INDUSTRIALIZATION AND THE LEFT MOVEMENT 59 is inexorably linked to the interests of the dominant social classes, that is monopoly and foreign capital in towns and landlords in villages, scientific activity in India is doomed to a marginal existence. The fate of the scientist as a producer of scientific knowledge and skills is in a crucial sense no better than that of the vast army of underemployed workers and peasants/ The dominant classes are organically incapable of utilizing the available resources cither of the former or of the latter. Only a radical social upheaval can alter this state of things. Should scientists wait till the golden age dawns? Of course, it is a question that must be answered individually or collectively, by scientists themselves. The latter must form their own views about the desirable direction of change, reckon with all the constraints imposed by the existing institutional patterns both in their workplaces as well as in society at large, and then chalk out their own plans of professional activity. The paragraphs that follow merely suggest a few themes for the scientists to consider. A very considerable part of scientific activity for a country like India has to be on conventional or Western lines. As it has already been argued earlier, there is a large array of products and processes where one cannot do without Western technology. The main accent should be on mdigcnization of Western know-how or import-substitution. Working scientists have long been harping on this theme. Homi Bhabha, for instance, clearly grasped it when he said, ^If technology is regarded as the engine of the development process, then foreign technology is acceptable only as the super-charger of a domestic engine and never as the engine itself9.6 It would be wrong to say that this generally accepted formulation has been consistently violated. There are numerous industries and processes where import-substitution has made very significant progress. Many more things can be locally manufactured today than was possible in the pre-1947 days. Yet, as we emphasized, there is still a very great dependence on imported technology and foreign capital in most of the crucial areas. Few large industrial projects or substantial expansion of existing units take place without massive doses of foreign capital and technology. On one pretext or another unnecessary imports of technology and capital goods are continued. Thus our policy-makers, to take the most recent example, have suddenly woken up to the fact of serious power shortage in the country and in their hurry are planning large-scale imports of giant power-generators while the indigenous industry has been languishing. Fish trawlers are imported on the plea that our exports could be pushed up with such equipment, ignoring the potentials of local manufacturers. The same is true for ships, petrochemicals, fertilizers, and so on. The primary responsibility in all these cases lies with the government. Had the need for expansion been envisaged earlier and had clear instructions along with funds been given to the R and D establishments, it is quite likely that a major part of the imports could