h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

As a crazy catloving mad scientist, I don’t agree with the notion that Einstein is the greatest scientist, the world ever conceived. But that eminent physicist's one exquisite remark, I love most in my life - 'Nationalism is an infantile disease… the measles of mankind'. I doubt whether he made this comment with reference to his agonies of being lost citizen of 3 nations, or just because he is much vexed with the ancient Roman exhortation – “Pro patria mori!” (Means Die for your fatherland).

Do we scientists have to possess patriotism is the basic conundrum, I am trying to legitimize here. Is there any ideological difference between a narrow-minded patriotic cartographer who draws the international boundary to his national maps and a bitch who pees at the places she visits to mark her territory? Scientists should think, act and live with scientific logic. She is not just a woman, but a Homo sapiens with cosmopolitan in distribution. Let the national defense and offence be on the shoulders of lay men, who are scientific idiots. What would happen if the scientists, who are political idiots demarcate the international boundaries? The boundaries will give us only unproductive competition, that which only spy scientists would be happy with!

Just for making the technologies "indigenous", be it in the field of remote sensing, cryogenics, stem cell cloning, missile engineering etc, we were spending trillions of rupees annually, which would otherwise be utilized for feeding starving millions. Only our patriotism should be blamed for spending three quarters of national funds in defense.

Let me rationally analyze the zeal of Indian nationalism among scientific intelligentsia. "At the beginning, there was no India". This is how Abraham Eraly's new book - "Gem in the lotus" (Viking Publishers) starts. Thanks to the British conquest for creating many 'new' nations like ours. Who will criticize those Indian states if any, in the doomsday, argue that they themselves possess the essentiality for being a nation? Is India, a mere union of states or (hopefully) a union of nations? India has never been a nation in its long history, because we have never had the basic elements - common history, religion, language, culture and ethnicity - essential to forge national unity. Do the German or French media ever waste their energy by struggling to show off the national integration as we do today? Peoples living in different parts of India hardly knew each other and had little in common with each other. You know, only a mere 3% of the total Indian population ever had a spouse out of his state of origin!

Isn't it paradoxical if you compare our integrity with that of linguistic nations like Germany? Even though, I am a Malayalee much more than legally being an Indian, my nationality is Indian just because I possess the Indian passport. Used to have the feeling that I am not in my motherland (of course, I love my motherland, than the fatherland, devote goddess than god…) no matter whether I am living in Madras, Frankfurt, or in Belfast! Here linguistic and cultural diversity is in its peak such that the concept of a unity for the national integration would almost became awkward. Is there any other national language in the world that which the majority of citizens of country in question do not know? English is not a language of intimacy for me, nor my mother tongue, but without which how can I survive even in my neighboring state though I know Hindi? That is why I prefer to introduce myself as a Malayalee than Indian to my British and German friends! Which true 'Indian' can defend the argument of this non-jingoist that by chest-thumping sloganeering, even civic-minded scientists can not improve their research caliber.

Back to the field of science. I am not arguing here that scientists should never cast their votes in national elections nor should they link with the national politics. The point, I would like to make here is that, our primary aim is only scientific progress to discover transcendent reality, for which we should not hesitate even if we have to sacrifice our nationalism as Einstein did. No person in the world, who possess philosophical reasoning and is scientifically inquisitive, will use the coinage 'brain drain' to refer emigration of mind in search of truth. Scientists are "matriotic" or patriotic only to one land, let it be a nation or a county. But they are loyally nationalistic (not ultranationalistic) to wherever countries in the world which promotes scientific progress. All scientists should essentially be an international citizen should have a common United Nations passport and the international boundaries should never be an obstacle for the free movement of their ideas, just because pure science does not enjoy the mean politics!