Science and technology is the panacea for the growth and security of the nation

The Engine, Not the Elixir

During the Kargil conflict of 1999, Indian forces asked for satellite navigation data over the battle zone and found that access to the American Global Positioning System could not be taken for granted. A nation fighting on its own mountains depended on a technology controlled by someone else. That lesson helped set in motion India's own regional navigation system, now known as NavIC. The story shows both halves of the statement before us. Science and technology are indispensable to growth and security, yet they arrive through people, institutions and political will. Science and technology are the engine of national growth and security, but they are not a panacea, because their power depends on the institutions, values and inclusion that steer them.

The word panacea comes from Panakeia, the Greek goddess of universal healing, and means a remedy for every ill. To call science a panacea is to claim that laboratories and machines alone can deliver prosperity and safety. There is much truth in the claim, and modern India was built on it. Jawaharlal Nehru spoke of the need for a scientific temper, a phrase the Constitution later turned into a fundamental duty under Article 51A(h). Homi Bhabha built the atomic energy programme, and Vikram Sarabhai insisted that India must be second to none in applying advanced technologies to the real problems of man and society.

The case for science as the driver of growth is strongest in agriculture. In the 1960s India lived from ship to mouth, dependent on American wheat under PL-480. The Green Revolution, led by M.S. Swaminathan with the high-yielding wheat varieties of Norman Borlaug, transformed that dependence. Foodgrain production rose from about 50 million tonnes in 1950-51 to more than 330 million tonnes in 2023-24. Verghese Kurien's Operation Flood applied science to the cooperative dairy and made India the world's largest milk producer. These were not mere technical feats; they freed the nation from the humiliation of hunger.

Moreover, technology has become the backbone of modern growth. The digital public infrastructure of Aadhaar, the Unified Payments Interface and direct benefit transfers has made India a global example of low-cost inclusion, letting a street vendor accept payments through a phone. Economists from Robert Solow onwards have shown that sustained growth comes not from adding labour and capital alone but from total factor productivity, which is largely the fruit of innovation. NITI Aayog warned in 2025 that India's growth still leans heavily on capital, with productivity contributing only a small share, which is precisely why science matters.

Security, too, rests on science. The nuclear tests at Pokhran on 11 May 1998 gave India strategic autonomy and a credible deterrent. Missiles such as Agni and BrahMos, the indigenous Tejas aircraft and satellites that watch borders and coasts all flow from decades of research. ISRO's Mangalyaan reached Mars orbit at the first attempt in 2014, and Chandrayaan-3 landed near the lunar south pole in 2023, signalling capability to the world. In the twenty-first century, security also means cyber defence, data protection and command over critical technologies, which is why the National Quantum Mission was launched in April 2023 with an outlay of Rs 6,003 crore and the India Semiconductor Mission began in 2021.

"Science without humanity." (one of the seven social sins named by Mahatma Gandhi in Young India, 1925)

Yet the claim that science is a panacea breaks down on closer examination. The Soviet Union put the first satellite and the first man into space and produced brilliant physicists, yet it collapsed in 1991 because its economy and institutions decayed. Technology without sound governance cannot sustain a nation. India's own experience shows the gap between capability and outcome: a country that can land on the Moon still recorded 35.5 per cent of its children under five as stunted in NFHS-5 (2019-21). The knowledge to end malnutrition exists; what is lacking is delivery, awareness and equity. Science supplies tools, but governance decides whether they reach the last citizen.

Science can also endanger the very security it promises. The Bhopal gas tragedy of 1984 showed how industrial technology, poorly regulated, can kill thousands in a night. The ransomware attack that crippled the servers of AIIMS Delhi in November 2022 showed that digital dependence creates new vulnerabilities. Nuclear weapons deter war but also carry the risk of catastrophe. Automation may raise output while shedding jobs, and an economy that grows without employing its young may face unrest rather than security. These are not arguments against science, but they prove that it must be guided by ethics and law.

Furthermore, a nation's security is broader than its weapons. Kautilya's Arthashastra placed the strength of the treasury, the welfare of the people and the loyalty of subjects at the heart of state power. Modern thinkers speak of human security: freedom from want and fear. A nation is secure when its citizens are healthy, educated and united, when its institutions are trusted and when social divisions are healed. Technology can help, but social cohesion, rule of law and a just distribution of growth are built by politics and society. A drone cannot heal a communal riot, and a satellite cannot restore trust in a corrupt office.

Even as an engine, Indian science is underpowered. India spends less than one per cent of its GDP on research and development, far below countries such as South Korea and Israel, and private industry contributes a small share. Talented researchers still leave for laboratories abroad. The Anusandhan National Research Foundation, created by law in 2023, and a target of raising R&D spending to two per cent of GDP are steps in the right direction. For science to serve growth and security, the nation must invest in universities, protect academic freedom and link laboratories to industry and farms.

Building upon this, the right approach is to treat science and technology as a force multiplier within a wider strategy. Growth must be inclusive, so that digital literacy reaches villages; the Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyaan trained 6.39 crore people, but the divide remains. Security must be comprehensive, joining military technology with diplomacy, economic resilience and social harmony. Ethics must keep pace with invention, through laws such as the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, and through a culture that asks not only what can be done but what ought to be done.

Science and technology are the most powerful engine a modern nation possesses, but an engine needs a driver, a road and a destination. The navigation satellites that India built after Kargil were the product not of science alone but of national resolve, sound institutions and long-term investment. India's path to Viksit Bharat by 2047 will depend on its laboratories, but equally on its schools, courts, villages and conscience. When scientific temper is joined with constitutional values and inclusive growth, science will cure many ills, not as a magic potion, but as the disciplined work of a free and just society.