 |
| That’s
like harnessing a telescope to a Vedic chant and expecting the stars to spin
closer. Illustration by Gemini AI |
A friend forwarded a WhatsApp message written by K
Sahadevan, Malayalam writer and social activist. The central theme is a concern
for science education and research in India. The writer bemoans the fact that in
India science is in a prison conjured up by Narendra Modi. The message shocked
me. I hadn’t been aware of many things mentioned therein.
Modi is making use of Bharatiya Vidya
Bhavan’s Centre for Study and Research in Indology for his nefarious purposes projected
as efforts to “preserve and promote classical Indian knowledge systems [IKS]” which
include Sanskrit, Ayurveda, Jyotisha (astrology), literature, philosophy, and
ancient sciences and technology. The objective is to integrate science with
spirituality and cultural values. That’s like harnessing a telescope to a Vedic
chant and expecting the stars to spin closer.
The IKS curricula have made umpteen ridiculous
claims such as ancient Indian texts predating the Wright Brothers or Isaac Newton
by thousands of years. According to IKS, ancient Indians built sophisticated
aircraft that could fly between planets, perform complex aerial manoeuvres, and
were solar-powered [in the Science in Sanskrit course].
Modi wants the world to believe that
the concept of gravity was discovered by Maharishi Bhaskaracharya in the 5th
century CE. He proclaimed that the birth of the Kauravas from a single piece of
flesh divided into 100 parts and incubated in pots is proof of ancient stem
cell technology or test-tube babies. Lord Ganesha’s elephant head transplant is
proof that ancient Indians mastered plastic surgery and organ transplantation. Weapons
like Brahmastra used in India’s ancient myths were actually nuclear bombs. The
narrator of the Kurukshetra war, Sanjaya, was using wireless communication
technology like internet. What should take the price is the claim that the
Indian cow produces an anti-radiation dung and also the cow releases oxygen
while exhaling.
Modi has made the Vedas the ultimate source of all science including relativity, quantum mechanics, surgery, aviation, and the internet. This is what Malayalam writer and activist Sahadevan is questioning in a series of articles, a part of which was forwarded to me by my friend.
I had just completed reading an
article in a Malayalam periodical, Kalakaumudi, when this message landed
on my phone. The Kalakaumudi article says Modi has hijacked the entire
election system in India. There are nearly 100 crore [one billion] voters in
India. In the last Parliament elections, thousands of votes were manipulated by
Modi’s party, according to the investigations made by Opposition leader Rahul
Gandhi.
Neither Modi’s government nor the
media in India took Mr Gandhi seriously. But everyone knows the truth: that Rahul
Gandhi is speaking the truth. Then what’s the problem? No problem – that’s the
problem.
Let Mr Modi do what he chooses to.
That’s the attitude of the Hindu India. Modi is the Hindu Messiah. Hence what
he does is the right thing. In the Kurukshetra War, didn’t Lord Krishna employ fraudulence
galore to win the war? Winning the war is more important than morality and
ethics. So, even if Modi manipulated the entire electoral process and made
utter fools of the minority communities in the country, it is okay.
India is in a MODI-TRAP, in simple
words. The elections, justice, citizenship, employment… everything is his
private property now. He decides the outcome of elections long before they are
held. He decides who is innocent and who guilty much before the courts will
pronounce the verdicts. He decides who are citizens and who are not. Now he
decides scientific truths too! Well…
Well, Sahadevan’s article isn’t about
these. It’s about how the RSS and its shenanigans are preventing real
scientists from doing real research in India. Well, we’re doomed.
x
It is sickening... This India had this... What? That has to be Discerned. Like the provernial mythic swan, who tell milk from water. Not muddle up myth, legend, Aitihya and tradition, all rolled into one and clam scientific character to it? We, Catholics are not far behind, in mixing up faith and credulousness and magic and miracles. Psychological illusions as healing.. Not to say a ything about stagemanaged miraculous healings, in the Cyarismatic Pandals.
ReplyDeleteIt is more catastrophic than sickening, I'd say. By the time Modi perishes, India would have become a nation of morons.
DeleteOne reason I stay away from all religion is what you said: mixing faith and credulousness to reap earthly benefits. Sheer disregard of truth as well as spirituality.
Hari OM
ReplyDeleteAs an advanced student of the shastra and shruti, I must say that there are definitely tracts of text which indicate understandings of the world that could be represented as particle physics and quantum theory... but that is not at all how it is described within the texts, though I don't doubt that the same rishis/gurus who developed those texts would, in today's life, be inclined towards those sciences. That said, to make the claims that Modi is doing as suggested in your post, is ridiculous beyond words. It is yet again misrepresenting the context of the learning and conflating concepts in a manner that is little more than 'conspiracist' in nature. This not only makes a fool of the man, but does great damage to the value of the texts... YAM xx
I remember reading Fritjof Capra as a young man and marvelling at the potential of Indian mysticism to reveal deep scientific insights about reality. I admired the Upanishads then. But Modi has stripped me of all that admiration. Modi would do well to read Capra et al.
Delete