 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Minister of State for Human Resource and Development, especially higher education, Satya Palsing has come out with a statement saying that Darwin's theory of evolution is scientifically wrong. To discuss the same, we are joined by Prabir Purkayashta, who is editor-in-chief of NewsClick and is also a founding member of People's Science Movement in the country. Welcome to NewsClick, Prabir. So, as Minister of HRD, Minister of State for HRD, Satya Palsing says that our ancestors have not told that ape converted into humans. How do you see this statement? Well, you know, he says that nobody has seen it and therefore it is wrong. Nobody has seen a proof of the theory of evolution by ape turning into a man. Of course, theory of evolution never said a ape suddenly turned into man. He seems to be talking about mythology, not science. So, theory of evolution is slightly more complex than Dr. Singh's. He seems to also claim a degree, a PhD in chemistry. He seems to think that it is really something which happens in front of our eyes. Leaving that out, what it seems to show is a deep distrust of science itself that the BJP or its senior ideologues seem to suffer from because it is not only him. Ramadha, again a very senior functionary of the BJP and the RSS, has also used, quoted in fact, a proof that evolution is wrong and some scientists have said it from the anti-evolution school in the United States which also owes their religions to the Bible and therefore believe that evolution is wrong. So, you see a sudden coming together of two very different streams in terms of religion, claiming that religion should have, shall we say, priority over science in the teaching in schools as well. So, this is how the anti-evolutionary school, the so called creationary schools which are really claiming their descent ideologically from the theories of the Bible. This is where it comes to. Now, before we get into the science of it, let's also look where it comes from. Both of them are also saying that religion must have priority over science. That's the other part of it and this is not something which is specific to Mr. Singh or Dr. Singh who has spent his whole life in police, fortunately not in the practice of science. But looking at what he has said, it's also strangely similar to what for instance, in the DCHR chairman, Professor Rao says, when he says, our oral history must have priority over the scientific exploration of the past, over archaeological evidence, over scientific evidence and so on. And that is one among the reasons why even the prime minister goes on saying that plastic surgery used to take place in Ganesha is an example of that, right? Yeah, of course it was really, it had to be more than plastic surgery. It had to be organ transplant, head transplant, which would mean the elephant brain then is dominating over the body. And then of course we have to give priority to elephants intelligence, over human intelligence, but leaving that out. You know, this formulation is not for all of these people. It really comes from Golvalkar. And his argument was that you have to give priority of religion over science. You cannot reform science, modify science every time there is a scientific discovery. But science must give way to religion. And that was the argument that he advanced that why religion should have priority of, should be privileged over science. So scientific theory according to him had to be modified by religion. Now, what happens when you have a proof of evolution, you have a proof of the solar system, you have proof that really earth goes round the sun and not vice versa against religious text which encapsulated not stupidity but really what was the knowledge of that time. Now therefore what you are saying is dead knowledge must have priority over living knowledge because dead knowledge was always a combination of what you didn't know and what you knew and used myths to bridge the gap. As you know more and more, the myths start then dissolving and you get more and more of science and that's the process that they would like to deny. It's really difficult for me to take seriously the claims that evolution did not happen and so on and there are whole textbooks filled with it. It is a Scopes monkey trial which was held in the United States arguing for the same thing. It has been laughed out of court for the last century. It's I think the deeper issue is why does it keep on reoccurring and I think that's something that we need to think about. Yeah and especially if you see right-wing governments and right-wing heads across the globe Trump making statements in the United States and in India Prime Minister Modi going and talking about these things then the HRD minister comes out and says these things. I mean for the implications does it have because in HRD minister looking after higher education and talking about these things. Well it's clear that it is going to lead to certain attacks on the way education is being practiced today. Education gives knowledge of the priority of space and the knowledge that is derived from what you can see with evidence and reason. This has been the basis of science. It's a basis of education and this is also incorporated in our Constitution in 51 A.H. where it says scientific temper, scientific thinking is something which every citizen has to practice and promote. So clearly what our ministers are doing is against the spirit and the letter of the Constitution. That's one part of it. Yes this is really in the sense that it is not prescriptive that everybody has to do it. It is something you are supposed to do. You are supposed to do but it is not forced on you by the Constitution. It is a constitutional duty. Now living that out I think what is also why you are doing this is also because science or knowledge whether it is in history or objectively around us really is against a certain kind of future that you would like to create. And this is something that was done even by somebody who is a rationalist like Savarkar. Savarkar is not a, I would not call him an obscurantist. He understood he was an atheist, he was not a practicing Hindu. In fact he also said that to my Hindu, Hindutva has nothing to do with Hinduism. It is basically to militarize Hinduism and Hinduize India. It was a different kind of nationalism project in which Hindu would be the citizen and this would not be a president. In the belief that you needed a cultural oneness and religion would provide the cultural oneness as a basis of the nation. So this is where it came from but the corollary of all this is the minute you start privileging your religious identity as a basis of the nation then you are faced with the fact that religious identity incorporates all kinds of theories. And as I said I would not dismiss those theories. Those theories were trying to understand what is nature. And because their knowledge of nature was relatively limited therefore they used their imagination and that's what is mythology. Mythology is an inquiry at a certain state of development and when the development really outpaces that then you change it with what is new. And this is really the dialectical tension between myth and reality as it were myth and science and culture as we described in which art is also involved and science again. So there has been this tension. The science displays myth no it doesn't. It displaces it at best to artistic imagination. The domain is a part of a culture but we start thinking about it. What it's going to do is that it is going to destroy the scientific inquisitiveness with the child is born with. He wants to know nature. He wants to know society instead of which he will be told you don't have to learn anything. Just learn your myths and forget about the inquiry because the inquiry is not the way to know knowledge but what is the way to knowledge is listening to what your myths are. Learning from your ancestors, learning from the old people who know the myths better than what your inquiry will do. So stop inquiry instead learn by road and you know the basic problem in Indian education is really learning by road and that is what probably this kind of dispensation in the education ministry is going to get us and therefore destroy basis of Indian education and science. And that's also one among the reasons why there's a continuous attack on the rational voices that has been happening in past three years starting from the Bholkar, Pansaree, then Kalburgi, Gauri, Lankesh. Also the government's stand is very contradictory. On one hand they talk about making India, skill India project, trying to show us scientific development of the country, make India more developed and on other hand their own ministers are doing that. And what's the way ahead? Well it's an interesting issue that the right wing has always been technologically willing to accept advances because that they don't think poses a threat to their, shall we say the natural, the social order they want to create. So they seem to love technological advances as long as they don't have to think about it. But if you see again the unity between science and technology and yes technology can be done without really probing the boundaries of science. Boundaries of science is knowing what is nature. Knowing nature automatically does not give you technology. Technology is really trying to control nature if you will, that changing nature if you will and that is a different set of skills. You could have that without the other. You could have great computer software and yet have them obscurantists in their personal social lives which you see in India quite often. So I think the problem that is there is their basic danger is to inquiry of the mind. The minute you start inquiring you start confronting your caste system, you start confronting the obscurantist beliefs that build your social hierarchies and social inequalities and that is why rational thought itself is a danger. That is why learning by rote is the preferred option. You can learn technology by rote. You don't create new technologies but you can learn technology by rote. You can practice technology by rote and that's what they really prefer and it's something which is very interesting. Indian science and technology has the problem of a lack of originality and this also comes because science and technology have not been married, particularly because of the caste system. Therefore learning by rote can get you at least working skills but it doesn't either create new technology, certainly doesn't create an understanding of nature or society. So I hope probably this government till it remains will give us many opportunities to discuss such comments by the BJP ministers. I will be coming back to you on such issues. Thank you for watching NewsClick. Follow our website NewsClick.in and follow our Facebook page.