With Indian independence and coming of Indian Constitution; the foundations for progress in the society were laid. This was to be for an all out progress and the basis of this was the principles of scientific temper. This process was guided by the architect of modern India, Jawaharlal Nehru. We saw the surge of the institutions which contributed to the progress of the country; with great contributions of Indian scientists. There were flaws and weaknesses, of course, but the direction was a rational, direction was that of scientific approach. This fulfilled the clause of the Article 51a of the Indian constitution which enjoins upon citizens the “fundamental duty” to develop “the scientific temper”.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and its leaders, who are currently ruling and dictating the direction of scientific research and development, seem to have different ideas. While we have good foundations in all round areas of science and technology be it the area of basic science and technology, health, atomic energy, space science and what have you, it seems that currently direction being pursued by ruling dispensation is putting the things in the reverse gear.
During last seventy odd years the way our institutions have developed we can see their massive all round contribution in most areas of science and technology, though one can add, things could have been better. The inkling of this retrograde direction began with the previous BJP led NDA Government when Murali Manohar Joshi, the then MHRD minister introduced courses like astrology and Paurohitya (rituals) in Universities. In continuation with this pattern Dr. Satya Pal Singh, who is currently minster in MHRD, recently stated that Darwin’s theory is wrong as our ancestors did not mention that they saw ape turning into man in our scriptures. He was duly backed up by the RSS ideologue turned BJP leader Ram Madhav.
He himself a while ago he had stated that Wright brothers were not the first one’s to discover aero plane, it was and Indian, Shivkar Bapuji Talpade who had discovered it. He emphasized that such books should be taught in the schools which highlight the likes of Talpade. Theory of evolution has been one of the turning point discoveries of science, based on the painfully collected evidence by Darwin for a period of decades. As science is not based on faith there is always a scope to fill the gaps of knowledge of the original discoverer, and that’s how science develops. In contrast to the methods of science, the fundamentalists harp that all knowledge is already there in the Holy Scriptures, the word of almighty. Singh-Joshi-Ram Madhav clone is not the only ones’ in this retrograde thinking. The Christian fundamentalists went on to counter the theory of Darwin by putting together ‘Creation science’ and similarly Islamic fundamentalists like Zakir Naik also dismiss this theory on frivolous grounds.
Singh’s statement has been very disturbing for the scientific community in India. A large number of them expressed their anguish in a letter, which they sent to the Minister. The letter says that the minister’s statement was simplistic and misleading. “There is plentiful and undeniable scientific evidence to the fact that humans and the other great apes and monkeys had a common ancestor.” The letter further says that the minister’s claim that the Vedas contain answers to all questions is exaggerated and “is an insult to the genuine research work on history of Indian scientific traditions”.
“When a minister working for the human resource development in the country makes such claims, it harms the scientific community’s efforts to propagate scientific thoughts and rationality through critical education and modern scientific research,” reads the letter. “It also diminishes the image of the country at the global level and reduces faith of the international historical research community in the genuine research by the Indian researchers.”
At another level there are claims that Kauravas were born through the techniques mentioned in our holy scripture based on which Balkrishan Ganpat Matapurkar has patented the technique for body part generation, inspired by Gandhari’s giving birth to 100 sons and Karna taking birth from ear of Kunti. At equally interesting level is the understanding of the Chief of Indian Council of Historical Research, Y. Sudarshan. As per him reading of the Hindu epic Mahabharata can make us infer that the weapons described in them were the result of atomic fission and/or fusion. He also claims that stem cell research was there in Iron Age India.
It is not difficult to imagine that with this pattern of thinking among policy makers our science policy will get a strong jolt. Currently on most of issues the policy has been to encourage research and funding on topics, which are purely based on figments of imagination. Huge top level funding has recently been announced for Panchgavya, a mixture of cow urine, dung, ghee, curd and milk. The efforts to prove that Ram Setu (Adam’s bridge), bridge between India and Srilanka was for real and was built by Lord Ram with the help of Monkey army; are also on. In matters of History efforts are on to prove the existence of River Sarswati, to prove historicity of the epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata are among the few of them.
The twin processes involved here are to claim that all the knowledge is already there in our scriptures and that science-technology research and development should be along those lines. Second is to claim that all discoveries have their roots here in India, more so in India before the coming of Christians and Muslims. This seems to be running in parallel with identifying India with Hindus and Hinduism alone. One does feel that already during last many decades good foundation of scientific enterprises has been laid, the question is whether this community of scientists and Indian society at large will be able to resist these impositions on the march of direction of our science? Will our next generations be able to benefit from the rational thinking and achievements of science in coming times?
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Jaipur, Mar 28: Young Riyan Parag showed why he is considered a precocious talent as he struck a stunning 84 not out off 45 balls to set up a 12-run win for Rajasthan Royals against Delhi Capitals in their IPL match here on Thursday.
Sent in to bat, RR were reduced to 36 for 3 in the eighth over but the 22-year-old Parag single-handedly took the home side to 185 for 5 with a magnificent unbeaten knock studded with seven fours and six sixes.
Parag, who was promoted to number 4 by the team management this season and made 43 in the previous match, took 25 runs off veteran South African pacer Anrich Nortje with scores of 4, 4, 6, 4, 6, 1 in the final over to hit his highest T20 score.
Chasing 186 for a win, DC could only manage 173 for 5 in 20 overs though South African youngster Tristan Stubbs (44 not out off 23 balls) kept them in the hunt till the final over from which they needed 17 runs.
Avesh Khan conceded just four runs to help RR win their second consecutive match.
South African pacer Nandre Burger and Yuzvendra Chahal took two wickets apiece to also contribute in the RR win.
"Definitely disappointed. The best thing to do from here is to learn from it. The bowlers did well through the 15-16 overs. But the batters did well at the death, hopefully we do better in the next game," DC skipper Rishabh Pant said.
DC were reduced to 34 for 2 in the fourth over with Burger taking two wickets in three balls in a fine display of fast bowling.
Burger, who was brought in as Impact Sub for Shimron Hetmyer, dismissed opener Mitchell Marsh (23 off 12 balls) and Ricky Bhui (0) in the fourth over.
DC captain Rishabh Pant came out to bat at the fall of Bhui's wicket and along with senior batter David Warner built the innings without taking too much risk. Delhi were 89 for 2 at the halfway stage.
Warner was the more aggressive one as he got the boundaries to keep DC in the hunt. The senior Australian batter fell one run short of his fifty courtesy a brilliant diving catch by Sandeep Sharma off the bowling of Avesh in the 12th over.
Warner and Pant were involved in a crucial 67-run partnership for the third wicket.
Playing in his 100th IPL match and 14 months after a horrible car crash, Pant tried to build the innings with occasional boundaries. But he got out for a 26-ball 28 as Chahal induced a faint lower edge for Sanju Samson to do the rest behind the stumps in the 14th over.
The asking rate shot up to more than 13 runs an over and DC needed 66 from the last five overs.
Stubbs kept DC in the game with two consecutive sixes off Ravichandran Ashwin in the 17th over, but in the end the Delhi side were short by 12 runs.
They needed 34 runs from the final two overs which they could not get. It was DC's second consecutive loss.
Earlier, Parag shared 54 and 52 runs respectively with Ravichandran Ashwin (29) and Dhruv Jurel (20) after RR made a shaky start.
Royals captain Samson struck three consecutive boundaries in the fourth over bowled by pacer Mukesh Kumar before nicking a Khaleel Ahmed delivery two overs later to Pant to get out for 15.
RR were 30 for 2 by then as Mukesh had given DC their first breakthrough with the wicket of Yashasvi Jaiswal (5).
The Royals were in more trouble after wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav literally forced his captain Pant to take a review, which later proved to be successful, to dismiss Englishman Jos Buttler for an LBW decision.
Ashwin came out to bat at number five and he lofted a Kuldeep delivery for a six to help RR reach 58 for 3 at halfway stage. He gave Nortje even a harsher treatment with two sixes in the next over that yielded 15 runs.
Ashwin, however, holed out to Tristan Stubbs near the boundary ropes for a 19-ball 29.
Parag then made his presence felt, striking two boundaries and a six off Ahmed to take RR past 100 in the 15th over.