Why India's close to entering an era of ideology-driven science
Yoga as panacea for ill-health including cure for lifestyle aliments and infectious diseases, cow urine distillates as wonder drugs for several diseases including cancer, holy basil Tulsi as the "mother medicine of nature" with properties that can cure everything from malaria to anti-fertility, genetic basis proves that Ramayana is not mythology but history.
Don't be mistaken. This is not the agenda of any Hindutva group, but recent research findings or pronouncements made by research institutes, universities and scientific departments of the government of India. Does it mean that so-called fringe elements close to the Central government have started influencing mainstream science in India? Has India entered an era of "ideology-driven science"?
Some leading scientists feel that Indian science is at the verge of a paradigm shift.
"Fringe groups are becoming important to the government and policy making today. This has meant a nuanced support to physical sciences and also increasing support to explore ideology-driven sciences. Most important though is creation of atmosphere in which rational scientists are being projected as agents of the West out to undermine the glory of ancient Indian past," said Mayank Vahia, an astrophysicist at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), while elaborating on opinion piece he has written in Current Science, official journal of the Indian Academy of Sciences.
Eminent scientist and founder-director of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Pushpa Mittra Bhargava agrees with Vahia. "There is no doubt that with the present government at the centre which is the political front of the RSS, fringe elements have started squeezing Indian science including mainline science and science policies. This is clear from the appointments made to crucial scientific posts," Bhargava commented.
In his article in Current Science, Vahia has reopened the debate about claims of ancient Indian achievements in science made at the Mumbai session of Indian Science Congress in January 2015. While acknowledging achievements of ancient Indians such as Aryabhatta and his collaborators, the work on zinc smelting and ideas proposed under the Kerala School of Mathematics, Vahia says that rationalist Indian scientists are willing to study past achievements based on principles of logic and evidence.
"But the fringe nationalistic groups wish to go beyond logical explanations, try to forcefully occupy the mainstream dialogue on India's past and are not willing to accept limitations imposed by logic. The great seers of the past were supposed to be all-seeing and all-knowing, period," notes Vahia, who has been involved in several astronomy experiments onboard missions of the Indian Space Research Orgnisation (ISRO) and the American space agency, NASA.
The consequence of such approach could be disastrous. "The rationalist scientists will find their own work space squeezed as they begin to deal with a government that is influenced by parochial consideration. Pure excellence will give way to committed excellence - an oxymoron idea", Vahia warns.
Asked about the support fringe elements are getting from scientists, Vahia said "most mainstream scientists get overwhelmed by the beauty and elegance of nature in a few years and fair fraction of them have strongly religious background. In most cases, the argument that 'to study a recipe of a good dish is not to opine on the cook' works well but in some cases, scientists do get carried away. In rare cases they become convinced about the gods as entities who supervise our lives and give up the rationalist approach to life and existence. These scientists do then become supporters of irrationality".
Bhargava also agreed that "fringe elements do derive support from a fair proportion of mainstream scientists which is a great pity." The battle line is getting clearer. Vahia wants rationalist scientists to take on fringe elements by educating people about real achievements of the past. "Scientists will have to arm themselves with a better understanding of the true achievements of the past, and then step forward and take on the fringe groups who are well-organised, well-funded, shrill and increasingly tolerated, if not encouraged by the powers that be. This will be a distraction, but the battle is for the soul of the nation, no more, no less. A battle is not far, and it will be brutal, hard and long."
Given the fact that most Indian scientists are "career-conscious" and depend on government grants for research, it is doubtful if many would join Vahia in his campaign. It may be too early to say if India is entering ideology-driven science, but strong words coming from leading scientists do indicate that the fault lines in Indian science are wide open.