Nehru’s Scientific Vision: 1958 Scientific Policy Resolution and India’s Research Institutions

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Jawaharlal Nehru's faith in science shaped India's scientific institutions and policies after Independence. The first Prime Minister's birth anniversary is observed on November 14. Nehru's engagement with science began at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he completed the Natural Science Tripos with a second-class honours degree in geology, chemistry and botany. Although politics came to dominate his life, he later wrote that politics led him to economics, and economics led him inevitably to science and the scientific approach to all problems.

Nehru's consistent support for science as Prime Minister enabled institutions to thrive, according to author Indira Chowdhury. Homi J. Bhabha, who had established the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in 1945 with support from the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, became a central figure in shaping India's nuclear programme. The Atomic Energy Commission was established on August 10, 1948, and in 1954 a separate Department of Atomic Energy was created under the direct charge of the Prime Minister, with Bhabha as its secretary. The Indian Institutes of Technology were established over the 1950s and early 1960s, beginning with IIT Kharagpur in 1951. On March 4, 1958, Parliament adopted the Scientific Policy Resolution, which articulated the government's commitment to using science and technology for national development and public welfare. Government research spending rose from ₹24 million in 1947 to ₹550 million in 1964, the year of Nehru's death, according to G H Keswani in Science and Technology in India.

What was the state of science in India before 1947?

Scientific research in India was already quite robust before Independence, according to Keswani. Scientists such as Jagadish Chandra Bose, C V Raman, Meghnad Saha, P C Mahalanobis, D S Kothari, Birbal Sahni and Homi J Bhabha belonged to this pre-Independence generation. The idea of placing science at the centre of India's development had also begun to take shape before Independence. In 1938, the Congress established the National Planning Committee under Jawaharlal Nehru, during the presidency of Subhas Chandra Bose, to envision India's economic and industrial future. The outbreak of World War II in 1939 and the Quit India Movement in 1942 disrupted the committee's work.

What did Nehru mean by 'scientific temper'?

For Nehru, science was not merely a body of knowledge or a means of technological advancement, but a way of approaching life's problems. In Volume 9 of Selected works of Jawaharlal Nehru, he explained that science is a certain way of approaching problems, a certain way of seeking the truth, an empirical way whereby we get prepared to reject anything if we cannot establish or prove it. He said science means an approach to all of life's problems, to be applied to problems relating to family, religion and everything else. Nehru also saw socialism through this lens, explaining that he was a socialist because he felt socialism is a scientific approach to the world's problems.

How did Nehru view science and religion?

Nehru believed that religious thought had to be compatible with reason and scientific inquiry. In his words, 'Dharma is good so long as it does not get into conflict with the rational or scientific attitude.' Nehru's appreciation of Buddhism, according to Keswani, was partly rooted in his understanding of it as a rational tradition. He averred that Buddha's method was one of psychological analysis and that Buddha had insight in the latest methods of science. In a speech cited in Volume 14 (1) of Selected works of Jawaharlal Nehru, he cautioned against reducing both religion and science to outward forms and practices, saying that religion became a set of ceremonials and forms and some kind of ritual worship while the inner spirit left the people.