Indian Science Congress 2015 and an alternative narrative

Author: Sankrant Sanu
Publication: Niticentral.com
Date: January 4, 2015
URL: http://www.niticentral.com/2015/01/04/indian-science-congress-2015-create-alternative-narrative-294557.html

“The biggest weapon wielded and actually daily unleashed … is the culture bomb. The effect of a cultural bomb is to annihilate people’s belief … in themselves. It makes them see their past as one wasteland of non-achievement and it makes them want to distance themselves from that wasteland. It makes them want to identify with that which is furthest removed from themselves; for instance, with other people’s languages than their own.”(NgũgĩwaThiong’o, quoted in “The English Class System”)

One aspect of the colonial mind is that science and knowledge must come from the West or, at the very least, be stamped by Western approval. A viewpoint not yet receiving this seal of approval must be accompanied by sniggers and dismissed as “reactionary revivalism” not quite fitting into the teleology of progress. Apropos, this tweet by Ramchandra Guha, regarding the Indian Science Congress.

How the Indian Science Congress gives space to Sanghi loonies: a report that is both amusing and disturbing http://www.
hindustantimes.com/india-news/flight-envisioned-by-sage-autopsy-in-ancient-sanskrit-texts-why-indian-science-congress-won-t-be-a-dull-affair/article1-1302420.aspx
…

The article referenced takes a similarly sardonic tone about the temerity of the brown natives to suggest, for instance, that autopsies were performed in ancient India. We find that the most jingoistic Indian faithful of “science as Western” are often non-scientists like Guha and journalists with little scientific training. For them science has become a modern religion, the gospel of which was revealed in Europe and duly transmitted to save the brown-skinned natives of third world countries from their centuries of backwardness.

Prof. CK Raju knows of this problem well. In his book Cultural Foundations of Mathematics (Pearson Longman, 2007), he traces the transmission of Calculus from India to Europe. A counter-narrative to received wisdom is always difficult. The received wisdom, that Leibniz and Newton “independently” invented Calculus needed no proof. It was true by its obviousness just as Europe invented plastic surgery and Marconi the radio. The challenger to these accepted narratives is faced with a much greater burden of proof than what was produced to back these original accounts.

CK Raju faced this challenge in the case of Calculus, just as Shri Dharampal and others documented the transmission of the knowledge of plastic surgery from India to Europe during colonial rule. As Raju writes

“The English-speaking world has known for over one and a half centuries that “Taylor” series expansions for sine, cosine and arctangent functions were found in Indian mathematics/astronomy/timekeeping (jyotisa) texts and specifically the works of Madhava, Neelkantha, Jyeshtadeva etc. No one else, however, has so far studied the connection of these Indian developments to European mathematics.”

How exactly did this transmission happen? It turns out the Europeans had desperately been looking for an accurate calendar.

“The European calendar was off by 10 days, and this led to large inaccuracies (more than 3 degrees) in calculating latitude from measurement of solar altitude at noon, using e.g. the method described in the Laghu Bhâskarîya of Bhaskara. However, reforming the calendar required a change in the dates of the equinoxes, hence a change in the date of Easter, and this was authorised by the Council of Trent in 1545.”

Why did the Europeans need an accurate calendar? An accurate calendar was essential for navigation. The navigators could calculate their position based on the altitude of the sun or star, but these measurements were only useful if one had an accurate date. Without that, their calculations for latitude would be off, causing a major problem to European navigators. Where then, to turn to, then to India, the center of advanced mathematics and science?

“Jesuits, like Matteo Ricci, who trained in mathematics and astronomy, under Clavius’ new syllabus were sent to India. In a 1581 letter, Ricci explicitly acknowledged that he was trying of understand local methods of timekeeping (jyotisa), from both Brahmins and Moors, in the vicinity of Cochin, which was, then, the key centre for mathematics and astronomy, since the Vijaynagar empire had sheltered it from the continuous onslaughts of raiders from the north. Language was not a problem, since the Jesuits had established a substantial presence in India, had a college in Cochin, and had even started printing presses in local languages, like Malayalam and Tamil by the 1570’s.”

But so what if calculus came from India? We can pat ourselves on our back for the achievements of our ancestors but all real Science today comes from the West, does it not? Not quite, CK Raju went far beyond showing the transmission of calculus from India. As a teacher, he was aware that when someone copies without proper understanding they are likely to have errors. Newton made errors in his understanding of calculus that showed up in Newtonian Physics. Correcting for these errors, Raju published a paper, proposing a new theory of gravitation[i]. This theory accounts for problems such as the flyby anomaly where NASA spacecraft showed unaccountable deviations from the predictions of Newtonian theory, even after applying general relativistic corrections. Not content with that, Prof. Raju has also demonstrated a mistake in Einstein’s theory of Special Relativity. Now, despite having an engineering background, some of the math is frankly beyond my current training. But the point is different.

The point is that India has been at the forefront of the world’s knowledge production for millennia and there is plenty of wealth that remains to be mined. Raju’s recent book, “Is Science Western in Origin” points out how Europeans constructed a history of science that traced it to the Greeks largely for preserving Christian and European superiority. When they found texts in Arabic, that were often translations of Indian and Persian originals, it became imperative to attribute them to Greek sources. Raju contends that Euclid and Ptolemy, were both concocted figures that didn’t exist, created to give geometry and astronomy a “theologically correct” Greek origin.

All this matters because the process of stealing from India continues. In a curious case of déjà vu, even Raju’s research on the origins of calculus in India was stolen and republished in the UK, without being attributed. (The university later apologized). The US National Institute of Health is conducting research into Ayurveda, modern medicine has significant problems, while Indian liberals snicker away. The foundations of Indian mathematics and calendar systems are found in the science of jyotisha, another field derided as “astrology”, which was first derided by Christians, again, on theological grounds, as “recourse to Satan.” The liberal echo box is unaware of how much of what they say is simply parroting the prejudices of Catholic theologians, and later, of protestants, and then again of the so-called European enlightenment, all of which had a position on India’s backwardness. At the same time as deriding Indian paganism, the Pope had little trouble sending Jesuits on a secret mission to learn the mathematics of the calendar from Calicut Brahmins.

But as in Calculus, those that copy without understanding often make error. As we celebrate the “New Year” it is worth remembering that this day has no particular cosmic significance. The mathematics of the Christian Calendar, or more accurately, the Gregorian Calendar (named for Pope Gregory), was also copied from the Indians. However, like with everything else, it was mixed up with Christian dogma. Thus Jan 1, is the first day of the New Year since the Romans made it so and the Christians kept it as it was supposedly the day of the circumcision of Jesus. They year numbering, of course, marks the time before and after Christ, since Christians believe the world was changed due to the advent of their savior.

Most of what is “secular culture” in India is simply secularized Christianity. This is why an off day on Sunday is considered secular, while Tuesday would be communal. This stance is neither neutral, nor even useful. For instance, the Indian (“Hindu”) calendar is a sidereal calendar, and its months are lunar. Lunar months better correspond with the cycles of nature and the Indian Calendar may be a more accurate predictors of the seasons, as Raju points out in another essay. The lunar calendar also aligns with farming and with the village harvest festivals, as well as with Ayurvedic cycles of food and health. Post-independence which calendar to use was seriously deliberated. Nehru ruled in favor of the Christian calendar. Despite what “seculars” think, the world is not Christian—countries all over the world use many different calendars. It is time to revisit that decision of the calendar India should officially use.

But to come to an objective assessment of the rich knowledge base of our culture that still remains untapped we will first need to counter the ignorance of the colonial “liberal” snickerati. They are part of an outrage industry that has internalized the notion of the West and Christianity as superior and of secularized Christianity as “neutral” and “global.” Their strategy is to consign all of Indic knowledge and culture as “Hindu”, then exclude it as unsuitable for a “secular” state. The knowledge the India possesses from yoga to Ayurveda and from local knowledge systems and sciences to learning how to be in harmony with the natural world is vital for both India and the world. The Indian Science Congress, in Mumbai, derided by Guha, and the ill-informed Indian media, may not be perfect. Indeed it is important that those relying on Indian texts be careful and systematic in making their claims. Claims counter to the dominant narrative, however ill informed, carry a higher burden of proof. Nonetheless, we need to create space of the alternative narrative rather than bury it in the politics of knee-jerk outrage. We also need to teach science and professional education in Indian languages to broad-base science. We also need to find and fund our navratna, people like Prof. Raju who are doing enormous path-breaking work with little or no state support.