In this section, I want to revisit how dharma took over the bomb, or
how Vedic metaphysics claimed nuclear physics. The rationale behind
this episode is sympto- matic of a much larger problem. Treating
modern science as just "another name" for Vedic science and vice
versa has become the state's justification for introducing Hindu
precepts and superstitions — Vedic astrology, priest-craft, and faith
healing, for example — as part of science education in colleges and
universities. Like "creation scientists" in the United States who
have been trying to smuggle the Bible into public schools, Vedic
science proponents are borrowing the prestige of sci- ence to smuggle
in their own peculiar interpretation of Hindu scriptures into schools
and other institutions in the public sphere. The situation in India
is far more frightening because this Hinduization of education is
taking place in the context of extreme Hindu chauvinism directed at
Muslim and Christian minorities.
To recapitulate from the last chapter, the test-explosion of nuclear
devices in 1998 was experienced as a religious event by a large
proportion of Indian people. Nuclear weapons were justified and
packaged in dharmic terms by Hindutva ideologues allied with the
ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. They claimed that the bomb was
foretold by Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita when he declared
himself to be "the radiance of a thousand suns, the splendor of the
Mighty One.... I am be- come Death." They celebrated the bomb by
invoking gods and goddesses symbolizing shakti (power) and vigyan
(science). Even the idols of Ganesh turned up with atomic halos
around their elephant-heads, and guns in their hands! Invocation of
gods in the context of nuclear weapons has become a constant feature
of public discourse. During the 2002 stand-off between India and
Pakistan, India's most popular newsmagazine, India Today, prefaced
its tasteless warmongering with references to the Mahabharata and
the "thousand suns." The net result of these references is to turn
these ugly developments into something like the Mahabharata, in which
God Krishna sided with the virtuous.
The invocation of the goddesses of shakti and vigyan was not
fortuitous. It was claimed at that time that the bombs were a symbol
of India's advanced science and technology, the roots of which could
be traced back to ancient Vedic texts. The idea of constructing a
temple to the goddess of learning at the site of the explosion was
meant to propagate the age-old popular myth that the Vedas presage
all important discoveries of science, especially quantum and nuclear
physics. A popular version of this myth was reported by Jonathan
Parry in his ethnography of the holy city of Benaras: "In Benaras, I
have often been told — and I have heard variants of the same story
elsewhere — that Max Miiller stole chunks of the Sama-Veda from
India, and it was by studying these that German scientists were able
to develop the atom bomb. The ancient rishis (sages) not only knew
about nuclear fission, but they also had supersonic airplanes and
guided missiles" (Parry 1985, 206).
Finding physics in the Vedas is a good illustration of Hinduism's
peculiar dynamic: its tendency to claim for itself those elements of
alien traditions that it needs for its own aggrandization. Agehananda
Bharati, a.k.a. Leopold Fisher, a Viennese who spent many years as a
Hindu ascetic in India,' coined a new term to describe this peculiar
cultural dynamic. He called it the "pizza effect" (Bharati 1970,
273). The pizza was originally the staple of Italian and Sicilian
peasants. It became a part of haute cuisine in Italy only after the
Americans popularized it around the world. Like the humble pizza,
Bharati argues, any traditional Hindu idea or practice, however
obscure and irrational it might have been through its history, gets
the honorific of "science" if it bears any resemblance at all,
however remote, to an idea that is valued (even for the wrong
reasons) in the West. Thus, obscure references in the Vedas get
reinterpreted as referring to nuclear physics. By staking a phony
priority, modern science gets domesticated; it was always contained
in India's "wisdom" anyway. Whatever good they might do for national
pride, such claims cannot cover up the fact that Indian people remain
mired in a view of the world that is deeply irrational and
objectively false.
Nanda Meera
Prophets Facing Backward
