The real purpose of Vedic science is the establishment of Hindu supremacy. The main targets are the schools, both public and parochial, where a massive Hinduization of history and science curricula is going on. The fantastic claims of Hindu science enthusiasts are dangerous because under the current regime, they have a very good chance of finding their way into school textbooks. The Hindu nationalist groups together run some 20,000 low-cost private schools, teaching 2.4 million children, with nearly a thousand new schools coming up every month (The New York Times, May 13, 2002). These outfits also run special residential schools in tribal areas and urban slums where they openly indoctrinate disadvantaged children into hardcore nationalist ideology. These schools are the Hindu equivalent of madarasas in Pakistan. Science teaching in these schools is already heavily Hinduized. According to Tanika Sarkar (1996, 243) who has studied urban schools run by the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, "scientific education, whether on physics or mathematics, is always concluded with Hindu textual approximation mentioned as the real source of that knowledge. There is a confident disregard of authenticated detail, and of boundaries between myth and reality that postmodernists would appreciate."

The Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh's agenda of Hinduization of education is now close to becoming the official policy of the Indian government. The new National Curriculum Framework for School Education announced by the current government in November 2000 promises to inculcate patriotism and national pride by "indigenizing education." A major component of indigenization will be highlighting "India's contribution to world wisdom" which will include all the usual items, from Ayurveda to yoga. In addition, the new curricula will require that religious/spiritual teachings be "judiciously integrated" with all subjects so as to raise the "spiritual quotient" of the students.' After two years of court challenges, in September 2002, India's Supreme Court allowed the government to go ahead with the new framework.

The real threat of Vedic science is not to research and development in science, but to the educational system that is gearing up to produce a Hindu supremacist mind-set.

Prophets Facing Backward
Meera Nanda

A must read for all Vedic Science, MIU/MUM and MSAE fans past and present.

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