In view of the recent incidents of terrorism in some places in India, some people have started saying that to combat terrorism it is necessary to curtail civil liberties and introduce draconian laws. To my mind, this is a dangerous idea, and hence it is necessary to explain the importance of liberty and democracy for our country’s progress. Nobody denies the need to oppose terrorism, but in my opinion by passing draconian laws, terrorism and crime will not be reduced and instead our country’s progress will be obstructed.
What is our national aim? To my mind, our national aim must be to make India a highly prosperous country forall (and not just for a handful of ) its citizens, and for that it is necessary to have a high degree of industrialization.
Even setting up and running a single primary school requires a lot of money, e.g. for buying land, erecting the school building and providing for therecurrent expenditure for salaries of teachers, staff, etc. We have to set up in our country not just one primary school, but hundreds of thousands of primary schools, tens of thousands of high schools and colleges and engineering colleges, technical institutes, medical colleges, scientific research centres, hospitals, libraries etc.
Where is the money for all these to come from? Money does not fall from the sky. It can only come from a highly developed industry, and it is industrialization alone which can generate the wealth we need for the welfare of our people.
Today India is a poor country. Nobody respects the poor. It is for this reason that we do not have much respect in the world community (whatever we may think of ourselves). It is industrialization alone which can abolish poverty and unemployment, which are the main causes of crime and terrorism, and give us respect in the world community.
Also, when there is rapid industrialization, which is our national target, millions of jobs will be created which will solve the problem of unemployment.
For industrialization, development of science is absolutely necessary, and for that freedom is also absolutely necessary-- freedom to think, freedom to write, freedom to discuss with others, freedom to explain, freedom to criticize and freedom to dissent.
The growth of science requires certain supportive values, particularly liberty. This is because the thought process cannot develop without freedom. The values of a scientific community viz., pluralism, tolerance, individual freedom and free flow of information are very similar to the values of democratic society (see ‘Science and the Making of the Modern World’ by John Marks).
A democratic society permits freedom of speech and expression, freedom to practise one’s own religion which is based on tolerance, and freedom to dissent and criticize. These are precisely the values of the scientific community. In other words, in scientific matters authoritarianism and dogmatism are wholly out of place. Scientists must be left to govern themselves, and have large amount of freedom which is necessary for innovation and creativity. Hence, democracy and liberty go hand in hand with the growth of science because both are based on tolerance, individual freedom and free flow of ideas. In democracy, as in a scientific community, there is freedom to speak, freedom to discuss, freedom to criticize and freedom to dissent.