We must Raise our Voice against Communalization of Science
The symposium on “Ancient Indian Science through Sanksrit”, in the 102nd Indian Science Congress held at Mumbai, afforded yet another glimpse of the Hindutva agenda in its most bizarre, ludicrous, and devious best. It featured papers on aircrafts in ancient India, the endorsement of Vaastushastra as a science, and stated that Yoga could be prescribed to treat neurological disorders. It was based on a familiar combination of the deliberate use of anachronistic terminologies, a lack of rigour in historic analysis, and vagueness in citing reference texts and sources.
This follows a similar trend in the recent past where public figures such as the Prime Minister of India, and some ministers of his cabinet, have made claims ranging from the presence of genetic engineering in ancient India, to the presence of the principles of quantum mechanics in the Vedas. While it is important to study ancient texts and discover sources about ancient India, it is rank obscurantism to suggest that many of the advancements made by modern science were already present in ancient India and in the Vedas.
This also raises an important a question for all scientists, and more so for all of us in the social sciences. The former has always been attacked in these situations, and rightly so. However the social sciences in India, by not challenging such a misrepresentation of the history of India and the history of science in India, have also given its approval to the Hindutva project. The society around us being the subject of our study, it is imperative for the social sciences to critically analyse these reactionary trends and rise in unity against such propaganda.
The promotion and safeguarding of the (constitutional) values of secularism and scientific temper, is not a choice but a fundamental responsibility for all of us trying to rationally analyse the society around us. We must come out against such a right wing agenda which is anti-historic, communal, and pseudo-scientific.
Progressive Students’ Forum
TISS
Progressive Students' Forum TISS 