Scientists fighting fake news want ‘outlandish’ engineering book pulled out

An image of AICTE | Screengrab taken from AICTE's website

Book for budding engineers claims an Indian sage invented planes 5,000 years before Wright brothers, and gravity was a Vedic-era discovery too.

New Delhi: A group of scientists has started a petition urging the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to review a new course module for engineering students that promotes “outlandish” claims about ancient India’s technological prowess as fact.

As reported by ThePrint, the claims are made in a book, Bharatiya Vidya Saar, introduced as part of an on optional credit course named ‘Indian Knowledge Systems’.

Among other things, they trace the advent of electricity to the Vedic age, and state that an Indian sage beat the Wright brothers to planes by 5,000 years.

Gravity, the book goes on to say, was also discovered in the Vedic times.

The union human resource development ministry has decided to introduce the book as part of the curriculum at AICTE-affiliated engineering colleges.

The scientists spearheading the petition include Aniket Sule, Rohini Karandikar-Dange and Satatkshi Goyal of the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (HBCSE), Mumbai, who are members of a larger scientist group actively challenging the propagation of science fiction, including absurd claims tracing the internet to the times of the Mahabharat, as science.

“Making technical students aware about history of Indian science and philosophy is a laudable goal,” the scientists say in their petition.

“Such courses provide a chance for a holistic learning experience to students and help them develop a comprehensive worldview. Although the work on this area in India is far from being complete, we have seen excellent works produced by Indian scientists in the past,” the petition adds.

It then goes on to cite work done by the Indian National Science Academy (INSA), which produced editions of several Siddhanta texts, and the series of books produced by the Centre for Studies in Civilisations.

“These are examples of scholarly works that are recognised not just among Indian academics, but also internationally,” it adds.

“However, the book titled Bharatiya Vidya Saar makes a number of unsubstantiated claims,” the scientists say.

“We note some of the most outlandish claims here – ‘Rishi Agastya invented elctro-voltaic cell’, ‘Rishi Agastya gives method of electrolysis to produce oxygen and hydrogen from water’, ‘Rishi Kanad in Vaisheshik Sutra discusses types of motion as well as Newton’s laws of motion’,” it says.

“‘The book, Vaimanika Shastra, was written by Rishi Bharadwaj about 5,000 years ago’, ‘The book Vaimanika Shastra is an authoritative text on not just construction of airplanes but also on navigation, aviation fuels and pilot preparation’, ‘The speed of light has been accurately mentioned in Rigveda’, ‘The theory of gravitation has been first mentioned in Rigveda’,” the petition says.

“None of these claims has ever been published in any reputed research journal,” the scientists say.

“All these claims stem from misunderstanding or deliberate mistranslation of philosophical verses or ascribing an ancient origin to verses composed in the last century,” they add.

“Several of these claims have explicitly been debunked over the years by respected academics… For example, you can read the paper written by members of Aeronautical Engineering faculty of the IISc in 1974, debunking all the claims in the book Vaimanika Shastra,” they say.

The petition urges the AICTE to withdraw its endorsement of the book.

“Books such as these do a disservice to the goal of taking knowledge of ancient Indian sciences to students by spreading conspiracy theories and blatantly false information,” it adds.

“The AICTE is also effectively damaging future academic careers of students, as any reputed university, from India or aborad, would be sceptical about selecting students coming out of universities teaching such a book.”