Future of Indian Science – Vedic Mathematics, Missiles and aeroplanes

The former central government in India spearheaded by the BJP  was in favour of introducing what is called as Vedic Mathematics in the school curriculum. Vedic mathematics is neither Vedic nor Mathematics. It is just a set of few simple formulas (about sixteen) for doing some arithmetic calculations. These formulas were discovered by a former Shankaracharya of Puri Mutt. He reinterpreted some sutras in the vedas and agamas and found  about sixteen postulates which help in doing some arithmetic calculations and also there are some advanced calculations in trigonometry, calculus and differential equations that can be done using these postulates. But that is all about Vedic mathematics. Being a keen student of mathematics, I could understand these sixteen postulates in a matter of a week and also could do some arithmetic tricks using these postulates. Basically some of them help in doing arithmetic calculations faster. But in this age of fast processors who needs these. I feel the only utility of this so called ‘Vedic Mathematics’ is that it can create the joy of numbers in children. And it stops at that.

Unlike Mathematics as a science which consists of a methodical exposition of algebra, geometry and arithmetic, Vedic mathematics has no such framework and it is a disjointed set of few postulates. Indians invented zero, but that was long long ago almost going into antiquity. I don’t think there is any connection or living tradition between those people like aryabhatta, bhaskaracharya and the modern day Indians. We as a nation can take pride that ancient indian mathematicians had discovered the pythagorus theorem much before pythagorus. We can pat ourselves on our backs on the fact that the indians knew trigonometry, calculus and differential equations much before the Greeks. But of what use will this be. It can to a little extent boost our national self-esteem. We should begin to recognize and accept the fact that what we follow is the mathematics and science that have been handed over from a long history of mathematicians and scientists. When we read the history of science, we see a clear tradition from aristotle to euclid to fracis bacon to newton to einstien; who all worked within the framework of the scientific method. There is nothing of this unbroken chain of scientific tradition in India. We can do ourselves good if we join the bandwagon of the tradition of the scientific method.

This is the same in the Arabic and Persian countries. They had a boom-time of innovations in the fields of astronomy and chemistry more than a millennium ago and they still live in the glory of those ages.  

It is not that Indians are not scientifically inclined. I had read somewhere that India as a country has the fourth or fifth  largest scientific community in the world ie after USA, UK, Germany and some other country. Considering the size of our growing population we can be the largest in any field if it comes to numbers. But again it is the quality that counts not the quantity. We do have strong role models in scientists such as C.V.Raman, Subramanium Chandrashekar, J.C. Bose, Meghnad Saha, Srinivas Ramanujam and many others who have contruibuted in a big way to scientific knowledge.

We should not be ruled over by these medieval forces who claim that Indians had discovered aeroplanes, missiles and test tube babies. We can appreciate the imagination of the writers of these mythological texts but there is no factual proof and method for developing these things in indian tradtions. In the west many scientific discoveries have followed from wild imaginations and fantasy - like the submarine from Jules verne’s ‘twenty thousand leagues under the sea’ and the Da Vinci’s helicopter. The scientists and technologists in the west turned these fictitious objects into reality.  But in India we have no such tradition.

The hope for the scientific community in India is the definitive change in the Indian mindset in the last fifty years but we need to be wary and careful of these medieval and superstitious forces out to capture the academic world in India. It is also a myth that ancient Indian tradition has been predominantly other worldly, content and satisfied only in mental abstractions. The constant series of Invasions turned india into a land of inaction. Because of the political and social turmoil the indian intelligentsia were more focussed on survival than on ingenuity and innovation. It is also a myth that Indian philosophy is highly introverted and have focused on subjective elements of the human mind. The most ancient philoosphy of Sankya has a precise materialistic classification of the world. The scientific method was not new here but it was just not pursued for various political and social reasons and hence we find the disconnect.

But will all of this change now that we are a strong nation with a powerful armed force. We have a lot of social problems with India shining on one side and the India stinking on the other. There are new challenges with globalization assimilating the best talents of the country into doing substandard jobs for multinational corporations. There are not many interested in science and research as there is not much funds for scientific research. For the future of Indian Science lets hope for the best and be prepared for the worst.