Author: Meera Nanda
Publication: The Week
Date: June 24, 2001
The leading Hindutva ideas-men go
around calling themselves "intellectual Kshatriyas". But Kshatriyas were
only supposed to defend dharma as a way of life. Why, then, are our Kshatriyas
so bent upon defending dharma as science? Why must they insist upon declaring
astrology, and the entire Vedic tradition, 'scientific'?
But first, 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.
Instead, get used to the doublespeak
of 'Vedic science'. 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-payers' rupees and large grants from private
foundations are pouring into "research centres" dedicated to showing the
scientificity of Hindu scriptures.
Everything Vedic-from yagnas to
the gods of all things, to reincarnation, karma 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 synthesise
science with god, facts with values.
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. Symptoms of such schizophrenia
are already evident: The nuclear bomb tests in 1998 were justified and
packaged in dharmic terms. Hindu ideologues celebrated the bomb by invoking
gods and goddesses symbolising shakti and vigyan.
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 dharma of India.
They have dreamt of a "Hindu modernity" in which technology serves to glorify
India's "natural" spirituality.
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.
Hindutva is in the process of creating
a myth of "Vedic science" which can co-opt and absorb modern science into
Hindu traditions by 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, yagnas, ayurveda,
Vastu Shastra, Hindu ecology, Hindu meteorology, etc., are scientific from
a Hindu perspective. '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 realisation.
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 from the new and the alien by turning it into
an inferior aspect of itself, quietly metabolising 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-defence and self-perpetuation.
But there remains a philosophical
problem. How to convince the sceptics 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 favour 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 modernisation 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 decolonisation will only come with development of
indigenous sciences.
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 criticise scientists for being closed-minded
and westernised for not allowing Hindu science a chance to challenge the
western idea of science, and for writing off astrology without studying
it!
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 have for too long decried it as a ploy of westernised
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 80s, which marked the beginning of
the end of the Nehruvian consensus over secularism and modernity, there
have been few voices that have actively challenged the many signs of unreason
and arbitrary authority in our society.
(Meera Nanda is a fellow of the
American Council of Learned Societies at Columbia University, New York.)
