The Modi government has invited Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to be the chief guest for the 2020 Republic Day celebrations.
The government’s decision has sparked a debate as Bolsanaro is accused of curbing free freedom in Brazil, pushing deforestation in the name of development in the Amazon rainforest, and has made sexist remarks against a colleague on the national legislature.
He had acknowledged that his speech “potentiated” the fires in the Amazon rainforest which lasted for over two months. Parts of the Amazon in Peru, Paraguay and Bolivia also burned during the same time.
The Brazilian president had also accused Hollywood actor and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio for funding groups who have links with the fires.
Adding salt to wounds is the temperament of the Bolsonaro government towards science and scientific institutions in Brazil.
In June 2019, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon was 88% more when compared to June 2018, according to the National Institute for Space Research (INEP), a research unit of the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. The findings were based on satellite data from a system called DETER (Deforestation Detection in Real-Time).
President Jair Bolsonaro said the findings were lies. When INPE Director, Dr Ricardo Galvão, defended the findings, he was fired.
In response to questions about standard methodologies used in tracking deforestation, Raj Bhagat, a remote sensing analyst, said, “It is true that Brazil’s deforestation has been happening for decades. But the methodology used by INPE in this particular instance for determining deforestation, fire count etc. are technically sound and cannot be termed as lies.”
Bhagat added that preliminary analyses of satellite images over certain parts of the Amazon indicate that deforestation and the associated fires are happening at a higher rate than usual. He also noted that most of these fires took place in areas that are recently deforested.
Bhagat explained that these images also show that many of the fire incidents occurred at the edges of the forests, at the intersection of human habitation and are not natural fires.
Apart from this incident, there have been other instances that show how the Bolsonaro government has managed the country’s scientific institutions.
In November, scientists who were researching the Amazon wildfires published a paper debunking the government’s stand about Amazon fires being a regular incident.
Fearing a backlash, many of the scientists chose to remain anonymous. Some contributors declined authorship to maintain anonymity. “We regret this was necessary and thank them for their important contribution,” the acknowledgement section of the paper said.
The Bolsonaro government has also cut funding to scientific institutions.
Last year, the government froze 42 per cent of the budget for the country’s science and communications ministry which was already struggling with a budget that was the lowest in 14 years.
“Academic freedom with the intellectual liberty is a prerequisite for developing policies and programmes benefiting the humankind,” T.V. Ramachandra, coordinator of the Energy and Wetlands Research Group at IISc said, in response to a question about ‘managing’ scientific institutions. “Unfortunately, some countries are interfering in scientific institutions that are working towards the benefit of humankind,” he added.
Queries were sent to the Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change and the Department of Science and Technology about views on the choice of chief guest for the Republic Day celebrations given his ‘scientific temper’. The article will be updated if and when a response is received.
Also Read:Why We Don’t Need A Corrupt Capitalist Brazilian President On Our Republic Day