The power of knowledge

Knowledge has played a crucial role in building a great nation, writes Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta.

Recently, there has been a spate of American reports warning about the lack of knowledge produced in the United States and that China/India will take over the lead that the USA has acquired. In addition, there have been a series of programs on British TV about the wonders of the Victorian Age and we keep on hearing about the golden age of Islam.

These led me to think about how countries and nations become knowledge powers and how they lose their lead? Paul Kennedy explained in his wonderful book, "The Rise and Fall of Great Powers" how great powers become great and how they fall. Amongst other reasons it is because of imperial overstretch, the inability to sustain the military strength by their economies. Knowledge power is a much softer type of power, if anything; it forms one of the major foundation stones for a great power. Let us explore this phenomenon.

I only dabble in learning about history, but to me, "history is a vast early warning system". Patterns swirl around in history and so many times; we see the same pattern re-emerging, over and over again. Such is the case with 'Knowledge Powers'. But what is a knowledge power? There are two aspects to defining this. The first aspect is absolute and the second is relative. The amount of knowledge produced by a country or nation is the absolute factor, while comparing this amount to other countries/nations is the relative factor. What kind of knowledge are we talking about? This is a very broad based definition, spanning both arts and sciences. All the 'ologies, physics, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, medicine, painting, sculpture, dance, architecture, you name it.

So if we want to have a qualitative and quantitative measure of knowledge produced, we look at the number of patents issued to the number of books published; from the number and type of dramas/plays performed to the architecture of the country; the number of scientific research institutes to the number of hospitals and laboratories. I do not have an econometric or statistical model and I don't even think I will be able to produce one, but a person who has read widely can understand where I am coming from. Perhaps the UN Human Development Index can be a proxy, but it is also very limited in its range and scope.

We don't want to go into the detailed history of all these countries/nations, it would suffice to hit the ages and subject areas where we have seen significant knowledge jumps. Obviously, because of the slow communications and lack of support infrastructure, which we take for granted these days, the older nations were knowledge powers over a longer period of time than presently. I can only visualise how much an ancient scientist such as Aryabhatta would have loved to have access to online libraries, MathCAD, statistical packages and word processing. Makes it so much easier indeed.

India 3000 BC to 500 AD - medicine, religious and social texts, manufacturing, mathematics, sciences, chemistry, medicine, town planning, agriculture, astronomy, astronomy, social sciences, painting, dance, sculpture, music, literature.

China 3000 BC to 1000 AD - Paper making, Gunpowder and weapons technology, sciences, printing, compass, philosophy, medicine, art, architecture, agriculture, historiography, religious and social texts, poetry, astronomy and astrology.

Greeks 700 BC - 300 BC- historiography, religious texts, political science, mythology, alchemy, chemistry, philosophy, literature

Muslim 750 AD - 950 AD - Historiography, religious texts, medicine, astronomy, mathematics, sciences, literature, geography and travel

Italian 600 AD - 1600 AD- Arts, sculpture, sciences, historiography, architecture, religious texts

British 1700 AD - 2000 AD - Arts, sculpture, sciences, mathematics, weapons development, liberalism, painting, cultural studies, engineering, metal working, astronomy, maritime sciences

American 1800 AD onwards - arts, sciences, mathematics, military science, metallurgy, food and agriculture sciences, nuclear science, political science, engineering, space, computer science

I am sure I will be nitpicked to death about the above list, with Germans, Russians, French, Canadians, Surinamese, Australians and Mongolians jumping up and down about the non-inclusion of their nations in the above list. Well, calm down folks, this is not supposed to be an exhaustive list and the point is not the number of knowledge powers, but how they got to and stayed at that stage and were pushed out of it. I have missed out on the Aztec/Maya civilisation which was an astronomical, literary and religious marvel, the Ancient Egyptian civilisation which was an architectural, water sciences, agricultural, metallurgical marvel, so on and so forth but these really didn't contribute that much to modern life.

So very broadly speaking, these are the factors, which I see as being the main reasons behind a nation/country becoming a great knowledge power. Firstly, there is a very strong top down sponsorship of research and development. In all the examples of knowledge powers that we have mentioned above, the kings, emperors, governments, business bodies all have backed research, development, universities, schooling etc. to the extent of being personally involved in offering funds, tithes, sponsorship to institutions and people who are engaged in them.

In the olden days, it was a bit of a hit and miss and now it's more structured, but usually - if you are bright - then you would get sufficient funds to carry out research or produce knowledge. In addition, institutions of learning were strongly and continuously sponsored by the rulers and the state, not like nowadays, where someone is sponsored for 10 years and then for the next 100 years, nothing.