[7] Bhargava was a well-known critic of Indian governmental policies, and attained the post of vice-chairman in the National Knowledge Commission.
[9][10] He also opposed the Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) Bill, calling it "unconstitutional, unethical, unscientific, self-contradictory, and not people-oriented".
[12] On 30 October 2009, he wrote a personal letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh requesting him to meet with Ayyadurai and review his report.
[15] In 1963, Bhargava, along with Satish Dhawan and Abdur Rahman, the historian of science, felt the need to set up a national society for the promotion of scientific temper.
Thus they launched the Society for the Promotion of Scientific Temper at an international symposium on nucleic acids held in the then Regional Research Laboratory at Hyderabad in January 1964.
[16] Bhargava has participated in many debates related to science and superstitions and criticised the deplorable lack of scientific temper in society.
He was one of the key architects of the widely known 'Statement on Scientific temper', issued jointly by a group of liberal, committed and rational high-achievers of the country.
During the NDA rule in 2000, the Government of India decided to ask universities to introduce academic courses and offer science degrees in astrology.
[25] Bhargava received Padma Bhushan from the President of India in 1986,[26] but returned it in 2015 as an act of protest against the Indian government's active erosion of spaces for dissent within the country.