75 Years of India’s Independence: India’s Achievement in Science and Technology
February 20, 2022
National Council of Science Museums (NCSM), an autonomous body under the Ministry of culture in collaboration with Vigyan Prasar, Dept. of Science & Technology, Govt. of India, is organizing a nation-wide commemorative exhibition ‘75 Years of Independence: India’s Achievements in Science & Technology’ to celebrate the 75th anniversary of our independence.
The Exhibition will be simultaneously inaugurated in 75 locations in the country, that include the main exhibition at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, New Delhi, and seven Science Centres under NCSM; in addition, it will be displaced in other Science Centres under NCSM.
India has a long and glorious history of Science and Technology dating back to Mehrgarh Culture (c 7000 BCE) in Baluchistan. The excavated sites of Mehrgarh and Indus –Saraswati Civilizations and the Vedic and post-Vedic literature and artifacts provide ample evidence that side by side with art and literature, there grew on Indian soil a very rich scientific and technological culture. Extant manuscripts prove that in the field of ematics, ancient Indians were a force to reckon with. When the western civilization was still in its cradle, Indian astronomers had made giant leaps in astronomy.
Indian men of medicine utilized the wealth of indigenous herbs to make potent antidotes for several incurable diseases and performed the first-ever plastic surgery in the world. Town planning, architecture, and metallurgy flourished in ancient India. In metallurgy, India's primacy in zinc and brass metallurgy is too well known. Agriculture and horticulture, shipbuilding and navigation, weights and measures, coin minting, water power technology, environmental conservation practices, gems and jewelry, acoustics and development of musical instruments, etc. are some of the other areas where ancient India achieved substantial progress.
In 1947, the newly born independent India inherited a shattered economy from the British. The partition of the country and subsequent political disturbances and mass exodus across the border stalled the economic development completely. The reconstruction of the country became a major challenge to the Government. The role of science and technology was crucial for this endeavour and this was clearly expressed in the "Scientific Policy Resolution" adopted by the Parliament in 1958. This resolution was drafted and piloted through the Parliament by the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru. In the words of this Resolution:
"The key to national prosperity, apart from the spirit of the people, lies, in the modern age, in the effective combination of three factors, technology, raw materials and capital, of which the first is, perhaps, the most important, since the creation and adoption of new scientific techniques can, in fact, make up for a deficiency in natural resources, and reduce the demands on capital. But technology can only grow out of the study of science and its applications."
Successive five-year plans envisaged an overall development in agriculture and industry that put a check on ‘Ship to mouth’ economy and with the aim of self-reliance, and placed India strongly among the scientifically and technologically developing nations. Investment in scientific research was 0.1 percent of GNP in 1947. It went up to 0.5 percent in less than a decade. Scientists like SS Bhatnagar, HJ Bhabha and PC Mahalanobis not only built scientific institutions but also helped shape policies.
In the last seven-and-a-half decades, India achieved remarkable development in agriculture, heavy industry, irrigation, energy production, nuclear power capability, space technology, biotechnology, telecommunication, oceanography and science education and research. Today India is an IT superpower, has the largest scientific manpower and largest railway network in the world. The new look India is all poised for a giant leap forward in science and technology.
From its early inventions, including the zero, decimal place value, the Pythagorean Theorem, the value of Pi, the development of natural medicine and perfumes through distillation process, hand guns, non-rusting iron, and much more, India has provided a solid and effective base to further its program of self-sufficiency (Ᾱtmanirbhar Bhārat).
India initiated a landmark policy called “Science, Technology and Innovation Policy 2020” with core vision of being decentralized, evidence informed, bottom-up, experts-driven, and inclusive. The policy aims to be bring-in the concept of ‘dynamic policy’ with a robust policy governance mechanism incorporating features such as periodic review, policy uation, feedback, and adaptation, and a timely exit strategy for various policy instruments.
The exhibition will take a visitor through an absorbing journey of seven & a half decades of Science and Technology in free India, with special emphases on indigenous development and a march towards self-reliance, in a story telling mode with the help of informative visual and graphic panels. It highlights landmarks of India’s development and exploration in S&T, furthering public understanding of science and technology and thus will create a scientific awareness in the society and a sense of national pride. The story is not exhaustive, but indicative only.
The Exhibition has the following sections:
- India’s Scientific Heritage
- India Wins Freedom
- Agriculture
- Irrigation
- Heavy Industry
- Chemical Industry
- Medium & Small Scale Industry
- Energy Production
- Nuclear Power Capability
- Rural Development & Appropriate Technology
- Astronomy & Astrophysics
- Space Technology
- Defence Research
- Telecom & Electronics Revolution
- Information Technology
- Medical Sciences & Healthcare
- Covid Vaccination: The Success Story
- Biotechnology
- Oceanography
- Transport
- Climate Change & Environment
- Human Resource in S &T
- Milestones
The weeklong exhibition will be opened on February 22, 2022, and will culminate on February 28, 2022, the National Science Day. The exhibition will be supplemented with several outreach programmes; film shows (documentaries on S&T) etc. At New Delhi, the National Science Centre, Delhi, a constituent unit of NCSM, will participate in ‘Vigyan Sarvatra Pujyate’ program to be held at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium during February 22-28, 2022.