Skip to main content

India’s attempt to ‘validate’ folk remedy perceived as insidious effort to infuse science with Hindu worldview

By Sanjay Kumar*
According to Hindu tradition, Indian cows are not only sacred—they are also the source of a cure-all for everything from schizophrenia and autism to diabetes and cancer. That elixir is panchagavya, a drink made of cow urine, dung, milk, yogurt, and clarified butter prescribed by practitioners of Ayurveda, or traditional Indian medicine, and spread on fields as well to boost crop yields.
Now, India’s science ministry is about to launch a program that aims to “validate” the efficacy of the millennia-old concoction. The research program has influential backers. “Scientific validation is desirable in all cases,” says MS Swaminathan, chairman of the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation in Chennai, India, a nonprofit devoted to sustainable agriculture.
“The truth is that panchagavya is very strong and very powerful,” India’s science minister, Harsh Vardhan, told Science. The validation effort, he says, will use modern scientific tools “to show to the world the supremacy of Ayurveda.”
But some prominent researchers decry what they see as an attempt to add a veneer of legitimacy to unscientific claims. “It’s an insult to science,” says Pushpa Mittra Bhargava, a biologist and former director of the Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology in Hyderabad, India, who has reviewed the panchagavya literature. In the few papers he has found, he says, the authors “had absolutely no inkling of what scientific research is.”
Others view the panchagavya program as the latest instance of a more insidious trend: an attempt by India’s Hindu nationalist government to enlist the nation’s science to support its worldview. “This kind of pressure—to orient scientific research in directions dictated by politics—is pernicious,” says Suvrat Raju, a physicist at the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences in Bengaluru, India. It undermines scientific institutions and demoralizes sincere researchers, he says.
“The result is a chilling effect on non-Hindu scientists,” says Gauhar Raza, former chief scientist with the National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources here. Vardhan, a surgeon by training, dismisses those concerns. “It’s most foolish to think like that,” he says. “This way of thinking itself shows the unscientific mind.” The trend, critics say, began in 2014, soon after the Bharatiya Janata Party and its leader, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, came to power.
Addressing a group of physicians that fall, Modi pointed to mythology as proof of India’s early scientific prowess. He hailed legends of babies conceived outside the womb centuries ago and declared that the Hindu god Ganesha, who has the head of an elephant and the body of a human, showed the advanced state of plastic surgery in ancient India.
“We are a country which had these capabilities,” Modi said. “We need to regain these.” Earlier, Modi had penned a foreword to a textbook describing the Hindu god Rama flying an airplane and the use of stem cell technology in ancient times.
Blasting such “infinite absurdities,” Bhargava in 2015 returned the Padma Bhushan award, one of the highest conferred on civilians, 3 decades after winning it. It was a protest, he says. “When people sitting at the top propagate such irrational ideas, many people start believing them.” Bhargava has supporters.
Claims “that our ancestors knew how to fly planes, that all wisdom is in our ancestral knowledge, is all crap,” says Madabusi Santanam Raghunathan, a mathematician at the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai. The government’s embrace of mythology has shifted from talk into action. In late 2015, the science ministry initiated a program called Satyam, short for science of yoga and meditation. Next up is the panchagavya program, which will be carried out at the Center for Rural Development and Technology here.
The center has lined up 34 research projects, including one that will probe whether the A2 b-casein protein, found in the milk of Indian breeds, confers therapeutic benefits. Bhargava doubts that the studies will be objective. “There is a presupposition” that panchagavya is effective, he asserts. The program’s backers, he says, “want to put a seal of approval on it to cater to their preconceived notions.” That’s not the case, says Kavya Dashora, a panchagavya program coordinator at the rural development center. “If we find negative results, we will say so,” she says.
Some scholars would prefer to see ancient achievements lauded without trying to enshrine them all as scientific breakthroughs. “Our ancient seers were profound thinkers for their period but they never had the experimental backup that would let them test their ideas objectively,” says Mayank Vahia, an astronomer and science historian at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai. “There is much to be proud of in India’s past without manufacturing facts.”
---
*Science journalist in New Delhi. Source: sciencemag.org

Comments

Dr S K Verma said…
Reply to that Science article has already come and is online on the website of science
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/355/6328/898/tab-e-letters

Also read: Dr Sunil Kumar Verma. Open Letter in the honor of Hon’ble Prime Minister & Hon’ble Science Minister of India. In: विज्ञान संग्रह. vigyaan.org. Access URL: http://vigyaan.org/blogs/skv/794/.

TRENDING

Reducing emission? India among top nations whose coal as energy source going up

By NS Venkataraman*  The State of the Global Climate report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed that the year 2023 was the warmest year on record, with the global temperature of 1.4 degree celsius above pre-industrial 1850-1900 base line.

Lockdown 'total failure' of science more than of politics: Open letter on 4th anniversary

Counterview Desk  In an open letter to fellow academicians, scientists and medical practitioners in India, marking the fourth anniversary of India's lockdown (25 March 2024), the Managing Committee* of the Universal Health Organisation (UHO) has insisted on the need to "repair two years of immense damage to science".

Insider plot to kill Deendayal Upadhyay? What RSS pracharak Balraj Madhok said

By Shamsul Islam*  Balraj Madhok's died on May 2, 2016 ending an era of old guards of Hindutva politics. A senior RSS pracharak till his death was paid handsome tributes by the RSS leaders including PM Modi, himself a senior pracharak, for being a "stalwart leader of Jan Sangh. Balraj Madhok ji's ideological commitment was strong and clarity of thought immense. He was selflessly devoted to the nation and society. I had the good fortune of interacting with Balraj Madhok ji on many occasions". The RSS also issued a formal condolence message signed by the Supremo Mohan Bhagwat on behalf of all swayamsevaks, referring to his contribution of commitment to nation and society. He was a leading RSS pracharak on whom his organization relied for initiating prominent Hindutva projects. But today nobody in the RSS-BJP top hierarchy remembers/talks about Madhok as he was an insider chronicler of the immense degeneration which was spreading as an epidemic in the high echelons of th

Magnetic, stunning, Protima Bedi 'exposed' malice of sexual repression in society

By Harsh Thakor*  Protima Bedi was born to a baniya businessman and a Bengali mother as Protima Gupta in Delhi in 1949. Her father was a small-time trader, who was thrown out of his family for marrying a dark Bengali women. The theme of her early life was to rebel against traditional bondage. It was extraordinary how Protima underwent a metamorphosis from a conventional convent-educated girl into a freak. On October 12th was her 75th birthday; earlier this year, on August 18th it was her 25th death anniversary.

Savarkar 'criminally betrayed' Netaji and his INA by siding with the British rulers

By Shamsul Islam* RSS-BJP rulers of India have been trying to show off as great fans of Netaji. But Indians must know what role ideological parents of today's RSS/BJP played against Netaji and Indian National Army (INA). The Hindu Mahasabha and RSS which always had prominent lawyers on their rolls made no attempt to defend the INA accused at Red Fort trials.

'Wrong direction': Paris NGO regrets MNC ArcelorMittal still using coal-based steel

By Rajiv Shah  A new report by Paris-based non-governmental research and campaigning organization, Reclaim Finance, has blamed the MNC ArcelorMittal – formed in 2006 following the takeover and merger of the western European steel maker Arcelor (Spain, France, and Luxembourg) by Indian-owned Mittal Steel – for using use “climate destructive” metallurgical coal for its projects in India.

'Flawed' argument: Gandhi had minimal role, naval mutinies alone led to Independence

Counterview Desk Reacting to a Counterview  story , "Rewiring history? Bose, not Gandhi, was real Father of Nation: British PM Attlee 'cited'" (January 26, 2016), an avid reader has forwarded  reaction  in the form of a  link , which carries the article "Did Atlee say Gandhi had minimal role in Independence? #FactCheck", published in the site satyagrahis.in. The satyagraha.in article seeks to debunk the view, reported in the Counterview story, taken by retired army officer GD Bakshi in his book, “Bose: An Indian Samurai”, which claims that Gandhiji had a minimal role to play in India's freedom struggle, and that it was Netaji who played the crucial role. We reproduce the satyagraha.in article here. Text: Nowadays it is said by many MK Gandhi critics that Clement Atlee made a statement in which he said Gandhi has ‘minimal’ role in India's independence and gave credit to naval mutinies and with this statement, they concluded the whole freedom struggle.

A Hindu alternative to Valentine's Day? 'Shiv-Parvati was first love marriage in Universe'

By Rajiv Shah*   The other day, I was searching on Google a quote on Maha Shivratri which I wanted to send to someone, a confirmed Shiv Bhakt, quite close to me -- with an underlying message to act positively instead of being negative. On top of the search, I chanced upon an article in, imagine!, a Nashik Corporation site which offered me something very unusual. 

Attack on foreign students: Gujarat varsity's reputation, ranking at stake, say academics

Counterview Desk  Expressing anguish over the attack on international students in Gujarat University hostels, a letter claimed to have been signed by 122 current and former academics has asked the Gujarat Vice Chancellor, Dr Neerja Gupta, to provide emotional support to the attacked students and to ensure their physical safety.  

As double engine takes backseat in Odisha, BJP is pitted against 'firmly rooted' BJD

By Sudhansu R Das  BJP has got 25 years to build its party base in Odisha. After 25 years, it felt helpless and insecure to fight elections on its own strength. The party was almost crazy to have an alliance with the ruling BJD in Odisha.  Looking for alliance at the time of election shows that the party has not groomed its grassroots level workers into potential leaders.  The state BJP leaders woke up and convinced the Central leaders that they are capable of going solo; the alliance was stillborn. The question is can BJP defeat BJD which is firmly rooted in Odisha after launching piles of populist programs in the state.