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Science is tough - The Hindustan Times

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Science is tough
C lipping (44kbs) - The Hindustan Times, 20-06-2002. By Sagarika Ghose Record Number : A0354219 C lick to browse by keyword: Hindutva Government/State policy/regulation Human Rights Bharatiya Janata Party Politicians Politics Women Riots Political society

Science is tough
Sagarika Ghose Whys the Great Indian Public thrilled about Bomb Daddy for president? Two answers. The first is obvious. We cant help but feel a little relieved at the manner in which the Sangh has pulled off a cunning theft of secularism. After Gujarat we are terrified about the Sanghs plans for the future of India. We had visions of the hairy Sant Paramhans flying up Raisina on an udan khatola. But in the midst of our fears bang! Bomb Daddy explodes on the scene. He may be a token but at least hes not ash-smeared with dreadlocks. But theres a second answer: Indians love Science. Science is beloved of the Indian middle-class and particularly of the Hindu patriarchs of the Sangh parivar. In India, Real Men all study Science. Boys are programmed from an early age to make Science their chief obsession. The IITs are shrines to a certain high Hindu male technological libido. Atomic scientists, writes scientist Dhirendra Sharma, are a super State within the State, comprising shadowy brahmanical scientists (mostly all Tam-Brahms and the occasional bawa like Bhabha) living antiseptic and secretive lives, loftily distant from the dirty masses. They are pampered by the government, ferried back and forth to spotless fortified labs where they carry out incomprehensible expensive experiments. Atomic scientists are the extremely powerful but invisible brahmins of India. Scientism is, in fact, nothing but a version of Hindu brahminism. Lets carry out a survey. Murli Manohar Joshi is a physicist. So is NCERT Director J.S. Rajput. BP Singhal is an MSc. Pramod Mahajan is an MSc. Former RSS Sarsangchalak Rajju Bhaiyya taught physics at Allahabad University. Jaswant Singh is a BSc. KS Sudarshan is a telecommunications engineer. And what subject did MS Golwalkar study at Benares Hindu University? Science, of course! Science, suggests Australian writer Dan Madigan, is particularly compatible with religious fundamentalism. The hard sciences, as opposed to the soft humanities, create an orthodox and extremist mentality. A technological education, Madigan writes, has a can do approach. It believes that with the right design and the right materials you can build just about anything, including a technologically engineered history and a technologically controlled society. The technological mind-set is profoundly impatient with the tentativeness, the softness and the endless may-be-may-not-be of the humanities. Guess what Osama bin Laden studied? Engineering, naturally. And Mohammad Atta? You got it. Also engineering. For Indians the Humanities are considered the soft option. The Humanities or Arts, the great subjects of Plato and Aristotle which as the name suggests keeps society human, are subjects like History, Literature and Politics. Yet, paradoxically, these are considered soft subjects and are studied mostly by women. Women study Arts. But Men study Science. Science is hard, extremely macho but potentially insane. Not that dear old Bomb Daddy has anything in common with fundamentalism. But as he embarks on his high office perhaps he might heed Nehrus words: Scientists cant live in an ivory tower. If Science gets divorced from morality and ethics then it may be used for evil purposes. The scientific spirit must be essentially one of tolerance and the realisation that nobody has a monopoly on the truth.

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Science is tough - The Hindustan Times

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