Back in January 2015, the Indian liberal ecosystem on social media erupted in loud jeers against Science and Technology minister Dr. Harshvardhan for stating the well established fact that Pythagoras Theorem had been known in India long before Pythagoras.
The vast majority of fake news aims to turn lies into truth. The Left pulled off a veritable coup that day. It managed to spin truth into a lie.
Propagandists always have their eyes on science. Because science occupies such an exalted place in our collective psyche, we must forever be watchful of attempts by political lobbies to seize and control what is put out before the public in the name of science.
It is thus with extreme alarm that one must take note of the so called “March for Science” scheduled for August 9 in various Indian cities; a program that outlines its aims as follows :
Article 51 A : a diabolical spin on Science
That the aim of this march is political is immediate from the appeal to the spirit of Article 51A, i.e., the Fundamental Duties listed in the Constitution. This article was not part of the original Constitution, but was added by Indira/India Gandhi in the 42nd Amendment of 1976 at the height of the Emergency.
The democratic Constitution was supposed to empower the citizen with Fundamental Rights. These rights were gutted during the Emergency. Instead, Article 51A became the intellectual core of the Emergency, because it shifted the onus to the citizen, who must submit to the almighty state by means of Fundamental Duties.
And for good measure, Article 51A starts out by demanding that the citizen show respect to symbols of the state such as the Flag and the Anthem (wonder how leftists would feel about that today?). And by requiring every citizen to strive for excellence so as to keep raising the nation as a whole to higher levels. As for the specific line that the “March for Science” folks are referring to, here it is in full:
“…. to develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform”
And now listen to Leon Trotsky describe the New Soviet Man that the Communists wanted to engineer :
“Man will make it his purpose to master his own feelings, to raise his instincts to the heights of consciousness, to make them transparent, to extend the wires of his will into hidden recesses, and thereby to raise himself to a new plane, to create a higher social biologic type, or, if you please, a superman.”
Suffice to say that science cannot flourish in the spirit of Article 51A, which was intended to emphasize obedience to the state rather than freedom of the individual. That a “March for Science” would make this relic of the Emergency the centerpiece of their thinking suggests that it is little more than a show of yearning for the return of the absolute power of the old Nehru Gandhi establishment.
China celebrates its past, India denigrates
When the Left stood their ground on the lie regarding Pythagoras theorem, it was obviously banking on their years of groundwork in the education system, sowing an inferiority complex deep into the minds of Indians. To the point that they were reasonably confident that the majority of educated Indians would reflexively reject any possibility of their own ancestors having produced anything of slightest value.
The Chinese on the other hand, have learned from the disaster of Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” 1958-1962, when the Communist Party tried to “modernize” the nation by cutting it off from its ancient roots. Among other things, it led to the death of an estimated 200-500 lakh people (no typo there!) Today, the Chinese take great pride in their ancient culture and achievements.
In 2015, Chinese scientist Tu Youyou received the Nobel Prize in medicine for her treatment of malaria that has saved millions of lives across the world. The key chemical involved was Artemisinin, which was discovered when Tu Youyou and her colleagues delved into medicinal herbs used by the Chinese for thousands of years.
Who’s to say that there aren’t similar gems hiding in the treasure trove of ancient India? We’ll probably never know because ancient Indian science has been stigmatized by liberal discourse to the point that our best minds will automatically be discouraged from investigating it.
And for the record, the Chinese knew about Pythagoras theorem as well much before Pythagoras. The Chinese boldly proclaim this to the world, as seen in this logo on the website of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
I suppose there is no Huffington Post in China to turn their history into lies. Anyway…
Folks, this is a “maxi post”. It contains a lot of thoughts that I wanted to express for a long time. For sake of time constraints, I have to stop here for today. This post is going to go on tomorrow. If it takes me too much time to collect all the references, I might even have to go into a 3rd Day. But I want to document systematically the war on science being waged by the Indian left and the worldwide left in general. Tomorrow, I will show you startling stuff … right from the official website of the CPI(M) …. showing the most laughable kind of science denial. You will find out from liberal sources that mathematics teaches rape (not kidding!) Just that when lefties deny science, nobody mocks them. I’m going to do that tomorrow. Please stay tuned.
dynastycrooks 
Dear Chaiwallah,
Being a scientist I have observed most of these clowns at close quarters for the past (nearly) thirty years. By now everyone knows that Humanities and Social Studies faculty members are 100% third-rate minds. Somehow people automatically assume that in the Science departments the percentage is close to zero. Unfortunately, that is not so. During the dynasty years most of the top positions in Indian science were filled by “political” scientists, to whom denigrating all things Indian came as second nature. I know from past experience that apparently reasonable entreaties to develop a “scientific temper” are actually code words for bashing Hindus. So I never take part in such discussions.
In 2015 one hundred Indian scientists signed a petition against the government. This was during the height of the “intolerance” debate and some of the signatories were people for whom I had some respect. (I no longer do, obviously.) This seems to be a repeat of that tamasha.
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Thank you Prof. Vidyasagar. I am working hard to make this post my very best.
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Now that CW you have enlightened us (at least to me) that 42nd Amendment was made during Emergency, for Narendra Modi’s Sarkar it is a great opportunity to bring back Emergency in the minds of people by declaring that any decision made during this period will be removed.
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Mr. Josh, for that the BJP (or NDA) requires a two-thirds majority in both houses. They are close to a two-thirds majority in the Lok Sabha and in my view, will get it in 2019. Due to the staggered elections to the Rajya Sabha, a two-thirds majority in the RS might take a bit longer. Then we can perhaps expect the fireworks to begin.
The BJP also needs to get rid of dhimmis like Fadnavis, who appears to be a fifty years younger version of Vajpayee: trying desperately to appease people who would never vote for him, and in the process alienating those who did. It is laughable that at one point he was being mentioned as a successor to Modi. In contrast the Yogi has hit the ground running, in a much more ungovernable state.
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Professor Vidyasagar…..Agree 100% regarding Fadnavis and Yogi!…perfect observation!
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I agree with you both that Yogiji is another Modi (may be even better) and lately have read lots of negative about Fadnavis (and his wife), but him not spending taxpayers money for giving protection to Nasreen was a wise decision. She does not have a single good word for Hindus and the Hindu religion. Granted that way she is a true secular, but have not heard her say any bad thing about Christianity.
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Mr. Josh, I am afraid I disagree with you. Taslima Nasreen has Y category security. That is a decision taken by the Central Government and not the State of Maharashtra. It is immaterial whether Nasreen is herself a bigot (and I think, a you do, that she is an anti-Hindu bigot). The Maharashtra Police need to provider her security as per the decision of the Centre. The choice is not theirs! Think of all the Hurriyat parasites being provided security!
Going back to your original point, if indeed AIADMK joins the NDA as the rumours have it, then the NDA would have a two-thirds majority in the Lok Sabha. Perhaps some reader can shed light on the situation in the RS after the moves of JDU and AIADMK.
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Our sickular liberals cannot appreciate the ancient Indian contribution to sciences and mathematics. Incidentally, a Chinese professor based in Canada wrote up an excellent series (2 parts) of articles on the subject. Here is the link to the first part, the second part link is at its end.
http://postcard.news/is-ancient-india-overrated-a-mindblowing-analysis-by-chinese-professor-from-university-of-toronto/
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CW…..My generation where not taught about the ‘knowledge based greatness of India’,the present generation and future generation will know about this thanks to Internet!…..“March for Science”will fall flat on its face!
For a Hindu, search for truth has always been an end in itself and not an end to achieve anything more,be it Math ,Astronomy, science, literature or philosophy.
One look at the magnificent temple structure is enough to give an idea how our ancestors had full knowledge of maths,calculus,astronomy,trigonometry etc. etc……all this knowledge ‘west’ stole from India and patented in their name!!
Example:
The Vidyashankara temple at Sringeri Mutt has a dome resting on twelve pillars in a circular form — huge monoliths carrying large figures and carrying heavy projecting corbels on top. These twelve pillars are marked by the twelve signs of the zodiac in their regular order, and arranged in such a manner that the rays of the sun fall on each of them in the order of the twelve solar months—and ONLY on that rasi pillar.
On the floor is a large circle, marked with converging lines to indicate the direction of the shadows. Windows and doors along the temple walls are arranged such that equinoxes sunrise views reach the deity. The northern and southern gates enable the sunrise view from the hall during solstices.
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The “March for Science” is a ridiculous, political gimmick that will invite many a laugh. True scientists dont march for science. They do science. Now that the Indian media (both print and media) have completely lost credibility and become a laughing stock, the Leftists are trying to fire at the government under the garb of promoting science.
No, India is not ” facing the danger of being eclipsed by a rising wave of unscientific beliefs and religious bigotry”. India is facing real dangers from Maoists, Leftists and Jehadi elements which the liberal scientists never protested or marched for.
“We note with deep concern that financial support to even premier institutions like IITs, NITs, and IISERs has been slashed ” – Nobody owes the premier institutions anything. The premier institutions have not provided enough return on investment so the funds are going elsewhere
“We see that non-scientific ideas lacking in evidence are being propagated as science by persons in high positions, fueling a confrontational chauvinism in lieu of true patriotism that we cherish” – Non-scientific ideas are being propagated by scientists in high positions which is even worse. The confrontational attitude of “bharat ke tukde” slogals and Beef fests needs to stop.
The real march for science is by going to a lab, reading scientific articles and doing science. Appeal to all students, teachers, real scientists and citizens to do the real march for science and avoid this fake political march masquerading as a science march on August 9.
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If they have the final say, our grand children will not know that ‘zero’ was India’s invention.
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please see the History of Indic Science and Technology series of books published by Infinity foundation.
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Not relevant to this subject, but as I read yet another nonsense article in s(T)roll.in bashing Hindus and saying they shouldn’t hate Indian Muslims, I realized that this question should have been the other way around.
No one should be asking if Hindus hate Muslims in India because it is obvious that the majority of Hindus don’t. There will always be a fringe % of course – but that’s true of all groups. The real question that should be asked but almost never is – do Muslims hate Hindus?
But by turning the question around, it is obvious that the Hindu is always put on the back foot trying to defend what they say and always worried about coming across as a hater. While the group of people who should truly be defending go scot free. CW, Please do write about this when you get a chance.
My opinion – majority of Muslims do not hate Hindus. And that’s a good thing. However, the minority that does is in the leadership level – both political and religious. And they exert a strong influence, a near paralytical one, on the Muslim population.They hate Hindus politically as they want to be the ruling class and they hate them religiously because they can’t tolerate the temple going, idol worshipping, seeing the holy in everything Hindu.
The common Muslim does not hate his Hindu neighbor. But when the ruling class decides to eliminate Hindus, they will not say anything. And the few voices that do will be drowned out. We have seen that happening in Pakistan and Bangladesh. It is that I fear.
The question should be posed to them over and over again until that truth comes out. But we can’t depend on Lutyens Delhi to ever do that. And those others who can also shy away from it and so it is the truly secular and mild mannered Hindu who is always on trial.
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