent ‘Gender Diversity Benchmark for Asia-2011’ survey only confirms this with some concrete statistics. In spite of having made great strides over time in reducing the gender gap in many areas, the odds still continue to be heavily against women in the scheme of things of our corporate world.  

       As per the data compiled by the GDBA survey, India ranks as the worst performer among the Asian countries in terms of the participation of women in the labor force as well as in terms of their career advancement. The GDBA report examines the representation of women in junior, middle and senior levels at the selected Multinational companies in six countries across Asia. 
 

Country	Junior	Middle	Senior	The Leaking Pipeline
				Percentage change from Junior to Middle	Percentage change  from Junior to Middle
China	55.41	43.97	20.72	-20.65	-52.88
Hong Kong	51.62	44.5	22.77	-13.79	-48.83
India	28.71	14.91	9.32	-48.07	-37.49
Japan	45.37	26.11	7.77	-42.45	-70.24
Malaysia	53.17	41.08	27.57	-22.74	-32.89
Singapore	54.19	39.74	21.5	-26.67	-45.90
Average	48.08	35.05	18.28	29.06	-48.04

  

                     Table: Women in workforce and leakage pipeline 
                      (Source: Gender Diversity Benchmark for Asia – 2011)

 

            In India, as per the survey, the women strength in the labor force stands at 28.7% at the junior level, 14.91% at the middle level and 9.32% at the senior level in the corporate.  Apart from being the lowest in the list for overall women participation in the workforce, India ranks at the top in the drop-out rate as well.  A significant ‘Leaking Pipeline’ shows that the Indian women drop out of the workforce much early in their career compared to their counterparts in the other Asian countries. India is once again the worst performer in this regard with 48% of women dropping out between the junior level and middle level.  i.e. almost half the women entering the workforce end their career even before they get to the middle tier of the corporate ladder. With an already diminished flow to the middle level, the situation worsens with 37.49% dropping out at the middle level before they go to the senior level in the hierarchy. Such a high drop-out rate explains why very few women are represented at the top of the corporate hierarchy. A recent survey on women presence in the top echelons of the corporate world indicates that out of 6560 individuals occupying the directorship positions in 1069 listed companies, only 311 are women. Globally, women account for only around 10% senior managers in the fortune 500 companies and their presence in executive management role being very minimal.

                The primary reasons often mentioned for the high drop-out rate has been the child care and the family responsibilities, including the elder care. With the society still being organized largely along the male-dominated, patriarchal model and associated values, the role of the women is still perceived to be primarily looking after the husband, children and the elders and taking care of the well-being of the family. Women often succumb to the ‘daughterly guilt’ where they take upon themselves the responsibility for the eldercare in the family and thus forced to push their career behind as ‘secondary’. The pressure of dual role on working women is considerable. Many women in the IT industry often point out to the contradiction, where the husbands expecting their wives back home early in the evening to take care of her ‘homely’ responsibilities are most often the same men, who as  managers ask their women staff to stay back late at work. The latest report released by the global research firm Nielsen on ‘Women of Tomorrow’, reveals a worrisome picture on the stress level of women employees in India. The survey that examined working women from twenty one developed and developing countries, India tops the list with 87% of the Indian women responding that they many times feel stressed and overworked. 

                The personal sacrifice and the cost for even the limited success have been significant for women. It was quite revealing that none of the twenty four women at the top positions who were interviewed for GDBS survey had children. Women, even to achieve much lesser success in terms of advancement in the corporate ladder, often have to incur higher personal cost like forgoing motherhood or even marriage. 

                The three key factors that play important role in enabling women are Property, Education and Employment. Change of role from being a ‘receiver’ to that of a ‘provider’ enhances the decision making role of the women in the family. Thus the Industry obviously has a critical role in reducing the gender gap in our society. It has helped the cause by creating opportunities for women to join the workforce, though driven by the need of the market forces to ‘empower’ the ‘other’ half of the population as well, with higher purchasing power. However, there is still a long way to go for the corporate before it can claim of better gender-mix in the workforce and a work environment that is free of gender discrimination.

                Currently the women participation in waged employment is very low. Total percentage of women engaged in non-agriculture waged employment nationwide is a mere 17%. Total women participation stands at 13.9% in urban and 29.9% in the rural areas, indicating a smaller rate of migration of women to urban areas seeking work. However, the IT industry and other service sectors like banking etc have played a key role in encouraging the migration of women to the urban areas.  The Indian IT industry, as a sector that employs over 30% of women, continues to play a big role in enabling the new generation of the traditionally lesser privileged gender. However, the prevailing question is, whether the Indian IT industry is doing enough to create conducive work environment where women can aspire to advance their career in the same way as their male peers.  The regressive mindset at the workplace, which is of course a reflection of the attitude and values prevalent in the larger society outside, make the contributions from women employees viewed as below par compared to that from their male colleagues. The corporate policies, where number of hours spent is considered as the measure of performance than the result, add to women’s work stress and negatively influences their performance ratings. These policies do not factor in the needs to spend extra time at home during the special phases like childbirth, eldercare or for discharging ‘duties’ that the society has imposed on women as their ‘natural’ role. 

                Though the employment has helped women to achieve financial independence to certain level, this new found independence has not gone well with the men. The conflict between men’s desire to have educated and earning wives versus their inability to still accept the ‘independent’ woman create ripples in the families. Though men prefer working, earning wives, they still want to reserve the rights to set boundaries for their wives. The freedom and independence women come to enjoy by virtue of the job are either not acceptable to the men or they are forced to accept with a grudge. This ‘tension’ in the families more often than not forces women to give up their careers at a very early stage.

                The Indian business organizations are still male fiefdoms and the women continue to struggle to break the glass ceilings that keep them away from the boardrooms and the top management tiers. It is in the interest of everyone who strives for a healthy corporate culture that those glass ceilings are broken. However, such a change in the status quo demands conscious and comprehensive actions from the industry.