Dissent and Innovation: Science and Civil Society in India

Innovations and the Khadi Movement

The attitude to innovation in the khadi movement deserves mention for it seemed to pick on some of the research qualities that Haldane mentions above and it was built on the fact that science and the scientist, the experiments on the self and the other need not be separated. Gandhi sought to use these principles while designing the Charkha. Along with the announcement of a Charkha Prize for one lakh rupees in 1929 announced by Gandhi, was a complementary effort by Gandhi and his co-workers to make a charkha. While in prison, Gandhi recreated a workshop like atmosphere inviting co prisoners and even the British supervisors to participate in this collective quest for improving the charkha. Gandhi’s notion of innovation lay not merely in the instrumental aspect of producing the perfect machine but in the larger social process of creating an expertise that would have competence and yet at the same time be sensitive to aspects of craft and village life. Though not articulated in that manner, what Gandhi did envisage was an Indian Arts and Crafts Movement. His hope was that this technical expertise would spearhead technical change in the country. This process of innovation was not bound by tradition to specific caste groups.

There were no winners for the prize eventually but the story of the Charkha prize reveals a different attempt in Indian science and technology of the now popular ‘public private partnership’ concept. The Kirloskar Brothers and their inventor Kale came closest to meeting the criteria of the Charkha Prize. Gandhi did not attach too much importance to the prize per se but saw it as a means to further the direction of experimentation on improved hand tools. Instead of an outright rejection of Kale’s machine, he preferred continuous experimentation and wanted that the Kirloskars participate as ‘comrades in a common humanitarian cause and not as commercial men’. Through their organisation, Gandhi believed, they could suggest or make improvements in village tools in his Village Industries scheme. The Kirloskars however were not keen to part with their drawings against what they perceived as their business interests.
The collaboration between science in civil society and the market ended prematurely. This very failure became the compass for an uncharted territory for later experimentalists to follow. The invention of the Ambar charkha in the early fifties shows how the khadi movement resolved the same predicament successfully. Not only was it able to involve the mill-based inventor Ekambaranathan as part of the social movement but it also got the ATIRA (Ahmedabad Textile Industrial Research Association), established to serve the mill sector, to contribute its technical expertise to the movement. These efforts assumed an institutional form in the khadi movement and the AISA initiated Saranjam Sammelans (implements conferences) for certification and demonstration of improved tools. Several Saranjam Sammelans were held by the AISA (1947-50) for a better charkha and as a result of the public atmosphere of innovation that was created, Ekambaranathan, a mill worker from Pappankulam village in Tirunenveli district of Tamil Nadu independently invented the Ambar Charkha in 1949.
Leading these changes was Krishnadas Gandhi who was instrumental in setting up the KGPS in 1958 to cater to the research needs for ‘all round development of khadi and village industries’ and shifting the base of activities from Wardha to Ahmedabad. The shift to Ahmedabad from Wardha, which till then was the headquarters of the AISA and the centre of research, was undoubtedly of significance. The khadi movement saw this unique and long-standing collaboration between KGPS and ATIRA as a model for all government laboratories in the country. Through its collaboration with ATIRA, it tried showing that it was possible to maintain technical autonomy while collaborating with its ideological adversary provided there were institutional mechanisms to enable it. This internal strengthening of institutions to facilitate research went along with an exercise, to use Gandhi’s phrase, in utilising the ‘talents of the mills’. In fact it is the absence of these institutional mechanisms that have made recent efforts by KVIC to involve IIT Delhi and thereby the larger scientific community extremely top heavy and hierarchical.
One of the significant contributions of the khadi movement was the publishing of a lot of technical literature and the journal Ambar. Ambar published from the KGPS from 1956-72 occupies an important place in the history of Indian science as India’s first technical journal in Hindi. Much of the debates that have highlighted the role of good national journals in the building up of healthy, functional and purposeful institutions of science have been interested only in English language publications (Krishnan C. N. and Viswanathan B. 1989a and b). We feel the debate needs to be extended to the relatively unknown journals in the regional languages.²² People’s participation in technology continued as an essential feature of the developments of the khadi movement till the seventies. The movement was able to channel the energies of lay persons through Saranjam Sammelans and technical conferences held all over the country. Trainees, artisans and enthusiasts from outside the khadi sector, all of who contributed their labour, time and ideas, made some of the key inventions.²³
The writings of the outspoken Gandhian economist, J.C. Kumarappa, provide glimpses of the different way research was conceptualised and executed. At a time when the country was debating food shortages and famine, the eventual reason cited for aid and the later green revolution, Kumarappa linked these contemporary questions to include non-productive and qualitative concerns like the requirement of a balanced diet for everyone as opposed to a mere increase in food supplies. Kumarappa argued that the prime consideration in any programme of food planning would be in ‘getting the maximum of nourishment out of the food consumed’.²⁴
We notice a conception of research that sought to look at integrated systems and not just on the productivity of the parts. Thus there was an emphasis on the whole plant as food for humans and fodder for cattle, in oil processing too the research was conscious of the oil content of the cake as cattle feed and not just the productivity of the seed for oil. The AIVIA collaborated with several scientific institutions especially on the question of nutrition. These partnerships provides a scientific basis for the critique of existing practices. ‘Factories have come up for the manufacture of vanaspati. The mills here prostitute scientific knowledge to deodorise and decolonise the natural oil, substitute nutritionally inferior oils, and solidify it destroying their digestibility. Is this not taking liberties with nature, science and progress’ (Kumarappa quouted in Vinaik 1987:84).
Seshadri’s Creative Modern Scientific Dissent
There have been several innovations from the civil society since the AIVIA. The responses have been diverse based on their respective institutional contexts. We shall however concentrate on one such initiative in the late seventies by the Murugappa Chettiar Research Centre under C V Seshadri, the scientist who has come to be known for his analysis of the notions of efficiency implicit in the ‘universal’ laws of thermodynamics to show that when applied in third world societies that operate at ambient temperatures, such decisions inherently work against tribals, peasants, and other marginalised people who opt for indigenous or traditional agricultural practices (Seshadri 1988, Visvanathan 2002a).
Spirulina algal technology is a rare case of an organisation in India being involved in all stages of the development of a product from – conception, commercialisation and its extension to social sectors. It is case where civil society reworked the stock of knowledge, then existing and abandoned by the Indian Agricultural Research Institute which was looking at the role of blue green algae for fertiliser and not food, brought Spirulina to commercialization and collaborated actively with several scientific and non scientific organisations in extending and diffusing it amongst rural children where it could be used to counter malnutrition. The work by MCRC on spirulina in India had a prominent place in world developments. India was the only country where large-scale nutrition studies (5,000 pre-school children administered spirulina for over a year) were undertaken and work covered all aspects of spirulina, from simple cultivation basins to the large-scale commercial farms and the earliest to have a standard for the alga. The medical reports from the large-scale trials confirmed that it was a useful supplementary Vitamin A diet putting to rest motivated attempts by corporate science that was keen to push synthetic Vitamin A and that raised doubts on the toxicity of spirulina. MCRC interestingly placed the knowledge in public domain and the product and its multifarious uses have spread through several other organizations who have introduced several variations in process and end use.
At a time when the use of agricultural biotechnology has led to considerable debate and acrimony with the introduction of transgenics, Seshadri’s own effort seems to suggest a different path forward. Spirulina was a case where a technology was developed completely indigenously and widely discussed in the public domain. C V Seshadri of MCRC was, in fact, one of the founding members of the Indian Society of Biotechnology in the 1980s. Further unlike the recent field trials that have been shrouded in secrecy here was a case of a high degree of transparency of the large-scale field trials. Here is also a case where the department of biotechnology has played a proactive role in supporting indigenous technology development especially with a social content.
The development of Spirulina is an interesting case of innovation from civil society and a sociological investigation of the process has revealed ways of working that was distinct for the definition of the problem, the breaking of disciplinary barriers in the research centre, the emphasis on experimentation and innovation, valuing of failures, institutional mechanisms that enabled learning across projects and the necessity of placing knowledge in the public domain.²⁵ It is unlikely that such a process could have occurred in formal institutional settings, nor could MCRC have developed spirulina alone. In fact the development of the technology owed a lot to earlier basic research done by IARI and the contribution of several research and non research organizations. The MCRC spirulina story illustrates the need to be open to diverse forms of knowledge and illustrates the possibilities of how civil society organizations can indeed play an important role in science and technology in India. In one of the rare cases of an All India Coordinated Project being coordinated by an organization outside the formal agricultural scientific establishment, the All India Coordinated Programme on Spirulina in 1990, MCRC was able to make a significant contribution to basic and applied knowledge. The sociology of practice of science in alternate institutional settings does reveal several interesting lessons on science and innovation in India.

III
To conclude, this paper has tried to point to the critical role of dissenting scientific imaginations in India’s innovation system. I have provided several examples of an alternate scientific practice meriting serious consideration by the resource rich scientific establishment. This is not to state that all is well with science practiced in civil society organisations but to forcefully argue for their inclusion as sources of creativity and knowledge that Indian science can and should learn from. Despite the extent of several efforts by civil society in diverse fields like textiles, energy, agriculture, biology that we have outlined above, there is still reluctance by both the scientific establishment and the academia of science studies to take science in civil society seriously. Chattopadhyaya’s (2002) rather comprehensive account and dictionary of over 2000 Indian scientists, for instance, has no mention of either Seshadri or Higginbottom, scientists who have contributed in no small way to Indian science and technology. One of the reasons for lack of study and interest on these alternative imaginations in the past has been due to an unfortunate divide amongst the people science movements in India and a dualism of traditional versus modernity.
I also argue that the historiography of science in India need not necessarily be linear. Pluralist India requires non-linear readings of history of science. Such non linear readings are in fact better positioned to give shape to a more rooted science and technology amongst people.²⁶ In fact civil society experience coupled with looking at trajectories of science and technology missed out in the past can indeed provide practical answers to current problems. A classic example of the same is the unique development of a decentralised micro spinning machine to serve the needs of the handloom sector. The sector has been plagued by starvation deaths and the interests of the handloom weavers have often been seen as opposed to those of the cotton producer, who too has been facing suicide deaths. Recently a collaborative effort by Dastkar Andhra and the PPST Foundation (Patriotic and People Oriented Sciecne and Technology) led to the development of a machine after several years of research. The research looked at much of the work on khadi done over the years but also at archival material to trace an alternate trajectory of textile science. A dissenting note by a cotton trader in the mid nineteenth century turned out to be a critical turning point in the process as it reaffirmed field experiences that the textile revolution would have been quite different if it had taken Indian cotton varieties into account (see Shambu Prasad 1999). A complete technological solution was worked out using the experiences of the khadi movement on the one hand but upgrading it with experience of the weavers and new knowledge and possibilities from engineers working with robotics.²⁷
Yet another interesting example in recent times is the work on System of Rice Intensification or SRI. The system originally conceived in Madagascar has spread to 30 countries since and the story of its spread in India indicates the way civil society has shaped SRI even as the rice research community has been treating it with disbelief. SRI is a counter intuitive way of growing rice and involves transplanting young seedlings, single seedling transplantation, less use of fertlisers and chemicals and non-flooding of rice fields. Rice yields have however been higher than normal cultivation. SRI has been strongly contested by the International Rice Research Institute and its denial is a classic example of the politics of knowledge with farmers and civil society and a few agricultural scientists working out theory from practice.²⁸ SRI challenges many of the principles of rice science, just like Indian textile science challenged the British several years back. There is a need to work out a different science based on the new knowledge that emerges from farmers fields or spinners and weavers experiences, however that would require formal science to be more innovative and also confident to dialogue with alternative knowledge claims. Doing so has been productive and can and has often led to new knowledge – the SRI story is leading to greater research across the world on soil biology as a new way of looking at the universe. However the standard response has often been to research in proving that the results from other sources of knowledge are incorrect and the proponents as anti-science or mystics.²⁹ The scientific enterprise is clearly in need of greater imagination and as I argue the sociology of practice of alternate dissenting imaginations have shown that the binary opposites of tradition and modern have been counter productive. SRI recongnises farmers innvoation but does not necessarily see them as having all the answers. Gandhi was critical of traditional practitioners and textile engineering for rural India needs the best of engineering science. Ignoring dissent in pluralist India can lead to several opportunities lost and it is time for more serious investigation into several studies on the rich source of creativity and innovation that occurs in civil society. The subject of science studies would be poorer if it were to remain an academic discipline and not engage creatively with the resources that civil society in India offers.

References
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1 www.nifindia.org/secondaward/speech_kalam.htm accessed October 15, 2005

2 http://www.tifac.org.in/news/policy.htm Accessed December 26, 2005.

3 The relation between science and citizens in the context of globalisation has assumed a lot of interest amongst recent scholars. See Leach et al 2005.

4 Khadi refers to hand-spun, hand-woven cloth. Its revival became an important symbol of protest during colonial rule and was used by Gandhi to promote self rule.

5 The 100 volume Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi have been used extensively in this paper and is referred to as CW in short with the volume number and page numbers as reference.

6 CW 5: 46.

7 ‘I was told by your professor that the properties of some of the chemicals will take years of experiments to explore. But who will try to explore these villages? Just as some of the experiments in your laboratories go on for all the twenty four hours, let the big corner in your heart remain perpetually warm for the benefit of the poor millions. …. I tell you, you can devise a far greater wireless instrument, which does not require external research, but internal— and all research will be useless if it is not allied to internal research— which can link your hearts with those of the millions.’ Young India, 21-7-1927.

8 CW 24: 390.

9 Amongst the largely Indian readers of Indian Opinion (begun in 1903), Gandhi sought to inculcate the courage and spirit of inquiry of the scientist. The journal carried examples of scientists that Gandhi felt were worthy of emulation. In one such article, Gandhi praised Professor Metussi’s courage amidst danger in collecting data from the volcano Vesuvius while it was still active. He believed that, ‘when many Indians too of this calibre are born in India or South Africa, we shall cease to suffer as at present’ (CW 5: 286).

10 Samuel Compton, the inventor of the spinning mule in 1779 and James Hargreaves, the inventor of the spinning jenny in 1764.

11 Anderson (1977) work on contrasting models of building scientific institutions by looking at Bhabha and Saha does look restrictive in the context. I argue that the work of the khadi and village movements takes this debate much further by looking at alternate conceptions of science rather than variations between degree and not content of scientific practice in India.

12 Satyagraha Ashram, Young India. June 14, 1928.

13 Maganlal Gandhi. ‘Our Weaving School’. Young India. July 21, August 11 & 18, 1921.

14 It was to consist of: (i) A Board of Management, (ii) Members, (iii) Agents, (iv) Honorary workers, (v) Paid, wholetime workers and (vi) Associates, and was also have a board of advisers to advise especially on scientific matters.

15 See for instance the Mashelkar committee report on improving research output ‘Accelerating ICAR’s Journey Towards Excellence Report Of The ICAR Reorganization Committee’. Government of India, July 2005. and the National Commission on Farmers constituted in 2004.

16 Over a four-year period, the EARTH program includes work experience, community experience, entrepreneurial projects, and an internship. Work experience, taking place on EARTH’s teaching farms, gives students the opportunity to understand what happens day to day on a farm. Students work with members of the community to plan, organize, and execute projects for the benefit of the community and local rural farmers. This program is designed to promote an understanding of everyday rural family life. UN Millennium Project 2005. Innovation: Applying Knowledge in Development. P97

Task Force on Science, Technology, and Innovation. See Box 6.5 of Chapter 6 ‘Investing in Education in Science and Technology’ p 97.

17 Gandhi to Higginbottom, March 21, 1934. also see http://www.mkgandhi.org/letters/chrchmisn/higginbottom.htm

18 One finds elements of such constructive dissent in Albert Howard’s Agricultural Testament (1940) as well. The pioneer of the organic agriculture movement in India had sought to see agriculture as an art. He argued for a new type of research investigator who needed to be both a farmer and a scientist. Howard was sensitive to the over specialisation in agriculture and predicted the increasing distance between the laboratory and the farmers’ field that has become one of the serious problems with agricultural research.

19 Haldane caustically remarked, ‘At Bombay the Science Congress appeared to be an organized conspiracy against originality in Indian science… the whole set up of the Congress is an example of the repression of young workers by their seniors’ (Haldane 1965: 20-25). See also Clark 1884: 238.

20 There have been several quotations of Haldane in the journal Current Science (the journal of the Indian National Science Academy (INSA)) since 2000 with many of his statements figuring in editorials. Also see Majumder 1998.

21 As chronicled by Dronamraju, one of his closest students, Haldane remarked that, ‘I try not to use apparatus at all, and to get my junior colleagues to work with as little as possible. One reason for this is a moral one. The use of complicated appratus separates scientists who use it from ordinary men who use such simple machines as ploughs and potters wheel.’ (Dronamraju 1985: 57- 75).

22 It is a sad commentary on the degeneration of this legacy that no set of copies of this unique journal is traceable either at the KVIC or KGPS even today. We are grateful to Naginbhai Salaria due to whose efforts a set could be traced.

23 Ekambaranathan, a mill worker from Erode, who was interested in the movement, invented the Ambar charkha. The Samyukt charkha was made possible due to the efforts of a Gujarat spinner who provided the idea that later developed at the KGPS. The madhyam dhunki, a carding instrument, had the involvement of a Jubilee mill engineer.

24 Kumarappa showed that the ordinarily assumption that an acre of land would provide more calories through the production of grains than through any other food was not necessarily true. For, ‘apart from the question of calories, grains are very poor suppliers of other protective food factors …A balanced diet can reduce the per capita requirement of land’ (Kumarappa 1971: 299, 423).

25 See Shambu Prasad 2005 for more details.

26 Raina and Habib’s recent work on science in colonial India (Raina 2003 and Raina and Habib 2004) is a good example of the possibilities of reinterpreting science in India though set within the confines of modern science. Such an approach needs to be extended to science in civil society.

27 For details on the machine see http://www.vortexengg.com/microoverview.htm

The company grew out of the experiences of the founder, L Kannan, who was with the PPST Foundation and has since innovated to produce a rural ATM called gramateller.

28 See Shambu Prasad and Prajit Basu 2005. also see http://ciifad.cornell.edu/sri/index.html

For details on SRI and its spread across the world.

29 Shiv Visvanathan (2002b) has argued elsewhere that science studies in India needs to be seen as a creative mediation of knowledge and power.