Satyapal Singh has every right to differ from Darwin's theory but he’s not correct in asking for it to be removed from text books. Instead, the enthusiastic Minister must use his knowledge to debate the issue
India’s Minister of State for Human Resource Development Satya Pal Singh has been condemned by scientists for expressing his views on Darwin’s theory of human evolution. He was not the first individual who had a different viewpoint on what Darwin had established after conducting his ‘scientific researches’ with persistence over a period of time. One could even Google and peruse articles and papers giving scientific details and facts contradicting Darwin. My concern is far beyond the controversy, on one of the scientific theories which is a part of scientific advancement. Yes, even well established theories are contradicted, contrasted, refined or rejected. Is it not unscientific on the part of those who condemn Singh’s statement simply because ‘he does not think alike’IJ
Having transitioned from the position of top cop in the Indian police establishment to Sansad Bhavan and the Shastri Bhavan, Singh has certainly not given up his freedom of expression guaranteed by the Indian Constitution. There are millions of Indians who find the Dashawatar theory logical, scientific and, hence, convincing. Should they all be condemned by the Indian ‘scientists’IJ
This writer has undergone personal and professional condemnation on a sustained scale for having suggested that Indian history books were teaching the ‘Aryan invasion theory’ could also mention that this premise is challenged by several historians. Condemnation came from the ‘secular ideologically-constrained eminent historians’ and their comrade-in arms who were just not ready to give any space to another viewpoint. They were just not ready to change history books written in the early 1970s even after 30-35 years, as the authors were eminent individuals.
When a query was posed as to what would happen to the new findings available through new research, explorations, excavations and modern day scientific techniques, the answer was plain and simple: We do not accept anything from those ‘who do not think alike’. One wonders how this approach can be termed ‘scientific’.
The Minister is supposed to address some bigger challenges that must have come before him during the couple of months he has spent in the Ministry of Human Resource Development. Ministers are not supposed to change the curriculum; they are not authorised to decide upon the contents of the curriculum. Their job, inter alia, is to ensure that the content and process of education in every discipline and at each stage remains ‘dynamic’ in nature. To bring in new knowledge and remove the obsolete from the curricula is the job of academics, scholars and researchers.
In several areas in higher education, even central universities may be continuing with the unchanged curriculum and syllabus for over two-three decades. Dynamism just cannot be accomplished even in a prestigious institution like IIT or IIM or central universities if these are understaffed by 50-70 per cent of the professional faculty for decades together. He must have appraised himself with the steep decline of the regulatory bodies set up at the national level for quality upgradation.
For the last couple of years, the fate of the University Grants Commission (UGC) has remained in suspense; will it be re-organised or simply bound upIJ With the recent appointment of an energetic and enthusiastic Chairperson, one hopes the UGC will regain credibility and stature in higher education. The challenge before the Minister is to create a dynamic work culture in higher education institutions, inspire innovations, convince youngsters that every institution shall give them their right to professional and personal development in a manner that they would not find themselves deficient as the enter the workforce. This just cannot be achieved in a system that regularly issues fake university lists, conducts inquires against its own Vice-Chancellors and is slack even in appointing heads of national-level intuitions in time.
Incidentally, Darwin enters the minds of young children in schools. And whatever is ‘memorised’ there, is ever lost! The last school curriculum revision took place in 2005, and books were prepared accordingly. Globally acceptable principle for curriculum renewal is to do so within five years, if not within three. At present, we are awaiting a new education policy. One wonders when the process of curriculum renewal shall really begin. least till then, Darwin is safe in India, and no alternative theories shall be brought to challenge his presence.
I see an intense desire in the mind of the Minister to give indigenous knowledge its due place in education. It is learnt that he has acquired thorough and in-depth knowledge of Vedic literature and is an admirer of Indian culture, heritage and history. Expectedly, he is familiar with what Romain Rolland, in his famous treatise, The life of Vivekananda and the Universal Gospel: A Study of Mysticism and Action in living India, wrote: “Vivekananda frequently insists on the close relationship between the modern theory of evolution and the theories of ancient metaphysics and Vedantic cosmology”.
The Minister, like numerous other scholars, scientists and thinkers, has every right to differ from Darwin’s theory but is not correct in stating that it should be removed from the books children and young persons study in schools and colleges. The enthusiastic Minister and also scientists in the country must focus on bigger issues like how scientific developments in the West resulted in the utter neglect of all discoveries and inventions of the past by ‘others’ — non-Western non-white’ persons. This is often mentioned in all sincerity by those who have studied Indian thought, philosophy and could comprehend the essence of knowledge that flows from the ancient tradition of knowledge quest.
This is best described in the book, ‘lost Discoveries: The Ancient Roots of Modern Sciences -from the Babylonians to the Maya, published in 2002 by Simon and Schuster. Authored by Dick Teresi, an acclaimed science writer and Omni magazine cofounder. The book traces the origins of modern discoveries, modern day science achievements back to their ancient roots that are spread over non-Western world — Sumerian, Babylon, Egypt, India, China, Africa, Arab nations, the Americas and the Pacific islands. Some of the following extracts should indeed be an eye-opener even in the context of the ridicule bestowed on the Union Minister:
“Twenty-four centuries before Isaac Newton, the Hindu Rig Veda asserted that gravitation held the universe together, though the Hindu hypothesis was the less rigorous than Newton’s. The Sanskrit speaking Aryans subscribed to the idea of spherical earth in an era when the Greeks believed in the flat one. The Indians of the fifth century AD somehow calculated the age of the earth as 4.3 billion years; scientists in nineteenth-century England were convinced it was 100 million years. The modern estimate is 4.6 billion years.”
“In its January 14, 2000, issue on the occasion of the beginning of the third millennium, Science magazine, in conjunction with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, published a timeline, called Pathways of Discovery that detailed 96 of the most important scientific achievements in the recorded history.”
“Of those 96 achievements, only two were attributed to non-white-non-Western scientists: The invention of zero in India in the early centuries of the Common Era and the astronomical observations of Maya and Hindus in AD 1000. Even these two accomplishments were muted by the editors of Science. The Indians were given credit only for creating the symbol of zero, rather than the concept itself. The Mayan and Hindu ‘sky watchers’ (the word astronomer was not used) made their observations, according to the journal, for ‘agricultural and religious’ purposes only.”
The Minister could accept the challenge that emerges in its fulsome dimensions: How to systematically initiate studies in ancient Indian wisdom and knowledge, examine its contemporary relevance and present it before the globalised world in the present-day idiom. No need to despise Darwin in any way. Why not draw a bigger lineIJ
(The writer is former Director, NCERT and an educationist)