The PPST (Patriotic and People-oriented Science & Technology) Group is a voluntary network of Indian scientists, professionals, scholars, historians, sociologists, philosophers, thinkers and social activists formed in the late 1970s. Efforts to understand the reasons for the rather poor  state of the contemporary Science & Technology enterprise in the country led the Group to, among other things, examine more closely our own traditions of Sciences and Technologies that have existed prior to the Western domination of India starting from the eighteenth century. In these pursuits, the Gandhian historian Shri Dharampal (1922-2006) has had a major influence on the Group.

 

During the period 1980 – 2000, the findings of the PPST Group have been disseminated widely through the media of the PPST Bulletins, the Congresses of the Traditional S&T of India, various R&D Projects taken up, etc. The picture that emerged was that much of our efforts in the S&T and other domains of the last century or so had been largely in the nature of weak imitations of what was happening in the West, with little organic link with our own traditions, history, requirements, people's knowledge and practices. While certain amount of technological and managerial skills and competence have been achieved in the process, the Group believes that our goals of nation building and people's welfare can be achieved only by building on the foundation of our own civilisational ways, values and strengths. This would amount to adopting the spirit of Swaraj and Swadeshi in every field, as enunciated and demonstrated by Mahatma Gandhi during our freedom struggle.

 

A detailed listing of the contributions of the PPST Group can be found here.

 

This website has been created  in the specific context  of celebrating the birth centenary of Shri Dharampalji ( planned during Feb-2021 to Feb 2022), and aims at making Dharampalji's work, as well as the  debates and discussions in the Group,  more open and accessible to the public, as well as  to enable greater reach and participation in the same.

 

Here is the list of some of the PPST Group members who have taken the present initiative of taking forward the agenda that the Group had set for itself some forty years ago.