Scientific Humanism, Anti-Racism and Nehruvian Science
Humanism is a philosophical belief that places human agency as the central feature of existence, which alone holds the ability to inform beliefs, civilisation and morality. As a movement, it began to flourish in the early 20th Century coinciding with a trend away from religion in European scientific communities. Scientific and social justifications for moral laws began to replace the idea that moral quality is decided by God, gods, or religious institutions. Humanism, like the scientific movements of the 20th century, was characterised by constant communication through societies such as the British Humanist Association and conferences.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), arose in 1945, as the realisation of concerns central to the humanism movement. J.S. Huxley, the first director-general of UNESCO was a lifelong humanist, and President of the British Humanist Association from 1963. UNESCO was, from its foundation, a humanist endeavour, with Julian Huxley writing in the UNESCO mission statement, that an evolutionary scientific humanism was the heart of the organisation, i.e. one in which science was central to the humanist beliefs and morals, and one which would be constantly adapting to the changing ideas of progress, egalitarianism and rights.
In realising the extent of Nazi atrocities, UNESCO moved to provide a corrective to “scientific racism”, by writing a statement on the scientific consensus over the definition of race. In 1949, UNESCO organised a meeting of international experts in anthropology, sociology and education, called the Meeting of Experts on Race Problems to decide on the wording of this statement. Experts included prominent humanist Morris Ginsberg, anthropologist MF Ashley Montagu, and educationist and future minister of education Humayun Kabir. This initial statement was rewritten by Ashley Montagu, after criticisms that it was too ideological and not scientific enough. Signatories of the final statement included Joseph Needham, Julian Huxley and J.B.S. Haldane. However, significant members of the British scientific elite, including C.D. Darlington and R.R. Gates, refused to sign the statement, citing various problems with it, including their fears over miscegenation and inequality of races regarding emotional and intellectual capacity. This was also the period when the winds of change were blowing over the British Empire and the decolonisation of India marked a new moment in the history of humanism.
Darlington and Haldane, who had two decades earlier agreed on almost all issue around race and eugenics, now were on opposing sides of the debate around the UNESCO statement. Their difference in opinions had started in the 1940s, when Haldane leant his support to the pseudoscientific doctrine of Lysenkoism, which Stalin had promoted as the official science of the USSR. This was a theory put forth by a Russian plant-breeder Trofim Denisovich Lysenko [1898-1976] during the Lenin/Stalin years where he rejected Mendelian genetics in favour of the doctrine of acquired characteristics. Haldane, as a supporter of communism had begrudgingly commented that there was some validity to the theory, after implicit threats from USSR. Darlington saw this as a betrayal of science. Janaki Ammal was also critical of Lysenkoism.
Humanism also had a monumental impact on India, following independence. Nehru, who had a keen interest in science, in his book The Discovery of India, laid out his perspective of the history of India, focused on human agency, imagination and creativity as the driving force for social progress. Speaking as the president at the Indian Science Congress on January 3rd 1947, Nehru declared science to be the way forward for society and would be the groundwork for a new independent India.
“I do represent in some small measure something of the new India that you see rising about us. I think it is right and proper and very necessary for the world of science to be in intimate contact with the new India. It is also essential that new India should also come in intimate contact with the world of science. Because, if science—whatever progress it may make—is isolated from the living currents, it will not go very far.”
Nehru invited international experts to India to reform the various fields of Indian science. While on a visit to London in 1949, Nehru sent for Janaki Ammal, requesting that she return to India and reorganise the Botanical Survey of India. The Indian Science Congress became the platform for international scientific collaboration, with the government taking a central role. In 1951, J.B.S. Haldane was invited by the foreign minister V.K. Krishna Menon to attend the Indian Science Congress, at which he also gave a series of lectures at the Indian Statistical Institute. In 1956, Haldane would return to live in India, working at the Indian Statistical Institute and bringing with him the Journal of Genetics, which became India’s first publication dedicated to genetic research.
