HRD Ministry, Darwin, Newton, Mantras…… what more in the stock?

The junior HRD Minister has done it again.  He has recently proved that the mantras written by the spiritual masters and Vedic Pandits of ancient India have already decoded the law of motion so what is so great about the discovery of the law of gravity by Sir Isaac Newton. No one would care to contest or challenge the junior HRD Minister for his claim, not even the lab assistant of Sir Issac Newton if he were alive.  

We need to be kind and benevolent towards the junior HRD Minister like how Jesus had prayed to the Lord for those who crucified him by saying they do not know what they were doing. Who knows, the junior HRM minister may be ensuring his political career beyond the present term and hence making all such statements.

It is not the claim or verbal nonsense is the matter of concern but the minister has gone one step further by suggesting that the mantras and Puranas, therefore, must be incorporated and taught to our students to understand the science better. Such suggestion is not only obnoxious to science education but also reductionist logic aimed to take our present generation to hunter-gatherer age.  

Humans are classified under the class Mammalia.  Birds, otherwise called as avifauna has evolved prior to the mammals and especially much before humans.  

The studies on Reto Zach way back in 1977 have reported that northwestern crow are quite intelligent and they drop bones, hard-shelled snails, whelks etc., on the rocky surface from heights to break open to eat the bone marrow etc. Further, the northwestern crow also appears to know how to adjust the height in relation to the direction and velocity of wind etc., during such fete.  

It means the northwestern crow has clear knowledge about earth’s gravity and the objects that would fall down when dropped from the sky and the impact of grounding is influenced by height and wind etc. That means the northwestern crow knows the science of gravity much before Newton had postulated them.  

According to the junior HRD minister, the above wisdom of crow necessitates our educational institutions to employ crow as one of the Honorary teaching faculties in our higher educational institutions or we must include the discoveries and inventions of crow and its feeding ecology in our curriculum to understand the science better.  

Crow has evolved much before our spiritual pandits and scholars so the claim of the junior minister of HRD is not true because much before the mantras, the crow has decoded law of gravity. If we go on interpret all such imaginary fallacies as science and score political benefits, where would our education go?  

To showcase the greatness of our ancient tradition, can the junior minister go to this extent of appeasing the belief system?  

If BJP cry minority appeasement is against true secularism how about the appeasement of faith practices of Hinduism, faith healings, Puranas and mantras as absolute science and are they not harmful and deadly to our nation as minority appeasement. Minority appeasement goes against secularism and religious amity of our country but appeasement of faith-based practices like mantras, Puranas and faith-based healing etc., affects the entire future of our nation and its scientific progress.   

Dr S Ranganathan