The 106th session of the Indian Science Congress (ISC) in Jalandhar fuelled outrage amongst Indias scientific community after some of the panellists made pseudoscientific statements and passed them off as empirical facts at the event.
The annual conclave, organised and attended by students, government officials and scientists, has received flak for advocating alternative science and scientific untruths in the past.
This year, the criticism grew louder after Andhra Universitys vice-chancellor, G. Nageshwar Rao, said that Mahabharatas Kauravas were test-tube babies. Rao also claimed that Krishnas Sudarshana Chakra was a guided missile, a precursor, if you will, to modern weaponry. He also reportedly claimed that Ravana had 24 kinds of aircraft, as understood in the modern sense, including Pushpak Viman, and that Sri Lanka at the time had airports. Rao is actually a professor of inorganic chemistry.
Another speaker, founder trustee of the World Community Service Centre, Kannan Jegathalla Krishnan, asserted that the scientific theories of Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton and Stephen Hawking, were wrong. Instead, Krishnan proffered the idea that once the common understanding of physics changes, or is corrected, gravitational waves would be renamed as Narendra Modi waves, and gravitational lensing effect would be called the Harsh Vardhan effect after the Science and Technology Minister. His statements as well, which were meant literally and not satirically, elicited strong criticism from the scientific community.
Indian Science Congress
Organised annually by the Indian Science Congress Association (ISCA), a premier scientific organisation established in 1914 by British chemists J.L. Simonsen and P.S. MacMahon, the event has been presided over by eminent Indian scientists including C.V. Raman, Prafulla Chandra Roy, Homi Bhaba and Humayun Kabir in the past.
However, the institution has fallen from grace of late. The Indian Science Congress does not have particularly exacting standards, retired IIAP professor Prajval Shastri told Scroll, adding that high quality scientists tend to stay away from its proceedings, even though it receives considerable attention from the international community, even Nobel laureates. She questioned how some of the papers presented at the conference even get clearance, adding that the event continues to enjoy a high profile because it has the governments endorsement and funding. The fact that even vice-chancellors are making dubious statements is really scary, she reflected.
At the 102nd edition of the Congress, a speaker had claimed aeroplanes were invented 7,000 years ago in India. At the 103rd Science Congress in Mysore, a paper ascribed anti-aging qualities to tiger skin and Yoga. At the last one, science and technology minister Harsh Vardhan had claimed that the Vedas contained a better theory than Albert Einsteins theory of relativity. The BJP leadership has made similar claims in the past during election rallies and campaigns to pocket the so-called Hindu vote.
Prime Minister Modi is also not innocent of making fantastical claims and passing them of as scientific history. In 2014, he had claimed that Ganesha and Karna were proofs that cosmetic surgery and “genetic science”, respectively, had existed in ancient India.
Billed as the worlds largest science meet, the 106th edition began on January 3. The theme for this year is Future India: Science and Technology. It was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It is reportedly attend by about 30,000 delegates including many Nobel laureates, science policymakers, and eminent scientists from across the world.
Standing up against this onslaught
Indias prolific scientific community has been very vocal in expressing their disdain for Raos remarks, some saying that a formal complaint should be lodged against the speaker whose remarks besmirched the legacy of Indias real and laudable contributions to science.
It is unfortunate that sitting vice chancellor of a great State university and a biologist to boot says something that is scientifically completely untenable. His Chancellor should receive a formal complaint from those who were present in the audience, and he will also surely hear from individual scientists and our vocal science academies, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India K. Vijay Raghavan told the Hindu.
When lay people, including politicians, make random and erroneous statements linking religion, culture, history etc, to science, the problem must be addressed by collegial communication. When scientists make such links, they should be addressed more squarely. If theres a chance that such views may enter policy, the amount of engagement needs to go up, he said urging the scientific community to take a firm stand against the ISC.
Breakthrough Science Society, a decades-old voluntary body devoted to popularising science, condemned Raos remarks calling them chauvinistic and detrimental to the genuine contribution made by Indian scientists all over the world. In a statement, BBS on Saturday said, “Puranic verses and epics are poetic, enjoyable, contain moral elements and rich in imagination, but not scientifically constructed or validated theories.
Led by Indian Institute of Astrophysics Professor Jayanth Murthy and BSS Karnatakas chief Sathish Kumar, scores of IT professionals, teachers, students and members of the scientific community on Sunday gathered in a silent protest at the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru. They were joined by members of the All India Peoples Science Network, Akhila Karnataka Vicharavadigala Vedike and other rationalist organisations.
Some of their placards read Do not denigrate Science in India, Stop spreading unscientific ideas in the name of science, Do not mix mythology with science, Defending science in India is true patriotism, and Scientific temper is the lifeline of a healthy society. Researchers at the protest also criticised the silence of the science academies on the matter, calling Rao and Kannans comments an embarrassment for the entire country.
Why it matters
The potential dangers of making false scientific claims before young and impressionable minds was not lost on the activists either.
One of the activist groups voiced concern after this latest controversy and said, It is absolutely distressing that these claims were made in the Children Science Congress section of Indian Science Congress (ISC) where the audience was largely comprised of teachers and young students.
The conflation of mythology and history to concoct a sense of false pride and nationalism does not just delegitimise the real contributions by Indian scientists but also casts ISC in an irreverent light. After history, it seems that the Modi government is trying to rewrite Indias contributions to science, with alternate facts.
Prarthana Mitra is a staff writer at Qrius Aditi Agrawal is a senior sub editor at Qrius