New Delhi: Back in October 2021, Laxmidhar Behera, then a professor at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur’s Department of Electrical Engineering, held an interactive session with students of the premier engineering institute on the Bhagavad Gita, the holy scripture of the Hindus.
Following his nearly hour-long lecture on the virtues of the scripture, the moment Behera threw the floor open for questions, a hand went up.
“Just why and how are we to believe in the concept of God or mythical figures mentioned in our scriptures?” a first-year student asked Behera.
“No, modern science does not know who you are. Modern science cannot explain what consciousness is. You don’t use modern science to select your partner, do you? Do you use modern science to produce offspring? Do you love someone or hate someone using modern science? Modern science is very limited. Can modern science make you immortal?” Behera responded.
Cut to September 2023. Behera, now the Director of IIT Mandi in Himachal Pradesh, made a similar assertion during a lecture series on the Bhagavad Gita at his new campus.
According to a video clip of the session available online, Behera put forth a power-point presentation showing the various stages of development of a human embryo.
“If we accept that sperm and ovum were just chemical substances, then, until now, scientists should have been able to create a new organism, but they haven’t even produced a grass. We know from Vedic literature, the soul is carried by the sperm of a male and gets a body when it mystically unites with the ovum,” read one of the slides in the presentation.
It is, however, Behera’s remarks against non-vegetarianism, made during another lecture as part of the same series, that have recently put him in the spotlight.
“To become good human beings, what do you have to do? (Say) no to meat-eating. Yes or no? Together, say no to meat eating. Himachal Pradesh will have a significant downfall if innocent animals are butchered. You are butchering them. That has a symbiotic relationship in the degradation of the environment as well, which you cannot see now. The mass scale landslide and so many other things, cloudburst, are all effects of this cruelty,” Behera is purportedly heard telling his students in another video clip that surfaced online this month.
The professor, who specialises in robotics and artificial intelligence, had last year courted controversy over his claim that he once chanted holy mantras to rid his friend’s apartment of “evil spirits”.
Speaking to ThePrint, an IIT Kanpur professor, who shared the video clip of Behera’s remarks on the apparent limitations of modern science, said: “His remarks on non-vegetarianism have created a flutter. But for those who have seen him over the years, it does not come as a surprise. He wears his religious beliefs on his sleeve.”
A former IIT Kanpur professor, who is now working for a private university, had similar views. He told ThePrint that the appointment of Behera as IIT Mandi Director had come as a surprise to many.
“Behera was always known as a professor who was orthodox in his beliefs. We had often heard him suggest things to the effect that pooja-path is the solution to every problem. While saying such things in a social setting is a personal choice, promoting such beliefs in academic settings is not acceptable,” the professor said.
Behera turned down requests for an interview from ThePrint, saying that he was currently focusing on the development of IIT Mandi.
IIT Mandi is one among eight newer generation of IITs. The institute became an IIT under The Institutes of Technology (Amendment) Act, 2011, with the intention to expand the reach and to enhance the quality of technical education in the country.
This year, the institute witnessed a significant drop in the National Institutional Ranking Framework, reportedly falling from the 20th position among engineering institutes in 2022, to the 33rd rank.
Also Read: How IITs & other top science institutes are trying to boost mental health on campus
‘Sober individual with religious bent of mind’
Behera is known to be a follower of ISKCON, or International Society for Krishna Consciousness also known as the Hare Krishna movement, and was born in Talsara village in Odisha.
After completing school studies, he pursued BSc and MSc engineering degrees at National Institute of Technology in Rourkela, before moving to IIT Delhi where he obtained a PhD in 1997, according to the IIT Mandi website.
It was at IIT Delhi that Behera got drawn towards ISKCON under the influence of P.V. Krishnan, who taught there, a former colleague told ThePrint.
Shortly before meeting Krishnan, Behera had campaigned for social harmony in the aftermath of the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya (1992) as part of an initiative undertaken by Prof (retd) V.K. Tripathi of the institute.
“I used to spend hours in areas with a large concentration of minorities to support them. We used to distribute pamphlets on religious harmony. I was totally against the BJP then. I felt that they were fundamentalists,” Behera recalled in an interview streamed live on 11 July, 2021, on the YouTube channel Hare Krsna TV.
After earning a PhD degree, Behera obtained a post-doctorate degree in evolutionary computation and multi-agent systems from German National Research Center for Information Technology in Germany.
Before joining IIT Mandi as Director on 19 January, 2022, Behera also served as the Poonam and Prabhu Goel Chair Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at IIT Kanpur and simultaneously served as TCS affiliate faculty, the IIT Mandi website states. Prior to joining IIT Kanpur, Behera had taught at BITS Pilani.
Professor Indranil Manna, who served as the Director of IIT Kanpur from 2012 to 2015, told ThePrint that Behera was known to him as “a sober individual and dedicated teacher with a strong inclination for doing good research”.
Recalling a particular incident, he said: “He (Behera) had developed a project and wanted to participate in the Amazon Robotics Challenge, and there was some hesitation regarding it. However, I approved his participation. His team ended up securing the third position in the Amazon Robotics Challenge 2017 and was among the top 16 teams. He was also selected as a fellow at Indian National Academy of Engineering, which is no small feat.”
On the row over Behera’s remarks on non-vegetarianism, Manna said: “Prof Behera has always been a devout ISKCON follower and had a religious bent of mind. I believe his comments are being misconstrued because he is in a position of eminence.”
A second IIT Kanpur professor, wishing to remain anonymous, said: “Although Prof Behera has always been a devout ISKCON follower, his views have never been a problem. But it (remarks on non-vegetarianism) may seem like an attempt to please the dispensation.”
Also Read: What explains the ‘33 student suicides at IITS since 2018’ — academic stress, mental health issues?
‘In mode of ignorance, people take meat & drink alcohol’
Behera’s previous remarks, particularly one made during an interaction with students in IIT Kanpur in 2019, suggest that some of his views on India’s past are aligned with the narrative of the ruling dispensation, which is said to be pushing Hindutva and nationalism.
At the session, a clip of which is available on YouTube, Behera said: “India is the cradle of all civilisations” and that the “entire universe knows planet earth as Bharatvarsha”.
“All races have roots in India and the Indo-European species. And it is a fact. India is the original Aryavarta from where all civilisations started… yet we do not have our own original pride, we are suffering from inferiority complex, we are in denial about our truth. You read in your books that we are British slaves for 200 years. But you don’t read that Yudhishthira was the emperor of Bharatvarsha, you don’t read about Bharat Maharaj,” Behera told students on the occasion of Jigyasa, an inter-school Bhagavad Gita competition, at IIT Kanpur.
Behera’s blogs, published on the ‘Learn Gita, Live Gita’ portal established by ISKCON, also show a glimpse of his philosophical and spiritual musings.
For instance, in a post titled ‘Three Modes of Material Nature’, dated August 2020, Behera, who also goes by the name Lila Purushottam Das, suggests food is tied to human emotions.
“People in different modes take different types of food stuffs. People in mode of goodness take that kind of food that increase their age and purifies heart. These food stuffs, like boiled vegetables, grains, milk and food without much spices, give strength, happiness, satisfaction and keep you healthy,” he writes.
“Such foods are juicy, fatty, wholesome and pleasing to the heart. Whereas in mode of passion, people take food that’ll cause distress and disease. Such foods are normally bitter, too sour and spicy. In mode of ignorance, people take meat and drink alcohol. Normally these foods are decomposed and putrid,” he adds.
In another post titled ‘Do Ghosts Exist’, dated June 2021, Behera posts his take on why some people become ghosts and why the Vedic tradition recommends cremation after the death of a person.
“The Vedic tradition recommends cremation of the dead body to aid the soul in its onward journey seeing the body reduced to the pile of ashes. The bonds that keep the soul with the body are largely broken, consequently it becomes ready to continue on its next body. In the exceptional cases when the soul does not get the next body, then it stays in disembodied state. Souls living in this disembodied state are called ghosts,” he writes.
‘Director relates every scientific conversation to spirituality’
IIT Mandi students are stumped about their Director’s “habit of relating every scientific conversation to spirituality”. There is also a growing sense of dissatisfaction on campus, where first-year students are barred from having non-vegetarian food.
Students claim that the policy was implemented after Behera took charge as IIT Mandi Director. “It has now become a norm that students are prompted to promise to turn to vegetarianism,” a student who earned an MTech degree from IIT Mandi in 2022 told ThePrint.
“The Director has a habit of relating every scientific conversation to spirituality. Sometimes, it fails to make sense to students who expect a scientific temperament from their Director. Every Saturday, he organises ISKCON events on campus and students who follow him attend it religiously,” he alleged.
Another student told ThePrint: “How can the Director dictate food choices to students who come from diverse backgrounds and parts of the country? It is one thing to believe in such things, but it’s completely unacceptable to impose one’s choices on others.”
Some other students alleged that the Student Council, also known as the Student Gymkhana, has lost its democratic nature under Behera’s term.
A third student seeking anonymity, alleged: “The Director keeps making unscientific statements on public forums. Last year, after the cloudburst\flooding in Mandi, he claimed that it happened because girls who were menstruating attended the Janamashtami celebrations on campus.”
“Another new norm now is that all Krishna-related events are celebrated with a lot of pomp and show, but no other festival or religion is given any importance,” the student added.
The students ThePrint spoke to also alleged that while they wanted the IIT Director to guide them on areas of his expertise, such as machine learning and robotics, the only topic on which Behera had delivered lectures so far had been the Bhagavad Gita.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
Also Read: India calling itself Bharat fulfills Pakistan’s age-old wish