Anil Gulecha’s Musings

[The below article appeared in the Times Of India, dt 12-12-07 in the extra edition. It was, however, modified and not posted in it's entirety, and few sentences were reworded that made my stance on the subject of Ayurveda and Yoga look a little lenient. In the future, I will note that any modifications to my articles need my review. Below is the article as I actually wrote it]

Open Letter: Challenges of Science

Dear Parents and Teachers,

As recent events have shown, science is under attack by superstition, and seems to be losing. Television has many campaigns that extol the virtues of various methods and objects without any verifiable evidence. Even more disheartening is that there is no active movement against these.

I would thus like to shed a little light into the future we are entering. The world is being fully interconnected and Indian children will interact with people around he world. A group’s intellectual powers are measured based on how rational their view of the world is. That is sadly not the future Indian children will thrive in.

Given the dominance of superstition and dogma in the country, the proponents of science have an uphill battle at hand. The first step would be to eradicate superstitious beliefs from the minds of it’s citizens. A seemingly scientific idea that is not based on any rational and verifiable studies is known as pseudo-science.

Pseudo science in India includes Astrology, Palmistry, Mind-reading, Ayurveda, many types of Yoga, Vaastu Shastra, Homeopathy, Chiropractic treatments, Lucky gemstones and numbers, Rudraksh necklace, etc. At best these ideas will waste time and money of it’s pursuers and at worst can cause bodily harm due to negligence of other truly scientific methods that would’ve worked. When any of the above has worked, it is due to plain chance, placebo effect or by processes that are understood by science.

Minds seemingly grow immune to change of ideas with age. Thus, emphasis has to be given to educating children on science and instill critical thinking into their bloodstream. This is ensure that the upcoming generation will be more open to ideas than the current. With this goal, we need to drive nation wide programs to spread the word of science. I’m not experienced enough to say what these could be, but there are many who could. Those in power need to encourage and those who promote science and take action against fraudulent practitioners of pseudo-science.

I hope we can look into a future where dogmatic beliefs would make way for rationality. Into a future where we would prefer reason over authority. If there’s a challenge we need to overcome, this is one.

Hi there..

Are you a patriot? Do you love your country? And be willing to lay down your life if it came to it? Allow me to be break you up.

I was disillusioned when I read Albert Einstein’s “The world as I see it”. He says:

This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of the herd nature, the military system, which I abhor. That a man can take pleasure in marching in formation to the strains of a band is enough to make me despise him. He has only been given his big brain by mistake; a backbone was all he needed. This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism by order, senseless violence, and all the pestilent nonsense that does by the name of patriotism–how I hate them! War seems to me a mean, contemptible thing: I would rather be hacked in pieces than take part in such an abominable business. And yet so high, in spite of everything, is my opinion of the human race that I believe this bogey would have disappeared long ago, had the sound sense of the nations not been systematically corrupted by commercial and political interests acting through the schools and the Press.

He was of course talking about “patriotic” soldiers. I want to go beyond this and look into all sorts of chauvinism, where patriotism like behavior is seen: religion, culture, nationality, creed, the college you attend, the place you work.

Have you ever expressed opinions of the kind “I am a proud Indian” or “India is the greatest country” or “We have the best culture” (substitute with any other country as the case may be). If you make such a statement, you owe yourself a little question. “WHY?” What makes India better, that you are proud of it. Why is it better than the US, or Australia, or Denmark, or Switzerland?

Do you defend your university as “It is the best?” or “My religion is the best”. Again.. how is it better than others?

Coming to the soldiers in you, who are ready to lay down your lives for the country, have you for a moment wondered what it is that you are laying your life down for? Why is the land on one side of the border worth your blood, and the land on the other side the blood of another being? Just because you were born into it? Just because the people around you consider it ‘noble’. Those people, who in turn base their opinions upon the opinion of still others?

These are manifestations of what I call “Chauvinism-by-default”. You defend, or are proud of, an entity solely on the reason that you were born into it. If you were instead born in another country, you would be ready to lay your life down for that country. If you were born into another religion, you’d have gone through a separate set of activities and events, that would have led you into believing that that religion is “The one”.

Some of you might have seen the fallacy by now. Some of you may say “Well yes, thats true. I agree with the you, I would be a patriot of the US if I were born there. It’s the being a patriot that is the good thing, the virtue.”

THAT is the fallacy. It is nothing short of an abominable evil to be a chauvinist-by-default. Just being born, or enrolled, or selected into something, does not bring it above others. It does not prove it correct, it does not alter it’s nature. And it should not be, even in your own eyes.

I hope you see the reasoning. Take some time to mull over these words. You have been shown the door; entering it is wholly up to you. For some, this disillusionment may be the hardest thing to do. If you believe that the truth, no matter how hard, should be accepted, then you will come out of these reflections as a non-patriot.

If you do continue being a patriot, a chauvinist-by-default, understand that you’ve just lost your right to blame the world for its sad state. The reason, simply, is you.

[This was written sometime back, but disappeared when I changed my webhost. So, back again..]