RSS in JNU – Flying Vedic Planes in 21st Century Anarchist Milieu
The RSS is arranging a science conference in JNU and the topic is how all the modern discoveries and inventions were already present in the Vedas, Vedangas, and Puranas before the West discovered them. The likes of Newton, Einstein, and Maxwell must be scoffing in their grave and maybe wondering why they did not have the wisdom to look into this Brahminical texts instead of putting their brains and labour into understanding the world. The people who sell this view that everything was present in the Vedas, Vedangas, and Puranas are either super fools or deliberate monsters who are trying to fool others. In both the situations, they are utter enemies of science and humanity.
The science is a self-evolving system with the scope of universal validation and a mechanism of self-correction. The Brahminical texts do not have universal validation and they are beyond correction as they are considered infallible being the direct words of the gods!
JNU has been a hotbed of the leftist and ultra-leftist upper caste students and was taken over fully by the reds till was rescued to a greater extent by the Ambedkarites in their recent surge of Bahujan ideology and politics. JNU as such is a typical example of the intellectual paranoia that grips minds divorced from the realities of the day to day struggle of the people but heavily coloured in the politics of the day due to perhaps its physical proximity with the political institutions in New Delhi and ever-present media.
As is clear from the movements all over India, the Ambedkarite movements have been holding the torch of enlightenment which is based on Reason, Science, humanity, and progress of humanity. This Ambedkarite movement in JNU is perhaps more of a target of RSS’s intervention in JNU than the left.
Author – Mangesh Dahiwale, Human Rights Activist
[irp]
http://mainstreamweekly.net/article5422.html
I write an article which was carried by English weekly ‘Mainstream’, Delhi in 2014. There I had quoted Dr Meghnad Saha, nation’s most eminent astrophysicist. The article, captioned Imaging Hindu Rashtra’ may be glanced at
http://mainstreamweekly.net/article5422.html
There I highlighted Dr Saha’s views about the Vedas besides the views of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, the composer of Bande mataram.
“Veda, no Science to Scientist
“In a Bengali essay focusing on the Veda and its interpretations (Veda and Veda byakhya in Bengali) in 1878, the composer of ‘Vande mataram’ Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay mercilessly ridiculed many popular beliefs and perceptions. He says that the mere mention of the Veda drives the Hindus, irrespective of age, to torpor marked by an overwhelming sense of fear and devotion. They believe that anybody, conversant in the Veda, is prodigious; anyone who interprets it is an avatar like Shankar or Narayana, capable of performing miracles. There was torrential rain bringing an end to 12-year long droughts after Rishi Vishwamitra recited the Veda. If anybody recites the Veda at one place, his enemy drops dead instantly at another far-off place. Recitation of Vedic verses cures infertility and barrenness in women or incurable diseases; and the poor becomes rich. If the Veda is recited to a man on deathbed, he springs back to life. However, one can become well-versed in the Veda only by virtue of accumulated merits in previous births.
“These are wild gossips to mislead and befool people. Bankim Chandra held that the Veda is a poetic work of a few ancient people, who had initially composed songs and sang them. Since everybody could not be a poet, people started viewing their works as a gift of supernatural abilities. In the end, these poetic songs were hailed as the sermons of gods.
Though “poems” of the ancient era, some people want us to believe them as “Vedic science, mathematics, liberal philosophies, literature, politics, economics, ethics, etc.” We are also told that some “foreign universities have full-fledged departments dedicated to these subjects; but most of them encapsulate a superficial understanding. Departments in India on these subjects are woefully understaffed and under-resourced.”12
“Such claims may be true. But let us juxtapose a Veda-centric perception of a scientist alongside blind and sentimental blubbering. In a Bengali article, Dr Meghnad Saha, the outstanding astrophysicist whose best known work concerned the thermal ionisation of elements,13 highlighted the Himalayan superstition of Hindus for the Veda. In 1940, he published an essay in a Bengali monthly Bharatabarsa. The astrophysicist had studied the Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas, astrology and all other works of ancient Hindu sciences over two decades but did not find any grain of truth in the claims to substantiate that the theories of modern sciences are ingrained in ancient Hindu books. To illustrate the extent of deplorable ignorance even in educated men, the astrophysicist noted that once a very famous advocate met him at his native place, Dhaka, and expressed his desire to know the area of his researches in England. By then, he had earned considerable recognition in Europe as a scientist. During discussions, whenever Dr Saha talked about any findings of his research, the advocate unfailingly intervened to exclaim, “Oh! What’s new in that? It’s there in our Vedas.” Finally the exasperated scientist asked him to specify the chapters and/or verses of the Vedas that influenced, enriched, or contributed to modern science(s) or scientific thoughts, ideas, scholarship or inventions and discoveries. The veteran lawyer, so cornered, confessed his ignorance of the Veda which he had not even read and his tall claims were based on mere hearsay.14 Educated men, though ignorant, are not rare to speak in authoritative tone and animated tenor about the Veda and spread superstitious beliefs in the masses, rendering them vulnerable to exploitation in the name of divine powers. In the stated view, the mindless vanity and euphoria over the Veda in some corners are like oceanic bubbles without substance.”
I deem it appropriate to share with readers of Veliveda.