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.