International Co-operation through Science and Technology - Essay, UPSC MAINS | Course for UPPSC Preparation - UPPSC (UP) PDF Download

International Co-operation through Science and Technology

structure

(1) Opening    —    Science and technology for peaceful co-existence and cooperation.

(2) Body    —    Technology for the good of mankind.

    —    Historical facts.

    —    North-South divide.

    —    The Renaissance

    —    Brain-drain and transfer of technology.

    —    Intellectual property rights.

    —    Economic and scientific diplomacy.

    —    Foreign policy, diplomacy, science and technology and India.

    —    S&T and global problems.

    —    Material possibilities not an end in itself.

(3) Closing    —    Science and technology will be animated by the spirit of humanism for the good of mankind.

In the history of human cooperation science and technology have played a crucial role, though its more sensational contributions have often been in the realm of conflict and warfare. From the invention of gun powder to nuclear weapons and the mind boggling programme of Star Wars, it was in the military sphere that international impact of science and technology has been felt dramatically and disatrously. That has brought mankind together to the brink of all-embracing destruction until its sense of self preservation was aroused and it has turned to look for a way out to peaceful coexistence and cooperation.

It is interesting that in this search for peace the help of science and of scientists is as much required as was for the making of these awesome instruments of war. For example, both in nuclear and conventional disarmament the technologies of detection and monitoring devised by advanced science and technology are making international agreements possible. Equally important, cooperation among nations and scientists and technologists internationally is necessary to take the benefits of science to the people at large, to aliminate the evils of poverty, hunger and disease, and to face the new threats to the environment and to the globe itself. Thus international cooperation in science and technology has become the imperative of our times.

But the historical fact has been that during the last few hundred years science and technology has been almost the monopoly of a minority of advanced nations. It was at the root of the colonial domination of the world by a few countries. It is again the means through which a few industrialised countries have imposed their influence and control over the developing world.

The North-South divided is also essentially a scientific technological gap between the developed and the developing countries. Unless there is a wider diffusion of scientific knowledge in the world and a large scale transfer of technology from the North to the South, there is the danger of a new type of hegemo-nism – emerging on the international scene. That would be the logical consequence of monopolistic control by a few countries of science and technology which ought to be shared like air and water by all mankind.

In a more concrete sense we know that printing, gun-powder, the magnetic compass were Chinese inventions, and the zero and the decimal system Indian inventions, all of which passed through Renaissance and the New Science. Almost upto the fifteenth century AD the East was leading the West in the field of science and technology. It is this flow and counter-flow of ideas and knowledge throughout history that make science neither Eastern nor Western but international and interdependent. It is this that makes organised international cooperation in this field natural, possible and meaningful.

Even today the Third World is contributing in an odd manner, through the haphazard mechanism of the brain-drain, to the develop-ment of the North. The National Academy of the USA has estimated that only one half of foreign students who obtain their Ph.D.s in Physics in the United States Universities return to their home countries. The laws of most developed coun 

ries are today so devised as to admit selectively foreigners with certain technological qualifications needed by them. While utilising talents from abroad, particularly the developing countries, the advanced nations are trying to protect their own technologies from foreigners. Today, science and technology has become one of the principal means of producing new wealth and a major criterion of power in the world. Hence it is guarded jealously and used politically. This “hightech jingoism” is contributing to the emergence of a new hydraheaded technological overordership and the transfer of technology has become a principal issue in international polities and diplomacy, and part and parcel of the struggle for creating a New International Economic Order, indeed, a New World Order itself.

A connected question is that of intellectual property rights which is looming large today. The developed countries are resorting to the politics of power and pressure in order to impose their will and interests on the developing countries on this question. If the South as a whole succumbs before this pressure it will affect not only scientific advance, but technological self-reliance and eventually even the standard of living of the people of these countries. It is possible to stand up for the interests of the South in the field without hurting the genuine interests of the North and cutting back on cooperation with it.

Economic and scientific diplomacy has a very important role to play in South-South cooperation. It is regrettable that this particular strategy of cooperation for preparing the ground for a New International Economic Order has not received all the support it deserves from the countries of the South. In the scientific technological field especially, there exist significant potentialities for fruitful cooperation among countries of the South. The Centre for Science and Technology of the Non-Aligned and Other Developing Countries located in New Delhi can play a leading role in this provided there is the political will for it among the member countries.

Scientific and technological diplomacy has become an important and exciting part of international diplomacy today, quite aside from the stories of technological espionage that capture newspaper headlines from time to time. Much of this is actually conducted by professional diplomats with experience in international negoti-ations, but with the help of experts. Some of these issues are so techni-cal, so complex and so fundamental for the future of the world that closer integration between diplomacy and science and technology has become indis-pensable; neither scientists nor diplomats alone can deal with them with the requisite political vision and technical competence. The diplomacy of disarmament and peace is an example. Be it complete and comprehensive disarmament or reduction of conventional arms, or SALT or START and other proposals for elimination or reduction of nuclear weapons, detection or monitoring of nuclear weapon tests or banning of chemical and biological weapons or peaceful uses of space, Antarctic exploration, sea-bed mining, oceans as zones of peace, issues of environment, green-house effect or global warm-ing-all these and many other issues affecting the welfare and the future of mankind require well integrated cooperation betwen science and politics, scientists and diplomats.

Professional diplomacy which has very tardily and reluctantly moved from purely political to economic diplomacy has now got to make yet another major adjustement with technological diplomacy thus combining all the three aspects political, economic and technological - to become what one might call total diplomacy for a new world. Foreign Offices of many countries have begun to bring about adaptation of traditional diplomacy to its new tasks. In the United States there is systematic asociation of scientists in the formulation, and to some extent in the conduct of foreign policy and diplomacy. Most European countries have well thought out inputs of science and technology in their diplomacy.

India has yet to attempt systematically to bring about intergration between foreign policy and diplomacy and science and technology, even though a considerable degree of scientific diplomacy is involved in the conduct of its external relations. With the strides that it has made in building up a scientific technological base for its economy, the advancement it has achieved in research and development, and the pool of competent scientific personnel it has built up, India today may be said to be at the scientific technological take-off stage. At the same time we have a compulsive need for imbibing high technologies from abroad for the more rapid development and modernisation of our economy.

Both developed and developing countries have shown interest in bilateral scientific cooperation with India. Both with the United States and the former Soviet Union we have signed important longterm agreements for somewhat ambitious collaboration programmes. With Germany, France and Britain, and several other countries scientific and technological cooperation has become an important part of bilateral relations, while with China and other advanced developing countries cooperation in this field is growing significantly. Of course in the wider international field too India’s participation in science-related cooperative activities have multiplied manifold in recent years thanks to our far-seeing interest in the Indian Ocean, the Antarctic, the Law of the Sea, peaceful uses space, disarmament and the environment. In the conduct of foreign policy in these fields we do associate scientists in a somewhat fragme-ntary and unstructuared way. But a closer and more meaningful integration is yet to take place.

It is however, important to note in this context that we have Science Counsellors in some of our Embassies abroad, a Foreign Officer posted at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, and that we have Foreign Service Ambassadors accredited to the International Atomic Energy Agency at Vienna and the Disarma-ment Commission at Geneva. Our IFS and IAS officers have risen to the challenge of dealing at inter-national conferences with technical issues such as nuclear energy, space and ocean sciences and with questions of environment, ozone depletion and global warming. Notwithstanding such precedents of our officers dealing with almost any subject under the sun, it is essential for the success of the economic-cum-technological diplomacy of the present-day world that there is direct association of scientists in bilateral and international negotiations and also regular and structured inter-action between scientists and diplomats. Some general training in some of the major areas of science and technology should also be considered an indipensable qualifications for modern diplomats.

It is only tension among nations, scramble for markets, territorial disputes, pursuit of power, accumulation of nuclear weapons and race for armaments, which today pose threats to peace and to the future of mankind, but unrestrained growth of population, menace of drugs and AIDS, destruction of the environment, the greenhouse effect, ozone deplection and global warming. All these require cooperative action at the international level involving politics, economics, social engineering, and all the resources of science and technology. It is believed that science and technology can play a crucial role in finding solutions to these global problems. But it can provide only part of the answer, not the whole answer. Indeed one has to go a little beyond politics, economics and science to find answers to the overwhelming questions facing mankind today. 

When we talk of science and technology for resolving problems and bettering the condition of mankind, we often mean mainly producing and providing more and more of the good glittering things of life. We need more and more things, firstly, for satisfying the unfulfilled basic needs of millions of under-privileged and for meeting the needs of a rapidly growing population, and secondly, for catering to the creavings of the well-to-do for endlessly multiplying wants and luxuries. For these purposes, perhaps more for the latter then for the former, we use technology for producing more and more, and better and still better goods and gadgets. We explore and discover new resources, we split the atom and the genes, we score the depths of oceans and conquer space believing that the hunger of man for lucre and power could be satisfied in this manner.

Intoxicated by the material possibilities held out by science, we do not ask whether some limitation upon the wants and cravings of man are not as much necessary, at least after a certain level of satisfaction, as producing an abundance of goods and services. We do not ask if the advancement of science should not be accompanied by the improvement of man including a civilised sense of self-restraint. It seems that even the fullest utilisation of science and technology will not be able to satisfy the unlimited wants and desires of man and his greed for power and the symbols of power.

To some of the social and environmental problems created by technology, part of the an 

wer is further development of technology itself like devices for controlling pollution including CFC emissions, developing alternatives to these so called “gases of prosperity” and technologies for conservation of energy, alternative sources of energy, etc. In all this intensified international cooperation is essential, but on the basis of developmental equity for the countries of the South.

Thus, without being altruistic and sacrificing their legitimate economic interests it should be possible for the developed countries of the world to be guided by this spirit of sharing in the sphere of international cooperation in science and technology. That would, besides, be an indication that the development of the awesome power of science and technology will be animated by the spirit of humanism for the good of mankind and not for purposes of exploitation or destruction.