One of the hallmarks of Bharatiya Janata Party’s present-day ‘Hindu raj’ is to convert all Hindus into superstitious beings. A sense of false pride is constantly pumped into their minds. The Narendra Modi-Yogi Adityanath government is no exception. Through an ongoing campaign, Hindus are being made superstitious and a sense of false pride is being fashioned around the myths of the past.
Take, for example, Prime Minister Modi’s saying that complex medical procedures like organ transplants were carried out in ancient India and surgeries were also performed. Some theorise that Ravana had the technique to manufacture eight or nine types of aircraft. Some vouch that the ‘mantras’ are an all-in-one solution for ailments and other problems. Until now, such things were propagated at the political level only. Usually, lower-rung politicians used to boast about such things. But nowadays, those holding positions in prominent educational and research institutions are also talking along these lines. It can be said that people who talk like this are being spotted and installed in these positions. The motto behind this is to inculcate a sense of pride in Hindus’ minds about their distant past and also to propagate a theory that the country might ‘regain’ the glory of the past under the rule of the present icons of the ‘Hindu hriday’. It’s clear to see that people are being mentally bankrupt and financially impoverished.
IITs, evil spirits and the Aryan invasion
Think, what do we do with this school of thought that’s putting the country in ‘back gear’? From health to scientific research — budgetary allocations are being curtailed and unscientific thinking or superstition is being promoted in its place. The ‘Hindu raj’s major centre of knowledge and science — Indian Institute of Technology — now has a director who claims to have come up with a ‘mantra’ to ward off evil spirits.
A video of professor Laxmidhar Behera, director of IIT Mandi, has surfaced where he says that his friends’ father in Chennai was possessed by a ghost and he exorcised it by reciting slokas from the Bhagavad Gita. Just think about it, Behera, who is a professor in robotics, claims that his friend’s physically weak father, attained such power after the chant, that he got up at once and began dancing. In the same video, Behera is heard saying that later his friend’s mother and wife were also possessed by a ghost. Behera claims he recited the mantra loudly for about 45-60 minutes and liberated both of them from the ghosts’ possession. Only recently has professor Behera been appointed as the permanent director of IIT Mandi. But now, he has gone to great lengths to tell people about the existence of ghosts. Everyone knows when IIT Delhi professor M Jagadesh Kumar was appointed as the Vice-Chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University, he decided to install a battle tank on the campus to improve the quality of research. Ostensibly, this was done to instil a feeling of patriotism among the students.
There have also been reports of research in IIT Kharagpur, another excellent Indian centre of knowledge and science, that claims Aryans never invaded India. Nobody knows as to what is actually happening in the precincts of the Indian Council of Historical Research and the Department of Archaeology, but IIT Kharagpur is going ahead with a ‘research project’ to prove that the theory of ‘Aryan invasion’ is a misnomer. It need not be reiterated that such ‘projects’ are being carried out just to substantiate the ‘principle of superiority’ as is being promoted by the ‘Hindu king’. Else, do the professors and the director of IIT not know that scientists have established, through DNA testing, that these people (Aryans) migrated from Eurasia and reached the northwestern part of India during the final days of the Harappan civilisation? There is no objection to further research on this subject. However, that task should be handled by archaeological scholars, historians and linguists; the IITs should instead focus on spreading scientific temper among citizens.
Also Read: Babri, Saraswati, Aryans – There are rival Indian histories now and campuses are the warzone
Corruption of Hindu minds
Unfortunately, during the current Hindu ‘raj’, the Hindu minds are being stuffed with nonsensical thoughts. It’s destroying their scientific consciousness. They are being made superstitious. Some are talking about curing all ailments through gaumutra, while others are curing coronavirus with cow dung. Some are saying cows exhale oxygen and while others are beginning to believe that morni (peahen) is impregnated by the Mor’s (peacocks) tears. Some say that rearing ducks in a pond leads to the generation of oxygen in water, while others are talking about producing gas from the garbage of drains. All this is being done at an institutional level.
Surprisingly, such campaigns include heads of prominent educational institutions, people associated with the higher judiciary, as well as top-level politicians. On the one hand, the world is trying to build a permanent base on Mars, encouraging space tourism, achieving wonderful results with the help of information technology and nanotechnology; and on the other hand, scientific and educational institutions in India are telling us about the existence of ghosts and how to get rid of them by chanting mantras. Scientists across the globe have created Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, only to see us spreading superstition and lies on those platforms. As soon as anyone questions this, they will be promptly branded ‘anti-Hindu’.
This article is translated and republished from Naya India with permission. Views are personal.
(Translated by Ram Lal Khanna)