OF SCIENTIFIC TEMPER AND COVID-19 IN CONTEMPORARY INDIA

This paper intends to explain the need for and importance of a thriving scientific ecosystem in India todeal with the crisis of a global magnitude like Covid 19. In the wake of the abrupt outbreak of thispandemic, it has been found that the common masses in different parts of India have resorted to theuse of all kinds of superstitious and unscientific remedies to get rid of this virus. The social media wasalso replete with ample dogmatic and pseudo-scientific solutions to contain Covid 19. This kind ofirrational and unscientific response on the part of the common people revealed the glaring deficiencyof scientific temper even in this digital age after more than seventy years of independence. Thisqualitative research is carried out to recognize how the absence of a scientific temperament among thecommon masses posed a challenge to the society and the government in India at large to fight Covid19. In view of this, the creation of a scientific ecosystem in India has become so important today asnever before when New Delhi is aspiring to become a global power. Thus, there is an inevitablenecessity to inculcate the much-needed scientific temper among the masses in India today. This couldbe achieved only by an active collaboration of all the stakeholders- the civil society, the scientificcommunity, the Non-Governmental Organizations, and the government.