Opinion Silencing of LiverDoc and the dangerous anti-science trend in today’s India

The episode is a snapshot of “new” India’s embrace of irrationality and vulgar capitalism.

In a country burdened with disease and poor healthcare infrastructure, the importance of science and rationality cannot be overemphasised. The erosion of scientific temper is the hallmark of a society drifting into obscurantism. Those who babble without evidence against the established principles of scientific theory are the worst enemies of science — not because their words carry the power to damage or dent the principles they question, but because they sow the seeds of doubt in minds unaware of science as a way of life.

To make things worse, the Covid-19 pandemic opened a pandora’s box of irrationality and brazen acceptance of unscientific quackery. Large companies and “gurus” came up with magic cures against the virus. Drugs like Coronil were promoted without reasonable scientific backing. The non-scientific rationality of thali banging to drive away the virus was promoted from the highest echelons.

The world over, the drug and wellness industry is a thriving business. The economic liberalisation of the 1990s in India has put the drug industry on an expressway to exponential growth and profits. Drug companies are now setting the agenda. Whether it is vaccines, nutritional supplements or life-saving antibiotics, the agenda on both their use and abuse is often set by the concerned company through resolute efforts using money, loopholes in the law and political clout. Unfortunately, doctors are the most potent tool of companies. The participation of physicians in drug and implant company-sponsored programmes is well known.

In countries newly sensitised to their past glory and splendour, any agenda is a means of nationalistic awakening. Currently, in India, traditional systems of medicine are showing a resurgence. There is a sudden rise in wellness and naturopathy centres across the country. As per a report by Research and Markets, the Ayurveda market in India was worth Rs 300 billion in 2018 but is expected to reach Rs 710.87 billion by 2024. This exponential growth also reflects the nationalistic mood of the nation.

In recent times, any resentment toward any form of traditional system or traditions is considered an “anti-national” trait. The construction of such consent is outright perilous. Interestingly, the Bollywood machinery has also been a torch bearer of insolent embracement of this science and nationalism concoction. The last few years have seen a surge in movies like The Vaccine War, which use scientific achievements as a means of chest thumping and nationalist rhetoric. The utter irony of this lies in the fact that science is no slave to geographic boundaries, nationalism, tradition, faith or rhetoric.

The Irish crystallographer and a great free thinker, J D Bernal, believed that science should be felt more than thought. This is the essence of what has gone wrong in our country in recent times. We have ceased “feeling” science. Court orders like the one against Dr Philips are one more blow in the continuous assault on scientific temper and scientific tradition. It’s high time that the judiciary, executive and common citizens realise that to support science and scientific rationality against faith and tradition is not modernity. It is our way of ensuring a better world for future generations.

The writer is professor, Department of Orthopaedics, AIIMS, New Delhi. Views are personal