On Tuesday, 24th October, hundreds of thousands of Indians watched the total solar eclipse as the majestic celestial phenomenon swept through one of the most densely populated regions of the world. Millions more outside the path of totality watched the phenomenon on television, in a unique programme in which leading scientists took science directly into people's homes.
On the occassion of the last total solar eclipse in 1980, the mass near-hysterical fear that was evoked in vast sections of the population was remarkable. The media, though it also carried scientific information, was full of alarmist statements, based on obscurantist or pseudo-scientific ideas, that provoked a sense of fear and alarm. These statements, together with the more common superstitious fears, provoked entire cities, which were close to or on the path of totality, like Madras or Hyderabad, into closing down during the period of the eclipse. Most people stayed indoors, behind shut doors and windows, waiting for the dreaded period to pass, and public transport stayed off the roads.
How was the situation different during this eclipse? Acutely aware of the 1980 experience, a number of scientific institutions and popular science organisations launched a prolonged national campaign before this eclipse. Volunteers had over the past year spent considerable amount of time and energy in educating and informing the public of the event that was to take place. Safe solar filters for viewing the eclipse were manufactured and sold in unprecedented numbers. A sustained media campaign provided substantial information for the public on the total solar eclipse and educated them on safe methods of watching it. Science was certainly more in evidence this time around than in 1980.
Nowhere were the results of this campaign more in evidence than in West Bengal. Large numbers of people made the trip from Calcutta to Diamond Harbour, which was in the path of totality, turning the occassion into a mass science festival and every observer on the scene commented on the marked difference in attitude between 1995 and 1980. In the city of Calcutta itself, where the eclipse was close to totality, large numbers of people gathered in the streets to watch the phenomenon. Those who are concerned with the development of a scientific temper in India can legitimately gain some satisfaction from the results of this national campaign, especially after the experience of the `milk miracle' a few weeks ago.
But there were also a number of negative features in the popular and media reaction to this event that give no room for complacency. The campaign to give scientific information on the eclipse was met by a counter-campaign in the media by astrology and pseudo-science that constantly created confusion amongst the public.
The absurdity of astrology in the age of space travel is obvious. When spacecraft visit various planets in the solar system and gather scientific data for different kinds of study, to treat these planets as the origin of malefic influences on the daily life of people or individuals is laughable. If anything, the scientific understanding of these planets provide us with valuable insight about Earth itself, a point that has been frequently made by scientists like Carl Sagan. It is clear from their pronouncements that the purveyors of astrology prey on the uncertainity that exists in people's minds regarding political and social events, or for that matter the numerous accidents that can befall anyone. The Railway Ministry should be delighted with the link between railway accidents and astrology; it absolves them of any responsibility in the matter of proper maintenance. And the apologists of Nazism may well draw sustenance from the astrologer B.V.Raman's pronouncements; Hitler's rise and fall had to do with the stars and nothing to do with politics or society. The number of such absurd statements is too large to go through in detail. It is sufficient to reiterate that no statistical correlation in any scientific sense is present between planetary movements and events on earth. What is presented by astrologers is a random selection of events that coincide with eclipses, something that one can always easily find.
Alongside astrology also appears other kinds of pseudo-science that uses scientific terms to simply confuse the ill-informed. Claims are made for ``poisonous gases that will harm the foetus'', strange radiation or enhanced radiation that is present only during eclipses, `magnetic effects'' that will suddenly make their presence felt, the possible contamination of water; the list is virtually endless. All of them are entirely unscientific and baseless, without an iota of evidence; indeed in the case of most such claims there is firm evidence to the contrary. Some of these claims carry labels of respectability. In one of the more bizarre news stories, after the eclipse, doctors in the Thane Mental Hospital ``confirmed'', after a study that was specially conducted, that were no special effects due to the eclipse on their patients, as if such an absurd proposition required any scientific rebuttal at all.
Even more revealing are the accusations levelled at scientists when they rebut astrology or simply issue statements encouraging poeple to watch the eclipse. In a clear appeal to obscurantism and fundamentalism of the Hindutva brand, scientists are accused of ``ignoring the traditional wisdom'' of ancient Indian sages and an attempt is made to portray them as being anti-religion. There are also persistent attempts to smuggle in astrology into respectable scientific circles, like the award given to an astrologer at the Indian Science Congress a few years ago, demonstrating the political clout that sections of this obscurantist fraternity carry.
It is clear that scientists, as well as those interested in the development of a scientific temper, cannot reply to these attacks, in the media and on public platforms, with kid-gloves on. What is needed is a strong response that nails down the blatant attempt to mislead the uninformed and exposes as well the links that such arguments have to fundamentalism. There is no need to be defensive in combating the appeal to tradition. It is modern Indian science that is the inheritor of the tradition of ancient Indian science and the true followers of Aryabhatta or Varamihira are the astronomers and astro-physicists of today, and indeed all those who carry forward the spirit of critical enquiry, and not those who simply parrot the ancients. Any attempt to ward off attacks on superstition by accusing scientists of being anti-religion must also be replied to clearly and firmly. While religion is a matter of personal belief, there is no room in the practice of science for godly intervention or other supernatural causes as either the cause or the explanation of natural phenomena.
There are also more sophisticated apologists of `miracles' and belief in supernatural phenomena or plain superstition who have argued that the tendency to believe in non-scientific and irrational explanations constitute some manifestation of a deep popular protest at a dominant `authoritarian' rationality that is thrust on the people. Or in another variant they equate the `authoritative rhetoric' of science to the rhetoric of religion or astrology and argue for an even-handed treatment of science as well as superstition and irrational beliefs. Many of the proponents of these and other such apologist viewpoints find ready space in the media. And too often, unfortunately, many scientists are defensive in the face of the pro-people posture that seems implied in these arguments.
While obscurantism cannot be justified in the name of popular protest , it is not even true that rationality has become the dominant feature in Indian society today. The very fact that perhaps more people took a ritual bath in the Ganga, at Kurukshetra, on the day of the eclipse than watched the phenomenon at Diamond Harbour makes it clear what the `dominant' reality is. The fact that these people were joined by many political leaders, public figures and others, or, to take another example, the manner in which powerful sections of Indian society greeted the milk miracle, makes it clear that obscurantism has a considerable following in ruling circles. The obscurantism and irrationality that we witness in Indian society today is no new phenomenon, but a continuation of that which has existed for a long period in our society, and its persistence today points to yet another national goal that we have failed to acheive in the years after independence.
The plain fact of the matter is that science in India, along with education, has been kept away from the majority of the people and the encouragement that the development of a scientific temper has received, apart from much lip-service, is still far from adequate. With the constant efforts of fundamentalisms of various brands to make political headway using obscurantist beliefs, it is clear that what we need is more science and not less of it. Mass science education of good quality together with the abolition of illiteracy and the promotion of universal school education is one of the major unfinished tasks on the national agenda for development. Occassions such as the total solar eclipse provide opportunities to speak to people directly about science. Such campaigns are no substitute for continuing education, but nevertheless they provide a chance to awaken and stimulate people's interest in science, in a participatory way.
As we have noted earlier, the increasing role that popular science movements are playing in taking science to the people, and the increase in similar efforts by scientists themselves, acting on their own and in co-operation with popular movements, has no doubt contributed in a significant way to the different mood that prevailed during this eclipse compared to the one of 1980. But the relative effectiveness of their campaigns in different parts of the country are also a pointer to the larger social questions that are also ultimately involved in combating obscurantism. It is clear in comparing the response in West Bengal to that in other parts of the country, that the seeds sown by the campaign fell on much more fertile soil there, prepared by a political and social history that has given much needed space to rationalism and science and held obscurantism, at least to some extent, at bay. This is not to take away from the value of the efforts put in elsewhere in the country, and linking up with other organisations like trade unions, NGOs, kisan organisations and youth movements should undoubtedly help the popular science movements take their message to a much broader section of the people.
Science can do even better in 1999. A more concerted campaign through the media and greater efforts to ensure availability of means to view the eclipse safely should be possible. There is no reason why the Bolivian example, where the government itself ensured, through a mass distribution of solar filters, that more than half the population watched the total solar eclipse of November 1994, cannot be emulated, at least in part,in India. There should also be greater effort to counter the more alarmist statements from a section of the medical profession. The kind of anti-eclipse watching campaign that they launched, ( for instance a newspaper and television campaign by the National Blindness Control Programme under the Ministry of Health of the Govt. of India urged people not to watch the eclipse at all), is something that could be prevented the next time around, by a serious effort to bring influential sections of the medical community into the planning phase of the campaign.
Again in 1999, with the end of the millenium close at hand, undoubtedly,
the
astrology and pseudo-science fraternity will be out in full cry. But with an
aggressive campaign it is clear that the challenge can be met, and yet
another opportunity to take science to the people can be utilised
fruitfully.