Jingoism and Pseudoscience
Suresh Kodoor
Indian
Science Congress Association (ISCA) is a professional scientific body under the
Department of Science and Technology, Government of India that was established
in 1914 to advance and promote the cause of science in our country. Ironically, the recently held 102nd
conference of the same body brought one of the biggest embarrassments to the
Indian scientific community. The fact
that a scientific body was hijacked by a political establishment and used as a propaganda
forum to spread their retrogressive and fascist ideology and divisive religious
politics made this embarrassment all the more shameful.
The
saffron brigade, who has been instigating jingoistic nationalism and religious
fundamentalism to expand their political base,
has been making use of various cultural, social and political
institutions and forums since long to spread their medieval ideology that has
no place in a modern democratic civil society. The latest misplaced adventure
at the Science Congress shows that the science forums have become the new target
of their propaganda machine and part of a new design to invent ‘scientific
justifications’ for their absurdities. This new development, which may cause
serious damage to the whole scientific fabric of our nation and society if
allowed to go unhindered, must be of serious concern to all those who strive to
promote scientific temper and who consider science as the lone progressive
force for fast forwarding us to an egalitarian and refined society. The scientific
community of our country thus has a special responsibility in ensuring that any
such moves to project pseudo sciences as the true science, with an ulterior
motive of generating wider ‘scientific’ acceptability for a divisive ideology,
is strongly resisted and thoroughly exposed.
The farce staged in the Science Congress at Mumbai at the behest and with the blessings of the rightist ruling forces is only the latest example in a series of efforts to propagate myths and imaginations as true historical facts. Portrayal of an imaginative ‘golden era’ and false claims of the existence of a society in the past that could claim cultural supremacy and ultimate mastery on all forms of knowledge is not merely incidental. Such jingoistic ‘boastings’ are to incite false nationalistic vigor among specific religious segments in an effort to consolidate these groups into a powerful political power-base and to pit them against other communities, ultimately resulting in unrest and hatred among the people.
The path
of science does not have place for lies, myths and imaginary tales. The farce
enacted at the Science Congress is a path towards stagnation and backwardness,
not the one towards progress. The fact that the conference in which many
respected scientists, including Nobel laureates, participated was misused as a
propaganda forum did not help to show our scientific community in good light in
front of the world. A conference where
serious debates and discussions around science and technology should have been
conducted was made into a joke by including sessions like ‘ancient Indian
aviation technology’, ‘neuroscience of yoga’, ‘engineering applications of
ancient Indian botany’ etc. Central Ministers like Mr. Prakash Javedkar and Dr.
Harshvardhan, through their presence and active participation, offered their full
blessings on behalf of the government to this national shame.
None of
the presentations under these sessions were even remotely deserved to be
presented in a science conference like the one held at Mumbai University. A former pilot training school principal Anath
Bodhas and a Mumbai school teacher Ameya
Jadev were the so called ‘scientists’ who made the claim that the ancient
Indians used to fly in every nooks and corners of the sky since almost 7000
years ago. They even claimed that those planes could fly not only forward (like
the modern-day planes), but left, right and even reverse! They went ahead and discussed about the metals
and alloys that were used to build those planes. They also provided details
about the special clothing the pilots used to wear then (made from vegetations
grown under water deep inside the ocean), the helmet pilots wore and even the
special diets prescribed for the pilots. The ‘scientists’ claimed that they got
all these information from an ancient book called ‘vimana samhita’ authored by
Saint Bharadwaj, a book none has seen so far. They went as far as saying that
our ancestors flew not only international flights but even inter-planetary voyages.
These ‘scientists’ didn’t bother to ask or seek answers to the questions like
why none could discover any remains of any such planes on earth till date (I am
sure we in all probability may even get to hear about new ‘excavations’ and
‘discoveries’ in the near future!).
The irony
is that the very story the saffron ‘scientists’ had brought up in the congress
as a new ‘research finding’ was something that was exposed and discredited by
the scientists from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (IISc) way back in
1974. Dr.Deshpande, HS Mukunda and their colleagues at IISc in their study ‘A
critical study of the work Vymanika Shastra’ had brought to the fore the real
story behind the book supposed to have authored by Saint Bharadwaj thousands of
years ago. Their journey to find out the truth ended up in unearthing the fact
behind this well crafted fiction.
As per the
study by Dr. Deshpande et al, a book named ‘Brihad Vimana Sastra’ was published
by an author named Brahmamuni Parivraja in the year 1959. This book has
Sanskrit slokas along with Hindi translations. Later, Mysore International
Sanskrit Research Center had also published another book by G.R Joyson that
included Sanskrit slokas along with English translations. Parivraja had claimed
in the preface that his book was based on an original script called ‘yantra
sarvaswa’ authored by Maharshi Bharadwaj. However, in subsequent investigation,
it became clear that both Parivraja’s and Joyson’s books were based on a common
manuscript which was available in the Sanskrit library in Baroda. The author of
this original manuscript is someone named Subbaraya Sasthri, who was born in Hosur
taluka and later lived in Anekal in the state of Karnataka. He died in the year
1941. The language and narrative style proved that the book must have been
written not more than 100 years ago. The research studies concluded that most
likely this book was written sometime during 1900-1922. It may be noted that
none of the so called ‘airplane designs’ described in Sasthri’s manuscript are
tenable as far as its validity to build a working model of a flying machine is
concerned (which is absolutely understandable as our knowledge and technology
were at a very infant stage in those times). Thus, a tale that was proven
baseless four decades ago by the IISc scientists is what is being used by the
saffron brigade to propagate falsehood in the name of scientific ‘research’.
With a
Prime Minister who claims Lord Ganapathy’s face and the ‘Kavacha Kundala’ of
Legendary Hero Karna are evidences for
plastic surgery and genetic sciences being practiced in ancient India leading
the pack, such absurdities from his right-wing folks are not surprising at all. His Ministers are competing to even surpass
him in making such nonsensical claims. Minister Dr. Harshavardhan claimed that it was the Indians
who invented Pythagorus theorem and were gracious enough to give away the
credit to the Greeks! He even said that our
great grandfathers knew about ‘Bija Ganitha’ (Algebra) but ‘donated’ the
knowledge to Arabs to be called ‘Algebra’. Efforts to place pseudo sciences among the
main-stream science, to give science flavors to age-old myths, tales and
rituals, to promote Sanskrit as a means of revivalism etc are all part of a
well-thought-out strategy of the fascist forces. Silence of the scientific community against
such blatant misuse of nation’s science forums and massive propaganda of
falsehood in the name of science will only encourage such forces to continue
their efforts to corrupt our intellectual space and to drive away our future
generations from being a progressively thinking population.
Studies
and explorations about our past generations and their civilizations should
certainly be encouraged and it is to our advantage and common good that we
gather knowledge about our past. However, such efforts should be guided within
the framework of science and with an objective of adding to the wealth of our
common knowledge pool. The contributions of ancient India to the fields of
philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, arts, health sciences etc are well recognized
by the world and these achievements do not belong to any one group or community.
These are all part of our common heritage and every Indian has the right to be
proud of being a descendant of such a great civilization. However, we should be honest and realistic
enough to admit that we are way behind the developed societies in this modern
era. Our efforts should be to closely watch and understand the trends in
science and technology world over and to make full use of those advances to
better the lives of our brethren. Living in the imaginary self-created cocoon
of the fabricated past glory will only leave us behind in the race towards
advancement and progress. Any retrogressive ideology that would lead us and our
future generations backwards need to be strongly opposed and defeated.
(Author is
a former Nuclear Scientist at Bhabha Atomic Research Center)
Suresh Kodoor
sureshkodoor@gmail.com
