The Spark

Steve Jobs: An Obituary!

2011-11-14T07:18:00.000-08:00

"Greatest innovator of this world has died." We were bombarded by these headlines and newsflashes by the media on the next day of the death of Steve Jobs. The corporate media gave a tearful farewell to Steve Jobs, the former CEO of Apple inc. and founder of ‘PIXAR’. It is true that Steve Jobs was a true corporate hero. He was a media celebrity. Media celebrated everything about Steve Jobs. However, let's see how noble was this symbol of modern capitalism and how he showed his compassionate benevolence to the world!

If we are not mistaken, we are talking about the same Steve Jobs who refused to accept his daughter as his child and claimed that he is impotent (just to avoid paternity, because that would have cost him millions of dollars!!). He was a champion in dog-eat-dog corporate competition, having his eyes fixed at the throat of his opponent. He showed his Weberian spirit of entrepreneurship by expelling fellow engineer Wozniak from his company and later getting expelled himself in a plot against Sculley. Ironically enough, all these skillful maneuvers are not a reason for disdain due to the unethical conduct of Jobs; on the contrary, these are the very traits which make Jobs the hero of the corporate world and most celebrated by the media! He was a true capitalist for whom the measuring unit of everything human, like ethics, morality, justness, etc was only money. His company Apple manufactured I-Pod, I-Pad, Laptop, PCs, Software etc. As advertisements claim, these products have changed lives of many high class and higher middle class people. Why not!? However, Jobs changed the lives of the working people in his corporation in a different way. Steve Jobs has made life for thousands of workers a living hell, just for profit. Foxconn and Intech are two main contract manufacturers of Apple. The workers' campus of Foxconn forces workers to work in inhuman conditions. It is known as a ‘hell’ for workers in China. Workers have to work for more than 16 hours continuously. This is done to ensure the quality standard of Apple! The workers are underpaid here which is the second reason why Apple gives Foxconn the contract. Apple shines on blood and sweat of workers of China and other Third World countries. A lot of workers have committed or have tried to commit suicide due to conditions of slavery in this campus. Apparently, that must be regarded as a great change in the lives of the workers by Steve Jobs!!

Products like I-Pod, I-Phone, X-Box and other such electronic goods of companies like Apple, Microsoft, Samsung are designed to make person ‘comfortably dumb’. The social system we live in today has alienation, consumerism, laziness bred through these products. Video games, social networking sites, pornography spread the culture of alienation, perversion and self-centeredness amongst people. These products kill every tender human emotions, make people insensitive to everything that matters, and teach people to enjoy perversion. Every now and then, these companies launch some new product that have new options for new perversions and convince that the older was not pervert enough! The human emotions and sensitivity are devoured by these gadgets. These teach people not to think and just enjoy in an inconsiderate way.

It is quite easy to understand why all media houses sobbed over Steve Jobs’ death. Whether he was a great technology innovator is a non-question. He was definitely an enterprising exploitator. We are not sure about technology, but he was definitely an innovator and pioneer in new methods of exploitation and spreading stupidity through gadgets in the society. The technology his company has been working upon is a kind of luxurious upgradation. It nowhere relates to development of society.

So, while a true radical can never celebrate the death of anybody, there is not much to mourn for common students, workers, pro-people intellectuals and other common people in the death of Steve Jobs. That is the most we can say in this placebo for an obituary.

आधुनिक भौतिकी और भौतिकवाद के लिए संकट

2011-10-16T19:46:00.001-07:00

1. परिचय
क्वाण्टम भौतिकी और सापेक्षिकता सिद्धान्त के आने, एक सूक्ष्म विश्व के सामने आने, और उसमें न्यूटनीय भौतिकी के नियमों के लागू न होने के कारण, 20वीं सदी का मध्य आते-आते वैज्ञानिकों की बडी संरव्या का मत यह हो गया था कि आधुनिक भौतिकी संकट का शिकार है। पिछले 30-35 सालों के दौरान भी कोई सिद्धान्त भौतिकी के समकालीन बुनियादी सवालों का पूरा समाधान पेश नहीं कर पाया है, और पूरे ब्रम्हाण्ड की उत्पत्ति से लेकर, उसके विकास और समय की अवधारणा पर शोध और प्रयोग जारी हैं। इन शोधों और प्रयोगों पर पूरे भौतिक विश्व की हमारी भावी समझ निर्भर करती है। लेकिन यह भी सच है कि क्लासिकीय भौतिकी के लिए संकट पैदा कर देने वाली 20वीं सदी ने प्रकृति और ब्रम्हाण्ड के बारे में हमारी समझदारी को एक नये धरातल पर भी पहुँचाया। पिछले 100 सालों में सापेक्षिता का सिद्धान्त, क्वाण्टम सिद्धान्त, स्टैण्डर्ड माॅडल आदि ने पदार्थ जगत के बारे में हमारे बोध को सूक्ष्म एवं गहन बनाया है। पुरानी अवधारणाओं को हटाकर नये तथा बेहतर सिद्धान्त खुद को स्थापित करते रहे हैं, हालाँकि समय के साथ उनमें से कई ग़लत भी साबित हो गये।
भौतिकी में हुए इन विकासों से यह बात स्पष्ट हो चुकी है कि पदार्थ जगत के हर विशिष्ट स्तर के अपने विशिष्ट नियम होते हैं, जैसे न्यूटोनीय यांत्रिकी और क्वाण्टम यांत्रिकी के नियम एक दूसरे से भिन्न होते हैं। इसका कारण यह है कि एक का रिश्ता वृहत (मैक्रो) विश्व की गति से है तो दूसरे का सूक्ष्म (माइक्रो) विश्व की गति के साथ। तकनोलाजी में हुए विकास के कारण ऐसी उन्नत मशीनों का निर्माण सम्भव हो सका जिससे पदार्थ के ऊपरी संस्तर को भेदकर उसके सूक्ष्म विश्व तक पहुँचना सम्भव हुआ। जब-जब यंत्रों के माध्यम से मानव प्रेक्षण का स्तर गहरा होता गया और अधिक से अधिक सूक्ष्म धरातल पर उतरा, तब-तब चारों तरफ संकट का शोर मचा। एक बुजुर्ग ब्रिटिश वैज्ञानिक ने 1930 के दशक में सापेक्षिकता के सिद्धान्त, अनिश्चितता के सिद्धान्त और क्वाण्टम भौतिक के उदय के बाद कहा था कि काश मैं 20 वर्ष पहले मर गया होता, क्योंकि अब जीवन के इस दौर में नयी खोजों के साथ ऐसा लग रहा है मानो अब तक जो कुछ जाना और समझा वह सब झूठ था! यह एक वैज्ञानिक द्वारा इस आभासी संकट की सबसे त्रासद अभिव्यक्ति थी।
बहरहाल, जब-जब विज्ञान में ऐसे विकास और खोजें हुईं जिन्होंने समकालीन सिद्धान्तों और अवधारणाओं पर प्रश्न खड़ा कर दिया, तब-तब एक सैद्धान्तिक धुंध का वातावरण बना। इसके कारणों की हम आगे पड़ताल करेंगे। लेकिन हर बार बुर्जुआ मीडिया तथा प्रतिक्रियावादी वैज्ञानिकों को यह मौका मिल जाता था कि वे इस सैद्धान्तिक अविश्वास, अज्ञेयवाद और अस्पष्टता का लाभ उठाकर पदार्थ के होने-न होने को लेकर ही सवाल खड़े करने लगें, पदार्थ के पैदा होने में किसी दिव्य हस्तक्षेप की बात करने लगें, यथार्थ की अवधारणा पर ही सवाल खड़ा कर दें। फिलहाल, ब्रह्माण्ड की उत्पत्ति और प्रकृति से जुड़े सवालों को लेकर चल रहे महाप्रयोग, यानी हाईड्राॅन कोलाइडर का सर्न प्रयोग, के दौरान भी इसी प्रकार की बातें मीडिया और प्रतिक्रियावादी वैज्ञानिकों और वैज्ञानिक संस्थानों द्वारा की जा रही हैं। मीडिया ‘हिग्स बुसाॅन’ की अवधारणा को समझे बिना ही ले उड़ा है और इण्डिया टीवी, ज़ी टीवी जैसे बाज़ारू चैनलों ने तो घोषणा भी कर डाली सर्न प्रयोग ने तथाकथित ‘गाॅड पार्टिकल’ ढूँढ निकाला है, जिससे कि ईश्वर का अस्तित्व वैज्ञानिक तौर पर साबित हो गया है। भला हो सर्न प्रयोग के वैज्ञानिकों का कि उन्होंने बार-बार बयान देकर यह स्पष्ट कर दिया कि अव्वलन तो हिग्स बुसाॅन की मिलने की संभावना ही नगण्य है, और दूसरा यह कि हिग्स बुसान, या जैसा कि मीडिया इसे कहना पसन्द करता है, ‘गाॅड पार्टिकल’ के मिलने से भी ईश्वर के अस्तित्व की किसी भी रूप में पुष्टि नहीं होती है। स्पष्ट है कि ज्ञान और अज्ञान के बीच के द्वन्द्व के जरिये ही ज्ञान का विकास होता है। मनुष्य जो जानता है उस जानकारी को व्यवस्थित और संस्थाबद्ध कर विज्ञान का स्वरूप देता है, और जो चीज़ें उसके ज्ञान के दायरे से उस समय बाहर होती हैं, अज्ञात होती हैं, उन्हें ही कुछ लोग अज्ञात से अज्ञेय बना देते हैं। इसी अज्ञान और आभासी अज्ञेयता में मनुष्य की अतार्किकता को सांस लेने की जगह मिलती है। इसी आभासी अज्ञेयता का इस्तेमाल कभी सर्वखण्डनवाद, संशयवाद, अज्ञेयवाद, ईश्वरवाद तो कभी सामाजिक विज्ञान के दायरे में उत्तर-आधुनिकतावाद को जीवन देने के लिए किया जाता है। माख, एडिंगटन, हाइजनबर्ग, ससकिन्ड, विटन आदि द्वारा प्रस्तुत सिद्धान्तों की विशिष्ट व्याख्याएँ कहीं न कहीं भगवान के लिए जगह बनाती ही है या फिर यथार्थ के अस्तित्व पर ही सवाल खड़ा कर देती हैं।
पिछले 100 सालों के भौतिकी के विकास के लिए हम लेनिन के निम्न शब्द उद्धरित कर सकते हैंः
‘‘विज्ञान तथा मुख्यतः भौतिकी में कला की तरह कई धड़े मौजूद हैं जिनके परिणाम एक दूसरे से भिन्न हैं तथा कभी-कभी बिल्कुल उलट तथा विरोधी भी होते हैं।’’ (अनुभवसिद्ध आलोचना और भौतिकवाद) यह प्रवृत्ति खास तौर से 1930 से ज्यादा उभर कर सामने आई। 1900 के दौरान रेडियोएक्टिविटी, विद्युत, चुम्बकत्व आदि की खोजों ने पदार्थ जगत के सूक्ष्मतम तथा नए गुणों को उजागर किया। हर नए प्रयोग व हर नयी खोज के साथ पदार्थ जगत की नयी गतियाँ व रूप सामने आते हैं। विज्ञान के विकास में कभी ऐसा दौर नहीं होता जब विज्ञान सबकुछ जानने का दावा करे। धर्म सभी प्रश्नों का उत्तर देने का वायदा करता है क्योंकि वह कभी सही प्रश्न पूछता ही नहीं। विज्ञान कभी सभी प्रश्नों का उत्तर देने का वायदा नहीं करता, क्योंकि वह सही प्रश्न पूछता है। कोई भी ऐसा क्षण जब विज्ञान हर उपस्थित वैध प्रश्न का उत्तर दे देगा, विज्ञान की मृत्यु का क्षण होगा। विज्ञान की प्रेरक शक्ति ही अज्ञात का वह क्षितिज होता है, जिसे वह ज्ञात बनाता चलता है; लेकिन जब तक कोई अज्ञात क्षितिज ज्ञात बनता है तब तक अज्ञात का एक नया क्षितिज पैदा हो चुका होता है। विज्ञान की गति भी वैज्ञानिक तौर पर ही समझी जा सकती है। इस प्रकार द्वन्द्वात्मक प्रक्रिया में ही विज्ञान विकसित होता है। विज्ञान के भीतर प्रत्यक्षवादी/नियतत्ववादी धारा और अज्ञेयवादी धारा के बीच हमेशा ही टकराव रहता है। पहली धारा का मानना होता है कि विज्ञान के पास हर प्रश्न का उत्तर है और हर चीज़ को निर्धारित किया जा सकता है, जबकि अज्ञेयवादी धारा दूसरी छोर पर जाकर यह दावा करती है कि पदार्थ जगत को ठीक-ठीक समझा ही नहीं जा सकता, और कुछ धुर अज्ञेयवादी इस बात को यहाँ तक बढ़ा ले जाते हैं कि चूँकि पदार्थ की गति और प्रकृति के बारे में दावे से कुछ नहीं कहा जा सकता है, इसलिए उसके अस्तित्व के बारे में भी दावे से कुछ नहीं कहा जा सकता है। पदार्थ और यथार्थ के अस्तित्व पर ही सवाल खड़ा कर दिया जाता है। इसका कारण होता है द्वन्द्वात्मक भौतिकवादी नज़रिये का अभाव। इसके कारण वैज्ञानिक अपने विचारधारात्मक पूर्वाग्रहों के साथ प्रयोगशाला में जाते हैं और बाहर निकलते-निकलते या तो वे प्रत्यक्षवादी और नियतत्ववादी बन चुके होते हैं या फिर अज्ञेयवादी! जैसा कि जापानी माक्र्सवादी भौतिकशास्त्री सकाता ने कहा था, एक वैज्ञानिक को पहले से (एप्रायोरी) द्वन्द्वात्मक होना चाहिए, वरना उसकी नियति नियतत्ववाद या अज्ञेयवाद है। कितना सच है।
बहरहाल, हुआ यह कि सूक्ष्म जगत के अनावरण और नये सिद्धान्तों के आने के साथ द्वन्द्ववात्मक भौतिकवादी नजरिये के अभाव में प्रत्यक्षवाद, माखवाद, नवकान्टवाद, भाववाद आदि दार्शनिक धाराओं में पोषित वैज्ञानिक पदार्थ जगत के अस्तित्व पर ही सवाल खड़े करने लगे। पदार्थ को हटाकर गणित के जटिल समीकरणों व प्रतीकों को ही पूरी भौतिकी मान लेने की धारा बह चली। क्वांटम जगत के खोजे जाने के बाद कई पुरानी गुत्थियाँ तो सुलझ गयीं, परन्तु वही संकट भी पैदा हुआ, जिसका हमने अभी-अभी जि़क्र किया था। वैज्ञानिक दो खेमों में बँट गयेः नियतत्ववाद, जिसकी नुमान्दगी आइंस्टीन, श्रोडिंगर, आदि कर रहे थे और दूसरा अज्ञेयवाद, जिसकी नुमाइन्दगी बोर के नेतृत्व में कोपेनहेगेन स्कूल कर रहा था।
क्वांटम जगत का यानी सूक्ष्म पदार्थ जगत के नए गुणों का सार रखा गया तो नवकाण्टवाद (अज्ञेयवाद) का झंडा लिए हुए कोपनहेगन स्कूल ने विश्व को अज्ञेय करार दे दिया। भौतिकवाद के लिए फिर खतरा घोषित कर दिया गया। इस स्कूल का विरोध करते हुए आईंस्टीन, प्लांक आदि वस्तुतः नियतत्ववाद की ही रक्षा करने में लगे रहे और इसके लिए इन्होंने क्वाण्टम भौतिकी तथा अनिश्चितता के सिद्धांत को नकारने में पुरज़ोर शक्ति लगा दी। इस बहस में नियतत्ववादी धारा पर अज्ञेयवादी धारा अन्ततः हावी रही। इसका कारण स्पष्ट है। अज्ञेयवादी कभी चीज़ों को निर्धारण योग्य नहीं मानता और इसलिए वह कभी निर्धारण करने का दावा भी नहीं करता। नियतत्ववादी का नियतत्ववाद तभी सही माना जायेगा जब वह हर मामले में सफलतापूर्वक निर्धारण कर ले जाये। अगर दस मुद्दे एजेण्डे पर हैं, जिनमें से 9 को निर्धारित करने में नियतत्ववादी सफल हो गये, और एक को वे नहीं निर्धारित कर पाये, तो भी विजय अज्ञेयवादी खेमे की हो जायेगी, क्योंकि निर्धारित करने का बोझ उनके कन्धों पर नहीं होता। लेकिन यह भी सच है कि यह दोनों ही छोर यांत्रिक, अधिभूतवादी और एकांगी हैं। यह पदार्थ जगत की एक द्वन्द्वात्मक समझ विकसित नहीं कर सकते। लेकिन इन दो गैर-द्वन्द्वात्मक छोरों के अतिरिक्त एक तीसरा धड़ा भी था जिसने इन नयी खोजों और सिद्धान्तों की रोशनी में विश्व की द्वन्द्वात्मक समझदारी और सैद्धान्तिक भौतिकी की सही समझदारी विकसित करने का प्रयास किया। यह धड़ा था जापानी माक्र्सवादी वैज्ञानिकों का। महान जापानी भौतिकशास्त्रियों युकावा, ताकेतानी और सकाता ने द्वन्द्वात्मक शैली से लैस होकर क्वांटम जगत के नियमों की भौतिकवादी व्याख्या की। उन्होंने स्पष्ट किया कि नियतत्ववाद और अज्ञेयवाद विश्व की दो विपरीत गैर-द्वन्द्वात्मक समझदारियाँ हैं और इन विपरीत सिद्धान्तों में एक एकरूपता है। इन दोनों का स्रोत एक ही हैः अज्ञात की मौजूदगी। एक अज्ञात के समझ आत्मसमर्पण और उसे अज्ञेय का दजऱ्ा देने का छोर है (अज्ञेयवाद), और दूसरा, अज्ञात के खि़लाफ़ एक नियतत्ववादी प्रतिक्रिया। और ये दोनों ही ग़लत हैं; ये विज्ञान और उसके विकास की प्रक्रिया और इसीलिए पूरे विश्व के विकास की द्वन्द्वात्मक प्रक्रिया और अन्तरविरोध के सिद्धान्त को नहीं समझते। आइये देखें कि इन दो यांत्रिक और अधिभूतवादी छोरों तथा इनके मिश्रण ने विज्ञान में बार-बार आभासी संकट को कैसे जन्म दिया है।

2. आधुनिक भौतिकी में संकट

संकट का इतिहासः नियतत्ववाद बनाम अज्ञेयवाद और द्वन्द्वात्मक भौतिकवादी हस्तक्षेप
20वीं शताब्दी की शुरुआत से ही भौतिकी के ‘संकट’ की शुरूआत हो चुकी थी। औद्योगिक क्रान्ति ने विज्ञान व तकनीक दोनों को मज़बूती से बुर्जुआ वर्ग के हाथों में पहुँचा दिया। अब बड़े स्तर पर प्रयोग होने लगे। पूंजीपतियों की सरकारों ने और खुद पूंजीपतियों ने वैज्ञानिक शोध को खड़ा किया जिससे की उत्पादक शक्तियों को और मजबूत बनाकर मजदूर वर्ग के श्रम के शोषण को और साथ ही अधिशेष विनियोजन को और अधिक कुशल बनाया जा सके। 20वीं शताब्दी के शुरुआत तक जमा हो रहे आँकड़े क्लासिकल न्यूटोनियन भौतिकी पर सवाल खड़े कर रहे थे। उस समय प्रचलित ईथर सिद्धान्त पर सवाल खड़े हो रहे थे। यह भी खोज निकाला गया था कि अणु अविभाज्य नहीं है और वह स्वयं भी दूसरे और अधिक सूक्ष्म कणों से मिलकर बना हैं। गैलवैनीय विद्युत, ऊष्मा के प्रयोग आदि भी पदार्थ जगत के नये गुणों को उद्घाटित कर रहे थे। ग़ौरतलब है कि हर नये प्रयोग के बाद माख, पाॅइनकेयर आदि जैसे वैज्ञानिक शोर-गुल मचाते हुए भौतिकवाद को गुप्त तरह से या खुले तौर पर नकार कर रहे थे। इसी समय आइन्सटीन ने जमा आँकड़ों को सुस्पष्ट सिद्धांत में समेटकर ईथर को विज्ञान जगत से बाहर का रास्ता दिखाया। यानी इस विश्व में पदार्थ जगत के बीच ऊर्जा के हस्तानांतरण के लिये ईथर के माध्यम की कल्पना की जरूरत नहीं रह गयी। ऊर्जा खुद पदार्थ का एक रूप होती है, यह बात सत्यापित हो गयी। लेनिन ने जब ‘भौतिकवाद और अनुभवसिद्ध आलोचना’ लिखी थी, तब ओस्टवाल्ड के ऊर्जा सिद्धान्त की आलोचना करते हुए इस बात पर मुख्य जोर दिया था। लेनिन ने यह सिद्ध किया था कि यह भौतिकी का संकट नहीं था बल्कि विज्ञान की अधिभूतवादी, नियतत्तववादी, निरपेक्ष एवं एकंागी समझ के वैज्ञानिकांे पर हावी होने से पैदा हुआ ‘संकट’ था। वास्तव में तो हर नया प्रयोग पदार्थ के द्वन्द्वात्मक विकास को पुष्ट कर रहा था। 1919 तक आईन्सटीन ने नये आंकड़ों के अनुरूप आधुनिक विज्ञान का प्रमुख सिद्धान्त प्रतिपादित किया, यानी सामान्य सापेक्षिकता का सिद्धान्त (General Theory of Relativity) प्रतिपादित किया। यह सिद्धांत निरपेक्ष प्रेक्षण की अवधारणा को नकार देता है। हर प्रेक्षक समतुल्य होता है। मतलब यह कि किसी भी विशिष्ट प्रेक्षक, जैसे इथर या भगवान को किसी प्रेक्षक पर कोइ तरजीह नहीं प्राप्त होती है। हर प्रेक्षण साकपेक्षिक होता है। यह सिद्धांत ब्रह्माण्ड की ज्यामिति तथा पदार्थ की गति को सू़त्रीकृत करता है तथा इसने द्वन्द्वात्मक भौतिकवाद को और अधिक गहरे धरातल पर पुष्ट किया।

20वीं शताब्दी में सूक्ष्म जगत की खोज और फिर प्लांक तथा आईन्स्टीन के ब्लैक बॉडी विकिरण, फोटोलेक्ट्रिक प्रभाव आदि समेत सूक्ष्म जगत की गति से जुड़े विभिन्न सिद्धान्तों के आने के साथ ही क्लासिकीय भौतिकी की ख़ामियाँ सामने आने लगीं। 1925 में हाईजेनबर्ग ने अपने अनिश्चितता के सिद्धंात को भी सूत्रबद्ध किया। पदार्थ जगत में सूक्ष्म स्तर पर जाने पर पदार्थ के गुणों में विशिष्ट बदलाव आते हैं। यह पाया गया की इलेक्ट्राॅन करीबन 300,00,000 मीटर प्रति सेकण्ड की गति से नाभिक के चारों और चक्कर काटते हैं। यह जाना गया कि इलेक्ट्राॅन सिर्फ कण न रहकर तरंग तथा कण के परस्पर अन्तर्गुंथित (इण्टरट्वाइण्ड) रूप में मौजूद रहता है। इस सिद्धांत ने तब तक मौजूद सिद्धान्तों (न्यूटोनीयन भौतिकी) के आधार को हिला दिया। पदार्थ का दोहरा चरित्र होता है। यानी वह एक साथ कण भी है और तरंग भी! यह बात आम समझ से परे लगती है। लेकिन सूक्ष्म जगत में ऐसा ही होता है।
बोर और हाईजे़नबर्ग की अगुवाई में कोपेनहेगन स्कूल ने प्रेक्षण की सीमा के कारण सूक्ष्म कणों की गति और पथ में पैदा होने वाली अनिश्चितता के आधार पर इस विश्व को ही अबूझ करार दे दिया। सिर्फ समीकरणों और प्रतीकों को भौतिकी मानने वाले वैज्ञानिकों में हाहाकार मच गया। भौतिकवाद के लिए यह आभासी संकट भी इसी समय से पैदा किया गया। कोपेनहेगन स्कूल ने अनिष्चितता को प्रकृति का नियम बताते हुए कहा कि पदार्थ जगत के बारे में कोई प्रयोग सटीक नहीं हो सकता है। हाइज़ेनबर्ग के अनिश्चितता के सिद्धान्त के अनुसार इलेक्ट्राॅन अवस्थिति और वेग का एक साथ-साथ सही-सही आकलन नहीं किया जा सकता क्योंकि प्रेक्षण हेतु जब उस पर प्रकाश डाला जाता है तो प्रकाश के कण चरित्र के कारण इलेक्ट्राॅन की गति और अवस्थिति में परिवर्तन आ जाता है। हाईजे़नबर्ग ने अपने विचारधारात्मक पूर्वाग्रहों से प्रेरित होकर इससे यह नतीजा निकाला कि हम पदार्थ जगत की प्रकृति और चरित्र के बारे में कुछ नहीं कह सकते और इसलिए यथार्थ के अस्तित्व पर भी प्रश्न खड़ा हो जाता है। हाईज़ेनबर्ग का प्रसिद्ध कथन थाः ”प्रेक्षक यथार्थ का निर्माण करता है।“ निश्चित रूप से, यह एक गैर-द्वन्द्वात्मक नतीजा है। इसके बारे में द्वन्द्वात्मक भौतिकवादी अवस्थिति पर खड़े वैज्ञानिकों ने क्या आलोचना की इस पर हम बाद में आएँगे। लेकिन आइन्सटीन और प्लांक के पक्ष ने इस पक्ष का अधिभूतवादी और नियतत्तववादी ढ़ंग से विरोध किया। ‘‘ईश्वर दाँव नहीं लगाता’’-आइन्सटीन का प्रचलित कथन उनकी दार्षनिक अवस्थिति को दर्षाता है। निश्चित तौर पर यह एक जुमला (रेटरिक) था और इससे उनके ईश्वर में विश्वास से कोई लेना-देना नहीं है। आइन्स्टीन के धर्म और ईश्वर के बारे में विचार अलग से चर्चा का विषय हैं, लेकिन यहाँ इतना बताया जा सकता है कि वह धार्मिक नहीं थे; ईश्वर के बारे में उनके विचार वही थे जो कि बरूच स्पिनोज़ा के थे। स्पिनोज़ा ने प्रकृति और ईश्वर को एक ही माना था। प्रकृति की व्यवस्था और सिमिट्री वास्तव में उन सभी विशिष्टताओं और सापेक्षिकताओं का सामान्यीकृत निरपेक्ष है, जो पदार्थ जगत में मौजूद हैं। ईश्वर के बारे में आइन्स्टीन का मानना था कि इसके बारे में विज्ञान अभी कुछ कहने की हालत में नहीं है, लेकिन फिलहाल के लिए तर्क और विवेक को अपने शुद्धतम और उदात्ततम रूप में प्रकृति में देखा जा सकता है, और उसे ही ईश्वर कहा जा सकता है। स्पष्ट है कि अज्ञेयवाद के प्रति आइन्स्टीन की अतिरंजित प्रतिक्रिया उन्हें इस छोर तक ले गयी थी। प्रकृति में अगर सबकुछ नियतत्ववादी ढंग से व्यवस्थित नहीं है और निश्चितता और अनिश्चितता के सतत द्वन्द्व में ही यथार्थ मौजूद है, जैसा कि सूक्ष्म विश्व की खोज ने दिखलाया, तो फिर अज्ञेयवाद के तर्कों का जवाब दे पाना किसी नियतत्ववादी के लिए मुश्किल हो जाता! इसलिए वे कहीं-कहीं यह कहने की हद तक चले जाते हैं कि प्रकृति में सबकुछ नियतत्ववादी ढंग से व्यवस्थित और सिमिट्रिकल है और उनकी बात से ऐसी गन्ध आने लगती है कि इसके पीछे कोई दिव्य हस्तक्षेप है। यह नियतत्ववाद ही आइंस्टीन के दार्शनिक वैज्ञानिक जीवन की सबसे बड़ी कमी था, और इसी के कारण साॅल्वे सम्मेलन में हुई महान वैज्ञानिक बहसों में उनकी अवस्थिति कोपेनहेगेन स्कूल के समक्ष कमज़ोर पड़ी। हालाँकि बाद में आइंस्टीन ने दो अन्य वैज्ञानिकों पोडोल्स्की और रोज़ेन के साथ मिलकर दिखलाया कि अज्ञेयवाद के अतिरेकपूर्ण दावे किसी रूप में ग़लत हैं। बाद में इन तीनों की परिकल्पना को डेविड बोम और न्यूमैन जैसे वैज्ञानिकों ने सही साबित किया। ये परिकल्पना नियतत्ववाद को तो सही नहीं ठहरा पाती, लेकिन अज्ञेयवाद पर प्राणान्तक चोट करती है। इस पर विस्तार से चर्चा सम्भव नहीं है। अब हम उस तीसरे पक्ष की बात करते हैं जिस पक्ष ने अज्ञेयवाद बनाम नियतत्ववाद की बहस में एक द्वन्द्वात्मक भौतिकवादी हस्तक्षेप किया।
जापान के ताकेतानी और सकाता ने द्वंद्वात्मक भौतिकवादी अवस्थिति से यह दर्षाया कि क्वाण्टम भौतिकी पूर्णतः पदार्थ जगत के विषिष्ट स्तर को समझाती है। यहाँ सटीकता की बहस ही बेमानी है। न्यूटोनीय भौतिकी वृहद जगत के लिए आज भी सच है। लेकिन प्रेक्षण के धरातल के बदलने के साथ, सन्दर्भ के बदलने के साथ, अलग-अलग जगत में गति के नियमों में भी परिवर्तन आ जाता है। दूसरी बात यह, कि प्रकृति में निश्चितता और अनिश्चितता के बीच, निर्धारण और संयोग के बीच हमेशा एक द्वन्द्व मौजूद रहता है। निश्चित तौर पर यह द्वन्द्व अपने आपको प्रकृति के गति के नियमों की व्याख्या करने वाले विज्ञान में भी अभिव्यक्त करता है। सूक्ष्म जगत में जिन कारणों से आज अनिश्चितता मौजूद है, उसे इन वैज्ञानिकों प्रेक्षण समस्या (आॅब्ज़र्वेशन प्राॅब्लम) का नाम दिया और बताया कि प्रेक्षक और प्रेक्षण के उपकरणों के विकास के साथ इस धरातल पर मौजूद प्रेक्षण की समस्या का समाधान हो जायेगा, लेकिन तब कोई न कोई नया धरातल सामने होगा, जिस पर नये सिरे से अनिश्चितता और प्रेक्षण की समस्या मौजूद होगी। यह प्रक्रिया ही पदार्थ जगत के विकास की द्वन्द्वात्मकता को विज्ञान की द्वन्द्वात्मकता में प्रतिबिम्बित करती है। अब चूँकि विज्ञान में निश्चितता और अनिश्चितता, दोनों के ही पहलू सतत और अनन्त रूप से मौजूद रहे हैं और रहेंगे, इसलिए यदि वैज्ञानिक पहले से ही एक द्वन्द्वात्मक समझ को लेकर प्रस्थान नहीं करता तो वह निश्चित तौर पर या तो आइंस्टीन-श्रोडिंगर के नियतत्ववाद और स्पिनोज़ा के ईश्वर का शिकार बन जायेगा, या फिर, हाइज़ेनबर्ग और बोर के नवकाण्टीय अज्ञेयवाद की खाई में जा गिरेगा, जहाँ उसके लिए होने और न होने का अर्थ ही समाप्त हो जायेगा, क्योंकि समस्त पदार्थ जगत ही है या नहीं, इसकी कोई गारण्टी नहीं है; ऐसा भी हो सकता है कि सब माया हो! सामाजिक विज्ञान की तरह ही प्रकृति विज्ञान में भी एक वैचारिक संघर्ष जारी रहा है। यह संघर्ष 20वीं सदी में अपनी ऊँचाइयों और गहराइयों तक गया। लेकिन महान प्रतिभाएँ भी विज्ञानवादी नियतत्ववाद और विज्ञानवादी अज्ञेयवाद का शिकार हो गयीं। द्वन्द्वात्मक भौतिकवाद ने भौतिकी में मौजूद आभासी संकट का जो समाधान किया, उसे बुर्जुआ मीडिया कहीं भी नहीं प्रदर्शित करता और न ही उसे स्कूलों और काॅलेजों के पाठ्यक्रम में शामिल किया जाता है। लेकिन सकाता, ताकेतानी और युकावा जैसे वैज्ञानिकों के योगदान को समझे बिना आधुनिक भौतिकी की एक सही समझदारी विकसित कर पाना मुश्किल है।

आज की समस्यायें
जिनेवा में हो रहे लार्ज हाइड्राॅन कोलाइडर प्रयोग से पहले तमाम भोंपूओं ने इसके खिलाफ यह प्रचारित करना षुरू किया कि इस प्रयोग से दुनिया तबाह हो जायेगी, भगवान की बनाई दुनिया में छेड़कानी करना खतरनाक होगा। इस प्रयोग में 27 किमी की एक सुरंग में दो प्रोटाॅन (हाईड्राॅन) की आपस में टक्कर होगी। इस ऊर्जा के स्तर पर हमें पदार्थ के विषिष्ट गुण देखने को मिल सकते हैं। कुछ वैज्ञानिक तथा मीडिया में यह अफवाह उठी कि इस प्रयोग से ब्लैक होल पैदा होंगे जो पूरी दुनिया का विनाष कर देंगे। लेकिन तमाम अटकलबाजियों को नकारते हुए यह प्रयोग सफल रहा। कई वज्ञैानिक इसे स्ट्रिंग थ्यरी को पुख्ता करने का माध्यम मानते हैं। कुछ अतिरिक्त आयाम ढूंढना चाहते हैं तो कुछ भगवान के हाथ! पिछले 35 सालों से वैज्ञानिक हर सवाल का जवाब देने वाले एक सिद्धान्त (थियरी फाॅर एवरीथिंग) की तलाश में हैं जिसकी सबसे बड़ी दावेदार स्ट्रिंग थियरी है। भौतिक वैज्ञानिकों की पूरी एक उम्र, करीबन 35 साल, खर्च होने, दर्जनों स्ट्रिंग थियरी सम्मेलनों, सैकड़ों शोध कार्यों और हजारों पेपरों के लिखे जाने के बावजूद अभी तक ऐसे किसी सिद्धान्त को सिद्ध करने वाला कोई प्रयोग नहीं है। करीब 20 साल पहले ही विलक्षण अमेरिकी वैज्ञानिक रिचर्ड फाइनमैन ने इसे नकारा था, ग्लाशाओ (नोबल पुरस्कार विजेता) ने इसे मध्ययुगीन धर्मशास्त्र जैसा कहा था।

1960 से लेकर ब्रह्माण्ड के स्तर तथा सूक्ष्मतर स्तर दोनों ही जगह लगातार नयी खोजें, नयी परिघटनाएं सामने आती रही हैं जैसे कि पल्सर, ब्लैक होल, बैकग्राउन्ड रेडिएशन, मेसोन इत्यादी। आज आधुनिक भौतिकी में वैज्ञानिकों के पास कई समीकरण मौजूद हैं, अलग अलग वैज्ञानिकों के पास खुद कई ब्रहमाण्ड की लम्बी सूची है। बस समीकरण में एक फेर-बदल कीजिए और आप नए ब्रहमाण की खोज कर सकते हैं! स्टैण्डर्ड माॅडल अब तक कण भौतिकी का सबसे कामयाब सिद्धान्त है तथा इसी के आधार पर प्रसिद्ध सर्न की प्रयोगशाला में एल.एच.सी. प्रयोग हो रहा है, पर यह भी आज मौजूद सारे सवालों का जवाब नहीं देती है।

स्टैण्डर्ड माॅडल
स्टैन्डर्ड माॅडल कण भौतिकी का वह सिद्धांत है जो चार बुनियादी बलों में से तीन को एक सामान्यीकृत सिद्धांत द्वारा अभिव्यक्त करता है। इस माॅडल के अनुसार प्रकृति में 16 बुनियादी कण हैं जिन्हें दो वर्गों में वर्गीकृत किया जाता है- फर्मिआॅन तथा बुसाॅन। फर्मिआॅन पदार्थ के बुनियादी संघटक कण है। स्टैन्डर्ड माॅडल में 12 फर्मिआॅन हैं। बुसाॅन इन फर्मिआॅन्स के बीच विनिमय होने वाले कण है और इन्हीं कि वजह से बुनियादी अन्तव्र्यहार (पदजमतंबजपवद) उत्पन्न होते हैं। स्टैन्डर्ड माॅडल में 4 बुसाॅन है जो 3 प्रकार के बुनियादी अन्तव्र्यवहार - विद्युत चुम्बकत्व, शक्तिषाली अन्तव्र्यवहार और कमजोर अन्तव्र्यवहार को जन्म देती है। इसके साथ ही यह माॅडल एक अन्य बुसाॅन, हिग्स बुसाॅन की भी परिकल्पना करता है जो बुनियादी कणों को एक विषेष मैकेनिज्म-हिग्स मैकेनिज्म-द्वारा द्रव्यमान देता है। परन्तु यह ब्रह्माण्ड के चैथे बुनियादी बल, गुरुत्व को व्याख्यायित नहीं करता है। साथ ही यह ब्रह्माण्ड में डार्क मैटर के अस्तित्व को भी नहीं समझाता है।

स्ट्रिंग थियरी
स्ट्रिंग थियरी ‘थियरी फॅार एवरीथिंग’ बनने की प्रमुख दावेदार है। यह सापेक्षिकता सिद्धान्त और क्वांटम सिद्धान्त को एकीकृत करती है। इसके सामने लक्ष्य था आकाषगंगाओं, सौर मंडल, ब्लैक होल आदि की संरचना (जिसकी व्याख्या सापेक्षिता का सामान्य सिद्धान्त करता है) तथा माइक्रोस्कोपिक संरचनाओं में मौजूद अनिश्चितता (जो कि क्वाण्टम भौतिकी द्वारा ज्ञात होती है) को एक समीकरण में बैठाना। यह बिगबैंग से मौजूदा ब्रह्मण्ड के विकास क्रम की व्याख्या करती है। स्टैण्डर्ड माॅडल की कमियों से आगे बढ़ते हुए यह चारों बुनियादी बलों को एकीकृत करती है। साथ ही यह डार्क मैटर के अस्तित्व को भी समझाती है। परन्तु यह सब सिर्फ भौतिकी की किताबों तक ही सीमित है और अभी तक प्रायोगिक स्तर पर इसके पक्ष में पर्याप्त प्रमाण उपलब्ध नहीं हो पाए हैं। पिछले 35 सालों मंे वैज्ञानिकों द्वारा की गयी माथापच्ची के बावजूद भी स्ट्रिंग थ्यरी महज परिकल्पना के स्तर तक ही सीमित रह पायी है और आगे बढ़कर अभिधारणा में रूपान्तरित नहीं हो सकी है। ताकेतानी ने विज्ञान तथा समाज में मानवीय ज्ञान की अवधारणा को व्याख्यायित करते हुए कहा था कि सबसे पहले प्रकृति तथा समाज में जब कोई परिघटना उपस्थित होती है तो हम इसे स्वीकार करते हैं। इसके बाद वस्तुपरक तरीके के उस परिघटना को सांगोपांग समझने का प्रयास किया जाता है, उस परिघटना में मौजूद तत्वों तथा संघटक अवयवों को समझते हैं। तीसरी मंजिल पर हम धरातल पर मौजूद लक्षणों को भेदकर उसकी अंतर्वस्तु तक प्रवेश करते हैं। समग्रता में समझकर हम परिघटना के समाधान की ओर बढ़ते हैं। समाधान की ओर अग्रसर होते हुए परिकल्पना अभिधारणा तक विकसित होती है। इसके बाद वैज्ञानिक प्रयोगों में यह अभिधारणा सत्यापित होती है। परन्तु स्ट्रिंग थियरी तीन मंजिलों के क्रम से नहीं गुजरती है। यह पिछले ३५ सालों से ब्रह्माण्ड कि परिघटनाओं को महज परिकल्पनात्मक रूप से समझाती है परन्तु प्रयोग के धरातल पर खुद को सत्यापित नहीं करती है। कुछ साल पहले तक स्ट्रिंग थियरी के कईं संस्करण प्रचलित थे। (यह संख्या 1000 से भी अधिक थी!!!) 1984 तक ये मुख्यतः पाँच स्टिंªग थ्योरियों तक पहुँचा। आज विटेन की एम-थियरी को एकमात्र दावेदार माना जाता है। विटेन के अनुसार ‘एम-थियरी’ में ‘एम’ को लोग अपनी इच्छा पर अनुसार इसे जादू, मिथक या रहस्य कह सकते हैं। यह विज्ञान नहीं है। खैर विटेन की इस अवस्थिति से कई ईश्वरपरक, दार्शनिक खुश हुए होंगे।
स्ट्रिंग थियरी पदार्थ कणों की जगह ‘‘स्ट्रिंग्स’’ को ही पदार्थ जगत का सबसे मूलभूत संरचनात्मक अवयव मानती है। फ़ोटाॅन्स से लेकर बुसाॅन्स तक सभी इन स्ट्रिंगों से ही बने होते हैं। यह ऐसा ही है जैसे गिटार के तारों की झनकार से विभिन्न प्रकार के सुर पैदा होते हैं। अलग अलग सुर पदार्थ के मूलभूत कणों के समान हैं जैसे बुसाॅन तथा फर्मिआॅन। पदार्थ जगत की विभिन्न परिघटनाएं भी स्ट्रिंग के कम्पनों द्वारा पैदा होती हैं। स्ट्रिंग थियरी दिक के ३ आयामों को हटाकर १० से ११ आयामों की मौजदगी की बात करती है। स्ट्रिंग के कुछ कम्पन्न को ही मनुष्य अपने अपने ३ आयमी ब्रह्माण्ड में सीमित प्रेक्षण के कारण प्रेक्षित कर पाते हैं बाकी के कम्पन्न उन ६ या ७ आयाम पर असर करते हैं, जो की हमारी संवेदना से बाहर है! पर हमारी संवेदना से परे यह कल्पना जगत विज्ञान का हिस्सा नहीं बन सकता है. ऐसा ‘‘मेट्रिक्स‘‘ व ‘‘स्टार वार्स‘‘ जैसी फिल्मों में ही हो सकता है. खैर अगर इस थिअरी के द्वारा पेश किये गए अनुमानों पर भी नजर डाले तो साफ हो जाता है कि यह कितनी व्यावहारिक है।
स्ट्रिंग थियरी के अनुसार ब्रह्माण्ड में सुपरसिमैट्री की मौजूदगी है परन्तु यह अभी तक किसी प्रयोग में साबित नहीं हुयी है। और अगर ब्म्त्छ में हुये प्रयोग से सुपरसिमैट्री साबित नहीं होती तो भी यह स्ट्रिंग थियरी का निषेध नहीं होगी। कारण साफ है स्ट्रिंग थियरी अभी तक व्यावहारिक नहीं है। यह भौतिक तथ्यों से ज्यादा अमूर्त संकेतों तथा विचारों के ढ़ाँचे से बनी इमारत है जिसे वैज्ञानिकों की पूरी पीढ़ी ने तार्किक जोड़-घटाव, उच्चतर गणित के समीकरणों से बनाया है। संकेत तथा समीकरण महज हमारे वस्तुगत जगत के बोध (जो गलत भी हो सकता है) को दिखाते हैं। पदार्थ प्राथमिक होता है। परन्तु कुछ वैज्ञानिक इन संकेतों व समीकरणों को ही प्राथमिक मानते हैं। ‘‘पदार्थ गायब हो जाता है, जो बचता है वह है समीकरण‘‘ (लेनिन, अनुभवसिद्ध आलोचना और भौतिकवाद )। ब्रह्माण्ड को इस समीकरण के अनुसार व्यवहार करना होता है। इसके परिणाम यह होते हैं कि ब्रह्मण्ड तीन आयामी से बढ़ कर कई आयामी हो जाता है। यहाँ तक कि एक ब्रह्मण्ड की जगह अब कई ब्रह्मण्ड परिकल्पित किए जाते हैं।

एक और बात, यह सिद्धांत ‘थियरी फाॅर एव्रीथिंग’ का मुख्य दावेदार है। थियरी फाॅर एव्रीथिंग होने का मतलब यह है कि यह थियरी सम्पूर्ण ब्रह्मण्ड में हो रहे किसी भी प्रयोग के परिणाम की पूर्वघोषणा करती है। यह भौतिकी की आखिरी थियरी होगी। यह भाववाद ही है और कुछ नहीं। विज्ञान का कोई भी सिद्धांत आखिरी नहीं हो सकता है। हमारे ज्ञान कि अवधारणा विकासशील है तथा विज्ञान भी विकासशील है। आखिरी सिद्धांत इश्वरपरक, भाववादी विचारक ही सोच सकते हैं।

3. भौतिकवाद को खतरा?
जैसा कि हमने पहले भी कहा, विज्ञान में जब-जब गुणात्मक छलांगें लगती हैं तो वैज्ञानिकों का एक हिस्सा है जो ”संकट आया-संकट आया“ का शोर मचाता है और फ्रांसीसी दार्शनिक लुई अल्थूसर के शब्दों में ”दार्शनिक धंधे में लग जाता है।“ जब माखवाद ने सिर उठाया था तो लेनिन ने इसका दार्षनिक आधार पेश किया व इसका पूर्ण खण्डन किया। उन्होंने यह दिखाया कि मौजूदा आभासी संकट वैज्ञानिकों के गलत विश्व दृष्टिकोण, अप्रोच और पद्धति के कारण पैदा हुआ था। जैसा कि लेनिन ने दिखलाया तब भी असल में भौतिकवाद के लिए कोई संकट नहीं था और आज भी भौतिकवाद के लिए कोई संकट नहीं है। मानव प्रेक्षण का धरातल गहराने के साथ नयी वास्तविकताएँ सामने आती हैं; नयी वास्तविकताओं का विश्लेषण करने में जो समय लगता है, उस समय में आम तौर पर मानव प्रेक्षण का धरातल और गहरा जाता है और फिर से नयी वास्तविकताएँ उपस्थित हो जाती हैं। और उपस्थित वास्तविकताओं के विश्लेषण की प्रक्रिया होती ही ऐसी है कि वह मानव प्रेक्षण को और सूक्ष्मतर धरातलों पर ले जाये। इसलिए हर नयी और बड़ी खोज के बाद, गैर-द्वन्द्वात्मक ज़मीन पर खड़े वैज्ञानिक या तो नियतत्ववादी अवस्थिति से नयी अव्याख्यायित और अविश्लेषित परिघटनाओं की मौजूदगी से ही इंकार कर देते हैं, या फिर अज्ञेयवादी वैज्ञानिक विश्व को मानव समझ के परे बताते हुए नवकाण्टवाद के गड्ढे में गिर जाते हैं।

अनिश्चितता से खतरा
हाईज़ेनबर्ग ने अनिश्चितता को आधार बनाकर सम्पूर्ण विश्व को अबूझ करार दे दिया था। चूँकि इलेक्ट्राॅन की गति और अवस्थिति को एक साथ सटीकता के साथ मापा नहीं जा सकता इसलिए यह जाना ही नहीं जा सकता कि अपने आपमें इलेक्ट्राॅन बला क्या है! और इसलिए वास्तव में यही नहीं जाना जा सकता कि पदार्थ बला क्या है! पदार्थ है, लेकिन क्या है यह कोई नहीं बता सकता। ऐसे में प्रेक्षक यथार्थ का निर्माण करता है। दूसरे शब्दों में कहें तो यथार्थ एक निर्मिति है। हाइज़ेनबर्ग द्वारा ‘अनिश्चितता के सिद्धान्त’ की इस नवकाण्टीय व्याख्या ने सामाजिक विज्ञान के क्षेत्र में भी अपनी उपस्थिति दजऱ् करायी। सामाजिक विज्ञान के क्षेत्र में उत्तरआधुनिकतावाद को इस सिद्धान्त से काफी बल मिला। हाइज़ेनबर्ग द्वारा सूक्ष्म जगत में मौजूद अनिश्चितता के पहलू का यह नवकाण्टीय सामान्यीकरण भौतिकी के कार्य-कारण सम्बन्ध (काॅज़ैलिटी) सिद्धांत को नकार देता है। इस दर्शन के विचारक यह तर्क देते हैं कि अगर किसी प्रयोग में 10 पे्रक्षण में से एक बार भी हमारी अवधारणा के विपरीत परिणाम आता है तो इसका मतलब यह है कि हम उस परिघटना के विषय में नहीं जान सकते हैं तथा यह कार्य-कारण सिद्धांत का निषेध होता है। लेकिन वास्तव में यहाँ यह प्रयोग कार्य-कारण सिद्धांत को दो तरह से सिद्ध करता है। 10 पे्रक्षण मंे से 9 बार हमारी पूर्वकल्पना के अनुसार परिणाम आते हैं और 1 बार विपरीत परिणाम आता है तो हमें उन अज्ञात कारणांे की तलाष करने का मौका मिलता है जिनके कारण हमारी प्रस्थापना चिन्हित नहीं हो पाई।
इसके अलावा, क्वाण्टम भौतिकी में अनिश्चितता भी हमारे प्रेक्षण पर निर्भर करती है। यहाँ अनिश्चितता हमारे प्रेक्षण के उपकरणों की सीमा के कारण उत्पन्न होती है। प्रेक्षणों के और अधिक उन्नत और गहरे होने के साथ अनिष्चितता, फिर से निश्चितता तथा अनिश्चितता में टूट जाती है। नई निश्चितता पुरानी निश्चितता से ज्यादा उन्नत होगी और नई अनिश्चितता पुरानी अनिश्चितता से अधिक उन्नत होगी। विज्ञान न सिर्फ उन्नत निश्चितताओं का स्वागत करता है, बल्कि उन्नत अनिश्चितताओं का भी स्वागत करता है, क्योंकि अनिश्चितता ही निश्चितता में बदल सकती है। निश्चितता तो पहले से ही निश्चितता है। इसलिए उन्नत निश्चितताओं के जन्म के लिए अनिश्चितताओं का होना ज़रूरी है। यही द्वंद्वात्मक भौतिकवादी नजरिया है और वास्तव में हाइजे़नबर्ग का अनिश्चितता का सिद्धान्त द्वन्द्वात्मक भौतिकवादी दृष्टिकोण को सिद्ध करता है, जो हमेशा से नियतत्ववाद और प्रत्यक्षवाद के विरुद्ध संघर्ष करता रहा है। कोम्ते की माक्र्सवादी आलोचना वास्तव में प्रत्यक्षवाद की ही आलोचना थी। दार्शनिक तौर पर, माक्र्सवाद प्रत्यक्षवाद के खि़लाफ है जो एक बुर्जुआ विचारधारा है और आधुनिक बुर्जुआ समाजशास्त्र का आधार है।

‘गाॅड पार्टिकल’ से खतरा
दरअसल यह कोई खतरा नहीं है, बुर्जुआ मीडिया द्वारा मचाया गया शोर है। हिग्स बुसाॅन कण भौतिकी के सफलतम सिद्धान्त स्टैंडर्ड माॅडल द्वारा प्रतिपादित मूलभूत कणों में से एक है। अगर यह सच है कि बिग बैंग के दौरान हिग्स फील्ड द्वारा हिग्स बुसान बना था तो यह स्टैंडर्ड माॅडल को साबित करेगा। अगर सर्न के प्रयोग में यह साबित हो जाता है तो इसका अर्थ होगा कि पदार्थ कभी बना था, यानी उसका भी जन्म हुआ था। कई भौतिकवादी इस हिग्स बुसाॅन के मिलने की क्षीण सम्भावना से भी डरे हुए हैं। क्योंकि उन्हें लगता है कि अगर यह साबित हो गया कि पदार्थ कभी बना था, तो भौतिकवाद का क्या होगा? वे यह नहीं समझते हैं कि पदार्थ के पैदा होने या नहीं होने से भौतिकवाद की सेहत पर कोई फर्क नहीं पड़ता। पदार्थ पैदा हुआ या नहीं हुआ, यह सवाल भौतिकवाद पूछता ही नहीं है, इसलिए उससे इसके उत्तर की उम्मीद करना बेमानी होगा। भौतिकवाद यह ज़रूर कहता है कि चेतना पदार्थ को जन्म नहीं देती। यह कोई समय था जब कोई द्रव्यमान युक्त पदार्थ नहीं था, और सिर्फ एक फील्ड थी, तो इसका यह अर्थ नहीं है कि उससे पहले कोई ‘परम चेतना’ (ईश्वर) था, जिसने पदार्थ को जन्म दिया! यह एक मूर्खतापूर्ण प्रस्ताव होगा। दूसरी बात यह कि भौतिकवाद यदि किसी चीज़ पर निर्भर करता है तो वह भौतिक यथार्थ है, पदार्थ नहीं। फील्ड स्वयं भी एक भौतिक यथार्थ है; वह ईश्वर या दैवीय हस्तक्षेप नहीं है।
अगर हिग्स बुसाॅन मिलता भी है, जिसकी सम्भावना स्वयं सर्न प्रयोग के वैज्ञानिकों के अनुसार नगण्य है, तो भी यह भौतिकवाद के लिए कोई खतरा नहीं होगा। यह पदार्थ जगत और पदार्थ के नये गुणों की खोज होगा और पदार्थ के इतिहास की खोज होगा। इससे भौतिकवाद के इस मूल तर्क पर कोई फर्क नहीं पड़ता कि चेतना पदार्थ के पहले नहीं बाद में आती है और चेतना पदार्थ से स्वतन्त्र अस्तित्व में नहीं रह सकती बल्कि वह पदार्थ के ही एक विशिष्ट रूप के उन्नततम किस्म का गुण है। यानी, चेतना जैविक पदार्थ के उन्नततम रूप, मनुष्य का गुण है। अगर हिग्स बुसाॅन मिलता है तो भी यह सत्य अपनी जगह कायम रहेगा। कोई फील्ड को ईश्वर का नाम दे देता है तो यह उस नाम देने वाले और एक हद तक फील्ड की बदनसीबी होगी, भौतिकवाद की नहीं! भौतिकवाद ने अपने एजेण्डे पर कभी यह सवाल रखा ही नहीं कि पदार्थ पैदा हुआ था या नहीं। यह भौतिकवाद की विषयवस्तु नहीं है। यह प्राकृतिक विज्ञान की विषय वस्तु है। द्वन्द्वात्मक भौतिकवाद प्राकृतिक विज्ञान के इस प्रश्न का जवाब देने के लिए वैज्ञानिकों को एक सही अप्रोच और पद्धति दे सकता है। लेकिन अपने आप में इस सवाल का जवाब देना भौतिकवाद का एजेण्डा ही नहीं है। उसका एजेण्डा भाववाद से संघर्ष की प्रक्रिया में पैदा हुआ और वह सिर्फ इतना ही दावा करता है कि चेतना पदार्थ में ही निवास कर सकती है, उससे बाहर निर्वात में नहीं। पदार्थ का किसी मौके पर जन्म हुआ हो और उसके पहले एक निर्वात की स्थिति रही हो तो इससे यह साबित नहीं होता है कि चेतना पहले आई। इसका कारण बस इतना है कि निर्वात निर्वात होता है और चेतना चेतना!!! चेतना निर्वात नहीं होती और निर्वात चेतना नहीं होता!!! बल्कि कहा यह जाना चाहिए कि द्रव्यमान रखने वाला पदार्थ ही समस्त भौतिक जगत नहीं है, वह भौतिक जगत का एक अंग है। निर्वात भी एक भौतिक वास्तविकता है, यह कोई मायाजगत नहीं है जिसमें ईश्वर अपनी लीला खेल रहा हो! इसलिए भौतिकवाद को यह कहना कि ”देखो, देखो!! पदार्थ पैदा हुआ था! अब बोलो!?“ यदि हिग्स बूसाॅन मिलता है तो बस इतना ही साबित होगा कि भौतिक विश्व का एक नया पहलू था जो अब तक उद्घाटित नहीं हुआ था। द्वन्द्वात्मक भौतिकवाद इसकी व्याख्या, विस्तार और अन्य क्षेत्रों में इसके डेरिवेशन से और अधिक उन्नत होगा।

हिडेन डायमेंशन/नये “ब्रह्मण्डों“ से प्रतिस्पर्धा से खतरा
स्ट्रिंग थिअरी की एक धारणा यह भी है कि इस विश्व में भौतिक जगत में तीन से ज़्यादा आयाम होते हैं (फिलहाल हम सिर्फ दिक् की बात कर रहे हैं काल की नहीं) जो कि 6 से 7 तक हो सकते हैं या कि हमारा ब्रह्माण्ड इस समय मौजूद कई ब्रह्माण्डों में से एक है। दरअसल यह अवधारणा किसी भौतिक आँकड़े या वैज्ञानिक आगमनात्मक शैली से ज्यादा तार्किक कल्पनाओं के आधार पर खड़ी है। कोई विचार कितना भी तार्किक या द्वन्द्ववादी हो भौतिक विश्व ही उसका आधार होता है। परन्तु पिछले पैंतिस सालों से कोई भी प्रयोग या आँकड़ा स्पष्टतः इसे साबित नहीं कर पाया है, परन्तु नकार भी नहीं पाया है। एक समय ऐसा था कि कई स्ट्रिंग थियरी मौजूद थीं, और हर थियरी ब्रह्माण्ड की कल्पना अपने हिसाब से करती थी। भाववाद के बारे में लेनिन का कथन वैज्ञानिकों की अवस्थिति को स्पष्ट करता है।
‘‘भाववाद के हजारों प्रकार के हजारों रूप हो सकते है और हमेशा ही एक हजार एक नए रूप निर्मित किए जा सकते हैं.........भौतिकवाद के नजरिए से इनके बीच की भिन्नताएं बिल्कुल ही गैर जरूरी है। जरूरी यह देखना है कि प्रस्थान बिन्दु क्या है?’’ (अनुभवसिद्ध आलोचना और भौतिकवाद)

और जहाँ तक हिडेन डाईमेंशन की बात है इसे एक कोरी गप कहंे तो ज्यादा बेहतर होगा। कईं लोगों ने यहां ‘भगवान’ या ‘शैतान’ के रहने की जगह ढूंढ निकाल ली है। स्पेस-टाइम की अवधारणा हम प्रकृति से निकाल सकते हैं न कि अपने गणितीय समीकरणों के लिए प्रकृति के ऊपर इन्हें थोपेंगे।

4. समाहारः ”संकट“ के कारक

आज का संकट भौतिकवाद के विरोध में खड़ी दार्शनिक धारा भाववाद और इसकी अलग-अलग शाखाओं जैसे कि नवकाण्टवाद, माखवाद, अज्ञेयवाद इत्यादि से जुड़ता है। जैसा कि हमने पहले बताया इस संकट का मूल कारण यह है कि यदि विज्ञान के क्षेत्र में काम करने वाला कोई व्यक्ति पहले से (एप्रायोरी) द्वन्द्वात्मक रुख़ नहीं अपनायेगा तो वह अज्ञेयवाद या नियतत्ववाद के गड्ढे में गिरने के लिए अभिशप्त होगा। दोनों किस्म के भटकावों के शिकार वैज्ञानिक अपनी-अपनी तरह से संकट की घोषणाएँ करेंगे। इस किस्म के ”संकट“ के संदर्भ में बात करते हुए लेनिन ने वैज्ञानिकों की इस धारणा को क्षणिक बताया था। उन्होंने इसे भौतिक भाववाद का नाम दिया था। लेनिन के इन कथनों को देखिये, ’’भौतिक भाववाद, भौतिकी के वैज्ञानिकों की धारा जो विष्व की वस्तुगत सच्चाई को नकारती है......... यह विज्ञान तथा भाव के बीच रिष्ता स्थापित करती है।......... यह बेशर्मी से भौतिकवाद को अपने दर्शन में मिश्रित करती रहती है।’’(अनुभवसिद्ध आलोचना और भौतिकवाद) आज इसे हम क्षणिक एवं अस्थाई न कहकर पूँजीवादी समाज के भीतर संस्थाबद्ध विज्ञान और वैज्ञानिकों की स्थाई परिघटना कह सकते हैं। यह स्वयं विज्ञान का संकट नहीं है। यह वैज्ञानिकों की पद्धति का संकट है। जैसा कि लेनिन ने कहा था, ‘‘भौतिकी की भौतिकवादी आधारभूत भावना सभी विज्ञानों की तरह, हर तरह के संकटों को पार कर लेगी, लेकिन सिर्फ तभी जब आधिभौतिकवाद को भौतिकवाद से विस्थापित कर दिया जाए।’’(अनुभवसिद्ध आलोचना और भौतिकवाद)
पर यह भौतिकवादी भावना आज भौतिकी के वैज्ञानिकों में स्वतःस्फूर्त नहीं पैदा हो सकती है। आज का ”संकट“ भी आधिभौतिकवाद, माखवाद, नवकान्टवाद की धाराओं के वैज्ञानिकों के विश्वविद्यालयों में पैठ बनाने और उस तरीके के कारण पैदा हुआ है जिस तरीके से विज्ञान का पठन-पाठन होता है। विज्ञान की पढ़ाई संस्थाबद्ध रूप में जैसे होती है, वह वास्तव में औद्योगिक उपयोग को ध्यान में रखकर ज़्यादा होती है। संस्थाबद्ध विज्ञान पर भाववादी और अज्ञेयवादी वैचारिक पूर्वाग्रहों का प्रभाव बहुत से कारणों से होता है। समाज में आम तौर पर अवैज्ञानिकता और अतार्किकता के प्रसार में आज सत्ता और व्यवस्था की दिलचस्पी है। इसलिए विज्ञान जहाँ तक उद्योग और मुनाफे की सेवा के लिए वहाँ तक उसमें वास्तविकता और ईमानदारी के लिए प्रोत्साहन है, लेकिन जहाँ विज्ञान विचारधारा, सिद्धान्त, दर्शन आदि के क्षेत्र में जाता है वहाँ उसमें हर प्रकार के प्रदूषण को व्यवस्था और सत्ता संस्थान घुसाते हैं। और एक अतार्किक समाज में अतार्किकता केवल शासक वर्गों के प्रयास और षड़यन्त्र से नहीं, बल्कि स्वतःस्फूर्त रूप से, वर्गीय कारणों से भी फैलती है। इसलिए आज का संकट वास्तव में विज्ञान का संकट नहीं है बल्कि व्यवस्था का और समाज का संकट है। और व्यवस्था और समाज का संकट ही विज्ञान के संकट में अभिव्यक्त हो रहा है।
इसलिए आज जो समस्याएँ और प्रश्न विज्ञान के समक्ष खड़े हैं उनका जवाब देने का सवाल भी एक स्तर पर सामाजिक परिवर्तन की परियोजनाओं से जुड़ जाता है। जिस समाज और व्यवस्था में हर गतिविधि, चाहे वह आर्थिक हो, वैज्ञानिक हो, राजनीतिक हो, सांस्कृतिक हो या सामाजिक हो, का प्रेरक तत्व मुनाफा और निजी लाभ हो, वह समाज और व्यवस्था संकट का शिकार अवश्यम्भावी तौर पर होगी और यह संकट उस समाज और व्यवस्था के रहते विज्ञान, सामाजिक विज्ञान, विधि शास्त्र और ज्ञान की हर शाखा में अभिव्यक्त होगा। हम यह नहीं कहते कि विज्ञान एक सामाजिक निर्मिति है। निश्चित रूप से विज्ञान का एक स्वायत्त अस्तित्व है; लेकिन यह कहना कि विज्ञान पर उसके सामाजिक, आर्थिक और राजनीतिक सन्दर्भों का कोई असर नहीं पड़ता, किसी शुद्ध विज्ञान की कल्पना करना होगा, जो वास्तविकता में कभी भी कहीं भी मौजूद नहीं था, और कभी भी मौजूद नहीं था। यह अनायास नहीं है कि इतिहास में जब भी सामाजिक क्रान्तियाँ हुई हैं तो विज्ञान ने सदियों की दूरी कुछ दशकों में तय कर ली है। 15वीं से 17वीं शताब्दी तक यूरोप में हो रही उथल-पुथल के बिना हम वैज्ञानिक, तकनीकी और औद्योगिक क्रान्तियों की कल्पना नहीं कर सकते। निश्चित तौर पर, वैज्ञानिक तरक्की ने फिर सामाजिक-आर्थिक विकास की प्रक्रिया को भी प्रभावित किया। लेकिन जब तक पिछड़े सामाजिक सम्बन्ध मनुष्यों की रचनात्मकता और ऊर्जा को बाँधे रखेंगे और उसके विकास को बौना करते रहेंगे, तब तक विज्ञान को भी इसकी कीमत चुकानी पड़ेगी क्योंकि वैज्ञानिक भी मनुष्य ही हो सकता है, पशु नहीं। और मनुष्य निश्चित सामाजिक उत्पादन सम्बन्धों में बँधा होता है। आज सैद्धांतिक भौतिकी में काम करने वाले तमाम वैज्ञानिक यूं ही इस बात का रोना नहीं रोते कि ब्रह्माण्ड और प्रकृति से जुड़े अहम सवालों पर अनुसंधान के लिए कोई भी निवेश नहीं करना चाहता क्योंकि इसमें तात्कालिक तौर पर कोई मुनाफा नहीं होता। यह स्पष्ट रूप से पूँजीवादी समाज और व्यवस्था द्वारा विज्ञान की तरक्की को बेडि़यों में जकड़ना है। पूँजीवादी समाज के भीतर हर प्रकार के विकास की जो सम्भावनाएँ थीं, वे रिक्त हो चुकी हैं। अब अगर विज्ञान को भी अपने इस ”संकट“ को दूर करना है, तो उसे आज उस पूँजीवादी-साम्राज्यवादी दुनिया के संकट के समाधान के सवाल से सरोकार और सम्बन्ध रखना पड़ेगा, जिसकी कीमत मानवता अपना खून देकर चुका रही है। और इस संकट से पूँजीवाद-साम्राज्यवाद को मुक्त करने का एक ही रास्ता है-इस पूरी मानवद्रोही व्यवस्था को इतिहास के कूड़ेदान में फेंक दिया जाय। विज्ञान के कल्याण के लिए भी यही एकमात्र रास्ता है।

सन्दर्भ सूचीः
1. अनुभवसिद्ध आलोचना और भौतिकवाद - लेनिन
2. प्रकृति का द्वन्द्ववाद - एंगेल्स
3. ड्यूहरिंग मतखण्डन - एंगेल्स
4. डायलेक्टिक्स आॅफ नेचर, आॅन क्वाण्टम मैकेनिक्स - ताकेतानी
5. आॅब्ज़रवेशन प्राॅब्लम इन क्वाण्टम मैकेनिक्स - ताकेतानी
6. ताकेतानीज़ ‘थ्री स्टेज थियरी’ - सकाता
7. फिलाॅसफी एण्ड मेथडोलाॅजी आॅफ प्रेज़ेण्ट डे साइंस - सकाता
8. थियरी आॅफ स्पेस, टाइम एण्ड ग्रेविटेशन - फाॅक
9. मैजिक, मिस्ट्री एण्ड मैट्रिक्स - विटेन
10. अनरैवेलिंग स्ट्रिंग थियरी - विटेन
11. कैन क्वाण्टम मैकेनिकल डिस्क्रिप्शन आॅफ फिजि़कल रियैलिटी बी कम्प्लीट - आइंस्टीन, पोडोल्स्की, रोज़ेन
12. सर्न प्रेस रिलीज़
13. फाइनमैन लेक्चर सीरीज़
14. ट्रबल विद फिजि़क्स - स्मोलिनी

सनी, प्रशान्त
(साइण्टिस्ट्स फार सोसायटी)
प्रथम आह्वान पाठक सम्मलेन में प्रस्तुत पर्चा

Open letter to Anna Hazare

2011-05-19T22:50:00.001-07:00

To,
Mr. Anna Hazare
Village and post: Ralegan Siddhi
Taluka Parner, District Ahmednagar
Maharashtra
Dear Anna Hazare,
We respect your concern for society and problems common of people. Whole nation is well aware of your anti-corruption movement. Government has accepted your demand of Jan Lokpal Bill which you claim will put a check on corruption of political leaders, bureaucrats and judges. A good fraction of literate people has called it a beginning of new revolution. But there are some questions in our mind. The fundamental of these questions relates to problems of life of working class.
First, corruption is just not bribing. In a country where 40% children and 70% mothers suffer from malnutrition, ‘body mass index’ of 40% people is lower than normal, 18 crore people live in slums and 18 crore don’t have roof to cover their head, then after 60 years of republic if the government does not take responsibility of basic requirement of life (irony is that it actually sells it to blind forces of market), then what else can be a much bigger legal corruption than it? The biggest corruption is that the rights that crores of workers have in form their labour laws are sham; they are limited to files only and are getting meaningless day by day.
Second, the decision of corruption cannot be taken on basis of being legal or illegal, but by counter or pro political behavior with people’s interest. In the current system a capitalist with power of his capital buys labour power at cheap price and earns profit of by selling the processed commodity containing the labour at higher price in the market. This is the root of every kind of exploitation. This is the biggest corruption. Anna Ji, you never point at this corruption, at this polarization of rich and poor.
In every capitalist democracy governments basically play role of managing committee of capitalist plunderers. The opera of election and democracy is there to create illusion among people. Armed forces are ready to crush every movement of people calling it anti-nation. Some people from group of managers and servitors of capitalists earn benefit from inter capitalist house competence. They pocket heavy amount of money by broking for them or by pocketing bribes of capitalist houses. But when this competition goes uncontrolled and severe the truth of system precipitates out (like 2G spectrum, Adarsh Society scam, common wealth scam… etc) and suddenly capitalist lawmakers, social activists become active and start to think over “damage control’. Suddenly there appears a Messiah who can sometimes be a political leader, some officer, and sometime some social activist as ‘whistle blowers’ with his/their anti-corruption campaign. He starts to blame corruption rather than this system for all evils. These people are ‘safety valve’ of the system, shock absorber of the people’s anger. We certainly do not doubt your personal hatred towards corruption. Let us also give a look at drafting committee of Jan Lokpal Bill. Let’s have example of Shantibhushan-Prashantbhushan. We are not talking about uncertain truth or false behind the CD scandal. But it is true that Shantibhushan was lawyer of Mulayam Singh in a case against him on trying to polarize candidates of BSP. It is also true that Shantibhushan charges Rs. 25 lakh for each court appearance. Even Prashantbhsuhan charges in lakhs. Same is the case of Ramjethmalani who came to support you on your forum. The question here is that how can largest portion of our population, the poor people buy justice from these expensive lawyers? In a country where 77.5% of population lives under Rs 20 per day and is scrapped of all basic needs of living then isn’t the wealth of 1 arab 36 crore(wealth of Shantibhushan) and 8 immovable properties corruption? These lawyers lobby for those capitalists who earn profit by squeezing the working class population. Does the institution controlled by Baba Ramdev provide all facilities to workers according to labour laws? The two NGOs of Arvind Kejriwal are funded by ‘one of the boss’, Ratan Tata, of the ‘crony capitalism’. The drafting committee is full of such civilians. All these middle class activists, so called civilians of ‘civil society’, and their NGOs are funded by trusts of national capitalists and multinational companies who loot raw material globally and earn profit by squeezing even the last drop of blood of working class and by selling war machines and medicines. In their society and concerns the 70 crore working class people doesn’t occupy any place. These activists actually help in building hegemony of this system over common masses. We don’t have any distrust over your commitment to make this society ‘corruption-free’. But let us have a look at concept of Lokpal as well. Even if prime minister, supreme court and others are brought under regime Lokpal and even if he be given a sufficiently big staff how can he stop corruption from highest to lowest level, from parliament to block house? It is impossible. The corruption check by Lokpal is an illusion. The thought of checking corruption by such mechanism is like that of bringing society on path of progress by a “enlightened despotic” ruler. But Anna Ji you are a Gandhian. Gandhi himself was supporter of decentralization. Another important point, in your anti-corruption movement media played a very big role in building your miraculous image. But this capital controlled media sells crime, robbery, pulp and cheap stories to earn money. This media also sells sham ideals, pseudo heroism and anti-people utopias. It plays a great role in establishing hegemony of state in people. It is not without reason that it is called as the forth column of ‘republic’. Your movement has played role of safety valve for this system instead of hitting at the roots of the system.
At Jantar-Mantar, in your movement the participation of nearly 1 crore working class population of Delhi was nil. But how could it have been there? You were not at Jantar-Mantar for that population. Dear Anna ji we have strong belief that instead of plucking leaves we should cut the roots of this tree of injustice, exploitation and corruption. Which however was absent in your whole movement. We have some more doubts. Please do reply to the letter or if you want to ask us to come in any open forum we will be very eager to come. We are also publishing this open on notices, if any one has any doubt or disagreement then we will be happy to involve in a discussion.
With Due Respect
Students of Delhi,
Labour activists, (Mazdoor Bigul)
Delhi

The letter is a part of letter posted to Anna Hazare and published in Mazdoor Bigul.

Brief History of Materialism

2011-05-19T01:23:00.000-07:00

From the very ancient times philosophy is divided into two main branches- idealism and materialism. The basic question, especially of modern philosophy, is which is primary thinking or being; spirit or nature. Those who assert the primacy of spirit to nature and, therefore, in the last instance, assume world creation in some form or other, comprise the camp of idealism. The others, who regard nature as primary, belong to the various schools of materialism.
Hegel was the most famous philosopher of idealism who developed it to its summit. But with it, he developed the dialectical approach, which was later combined with scientific materialism by Marx and Engels to establish the basic foundations of dialectical materialism.
In true sense, materialism emerged as an irresistible force before idealism only from the 16th century. Early materialism developed in two different streams. One was the rationalist school of continental Europe. Descartes and later Spinoza were the main ideologues of this stream. The other school was that of empiricists of Britain. Bacon, Hobbes and Locke were the main figures of this stream. Both the schools accepted that there is no doubt in the existence of real material world. Rationalists argued that our knowledge of material world is mainly based on our perceptions and the only way of knowing the world beyond the range of this perceptual knowledge is logical reasoning. But according to empiricists logical analysis and simulation by human mind is unnecessary and they claimed that the source of our whole knowledge is only experience. Whatever is known by experience, only that makes the material world. There were also differences between the thoughts of Descartes and Spinoza as the former believed in the duality of spirit and nature, while the latter, in the unity of nature and material world with the God. According to Descartes, relation between spirit and matter exists only externally but in Spinoza's views matter and spirit are only the two aspects of the same object. Thus, the analytical activities of human mind are nothing but the act of logically understanding of nature or God. This argument would be considerable if it was raised from an atheistic viewpoint, but Spinoza gave the agency of ending dualism to God. Yet, at that time it was a great contribution. On the other hand, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke advanced the empirical materialism of Francis Bacon.
In 17th century, Berkely, a Christian Bishop and staunch enemy of materialism, dealt the fatal-blow to empiricism by putting the following question before it—He asked if the source of our whole knowledge is experience, and the source of experience is itself the perceptions reflected in our mind, what do we know except mind? Whatever we know is just because we have consciousness. Where perceptions will reside in the absence of consciousness? Thus, if our whole knowledge is only based on experience, it will be self-destructive for materialism! And from this loophole in empiricism Berkely again showed path to God. And, in fact, if we take the empiricism to its logical destination, matter itself becomes an "abstract idea" as empiricism can produce no evidence for the fact that matter is something more than mere perceived images in mind.
Here the contribution of Isaac Newton arrives on picture. Newton gave a reasonable explanation of nature, but had not refuted the existence of God. Newton represented the whole nature as a system following some fixed laws. In his famous laws of motion, he gave their infallible generalization and also proved them empirically. Nature emerged as a closed system, existing from eternity and will remain forever. Any changes in the system are completely determinable by laws, and these laws are predetermined and immutable in themselves. Newton did not end the reign of God but pushed him out of the boundary of universe. Thus, according to his views, after making the whole world inside the limits of universe, He just pressed the "start button" and the Game is continuing unabated since then! Completely bound by laws!! The system of Newton was so "full proof" that before the discovery of microscopic world no doubts could be raised on its universality. At that time the prevailing common view was that Newton has discovered everything and now the work of Scientists is only to calculate and explain his ideas. But the commencement of Quantum revolution in the early 20th century uncovered a new world where Newtonian laws were not valid and thus, a crisis originated in Newtonian physics.
Newton was a materialist as he believed in the existence of external world, although he was a positivist and objectivist. In his system there was no chance of co-incidence or uncertainty. Everything was determinable. And this is why his materialism was mechanical. The other important weakness of the materialism of this time was that materialists did not raise any serious questions on the existence of God.
The notion of God faced first grave danger by the thoughts of the French materialists of the period of Enlightenment, among whom Denis Diderot was the greatest. Meanwhile, in England, David Hume gave birth to agnostic materialism by adopting a compromising path in the materialism itself. According to his views, a material world does exist outside us, but on the basis of our experiences or reasoning we cannot know exactly how it looks or how will it become? But for Diderot everything was certain. He (Diderot) believed that organic matter originated from inorganic matter; both are part of material world, which exists undoubtedly, and on the basis of experience and reasoning it can be completely ascertained that how does it look or what will happen to it. Everything is determinable. There is nothing beyond this material world. Consciousness originated only in the most developed form of matter. But for Diderot the material world was as immutable as for Newton. Thus, his materialism was uncritical in which no one has the agency or instrument of change. Human agency was not present in it. This was because materialism has not met with dialectics till this time. Yet, Diderot was the greatest among the materialists of his time. He established the primacy and principality of matter beyond questions. In his views, consciousness is the characteristic property of the most advanced form of organic matter and material world existed before the birth of consciousness.
In the further development of materialism, Immunal Kant played a great role. The contribution of Kant was that he not only lessened the mechanicalness of materialism to a considerable extent but also inflicted on determinism. Kant questioned the validity of closed model of universe and proposed a new model that was later proved correct by Laplace. Kant proposed that Nature is not a static and immutable thing but an ever-changing and evolving process. It is a process in which everything constantly changes its form, constantly coming into being and passing away. He also established the power of reasoning and weakened its dogmatic understanding as well. Kant propounded that some pure and basic analytical concepts are the inherent characteristics of human mind. But in the process of attacking determinism Kant went to the other extreme. He claimed that material world exists, but by any sensible or mental process we cannot know exactly – what or how is it? We can only have perceptual knowledge of the physical world. Material world is unknowable. This was the famous agnosticism of Kant. This great puzzle was later solved by dialectical materialism which showed that process of making unknowable known passes through practice. Thus, till science remains confined to the task of only explaining nature, instead of involving in practice by assuming its transforming ability, world will either remain unknowable or the illusory view of knowing everything will originate.
After Kant, comes the very important contribution of Hegel. Although, he was an idealist, the method he developed proved of great significance for the further development of materialism. In his system the whole world, natural, historical, intellectual is for the first time represented as a process, i.e. as in constant motion, change, transformation, development and the attempt was made to show internal connections in this motion or development. In short, he developed the methodology of dialectics. Although, Hegel grasped some individual interconnections correctly and with genius, yet because of his idealist thinking there is much in his analysis that was artificially labored. Thus his whole system suffered from an internal and incurable contradiction.
And this incurable contradiction of Hegelian system gave birth to a school of philosophers who turned back to materialism. Ludwig Feuerbach was the first one who presented a criticized the Hegelian principles of divinity and eternal idea (Demi Urgos) and firmly established the notion of existence and primacy of material world. He mainly targeted the concept of God and in his book Essence of Christianity presented such a great criticism of theism that made it an imperative book for atheists of whole world. But, like previous materialists, his ideas, too, did not provide any agency or power of change to humans. Like other inorganic and organic matter, humans are also just a part of nature and its extension, society. Humans are different from other inorganic and organic matter only in the sense that it can think over physical world. For this reason, Marx classified his materialist views as contemplative materialism, in spite of learning many things from it. Many few people know that Marx said the following words not for an idealist but for him –
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world differently; the point is to change it."
This short line is an eternal criticism of mechanical and contemplative materialism, empiricism and agnosticism.
Right after this comes the period of Marx and Engels. By critically examining the views of the previous philosophers and also taking into account the recent developments in the field of natural science and social sciences, they created the most advanced world view—dialectical materialism and historical materialism. This explains the world around us most accurately. It neither falls into the pit of determinism nor in the well of agnosticism. It gives a dialectical and materialist explanation of world, according to which, material world is primary and principal; this material world is in the state of continuous motion, and because of this our knowledge of the material world too, is always in the process of constantly developing and always remain far from completion. There will always a horizon that has to be achieved, unfolded and understood, in turn, giving birth to another one. The principality of material world doesn't mean that it becomes predetermined and immutable, rather, its structure and appearance can be changed by human agency; this human agency is itself a part of material world; consciousness is also part of material world and not that of spirit or God.

God Particle: A "fatal" crisis for Materialism?

2011-05-11T04:28:00.000-07:00

The infinitely large universe, with all its peculiar and puzzling characteristics, has always attracted the imagination of humans. Humans, from the very ancient time, have tried to solve the mysteries of the universe. In earlier times this task was mainly done by priests and intellectuals who served the religious authorities of their respective societies. Thus we find that the earlier picture of universe was shaped in the frame of theology, as it was only possible theory and philosophy. Like most of the branches of modern science, systematic research in the field of cosmology too, corresponds to the period when the whole Europe was awakening from its dark feudal ages. As Papal Church was the strongest and the greatest feudal lord which was holding back the growth of rapidly growing productive forces, a conflict arose between the representatives of the two contradictory forces. We see the reflection of this conflict in the field of human thinking too. New inspired thoughts and germs of thought were everywhere precipitating out of their fantastic theological shell. The proposition of the concept of heliocentric universe against the church propagated common views of earth centric universe marks the beginning of emancipation of the natural science from theology, although, in many minds it is still far from completion. From the very beginning, the process of the emancipation of natural science from theology was not so smooth, and marked with the innumerous acts of suppression of scientific discoveries and inventions, and unforgettable sacrifices of the Heroes of modern science for their thoughts. In fact, the ancestors of the modern bourgeoisie, the Protestant rebels, were as against the free investigation of nature as their Catholic counter-parts. They supported these scientific investigations only if they proved beneficial for their economic development and turned against them as soon as they inflicted on their own religious beliefs, the different shades of Protestantism. Burning of Servetus by Protestant Calvin and of Bruno by Roman Inquisition is just two of the numerous such cases and shows the similarity between Protestants and Catholics in this regard. In process of its historical development in the past few centuries, bourgeois class had already seen how dangerous the loss in religious faith of toiling masses can be for the existence of their rule, for example, the French revolution of 1789 and Socialist revolutions of 20th century. Thus, this legacy has taught bourgeoisie the very importance of maintaining, and even strengthening, the religious faith of common populace for the continuance of their exploitative rule. Making common masses believe in some supernatural authority, God, for grieves and sorrows faced by them, plays the most efficient role in diverting their attention from the real causes of their problems, generated by this unjust system. Thus, the most far-sighted ideologues of ruling class try their best to distort and obscure the real anti-religious and materialistic nature of every important scientific discovery and, for the same reason, any important discovery in every sphere of knowledge. This is the reason that even in the 21st century, when the progress of the natural science have surpassed, probably, even the dreams of the most quixotic minds of the 19th century, scientific discoveries are still being marked with the stamp of God and scientific theories are twisted so as to prove the existence of God.
The act of branding the probable discovery of Higgs Boson in CERN’s LHC experiment as a proof for the creation of universe by God, propagated by the hacks, serving this decaying capitalist system, and also by its conscious protectors and unconscious supporters, once again proves this. The basis for this misleading and false interpretation, of the theory that predicts existence of Higgs Boson, was the naming of this particle as "God Particle" by the particle physicist and Nobel laureate Dr. Leon Ledermann in his book The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question? Though, he did not name it "God Particle" in the sense as it was later advertised by some theologians and a section of media. These philistines, who live not in a real material world but in the abstract world of ideas and in themselves are just a collection of ideas devoid of any bodily existence, have claimed that the discovery of "God Particle" will be a fatal blow for materialism as it proves the notion of creation of universe, at some point of time in the past, by an external agency or God. Hence, it becomes necessary to clear the smoke screen created around the probable discovery of Higgs Boson and have a materialist approach towards any such discovery.
Higgs Boson is a hypothetical fundamental particle predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics. Today, Standard Model (SM) is one of the most successful models of particle physics and the existence of all the fundamental particles predicted by it, except Higgs Boson, has been established experimentally. According to this model, in the period of 10-43 seconds after the birth of universe (about which it says nothing) the whole universe was in the state of vacuum which was filled with a dense field of very high energy. This field, also known as Higgs Field, was distributed homogenously through out the universe and was sharply fluctuating. Higgs Boson is the constituent particle of Higgs field. According to SM, at that time all the fundamental particles were massless and gained their mass later through the interaction with this field. This process of generation of mass in particles is known as Higgs Mechanism. The more one interacts, the heavier it becomes. This is why we have massless photon but comparatively very heavy quarks. Thus, this model predicts birth of property of mass in fundamental particles, or in other words, the creation of massive matter from the vacuum filled with Higgs field.
This is a very simplistic, and somewhat rough, sketch of this very complex theory, yet sufficient for our present task. The origination of matter having mass from the Higgs field is interpreted by believers of supernatural power or God as the creation of matter from an external agency. And thus the discovery of Higgs Boson, according to them, will be a refutation of materialism as it claims the primacy of matter which has never been created by some external agency.
Now, there are two important problems in this whole issue that needs to be addressed. First point is that of interpreting vacuum in early phases of universe as the presence of some external agency i.e. some sort of consciousness or God. Second point is regarding the stand of materialism to the conception of matter.
As far as the argument of interpreting vacuum to presence of God is concerned, it is an absolute sophistry. One doesn't require great expertise in science to visualize that vacuum is a physical reality which represents just the absence of matter and not the presence of any sort of consciousness or God in that particular part of reality. Creation of vacuum is a general phenomenon in many of scientific areas. So, if vacuum represents any sort of spirit or divinely thing, it means that we create this divinely existence every time we create a vacuum. It can be easily understood that equating vacuum with God or presence of consciousness is sheer stupidity. Presence of vacuum in the early phases of universe and origination of property of mass in the particles from it does not prove the existence of consciousness before origination of matter. Vacuum is vacuum and consciousness is consciousness, and presence of vacuum does not imply the presence of consciousness. On the contrary, it should be said that only massive matter itself is not the whole material world but just a part of material world. Vacuum is also a part of material world, one of the forms in which objective reality expresses itself.
Second point needs little more attention. Materialism claims that material world is primary which has been never created by any kind of external agency or consciousness or God. The problem with which materialism deals with is what came first matter or consciousness; whether this material world is reflected approximately correctly and relatively truthfully in our consciousness or not; if yes, it should be accepted or not; our consciousness can know looking at the history of development of materialism (see Brief History of Materialism), it becomes clear that it (materialism) has never claimed that property of mass or any other specific property is a necessary criteria for anything to qualify as matter, except that of being an objective reality, existing outside our mind. For materialism "the concept of matter expresses nothing more than the objective reality which is given us in sensation" and "for the sole "property" of matter with whose recognition philosophical materialism bound up is the property of being an objective reality, of existing outside our mind" (Lenin—Materialism and Empirio-Criticism). It is not the task of materialism to find out that massive matter originated at some point of time or not; or to find out the different forms in which the objective reality expresses itself. It is a subject of natural science. Dialectical materialism, the most advanced and scientific form of materialism, just provides a correct scientific approach and methodology to solve any problem of natural science.
Thus, even, Fields theory proves to be correct and Higgs Boson is discovered, there will not be any crisis for materialism. The discovery of Higgs Boson will only uncover a new, previously unknown, aspect of matter. Thus, if Higgs Boson is discovered and notion of the birth of massive matter proves to be correct, no crisis is going to arise for materialism. In fact, whether Higgs Boson is discovered or not, CERN's LHC experiment will definitely deepen the profundity of our understanding of nature and universe, in other words of objective reality, and a new path will be shown for its further development, as Engels said—"with each epoch-making discovery even in the field of natural science ["not to speak of the history of mankind"], it (materialism) has to change its form", and so it will.

An appeal for solidarity to all justice-loving people

2011-04-18T02:40:00.000-07:00

The urban and rural working class population of India is living through a life of intolerable and unutterable misery, injustice and economic oppression. In other words it can be best described as a ‘cold day in hell’. The condition of the urban and rural laborers working in unorganized sector and the unorganized laborers of the organized sector is worst amongst them. The fruits of the progress achieved in the last twenty years of the market liberalisation and privatisation have been enjoyed by the top 15 percent of the total Indian population while the gulf between the rich and poor has yawned to an unprecedented scale. In these twenty years of rapid economic development, the condition of the toiling masses has worsened. Government data alone is enough to justify this claim. The workers have only got promises after promises from successive governments but not a single drop of development trickled down to their dark world.
Whatever legal rights the workers had managed to achieve through prolonged struggles and sacrifices, have been mostly snatched back .The age old labor laws present in the statute book, insufficient enough as they are, have been rendered meaningless in practice. Whatever new laws are introduced by the government as ostentation, are either mostly ineffective and hypocritical or they are pro-capitalist. The labor laws are not only intriguing but also the whole process of justice is so complex and lengthy that the laborers hardly have any chance to get justice .The number of labor dept offices including the officers and the staffs are vastly inadequate and instead of fulfilling its duty of enforcing the labor laws these labor departments often end up acting as an agent of the industry owners .Even the number of labor courts and industrial tribunals are grossly inadequate. For the toiling masses of India, the fundamental right to life as guaranteed by the Constitution has been rendered meaningless. Civil liberty and democratic rights bear no meaning to them. The state machinery is always geared to suppress, directly or indirectly, strike and all the democratic means of resistance through the draconian laws and despotic bureaucracy.
The basic rights such as minimum wages, proper limit of the working hours, ESI, job card etc. are not available to more than 90% of the industrial and rural laborers of India. Even after toiling for 12-14 hours at a stretch in hellish, unhygienic and dangerous conditions they hardly get enough money needed to fulfill their basic needs. Even in these days of severe price-rise, most of the factory workers are paid a paltry sum, ranging between 1800 to 4500 rupees per month for 8 hours of work. In case of death or injury due to the accidents occurring frequently in the workplaces, they are hardly compensated and often not even provided with the basic medication as well, and rather sacked from the job. Most of the workers here are contract, casual, wage and piece-rate laborers and not even a single labor law is implemented for them.
Under these circumstances, the workers of India, would like to let the Parliament and the Government Of India know that, they are not going to bear any more this anarchy and the atrocities meted to them. Enough is enough! They want justice and our rights back and we will regain it at any cost. This is just the beginning of a long campaign. And as a first step towards this, they are planning to present this charter to the people’s representatives occupying the Parliament and also the parties ruling at the centre for a dignified life,for living by fulfilling our basic necessities of life, for their just and democratic demands and for gaining their legitimate share in the development of this country.
This charter has 26 categories of demands which represent almost all the major needs and political demands of the working class people of India.
On the forthcoming labor day (1 May, 2011) workers from several parts of the country will knock on the doors of the parliament in Delhi, along with this charter signed by thousands of workers across the country.
As for the present, the workers are not asking the deaf occupying the parliament for anything more than just implementing the basic rights guaranteed by the constitution of the land, for us. We are only asking for the minimum requirements a human being needs to live. The struggle of the working class has a long way to go but for the time being let us start this long journey with the demand for our democratic rights, as a first step.
The significance of this movement is that the workers are presenting their demands under the combined banner of the ‘Workers’ Charter Movement’ instead of different banners. Fighting different owners separately divides the workers and thus weakens the whole struggle, which ultimately benefits the industrialists. For this reason, the ‘Workers’ Charter Movement’ is presenting the common demands of the whole working class, in front of the rulers of the country.
Some independent labor organisations and unions active in different parts of the country and a labor journal played a major role in formulating the demands in this charter and a few small labor assemblies (Mazdoor Panchayats) also aided in this process; and they have taken the initiative to draft the charter and take it to the workers, but at the same time it also has to be clarified that this movement is not under the banner of any union, organisation or political party at all. The aim is that the ‘Workers’ Charter Movement’ should become the struggle of all those working people, whose demands are mentioned in the charter, thus to transform it into a unified struggle of the whole working class of the country. This movement is intended to run in several phases and cycles. A symbolic start is being made on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of the historic ‘May Day’. This is the first step towards the long march for the liberation of the working class.
Today, this start is a symbolic one because the vast working class population is divided and unorganised. But this cannot remain as such for long. The number of urban and rural proletariat along with the semi-proletariats in India, is about 75 crores. It will also gain support of the lower middle class, who are constantly been oppressed by this suppressive regime. When organised, it would become a very strong force. The demand for the rights of this three-fourth of the total population would go a long way. Since the past few months, teams of workers and activists have been visiting industrial areas, workers colonies, workers lodges, lanes and by-lanes in the slums – where ever workers live, to educate the workers about the charter and get it signed by them. Night meetings are held and street meetings and cultural shows are organised to popularise the charter in several areas.
We appeal to all the people to build solidarity and stand by this movement. If you are a worker then don’t forget to sign this charter yourself, get it signed by your fellow workers and also be present at Jantar Mantar (New Delhi) on 1st May. If you are not a worker, go to the labor colonies and slums around you, educate them about the charter and its implications, get it signed by them and come with us at the Jantar Mantar to express solidarity on the said date. Though the signatures in this charter should be of the worker’s alone but whoever agrees with these demands should certainly reach Delhi to express solidarity.
The middle class is evidently unhappy with the rampant corruption in our system but isn’t it the biggest corruption which constantly denies the workers, the fruit they yield with their blood and tears? There can be no justice when 80% of the population lives in continuous denial of their basic rights. Anguish of the people is mounting high and the day this dormant volcano wakes up, the pillars of the heaven will be terribly shaken for sure.
The beginning of every long journey starts with a small step. We invite you to join and stand by this campaign for rights and justice.

- Convening Committee, Worker’s Charter Movement – 2011.

Religion: A Fantastic Reality

2011-04-11T23:41:00.000-07:00

Now all religion is nothing but the fantastic reflection in men's minds of those external forces which dominate their daily life, a reflection in which terrestrial forces assume the form of supernatural ones. In the beginnings of history it was the forces of nature which were first so reflected, and which in the course of further development underwent the most manifold and motley personifications among the various peoples. Comparative mythology has traced back this first process, at least in the case of the Indo-European peoples, to its origin in the Indian Vedas, and in its progress it has been demonstrated in detail among the Indians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Germans and, so far as material is available, also among the Celts, Lithuanians and Slavs. But side by side with the forces of nature, it is not long before social forces begin to be active, forces which confront man as equally alien and at first equally inexplicable, dominating him with the same apparent natural necessity as the very forces of nature. The fantastic figures, which at first only reflected the mysterious forces of nature, at this point acquire social attributes, become representatives of the forces of history. At a still further stage of development, all the natural and social attributes of the numerous gods are transferred to one almighty god, who in turn is himself only the reflection of the abstract man. Such was the origin of monotheism, which was historically the last product of the vulgarized philosophy of the later Greeks and which found its incarnation in Jehovah, the exclusively national god of the Jews. Religion can continue to exist in this convenient, handy and universally adaptable form as the immediate, that is, the sentimental, form of men's relation to the alien, natural and social powers which dominate them, so long as men remain under the domination of these powers. However, we have repeatedly seen that in present-day bourgeois society men are dominated by the economic conditions they themselves have created and by the means of production they themselves have produced, as though by an alien power. The actual basis of the religious reflex action therefore continues to exist, and with it the religious reflection itself. Although bourgeois political economy has opened up a certain insight into the causal connection of this alien domination, this in no way changes the matter. Bourgeois economics can neither prevent crises as such, nor protect the individual capitalist from losses, bad debts and bankruptcy, nor secure the individual worker against unemployment and poverty. It is still true that man proposes and God (that is, the alien domination of the capitalist mode of production) disposes. Mere knowledge, even if it went further and deeper than that of bourgeois economic science, does not suffice to bring social forces under the domination of society. What is above all necessary for this is a social act. When this act has been accomplished, when society, by seizing all the means of production and using them on a planned basis, has freed itself and all its members from the bondage they are now kept in by these means of production which they themselves have produced but which confront them as an overpowering alien force; when man no longer merely proposes, but also disposes -- it is only then that the last alien force which is still reflected in religion will vanish and that the religious reflection itself will also vanish with it, for the simple reason that there will be nothing left to reflect.

Fredrich Engels

Synthetic Cell and Ethics

2010-09-09T02:55:00.000-07:00

Famous Marxist biologist J.B.S. Haldane said “There is no such great invention, from fire to flying, which has not been hailed as an insult to some god”. And the achievement by scientists of Craig Venter’s company has added qualitative insult to god’s reputation. Bourgeoisie media is furious over such insult of their hero and in anger have started defaming the experiment. They have declared it to be unethical and demand its immediate ban. But with advent of scientific and technological advance the materialist view of world has been justified and has deepened, shrinking the space for god in this material world to zero. This experiment also justifies the materialist conception that life is a quality of organic matter that arose in it in special conditions. Like were on earth billions of years ago. In this organic matter sustaining life consciousness arose. And the issue of human’s invasion in god’s territory is meaningless, as here man has shown through this experiment that life is no miracle or god’s matrix but is a special materialistic quality that is driven by chemical, biological, electrical, and various other materialistic processes. Here nothing is “unethical” but is just “materialistic”, it is just the spattering of bourgeoisie media to divert the attention from the actual implications this experiment brings.
In this experiment genome of bacteria M. mycoides was designed using computer. This requires the complete genetic mapping of genome of M. mycoides, which means knowledge of the every base sequence that genome has. Genome is the genetic material inside cell nucleus which has all the information for every function that a bacterial body or even a human body can perform. Blue heron company desiegned the genome using digital genome as model. This genome was assembled in four stages using 1078 bp long DNA cassettes that were synthesized using chemicals in stoichiometric amount under suitable conditions. A cassette is DNA’s small segment. Here cassettes of length 1078 bp were synthesized, bp is measure of length that is equivalent to 3.4 Å. (1 Å = .0000000001 metre). In first stage laboratory generated cassettes were inserted inside nucleus of yeast, where it weaves 1078bp long cassettes to 10,080 bp long. And in similar hierarchic fashion, in final stages, after various other processes of chemical purification and stabilization, the whole synthetic genome was generated inside the yeast. This synthetic genome was then transplanted into the restriction-minus nucleus of bacteria M. capricolum. The transplantation works. M. capricolum cell now functions to the dictates of genome of M. mycoides. The cell replicates self. This cell is similar to natural M. mycoides in almost all of its functions. Although scientists of Craig Venter’s company name it “synthetic cell” but here synthetic is only genome. But the experiment is a milestone in field of science. Scientists said that their aim is to create a synthetic cell that can do minimum functions of a natural cell. It has opened new horizons in field of biofuels and medical science, as the microorganisms can be created, with limitations, of desired function.
Synthetic Genomics, Craig Venter’s company, is said to have a contract with biofuel company Exxon to generate biofuels from algae. Exxon is even prepared to spend up to $600 million if all its milestones are met. Regarding this Dr. Venter said his group would try to build “an entire algae genome so we can vary the 50 to 60 different parameters for algae growth to make superproductive organisms”. The synthetic cell advancement could lead to the synthesis of algae cells that produce more plant oils than nature-made algae, boosting the per-acre biofuel yield of the feedstock. And this will result in cheaper oil. The ability to control the natural functions by varying genetic parameters in genome will lead into development of medicines which will be much effective and cheaper also. The reduction in cost of production will mean more profit by exploitng surplus from labour. This is the lifeblood of this experiment and many other experiment that are in operation today, profit, profit of few parasitic plunderers. But lately there has been a raise of voice against this experiment. So first let us have a look at these concerns.
First, there are some intellectuals who are asking for complete ban on this technology. Their logic is that the results of the experiment will fuel inventions of such dangerous weapons which will prove hazardous for our species. And they ask for ban on this technology to avoid its use in weapons. Their protest is parallel to the voices raised over the use of nuclear power. But this is like cutting head of Ravan. Ravan cannot be defeated this way. Every time you cut a head another grows. Only when hit in stomach can Ravan die. The question here is not of technology but the weapons that are being used. But the basic strength of this system is use of weapons. And every new technology is employed by it to develop weapons. Nuclear science, genome coding abolition is not the question here. It is romanticizing the past, to abolish every new technology in order to stop the development of weapons. Even if we impose the Stone Age technology, the system we live in will use that technology to develop weapons. In capitalism anarchic laws of capital are followed. Here relations between humans are not symbiotic but are polarized, are of exploitative kind. There is no chance of having relation between nature and humans to be symbiotic. It is also of exploitation. The mechanism of system uses every technology and natural forces to make profit and this profit is result of exploitation of large population. To stop the wars we will need to smash the machinery of this system. Abolishing technology is not solution. Humanity will move only towards future and in no way restoring the things of past can solve the problems we face today.
Another brand of N.G.O. groups and media groups are asking to stop the experiment immediately but to be started again only if it is regulated under government. They worry that some anti-social forces may equip this technique to make biological weapons and can cause mass scale massacre. They consider this experiment to be unethical at the present moment as anyone can access the technology. But this is not reality. All this worry and unethical concern in actual is loyalty of bourgeoisie media to its capitalist masters. Their ethics are limited to the boundaries of this system. To the boundaries of profit. However if we keep expectations from this unethical, unjustified and moribund system it will be sheer stupidity. Every year millions of innocent people die in imperialist wars. There is sufficient grain in stores but for sake of profit of private companies it is not distributed for free among the poor. This all is ethical. Here every ethic is in favour of this system. The very foundation of this system is plundering profit. The plundering bourgeois spiders trap and suck the common masses in the cut throat web created by capital. In this cut throat atmosphere these penny writers keep playing the flute of ethics in favor of their plundering bourgeois masters.
Leave alone the protests there are a lot of people who are counting benefits from the experiment. But even these claims do not hold water. To whatever extent science develops but it is still operated by laws of capital. And in this system, following these laws, the result is starvation, poverty and unemployment. Even if we develop efficient biofuels and better medicines, the mechanism of the system is such that large population remains bereft of these developments.
To sum up, this experiment is a big achievement in scientific area. Although like every new technology, it may also be installed on weapons and make wars more deadly, but this is the problem of this system and will solve when this system will be abolished.

If You are Young

2010-09-02T11:29:00.000-07:00

Where spring is pulsating
Amidst violent autumn and desolate winter
That is where you belong
If you are young!
Where future-symphony is playing
Where dreams are on a journey to discover
Where audacious projects of approaching is being forged
Where memories are fuel,
Filled in the heart of workman’s furnace
Where restless hot air is giving momentum to life
You have to be there
If you are young!
Where life is being uprooted
Where living words are being murdered
And where verdicts are passed on voices
For incarceration and solitude,
Where exiled flora
And black baking rocks are present
Therse you are being awaited
If you are young!
Where barricades of resolves are being raised
Where bunkers of knowledge are being dug
Where flags of challenges are being unfurled
There is where you have to be deployed
If you are young!
-Shashi Prakash

The Science of Religion

2010-04-18T09:30:00.000-07:00

“Religion is the general theory of the world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in a popular form” Marx. And this statement explains the essence of religion, the general theory constructed by man of his world. The religion exists as the sum of all social relations constructed by man, his expression of social consciousness, although an inverted one. Inverted, because it is not the true expression but an unclear and subjugated consciousness of man who fails to understand his own society.
Today we live in profit motivated capitalist system. The era of capitalism converts everything into commodities, weighs everything, mind you here "thing" refers to human emotions and even humans also, in money. The religion thus is also forged through power of capital. The various godmen today compete each other in promising “sinners” to repent and give peace of mind. Everyone has his own technique; some do yoga, some develop way of living and some do not even wear clothes. Their growth in India has been astronomical both in numbers and their accounts. The long hands of law fall short as they fund various political parties. Although this is the “shining” face of religion but its other face, is its salability in politics. Religion exists as an instrument which political parties use to expand their vote bank; some use Hindu card, some Muslim and some use Dalit card and even many fundamentalist terrorists also find the support and justification through religion. Babri mosque demolition, Mumbai 1992 riots, Gujarat massacre all represent the violence and destruction which in the name of religion have been instigated on us. Religion justifies the violence and inhuman activities in favor of the governing power.
The religion has evolved with the evolution of economic relations among humans. What we see today is evolved product of history. Considering the length of our article we will try to see how it originated in order to discuss its current state and with some certainty its future.
“Religion exists as sum of human beliefs and actions, and beliefs held by the real individuals acting in a real society”- Caudwell. Thus its evolution and origin lies in evolution of man and his social relations. In the primitive society man with his understanding of external world constructed some common beliefs, rituals to express them and all this we define as magic. Ritual dance, gait or appearances of animals, imitations of sounds of rains, actions of sowing were performed; he projects his feelings into outer reality. Cause and effects were interpreted in reverse. But magic helped him gain some knowledge of nature like rains were asked for only in rainy season. This was the first attempt to understand and control the nature, although feeble and very unclear. It thus reflects the social consciousness of primitive man in relation to nature. Magic is thus parent of science. With development of science and the art it becomes unnecessary and dissolves from the picture to the background existing still in fairy tales with us. On the other hand the understanding of the social relations got further intricate. With division of labor which is caused by development of production forces, magic shows an organization, coherence, a tough visible structure as the economic production develops and evolves to take the form of religion. With division of labor, classes arise and thus arises exploitation of one by another. This division is hierarchic in nature. Chief, headman, director of labors, priests, warriors and godking arise with latter at the apex of the pyramid. The confused perception of these social relations, of hierarchy of classes, of individuals makes them external and divine. The “gods” either dwelled in through priest or had incarnation in the godking. The exact architecture of the pyramid depends on economic production level, which in turn depends on the topography of area, its history and most importantly on the internal forces of society. These factors decide society to be monotheist or polytheist in faith. This particular topic asks for another descriptive article and considering our subject of discussion we avoid going into further detail.
In the beginning of history it was the forces of nature that dominated man, and in course of further evolution they underwent most manifold and varied personifications among the various peoples. Even in the existing society man is dominated by means of production which he himself has produced, and then the production relations which stem from it, as if they are extraneous force. The economic system we live today in is capitalism. The profit motivated system. It lives on the wage labors. On their poverty, unemployment, and their starvation. Religion has its deepest roots in “…..social oppression of the working masses and their apparently complete helplessness in face of the blinding force of the capital, which every day and every hour inflicts upon ordinary working people the most horrible suffering and the most savage torment, a thousand times more severe than those inflicted by extraordinary events, sudden wars, earthquakes . “Fear created the gods”. Fear of blinding forces of capital….” Lenin explains. The fear is irrigated by the uncertain nature of capital, the fear is not only in labor class and peasants but even the middle man, big capitalists and landlords; all are under the danger of being displaced in this cut-throat competent market.
During fall of feudalism and victory of capitalism science propelled the struggle against religious authority of church and the moral justification given to the feudal system. The atheistic movement broke out in the Europe. Renaissance and Enlightenment cleared mists of religion from common masses, people rose up and called for every theory to be tested on litmus of reason and if a theory, through its propagators, failed to do so it was criticized and changed. In India never was there any Renaissance or Enlightenment and the extent of the dogmatism, religious, orthodox views have very deep roots in society. The society that came out of womb of colonization had lost its heritage of proud past. It was product of 200 years of slavery and the culture which it had was full of dogmas and orthodox views. Today everywhere religious shackles enslave the individual’s freedom. Superstitions, honor killings and infanticide exist in one of fastest growing economy of the world. The science we have today is what developed after capitalism got established in western countries. In Europe, Capital after defeat of feudalism forcefully dragged the religion and science out of the contradictions and fuelled them to strengthen self. Scientific attitude was sucked out of common man’s mind and was limited to classrooms, labs and books whereas the religion was again filled in to obscure the authority of the ruling class. In India never the science was common dose of a common man, the capital had to do no struggle in resolving cultural struggles against religion. Here it stood victorious, ready to serve capital.

The Science today only dwells into producing items of luxury for few plunders. Scientists today have excess to computers; have unprecedented facilities where all information is only a click away, whereas the 3/4th of population lives in poverty. On one side scientists are reaching out to find the basis of diseases by complete mapping of human gene, on the other side in Asia, Africa and Latin America every year millions of children die because of ordinary diseases whose cures were found a century ago. One side man is searching for signs of water on moon while on the other side in metros like Delhi and Mumbai millions of people are forced to drink polluted diseased water. Science which became harbinger of European revolution has now just become appendage to bourgeoisie (capitalist) economic political science and an instrument to install war toys for imperialist countries. In India it was appendage only. To take back again the science to people, to cut down the inverted consciousness of religion we need to revive the culture through social acts. “Mere knowledge, even if went much further and deeper than that of bourgeoisie economic science, is not enough to bring social forces under the control of society. What is above all necessary for this is a social act” Engels. The social act which Engels refers today will be through new series of cultural and political revolutions, of proletarian Renaissance and Enlightenment, revolutions of the working mass, of the majority of population. Religious mist will then be cleared as every social relation will be organized and then we will not need fetishisms to worship our fears.

Criticism: Three Idiots

2010-03-02T01:10:00.000-08:00

Recently the movie “3 idiots” was released which broke all the past records of success! Really a good movie! It seemed after this movie that either both Raj Kumar Hirani and Aamir Khan had been meeting Kapil Sibbal or Mr. Kapil Sibbal took their class before making film. Film is good editing wise and story moves with pace and thus attaches. The movie starts with the effect of pressure on students in institutes running professional courses. We are shown that how pressure of family, peer pressure, pressure of earning money and a name in society does not allow a youth to be educated. To be educated means is to gain knowledge and to be able to apply that knowledge in practice. But the education methodology is such that it does not allow one to learn but rather in mugging up the subject in order to be successful or get good marks. It is more of a kind of training then education. Inventions, new thoughts and creativity has no relation whatsoever with this training. First a human should be educated and then trained. As far as modern scientific education methodology is concerned, this criticism seems correct. Even our Human Resource Development minister has been emphasizing on this for past one year publically. But the first question is this that is it the reality of our society and its education system? A nation where 77% of population lives on or under 20 Rs per day, a society where 46% of children suffer from malnutrition , a nation where only 7% of total eligible youth population reaches the higher education, can never have the primary question of the education methodology in engineering institutes. The primary question is that why only 7% of eligible youth reaches higher education and why only 1% of total eligible population reaches the institutes offering professional courses. The reason behind is this profit-based system which can never give opportunity to the deserving. The majority of population still lives in darkness of illiteracy. And in this regard film makes a very dangerous point. Aamir khan suggests a boy who sells eggs, milk and iron the clothes in hostel that you do not need money to study in school! But only uniform and a bag and if caught change the uniform and school, these "creative ideas" actually dodges the point that it is the responsibility of state to provide education to all and if it does not then it must be questioned. If the 50% children in India follow the "creative ideas" of film then what will happen? We leave this on the imagination of director. The film never criticizes the government and the system which is root to all problems. It only criticizes the education methodology of engineering colleges, that too without any definite aim and result. This criticism has nothing to do with the majority of youth population.
The second question is even more important. Such toothless criticism only helps in strengthening this profit based capitalist system. These criticisms only complete the hegemony of the capitalism. It happens self-spontaneously and do not always require intervention of state. Ministers do not take class of movie makers for this. The social levers of state do this job on their own. Reformism is one such ideology which does this job. Such films act as safety valve in society. After watching such movies viewer unconsciously looses his subversive (revolutionary and creatively violent) pressure. It creates a false illusion of sensitive nature of this system. Neither Kapil Sibbal nor Aamir Khan or Raj Kumar Hirani can do anything to keep cut throat competition away from education system. The society and the system we live have "social Darwinism" as its principle. That is, survival of the fittest. And here the class of the best is not genetic but is sold in market. The main question is of "purchasing capacity".
The character of Boman Irani, Viru Sahastrabuddhe, is actually the anti-message of the movie. For instance, he explains that life is like a race and if you will not run fast enough the person behind will crush and move ahead of you. Yes, this is the truth of capitalist system. The cuckoo's chick is born in crow's nest and throws the eggs of crow on its birth. Life starts with death. In the struggle of different species only the best survives. But capitalism applies this struggle of different species among humans with fitter and better on one side and less fitter and average on other side and organizes a cut throat competition between them. Darwin's law is for inter species analysis and not for intra species analysis. But capitalism can use it this way only; this is the law of capital. At one more place Viru Sahastrabuddhe tells one more right thing. He explains to Farhan Qureshi and Raju Rastogi that they belong to middle class and lower middle class. You cannot afford the "all is well" philosophy of Rancho. All is not well for you. But Rancho is the hero of film and how can his philosophy go wrong! In the end, Raju Rastogi despite being a below average student despite being expelled from college for some time, gets a job in multinational company! And the interview board is like angels! They are enthralled over the honesty and truthfulness of Raju Rastogi! Now those who have seen these greedy animals, they know quite well what would have been the behavior with him. Farhan Qureshi becomes what he wants to be, a photographer. All goes well. But we all know that in reality if that had been happening then the youth would not have been in such despair.
Movie also presents very insensitive view towards the questions of poverty and gender. Raju Rastogi belongs to a destroyed lower middle class. The picturization of his family is very insensitive. Movie changes to black and white whenever there is scene on his family. His paralyzed father, his poverty shattered mother, his sister -every member is being joked about. As if poverty is not at all an issue! But this is the biggest problem of this society. The only issue for director is the education methodology in engineering colleges. With this, it has also been shown that poor are dirty. Raju's mother uses the same belan to roll the chapatis which she uses to scratch the itch of Raju's father and then serve the same chapati to Raju's friends. What has been found in experience is that poor are great hosts and offer whatever they have with their heart. The way film picturizes the poor family one can easily be prejudiced. At one more place in the film a student, who has exceptional cramming abilities, has to read speech in Hindi for some ceremony in institute. He prepares it in roman script as he does not know Hindi. Our Rancho replaces the words "chamatkar"(miracle) with "balatkar"(rape) and "dhan"(money) with "istan"(breast of woman). After this the speech becomes funny. Although this was done to make the fun of "mugging up" trend in engineering college, but this "absurd humour" experiment shows insensitivity. Then in the whole movie words "balatkar" and "istan" are used to signify various things in the movie, which shows the lack of sensitivity towards women. But the Indian viewers have not that ability to grasp the form of humour so as to discuss the structure and form of humour. Indian cinema has not developed that ability of Indian viewers.
But this is not the main issue. The main thing is that this film on the whole does a reformative criticism of the education system and that too without any operative part. It in no way attaches itself to the 85 % population of this county. The reformative criticism is just what Kapil Sibbal has been speaking of. Its work (not aim) is to strengthen the hegemony of this system culturally and ideologically in mind of those youth who consider changing the structure of this society.

Copenhagen: Hopenhagen to Brokenhagen

2010-03-02T01:08:00.000-08:00

Imagine that we are living in a logical world (it’s little hard to do, but do try once). Now think that we get to know that because of emission of CO2 and green house gases, the temperature of whole world is rising and if this is not stopped environment will be seriously damaged. But this can be avoided. Few scientists tell that we need to replace fossil fuel based technologies by alternative technologies which create no such problem. But to do this we would need organized human power. Various nations of world would have met, discuss and then have agreed on a common plan. Those who had technology they would have shared that and those with man power would have shared that. But, alas, the fundamental basis of this hypothetical construction is wrong, so clear all such imaginations from your mind. We are not living in a logical world. We live in an anarchic, inhuman, unorganized, profit blinded and insensitive world. We live in a capitalist world where the divinely given law of competition is crushing every human value and beauty under the wheels of profit. Both humanity and environment are crushed in the collision of profit of corporate houses and multinational companies and the national governments representing them. For example, Lord Oxburgh, the chairman of Shell UK, speaking at the Greenpeace Business Lecture in January 2005, accepted this with surprising honesty: “Whether you like it or not, we live in a capitalist society. If we at Shell ceased to find and extract and market fossil fuel products while there was a demand for them, we should fail as a company. Shell would disappear as any kind of economic force” (Independent, 26 January 2005). And now see this statement with the statement of global warming scientist James Hansen: “The fundamental problem is that fossil fuels are the cheapest form of energy. As long as they are, they are going to be used” (Times, 3 December). It’s obvious that a system which is profit centered and has cut-throat competition as its fundamental can think only of immediate profit and, hence, it is tough for it to think over question of environment. The way Copenhagen summit ended could have ended only in that way. Despite being aware of the reasons and solutions of environmental problems the representatives there could not come to a decision. Because here the issue was just not environment. Environment conservation has its own political economy. In a capitalist world which is divided in categories of imperialist nations, smaller imperialist nations, non imperialist capitalist nations, developed nations, developing nations etc, how can the emission cut be on a common consensus be justly done? In the whole summit the main contradiction was - the contradiction between the various imperialist camps.
From the starting of the summit, contradictions between America-European Union and China-G77 started coming into light. Emerging economies, i.e. China, India, Brazil and South Africa, made a group (& called Basic Nations) and started making pressure on the developed nations (mainly on America & E.U.) to follow Kyoto protocol. But, winner of the Nobel prize for "peace", president of America, Barack Obama, made it very clear that they are not going to cut down their carbon emission by 40% to the level of 1990, as set by Kyoto protocol; at the max they can reduce only 17-19% & that is not even to the level of 1990 but to that of present level. But with the increasing share and strength of the capitalist class of emerging nations in the world market, the representatives of these countries were not in any mood of compromise and stooping before America and E.U., and they started mobilizing other G77 nations with them. After this America and Britain started showing their real character. President of the summit (i.e. prime minister of host nation Denmark), Lars Løkke Rasmussen, who was using the summit tactically in the favor of developed nations, presented the Copenhagen accord to other countries just before two days of the end of summit with the hope that in this short period of time these countries will not be able of thinking over it properly and thus, accept it easily. This accord is just a two and a half page document. Generally, the documents of environment summits of U.N. are not used to be so small but what else the imperialist countries can write when they have to just impose their orders fraudulently. As there is no need of explanation, Rasmussen received huge criticism from the emerging and other G77 nations and none of them accepted this accord. After this developed nations started threatening to third world countries by saying that they will stop giving grants and even offered bribe in the form of funds related to this accord, for which any nation who signs the accord would be eligible. But all these tactics failed in pressurizing emerging countries to accept this accord. And, thus, no consensus could be made to reduce carbon emission levels; summit just became a platform of groupism and display of power between the developed and emerging nations for control over world markets. Copenhagen turned from “Hopenhagen” to “Brokenhagen”. The curtain over the "worries" and "serious thinking" of the masters of capitalist world has been uncovered, and once again, the old mordant truth of capitalism has became clear that a system based on the blind market forces gives rise, and can give, only to a cut-throat competition for earning immediate profit, and these capitalist plunderers can never come to any consensus for the long term benefits of humanity and life on earth.
This is an illogical system which is destroying this whole planet along with human life. But, definitely, we do not support the pessimistic destructionist views of those environmentalists who are saying that the irreversible loss to environment is carrying on and very soon it will be too late and, earth's environment will become incompatible for the survival of human life. It is our strong belief that the millions of working masses, sensitive youths, students and intellectuals, who are fighting against this capitalism & imperialism in different countries, will not let the stage of this apocalypse arrive. Before that, this manic and delirious capitalism will be smashed and the process of building a humanity centered society will start taking place. We have full faith on the conscience of humanity.

15-Day long strike of Almond Workers comes to conclusion

2010-01-02T07:25:00.000-08:00

December 31, New Delhi. The historical strike of almond workers continuing since last 15 days came to an end with a compromise between the employers and the Union. As is well known, this strike began on December 16 and around 20 thousand workers' families had been participating in it. It has already being hailed as the biggest and longest strike by the unorganized workers of Delhi. Before this compromise, the employer side and the Union had sat across the table for talks earlier also, however, those talks could not establish a common understanding. Following that bipartite, the strike continued and finally on the evening of December 31, a common agreement was reached between both the parties.
Before this 15-day long strike the almond workers had put forward a 5-point charter of demand under the leadership of Badaam Mazdoor Union (BMU), in front of the contractors. These primarily included the rights to which the workers are entitled under the labour laws. Earlier, the almond workers used to get a meagre Rs. 50 for processing of one bag of almonds. Besides, they used to be denied payment of wages for several months. Misbehaviour and abusing workers in godowns by the staff of contractors was a common thing. Moreover, the shells peeled off the almonds were sold to the workers on arbitrary prices fixed by the contractors. These shells are used as fuel for cooking by the workers. Under the leadership of the BMU, the workers had long been demanding that they should be given Rs. 70-80 per bag of processed almonds and the peeled off shells should be given to them at Rs. 10 per bag. They were also demanding that they should be given their due wages in the first week of every month.
The employers were rigid for last 15 days on not increasing the wages and they had been insisting that the workers should first of all call off the strike and return to work then, they will think about wage revision, and that too after January 16. However, the workers found this proposal unacceptable and continued with their strike. The employers' frustration grew with every passing day as their armoury had been emptied. One of the employers was beaten up by women picketers after he attacked the women workers, the Police administration failed to break the strike by threatening and intimidating workers' leaders, brokers also failed to break the strike by spreading rumours. After December 29, it was clear that it was just a matter of time when the employers succumb and approaches the workers for compromise. On the morning of December 31, some employers accepted the demands of the workers without talks with the Union and started work. As a result the employers unity disintegrated and they bifurcated into two groups. At last, around 6 PM in the evening of the same day, both the sides held talks and it was decided that the employers will give Rs. 60 per bag of processed almonds to the workers, the peeled off shells will be sold at Rs. 20 per bag, and the workers will be paid their wages in the first week of every month.
With this compromise the workers called off their historical strike and they are returning to work from the first day of the New Year. With this the biggest strike of the unorganized workers of Delhi came to conclusion. Under the leadership of Badaam Mazdoor Union, thousands of unorganized workers proved that they can fight and they can win. Apparently, the workers could not win all of their demands. However, the issue in this strike now was not merely the revision of wages, etc. In an industry where the workers are made to toil like slaves in the most primitive conditions, constantly manhandled, facing abuses and misbehaviour and were considered an instumentum vocale, the workers waged a heroic and historical struggle to win respect for them and win their minimum labour rights. The employers were, for the first time, made to realize the massive force of workers and were made to do away with their misunderstanding, that these workers will keep enduring their excesses silently and would not speak up. Towards the end of the struggle, the employers bowed down to the workers' power in every respect. Besides, not only the employers were made to realize the force of the united workers, but the population of the entire Karawal Nagar area understood the fact that these workers are not going to keep their lips zipped.
Another accomplishment of this strike was that the trade unions of parties like C.P.I. (M.L.) were sidelined by the workers consciously and they brought their struggle to an end under the leadership of the BMU, without any kind of support or help from any electoral party. The workers made it a point that they would not let any electoral party infiltrate into the movement. The workers rejected all varieties of brokers of electoral Trade Unions. They cleary understood the real character of the electoral parties, the R.S.S., Police administration and similar forces fo the area and realized that they have to fight on their strength only, which is massive.
Ashish Kumar, convener of the BMU, told the media that this struggle is not an end, but a beginning. In future, the almond workers of Delhi will continue to fight under the banner of the BMU for those rights which are still out of their reach. Ashish said that till this whole industry continues to function informally, the workers will remain weak in their legal battle. The next aim of the Union is to make the government's labour department give formal status to this huge industry.
Abhinav, correspondant of labour monthly Bigul and a researcher of the unorganized workers of Delhi, said that this struggle will stay in the memories of the workers of Delhi for decades to come. This struggle was first of its kind and it dismantled this myth that the unorganized and informal sector workers cannot wage organized struggles. By organizing workers in their areas of residence and working class neighbourhoods, the struggle of the unorganized and scattered workers can be given an organized and huge form. Undoubtedly, it is a challenging task, however, this strike has emphatically proved that this challenge can be overcome.

Struggle of Delhi's almond workers living under the yoke of global profit mongers

2009-12-19T06:08:00.001-08:00

December 18, Delhi. Almost 30 thousand workers' families are working in the almond processing industry of Karawal Nagar area of North-East Delhi. This whole industry is a global industry. These workers toiling in the most primitive conditions process the almonds of overseas companies of the US, Australia and Canada. These companies come to India for the processing of their dry fruits in their quest of cost minimization as labour in India is far cheaper as compared to that in these countries. Khari Bawli of Delhi is the biggest wholesale dry fruits market of Asia. The big businessmen of Khari Bawli bring unprocessed almonds from these countries, get them processed and then send them back. These businessmen get the processing done by entrusting this work on contract basis to small-time contractors based in Karawal Nagar, Sant Nagar-Burari, Narela and Sonia Vihar. These contractors run small processing workshops in these areas. These workshops are working hell for workers and are not licenced by any government agency. These workshops are completely illegal. Each workshop has 20-40 workers, mostly women and often with their children. Working hour might vary from 12 hours in normal season to 16 hours in peak season. On processing one 23 Kg bag of almonds, they are paid Rs. 50. A skilled worker can break at most 2 bags of almonds in one day. Abusing, harassing and sexual exploitation of workers are common.
These workers are on strike for last three days under the leadership of their Union 'Badaam Mazdoor Union.' They are demanding that per bag rate should be increased from Rs. 50 to Rs. 80, they should be paid double for working overtime, they should be provided identity card and job card by the contractor, etc. Its noteworthy that all these demands are in accordance with the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, Contract Labour Act (Prevention and Abolition) 1971, etc. On the second day of the strike, the contractors with their henchmen attacked a peaceful procession of women workers, who were with their children, led by a few Union workers. This attack wounded two Union workers seriously, while a number of women workers and their children sustained minor injuries. During this attack contractors and their goons used casteist remarks to humiliate dalit Union workers as well as women workers. Dalit workers were their particular targets. In defense, workers started pelting stones at the crowd of the contractors and their goons as a result of which 4 goondas of the contractors sustained injuries. In the meanwhile, the Police arrived at the scene and escorted the four injured goons to hospital and provided them with Medical assistance. On the other hand the injured Union members and labourers were arrested by the Police and taken the Police Station. They did not provide them with medical assistance. A few activists were bleeding seriously, but even that did not move the Police. They were kept there in the same conditions for 5 long hours and the Police intentionally delayed the whole process of recording statements. In the meanwhile, the injured workers and activists kept bleeding. After this whole inhuman behaviour, the Police took the activists from the Police Station and lied to the workers who had gheraoed the Police Station, that they were being taken to Guru Tegh Bahadur Hospital and then they will be taken to the Karkardooma court. However, Police took them to the Gokalpuri Police Station which is away from Karawal Nagar so that the workers cannot reach there and did not tell anyone about it. F.I.R. had been lodged against the Union activists on the statement of the hooligans of the contractors; however, no F.I.R. was lodged against the contractors and their goons on the statements of the workers and Union activists. The arrested people from the side of the contractors were freed immediately. The arrested activists were produced in the Seelamput SDM court today, but due to some technical reasons they were granted bail and were sent to judicial custody by the Special Executive Magistrate Nirmal Kaur. In the meanwhile, strikers in Karawal Nagar vowed to continue their fight till the end and they pledged that they would not give up until their leaders are released and all their demands are met. The whole almond processing industry of Karawal Nagar has come to a standstill as the strike intensified even more after the deceitful arrest of the Union activists and shameful collusion of the Police administration with the godown owners and contractors. Till the evening of December 18, thousands and workers are gathered at the strike venue. Naveen of Badaam Mazdoor Union said that the arrest of the Union activists, rather than demoralizing the workers, has made their resolve to fight till the end even stronger. Now every worker considers it his or her first priority to take this struggle to final victory.
When Union activists and correspondants of 'Bigul' workers' monthly demanded an explanation from the Police administrated as to why no F.I.R. was lodged against the attacker contractors and their henchmen on the statements of the Union activists and workers and why the Police is working on the guidelines of the contractors by taking unilateral and unjustified action against the Union activists, then the senior officers of the Police bluntly said that the Union walahs need to be taught a lesson and the strikers will be disciplined with force. It is clear as daylight the the Police administration is working on the dictates of the contractors and employers. It has been trying to suppress the workers' movement with all its might and will. It is noteworthy too that all the small time local leaders of Congress, BJP and the RSS have come in open support to the contractors. Ironically, a number of employers and contractors themseves are local leaders of these electoral parties.
This is not the first time that the Police has worked on the behalf of the contractors. A year ago, in August 2008, when the workers had organized a strike for their legal rights, then the Police had arrested Ashish Kumar, the convener of Badaam Mazdoor Union, in an arbitrary fashion. However, at that time almost a thousand workers laid siege to the Police Station and freed Ashish. But this time, the Police acted more cleverly and lied to the workers that they had lodged a F.I.R. against the contractors and their goons and they were taking the three Union leaders for M.L.C. to Guru Tegh Bahadur Hospital and then both the parties will be produced the the court. However, they were taken to a far away Police Station of Gokalpuri and were locked in the lock up there. Its crystal clear that the Police has acted conspiratorially to safeguard the interests of the contractors. Reportedly, lakhs of rupees were transacted in bribing the Police in the Police Station. One can understand that the Police must have charged their share for the bizarre inconvenient exercises that they had to do to acquit the culprits! The employers had hoped that the locking up of top Union leaders for one day will break the strength and endurance of the workers and the strike will be sabotaged. However, all their estimates and hopes went haywire as the strike emerged to be even stronger. Workers elected their new interim leadership democratically and the movement marched ahead. Presently, thousands of workers are on the roads of Karawal Nagar and the whole scene is of a working class carnival.
It is noteworthy that these workers have been demanding for their legal rights. These include the workers' rights to which they are entitled under the Minimum Wages Act, Contract Labour Act, Trade Union Act, etc. For this purpose, the Union activists have visited the Office of the Deputy Labour Commissioner of the zone a number of times, but every visit proved its own futility. The whole labour commissionary plays in the hands of the employers and contractors. They are not willing to enforce any labour law and there is a whole network of mutual loyalties and obligations is working to ensure that the workers are kept like slaves and instumentum vocale.
One particular thing to note about this movement is the massive participation of women workers, who constitute the majority of the total worker population in the almond processing industry. These workers are resolved to take this struggle to the ultimate limits.
We appeal to all democratic, sensitive and justice-loving media persons to investigate about this industry and know about the movement of the almond breakers of Karawal Nagar. This is a factsheet and we urge you to corroborate the facts given in it yourself. We believe that such struggles need to be brought in to the public domain urgently and common citizens of India should be made aware of the fact that how the whole executive, legislative and even the judiciary works in collusion with and on the directives of the moneyed class of this country and how common workers are denied justice on every possible single instance. We urge you to give this heroic struggle of workers some space in your newspaper, or magazine or news channel. Workers need you.

Fascist State

2009-11-01T04:16:00.001-08:00

If you don’t belong to the religion, race or nationality of state then you have to loosen your independent identity either by changing your religion or nationality to that of state or you have to become a slave of nation with no demands; without asking for any special rights and even not hope of any special behavior.
If you are a woman then you are only servant of man and just an instrument of producing healthy children; you have no other social value.
And even you belong to the religion, race or nationality of state, but forms the economically lower stratum of society i.e. wage labourer, small peasants, lower middle class and middle class then it is your sole responsibility to serve this “Great” state. It is the religion of working masses to melt their bones and muscles by working 12 or even 14-15 hrs for the progress of this “great” nation and race without raising a single question. And to whom does this nation belong? It belongs only to capitalist class, higher middle class and other rich stratums of the society. The nation progresses only when these profiteering plunderers progress. All the luxuries and special rights are only for this class. On the other hand in the working class the world is just inverted. It doesn’t matter whatever talents, qualities people possess, they have to work just according to the place, family they are born in, or to follow the orders of leaders of their “Great” nation, religion or race. Raising questions, doing protests, showing resistance and organizing their selves, to fight for their rights is treason. Rebels are crucified.
Yes, this is a picture of a fascist state, the state that had existed in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, and On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the start of Second World War, amidst the grave problems of starvation, poverty, unemployment, malnutrition etc of majority of common people on the world level, once again these “crazy dogs bound in shackles” (Michał Kalecki) have started gaining power and are increasing their social base. Rise of many neo-Nazis, pro-nationalists, anti-immigrants parties in different countries are the example of this fascist rise. In India RSS, BJP, MNS and other self acclaimed saviours of purity of Hindu culture and nationality are the parties that long for the establishment of such fascist state.
In the present world where the hungry, homeless people, facing the exploitation and oppression to the extreme of inhuman conditions, will not give up their lives, instead they will rise and organize themselves to fight for their rights, and in fact they have already started. Sporadic revolts in many African, Asian and Latin American third world countries are just a beginning. The whole world is on the verge of unprecedented food riots and social political revolts from the common masses that are deprived of the even essential requirements of life. On the other hand, due to the crisis ridden world economy, crisis as a consequence of insatiable greed of capitalist for making profit blindly out of anything possible – the prerequisite condition for their survival in this “free” market competition, the profits of these parasites are drying. Thus they are loosening their capacity to bear the cost of “Kalyankari Rajya” and "democracy” anymore. They are now feeling the need of a destructive force able of exploiting and oppressing working masses to the limit of their life by applying strict discipline maintained by the use of terror and violence, and compressing their revolts and breaking their class unity by dividing them on the issues of religion, race, caste, etc. The antagonistic contradiction between the capital and labour has got bare, and thus, making society highly unstable. In fact these conditions were the reason for what happened in Germany and Italy after the “Great Depression” of 1930s and this is the source of rise in social base of fascists today, and will be in the coming times. But this doesn’t mean that there is no way of controlling it, in fact it only shows the way. The present condition is like a fertile soil in which diversified and rich farming of crops can be done by the hard work of conscious human hands, but without such an effort the soil will be the home of weeds.
The need of the present time is a conscious revolution in the leadership of a strong, well disciplined, and experienced revolutionary party of working classes comprised of justice-loving, sensitive & brave students and intellectuals, who are young at their heart and mind.

Society and Concept of Reward

2009-11-01T04:13:00.000-08:00

Man is a social organism. The language he speaks, the thoughts he expresses in it, are product of his society. The consciousness of man lies in his social organization, which differentiates him from animals. The consciousness of man is not innate but social. His behavior, ideas, arts, sciences, laws and ethics all are social products. Appreciation, honor and motivation are abstract human behavior which evolved in his social interaction with other humans. In society these are symbolized in form of rewards and these rewards in particular reflect the relations, and their development, of individuals in society. In primitive society it, reward, was symbol of regard, appraise but with evolution of human society and with invention of private property this became in definition requital, conglomerating both wealth and appreciation, and as history advanced further the private property organized under state power and the form of reward got official stamp and became award, now given to individuals or group contributing in development and protection of state power. Let us try to look society through the relative frame of these particular human relations and formulate generalization to extend it to character of famous Noble prizes.
Artists, writers, world leaders, doctors, engineers, soldiers, students, scientists and various other organizations serving to maintain the dictatorship of their class, the ruling class, the class of capitalists, bankers, bureaucrats and their middle class allies, together come in domain of awards and in domain of celebrated “free competition”. This enchanting of “free competition” is a lie, an optical illusion; the reality is that capitalism is competition between greedy capitalists and those who serve them, the capitalists, and are awarded in this process. This is character of every prize, every award, whether it is Noble prize or Bharat Ratna; it has a class stamp all over it. Let us illustrate the assertion made above by example of Noble Prizes for 2009. The peace prize this year was awarded to Barack Obama for his efforts to strengthen the “international diplomacy”, peace-keeping; and why not? Being a leader of crisis ridden capitalism, America, and was still able to make people believe in the faulty system, in making them hope against history, in his efforts to maintain peace amid unemployment, starvation, amid looting by banks and corporate heads, is appreciable. The economics prize was awarded for theories in economic governance, theories which actually points on how to avoid the periodical economic crises, the old pious wish of capitalist class. The noble prize in the literature for presenting landscape of dispossessed “capitalists”, Muller was awarded for the criticism of socialist state, superseder of capitalism, which deprived exploiters from means of exploiting. The awards in science appear to be abstract in relation to human society but science only flows through the canals of capital to irrigate only those fields which result in crops of profit. The development in science is not false but its class character is such that the advances are used only in plundering of toiling mass or for directing to luxury of ruling class. On the other side of picture the exploited class of millions of workers, peasants who create everything in society gets no reward, no award for their rigorous toil throughout their life but only tears, diseases, starvation, despair which results in anger, riots, protests and anarchy when exploitation becomes unbearable. A peasant, a wage labour does not receive any reward for his 10-12 hour toil in fields, factories and construction sites; together they constitute a class of nearly 70% of population, but this population is out of domain of rewards, it is paid just what is sufficient to keep it alive and its labour. They are alienated from every kind of joy, appreciation and honor and are left with only tears and wounds, together they form the cursed portion of human society bereft of every human attribute. The competition among classes existing in society is reason for its curses. But where society is heading to? We can actually predict its projection with some certainty by knowing its laws of motion through the knowledge of history.
“Because laws, sciences, languages, arts, distribution systems, moralities and all the social relations and status connected therewith, are as it were the most generalized, the most social, the most recent, and the furthest removed from nature of all economic products, they form the superstructure or most abstract portion of history” Caudwell (Further studies in dying culture) explains. Marx discovered from analysis of history that this superstructure was subjected to continual changes; often gradual but there were periods when whole superstructure was rapidly shattered and transformed. The reason for these explosive transformations is the insulating gap existing between superstructure (theory) and basis (practice) so that practice could not continually modify theory. As a result antagonism develops and when tension becomes so terrific that the resultant explosion shatters almost every portion of the old superstructure. The antagonism reflects society’s economic production; one class directs economic production consciously and directs cream of society’s economic production into its life while on the other hand the other class is directed and exploited. This antagonism cannot but continue to develop and when exploitation reaches the boiling point of revolution the antagonism is resolved, old superstructure is overthrown and the society enters into a new era.

Cause and Effect

2009-09-06T07:18:00.000-07:00

An old star in a distant galaxy is dying, grown monstrously in size it has swallowed all its orbiting child planets, it will finally liberate them all with its death on the final blow of a mighty explosion. After travelling millions of light years of distance the photons of that explosion will reach to our home, to Milky Way galaxy, to our harmonious solar system, to our planet earth where human eyes will perceive the astronomical death, if they, humans, survive by then. Human survival is questionable although they have survived, evolved and ruled over planet earth for centuries, through their labour. With time humans have understood the conscious effect of labour on nature and have developed its production forces and terrestrially have won over mighty nature. Humans have cleared jungles, have constructed mighty and supernumerous buildings, pierced the earth’s chest and cultivated food grains, developed industries to manufacture on large scale the commodities for “connoisseur” consumers, devised means and methods to exchange the commodities, money and market. The social relations and human feelings all along also evolved with the development of production; marriage, parenthood, families and love friendship, human tenderness all along have evolved. The above picture of human development although clear is not complete, it doesn’t completely explain the real world we live in every day. Although the galaxy and earth remains the same, but it, above presented picture, it still misses the force that keeps the universe and this human society moving. The things presently the way they are contains the genes of past and the seeds of future to come; the contradiction within a thing develops it, and contradiction between things develop or inhibit them, stabilizing them relatively but overall in the universe change persists. From galaxies to plants older dies and new are created and in the same way human culture and society also evolve. The study of this human history and its development through contradictions is called historical materialism which is usually scrapped from general bourgeoisie education, alienated from it. Let us look the picture and human life a bit differently to grasp the essence of historical materialism from it.
The human labour which is source of all wealth has today bifurcated into mental and the physical labour. The physical labour is still the creator but mental labour abstracted from it has made it self-contradictory; in society today a man finds himself in severe competition of this physical and mental labour. He competes to be in 20% of population of management, bureaucrats, royals and their petty followers as against to 80% of large population of toiling working class, this makes them in antagonistic contradiction to each other. This antagonistic contradiction is controlled by the state and serves just 20% of population. The production is totally anarchic, with profit being its motive force, the surplus value looted officially from labour is used by profiteering plunderers to create minarets of luxury and wantonness and have left the large population only with “democracy”, “freedom” and “right to vote”. A man is free to buy or sell in market, but money is required and this market has left the 80% only with their labour to sell and 20% with almost everything to buy, this is capitalism. The economic relations have penetrated every relation, flowing in their veins; human social relations have become economic; morals, ethics, truth are left only for primary education. Prostitution, adultery, dowry deaths, rapes, malnutrition and unprecedented crimes have plagued the human society. New market morals have developed where backstabbing, selfishness, cowardice and all other new inventions of bourgeoisie are in “fashion”. The bourgeoisie philosophy tried every trick to suffice the toiling population, in forms of religion, caste, god’s wish, “your last birth’s sins” but all this hammering is failing to stabilize the collapsing frame. The mirage that promised water in the desert is breaking and people are boiling in anger over the sand in their mouths. Every cause has its effect, capitalism is the cause and the effect well is the curse on the whole human society, the 80% people living today in inhuman conditions are not inhuman, their unhappiness, their hungry children, addiction to alcohol, early age deaths, unstopping diseases are all effects of this capitalist money system. But as Engels said on the principle of causality that “…causes and effects are changing, so that what is effect here and now will become cause there and then, and vice verse”. All the suffering and appropriation of the working class is the cause now which will then result in effect of abolishing this anti-human system, only way is to smash this bourgeoisie state through a socialist revolution by the organized proletarians. They are learning to organize so to fight this exploitative organized state machinery and the student and intellectuals will become the vanguards of masses of proletarians, semi-proletarians and peasants. This is what Historical materialism teaches us; the inevitable defeat of capitalism and the dictatorship of proletarian.

Revolution in Science

2009-09-06T07:13:00.000-07:00

“Natural scientist may adopt whatever attitude they please, they are still under the domination of philosophy”. To grab the essence of Engels’ this statement we must answer what is natural science and what is natural scientist, through a historical analysis of development of science and philosophy.
Any natural phenomenon has a complex picture due to complicated interrelations among its individual constituent parts and their connections with other processes that has occurred or occurring side by side with it in nature, making the whole phenomenon of dynamic nature, constantly changing. In order to understand the details of individual constituent parts of this complex picture we must detach them from their natural connection and examine each one separately according to its nature, special causes and effects, etc. and then combine them to get a more complete insight of the whole complex picture. This is the primary task of natural science. And a natural scientist is that real and most advanced form of conscious living organic matter that becomes a medium of addressing this knowledge of nature to the society. But before a man could function as a natural scientist, he has to live as a man and, not as an abstract man but as a real man in a certain kind of society and had to participate in all the myriad functions of a real man in that society. Thus, in doing so, a whole superstructure of theory generates. To be a natural scientist is to apply this most general theory to a particular domain of quality in reality, physics, chemistry, biology etcetera, but this superstructure is the product of economic conditions of the society which creates different philosophies that control the content and form of any theory.
The modern natural science that dates from the period of ‘Renaissance’ showed the revolutionary character at the outset as it had developed among revolutions, revolutions that destroyed the old retrogressive feudal system and established the comparatively much more progressive system based on capital, capitalism. The period was of struggle of philosophy of theology, perpetuated by church, against materialism the philosophy of science which grew in its shadow and then become larger than it. The scientist of that time didn’t deal only in science but were also masters in philosophy and in various other fields, it was the characteristic of that period, as Engels said-, “called for giants and produced giants”. Leonardo Da Vinci, Albert Durer, Luther and many more were product of that society. It was period of Copernicus, Bruno and Servetus who died to let science live, their death proved to be harbinger of new ere, era of revolution of science. The development, defeating theology, thenceforth proceeded with great strides and as Engels puts it “gained in force in proportion to the square of distance (in time) from the point of departure.” New evolutionary sciences developed, like biology, geology, cosmogony, anthropology, archeology, etc., that torn apart the theories of creation by God and unchanging nature of universe, earth, humans, and other living beings. New theories, based on the large amount of scientific evidence present at that time, established the view of evolution not only of universe, earth and life on it but also that of humans and even human society, and that their present condition is just a passing phase in time. The other branches of science that were of primary necessity to industries, e.g. physics, chemistry, etc. also achieved the new heights.
But every action has equal and opposite reaction, the science which helped economics to develop now became appendage to it, economic relations now decided the course of development of science. With the increasing penetration of capital into the society, the increasing polarization of society into idle capitalist class and toiling proletariat class gave birth to acute problems of poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, etc. on a large scale of common masses and study of arts, sciences, philosophies, politics, law, etc. remained accessible mainly to rich classes. This dominance of non-working classes over the whole society gave rise to a general tendency of strong disrespect and reluctance to any kind of physical work. With this isolation of manual work from mental work the link between science and society; thought or idea and matter; subjective reality and objective reality; theory and practice got broken and procreated a narrow metaphysical mode of thought in the field of natural science that limits its development, sooner or later, as beyond this limit it becomes one-sided, restricted, abstract and lost in insoluble contradictions. The highly anarchic and unproductive capitalist production, the dying bourgeois culture and degrading social relations directed, and could only be, this realization of untenability of metaphysics into the more retrogressive, reactionary philosophical channels—empiricism and positivism, agnosticism, violent reductionism and the thought of eclectic mish-mash of all the various specializations with no attempt to resolve their contradiction. The famous problem of physics in the early 20th century, the inability of contemporary physicists in combining the Maxwell’s electromagnetism, Planck’s quantum and Einstein’s relativity theory into one synthetic theory, that was the call of time and becoming even more difficult with the further integrations achieved by these theories in their respective domains resulting because of the increasing specifications in each domain and their uncoordinated growth, reflecting the general characteristic of capitalist production, its anarchy, presents an instance of the realization of the maximum limit to which metaphysics and its daughters can advance natural science. As a consequent of the effect of these reactionary philosophies on natural science theories became highly abstract, uncoordinated and diffused, and practice became specialized, restricted and empirical, each theory and practice devoid of one another and it became very difficult to have a world-view touching on all the fronts of practice, science regressed to the forms left behind by it showing the revolutionary crisis in natural science and in general, in the capitalist society.
The solution to all this chaos is not in another “absolute” philosophy of world view but in changing this world, as Marx showed us, this is the philosophy of science, the dialectical materialism. We will have to break the fetters science is enslaved in, capital, by the sword of dialectical materialism. This way although goes through the path of revolution, not only scientific but also economic, political and philosophical also, through the socialist revolution.

R&D in Capitalist Society

2009-07-30T05:47:00.000-07:00

In earlier post of “The Spark”,titled "Science in service of capital", we explained how capital has become the governing factor in the development of science and this article is a continuation in that series; here we will try to explore the motive forces and laws of development of Research and Development(R & D).
R & D in general of any kind and in particular industrial has major role in determining the state of scientific, technological, economic and social development of any society. It is one of the basic foundations of the economy of that society. Thus, it is of great importance to understand the motive forces and laws of development of R & D in any society.
The most basic fact is that R & D, in any society, is a sector of social production and like any other sector, it is always pursued in the same framework of socio-economic conditions of the society and, consequently, overall the same laws and motive forces govern the development of R & D that governs the dynamics of whole socio-economic conditions of the society, although intrinsic contradictions specific to R & D field also affect its development.
In a capitalist society the socio-economic-political conditions are controlled by the motion of capital and thus, the laws of motion of capital enforce themselves as the basic laws of development of all sectors of social production including R & D as well.
A capitalist society progresses with the progress of competition among individual capitals and with changes in the form of this competition. It is basic characteristic of every capital that it functions to increase its profits and to add volume rather than develop production. But in “free market competition” the compulsory forces of market compels each individual to increase its labor productivity for extracting more profit in order to survive in the market. Thus, every capital is forced to innovate and advance the technology of production and they invest in R & D, which is of primary necessity in developing new technologies and their use in the process of production.
The growth of R & D, other things being equal, is undoubtedly dependent on the mass of capital allocated to it. Big capitals, which extract huge profits and have access to banks and government credit on privileged terms, have wide possibility to earmark larger funds to R & D. Thus, development of R & D is directly related to production concentration (which is proportional to scale of production) and as Lenin said-“With highly concentrated production, the development of technology accelerated immeasurably.” And this development in technology gave huge impetus to the advancement of R & D by fulfilling the basic technical requirements necessary for R & D.
But in capitalism production concentration naturally leads to monopolization of market by a few big capitals. It should be noted that in the present state of globalization of world markets, the market competition takes the form of competition between monopolies and gives birth to even bigger monopolies, either by dissolution of one into another or by combination of two or more.
Like every other capital, monopoly develops production as long as it brings monopoly profits. The incentive to develop production can be understood clearly by understanding the relation between changes in the rate and mass of profit. As Marx emphasized-“the rate of profit is the motive power to capitalist production.” Between two capitals the one which secures the higher rate of profit will, thus, have larger mass of profit. With gigantic capitals, however, the mass of production is so large that even with a low rate of profit, compared to small and middle capitals; they enjoy incomparably more favorable material conditions for retaining the positions they have gained in production and on market.
“….and as soon as formation of capital was to fall into the hands of a few established big capitals, for which the mass of profit compensates for the falling rate of profit, the vital flame of production altogether extinguished. It would die out.”(Marx)
Thus a decline in the importance of change in the rate of profit inevitably weakens the incentive to develop R & D and other kind of social production. And as Lenin pointed out, this capitalist monopoly, “inevitably engenders a tendency to stagnation and decay. Since monopoly prices are established, even temporarily, the motive cause of technical and, consequently, of all progress disappears to a certain extent and, further, the economic possibilities arises of deliberately retarding technical progress.”
Thus it becomes clear that, although, capitalism organized and advanced R & D to much greater extent than ever before, but after a certain limit the same capitalism has become shackles in the further development of R & D. This system cannot provide economic and technical assistance to the R & D related to those fields which do not provide immediate profit, viz. environment and its preservation, development of renewable sources of energy, infrastructural development to uplift the living status of common people, etc. and government of each capitalist state waste a huge amount of money by investing in R & D devoted to war preparations for their control on world markets and protecting the profits of its capitalist class.
This antagonistic system inhibits the free flow of scientific knowledge in the society by applying economic, political and social bondages, while it can be well proved with appropriate facts and figures that development of R & D depends on the depth of scientific knowledge in the society. This system creates strata in society with different level of scientific and technical knowledge, leaving majority of people to level zero. This exactly matches the need of this system from professionals in science to workmen with little or no scientific knowledge. The huge number of unemployed people with different level of scientific and technical knowledge fulfills the need of industrial reserved army who are ready to work on any wages and in any condition to get meal even for once in a day and the parasitic capitalist class extracts profit from the last drop of blood of working population by decreasing the wages to minimum level of subsistence.
Thus, today it is primary responsibility of every sensitive, logical and justice loving person to struggle for the abolition of this anti-human system based on profit and replace it by a system based on humanity, brotherhood and equality, which can be done only by socialist revolution in the leadership of proletariat. Only that system can ensure the unrestricted development of R & D and of whole society.

Question still remains.....

2009-07-30T05:41:00.000-07:00

A new academic session has commenced, the newness although is due to fresh wood, axe is the same older one. The enchanting of bourgeois philosophy remains the same, which can slowly freeze the blood flowing through your veins, rot the humanity in you and if you don’t rebel you will be evolved into a new species, a cold blooded animal, many have evolved many will, as it is the success key, this evolution, to survive in the cut throat competent market. But we wish to converse to that lot which is rebellious in thoughts , is closest to humanity, to whom truth is not impotent and their mind still follows the laws of gravity rather than defying it to be in heaven.
Well past few months have been clearly indicative of the antagonistic contradictions of the capitalist system. The tides of stormy recession has caused such great havoc to world economy that it still is suffering and repairing the wreck, the enchanting of “end of history capitalism” faded in this havoc . While in India amidst this crisis elections took place and Congress is re-elected after miraculously completing its 5 year tenure. The victory of congress brought a great rejoice to stock market with a positive kink in sensex. The fuss and excitement of elections have settled down, the political parties which suddenly appear during election time like rainy season’s frogs have returned back. During these elections these frogs cried loud asking people to exercise their right to vote and to realize their responsibility but to disappointment of these greedy political creatures only 55% of population voted. Huge population exempted voting as they know whichever political party comes to power simplest and usually obscured facts, that in India still 77% of population lives under Rs. 20 a day, 30 crore people are unemployed, 9,000 children die every day due to lack of nutrition and only 7% of the eligible youth population reaches to higher education, cannot change. Even the contesting parties know that these problems are ineradicable under current system and escape most of these questions and choose rather to divide people on religion, cast and regional basis to increase their vote bank. They do best is to serve the profiteering plunderers, their “masters”, and Congress has top ranked in this job, to serve their “masters” with best of “dishes” and to throw the trash to the common people. BJP’s hinduite card was rejected by the people; parliamentary leftists had left the hand of true leftism a long ago and joined the parliamentary circus. Red colour seems to have left only in their veins and even that isn’t sure, who knows it might be green. CPM has not only defamed leftism but has also top ranked in state repression, first it was Nandigram and now Lalgarh. The repression has led to rise of armed struggles by common masses which find their political basis in parties like CPI (Maoist). CPI (Maoist) or “Naxalites”, name given to the various such parties by bourgeois media, come under category of left adventurism, a deviation from Marxism. The incorrect understanding of Marxism causes such deviation. To change the society we must first analyze the laws of society as given by Marx and Engels and further developed by Lenin and Mao and then practice them. The days of capitalism are nearly over, but it still is sitting over history’s chest by virtue of its inertia. Old senile capitalism has gone very weak due to its incurable diseases and only a slight force is required to throw it and let history move to depth of humanity, to the socialism. The momentum will be created by the heat of boiling anger of toiling common masses, indefatigable belief in truth, the collision of progressive thoughts and which will be led by the proletariat. Defeat of capitalism is inescapable, we have to choose the sides, friends and identify enemies. To those of you, who don’t want to be mere puppets of money, we give a warm invitation to join us and let us together reach the depth of ocean to grab the essence of humanity.

Long Live Revolution

2009-03-31T10:58:00.000-07:00

23rd march 1931 was the day of Bhagat Singh’s martyrdom, the day he was hanged till death. Every year on 23rd March various political organizations; leaders give tribute to the brave revolutionary, who sacrificed his life for freedom of the nation from British colonialism. If this was the dream of Bhagat Singh then on 15th august 1947 that did happen, our country got freedom from British colonialism, no! the dream of Bhagat Singh was not this political freedom which India achieved when British slipped power in hands of the bourgeois congress party, by freedom he meant end of exploitation of every kind of one man by other, and quite clearly the task of completion of his dream still beckons us.
Bhagat Singh said- “the sleeping lion once awakened from its slumber shall become irresistible even after the achievement of what our leaders aim at”. Time has come for justifying the prophecy of Bhagat Singh, as congress was able to achieve the kind of freedom it wanted in 1947. We will have to awake the “sleeping lion” the toiling masses from its slumber, to awake the irresistible storm which will make tyranny, cruelty and private property history and will be a harbinger of a new era, the era of humanity.
Post freedom we have read about Bhagat Singh, in our history books, as a hero, a courageous youth who shouted the slogan “Long Live Revolution” and longed for freedom from British Rule. This is only half truth, Bhagat Singh said-“The political revolution does not mean the transfer of state (or more crudely, the power) from the hands of the British to the Indian, but to those Indians who are at one with us as to the final goal, or to be more precise, the power to be transferred to the revolutionary party through popular support. After that, to proceed in right earnest is to organize the reconstruction of the whole society on the socialist basis. If you do not mean this revolution, then please have mercy. Stop shouting "Long Live Revolution." The term revolution is too sacred, at least to us, to be so lightly used or misused”.
The bourgeoisie historians have tried hard to quell the fire of Bhagat Singh’ ideas, never is the intellectual side of young Bhagat Singh is revealed. Bhagat Singh at the age of 23 became committed Marxist, he analyzed the economic and social conditions of India and proposed a very clear goal to the youth; the goal was the proletarian revolution.
“Revolution is a very difficult task. It is beyond the power of any man to make a revolution. Neither can it be brought about on any appointed date. It is brought about by special environments, social and economic. The function of an organized party is to utilize such an opportunity offered by these circumstances. And to prepare the masses and organize the forces for the revolution is a very difficult task. And that required a very great sacrifice on the part of the revolutionary workers. Let me make it clear that if you are a businessman or an established worldly or family man, please don't play with fire. As a leader you are of no use to the party. We have already very many such leaders who spare some evening hours for delivering speeches. They are useless. We require — to use the term so dear to Lenin — the "professional revolutionaries". The whole-time workers who have no other ambitions or life-work except the revolution. The greater the number of such workers organized into a party, the great the chances of your success”.
Keeping in mind the ideals of Bhagat Singh we invite every youth, brave sons and daughters of India, to carry on the struggle waged by Bhagat Singh. To join hands and promise ourselves to complete the dreams of martyr Bhagat Singh. And finally with his words to which he wrote to youths we wait for your reply……
“Cast aside the youthful dreams of a revolution within ten years of Gandhi's utopian promises of Swaraj in One Year. It requires neither the emotion nor the death, but the life of constant struggle, suffering and sacrifice. Crush your individuality first. Shake off the dreams of personal comfort. Then start to work. Inch by inch you shall have to proceed. It needs courage, perseverance and very strong determination. No difficulties and no hardships shall discourage you. No failure and betrayals shall dishearten you. No travails (!) imposed upon you shall snuff out the revolutionary will in you. Through the ordeal of sufferings and sacrifice you shall come out victorious. And these individual victories shall be the valuable assets of the revolution”.

With revolutionary regards
Scientists for society

Aparajita

2009-03-31T10:26:00.000-07:00

In our country lakhs of women sell themselves everyday in brothels, thousands of girl children are killed because they are girls. Domestic servitude, violence, sexual abuse, rape are social evils soul of woman is indefatigably struggling against for past few centuries. Even in the “democratic and free” capitalism these evils loom over society. The “end of history” capitalism has not able to untie this knot because this knot and several other intricate knots compose this self strangled system, and yes it is not possible to eradicate these practices in this system unless the bourgeoisie machinery is not smashed and replaced with a better social system. Although the subjugation of women by men arose when private property came to existence, but capitalism is not birth place of supremacy of men. We must look historical development of family and its transformation as history moves so as to understand the polarization of power between two sexes.
The course of history does not transverse linearly but spirally evolves along the axis of class struggle. But this spiral itself is very intricate, fabricated of various interwoven spiral, circular and complex developments which keep melting and thawing as the contradictions governing them change. The family evolves as the relations between its constituent atoms, men and women, change. Whole development of family in most scientific way is explained by Engels in his book “The Origin of Family, Private Property and the State”. The transition of human from ape, for achievement of greatest advance nature can show, an animal as defenseless as evolving man required united strength and co-operation of herd to survive, mutual toleration among adult males, freedom from jealousy, was the first condition for formation of large herds. Thus came into existence the most primitive form of family-Group marriage, the primitive communistic household , the form of family in which whole groups of men and women mutually posses each other. The kind of marriage existed for whole savagery and lower stage of barbarism, and with time different forms of group marriages gradually arose. First one reported to have existed was Consanguine family, where practice of promiscuous intercourse gives way to sexual intercourse between women and men of same generations, and this to finally Punaluan family, form in which brother and sister were excluded from sexual intercourse. On account of greater nearness in age, this second advance was infinitely more important but also more difficult. It was effected gradually, beginning with exclusion from sexual intercourse of own brothers and sisters first and then ending with prohibition of marriage even between first, second and third cousins. Here it can be seen this change affords the operation of principle of natural selection but which acted unconsciously. In all forms of group family it is uncertain who is the father of a child; but it is certain who its mother is, the recognition of descent was exclusively through mother, or the family was matriarchal family. “This communistic household, in which most or all of the women belong to one and same clan [gens], while men come from various gens, is the material foundation of supremacy of women”. (Engels) But still there was no subjugation of one sex by other. In transition from savagery to barbarism with the practice of prohibition of marriage between relatives which include several hundred degrees of kinship, complications of these prohibitions made group marriages more and more impossible; and finally they were displaced with pairing family in which one man lives with one woman. Other very important reason for this transition was the increased oppression on women. “The more the traditional sexual relations lost the native primitive character of forest life, owing to development of economic conditions with consequent undermining of the old communism and growing density of population, the more oppressive and humiliating must the women have felt them to be, and greater their longing for right for chastity, of temporary or permanent marriage with one man only, as a way of release”. (Engels)
In this stage, in barbarism with domestication of animals and breeding of herds humans found hitherto unsuspected source of wealth. And as instruments of labour belonged to men and household goods to women, the increase in wealth strengthened the position of men in family. This strength is quite reflected in the social decrees, although one man lives with one woman but polygamy and occasional infidelity remain the right of men, while for woman strictest fidelity is demanded and adultery on her part is cruelly punished. And still according to custom of that society mother-right was followed; his children could not inherit from him. In proportions wealth increased it made men’s position in family more strong, which finally led to overthrow of mother-right, “the overthrow of mother-right was world historic defeat of female sex. The men took command in home also; the women were degraded and reduced to servitude, she became slave of his lust and mere instrument for production of children”. (Engels) This also served the development of monogamous family which men affected to develop, to strengthen his position strong ever. The period of transition from barbarism to civilization comes out with development of monogamous family. It was first form of family to be based, not on natural, but on economic conditions. It differentiates itself from pairing marriage on basis of much stronger marriage tie, as it was only men who could dissolve it. Monogamous marriage comes as subjugation of one sex by other; it announces a struggle between the sexes unknown throughout the whole previous prehistoric period. Along with the supremacy men enjoy over in the house, the old comparative sexual freedom has yet not disappeared but this develops in favour of men. Co-existent with monogamous marriage, sexual intercourse between men and unmarried women flourishes throughout the period of civilization and develops more and more into open prostitution. With rise of private property which distributes unequally wage labour appears sporadically side by side with slave labour, as appears the open prostitution of free women side by side with forced surrender of slave. “The heritage which group marriage has bequeathed to civilization is double edged, double tongued, divided against to itself, here monogamy there prostitution.” (Engels) Along with this a second contradiction on the part of women arises, as opposition must have other side the reaction, adultery on the part of women became an unavoidable social institution-denounced, severely penalized but impossible to suppress.
With entering into civilization and till now monogamous marriage has not change much of its character, only change being in the bourgeoisie law which gives equal rights to both sexes and both can now call off the marriage if required, but what happens inside the household is not a matter of concern to law, and supremacy of men domestic servitude of women, prostitution and adultery have remained intact. From savagery to civilization human society evolved a lot and the cell of this society, family also evolved from group marriage to monogamy. Should a new family arise out of the monogamous family, it did but the change is not evolution but a metamorphosis, proletarian class possess no private property, for preservation and inheritance of which monogamy and male supremacy were established, here there is no incentive to make this male supremacy effective. Also there is no means to do so. “Bourgeois law, which protects this supremacy exist only for possessing class and their dealings with the proletarians. Large scale industry has taken the proletarian wife out of the home onto the labour market and into industry, and made her often the bread-winner of family, no basis for any male supremacy is left in the proletarian household – except, perhaps, for something of the brutality towards women that has spread since the introduction of monogamy. The proletarian family is therefore no longer monogamous in the strict sense, even where there is passionate love and firmest loyalty on both sides and may be all the blessings of religious and civil authority. Here, therefore eternal attendants of monogamy, hetaerism and adultery, play only an almost vanishing part. The wife has in fact regained the right to dissolve the marriage, and if two people cannot get with one another, they prefer to separate. In short, proletarian marriage is monogamous in the etymological sense of the word, but not at all in its historical sense”. (Engels)
The most advanced class of our time, proletarian class shows the society a sight of our future, the futuristic relations and the futuristic society which in coming time will replace the present crisis-ridden, filthy, parasitic capitalist system. Then only women will again participate into social production, which was excluded for her in historical monogamous marriage, both women and men will come on level of equal economic and political freedom. The only way to do this is in understanding our historical duty, to guide the proletarian men and women to the way of socialism, by ruthlessly smashing the faulty bourgeois machinery. So called evils will slowly wither away as new social relations will slowly crystallize. Then only the struggle of Aparajita will finally be destined.

Science in service of capital

2009-02-28T07:33:00.000-08:00

Science originated because of the need of fulfilling the requirements of advanced human society. Advancement of human society gave imputes to the development of science which in turn further advanced the society to a higher level.
The role of science in advancing the society is connected to its role in increasing the productivity of labour, or in other words, to develop the productive forces. The rise and development of present capitalist society cannot be imagined without unprecedented progress of science. As the science progressed the new machines and technologies came into being which advanced the productive forces and increased the production to a larger extent than ever before. With the increase in production large industries came into existence and big capitalist class arouse. This started the whole new concept of “free market competition” and the tendency of extracting as much profit as they can to increase their private property. The new heavy machinery and technologies helped these capitalists in decreasing the number of workers in the process of production; thus decreasing the cost of production and increasing the profit; the gap between mental labour and manual labour, rich and poor started widening; unemployment, starvation and malnutrition of large masses became common problem and science became a property of only rich classes, far from the reach of common masses. Development of science became concerned only with increasing the private profit and creating the things for the comfort and amusement of rich classes.
In fact, science in itself is of no interest to the capitalists but only through its application in the more efficient production of commodities. With the further advancement in science and productive forces the concept of patent monopolies and cartels originated which helped these capitalists to establish their monopoly over market. In this era of monopoly capitalism and imperialism, scientific research is more highly organized than ever before, but always with an overriding aim of private profit. The monopolization of market to get more and more profit supports only those inventions and discoveries which are able in decreasing the cost of production of commodities and devoted increasingly to war and producing arsenal for protecting the private property. Thus in the capitalist society science became ‘a productive force distinct from labour and pressed into the service of capital’.
The training of a natural scientist is so departmentalized as to make it difficult for them to acquire a theoretical grasp of natural science as a whole and, even more, they receive no training at all in the study of human society. Conversely, social science and historical studies are so organized as to exclude the natural science. Economics is separated from history and both from politics. In the natural sciences student may know nothing of Marxism, yet at least he recognizes dialectical processes in nature, even though he doesn’t know them by that name; but the laws of dialectics mean nothing to bourgeois historian, who doesn’t even recognize the class struggle.
This contradiction in the bourgeois educational system between the study of nature and study of human society reflects the conflict in bourgeois consciousness between the need to develop science as a productive force and the need to conceal true relationship between capital and labour. This contradiction is also the base of metaphysical and idealistic approach of bourgeois scientists towards reality and this marks an upper limit on the development of science in capitalist system.
Thus to attain the full and unrestricted use of research laboratory and modern technology, developed in capitalist society, it is necessary first to remove private control over the modern technologies and scientific research and development; to reunite the science with labour as a force devoted to produce use-values in the service of people and to use science in the progress of whole human society and not for only the rich classes. This can be achieved only by the abolition of capitalist ownership of all the means of production and by establishing the dictatorship of proletariat class over them, that is, the establishment of socialism.

The Fleeting Capitalism

2009-02-28T07:06:00.000-08:00

Since the last year capitalism is fearful, fearing of what it has done, running away from its very own shadow. Searching remedy for its incurable disease, “economic crisis” is this incurable disease of capitalism, the crisis of overproduction. The crises arise because of antagonistic contradictions present in capitalism itself. This can be understood by considering the history and fate of present day crisis, and by identifying correct contradictions present in today’s capitalist system. Current Economic crisis will prove (is proving) to be greatest crisis after crisis of 1930s decade. Its symptoms started to appear in mid 2007, and till the end of 2007 foreclosures started to affect the economy. During 2008 it first consumed many giant banks, financial organizations and insurance companies and then spread to the global world market. Stimulus packages and bailouts were injected to stabilize the economy but crisis is still developing tyrannously, spreading to new branches of the industry and to new districts, and is becoming more and more acute as a result of failure of more banks. The bubble filled with speculations, greed couldn't last very long, at last it touched the surface of reality, and its busting destroyed capital on a very large scale while on the other hand with the fiscal and financial crises worsening, inflation, higher taxation, relatively falling real wages, and relative reduction in the purchasing power of the masses have inevitably further aggravated the economic crises of overproduction. Those bourgeois economists who first claimed it to be minor crash are now blaming on few individual capitalists for this crisis and are prescribing various “injections” to recover from it. But all these are wasting their wasteful ideas, rather if we look at the projections of world economy as predicted by World Bank which although optimistic are more realistic; it says that in 2009 the economic growth of world economy will only be 0.9% falling from 2.8% in 2008, and was 4.0% in 2006. UN report is also similar to that. Overall it can be said that even if national governments intervene to save the financial organizations it won’t be possible for world economy to recover till 2012.

Economic crises are not new, capitalism in old capitalist countries or rather we should now say imperialism is very much familiar with this chronic disease, whatever “injections” are given can relieve for time being but like steroids are shortening its life, it is a capitalist vicious circle in which same events repeat itself like summer and winter, and one need not to be prophet to foretell the next round of crash. In this capitalist cycle each recovery period of crisis sews the seeds of next round of crisis which is more severe and more frequent than earlier one. The rotation is more of a spiral than circle as Engels said “this circle is gradually narrowing; that the movement becomes more and more a spiral, and must come to an end, like the movement of the planets, by collision with the centre.” The current crisis itself is temporary phenomenon of this vicious spiral and not isolated or unique. It all started in 2002 when Fed reduced the interest rate to an unprecedented level, and injected capital into market in order to recover from dot-com crash. From this point onward starts the story of housing boom, real estate replaced the risky stock market and served as new “casino” for quick profit obsessed gamblers. After the crash people were reluctant to buy or invest, to increase the costumer sale “wealth effect” was created by providing easy loans, and dreams of owing house were filled, with the help of media and cheap bourgeois intellectuals like David Lereah who chew the bones thrown by real estate lobby to them, in people’s mind. Investment banks after the saturation of prime loans, to make more profit, started giving subprime loans blindly. Investment banks devised new methods to sell these dangerous (subprime) loans in packages. These packages were sold to other financial organizations like hedge funds, banks and insurance companies so as to distribute bad loans and avoid their accumulation at one place which could have been explosive. Various institutes gave these loans good credit history, but with the rise of subprime loan interest rate hedge funds and banks realized about the poisonous weed they bought and this inaugurated the bankruptcy of banks and hedge funds and thus started the subprime crisis.
The housing boom and then subprime crisis started with the end of dot-com crash, which itself was followed by boom during blowing of dot-com bubble, but story does not start from here, this boom was actually followed by 1997 crisis of East Asian economies for which Fed bank reduced the interest rate that time and helped in getting start-ups for companies like e-biz, e-commerce. The cyclic nature of crisis is inherent characteristic or rather contradiction of capitalism and even presently sciophobic capitalism in order to recover from depression will prepare base for even more severe crisis.

The vicious spiral of crises in capitalism has its origin in basic contradiction of capitalist system, contradiction between social production and capitalist private ownership. Economic crises fully expose the transitory nature of capitalism; reveal the existence of antagonistic contradictions between its productive forces and production relations. Whether it is East Asian crisis, dot-com crash or subprime crisis, all are capitalist crisis of over production and concentration of capital. Crises occur with increased “frequency and intensity” but with different faces. The overproduction and lack of options in investment results in rise of speculations and then finally to crash. The remedy to this disease does not lie in this system but only in crushing this illogical system, and replacing it with a system in which productive relations are compatible to socialized productive forces, then and only then this world can be saved from plundering of greedy capitalists, this task awaits us, to torch the oppressed class on the path of revolution against this profit based system.

RAJ THACKREY: NEW ADDITION TO FASCIST BRIGADE

2009-01-27T07:45:00.001-08:00

There has been new addition to the fascist brigade of this country in the name of Raj Thackrey. Very much like his forefathers, he has recited words of praise for people like Hitler which clearly state his ideological inclination. It is not for the first time that a person with this sort of an agenda has come to the forefront. In 1968 it was the same ground which led to the rise of Bal Thackrey. The reason behind their rise is the regional and linguistic diversity of the labour force in the metropolitans of this country. These states and cities being the main industrial centers are looked upon by the people all over the country as employment providing zones. The state, having profit generation as its primary motive is unable to provide employment to all these people. As a result in these places islands of luxury are created in the oceans of unemployment, misery, and deprivation. There is always a danger of these people getting united on the lines of their distress and fighting for their rights. Hence to keep them divided, it is necessary for the state to create people like Raj Thackrey. This becomes even more necessary when the state itself is in a condition of crisis.
In response to it, different electoral parties like Congress, CPI, CPM have been doing very much the same, as they have done in the past for their vote bank politics. Now the onus rests upon us who understand the truth of this politics, whether we remain mute spectators to it, or take a firm stand against it.

HERO TO ZERO

2009-01-27T07:43:00.000-08:00

The name is ‘Satyam’ and a scam of 7000 crore. Yes, as many of our many readers would be aware, we are talking about Mr. Ramalinga Raju the CEO of the largest IT company having done a scandal of 7000 crore rupees and given further hiccups to already crisis ridden Indian economy.
The incident has left our government and media with no other option but to shed tears because he is the same ‘Raju’ whom they projected as youth icon before two years and today are compelled to initiate a CID inquiry against him. Our all market analysts and intellectuals are also appearing as if they are shocked with this incident. But is there anything really shocking! Satyam, Wipro, Infosys and all other such companies, which comprise of about 80 percent of economy, are not involved in any productive sector. They make an annual turnover of thousands of crores just with selling and buying of their shares. The more you make the market opinion in your favor the stronger you are. This making of market opinion is the basis of today’s global capitalism. Until and unless you are not caught while ‘building this opinion’ you are the ‘hero’ of the market, when caught you fall to ‘zero’. Raju has met with the same end.
Another class of people who are shouting their slogans and pleading for mercy from the government are the small investors. Until the market is on a rise they invest hugely in these unproductive sectors and try to make maximum money by doing anything. As they have enjoyed their days of fortune by doing nothing they should be shown no mercy but allowed to bear the brunt. This might make them to refrain from game of gambling next time.
Another important aspect of this incident, which is being completely overlooked by the media, is the kind of treatment shown to Mr. Raju having committed a scam of thousands of crores, he is being given all sorts of assistance by the police, and the lawmakers. Had a man caught for stealing a piece of bread or Rs 10, received the same treatment?

Philosophy in science

2009-01-18T07:33:00.000-08:00

Change is the only constant; constant development and transformation, explosiveness and changeability, all based on the struggle of opposites, drives forward the entire world.
This change or advancement in different forms of matter is through contradictions within them; whether it is contradiction of hydrogen nuclei in sun, contradiction of adaptability and heredity or contradiction of human thoughts. The latter contradiction is not itself of matter but of consciousness; particular quality of matter which developed as the life originated in organic matter. This contradiction is source for knowledge; clash between opposite ideas and struggle to resolve the contradiction is lifeblood of knowledge. The struggle of contending theories advances the level of human understanding; with one theory negating other and finally subsuming it. Einstein’s theory, for example, first overthrew and then subsumed the accepted view of universe developed by Isaac Newton.
To explain a phenomenon one must recognize the contradictory, mutually exclusive, and opposite tendencies; this is the way of science and the way of Marxism: dialectical materialism. One has his own methodology to approach all phenomena around him; this methodology is developed by philosophy.
Today when all around the world, there is a dominance of non-dialectical philosophies, and Scientists also; being a part of this world ; lack the philosophy of dialectical materialism in their approach and this has hindered the further development of science. They lack to identify the contradictions and their interdependence, and generally come to wrong conclusions. One such wrong interpretation was the theory of thermal death of universe.
PARADOX OF THERMAL DEATH
In 1854 Helmholtz pointed out in a lecture that second law of thermodynamics implies that the whole universe will eventually reach in a state of uniform temperature and “from this point onwards, universe will be in the state of eternal rest”. Thus was born the thesis of thermal death of universe.
Its theoretical basis is thermodynamics. According to second law of thermodynamics, in nature, the direction of flow of heat is spontaneous from a hot body to a cold body. By spontaneity we mean processes occurring in nature. When Helmholtz applied this law to universe, he assumed universe to be isolated and concluded that the whole universe would eventually evolve spontaneously from a state of thermal non equilibrium to one of thermal equilibrium. But today we know that no such thermal death of universe will occur and it was just a paradox.
The reason for this paradox was the wrong methodological approach to the problem. This methodology has its philosophical origin in metaphysics, which is unable to identify the actual contradictions and views the phenomenon in isolation.
The right way to view it is given by Marxism, the view of dialectical materialism. As Engels said, “in motion of heavenly bodies there is motion in equilibrium and equilibrium in motion”. No equilibrium is permanent only temporary equilibrium exists which is in motion itself. “All equilibrium is only relative and temporary”, Engels wrote. Until the end of 19th century, no explanation of the paradox of thermal death was given.
The solution to the paradox was solved considering the universal gravitational effect, which showed that the whole universe will never come to equilibrium; and all equilibria are temporary.
“In sun there is no equilibrium of various substances, only of mass as whole, or at any rate only a very restricted one determined by considerable differences of density; on the surface there is eternal motion and unrest, dissociation. On the moon, equilibrium appears to prevail exclusively, without any relative motion-death (moon = negativity). On earth motion has become differentiated into interchange of motion and equilibrium, the individual motion strives towards equilibrium, the motion as a whole once again destroys the individual equilibrium”- Engels
Scientists were not able to interpret the result when they applied second law of thermodynamics to universe and paradox of thermal death arose, this is not only one example list is quite long, what we need today is to understand the importance of correct philosophy, philosophy of dialectical materialism.
Today it is our responsibility to equip ourselves with the philosophy of dialectical materialism and apply it to our society, which is the basis of our life, to change the existing corroded, anti-people system and hence shed all barriers in the path of advancement of science.

A 100$ Bet !!!

2009-01-17T01:24:00.000-08:00

Stephen Hawkins has put a 100$ bet that there will be no “Higgs boson or god particle” found in the LHC experiment which is being carried out at the CERN. Is it just his intuition or he has some logic behind it?
On 10th September the entire world watched as the initial stage of experiment (safety check) to recreate big bang in LHC (27 km tunnel) at CERN was performed, as it is supposed to reveal the ‘origin of matter’. The famous theory which accounts for the creation of mass is based on famous Higgs theory. According to this theory in the very origin all particles were massless. After the birth of universe in big bang, an external field called Higgs field was created which gave mass to particles or created matter. Higgs boson is associated with this field. In this theory the prime mover, the source is external or it remains in shade (this very “source” leaves room for the belief of God!). However, scientific as well as historical knowledge tell us that the prime mover for any kind of development is always internal motion. Development is seen by science as the unity of opposites, that is contradiction within every whole. The Higgs theory fails on these criteria and it has no rational basis. Agnosticism or absence of information cannot be replaced with belief in the para-natural.
In earlier times, when human beings didn’t have developed scientific knowledge, they failed to understand the internal contradictions of things and therefore looked for external factors; the Higgs theory is similar to that approach. In this sense, Higgs theory is retrogressive for science.
Stephen Hawkins is completely justified in his satirical comment on the Higgs theory. He is undoubtedly the greatest living scientific thinker. The experiment is yet to be finished and we eagerly wait for its results. However, scientific approach and temper do not leave any space for Higgs theory.

Reservation : is there a third position possible

2008-11-26T05:27:00.000-08:00

It is now and then that the politics of support and opposition uprises. Huge population of students and youth has been divided on this issue and it has created a rift and bitterness among best friends. In this scenario we would like to share some important things with the supporters and opponents of reservation. At first to the opponents of reservation you say that caste based reservation, in higher education especially in engineering, medical and scientific research will result in declining standards of services and will be like compromising with merit. If you are so concerned with merit and decline in standards of services why did not you raise your voice when NRI and management quota were fixed in private medical and engineering colleges. Did not you feel that there will be a decline in standard of services if seats are sold on basis of mo0ney in these institutes? Are all progenies of rich are born intelligent? Have you ever joined hands to resist this? Every year thousands of engineers, doctors, scientists, after having obtained degrees on the expense hard earned resources of common masses, take road to America and Europe to mint more money! Have you ever opposed this tendency and government policies that encourage it?
The truth behind wave of opposition to reservation principally is that there is no concern about competence, justice and national interest but centuries old deep rooted “anti-dalits” and anti-backward castes casteist prejudices hatred and reactionary customs and rituals. People fail to see that even if reservation is removed; all savarna students will not get education and employment.
To the supporters of reservation
Despite numerous social-political changes and capitalist development, even after six decades of political independence the venom of caste is deeply rooted in social fabric of our country. Even today 90% of dalit population is toiling as poor peasants and agricultural labourers in fields and labour in industries. Reservation in higher education makes no sense to them as their children are mostly school drop-outs. As a result, the fruits of reservation are mainly reaped by that population of dalits which has already raised living standards and is referred to as ‘creamy layer’. Today around 70_80% of OBCs are living under miserable conditions. It can be claimed with certainty that here also advantages of reservation will produce a creamy layer among them. Reservation to poor OBCs on basis of income certificates is also a complete nonsense. We all know that how income certificates are made by corrupt bureaucracy of our country. If reservation could do any good to dalit and OBC it should have made any significant difference in extensive population of dalits in last two decades. Statistics tell us that no such thing has happened, and reservation makes no sense for extensive dalit population. In these circumstances, we appeal to the supporters of reservation that they should pay attention to the fact that our real fight is not share in shrunk opportunities, but for free and equal education to all. Then only we can liberate extensive population of dalit and OBCs.
Although our position is quite clear but we would like to repeat in the end. We believe that reservation is a part of ‘divide and rule’ policy of ruling class. Today when nearly 80% of our country’s population is afflicted by poverty and misery, talking about reservation is like standing on the top of a building with a small bowl of rice and needy people waiting at the bottom, a certain percent of rice for the weakest, a little lesser for less weak and so on. The truth is that, this is not going to satisfy anybody’s hunger. Moreover, it creates contradictions amongst hungry.
Today the real motive of the student-youth movement is to fight for “equal and free education to all and employment to all” rather than splitting amongst themselves on reservation. If system is not based on profits of capitalists but functions for needs of common mass, then education and employment can be provided to everyone, a system which is completely governed by common masses then and only then chains of these century old worthless traditions will break and humanity can march forward.
We hope you will ponder over these questions and you will contact us even if you disagree. Come, let’s sit together, do not split but unite and launch a struggle for an equal society and system by engaging our collective strength and wisdom.

Responsibility of a scientist

2008-11-26T05:24:00.000-08:00

Every action has equal and opposite reaction. This is a basic law of natural science. This law holds its counterpart in the human society also: ‘oppression breeds resistance’. This is a basic law of social science. But the lives in the campus seem to defy this law!
Silence is reigning in the campuses for past two decades; there has been no student movement over real issues. What is the reason behind this exception? We must try to seek truth from the facts. Before we jump to any conclusion, let’s cast a glance upon the facts related to the higher education in our country.
In India only 7% of the eligible population reaches to higher education, for past two decades as per government’s policy, seats have continuously been decreased and fees have been increased. The deduction in seats is not absolute but is relative in comparison to the number of applicants. Government has itself accepted that traditional higher education (B.A., B.Sc. etc) has lost its ‘signaling effect’ or are no longer job-oriented, whereas professional courses like engineering and medical have become belongings of higher middle and higher class. Management courses are not even affordable for higher middle class, only higher class can reach there. After the period of liberalization and globalization India’s education policies changed a lot and government is spending lesser on higher education and students are made to pay from their pockets. Till 1970, government was spending 1% of GNP which was reduced to 0.35% during the 1990s. In 1983, before implementation of new education policy, government had been paying 80% of higher education’s expenditure but in 1999 it was reduced to 67%. On the other side also, in engineering and medical education government is withdrawing its hands. Till 1960 there were only 15% private seats in engineering, but till 2004 this figure increased to 86.4%, in medical education also it has increased from 6.8% in 1960 to 40.9% in 2004. In management institutes this number is 90%. From all these statistics it is quite evident that government is privatizing the education, making it a commodity. Government itself has conceded that we are witnessing a jobless growth and has also contended that producing jobs is not responsibility of government!
The motive of all such policies must also be seen. If a student from humble background reaches higher education, he/she will soon comprehend the reality of this “competitive society”, his/her anger towards the system will be much greater and this feeling might prove to be very dangerous. So it is better to make these very dreams themselves so costly that common students cannot afford them.
The commodification of education is also the reason behind the changing class character of the students’ population; issues of the common masses do not concern them. That is why the social law of resistance fails to apply within the boundaries of campus. That law will become functional only when the sensitive students within campus will associate themselves with the struggles of the 93% eligible population who does not reach the campus. Only then, one can imagine of any change.

SCIENTISTS FOR SOCIETY

2008-10-25T08:33:00.000-07:00

'Scientists for Society' is a forum of such students of science who believe in the fact that source of all knowledge is social and productive practice; who understand that such practice in the modern era cannot be done individually; who recognize the reality that this very kind of practice is the most essential thing for the survival of the entire human society and even the non-organic world; however, the majority of the common people who undertake the 99 percent of productive and social activities of the entire world are singularly bereft of any kind of knowledge or basic necessities of life and live an awful life. We believe that this pathetic and unjust condition can be accounted to the fact that all knowledge, skill and physical power today is in the service of profit and profit-makers. Science also serves the purpose of generating surplus and profit for certain classes, while it reinforces the wage slavery and subjugation of the toiling masses, who, ironically themselves are the originators and creators of the all knowledge.
We believe that as long as all human activity and knowledge serves the interests of the capital rather than becoming a boon for the entire toiling masses and thus entire humanity, the present condition of the world will continue in which millions of people die of hunger, not because there is no food, but because the profit motive would not let that food reach the hungry; which is plagued by chronic unemployment, poverty and imperialist wars; which suffers from the widening gap between the rich and the poor.
We intend to become that kind of scientists who understand that they have a huge debt to pay back to the society which fulfilled all our needs so that we can study and grasp all the knowledge created by humanity through ages and generations; who are not merely running like dogs after corporate money; who think not only about their careers, but recognize their significant and essential social responsibility; who believe that present system has to be changed radically to establish and develop a much more rational, humane, scientific and just system and who accept that they must determine their role in this struggle.
With Revolutionary Regards,
Scientists for Society.

EDITORIAL

2008-10-25T08:22:00.000-07:00

The period of 2007-08 has been proving to be a year of dramatic ups and downs for the world economy. The whole world has constantly been shaken by the mighty ripples of the U.S. financial crisis. As most of us must be knowing, this is the worst crisis the world economy has faced since the Great Depression of the 1930s. With the fading glory of the world capitalist system, the India Inc story, as the mouth-piece of capitalist houses call it, is also sinking. The IT sector has lost thousands of jobs since the inception of the present crisis. The banking sector, share market, aviation etc also are in dire straits. Share market sank below 10K, Jet Airways announced retrenchment (which it had to roll back), India Airlines announced to send 15,000 workers to send on leave without pay, a number of banks have announced retrenchment and various financial firms have been rocked to the hilt. Clearly enough, the "India shining" fable has come to an abrupt halt!
However, somewhere deep inside our hearts, don't we know that the India has always been shining for a certain minority? All ages have been Golden Ages for the richer classes and Dark Ages for the common masses. The Arjun SenGupta committee concluded that 77 percent of Indians live on Rs.20 or less per day; W.H.O. report tells us that 46 percent of Indian children are malnourished; even countries like Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Indonesia, Ghana and Senegal are ahead of India in the human development index of the United Nations. So, as concerned scientists we must not forget the other picture, which is in fact the true picture of India and we should adopt a scientific approach of analyzing every problem with the aim of resolution.
All of us know that everything has order behind it. From H-atom to sun, everything has some rules and laws governing it. The basic brick of the constitution of all matter is atom (which is composed of even more subtle particles). Different constitution and configuration of atoms give different forms to different matter; physical conditions on earth allowed development of organic matter and finally organic life, humans are the highest form of this organic life; Since, their inner physical world is governed by some set of laws, the society which they have created has evolved through some laws and follows certain laws of motion. As scientists concerned with the problems of the society in which we live, we must understand the laws of motion of the society apart from the natural laws of motion. We as sensitive youngsters must understand and find the way out of this misanthrope system and society which has profit motive as the principal mover and inspiration behind every economic and social activity. Social needs and 80 percent of the total population has been pushed into the oblivion and the interests of capital and corporates rule everything.
‘The Spark’ is a platform which intends to bring social scientists together, invite rational and justice-loving sons and daughters of Indian people to come and join a drive to understand the society and its laws and understand, not just for the sake of understanding it but for the sake of changing it. We invite all such friends to discuss about what role we can play in bringing about a radical change in the system and the society and what kind of alternative should be put forward. We wait for you...