Role of science and politics

​The secularism of Indian science

Note this article is only for information and education purposes and taken from the hindu .

Science in India has historically been accommodative of the country’s diverse religiosity

 role of science and religion in India

1 Last month, a sunbeam reignited a debate on the role of science and religion in Indian society.

 2 The Secretary of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Abhay Karandikar, posted on X on April 17 (Ram Navami) that the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) had played a “crucial role” in the ‘surya tilak’ project in the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. 

3 The ‘surya tilak’ was a beam of sunlight focused precisely on the forehead of Ram Lalla. 

4 The IIA, experts in designing mirrors and lenses to capture light from celestial bodies and galaxies in their telescopes, helped design a system of lenses and mirrors that manipulated the light into falling on the desired spot, he said.

4 Date calculation

 The IIA calculations will also account for the differing dates of Ram Navami every year, as the date is determined by the lunisolar calendar, and ensure a precise ‘surya tilak’, he added.

Primary objections

Scientists and their arguments

Their first objection was that a college-level student could have designed this system and therefore there was no need to involve India’s leading astrophysicists and astronomers.

The more serious gripe was that involving the IIA, an autonomous body under the DST, in a religious ceremony impugned on the Constitution’s commitment to ‘scientific temper.. 

 In the last two decades, proposals to introduce Vedic astrology in the college curricula and suggestions that ancient Indians flew airplanes, for example, have fomented discussions on scientific temper.

कौन कौन सी संस्थाएँ शामिल ?

• IIA was not the only scientific institution involved in Ayodhya. 
  
• 
  
• The Central Building Research Institute (CBRI), 
• 
  
• a laboratory under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), 
• 
  
• another state-funded research institution, was closely involved .
  

An accommodative version

calendars use in calculate religious festivals

1 The most salient example of this was an attempt by a scientific committee constituted by Jawaharlal Nehru and led by the eminent astrophysicist Meghnad Saha, to put India’s 30-odd local calendars (panchangas) on a more scientific footing.

 2 The Calendar Reform Committee, as it was called, undertook a detailed analysis of not only the time-keeping mechanics of Indian calendars but also dove deep into the history of calendars of nearly every civilization. 

3 The Indian National Calendar, a product of the committee’s report in 1956, corrected the anomalies by adding leap years, ensuring months had only 30 or 31 days, and defining Indian Standard Time.

 4 As per this Calendar, the present is Vaisakha 1946. 

5 The makers specified that it would be useful for astrologers to calculate religious festivals.

Had the DST only turned to the Positional Astronomy Centre (PAC)

a department of the India Meteorological Department and set up as a consequence of the Calendar committee report, it wouldn’t have needed the IIA. 

The PAC annually releases a document that lists the public holidays, dates of a galaxy of festivals, the position of the sun and moon and key planets through the year to help both astronomers and astrologers.

DST has funded SATYAM 

DST has funded SATYAM  (Science and Technology of Yoga and Meditation), where, to date, 

all the scientific research hasn’t revealed anything that isn’t already known about yoga and meditation, and the Scientific Validation and Research on Panchgavya, 

which is led by the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and is meant to investigate the medicinal potency of cow’s milk, dung, urine, ghee, and curd. 

Much like how Indian secularism is accommodative of all religions unlike the European separation of church and state, Indian science, when at odds with religion, has opted to be tempered.

Source the hindu