If Mahalanobis had done nothing else, if he had only founded Sankhya, the Indian Journal of Statistics, even so his contribution to science would hav… - Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis

India has a medieval and authoritarian structure of society and the tradition of science is not yet strong. The power of government officials is increasing as an inescapable result of the pervasive anthoritarian character of lndian society.

In the absence of social awareness and appreciation of the scientific objectivity among sufficiently large number of civil servants or political leaders,the need of validity has not yet been accepted in the official statistical system in India. Ofcial statistics in India is treated as an integral part of the dministrative system which is regulated by the principle of authority. Approval of statistical estimates at a high level of authority is accepted as a bstitnte for validity in many ases there is continuing opposition to independent cross-hccks for the validity of the data. Officials have the feeling that two independent estimates, which might differ would be confusing and, in fact unthinkable; therefore independent cross-checks in statistics should be eliminated.

Just as Tagore sought to bring humanity closer through Visva-Bharati or his one-nest-world university at Santiniketan, Prasanta Chandra strove to use the ideal of humanism through statistics.