Engineering students across the country will be introduced to a new kind of “science fiction” in the next academic year, thanks to the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE). The council has approved the introduction of “Bharatiya Vidya Saar”, a book published by the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, in the elective course in 3,000-odd technical colleges, in what is seen as an attempt to instil pride and awareness about India's fabled past so that they are not swept off their feet by the advancements in science and technology in the West.
The objective might be laudable, but the claims made in “Bharatiya Vidya Saar”, edited by Dr Shashibala, have drawn flak. Ankit Sule, a Mumbai-based scientist with the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, started an online petition, addressed to AICTE Chairman Anil Sahasrabuddhe, demanding that the book be withdrawn as a reference book. Calling it “pseudo scientific”, he expressed the fear that if the proposal to introduce the book was implemented, “gullible institutions may end up teaching misinformation to thousands of students”.
When Sule talks of “misinformation”, he is on a sound wicket. In fact, “Bharatiya Vidya Saar” can be fairly targeted for spreading disinformation or plain fiction as facts of science. Sample this: The book claims that Rig Veda talks accurately of the speed of light. The Veda talks, too, of the theory of gravitation much before Isaac Newton was born.
That is not all. Saint Agastya, it claims, invented the electro-voltaic cell and gave the method of electrolysis to produce oxygen and hydrogen from water. He was not the only saint in ancient India to be gifted with rare scientific insight. Rishi Kanad is said to have discussed different types of motion, including the laws of motion in “Vaisheshik Sutra”, long before the world of science became familiar with them thanks to Newton.
The book claims: “The Vaimanika Shastra was written by Rishi Bharadwaj about 5,000 years ago. It is an authoritative text on not just construction of airplanes but also on navigation, aviation fuels and pilot preparation.”
Sule’s online petition was countered by Shashibala with a petition of her own about “The Right to Know Indian Knowledge Systems”. Sahasrabuddhe, among others, has signed the petition. The book is said to have been vetted by a committee. But it has failed to impress the academic community. Scientists and historians are laughing at the claims made in the book as “fanciful”. Academics see it as an extension of the attempts to toy with history.
The historian Prof. Aditya Mukherjee questions the very premise of such a course. “This is a false and negative way of trying to create 'nationalism'. They are trying to be nationalists by saying India was great in the past, [when] all scientific breakthroughs took place. The NCERT [National Council for Education Research and Training] had warned about this kind of wild drive into the past as being responsible for creating morons in the student community. Amartya Sen had said almost the same thing in ‘The Argumentative Indian’. He said, ‘India did achieve great breakthroughs in the past, in mathematics, astronomy, etc. These breakthroughs happened during a period when India was open to all winds of change from across the world, including what they say, the Muslim period or the Muslim world.’”
The claims, he says, stem from a closed mindset that we (India) were the centre of the earth, until the Muslims came in.
Delhi University’s Prof. Prem Singh says: “Any propaganda by the ruling dispensation cannot replace the scholarship and scientific approach of the academic community. The so-called scholars within the RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh] should step forward and speak out against such a thing. Otherwise, they cannot claim to be scholars. They must fulfil the norms of scholarship. If they keep quiet, they cannot claim to be scholars. The claims made in the book will harm future generations. Young men and women will be confused.” He wants “the book to be withdrawn immediately”.
Prof. P.K. Dutta, renowned for his independent approach to history, sees the entire exercise as a political move that will have to be countered with a multi-pronged strategy. “This kind of thing amounts to reversing the education process by producing myth. Pedagogically speaking, this is extremely disastrous. So there comes the question: how do we counter this? This will have to be countered politically, academically, and so on. The problem with our system today is that our schools, universities and education system have become so integrated with government departments that it becomes a political problem immediately. It does not stay confined to academic circles. These things always have a political aspect to it. It is not like taking a fresh approach to history or science.”
Are we not selling fiction in the name of science? “It is something that has been happening for some time,” says Prof. Dutta. “There have to be more concerted attempts to educate the educators.”
One cannot help recall the words of Prof. Rizwan Qaiser of Jamia Millia Islamia: “The Hindutva brigade is anti-knowledge. Knowledge threatens them.... What they are doing is complete distortion of history. They are manufacturing facts.”
Prof. Mukherjee draws attention to the plight of a student who grows up reading such “science fiction”. “Imagine a youngster growing up with the notion that we knew it all. A historian has argued, if we knew it all in the past, how come we forgot it? The Hindutva brigade would always say that the Islamic period was the Dark Age.
The Muslims made us forget it all! Earlier, women were respected, there was scientific progress, etc. There was no Sati. Everything was perfect before the Muslims came in. Such an approach will only produce morons, and these aggressive nationalists who believe all truth is with them are actually fascists.”
Amid all the furore, Shashibala proved elusive. Repeated messages and phone calls went unanswered.
Ziya Us Salam
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