From: sunder@grusin.crhc.uiuc.edu (Srinivas Sunder)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: Re: Dr. Jayaraman's article
Date: 21 Jan 1993 17:20:00 GMT
Organization: Center for Reliable and High-Performance Computing, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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I took the time to sift through the torrent of eloquent abuse that
Jayaraman heaped on everyone who has anything whatsoever to do with
the Hindutva movement; read through the part where he claims that
Hindutva poses a threat to Science and so on. At the end, I was glad
that I knew before-hand that he was a Marxist, and as such, spoke from
an ideological standpoint, with an agenda diametrically opposed to that
of Hindutva apologists (to be fair, Islamic fundamentalists too). I also 
found it interesting that he seemed to be complaining that the Hindutva-
apologists dismissed anyone that disagreed with them with abuse. It seemed 
to me that he was doing the same thing, and that his "evidence" is not 
necessarily superior to theirs (or inferior either). Also, given that the 
only abuse that I have seen is the dismissal of them with the calls of 
"Marxist" (I was glad to note that avowed Marxists like Jayaraman and 
presumably, Mahajan, regarded that as abuse). If what is sauce for the 
Hindutva-ite is sauce for the "Marxist," the "secular" historians are getting 
called exactly the same names that he calls the "non-secular" or "kar sevak" 
historians.

Here in the US, every once in a while, when you flick through the channels,
you run across someone raising a hue and cry about the insidious menace of
"Satanism" and "witchcraft" that is being foisted on the country. Jayaraman's
own philippic against Hindutva is awfully close to a left-wing equivalent 
of the same. 

He makes some good points that should be cause for alarm, like the
official recognition accorded to Astrology as a Science, the indoctrination
(if it IS that, as opposed to an alternative theory) in the thesis that 
there was no Aryan migration from Asia and hence no Aryan-Dravidian divide.
But then, what he is decrying is pretty much the right-wing equivalent of
what we were indoctrinated in as school-kids with the history textbooks
full of socialist propaganda - we learned of Karl Marx but never of Adam
Smith, despite the fact that Smith had at least as much impact on the world
as Marx (now we know that he had MORE); we had to learn of "revolutionaries"
like Louis Auguste-Blanqui, but almost nothing of Burke who was at least as 
effective. Why? Adam Smith gave us the theory of free-markets which were "bad" 
for the laity, but Marx gave us the theories of class-struggle and socialism 
which were accepted (by the ruling elite) as dogma. Burke was an original 
conservative, and the very antithesis of a "revolutionary" (read Socialist). 
The article by Mahajan had something about the nationalist Indians using Indian 
culture and heritage as means to get people motivated enough to muster up the 
fight to stand up against the British. I submit that what has been happening for
the past 40 years is an indoctrination of Indians with politically directed 
syllabuses which now is having the perverse effect of making the people who 
felt "colonized" by the indoctrination fight back with some of their medicine. 
Ideally, politics should be divorced from academia, but that is a far cry from 
what happened in our schools all this time, and is probably still going on. This
is the backlash and it is just beginning. Jayaraman and his ilk don't like it 
and they are squealing like stuck pigs. I didn't like it then and I don't like it 
now.

Even if we take his word that most of what the RamJanmaBhoomi apologists,
the VedicMath apologists etc. base their assertions of Vedic superiority
on is either fraudulent evidence or poor scientific analysis, it is far 
from obvious that they are a menace that is going to envelope and reduce
Indian Science to nothingness. He goes out of his way to claim that the
folks who are behind all the sudden emphasis on Vedic Math being applied in
other subjects are the Hindutva bad guys (presumably the RSS/VHP/BJP),
but at the same time, he also says that there are committees being formed by
the Central Govt. (which, at last count, was as fierce an opponent of the
Hindutva-ites as anyone else). Maybe there is something to this that they
will come up with. Why not wait and see? They ARE talking of "research" prior
to doing anything more with it. Isn't that the scientific temperament? Giving 
something a chance to prove itself before praising/condemning it? 

As for the BJP Governments' introducing Vedic Math, there are some questions 
that I have.  Is it as a substitute to the existing syllabus? Or does it add to 
it? Simply put, would a 12th class kid graduating out of UP schools still be 
able to do integral and differential calculus? Or does the Vedic Math REPLACE 
all existing syllabuses? If it is merely an addition, the hue and cry is 
excessive and comparable to a fight over whether it was Darwin or Wallace who 
came up with the theory of Evolution. If it is not, it is probably more 
comparable to a Darwinism-Creationism feud, and to that extent, more cause for
alarm about the progressive dilution of the importance given to knowledge as
opposed to ideology. 

As for the Aryan invasion theory, I am no more of an expert than anyone else.
However, I find it curious that Dr. Jayaraman finds it so ridiculously easy
to dismiss the theory despite the fact that there are people on both sides
of the argument who, presumably, are not politically motivated. He would help
his case better had he pointed out that there WERE serious people who do 
indeed espouse the notion that maybe the Aryan invasion theory is a myth
borne of faulty assumptions leading to faulty interpretations circularly used
to justify the originally faulty assumptions; and that the same textbooks that 
he now bitterly complains teach otherwise once contained nothing BUT the Aryan 
invasion theory and no mention of alternate theses. My guess is that he had no 
problems with that because they were in sync with his beliefs. We see the same 
problem here as in the earlier para: Indoctrination of one kind is bitterly 
condemned by the Hindutva proponents; indoctrination of another kind is bitterly
opposed by the other. Each side calls the other names. Kanchan Gupta calls the 
other side "Marxists" (am I ever glad that that's now a pejorative!), Jayaraman 
calls his detractors traitors to science. Not exactly an atmosphere conducive
to thoughtful or rational analysis, is it?

As such, there does exist, it seems to me, cause for alarm in the sense that
it appears that politics might creep into the sciences, which ideally, should
be absolutely sealed from the winds of political change. It is probably not in 
any more danger than before, and it seems excessively alarmist to say that all 
science is going to be replaced with trident-waving saffron-clad ideologues 
spouting mantras. I doubt for example, that the scientist kar-sevak from IIT 
that he talks about has any intention of infusing into his activities as a 
scientist any of his beliefs that arise out of his religious experiences.  
Citing him as an example of how the sciences and religious politics are getting 
intertwined seems to spring from a belief that scientists should all be atheists
(which neither Galileo, a devout Catholic to death was; nor was Einstein)**.Even 
the most aggressive proponent of Hindutva is not going to replace scientific 
research with Vedic studies. Given the BJP's (the political party that is the 
most aggressive proponent of Hindutva) emphasis on a strong national defense, 
they would have to be imbeciles to believe that research that is used to defend 
the country will be replaced by Vedic incantations, as opposed to the 
Machiavellian strategists they sometimes seem to be. To that extent, 
Dr.Jayaraman's thesis, though well-stated, falls short of reality. Good reading 
though. I wish I could write like that!
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** This might have something to do with the fact that he is a Marxist. After all,
Marxists see (hu)man only as Economic and Material Man, and ignore the Spiritual
and Ethnic components; sort of explains why, after the collapse of Marxism, the
hithertho Marxist nations are hell-bent on going their separate ways.

-- 
Srinivas Sunder                                         sunder@crhc.uiuc.edu

If my employer shares these views, I'd be most surprised.
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