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India in Modi-Trap


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.


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Comments

  1. Jose D. MaliekalAugust 20, 2025 at 12:33 PM

    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.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 20, 2025 at 3:14 PM

      It is more catastrophic than sickening, I'd say. By the time Modi perishes, India would have become a nation of morons.

      One 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.

      Delete
  2. Yamini MacLeanAugust 20, 2025 at 2:49 PM

    Hari OM
    As 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

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    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 20, 2025 at 3:17 PM

      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
  3. magiceyeAugust 20, 2025 at 6:16 PM

    So scary that so many are sliding into the depths of nothingness... and one man is responsible for it!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Liz A.August 21, 2025 at 10:18 AM

    I don't get why people have to inflate the accomplishments of a people. It's not like India is a slouch when it comes to accomplishment. There are enough amazing discoveries to tout. (I was just watching a show about the introduction of zero to mathematics. From India.) No one place or people is the end all be all. That's what a world wide community is about.

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    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 21, 2025 at 6:58 PM

      India is not doing this. Modi is doing it and he has a gargantuan ego. A narcissist with schizophrenia. I pray to all the billion gods in the Indian pantheon to save the country from him.

      Delete

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