“Where do correct ideas come from?…they come from three kinds of social practice, the struggle for production, the class struggle and scientific experiment.” – Mao Tse-tung
The central government has recently introduced ‘The Anusandhan National Research Foundation’ a.k.a. NRF Bill, 2023, in the Lok Sabha. The bill has sparked intense debates and scepticism within the scientific community and beyond. This bill is posed as a milestone of progress and transformation, but one needs to look at the bill’s agenda of centralizing research topics and funding under the guise of innovation and collaboration.
The Bill aims to substitute the existing government-funded approach of providing research assistance to the scientific community, which operates under the Science and Engineering Board (SERB) Act of 2008, with a system that will primarily rely on financial contributions from corporate entities and philanthropic organizations. The push for 70% of the NRF’s budget to be drawn from private sources calls for a cautious analysis of the implications of corporate influence on scientific inquiry. India contributes 0.6 to 0.8% of its GDP in research and this bill is portrayed to overcome the lack of funding to the research area. Rather than increasing the funding or at least sticking with the existing share, the government is prioritizing corporate funding which is a red flag for the research field because then research topics would be decided by industry needs. Other disciplines, particularly basic sciences that are not immediately profitable, will be eventually sidelined. The National Research Foundation (NRF) Bill, 2023, has raised eyebrows due to its close association with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. The NRF is being introduced as a part of the NEP to reshape the education landscape in India. It is a step forward to privatize and saffronize education.
We have seen how the government is using NEP for its goal to take off its hands completely from education and gift it to the corporates on a silver platter who then use it to extort as much profit as they can. This makes the education system a profit making tool making it a commodity accessible only to the privileged class. If Corporates will fund research, they will expect some ‘return on investment’. It will only serve their own purposes rather than the larger motive behind doing any research i.e. a research that contributes to the welfare of the society as a whole. The NRF also closely emulates the model of the National Science Foundation of the United States exposing the kind of imperialist influence present in devising the NEP.
We have seen how CSRs work. They first donate (read invest) some amount of money to the organizations or projects and then impose their own policies on them to reap profit. They already buy public data to plan their investments in certain areas. For example, if there was a survey in a particular area about how many people are suffering from diabetes, these giants buy that data to understand if they should build a diabetes hospital in that area. And through NRF, they will have their own team and projects working to help get these data and increase their profit. It will also lead to rejection of the proposals of research which exposes the systemic issues.
The other very big threat of it is the saffronization aspect. The current regime is using all its power to take full control of academic institutions and intellectuals. We have seen how the BJP government asked the Indian Institute of Astrophysics to make a system of mirrors and lenses to ensure sunlight falls on the Ram statue in Ayodhya temple. Already, pseudoscience like Siddha, Naturopathy, Vastu etc. have gained entry into mainstream curricula. NRF will ensure that these events become an everyday phenomenon. In a deeply superstitious society like ours, such saffronising attempts will further dilute efforts to build scientific temper among the masses.
The combination of prioritizing corporate interests over genuine scientific advancement and the potential for Bhagwa influence creates a worrying scenario. These factors together have the potential to erode the very essence of scientific temper, leading to a compromised research environment that prioritizes short term gains over the pursuit of scientific truth and social progress. If we don’t want to see future scientists doing research on the ability of cow dung to arrest radiation, we have to very aggressively reject this Bill. The NRF Bill, 2023, puts public funding for science and basic research in danger. It relies heavily on private entities and streamlines saffron research, which can harm the people as a whole.
As Mao stated, scientific experiments are one of the pillars of our social knowledge, we cannot let this mix of neoliberalism and Hindutva ideology disrupt our pursuit for correct ideas.
