Use Science for Persuasive and Assertive Narrative Building

Positive narrative will give security and confidence to our young nation in taking on the changing geo-political dynamics, both in the real and virtual world.

India recently made a humongous record by administering 100 crore vaccinations of COVID-19 vaccines, nearly all made in India. With the second-most populated nation on this planet and democracy too, India is well-poised to break many records, not with a sense of achieving them for recognition, but because of the flame of karmic consciousness that exists in the Indian civilisation.

Changing Paradigm of ‘Swadeshi’

The people of India, despite some of the recent challenges posed by the pandemic, have begun to sense and celebrate achievements in a long-neglected domain — science. Whether it is the space missions to the moon — Chandrayaan-1 and Chandrayaan-2, or the Mars Orbiter Mission, whether it is the indigenous COVID-19 vaccines, the plethora of deep-technology startups, the immense progress in digital and information technology domains as evident from the digital vaccine certificates, our growing share of clean energy in the national energy budget, the International Solar Alliance, or the excellent use of agriculture waste for hydrogen, the fuel of future — all are India’s indigenous ‘Swadeshi’ efforts. The paradigm of Swadeshi today has evolved into the clarion call of ‘Aatmanirbharta,’ the foundation of which will be science and technology (S&T).

For a long-time, science policy analysts have expressed the need to increase the Gross Expenditure on S&T Research and Development (GERD) by greater than 2% of the national gross domestic product (GDP) from the current ~0.8% of GDP. But simply increasing expenditure doesn’t help. India needs to tweak this mathematical term GERD into Gross Investment on S&T Research and Development (GIRD). Once we do that, it will become evident that the money on R&D must be invested wisely. The wisdom will come from the acknowledgment that S&T is a risky investment but one that can reward handsomely. Once this attitudinal change sets in, reaching the 2% GIRD levels wouldn’t be a problem.

Priority Areas for S&T R&D

The GERD-to-GIRD attitudinal shift also makes it crucial to define priority areas for S&T R&D. And how can India define priority areas? These can be R&D areas that can utilise India’s innate strengths to put it into the pole position of indomitable global leadership. The other priority areas can be those known as pivots of great power competition between superpowers — be it space, nuclear or clean energy. Focused efforts on priority areas will streamline investments, and oil India’s R&D machinery to effectively and efficaciously deliver results through public-private partnerships. India will eventually undertake the GERD-to-GIRD transition, exert on Aatmanirbhar Bharat, and attain targets within priority areas of R&D solely on its karmic consciousness. However, it must also use the same karmic consciousness to strengthen its narrative-building ability using Indian science.

Building Narratives in the Age of IT

In the modern information age, the world is generating quintillion (1030) bytes of data daily. While existing in the real-physical world, most nations have also developed their national alter-egos in the virtual world. The virtual alter-egos have their inherent security demands. More so now, ‘narrative building’ is fast emerging as a new ‘theater of war.’ In such times, it will increasingly become crucial for India to attain global leadership through indigenous R&D efforts and use the scientific successes to set narratives for the upkeep of India’s strategic interests. Then comes the next point. Should such a narrative building be defensive or assertive?

The narrative building is an essential aspect of science and technology diplomacy. In the short term, where the narrative setting has to be cordial and heart-winning, in the long term, it has to be driven by self-confidence and assertion. For instance, with Vaccine Maitri, India showed its intent to become a committed yet amicable member in the comity of nations. By reaching the 100-crore vaccination mark, it has demonstrated that it can produce specialised products, coming out of break-neck R&D efforts, on a monumental scale. While Vaccine Maitri became a symbol of humanitarian and disaster relief commitment, the 100-crore vaccination achievement can help assertive narrative building.

Indian science has grown by leaps and bounds since 1991. The economic liberalisation opened doors for numerous private sector companies of Indian and foreign origin to set up R&D units in life sciences, information and digital technologies, engineering design, and chemical sciences. The vaccines, the missions to the Moon and Mars, the astronomy telescopes in Ladakh and Hawaii, the clutches on crucial pharmaceutical precursors have all come through these early-stage R&D efforts of public and private sectors. Over the last few years, we, Indians, have set constructive narratives using the achievements emanating from these R&D efforts. Yet, the R&D efforts need to mature, and India will also need to advance its narratives reaping from continuous scientific successes. This ramping up of narrative will become more critical with the private sector increasing its share in the GIRD.

With narrative setting emerging as a theatre of war, it becomes vital for India to increase GIRD for many reasons, including the need to maintain narrative dominance in the new theatre of war. Indigenous innovations and inventions will naturally generate upbeat stories to inspire the masses and positively impact their output. Scientific progress and its consequent narrative setting can make friendly nations stand up and take notice to forge new partnerships and create psychological deterrence in the minds of enemies.

Narrative Building as Deterrence

There is a precedence to such deterrence. Though China is not primarily known to have surpassed the United States in its scientific and technological capabilities, it certainly is narrowing the technology gap. This gap narrowing has prompted the US National Counterintelligence and Security Center to identify select science and technology sectors, where the stakes are highest for US national security. The sectors identified are semiconductors, quantum, autonomous systems, bioeconomy, and artificial intelligence. And both the US and China would pursue R&D in these sectors and set narratives that forward their strategic goals.

Science is both a soft- and hard-power apparatus. The soft-power approach can help set persuasive narratives and help develop coercive narratives with the hard-power policy. No nation today or in the past has done science without using it for narrative setting. Next year, in 2022, India will enter its 75th year of Independence. Many commentators and opinion-makers will likely attempt to set national targets for the next twenty-five years up to 2047. The use of S&T to create persuasive and assertive narratives must become a priority.

India has always thought of using science to advance the socio-economic goals of its populace. Productive output and its resulting positive narratives are less recognized but vital for India’s masses. The positive narrative gives security, imparts confidence, and inspires to push human potential. Indians, the most prominent young populace on the planet, would want all of these in the real and virtual worlds equally.

This blog was published in the October 2021 edition of Science India magazine published by Vijnana Bharati.