The government department entrusted with the task of educating the people of India has recently come out with some startling statements. It has asserted that mythology is no less important than science. Fantastic tales don’t have to be dismissed lightly—these can inspire scientists to invent flying machines like winged chariots or terrifying weapons of mass destruction. Forget about history written by invaders and colonisers, whose only aim was to belittle the wonderful achievements of our ancestors and subvert our self-confidence. How easily they made us forget that ancient Indians practised organ transplants like replacing a severed human head with an elephant’s.
Allegorical and metaphorical interpretations have long ago been vanquished by the literal exhilaration and intoxication. School textbooks are under the process of revision that will restore the imbalance once and for all. Newton and Einstein, Darwin and company, will make way for long-forgotten seers, scientists and philosophers who operated aeons ago on frontiers of knowledge where manmade boundaries are blurred—arts and sciences merge into blinding flash of illumination. At last we are poised at the threshold of liberation from colonial conspiracies. Only the traitors—foreign agents and dangerous distractors—can continue to complain.
Lest we are misunderstood, it should be made clear that no one can airbrush the glorious achievements of Indian civilisation. From mathematics and metaphysics to architecture, astronomy, medicine and surgery, our forefathers made seminal contributions. Shikhars and gopurams of towering temples, majestic forts and palaces bear testimony to the wonder that was India—recognised as one of the great civilisations along with China, Egypt and Sumer. It has left indelible imprint on countries far away in central, eastern and southeastern Asia. Archeological excavations have brought to light evidence of India’s contacts with Arabia, Africa and Ancient Rome. The question that the school textbooks should try to answer is why and how did the mighty Indians—undisputed masters of arts and sciences—fall? How could they be repeatedly defeated by barbarians?
More than seven decades ago, nationalist historians pointed out that the reasons for decay were a combination of arrogance and ignorance. Indians fell prey to a mindset akin to that of a frog in a well—the kupamanduka—who is oblivious to the world beyond his domain. The other devastating fault line was the caste system. It excluded millions from the right to education and compartmentalised work, separating intellectual from physical. It was not long before the division of complimentary specialisation degenerated into a system that preserved the privileges of a ruling elite at the cost of the masses. This order could only be perpetuated by replacing science with superstition, with rites and rituals acting as the opium of the masses. The spirit of inquiry can’t survive in a hostile milieu. Where the mind is not free and the head can’t be held high, how can one hope to safeguard freedom?
What we are witnessing is a depressing display of sycophancy with ambitious self-serving courtiers outdoing one another in pleasing the boss. What may have been a stray remark in the course of an election rally, a charismatic leader getting carried away by alliterations or with a penchant for abbreviations that resonate multilingually, are elevated to aphorisms—reinvigorating mantras for resurgent India by learned men in the court.
Moguls aren’t the flavour of the month anymore, but there is no dearth of Chakravarti Samrats who can inspire present-day leaders and their equivalent of the nav ratnas—nine gems vying with each other to please the boss. Old stories like the Emperor’s Clothes or the Magic Mirror on the Wall are waiting to be asked: who is the fairest of them all? Can all these be dismissed as worthless pebbles borrowed from foreign fables—tales to be told to amuse uncritical children to keep them away from mischief? Isn’t it well known that poor man Aesop plagiarised shamelessly from Hitopadesha and Panchatantra?
We may have allowed the priceless pre-colonial Indian heritage in metallurgy and medicine to become extinct and lost all track of models of democracy and republicanism, ethics and jurisprudence across millennia, but sycophancy blending art of hidden persuasion and science and tech of modern mass media is flourishing. The counsellors anticipate their patrons’ wishes and fall over each other interpreting dreams and visions, exhorting their compatriots to suspend disbelief—forget the problems of the present; keep dwelling simultaneously in mythical past or distant future, each equally dazzling. The scientific community as well as legal luminaries and scholars follow these Pied Pipers. Let us not forget how easily daydreams can turn into nightmares.
Pushpesh Pant
Former professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University
pushpeshpant@gmail.com