From Shadow Libraries to Citizen Science: Defending the Constitutional Duty of Inquiry

A recent Delhi high court order – giving a green light to the gatekeeping of knowledge by global commercial publishers and ordering the shut down of Sci-Hub and LibGen as “rogue websites” or “shadow libraries” – raises serious questions about India’s true commitment to scientific temper.

The history of scientific temper

Every citizen of India has an obligation “to develop the scientific temper, humanism, and the spirit of inquiry and reform”, as stated in Article 51A(h) of the Constitution. This obligation wasn't created overnight. It was recommended by the Swaran Singh Committee (1976), set up during the Emergency to suggest fundamental duties for citizens, reflecting a moment when the state sought to emphasise civic responsibility alongside rights. But the intellectual roots of scientific temper run deeper.

Jawaharlal Nehru had already articulated the idea in his writings and in the Scientific Policy Resolution of 1958, India’s first major science policy, which located science at the heart of national development. In the context of education, the Kothari Commission (1964-1966) echoed this vision, contending that democracy and development depended on fostering an attitude of inquiry. This trajectory was built built upon by later policies, such as the Science and Technology Policy (2003), the Science Policy Statement (1983), and the Science, Technology & Innovation Policy (2013), which emphasised the scientific advancement not only involves lab work but also social application, inclusivity and communication.

Seen against this historical backdrop, the constitutional duty of scientific temper is both a continuation of Nehruvian rationalism and a response to the anxieties of the Emergency years: a recognition that democracy must be defended not only through institutions but also through citizens trained in reason, scepticism and reformist spirit.

From scientific temper to citizen science

The practice of citizen science has gained new resonance in recent decades as a result of the constitutional duty of scientific temper. From community health research to biodiversity mapping, citizen science initiatives encourage the public to create and validate knowledge. For instance, the Bihu Bird Count in Assam, which involves over a thousand volunteers organised by regional organisations like IIT Guwahati, blends ecological documentation with cultural customs. These initiatives push the limits of who is allowed to “do science”, questioning the exclusivity of prestigious academic settings that are frequently closed off to underrepresented groups. They support the logical, inquisitive mindset envisioned in the Constitution and democratise knowledge, even though they cannot alone address systemic injustices like caste-based exclusions.

The Kerala Initiative on Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, and Open Science for Responding to Epidemics (KAISER) is an example of such a citizen science initiative. The initiative relies on voluntary contributions from the community to create a unique model for open science in epidemic response.

Knowledge control, copyright and the courts

Inevitably, established control structures and the promise of citizen participation in knowledge creation clashes. Copyright law and knowledge access are at odds, as demonstrated by the Delhi high court's ruling limiting access to shadow libraries like Sci-Hub and LibGen.

These platforms, which bridge gaps caused by exorbitant subscription fees, are lifelines rather than luxuries for many Indian researchers and students. But from a constitutional perspective, the question is more profound: can a society dedicated to promoting scientific temper justify limiting access to the very resources that foster critical thinking? Publishers argue that these prohibitions are required to protect intellectual property. We write as independent scholars who study the nexus of open science, economics and law; not as aloof observers, but as people who are directly affected by these limitations.

Policy pathways, fair use and jurisprudential trajectories

This debate has also reached policy corridors. The proposed One Nation One Subscription (ONOS) policy aims to negotiate nationwide access to academic resources, potentially easing the burden on students and institutions alike. Yet the longer arc of this struggle is legal: the development of fair use (or fair dealing) jurisprudence under the Indian Copyright Act, 1957. Section 52 of the Act already recognises exceptions for research, education and private study, carving out spaces where the monopoly of copyright yields to the public interest. The Delhi high court’s landmark judgment in the DU photocopy case (2016) upheld course packs as legitimate under fair dealing, affirming that access for students could not be throttled by publishers’ commercial claims. Across the world, similar reasoning animated the Google Books case (2015), where the US courts held that large-scale digitisation of books for searchability and scholarship was transformative and fair.

Seen this way, the ban on shadow libraries collides not only with constitutional duties but also with the spirit of copyright’s own exceptions. Jurisprudence is gradually moving toward a recognition that knowledge access is not theft but a necessary condition for education, innovation and democratic participation. Today, this conversation is further complicated by AI litigation, where courts in the US and petitions before the Indian Supreme Court are being asked to decide whether using copyrighted material to train machine learning models qualifies as fair use. The outcome of these cases will reshape the global contours of copyright law, and India’s own courts will be pressed to clarify how the duty to develop a scientific temper intersects with intellectual property.

If protected by the constitutional courts, the ‘right to access knowledge’ would be a new way for researchers like us and the larger public to walk towards the constitutional vision of becoming citizens with a scientific temper.

Positioning the debate

At the intersection of copyright law, constitutional ethos and the academic publishing industry, the challenge is not simply technical or economic. It is jurisprudential: how should we balance intellectual property with democratic accountability? Citizen science, ONOS and open science reforms represent nodes of a continuum – grassroots, national and global – through which India can reclaim the constitutional promise of a rational, participatory public sphere. Scientific temper, then, is not merely aspirational rhetoric. It is a constitutional and policy imperative that demands we rethink how knowledge is owned, shared and utilised in the service of democracy.

These discussions serve as a stark reminder that knowledge access is a constitutional requirement rather than a matter of charity or convenience. When Article 51A(h) refers to fostering a scientific temper, it requires that laws and policies remove rather than strengthen obstacles to research. The debates surrounding ONOS, the promise of citizen science and shadow libraries are not discrete conflicts; rather, they are manifestations of a broader conflict over intellectual property and dissemination in India.

As authors who write from the nexus of open science, economics and law, we contend that India cannot afford to allow knowledge to remain exclusive. Openness, inclusivity and democratic accountability must serve as the cornerstones of the future. For the constitutional call for scientific temper to have any real meaning, it must be embodied in institutions that value transparency, policies that increase access, and citizens who demand the right to inquire. Anything less runs the risk of undermining our scientific future as well as our democracy.

Najad P. is a Legal Advisor at Open Science Press (OSP), Kozhikode, holding an LLM from NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad.

Ablaz Mohammed Schemnad is a Research Associate at OSP, Kozhikode, holding a master’s degree from TISS & Sciences Po, and bachelor’s degree from SRCC, University of Delhi.

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