A Concise History of India’s People Science Movement

When India gained independence in 1947, it inherited a population where the vast majority had no access to modern scientific knowledge. Poverty, unemployment, and illiteracy were widespread, and science remained the privilege of an educated urban elite. Out of this gap grew a remarkable grassroots phenomenon: the People’s Science Movement (PSM) – a network of citizen-led organisations that sought to put scientific knowledge directly into the hands of ordinary people. Understanding how this movement began, and how it grew into a national force, reveals a great deal about the relationship between knowledge, power, and social change in India.

The roots of the movement: India in the early post-independence era 🔗

After 1947, India’s leaders believed science and technology were essential to breaking free from poverty and underdevelopment. The Indian Constitution (Article 51A) itself enshrined the duty of every citizen to develop scientific temper, humanism, and the spirit of inquiry and reform – a rare constitutional recognition of science as a civic value. Yet the reality on the ground was very different. Quality scientific institutions existed, but they were largely inaccessible to most Indians. Literacy improvements were slow, with millions of children growing up without ever entering a school or leaving it too soon.

The dissatisfaction with this situation began to crystallise among a younger generation of intellectuals, scientists, and teachers. The impetus for science-based social activism came largely from disillusionment with official thinking and action in alleviating mass poverty and unemployment and its resulting degradation of the human condition. These concerned citizens began asking a pointed question: if science was advancing, why were the lives of the poor not improving?

The early organisations: scattered beginnings in the 1950s 🔗

The origins of the PSM in India can be traced to the early 1950s, when a number of organisations began engaging in activities aimed at creating scientific awareness among the general public. These included the Marathi Vigyan Parishad in Maharashtra, the Assam Science Society, and the Banga Vigyan Parishad in West Bengal. Each of these groups operated in their own regional context, publishing science literature in local languages and organising public education programmes. However, they remained relatively small and fragmented, lacking a shared national direction.

What they had in common was a belief that science should not sit behind institutional walls. They wanted to reach farmers, women, labourers, and children – people who had no formal access to scientific knowledge but whose lives could be transformed by it. These groups began the dissemination of information about science and technology by publishing literature in various Indian languages.

KSSP: the movement’s most significant early force 🔗

Among all these early organisations, the Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad (KSSP) – which translates to the Kerala Forum for Science Literature – emerged as the most influential. Its origins can be traced back to a Science Literary Forum in 1957, formed by a group of activists and science writers passionate about spreading scientific understanding. KSSP was formally established in 1962.

When it was founded in 1962, it was a 40-member group consisting of science writers and teachers with an interest in science from a social perspective. Its original and limited goal was to publish science literature in Malayalam and popularise scientific ideas in the local language. But the organisation quickly realised this was not enough. KSSP became convinced that a privileged minority was monopolizing the benefits of science and technology, resulting in their enrichment at the expense of the majority. This was a turning point in the movement’s philosophy – science was no longer just a subject to be taught, but a tool that needed to be democratised.

From science writers to a mass movement 🔗

By 1968, KSSP had made contact with scientists from Kerala working across India and had become a well-defined organisation focused on the mass dissemination of science. By the 1970s, it had grown considerably. By 1976, KSSP had a membership of 2,600, and the following year it started organising All India Workshops for science activities.

In 1972, KSSP made a decisive ideological shift. KSSP decided to formally become a People’s Science Movement and adopted “Science for Social Revolution” as its motto. This was not merely a change in branding – it represented a commitment to using science as a vehicle for challenging inequality and empowering marginalized communities. The organisation began intervening in fields beyond pure science communication: environment, health, women’s rights, and local governance all became part of its work.

One of KSSP’s most innovative contributions during this period was the formation of kalajathas – travelling cultural troupes that used art, music, theatre, and dance to bring scientific ideas to rural villages. This inspired similar campaigns in states across the country and the formation of the Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samiti (BGVS) in various states. KSSP also became deeply involved in Kerala’s successful total literacy campaign, playing a major role in the programme through which Kerala achieved total literacy by 1991.

The first national convention: defining the PSM’s agenda (1978) 🔗

By the late 1970s, the scattered regional organisations were ready to find common ground. A Convention of PSM was held for the first time in India in November 1978 in Trivandrum, under the auspices of KSSP. This was a landmark gathering. For the first time, people’s science organisations from different parts of the country came together to discuss what they stood for, what they were trying to achieve, and how they would work together.

The 1978 convention was also where the movement’s core focus areas were first formally articulated. Four areas were identified for a future programme of action: health, education, environment, and the use of arts as a medium of communication with the people. These four pillars have continued to define the PSM’s work ever since.

Health 🔗

Delegates at the 1978 convention recognised that existing health delivery systems had a strong urban and curative bias, leaving rural and poor communities underserved. The convention emphasised educating people on simple, effective measures such as Oral Rehydration Therapy (ORT) for managing diarrhoea, and highlighted the inter-relationship between disease, unsanitary living conditions, and poverty. Women’s health issues – particularly anaemia – were identified as especially urgent areas for joint action.

Education 🔗

In education, the convention pointed to the government’s failure to implement universal primary education and the pressing need for adult literacy programmes. It called for involving teachers more actively in popularising science, setting up community science centres, and using theatre and mobile exhibitions to reach communities that lacked access to formal education. Publishing magazines for children to popularise science and literature – as KSSP had already been doing – was highlighted as a particularly valuable activity.

Environment 🔗

The environment emerged as a critical concern, especially at a time when large-scale development projects were displacing communities and destroying ecosystems without adequate public scrutiny. The convention insisted that environmental problems could only be understood in the context of broader social and economic realities – not as isolated technical issues. KSSP had already demonstrated this through its high-profile campaigns, including opposition to the Gwalior Rayon Factory’s pollution at Mavoor and the Silent Valley Hydro Electric Project, both of which brought the organisation national prominence.

Communication through arts 🔗

The fourth pillar – using arts as a medium of communication – was already being pioneered through KSSP’s kalajathas. The convention formalised the recognition that reaching ordinary people required more than textbooks and pamphlets. Street theatre, songs, and storytelling were legitimate and powerful tools of science communication, especially in a country with high illiteracy and rich oral traditions.

The second convention and the push for a national identity 🔗

The success of the 1978 convention intensified interest in initiating PSM activities across the country, and the need was soon felt for a second convention, again hosted by KSSP in Kerala. This follow-up meeting focused on refining what PSM actually meant – developing an all-India perspective and ensuring that programmes had a clear direction and purpose rather than remaining ad hoc local efforts.

Around the same time, tragedy galvanised the movement further. In 1984, the gas leak and explosion at the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal spurred the formation of many science literacy groups across India, several of which sought to explain the criminal dimension of the disaster to ordinary people. The Bhopal catastrophe was living proof that the misuse of science and technology had deadly consequences for the poor – and that communities needed to understand science to protect themselves.

The birth of a national network: AIPSN (1987-1988) 🔗

The culmination of these decades of regional work and national conventions came in 1987, when a major coordinated effort called the Bharat Jan Vigyan Jatha – a nationwide people’s science march – was organised with support from the National Council for Science and Technology Communication (NCSTC). Five national kalajathas were organised under this banner, culminating in Bhopal, and organisations sprouted in various states in its wake, creating the conditions for the establishment of a national network.

The All India Peoples Science Network (AIPSN) was formally established at the first All India Peoples Science Congress, organised in 1988 at Kannur in Kerala, with 28 member organisations at the time of its founding. This national network of twenty-six (later growing) science organisations sought to increase popular literacy about science across the country and to coordinate the work that had, until then, been happening in pockets across India.

Since the pioneering efforts of the Bharat Jan Vigyan Jatha, the AIPSN has emerged as a pioneer in science communication and popularisation. Thirty years after its formation, it has a significant presence in over half the districts in the country, spread across all major states – a testament to how far the movement has travelled from its origins as a small group of science writers in Kerala.

What made the PSM distinct 🔗

The People’s Science Movement was never simply about teaching science. The PSM recognised that there must be a critical awareness and a spirit of scientific enquiry among the broadest sections of the population – not just an ability to recite facts. It also understood, from early on, that science could not be separated from politics, economics, and justice. Superstition, poverty, environmental destruction, and inadequate healthcare were not just technical problems – they were social ones, and addressing them required both scientific knowledge and collective action.

KSSP played a significant role in popularizing science, propagating a scientific temper, spreading environmental awareness, making Kerala a totally literate state, and developing models of decentralized planning – while also providing a critique of the application of science and technology in developmental projects from a people’s perspective. This model – critical, participatory, and rooted in local realities – became the template for PSM organisations across the country.

The movement’s history shows that science communication, when done with genuine commitment to equity, can be a powerful driver of social transformation. From 40 science writers in Kerala in 1962 to a national network spanning hundreds of thousands of activists, India’s People’s Science Movement stands as one of the most ambitious experiments in democratising knowledge that the world has seen.

What do you think? Given that science is increasingly shaping decisions about health, environment, and technology that affect everyone, should scientific literacy be treated as a fundamental right rather than a personal aspiration? And can a movement rooted in grassroots activism remain relevant and effective in the age of digital misinformation?

References

1. https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-73-peoples-science-movement-karnataka-india/
2. https://www.sociologydiscussion.com/science/genesis-of-people-science-movement-explained/851
3. https://rightlivelihood.org/the-change-makers/find-a-laureate/kerala-sastra-sahitya/
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala_Sasthra_Sahithya_Parishad
5. https://kssp.in/about-us/
6. https://aipsn.net/2017/09/22/kerala-shastra-sahitya-parishad/
7. https://www.sciencedirect.com/article/pii/S2590291121000528
8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_India_Peoples_Science_Network
9. https://aipsn.net/resources-2/
10. https://progressiveforumtiss.wordpress.com/2014/08/31/notes-from-the-talk-on-the-history-of-the-peoples-science-movement-in-india/