Record Details

Fostering Scientific Temper in India: Can Bollywood be a Catalyst?

NOPR - NISCAIR Online Periodicals Repository

View Archive Info
 
 
Field Value
 
Title Fostering Scientific Temper in India: Can Bollywood be a Catalyst?
 
Creator DEKA, JUNALI
SHUKLA, SHRUTI
ARORA, NEHA
 
Subject Scientific temper
Bollywood
Sanitation
Menstrual hygiene
 
Description 197-208
As the nation fervently and rightfully celebrates ‘Azadi Ka Amrit
Mahotsav’, it is yet pertinent to investigate the status quo of
scientific temper among the citizens to estimate the progress and
development of our heterogeneous society. The very foundation
of Indian democracy propagates the idea of a society with a
scientific mindset. Two important areas, under the backdrop of the
‘Swachh Bharat Mission’, where the existence of scientific temper
is to be investigated or rather reinvestigated are sanitation and
menstrual hygiene because of certain deeply ingrained
unscientific beliefs and practices dominant in our society.
Cinema is a quintessential mass media to popularize the
need for societal reforms. Taking leverage of it, cinema can act as
an indispensable tool of change in society. In view of it, we
embarked on evaluating the impact of four women-centric
Bollywood films namely Toilet Ek Prem Katha (2017), PadMan
(2018), Mission Mangal (2019) and Shakuntala Devi (2020)in
instilling the spirit of scientific enquiry and reform. The study
carries out a thematic analysis followed by a quantitative
approach to decipher the mindset of people of various academic
backgrounds and regions. It identifies two groups of women –(i) a
neo-liberal group who is seen as a promoter of science and (ii) a
group who is the bearer and victim of unscientific societal norms.
It could also be inferred that due to the limited outreach of films,
scientific temper is still managing to evade the doorstep of
common people.
 
Date 2022-09-15T06:04:15Z
2022-09-15T06:04:15Z
2022-09
 
Type Article
 
Identifier ISSN: 2278-2788 (Print); 2278-2796 (Online)
http://nopr.niscpr.res.in/handle/123456789/60496
https://doi.org/10.56042/jst.v10i3.64308
 
Language en
 
Publisher NIScPR-CSIR,India
 
Source JST Vol.10(3) [July-September 2022]