When myth clouds reason

Kuldip Singh Dhir

The 106th Indian Science Congress (ISC) was the eighth such event in Punjab. Sixty multi-storeyed buildings, auditoriums with capacity of 3,000 persons, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his four ministers to give it a sheen. Everything seemed perfect at the high-tech campus of Lovely Professional University that played host. The PM made the right start exhorting the scientists to connect with the common man to transform the country and assured all kinds of support. A little later, the PM had a formal chat with three Nobel Laureates, who remarked that he was more liberal and serious with funding and research base as compared to the American President. They were impressed by the degree of understanding and the preparation that the PM had made for the ISC. With Science Technology Minister inaugurating the Pride of India (POI) Expo, sectional and plenary sessions went into swing.

The pitch was badly queered next evening by two sparkers at Meet the Scientist session of Children Science Congress. Instead of motivating young minds for serious science they indulged in pseudo-science and faith-based emotional dogma making preposterous statements. The infamous duo constituted KJ Krishnan (World Community Service Centre Aliyar) and G. Nageshwar Rao (VC Andhra University). Rao claimed that the 100 Kaurvas were born as test tube babies with the help of stem cell technology. He asserted that Ravana had 24 types of aircrafts and a network of landing strips in Sri Lanka. He went on to explain the evolution of man and civilisation on the basis of Dasavatars or the 10 reincarnations of Vishnu. 

Krishnan, who had yogini Sathyamurti, a lab technician yoga teacher as his guide, stooped still lower. He had the cheek to say that Newton and Einstein had misled the world and would be disproved by him. As such, the next century will belong to him. To butter and flatter the powers that be, he suggested renaming gravitational waves and gravitational lensing effect as Modi waves and Vardhan effect respectively.

Such bizarre claims against scientific ethos distort history to generate a false sense of a proud past creating doubts about all that is rightly glorious in our heritage. It was a déjà vu of Bombay Science Congress of 2015 where science was freely mixed with mythology. It had annoyed top scientists. Venky Radha Krishnan (Nobel Laureate) termed ISC as a circus and vowed not to participate again. ISCA general secretary and general president have dumped the two guys expressing shock over the incident. The congress has now resolved to ask for abstracts for even motivational talks, seek a declaration for not making any unscientific claim and to monitor closely all sessions to stop such loose talk, even midway the speech. The disciplined students who sat dumbfounded during the talks did not mince words when they came out of the auditorium. Dismissing hollow claims of the pseudo scientists as humbug, they said: “We know what is what. Nobody can befool us.”

Yet, a lot of damage has been done. The episode has obfuscated much that was meaningful in the event that had a modest beginning in 1914 with 105 scientists, 35 papers and six sessions. The legendary Ashutosh Mukherjee, who spotted and patronised CV Raman and Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, was its first general president. It has outgrown now to have 20,000 members, hundreds of papers, invited talks by Nobel Laureates, 14 sections, children science congress, women science congress, science communicators meet, academia industry interface, prestigious awards for scientists and large-scale exhibitions.

The ISC underlined that future India needs more and more innovations, which might be commercialised. Our agriculture awaits interventions of nano, bio, gene and digital technology. We need a lot more renewable energy. Intensive research is required to curb cardio vascular problems, cancer, Alzheimer’s, AIDS and diabetes. 

Where is the space for irrationality?