Did Indians Invent Airplane?

Did Indians Invent Airplane?

Suresh Kodoor

Did Indians Invent Airplane? I can see the question evoking chuckles of bemusement and even ridicule. I am sure, not only those who think rationally and vouch by scientific temper but even those who got at least some traces of commonsense and basic knowledge of history will be amused when such a question is asked in this era, after well over hundred plus years since the Wright brothers designed and successfully flew the first self-powered aircraft on 17th Dec 1903. Well, that assumption holds well only when you are dealing with people in their right senses, not with the people who are on the extreme right of the ideological spectrum. For the right-wing ultra-nationalists in India, airplane was invented by ancient Indians thousands of years ago. No amount of reasoning or correction would deter them from continuously propagating the same insanity. Be it in common public babbles or in dignified science forums where serious intellectual deliberations are supposed to be the norm of the proceedings.

These are not just illiterate or uneducated ignorant lots. Those who indulge in such false and irrational propaganda include ministers, political leaders, and those who decorate (or rather deface, I must say) high public offices.  It is so shameful that the latest to join the bandwagon of these right-wing promoters of unscientific and nonsensical ramblings is none other than the Minister of State in charge of Human resource development in the country. He wants the students at the centers of higher learning like IITs be taught about ‘Pushpaka vimana’, the mythical airplane mentioned in the great Indian epic Ramayana.  Ministers after Ministers from the right-wing BJP ruled states keep repeating such absurdities at regular intervals without fail.  Some of them go to the extent of claiming that airplanes flew left and right in the Indian airspace, even carrying out inter-planetary voyages, many thousands of years ago before rest of the world even heard of the word ‘flying’. The proof? Well, there is a mention about ‘Vimana’ in the text of Ramayana and that is a good enough proof for them. When the country’s prime minister himself leads the pack making a fool of self by boasting that Indians practiced plastic surgery even in the pre-historic times citing Indian mythological stories about Lord Ganesha’s head transplant with an elephant head, one cannot expect any better from his ministerial and party colleagues. Such seemingly ridiculous attempts to raise insane claims could have been brushed aside as misdeeds of a few lunatics but for the fact that these dubious attempts are very calculated and integral part of a larger venomous fascist agenda. It is a deliberate jingoistic attempt to evoke misplaced nationalistic pride to farther the racist and religious wedge in the society, a typical ultra-rightist strategy followed world over. The ultra-nationalists who swear by a top-to-bottom divisive, racist, retrogressive ideology idolize Goebbels and follow his methods to propagate and spread their carefully fabricated lies. As long as they keep spreading the venom, we are forced to be on constant vigil providing the necessary anti-venom of facts and truths. Superstitions, myths and blatant lies become the most potent tools in their constant effort to strengthen their power base by polarizing the population on religious basis and eventually use that power to protect the interest of the rich enabling vulgar accumulation of wealth in the hands of the elite.  Hence, these lies cannot be left unexposed.

So, let us come back to the question of airplane and debunk the claim once again. Did Indians invent Airplane? Of course the answer is an absolute ‘No’.  Then what about the mention of ‘Vimana’  in Ramayana and the existence so called ancient texts that discuss airplanes?

For the starters, is Ramayana the only ancient classic text that refers to flying? Not at all. There are many myths and traditions from different parts of the world and civilizations that spoke about flights in the ancient times. Babylonian mythology spoke about flying machines. The stories of Daedalus  and his son Icarus in the Greek mythology are very popular. As detailed in the Greek classic ‘Metamorphoses’ , Daedalus built two flying crafts, one for himself and one for his son Icarus to be used in his mission of going home by air to evade King Minas. Models mimicking flying-objects have been discovered from different parts of the world, including venezula, peru, columbia and so on. A model of a flying craft emulating the form of a bird was discovered during an excavation of a tomb in Egypt and was dated back to around 200-BC. Many of the engravings in the temple of Seti in Egypt resemble modern-day aircrafts. Ancient Chinese mythology too has mentions about flights. There are references to Chinese emperor Cheng Tang having succeeded in building a flying craft way back in 1760 BC. He is said to have subsequently destroyed the same to prevent anyone else discovering the secret of flight.  Nepali traditions too have mentions about powered crafts and they thought only yavanas knew the real secret of flights. So, the point is, many ancient civilizations had such stories and they reflect human’s desire to fly and probably many of them thought flying would indeed become possible some day.  However, it will be childish to think that those ancient civilizations did indeed build flying machines based on these mythological references. In their mythical stories, gods flew in such flying crafts. Many countries have myths about gods and stars descending from heaven and copulating with women on the earth similar to the story in the epic Mahabharath where the Princess Kunthi gets impregnated by the Sun god.  We dont take those stories in their literal sense in the modern times. Mythologies from all civilizations around the world have numerous such illustrious stories that reflected human desire to overcome their inherent limitations. Striking similarities of many of the gods and goddesses, religious ideas, rituals, beliefs, traditions etc of ancient people in different parts of the globe are not merely coincidental. As J.Garnier observed, most of these were originally derived from a common source or center.  So, the mythical legend King Ravana with a ‘Pushpak Vimana’ in the Ramayana is not a testimony to the existence of flying crafts in india in the pre-historic times.

Another most commonly made argument is about the existence of an ancient text named ‘vimanika shastra’ (Science of Aeronautics) where aircraft designs have been discussed in detail. People often talk about this book as if it is an ancient text dating back by a few thousand years containing vedic designs of aircraft authored by Saint Bharadwaja. But the truth is far from it. Research has proved that this often mentioned text is in fact not even 100 years old, most likely written sometime between 1918 and 1923. The book was written by one Subbaraya Shastry, who was born in Hosur and later lived in the Anakel taluk in the state of Karnataka.  Shashtry died in the year 1941. The research study was conducted by Dr.Deshpande and his team from Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in 1974 and they brought to the fore the real story behind the book ‘vimanika shastra’ (A critical study of the work Vimanika Shastra). They found out that 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 in 1973, Mysore International Sanskrit Research Center had also published another book by G.R Josyer 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 Bharadwaja. However, in subsequent investigation, it became clear that both Parivraja’s and Josyer’s books were based on a common manuscript, the one written by Subbaraya Shastri, which was available in the Sanskrit library in Baroda. The language and narrative style proved that the book must have been written not more than 100 years ago. 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.  None of the planes have properties or capabilities of being flown; the geometries are horrendous; and the principles of propulsion make them resist rather than assist flying. These designs were simply his imaginative work and seem he himself had doubts about the validity of those designs.  As Shastry could not read or write himself, he dictated the verses to one Mr. Venkatachala Sharma.  The IISc team could personally meet Mr. Sharma as well as Venkatarama shastry, the adopted son of Subbaraya Shastry as part of their research. So, in short, the text ‘Vimanika Shastra’ often cited as an ancient text is only 100 years or so old and the designs in there are neither any ‘vedic designs’ nor working models. People often circulate pictures from this book stating that these are vedic designs of ancient airplanes.

The IISc research team has recorded in detail the life story of Mr.Subbaraya Shastry. He was a man of simplicity and of unpretentious nature and had to struggle throughout his life and brave some of the worst calamities that a man may have to endure in his life. He was born in a small village in Hosur and got married at the age of eight. He didnt have any formal education. His parents died early and he had to support his family literally by begging. His sisters and a brother died of smallpox. He himself got such a severe attack that he had to leave home and went on exile living in a forest for many years. There he seemed to have met with a guruji who cured his disease and imparted him with the secrets of many shastras. He claimed that he was enlightened by Maharishi Bharadwaja in the dream and got the knowledge on Vaimanika Shastra. Later, Shasthri settled near Anekal and also adopted Venkatarama Shastry as his son.  Shastri had no formal education or training of any kind and learnt to read Kannada and Telugu after he returned from exile after his encounter with his Guruji.  He dictated his book to G V Sharma after some 25 years after the stated psychic experience. He did not either mention his name in the book and it is written as if it was directly authored by Rishi Bharadwaja. Hence the confusion and people often refer to this book as one authored by Rishi Bharadwaja many thousands year ago. Shastry got the drawings done by one Mr.Ellappa, who was a draughtsman in a local engineering college then. Shastri seemed to have made several trips to Bombay talking to many people about his Vimanika Shastra.

One of the enthusiasts Shastri seemed to have interacted with while in Bombay was Mr.Shibkar Bapuji Talpade. Talpade was born in 1864 in Bombay and died in 1916. Talpade tried to make models under the guidance of Shastri, but he was not successful in making any of them fly (of course the so called ‘vedic designs’ he relied on to build his craft weren’t workable ones). The technical basis of these so called Vedic Designs which was supposedly used by Talpade has been debunked by research looking at the technological feasibility of such flights. The HRD minister Mr.Satyapal Singh now (as he demanded in his address at an event conducted by All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) in September, 2017) wants Talpade to be recognised as the Indian who invented aircraft first, 8 years before the Wright brothers did (Mr.Singh of course needs to make up his mind first on whether Talpade invented the airplane in 1895 or it was already invented 5000 years ago).  Pictures from this book are the ones people often circulate identifying them as vedic aircraft designs (Shakuna Vimana and Rukma Vimana). When someone is hell-bent on glorifying everything about the past for ulterior motives, absence of evidences don’t bother them. They would simply fabricate evidences if there are none.  

We must remember that many people pursued the dream of flying at different times and at different places.  Along with Wright brothers, many others, including Talpade, did try and make numerous attempts, especially towards the end of 19^th century and in the beginning of 20^th century, to build flying machines.  Many failed. Even Wright brothers have failed many times before they could hit upon a working model.  That is exactly how the humankind has acquired new knowledge; by asking questions and engaging with their surroundings through observations, experiments, evidences, failures and refinements.  Knowledge has no physical boundaries and its proliferation helps to expand the collective wisdom of the human race. We try to see farther standing on the shoulders of our predecessors and we keep enriching and correcting ourselves with respect to our knowledge about the universe we live in.

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 and numerous other fields of learning 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 in terms of our pursuance of new knowledge and in our effort to harness scientific temper in our new generations. 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 people. Living in the imaginary self-created cocoon of the fabricated past glory will only leave us behind in the race towards advancement and progress. The extremist rights in India must realize that they are doing a great disservice to the nation by indulging in falsehood and pursuing a divisive and destructive agenda. 

Video:  https://youtu.be/2SZDMapMtkk

sureshkodoor@gmail.com

Wrong side of the Right?

Wrong side of the Right?

-         Suresh Kodoor

While the world is witnessing and waking up to the worrying signs of dangerous resurgence of right-wing politics across the globe,  two most powerful representatives of the extreme right are aggressively polarising the population in their respective nations. These are the leaders at the helm of power (‘soon to be’ in case of one) of the two of the biggest democracies of the world. While the Indian Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi is leading the tirade by the Indian Right, the highly volatile presidential campaign of the US president-elect Mr. Donald Trump has left behind a deeply divided nation, driven more by identity politics than ideology, in the USA as never before.

Triumph of Mr. Trump has surprised many, may be including Trump himself. For those who still hold the values of democracy, citizen rights, liberty and freedom close to their hearts, the fact that Trump’s rightist rhetoric and absurdities found large number of takers was indeed shocking. Trump campaign has caused deep polarisation, forcing the people to take sides with either extreme right or the opposite. The middle space shrunk considerably and anyone not aligned with the right of the right are being automatically qualified to be in the ‘nation’s enemy’ camp. Even the moderates within the Republican Party found themselves in the sidelines, being pushed aside by the hardliners, closely resonating with the way Prime Minister Mr.Modi was raised to prominence within his party and eventually to the power.

The very mention of the name Narendra Modi evokes sharp reactions in India, either that of blind adulation or that of bitter disapproval. As with Trump, Modi has also been instrumental in considerably destroying the middle space in the Indian political discourses. For many, Modi epitomizes everything that is divisive and rightist. He has created a deep wedge among the population and people have invariably been fiercely taking sides in the domestic political debates. Modi of course belongs to the group that is on the extreme right within a political spectrum which subscribes to a divisive ideology, both in content and intent.  Modi also carries the burden of the blame for the communal violence orchestrated during his tenure as the Chief Minister of the Gujarat state. While Modi’s persona of a self-obsessed, autocratic, self-righteous ‘strong’ leader goes down well with the rightists, the same virtues evoke concerns with the liberals and the sections that care for the democratic and secular social fabric of the nation. Modi’s contempt for constitutional institutions (as exemplified by his recent refusal to address the parliament and his statements like ‘I am answerable only to people’) raises suspicion and fear that if another dark authoritarian ‘emergency-like’ era is looming large on the horizon. The liberals see traits of an insecure narcissist in him, overly obsessed with self (from being obsessed with his looks to the extent of launching a Mobile application under his own name and asking people to send greetings to the country’s men in uniform through the same), and a complete authoritarian who may anytime kick democracy with back of his foot. He holds obedience dear to him, not objectivity. And, most worryingly, a large number of his followers are absolutely in comfort with it and are bereft of sanity.

Lot of parallels can be read between Trump’s ascend to the US presidency and Mr. Modi's raise to the power in India. Both exploited the prevailing identity unrest among the right in their respective countries. Trump represents everything extreme right. His campaign left the liberals stand in shock as they watched a large section of people flocking behind his extremist rhetoric while the liberal values, established and accepted through long historical struggles, started eroding under their feet. Leaders of the ‘alternative right’ (alt-right) movement for instance, including Richard Spencer, hailed Trump as the hero of the rights. Spencer identified Trump’s victory as ‘the first step, the first sage towards identify politics for white people’. The alt-right, emerged in 2008, refers to the radical conservative movement defined by white nationalism which symbolises the resistance to multiculturalism and globalism. The white nationalists have always been raising immigration as their primary concern. They claim that ‘high fertility rate of third-world immigrants and low fertility rates of white women will threaten the very existence of white as a race’. Not surprisingly, the Hindu nationalists in India too argue in a similar line, the identity being religion in this case instead of race or nationality. Modi cashed in on this communal divide, sowed and nurtured by the right fundamentalists, the same way how Trump exploited the existing racism and xenophobia among the rights in the US. Of course both Modi and Trump were also helped by the incumbency coupled with weak opponents.

Trump’s win has provided renewed vigour to the right-extremist groups across Europe and US the same way how Modi’s elevation to power encouraged and emboldened many of the Sangha Parivar fanatical groups in India. These rightist groups upped their attack, including physical elimination, against the minorities and other liberal groups and individuals whoever has dared to question them or have raised dissenting voices. US would be facing a similar dilemma under Trump. Trump will have to now live up to the image he has created for himself as that of an anti-establishment rebel. Ironically though, a nation that was spearheading the campaign for a tariff-free world all these years through bodies like WTO, is now embarrassingly resorting to protectionism with Trump and that too under the premise of rightist nationalism.

Modi too is carrying the burden of his own ‘larger than life’ image, carefully cultivated and choreographed, and has found himself in a non-enviable position of having to justify or to give his silent consent to his political support groups engaged in atrocities, aggression and intolerance. Modi’s election campaign was designed to craftily build an image of him as a ‘war’ or ‘movie’ hero, who would on his own ‘destroy’ the ‘enemy’ and would bring glory to the nation. His campaign leaders thundered in the rallies that ‘once Modi becomes the Prime Minister, leave incidents of beheading of Indian soldiers, the Pakistani intruders will not even dare to enter into Indian side’. Unfortunately, that was not going to be the case and in fact India saw increased insurgencies recently from the other side of the border. This image of ‘born to teach Pakistan a lesson’ was under threat and his rightist base was growing impatient. Modi and his close aids of course were under tremendous pressure to do something dramatic to re-establish his ‘invincibility’ and to tighten his grip on the absolute power by positioning him as the sole ‘bold’ leader who alone can rescue the nation. The highly publicised ‘surgical strike’ and the melodramatic announcement of the demonetization should be understood against this backdrop.  The latest misstep of highly criticized demonetization move had stemmed from such an image-boosting compulsion though Mr.Modi ended up swallowing more than he could chew this time as the flawed strategy miserably failed. The arrogance and the self-righteous attitude displayed by Modi in the midnight announcement also contributed to intensifying the wide-spread criticism and protests against his demonetization decision. A desperate attempt to stir up nationalistic fervour to mobilise support in Modi’s favour only strengthened the resolve of the opposition.

Nationalism has come to the fore now as never before under the rightist regime. Everyone feels compelled to prove his or her patriotism to the self-anointed custodians of nationalism. Even constitutional institutions seem to have overcome by the intensity of the rightist propaganda and the resulting mood as exemplified by the recent order by the apex court which observed ‘it is time that everybody respects the national anthem’. What has changed now and what is special about ‘this time’ is the most important question.

At the time of crisis, nations need unifying leaders, not the polarising personalities. Leaders who take people along, letting them leave behind their diversities, inspiring them to unite for the common good. Collective decision making, rather than the ‘my way or no way’ autocracy should lead the nation in the right paths as the cost of any wrong step would be too high for many generations to pay. It hence becomes imperative that we, the people, guard against the leaders who want to drag the world to the wrong side of the right.   

Suresh Kodoor

sureshkodoor@gmail.com

 

Jingoism and Pseudoscience

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 102^nd 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