by PRABIR PURKAYASTHA
The RSS and its camp followers have a strange relationship to imagination. They take the imagination of the mythology, and present it as matter of fact history. When it comes to the scientific imagination – how to create new sciences – they fall back on the sterile claim that we having nothing new to discover, as all of it has been already done by our sages in the past. This is the Batra version of science, available in the Gujarat text books. This view of science is also endorsed by the PM, Narendra Modi. In his speech while opening a new wing in the Reliance Hospital last year, Modi claimed genetics and organ transplants were available in ancient India. He said, “What I mean to say is that we are the country which had these capabilities. We need to regain these.”
No science required, just study Sanskrit. No developments, only regaining of “ancient” knowledge. No wonder science budget is continuously being cut under the Modi regime.
This is the same approach that leads to claiming knowledge of aeronautics in ancient India, based on a supposed text of Rishi Bharadwaj, which we know was composed only in early 20th century. As opposed to presenting such myths as science, we have the real advances in science and technology that took place in India, that is currently being rejected as anti-Hindu.
Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan are two pioneers in advancing rocketry. They used such rockets effectively against the British in the Anglo-Mysore wars. Roddam Narasimbha, one of the doyens of Indian aeronautics, wrote a detailed paper in 1985 on these developments. He discussed how British took such knowledge from India, and subsequently used it in their wars against the French and the British. Abdul Kalam, who according to the current Culture Minister, Mahesh Sharma, was a “nationalist” “despite being a Muslim”, accorded high praise to Tipu Sultan and Hyder Ali. In his autobiography, he talks about how, while visiting NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, he discovered Tipu’s pioneering contributions to rocketry. A painting of Tipu’s use of rockets against the British, is displayed in the main reception there.
In the 102nd Indian Science Congress last year, a session titled “Ancient Sciences through Sanskrit” was organised by the Sanskrit Department of Mumbai University. This had a paper on ancient Indian aviation technology, presented by two speakers, one of whom was Captain Anand J Bodas, a retired pilot. He stated to the press such gems as, “modern science is unscientific”, and in Vedic or ancient Indian times, an aeroplane traveled “through the air from one country to another, from one continent to another continent, from one planet to another planet.” According to Bodas, “In those days aeroplanes were huge in size, and could move left, right, as well as backwards, unlike modern planes which only fly forward.”
We will let stupidities such as ancient Indian aeroplanes “flying through air” between planets and “flying backwards” pass. What is important is what the Head of the Sanskrit Department, while defending the paper, said, that it was being presented by a pilot and therefore needs to be taken seriously. We should accept the scientific validity of the paper, because Bodas can fly an airplane! Not on the evidence on which these absurd conclusions were being presented; or any scientific examination of the concepts, or any analysis of the likely date of the so-called evidence. What mattered is that the speaker was a pilot – which he proves he can fly and not that he can read – and he endorses the claims of ancient Indian science, as long it is written in Sanskrit.
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