The Pitfalls Of Politicizing Science In Nepal

Whenever we are at the stage of politicizing science, it means that we are in a state of desperation, because most of the time we intentionally leave science intact and sacred as the last place for our political messages to spread, so that science being politicized speaks of a certain crisis of the political parties who undertake this endeavor. In desperation, we leave our political thoughts behind and simply rouse physical bodies of the scientists/science scholars towards expressing the political opinions and slogans that we demand. They are to go out on the street directly from the classroom, without a formation of a political agenda and strategy suited to them and to their studies and subject. And thus we have the extent of their negative response towards their politicization being quite shallow, as shown in the Nepali context of doctors and students protesting against politics in science by only protesting the disruption of their studies, as if they haven't really had the chance to discuss and explore how politics has entered science as a taught subject in a manner deeper than the rousing up or disruption of the movement of their physical bodies and minds.

One may say the politicization of science is the result of the arrival of a critical moment in a political movement or idea, when our politics absolutely must be expressed by as many people as possible, yet this interpretation is incorrect for it provides no reason for science being so completely isolated from politics in the first place. The only agenda critical in the moment when science is politicized is the need for physical bodies, for sheer numbers and for raising the volume of a protest; scientists seldom play a bigger role than that in politics.

For we may ask: are scientists ever allowed (or ever responsible) for the utilization of their intellect towards politics, but even more so, are they ever allowed to infuse their own scientific ideas with political ideas? No they aren't allowed this endeavor, for there is a fear that if scientists are given this type of freedom to interpret and apply political ideas, they will muddle up the ideas and end up producing a confused scientific-political statement which may undermine the more obvious messages that political figures wish to spread. It is not out of fear that science itself may lose its stature in contact with politics that political figures keep science away, but rather they feel that politics will become distorted by scientists/science scholars.

Yet any time science is put to a social cause, or a social cause asks of science to “invent something,” such as a vaccine, the political figures are not far away, not to act in a historically prominent and serious manner to either initiate or prevent science from being social, but rather to act slyly and in an moral-instructional manner to preach to scientists/science scholars the importance of society, to show that despite science's ideas ranging beyond human society, it is ultimately turned towards human society, and so to hold scientists/science scholars partly accountable for the crises in society that may come up someday. The urgency of political parties calling on science is a fake urgency, yet it is mistaken by scientists and science scholars, who consider their involvement immensely important and become politically active in the most evident way they think: protesting out on the streets.