Science is taking a beating along with many other matters of social and political importance. However, when science is under siege from right-wing forces “ the examples are discussed below “ the immediate threat and its future implications for the society become grave.
Once the thread of logic, rational and empirical proof is systematically blurred, as is happening now, it might become all the more easier for the right and far-right to legitimise their doubtful social propaganda hinged on the creation of a “Hindu Rashtra”. Accordingly, it will also become all the more difficult for those opposing such views on legit grounds, to be heard and understood.
Over the past few years, repeated references have been made by members of the ruling party to clamp scientific validation on various episodes mentioned in Hindu epics Ramayana and Mahabharata. Such references, that range from outright bizarre to worrisome, have gained momentum. For example, on January 20, Satyapal Singh, the Minister of State for Human Resource Development said “Darwin’s theory (of evolution of humans) is scientifically wrong. It needs to change in school and college curriculum. Since the man is seen on Earth he has always been a man.” The IPS officer-turned-politician made this observation while attending the ‘All India Vaidik Sammelan’ in Aurangabad, Maharashtra.
“Nobody, including our ancestors, in written or oral, have said they saw an ape turning into a man,” he said, adding “No books we have read or the tales told to us by our grandparents had such a mention,” Singh said. In 2017 Singh had proposed that Indian engineering students study the Pushpak Vimaan, a flying chariot mentioned in the Hindu epic Ramayana.
Most religions in the world have many incredulous miracles included in their texts. Beliefs propagated by priests and religious heads have also often conflicted with scientific research of the time. For example, 16th century astronomer Galileo Galilei was jailed by the church for sticking to his scientific calculations that concluded that the earth was a sphere, and not flat, as widely believed at the time.
In 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave the example of the Hindu god Ganesh to state that ancient India was proficient in plastic surgery and reproductive genetics. The Prime Minister was referring to a tale when a young Ganesh was decapitated, after which an elephant head was attached to his body. He alluded that such a scientific accomplishment has not even been made in 2018. Virendra Singh, the BJP MP from Bhadohi in Uttar Pradesh, in his speech in Lok Sabha in 2016, recommended that religious rituals of offering ghee, fruits and food as sacrifice in sacred fires (havans) would solve the drought problem and consequently, farmer crisis. “Havan of ghee produces oxygen and havan of agricultural produce produces hydrogen, the two elements that constitute water,” he reportedly said.
While believers do not question the scientific basis of some incredulous ideas included in religious texts, most modern men and women also exist in a comfortable sphere of “double-thinking” where they do not allow their day-to-day lives that call for the use and reliance on several modern innovations, to get affected by some unscientific narrations of the religions the religions they prescribe to. However, as things go now, going back to the roots seems like a deliberate political exercise that audaciously and directly contradicts the scientific know-how that human race has laboriously gathered over generations.
Apart from being scientifically inaccurate, some claims made by right-wing groups are downright culturally unsound and objectionable. For example, Baba Ramdev, who is now engaged in Ayurvedic goods trades, has been in the news at least a couple of times recently for advertising products that aren’t questionable for their scientific merits, but also exhibit a regressive mindset. In a skin cream ad, Baba Ramdev’s brand claims that the cream cures a number of skin ailments, including dark skin. There was a Twitter storm protesting the ad, with thousands of women asserting that their dark skin wasn’t an ailment.
In another 2015 advertisement, purportedly for an infertility cure, Baba Ramdev’s brand advertised a “Putrajeevak” medicine to guarantee the “birth of a male child.” This product was also highly dissed. Such an inherent patriarchal mindset led to the female foeticide epidemic in the country. It has taken years of efforts by activists and the states to swing the sex ratio in favour of the girl child. A “Putravjeevak” pill goes against the very fabric of many female foeticide campaigns across the nation. One wonders why the Baba wasn’t booked under one of the relevant sections of the IPC. Oh, he has a large political patronage, right.
BJP union minister Maneka Gandhi, in 2015 proposed that cow urine be used as a floor disinfectant. In the same year, a government-run hospital in Rajasthan, a state with a BJP government, decided to actually start using cow urine to mop its floors. From granting funding to research the medicinal properties of “panchgavya” made from five elements products by the cow - milk, ghee, curd, cow urine and cow dung - mixed with tender coconut, banana and jaggery - this purported ancient Ayurvedic preparation cures cancer, according to some ardent BJP leaders. Crores of finance being diverted into such a wild-goose chase, possibly pushing back other research, highlights the extent to which cow-centred ideology has penetrated.
