[FairfieldLife] Why Hindutva Loves [Vedic] "Science"

[Vaj]

<x-tad-bigger>Why Hindutva Loves "Science"

</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>Meera Nanda </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>

We can understand why the leading Hindutva ideas-men go around calling themselves "intellectual Kshatriyas": they are at home in a varna-defined world. But the Kshatriyas were only supposed to defend </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>dharma </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>as a way of life. Why, then, are our Kshatriyas so bent upon defending </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>dharma </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>as</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger> science</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>? Why is it not enough for them to have pulled off a coup against higher education in India by forcing such absurdities as "Vedic astrology" into the college curricula? Why must they </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>also</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger> insist upon declaring astrology, and the entire Vedic tradition, "scientific"?

Why this sudden love for "science" in the saffron camp?

          We will solve this mystery as we go along. We will also unearth a curious, although entirely unintended alliance between our Vedic warriors and our postmodern Brahmins in universities and social movements, both in India and abroad. We will find that postmodernist condemnations of science and modernity, coupled with uncritical celebration of "local knowledges" have created a climate in which irrationalities of all kinds can thrive.

But first: some friendly advice to help you cope with what lies ahead…..

Get over whatever mental blocks you may have against this oxymoron called "Vedic science," which pairs the archaic, mystical and unfalsifiable worldview of the Vedas with science. Put away whatever residual hopes you may still cherish that science could help demystify and liberalize our culture…..

Instead, get used to the doublespeak of "Vedic science," for we are going to hear a lot more of it. Be prepared for a flood of books, TV-shows and even new computer programs extolling the virtues of Hindu sciences. After all, big money is behind it: tax-payer's rupees and large grants from private foundations (Hinduja Foundation, Infinity Foundation) are pouring into "research centers" dedicated to showing the scientificity of Hindu scriptures. If you thought that Vedic astrology was merely a personal idiosyncrasy of Murli Manohar Joshi and a handful of UGC bureaucrats, think again!

Everything Vedic – from </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>yagna</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>s to the gods of all things, to reincarnation, </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>karma </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>and parapsychology will make a claim for the status of "science." And everything scientific – from the knowledge of quantum physics, to the laws of molecular biology and ecology – will be declared to be already there in the Vedas. Modern science will be treated as a Western corruption of the non-dualist Vedic sciences which can synthesize science with god, facts with values, etc. Mother India will be called upon to heal the wounds inflicted on the entire world by the "violence" of soul-less modern science.

But – and here the plot begins to thicken – this will not stop the BJP government from acquiring the most violent and the most destructive products of modern science and technology. We are heading toward a schizophrenic national culture in which the technological products of modern science will be eagerly embraced, but the secular culture which science was supposed to help create will be strenuously denied. Instead of a genuine secular culture, which denies the existence of gods in nature and the authority of god-men in culture, the intellectual Kshatriyas are intent on declaring the dharmic worldview, with its nature-gods and miracle-working gurus, to be the essence of a "higher" science and "authentic" secularism. Symptoms of such schizophrenia are already evident:

1.</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-smaller>      </x-tad-smaller><x-tad-bigger>The nuclear bomb tests in 1988 were justified and packaged in dharmic terms. Hindu ideologues claimed that the bomb was foretold by Lord Krishna in the Bhagwat Gita when he declared himself to be “the radiance of a thousand suns, the splendor of the Mighty One. ..I am become Death." They celebrated the bomb by invoking gods and goddesses symbolizing shakti and vigyan. Even Ganesha idols turned up with atomic halos around their heads and with guns in their hands!


2.</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-smaller>      </x-tad-smaller><x-tad-bigger> In April 2001, the Indian Space Research Organization made history by successfully putting a satellite into the geo-stationary orbit, 36,000 km. above the earth. This same "space power" that takes justified pride in its ability to touch the stars, will soon start educating its youth in how to read our fortunes and misfortunes in the stars and how to propitiate these stars through appropriate </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>karmakanda</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>. For all we know, the satellites launched by the much-celebrated GSLV might some day carry internet signals that will make horoscopes easier to match!

This is how the secularist dream ends: with nuclear bombs in the silos, and the Vedas in the schools; with satellites in space, and horoscopes in our lives down here on earth.

This secularist nightmare is Hindutva's dream-come-true. From Bankim Chandra to Vivekananda to today's Sangh-parivar, the neo-Hindus have dreamt of uniting the industry and technology of the West with the </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>dharma </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>of India. They have dreamt of a "Hindu modernity" in which technology serves to glorify India's "natural" spirituality.

This Hindu modernity, incidentally, bears a frightening similarity with the reactionary modernism of Hitler's Germany, where high technology was allowed to mix with a highly romanticized dream of recreating an Aryan society. The Nazis, too, assumed that Germany could be both technologically advanced </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>and</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger> remain true to its "Aryan soul".

But the Hindu ideologues face the same problem as the Nazis faced: how to reconcile technological modernization with cultural conservatism? How to prevent the science that goes into making the technology from challenging the worldview sanctioned by religion and traditions? The problem is truly serious for Hinduism, because modern science, if taken seriously, can challenge the most fundamental axioms of </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>dharma </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>which are based upon such "laws of nature" as karma, rebirth and hierarchy of beings determined by karmic cause-and-effect. If it is given the cultural authority as a superior way of knowing, modern science has the potential to demystify the hallowed truths of Hinduism itself, to say nothing of the countless miracles and superstitions that are a part of everyday life of average Indians. It is thus imperative for Hindutva that science remains limited to technological gizmos, and does not spill over into the larger culture.

Like the Nazi myth of "Aryan science," Hindutva is in the process of creating a myth of "Vedic science" which can co-opt and absorb modern science into Hindu traditions by simply declaring these traditions to be scientific. Hindutva ideologues argue that just as modern "Western science" is scientific from a Judeo-Christian perspective, Hindu traditions of astrology, </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>yagna</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>s, ayurveda, vastu shastra, Hindu ecology, Hindu meteorology etc. are scientific from a Hindu perspective. Indeed "Vedic science" is declared to be ahead of modern science, as it treats all entities in an integrated whole – never mind that many of its "entities" (atman, the gunas, "hot" and "cold" substances) and "subtle forces" (of mantras, meditation, planets, karma) can't even be defined with any precision, let alone measured and tested empirically with appropriate controls. But "mere" definitions, measurements and controlled tests are declared to be Western. Hindu sciences use "their own" methodology of meditation and direct realization.

So now we know why the saffron Kshatriyas are so keen on defending the Vedic lore as science. This is their way of taming what threatens Hinduism the most, i.e. modern science. Hinduism has always protected itself form the new and the alien by turning it into an inferior aspect of itself, quietly metabolizing it until it is absorbed into the existing belief structure. Turning modern science into just a part of Hindu wisdom is merely a continuation of this classic Hindu tradition of self-defense and self-perpetuation. Hindutva gets a good name for "openness" and "tolerance," while the end-result is as conservative as the Taliban could've hoped for. In the end, the old decides what parts of the new will be fitted where, and what parts will be unceremoniously thrown out. In the end, the old has always won in India.

But there remains a philosophical problem. How to convince the skeptics that the Vedas are as scientific – and indeed, even more "objective" and even more "advanced" – than modern science? Our Kshatriyas need some arguments to back up their bold assertions.

These arguments have been obligingly supplied by the secular, academic critics of modern science and the Enlightenment. The leading trend in sociology of science in the last couple of decades has been to deny that modern science is a distinctive body of knowledge, which has succeeded in attaining higher standards of objectivity and reliability than other, pre-modern, magical-religious ways of understanding nature. Abusing the ideas of Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend, two well-known scholars of science, radical critics have claimed that non-Western, traditional ways of knowing are as scientific in their social context as modern science is in the Western context.

These ideas have found great favor among prominent left-oriented critics of the West in India associated with a host of populist "alternative science" and "alternative development" movements, with Gandhian, environmentalist, and even some Marxist elements. All these groups believe that the problems of modernization in India stem from the very nature of modern scientific ways of thinking about nature and human beings. They see the content of science – and not just its application – to be Western or Orientalist, and believe that real decolonization will only come with development of indigenous sciences.

Interestingly, Hindutva intellectuals make exactly the same arguments in support of Vedic sciences that abound in the alternative/postmodern science literature. Indeed, they often even cite the same sources (especially the much-maligned late Thomas Kuhn), but only replace "the people" or "the oppressed" with "Hindu" ways of knowing.

Take for example the argument for scientificity of astrology. It is the neo-Gandhian Ashis Nandy and his followers who have long argued that astrology can't be condemned as a superstition. On the strength of the argument that all "ethno-sciences" are equal, and that modern science has no greater claim to objectivity, Nandy has argued that modern science is the myth of the imperialist West, and astrology is the myth of the weak, who are the victims of the West. If that is granted, Nandy argues, the weak should have the right to challenge the "myth" of science.

One finds a similar argument in the Hindutva literature. They criticize scientists for being closed-minded and Westernized for not allowing Hindu science a chance to challenge the Western idea of science, and for writing off astrology without studying it! (One wonders how many more refutations will it take to satisfy the Hindu ideologues? Astrology must the most rigorously falsified body of "knowledge" in the entire history of ideas).

The more sophisticated Hindutva advocates, including US-based/returned scientists like Subhash Kak, David Frawley and N.S. Rajaram argue that the conceptual categories and methods of science must be organically connected to the rest of the culture of a society. On this account, different cultures will have different idea of what is reasonable and true: thus, the supernatural is declared to be real and true for Hindu science. This idea that standards and methods of rationality differ with different cultures is borrowed from the postmodernist critiques of science.

Secular intellectuals and progressive social movements, which should have been at the forefront of defending scientific temper, have for too long decried it as a ploy of Westernized elites. At a time when modern science needed to establish its cultural authority so that it could set new norms for public discourse and provide a more rational worldview, it remained besieged from all sides. Ever since the scientific temper debate in early 1980s, which marked the beginning of the end of the Nehruvian consensus over secularism and modernity, there have been very few voices in the public sphere that have actively challenged the many signs of unreason and arbitrary authority in our society. Vedic sciences are only the chickens coming home to roost.

A recovery of secularism will need a recovery of respect for science and scientific temper. The Vedic astrology episode ought to be a wake-up call to all who are concerned about the future of a secular India.

Meera Nanda is a fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies at Columbia University, New York. She is the author of </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>Prophets Facing Backward: Postmodern Critiques of Science and the Rise Of Reactionary Modernism in India, </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>Forthcoming from Rutgers University Press (USA) and Permanent Black (India).

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