PROBLEMS OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN
UNDER- DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
What I have to say
here is, admittedly, going to be unsatisfactory for two reasons. First,
most of us know what our problems are; secondly, I have no spectacular
solutions to offer, only a rather small technical suggestion or two which
may help analyse the particular problems in each case and may help towards
a planned solution.
The Context
The background is
all-important. Most of us are so deeply concerned with science and
technology that we forget the context in which both science and technology
must be applied. The context may be divided into three parts, deeply
inter-connected: Political, Economic and Sociological. After all, we have
no science or technology of our own, Arabic science or algebra, once the
leading disciplines in the world, are out of date. One cannot speak of
African chemistry or boast Asian engineering. Science and technology know
no national frontiers. Therefore, the background before which they must
function becomes a prime consideration for us.
The political
situation is all-important. Most under-developed contries have been under
foreign domination for a long time. That is, in fact, the primary reason
for their being under- developed. So, freedom must come first. We cannot
speak of science and technology for Angola and Mozambique, for example. The South
African situation is even more complex. The land has a few outstanding
technological developments; their laboratories and engineering works are by
no means to be despised. But the real Africans are not even citizens in South Africa, which remains for them
under-developed, while being in a quite satisfactory stage of development
for property-owning whites and for the investors in London who stand back of them. A
similar situation is true, with lesser development, of Rhodesia.
In such cases, we
have no solution to offer, for our conference restricts itself to science
and technology. However, the context tells us that the special problems in
such countries cannot even be discussed here. There may be some exceptional
possibilities. Perhaps, Hong Kong may claim to be one of those exceptions. But
it would be difficult even here to consider the problems of Hong Kong without a solution of the
obvious political question.
The second point,
which too many tend to regard as the main problem, is economic. In fact the
very word under- developed has this connotation, namely economic
under-development. Most of our countries lack the necessary resources for
development along with the actual manifestation of development: electric
power supply, factories, railways and shipping, roads, motor transport,
airplanes, and of course, consumer goods and decent housing. The lack of
resources is fortunately not present in all countries. Several Arab lands
have discovered in oil and natural gas a commodity which can be exploited
sufficiently well to solve their economic problems. However, whether the
oil and other resources are properly used or not depends once again on the
context. First, the foreigner must not take away the lion's share, as
happened in Iran for so many years. Secondly,
those in power must feel the need for developing the country rather than
for building palaces for their own families and living a life of Arabian
Nights style. This remains, therefore, again an internal political matter,
namely who plans and for whose advantage. It is not sufficient to announce
grandiose plans; one has to convince the people that they stand to gain and
to secure popular support. Development in Ghana and Indonesia show what happens otherwise.
Going deeper into this question but that would cause unpleasantness.
However, we reach
one important principle here : under-developed countries need a planned
course of development, which necessarily implies a planned economy.
Merely admitting
this principle is not enough. The context once again thrusts itself upon
your attention: who does the planning, and for whose real advantage? The
solution generally offered is to invite foreign experts to offer advice and
draw up schemes. With the best will in the world, this will not succeed. The
foreign expert has been used to planning for an entirely different purpose,
in totally different surroundings. He pays little attention to local needs during
the course of development. Oftener than not, the foreign expert is
interested in selling the products of some companies with which he might be
connected. Here, we could learn a good deal from Chinese experience, were
it not for the political problem, once again, which makes it impossible to
secure cooperation from that great country at such a meeting. But let me
give some simple examples to illustrate what I mean.
In our
sugar-producing cooperatives the bagasse was burned for fuel. One brilliant
and remarkably honest foreign expert suggested that this wasted most of the
contents of the bagasse, except what remained in the ash. The cellulose
could be used in paper manufacture, the wax and oils extracted for other
purposes, and so on. In fact, Indian chemists had actually analysed the
possibilities so that no foreign expert was needed. It was suggested that
the paper factories be set up, by the cooperatives or sugar companies
themselves, and the bagasse used to proper advantage. But in the event this
could not be done economically for two reasons. First, the factory
machinery would all have to be imported. Secondly, the amount of bagasse
withdrawn from the fuel used in sugar manufacture would mean greater outlay
for other fuel. Oil is too costly, we have no natural gas in the
sugar-producing regions, and coal meant additional strain on the transport.
In any case, the extra fuel costs would have made just the difference
between a successful cooperative and one running at a small deficit half
the time. The solution in the present context was given by Hungarian
experts. They suggested, and worked out in data a scheme for using the
bagasse as fuel without losing all its value in other ways. The stuff was
to be fermented in vats, and the gas used as fuel, converting one or more
furnaces completely to gas burners, as the total amount of bagasse would
not suffice to stoke all furnaces. Then the wet sludge could be put direcly
on the fields, with a very substantial savings in fertiliser. In fact,
there was an added advantage in lightening the soil, which would be ruined
by steady application of chemical fertilisers over a number of years.
Finally, I pointed out that there would be an educational advantage: The
peasant members of the cooperative could use the method for their own
surplus bagasse, and also for cattle dung. At present the cattle dung is
dried into cakes and used for fuel, again destroying its value as
fertiliser. Gas generated from such waste products would save all the fuel
value without affecting the fertiliser value, and make for easier cooking
as well.
The scheme has not
been adopted, after all. The reasons were political and sociological, for
the people who were to make the final decision had other ideas of their
own, where they had any ideas at all. We still go on wasting the bagasse,
though a factory or two for paper will eventually be set-up with foreign
expert advice, of course.
The Sociological
Context
Hitherto, I have
only pointed out the difficulties without suggesting a solution. As a
matter of fact, I hold very strong views on the proper political structure
and the correct foreign policy for under-developed countries; but this is
not the time not the place to develop those views. We are not here to offer
political advice nor to suggest political courses. Similarly for the
economic situation. Most countries want and ask for capital. This
conference cannot provide it, nor can it suggest means of raising funds.
The scientific approach, on the other hand, tends to be rather vacuous and
devoid of application unless these primary difficulties are solved. At
least, we have proposed one main principle, namely that the economy must be
planned, and the course of full development charted in outline, rather than
left to individual initiative which means leaving it to private greed. Most
of us fail to ask why our countries are underdeveloped, when we go begging
abroad for financial aid and technical experts. The reason for
underdevelopment is precisely that our raw materials and our great markets
were exploited by the foreigner to his own advantage. Our products were
taken away for the price of the cheap labour needed to .take them out of
the earth, and we paid the highest prices for the finished goods. In a
word, the developed countries with very few exceptions are developed
precisely because they made profit both ways from us; we were never paid
the actual value of the things taken away. It is our resources that have
helped the development of the great industrialised nations of the world;
yet we have to go to the same nations as suppliants, as people demanding
return of what is rightfully our own. Naturally no such demand could be
enforced, even if it were made.
The foreign
domination, whether in the form of colonialism or by other spheres of
influence, has left an unfortunate mark on the society of our countries.
The very languages we speak in the meetings are those left to us by the
foreigner. This may not be bad, were it not for the insidious foreign way
of thinking that too often goes with the languages. Most of us the honorary
Englishmen, or Frenchmen, or the like. The models seen in New York, London or Paris don't seem out of reach in Bombay, Calcutta or New Delhi. But go a few miles into the
unaffected countryside and you will feel that you are in a different land
altogether. Our development is not uniform. Attempts at catching up with
foreign lands should not, but always do, accentuate the differences that
already exist between towns and countryside.
Illiteracy, lack of
technical education, lack of transport, paucity of telephones, cinemas, radio
sets, absence of television- all seem impossible hindrances to any foreing
or foreign-trained .Very few people see the need for and the possibility of
development by getting the common people interested and by using the
techniques available in the countryside. Let me give an example of what I
mean.
Duing the Japanese
occupation, when all major industrial of China had been taken over and the
Kuomintang armies pushed into the backlands, the problem of supplies became
desperate. Chiang Kai-shek needed two million blankets for his armies with
no way of importing them from abroad. The blamkets were supplied by a
remarkable man and a remarkable movement, the Gung Ho (Work Together)
cooperatives formed the direction of the New Zealander Rewi Alley. He new well
having worked with its common people for over twenty years. The blanket
were made by handicraft methods, were of satisfactory quality and capable
of standing up under wear. Moreover, they were supplied in less than a
year. The methods by which the work was organised, with the overwhelming
majority of workers illiterate, scattered in small units over nearly two
thousand miles, were undoubtedly the most astounding feature of the entire
project. I only wish the history of Gung Ho were written, published and
made available to all underdeveloped countries. In this case, Alley worked
out a system of accounting that did away with almost all clerical work. The
workers organised themselves in such groups as they liked, whether by
families or by local crafts-guilds, with Alley guiding them in each case at
the beginning. The wool was produced by the shepherds of the backlands. Per
bale of wool supplied to the spinners, one coloured bead was put in a bag.
When a bale was used up on the spinning wheels one bead was taken out of
the bag, so that the residue could be tallied with the stock in hand. Per
unit of yarn produced (large hanks), a bead of a different colour was put
into another bag. Similarly for the yarn suppled to weavers and units
(blankets) woven. This system worked without a hitch and without a penny
lost, with almost no paper work. It furnished employment to the neglected
areas, and blankets for the soldiers.
I wish the story
could end here. Unfortunately, the blankets, delivered to Chiang's
officials did not all reach the soldiers. Not a few went into the black
market. Other corrupt officials managed to get themselves jobs as managers
of district cooperatives or of the large factory units, and stole as much
as they could. At the very top came Chiang Kai-shek, the CC group, the
Kungs, Sungs and their selected henchmen, stacking away gold in the USA and letting the war take
care of itself. The Academy of Science (Academia Sinica) had been
evacuated to Chungking and Kunming. I recall making and sending
copies of scientific papers from India for them to help research
that had no connection with the war or national needs; in some cases, I had
also to arrange for publication. A few noble scientists and scholars were
studying in India on generous subventions. One
captain in the army had taken long leave to study Indian philosophy, while
his company was fighting in the front line; he managed to get through the
war years without difficulty. In other words, the social and political
context was, after all, the determining factor .
Nevertheless, let me
draw one more basic principle from this: In technological matters,
particularly in consumer goods manufacture, use local technique, organised
by drawing in as of local producers as possible. Naturally, this means
primary producers, not the moneylenders, nor landlords. It also means
organisation without bureaucracy.
I have to make clear
at this point the fundamental difference between this method and philosophy
of hand spinning on the wheel, charkha. The charkha is inefficient and
uneconomic as full time implement of manufacture. The late Mahatma Gandhi
discovered mystical qualities in the art of hand spinning which raised it
above yarn manufacture on power spinning nery. Having gone rather
thoroughly into the statistics of the resultant khaddar cloth, I can assure
you that its effect was political, but nothing to speak of in national
production as such. It shamed people into boycotting British imports before
the war, and provided a badge for the revolutionary .Today, khaddar cloth
is a drain on the government budget and a mark of the professional
politician or his servant. This is in strong contrast, however, with
handloom products which provide excellent patterns and has been a valuable
aid to India's export drive.
The handloom which
means mill spun yarn can be used part-time tool of production, especially
in seasons when Itural operations are slack. It saves transport of cloth
and reak the shopkeeper's black-market monopoly if used with r care. It is
also of considerable help in drawing partially disabled and otherwise
unemployed people into useful production. Finally, it is simple in
operation and easy to manufacture with local tools and materials. That
perhaps, is the essential difference between what I should call the Gung Ho
approach and the Gandhian: Use whatever local methods you can to produce
goods, while heavy industry is being built up.
Planning
If science and
technology have any use at all, they must fit into a plan. This does not
infringe the freedom of science, nor of the scientist in underdeveloped
countries. There is an essential .between the scientist in backward lands
and his teacher in those parts of the world where science had long been
developed. The latter is amply supplied with the costliest, good libraries
and reference material, and a large of auxiliary technicians. Such a
scientist in advanced countries has often to fight for his freedom His
funds may come from some government project, dictated by third rate
bureaucrats who insist upon secrecy for discoveries that ought immediately
to be made public. Often, top scientific talent is wasted in 'defence'
projects. This cannot be the case with underdeveloped countries. Mostly,
they have no scientist of the first rank in world science, not even of a
high second class. To speak of freedom of such scientists to do what they
like at someone else's expense is to allow them to waste public funds in
duplicating bad work done by second rate technologists in Europe or the USA.
Let the scientist be
free, but let him earn his living by doing something for his country that
comes in the category of vital needs. For example, many of you here are
bound to be impressed by India 's advance in science and
may even persuade your own governments to copy us. But in what particulars?
We have top class physicists, for example, our department of atomic energy
is spending several hundred millions a year on an imposing establishment.
But how much atomic energy is this country actually producing? The plant
that should have been in commission in 1964 will not be operating till 1968
at the earliest. The delay has passed without criticism, while some
politicians demand that we should produce the A-bomb to put us on at par
with the big powers. In effect, the establishment we have was built by
foreign 'experts', is outdated already, and will produce atomic power if
run as designed which is costlier than such power elsewhere and costlier
than conventional power in India. Even then, all the basic cost will have
been off under the heading of 'research', (science, or some such beautiful
title).
Again, don't
misunderstand me, India, like every underdeveloped
country on the road to industrialisation, needs every sort of power it can
get. Costly as it is, atomic power will be cheaper than human muscle power
or the power drawn from bullocks. But is it the best source under our
present economic conditions? Almost all the countries represent here have a
much better and cheaper source of power available for their development, Solar
Energy. This has the defect of being irregular, but can be put to uses
where regularity is not in demand. For example, pumps for irrigation, of 5
to 10
horse-power capacity, run by solar energy would help our agriculture
immensely. This would not need centralised adminstration and a
fantastically top heavy basic establishment.
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scattered through
the plantations. But this implies an efficient and effective method of
planning which we do not seem to possess. Our planning commission writes
excellent philosophical discourses, completely futile when it comes to
effective translation into useful practice. The private sector wants
immediate profits, and the public sector prefers large-scale enterprises
which photograph well, get newspaper headlines and are useful in election
propaganda.
Let me give an
example of inefficient planning in which I was personally involved. The
problem was one of dam construction. If the dam be too big, money is
wasted; if too small, there is the risk of running dry too often. Suppose
that we want dams which on the available rainfall and run-offigures, will
not run dry oftener than once in twenty years, in the long run: What is
then thc corrcct formula for estimation of capacity? The experts
quarrelled, so the problem was put up to me.. It was a simple matter to
give the right formula, based on R. A. Fisher's test. But when I looked
closer into the data, it was clear that many of the figures had been fake.
Actually, the water run-off for certain years had not been recorded at all.
The entries had been made by fitting a linear equation from the rest of the
data against the rainfall figures which were accurately known. Finally,
looking into the map of the area it was possible to show that large dams
would be of no use as compared to many very small dams which would help
terracing and would retain the monsoon water more efficiently. Small dams
are of no use for power supply, but much more useful in a monsoon country
with eroded lands, for agricultural purposes. Moreover, the labour supply
and most of the materials for construction are local; very little cement
and no machinery would be needed. This has not only the further advantage
of economy but of easing distress among the villagers by allowing them to
earn some extra money while improving their own lands. Very little crop
land is flooded by such dams, though the total amount of water conserved is
nearly the same as a large dam can conserve. In the event, my formula was
adopted because the expert could propose that as his own; (he secured a
promotion thereby). But the remaining suggestions made by me never came
before the meeting to which I was quite naturally not invited.
Statistics
Hitherto, all my
suggestions have been critical and to a considerable extent negative. Let
me speak of one special in order to make a positive contribution. This is
statistics and would be useful for any sort of planning. Whether by
indegenous or foreign experts, or simple allocation of resources. In fact,
no planning can be successful which does not use good statistics
correctly.
Statistics means the
census type of complete enumeration, to people who hear the term. However,
counting everything is rarely possible and often not even practicable in
most developed countries. The necessary staff is not available; clerical lservices
remain slipshod or inefficient. Worst of all, people give wrong information
because they feel that the figures they offer would in some way be of
benefit to them, say in saving taxes or getting some government grants in
aid. Finally process of getting accurate statistics of this type is slow
while inaccurate statistics is worse than useless. It is all very to
suggest that areas under various crops could be quickly measured and even
the crops identified, by air photography. I know that this is true. But how
many countries can afford air photography and have the expert staff for
evaluation? India has first-rate
statisticians, but they are afraid that air photography may mean lack of
jobs and retrenchment, so label it as 'unpractical'. Let me add that for
all the fame our statisticians have secured abroad (and the large number of
theoretical papers which form an impressive background for an even larger
number blue book reports) our statisticians have failed in their main
through no fault of their own. They have not been able to say exactly how
much food is available from last year's harvest. As a result, we have
several different sets of estimate of how much food India needs to import, whether as
loans, gifts, or by purchase. I have seen it in print that five, seven,
ten, fifteen, even twenty per cent of our grain is eaten by rodents and
vermine. No one knows how the figures were obtained. If so basic a problem
as that of food cannot be handled by really able men, there is something
wrong in the way in which the men are used. We are led back again to the
social and political context.
Granted the will to
use statistics properly, there are now better methods than the census,
quick as well as inexpensive. These are labelled sample surveys; the
technique is very well known. One counts a small percentage and estimates
the total. Besides, there exist methods for showing the limits of accuracy
of this estimate, so that a suitable margin may be allowed. I do not mean
to go into details, which will bore most of you. But if enough is known of
the various types of villages, then a sample of not more than five per cent
of the villages, and often one of less than one per cent would suffice to
give all essential informations. The sample has to be scattered properly,
every type of village must be proportionately represented. Some common
sense has to be used. The actual sample must be studied efficiently and
information about it obtained with complete truth and accuracy.
This type of sample
survey gives data within a couple of weeks which would take over a year to
obtain the complete enumeration. Its main uses are two: in industry and
mass-production for control of quality and uniformity of the product. For
example, cement from different kilns in different places differs in
quality. Even different runs of the same kiln show a substantial variation.
But the engineer can allow for this in his construction work if, with each
run, he is given a test figure of the average strength and the standard
deviation. These can be calculated by one person, with a double handful of
cement from each batch, properly sampled. One such statistical assistant
could easily be employed by every cement factory, sugar combine, or similar
industrial enterprise. The total output of such enterprises, of course, is
easily counted; in such cases one has both the census type and the sampling
type of statistics.
With the
agricultural raw materials, the situation is entirely different. Without a
good forecast of the crop in advance, it is not possible to plan for
export, for processing of the raw materials, or for that matter even to
avoid famine. This forecast can easily be provided inspite of great local
variation by crop cutting experiments before the complete harvest is in.
There are, naturally, even more efficient methods. Given the variety of
seed, machine planting is practised, simply counting the number of plants
actually growing in uniform squares and taking a few ears from each square
gives a surprisingly accurate estimate. I have seen this in the Dobruja, in
Rumania, 400 plants were put down
mechanically in each square metre; and the counting frames were one metre
square. The reports were sent in by the wheat cooperatives in this case,
and the central institute give the crop estimate well in advance, allowing
for natural disasters such as flood and drought. Not all of us are so
fortunate as to have such large cooperatives and machine planting of wheat.
In that case, I suggest that local experience could be used.
Local experience
means that the peasants must have been on the same land for some years,
must know the particular variety of seed used, and must have farmed with
the same technique. In that case, the Indian peasant can give an estimate
within 6.5 per cent or better. The Chinese peasants, to my great surprise,
could give estimates closer than 3.5 per cent; the trouble in China (as of 1960) was an
inefficient and bureaucratic central statistical organisation, which could
give nothing accurately till the harvest was over and half-eaten. All their
forecasts were revised again and again, so often as to be useless. They
were gathered by the slowest possible methods, namely filling out forms and
everything, sending them to local headquarters, and eventually to Peking. Neither the statistical
man, nor the leading scientists, had bothered to ask the peasants how they
estimated the crop, nor even to compare estimates in routine yield. With
our peasant, the trouble is to make him believe you that giving a truthful
estimate will not lead to extra taxes. The difference between the
illiterate peasant and the trained statistician is that the peasant cannot
make large calculations, on the other hand, if the peasant is wrong in the
estimate he makes for his own use (whether he tells it to government agents
or not), he may starve. The statistician doesn't have to live by eating his
estimate or his standard deviation. The difficulty in the field is always
getting a truthful figure from the peasant. In China, this difficulty did
not exist, but no one bothered about the peasants' estimate before I tried
to evaluate it. Money lenders, landlords, middlemen purchasers and other
interested parties including the profiteering grain dealer from the big
city see to it that the truth is hidden when it is to their advantage to hide
it. Once again, we come back to the context. There is a clear limit beyond
which you cannot go by ignoring the social and economic conditions
prevalent in the country.
One type of sample
statistics is a valuable adjunct to democracy, namely the opinion poll.
In developed countries, this is oftenest used by business firms to estimate
the success of their advertising campaign, the popularity of their products
(soap, tooth-paste etc. ) and such profit making ventures. The politicians
use it to see which way public opinion is veering. The number of people
sampled even in so large a country as the USA need not exceed 700 to 1000,
so that a small trained staff can give the result (from the start of the
sampling to the final figure) within a week at most. But this is not
practicable in most underdeveloped countries. Let me suggest the use of
another technique, to be used with sampling, but on different principles.
This is called Mass Observation, and was first developed by the British
anthropologist B. Malinowski. It was very useful in wartime England. The
main idea is to let a few selected people express their own opinion on some
points in their own way, instead of asking specially framed questions that
could be answered either yes or no, or in some other specific manner. The
result in Mass Observation is less easily calculated than by the
sample-survey, but gives much more information to the trained
anthropologist or to any intelligent administrator. It reveals unsuspected
needs that cannot be brought out by the western opinion poll. But once
again, truthful and frank expression by the person questioned is absolutely
essential. He or she must be guaranteed and convinced of complete secrecy;
and must be free from fears of reprisals for speaking too frankly. Such observation
has been used with great effect in Poland, by the Wroclaw Sociological
group. Let me suggest that those of our countries that struggle towards
democracy would find it a useful way of ascertaining democratic goals and
popular wishes.
(Booklet) Book Club
Publication, Calcutta, May 1965
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