New Delhi: Indian scriptures mentioned the concept of gravity long before Isaac Newton did, Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ said in the national capital Saturday.
Nishank made the comments while appealing to the directors of Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and National Institutes of Technology (NITs) to take up more research on ancient Indian science to prove that the country was indeed a pioneer in the field.
He was speaking at Gyanotsav, an event organised by RSS-affiliate Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas to discuss the New Education Policy. The event was attended by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, Yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s close aide Balkrishna and other RSS functionaries. Various directors of IITs, NITs and heads of organisations like the University Grants Commission and All India Council for Technical Education were also present.
“When I say that India was ahead in all fields including science and technology, today’s youngsters question me. They say what is the education minister saying…” said the HRD minister, while addressing the gathering in the premises of Indira Gandhi National Open University.
“When we spoke about Yoga, people used to cringe. Whatever we had in the past was never conveyed to the youngsters in a modern way, we erred someway in communicating our ancient wisdom. This is why I want to appeal to all the directors of IITs and NITs that they should take up more research on ancient knowledge.
“We need to prove that all that we keep talking about like Charaka, Aryabhata, they all existed and that our scriptures mentioned the concept of gravity much before Newton discovered it,” said Nishank.
Also read: This Indian scientist says Newton & Einstein are wrong, Harsh Vardhan better than Kalam
Value-based education
Talking about the Modi government’s New Education Policy, the HRD minister hinted that there will be a strong influence of RSS suggestions on the blueprint.
“We are taking suggestions from all quarters for the New Education Policy and the idea of value-based education is a very good idea. Because a human being is nothing without values,” he said.
Value-based education, environment education, character building, education in mother tongue and Indianisation of education were some of the suggestions given by RSS to the government for inclusion in the New Education Policy. A document on the same was also released by the organisation at the event.
Yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s close aide Balkrishna also spoke at the event, calling for a change in the current education policy. He appealed for granting degrees to students who study medicine in Sanskrit, just like students studying in madrasas get a Unani degree.
“Those who study medicine in madrasas get a Unani degree, why not grant degrees to students who study in Sanskrit. We should focus on promoting our ancient knowledge.
“Even in China, students first study the Chinese medicine system and then study the modern medicine, this is reason that China has been progressing and its methods are reaching world over. India also needs a push like this,” said Balkrishna.
Also read: Why Hindi is causing stress for officials in Ramesh Pokhriyal’s HRD ministry
Its nice to know Mr Minister that a scholar from ancient Bharatvarsha had been the brain behind the laws of gravity. At the same time, it would be more appropriate on your part as a person in position to put out to the whole western and eastern worlds the exact literature validating your argument so that none get the opportunity to ridicule you…just as the western world has The Principia/Philosophia Naturalis of Newton to shut us up.
Thank you
But earlier in India education was confined to only uppercast. They don’t given chance to other to show their talent
Need to replace him by highly educated one ASAP.
Before commenting, Please do a little research of your own about ancient India science and tech. Do look for Bhaskara and Aryabhatta in the golden age of Indian civilizations (Gupta Dynasty 3rd century)
https://twitter.com/Aabhas24/status/1162776416426983424?s=19
This is one more myth from mythology. Scriptures also mention ‘Viman’ doesn’t mean Indians invented aeroplane.
What’s the definition of viman? Why at all the concept of viman was there?
आप लोग भारत की तकनीकी उन्नति की गौरव गाथा से व्यथित होने की बजाय इस बात की ख़ुशी क्यो नहीं महसूस करते हैं। अगर कोई तथ्य स्वीकार नही है तो उसका तार्किक रूप से खण्डन कीजिए।निज राष्ट्र की अस्मिता पर गर्व करना सीखिये।पाश्चात्य देशों की मानसिक गुलामी से मुक्ति पाइये।
सादर धन्यवाद।
Wow, I wonder what all those upper cast supporters of BJP are feeling right now, they have benefited the most from the scientific education disciplines established nth Nehru, they would not have succeeded like they have in places like US if not for institutions like IIT.
I don’t really want to get into the debate of who discovered what first. I just want to know that if we were so advanced, what happened that we fell so far behind that we rank below many other developing nations on the OECD’s education index (PISA).
This would be a more useful area for the HRD department to focus their energy on.
It’s all in the history. You just have to be a little more informed. Every civilization enjoyed it’s zenith in terms of development. For the places in India it was during the time of Ashoka for cultural development and SamudraGupta(3rd century) for science and tech development. (You do know about Aryabhatta and Bhaskara, Do you?). For the Islamic civilization, the era was 13th century, when Baghdad was the center of knowledge. And so on.
Sure. I can accept that there was a “golden age” historically. My point is that it is more useful to think about what the current needs of education are rather than to focus on a golden period that has already passed. To illustrate this point: is it more useful to argue about who discovered gravitation in this day and age or focus on technological and sociological advances that will bring about another golden age?
well said.i hope these people concentrate on making India great to day . Step up growth in scirnce , technology and wealth.Stop tapping your back for what forefathers did.To day we urinate and spit on road and give mouthful if you object. Do not hate westerners. When you have power make India stand taller than any of them..Our HR minister has a big role to play than tell tales.
This is what you get when you vote for Modi, aachhe din
‘A spherical earth is held in space by an intrinsic force’
-Surya Siddhanta
‘We dont fall off the earth because it attracts all objects towards itself’
-Brahmagupta
‘All planets are held in space by the force of Gurutva’
-Bhaskara
HRDMinistry’s statement is not factually wrong.
lol. picking up stuff from whatsapp without any reference back to which book, which stanza and which author with evidence is called ‘Topi Pehnana’
First of all, I must compliment you for your erudition. I will presume that everything you have mentioned is totally correct, verbatim. Still, it does not give one a reason for grandstanding a small bit of knowledge in comparison with today’s frontiers of awareness. We can feel cozy with the feeling that “our parents were learned”, that is very good. But we should STOP at that. Such a behavior will present ourselves, in the eyes of the world, as “a people with an impressive heritage”. That will be an impressive tag to carry. If we go about tomtomming, at the slightest opportunity, like at every science gathering, and say, “oh, all you guys talk is nothing. My father knew it a thousand years ago.” Then, in the eyes of the world, we will be called “fools who think too much of themselves”. That will not be an impressive tag to carry.
In that event, someone will challenge us, “okay, if your forefathers knew what Newton claimed to have discovered, then show us the equations that Newton gave to the world.”
In other words, boasting of half-knowledge should be done with humility, and not the chutzpah of an all-knowing one. This realization marks the difference between the Hindus like me, and the Hindus of the RSS type.
Please enlighten us with the exact reference to the scripture – – name of the scripture, chapter number, serial number of the verse. Mind you, mere allusion to “gravitational attraction” won’t do; the exact statement of the Newton’s law should be there: that, the gravitational force between two bodies is directly proportional to their masses, and inversely proportional to the square of distance between them.
I am sincerely interested to know this. The minister must answer my humble request, or he should promise that he will not make this comment again. Thank you.
if “I am sincerely interested to know this” is true you should had been researching rather than refuting. You won’t ask the same questions about Newton because it has been taught to you. Your mind set has been developed not to question if some thing comes from western world. Suppose I ask you some technical thing that you have not even heard, you won’t start asking me to give the references, instead you’ll agree that you don;t know. However, you always ask if I say that technical thing is from India’s ancient past. It’s very hard to accept how Indians have been moulded by Macaulay education to hate India’s achievements.
The political parties, more so the BJP, have the nack of inducting to the Ministry of Human Resources the people who are most unsuitable. Please see the BJP inducted Smiriti Irani, a woman who had no qualification to head this important ministry except to yap around; the replacement was Prakash Javdekar who was little improvement on his predecessor but still fell far short.
Satyapal Singh who was throwing stones on Darwin was the Minister of State in the Ministry of HRD and now in the second inning, PM Modi brought in a guy who matches Satyapal Malik.
Muralimanohar Joshi, a Physicist otherwise with all the qualifications for the important ministry, was far too steeped in the mythology to be able to make a distinction between the Science and myths. Congress had its own Muralimanohar in Arjun Singh.
I am not sure when will the Govts in India would enable this important to be headed by an academic or a person who can bring in academics in the functioning of the ministry.
Handpicked for HRD.
He is not wrong actually. There are so many things like planetary systems are mentioned in ancient scriptures. it is so unfortunate that people think whatever westerners say is the truth. Ignorance is a disease many of us Indians have.
HRD minister is smarter than the tribe you belong to. What for is your superiority complex?
This reply is for Kunal’s comment: Can someone smarter in the party like Nirmala, Jaishankar or Someone ask this guy not to open his mouth?
This is the kind of idiocy that prevents me from ever supporting the bjp. That this man is going to decide education policy for this nation is a catastrophic joke on future generations. I can only hope that he doesn’t cause too much damage.
Though I don’t intend to criticise the HRD minister, There is a tendency among those who don’t understand that just mentioning of a concept is not enough proof that people of ancient time knew the science in the same way that people know today. Newton not only codified the law of gravity but also extended it. In Indian old text books there be references that are interpreted today as science but only few knew who are called RISHIS,MUNIS, ACHARAYAS etc and it wasn’t people’s common understanding as one can see today. More over Indians hardly extended those concepts to next level. However, we should not deny that there had been few individuals who had done remarkable scientific work in the past and that should have taught to Indian students.
Can someone smarter in the party like Nirmala, Jaishankar or Someone ask this guy not to open his mouth?