Is there a scholar stupider than Nivedita Menon? Sure. Tamils are stupider than Keralites. As a case in point, Banu Subramaniam, a professor of Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has written a book titled 'Holy Science: The Biopolitics of Hindutva'.
I suppose, one could write a book showing that Modi's decision to concentrate on building toilets for rural women was dictated by scientific research explaining why outdoor defecation was correlated with higher vulnerability to disease. There was also the problem of physical assault. Moreover, creating universal benefits helped people of all castes and religions and, by raising the dignity of poorer people, generated increased cohesiveness and public confidence. Modi and other leaders realized that 'last mile delivery' was crucial in determining electoral outcomes. Rhetoric and empty promises were fooling no one.
Sadly Banu Subramaniyam's book is illiterate gibberish.
Consider the following extract from her book-
GROWING UP AS A BIOLOGY NERD, I SAW THE “ SEXUAL” AS A critical site where the biological and the social easily cohered.Amudha flowed over Uruvam’s cuboidal black body, taking in its radiating worries. The information transformed its liquescent form. Amudha was constituted entirely of liquid—various chemicals and compounds swept through its body at dizzying speeds and in infinite directions. A stream of green flowed down, a flash of pink erupted upward, purple dots swam across the swirling blue, black jets shot through the yellow valleys. The liquids flowed around a central pulsating shaft that appeared to miraculously hold the dulcet flows of its dynamic liquiform. Amudha was always concocting new possibilities. Might some chemical developments on Kari/Earth be reversed?
I suppose this is a fair representative of 'Feminist Science'. It is good to know that it features a 'pulsating shaft'. Still, if this silly lady is trying to make out that Modi is a retarded cow-worshipper she should try to appear technocratic and sciencey.
For decades now, Nadu has watched the growing nationalism on Kari with deep concern.
The lady is from Tamil Nadu. She isn't concerned with Dravidian nationalism which turned Sri Lanka into a hell-hole. It is only Hindus she hates.
The vantage point was all about me, me, me! For some, it extended into the possessive: a focus on my son, daughter, wife, husband, partner, parent, friend, family, community, nation—and all that they owned. Nadu was the node, or Kanu, of place and space. An amorphous ball of magenta,
not a cube? Sad. Still, maybe it had a 'pulsating shaft'.
Nadu was capable of becoming as tiny or gigantic as it wanted. It could spread out across enormous spaces or shrink into a small crevice.
The brains of this lady's students shrink into a very small crevice indeed.
Another chapter begins thus-
LIVING IN A WORLD OF STORIES AS A YOUNG GIRL, I REMEMBER being struck by the many narratives of rescue that surrounded me—nationalist narratives of India’s rescue from colonial rule, religious stories of Rama rescuing Sita in the Ramayana,
what about Damayanti searching for Nala or Durga defeating demons?
the intrepid heroes of Bollywood rescuing their damsels in distress,
She isn't going to criticize MGR for rescuing damsels.
and the global exploits of environmentalists
like Vandana Shiva- who has a PhD in Philosophy of Science?
rescuing the splendid biodiversity of our planet. The objects of the rescue were always abject and always rendered feminine.
In Amrika, Reagan was constantly being rescued by Nancy- right? The fact is, plenty of men get rescued by women. The problem is that women don't want to marry the dude who was being beaten up by a five year old. They may feel sorry for me but they don't want to have sex with me.
The Ramayana in particular provided much fuel to my budding feminist sensibilities.
Rama was Hindu. Hindus are bad. Feminism must say 'Boo to India! It is filled with kaffirs!'
I could see that foreign films flaunted the bare bodies of their heroines while their Indian counterparts could only suggest the same. As I was working on the various cases of this book, the sexual repeatedly emerged as an important site that revealed the incommensurability of Western and Indian thought.
Hindu Nationalism is distinctive in that there is an emphasis on celibacy in the cause of National Service. But plenty of women- e.g. the wives of JP and Kripalani- took that oath. Modi and Yogi are examples as were Aurobindo and the Mahatma. This silly lady won't comment on this. Indeed, her entire book is nothing but the gushing of a school girl longing for a 'pulsating shaft'.
The Huffington Post has an interview with this nutcase under the following headline-
“Biology” is at the core of Hindu nationalism,
Hinduism is a religion. Hindu nationalism has a religious core.
and driving the Bharatiya Janata Party’s call to return to the Hindu way of life in India, says a professor of Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
In other words, a stupid maniac.
In her book, Holy Science: The Biopolitics of Hindutva, Subramaniam, who is a trained plant biologist and a PhD in Zoology,
women belong in Zoos- right? That's why Amherst appointed a Zoologist a Professor of Women Studies.
writes, “One of the hallmarks of Hindu nationalism is the centrality of “biology” and the scientific within the imagination, teaching, and practices of political nationalism ― claims of common blood, indigenous DNA, unique theories, native ecologies and regimes of bodily discipline are all grounded in a vision of thoroughly scientific nationalism.”
Nonsense! Hindu nationalism exists only because there was a serious Communist threat and there is now a powerful Islamist threat. Turkey may have a theory of how Kurds are actually 'mountain Turks'. India has no such thing.
While “bio-politics” was a term first coined by French philosopher Paul-Michel Foucault, Subramaniam, in an interview with HuffPost India, explains it in the context of Hindu nationalism, this prevailing sense of urgency to be a good “Hindu,” and the bigotry leveled at the Zomato delivery guy, this week.
That had to do with religion, not biology.
What do you mean by the centrality of biology in Hindu nationalism?
She studied biology and thus sees it everywhere. All she means to say is 'Hinduism is very evil. Boo to Modi!'
Before I get into “biology” as one particular field within the sciences, let me talk about the sciences in general. One of the striking aspects of Hindu nationalism is its embrace of the sciences.
Dr. Zakir Naik is a medical Doctor just like Zawahiri. So what?
This is unique and striking for a religious nationalist movement.
The Muslim Brotherhood had a lot of Doctors in leading positions. The plain fact is, engineers and doctors have played a big role in neo-religious movements all over the world. This was because they resented the military officers who ran things while Marxist idealogues endorsed the atrocities they committed as necessary steps to eradicate 'the opium of the masses'.
So for example, the rising Christian white nationalism in the United States sees science as a godless threat to humanity,
The Nazis relied on 'Race science'. Eugenics is still around though it tends to keep its head down. Christian white nationalists are likely to hold 'Creation Science' to be superior to Darwin's theory. So what?
Currently it is the Islamists who are threatening world peace. A nuclear war in the Middle East might well break out by the end of the decade. According to a Jewish website- In one of his sermons, Saudi sheikh Abd Al-Rahman Al-Sudayyis, imam and preacher at the Al-Haraam mosque – the most important mosque in Mecca – beseeched Allah to annihilate the Jews. He also urged the Arabs to give up peace initiatives with them because they are "the scum of the human race, the rats of the world, the violators of pacts and agreements, the murderers of the prophets, and the offspring of apes and pigs."[2]
Biology has been appealed to- even Darwin's theory has been invoked- by all sorts of political parties which call for the annihilation of some segment of the population. Equally, there have been genocides and population exchanges without any such argument being made.
and as oppositional to religion. But, in India, science is comprehensively embraced in the nationalist vision. Unlike other religious fundamentalists, modern Hinduism has produced not a scriptural return to a singular sacred text as do most fundamentalisms,
The Arya Samaj is modern and Hindu and, at an earlier period, would appeal to geology to prove that the Vedas were written at least four billion years ago!
but rather a political nationalism through a melding of science and religion. Where other religious nationalisms refuse science, Hindu nationalism embraces science as a central project for Hinduism.
So does Buddhism. Indeed, that religion revived in Sri Lanka after Col. Olcott arranged a debate with the Christian Missionaries. The Buddhists won because they could appeal to Darwin and Geology.
But at the same time, they also support patriarchal and casteist values and power structures.
No. The attractive aspect of Hindutva is its ecumenical opposition to the hereditary principle. It is Congress whose dynastic leader is a 'janeodhari' Brahmin.
What I argue in the book is that this combination results in what I call an “archaic modernity” —
In which case America- where the POTUS believes God was the son of a carpenter- is very archaic indeed.
Hindu nationalism
like everything else
brings together the past and present, modernity and orthodoxy, science and religion; they embrace capitalism, globalisation, science, and technology as elements of a modern Hindu nation.
So does America. This proves Biden is a member of the RSS.
In the western schema this formation would seem oxymoronic and anachronistic, but within modern India, it is the reassertion of a very Indian modernity aptly captured in the slogan: “Be Modern, Not Western.”
Which is perfectly Nehruvian.
So, Hindu fundamentalism embraces science. It’s fundamentalism all the same. Isn’t that dangerous?
Hindutva is ecumenical, not fundamentalist. It embraces sects which reject the authority of the Vedas and does not give a special place to Brahmins. To be frank, this was not always clear. When I was young, many were under the impression that the RSS was controlled by a small number of Chitpavan Brahmins.
As I explain above, it’s best to understand it as Hindu nationalism rather than fundamentalism - there is no fundamental scriptural text for Hinduism.
There is for 'Sanaatan Dharma'. Gandhi started off in that camp. Rahul claims to incarnate it as a janeodhari Brahmin of Dattatreya gotra.
My project in the book is to describe and analyse the current situation.
But this silly lady knows nothing of India. True, she did her first degree in DMK dominated Madras, but she quickly ran away to Amrika.
Yes, I think Hindu nationalism as it is developing is dangerous,
American nationalism is not dangerous because this lady lives in America. Did she raise a peep against the 'War on Terror' which killed 1.3 million Muslims? India stayed out of both Gulf wars and gave only humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan.
but some of the emerging bio-nationalism isn’t necessarily so, and even has liberatory potentials.
Bio-nationalism is as useless as Bio-feminism.
“Where other religious nationalisms refuse science, Hindu nationalism embraces science as a central project for Hinduism.”
So did Nehruvian nationalism.
What is the biology of Hindu nationalism?
Biology. Nothing else. Similarly its physics is physics and its economics is economics.
“Biopolitics” is a term from the philosopher Michel Foucault who argued that the modern nation state consolidates its power through “biopower” — i.e., modern populations are controlled and regulated through bodies.
just like ancient populations.
Modern states use all kinds of popular instruments to control birth and death rates,
China may have tried to control birth rates. India did so briefly during the Emergency but then gave up. America has never tried anything of that sort. That is why it isn't modern.
illness and well being etc — so biology becomes centrally important.
Medicine is important. The market allocates more and more resources to Pharma because demand for medical services is highly 'income elastic'. This silly woman does not know Economics.
I’ve detailed the history and the idea much more in the book. Biology is important everywhere but is central to the Hindu nationalist imagination in very particular ways.
Nonsense! Harsh Vardhan was the only Doctor in Modi's Cabinet. He was dropped because of the Government's poor handling of COVID.
To give you some examples – we see a call for a return to Hindu ways of life
that was Mahatma Gandhi's call. Nehru's Constituent Assembly wrote cow protection into the Constitution as a Directive Principle.
—resurgence in the importance of daily bodily discipline regimes
Modi doing Yoga? But Nehru did Yoga.
— exercise regimes, meditation, and yoga are extolled because a central tenet is that “strong minds need virile bodies.”
Nehru was a founding member of the Congress Seva Dal as was Hegdewar who had been a pal of Dr. Hardikar. Both were influenced by the Anushilar Samitis in Bengal. The RSS was set up in imitation of the Seva Dal. The idea was that it would be 'non-political' and thus escape the ban on the more powerful organization. Later on the RSS helped Syama Prasad Mukherjee found the Jan Sangh after the latter broke with the Hindu Mahasabha. The Jan Sangh became the current BJP after the Janata Morcha fell apart.
These practices form the cornerstone of training young cadres in local shakhas.
Just like the Anushilan Samitis and the Seva Dal.
Hinduism also has widespread laws of purity and pollution, regimes of body care, codes of endogamy, and metaphors of “pure” Hindu blood, and blood ties.
The RSS helped break down these prejudices. It was and is anti-casteist which is why some upper caste Hindus hate it.
Taken together, these are very striking. Body discipline, the centrality of biology and the body in the imagination of the “good” and pure Hindu are thus a core belief or ideology of Hindu nationalism.
It was Gandhi who was obsessed with the 'purity' of the body. He kept giving and receiving enemas.
This is ubiquitous in the speeches of politicians and political platforms.
Nonsense! Modi talks about things that matter. Baba Ramdev was a successful Yoga teacher and has a big naturopathic business empire. But he is only tangentially associated with the BJP. What this silly woman should focus on is Yogi Adityanath. But he isn't constantly babbling about the purity of his bodily fluids. He talks of killing gangsters or, at least, knocking their houses down.
Again, isn’t this dangerous?
Crazy terrorists are dangerous as everybody discovered on 9/11. Hindu nationalism represents no danger to anybody. Perhaps it will help in pushing back against China. On the other hand, India and China could easily settle the border issue amicably.
Here, I would say not. All cultures have different ways of living. In many ways, one could argue that a model that understands the body and the mind as a connected whole is far more progressive than a western model that creates a mind—body split. In fact, much of modern biology is moving towards more integrated forms of knowledge. It is when these beliefs become violent, supremacist and intolerant of others that I think they become dangerous.
But will this lady condemn Islamic terrorists? No. I don't blame her. It is safer to attack people who won't chop your head off.
Have these beliefs become violent and dangerous in India right now?
Yes, some of them have been, I agree.
DMK thugs are pretty dangerous. This lady was right to run away from a Madras where the son of the Chief Minister speaks of exterminating the religion of this lady's ancestors.
What you are describing asserts homogeneity. Widespread laws of purity and pollution, regimes of body care, codes of endogamy, and metaphors of “pure” Hindu blood, and blood ties — sounds like Nazi Germany propaganda. How can this not be dangerous?
A thing which does not exist can't be dangerous. On the other hand, there are political parties and terrorist organizations which want to see all women dressed in the hijab and excluded from Schools, Colleges and the work-place.
These ideals of Hinduism have always existed — so in that sense, yes, it’s always dangerous when some people think they are superior, and other people are “impure” and pollute just through their presence.
The words 'Pak' and 'Khalis' mean 'pure'. The establishment of Pakistan or Khalistan involves the expulsion of 'najis' (unclean) Kaffirs- i.e. Hindus. The DMK, under Stalin's son, may well expel or kill Brahmins because they belong to 'Sanatan Dharma'.
Some of this is not new in terms of belief — what is new is that we have a Hindu nationalist government in power, and with a majority. How much of this moves from individual and religious community beliefs into governance structures remains to be seen.
We have seen enough to know that the RSS and the BJP are perfectly decent though by no means perfect at Governance. If some other party cand do better 'last mile delivery', it will win.
Is vegetarianism part of bio-politics? This man refused to get food delivered from a non-Muslim delivery guy because of a Hindu festival. Is this a fallout of bio-nationalism?
No. This is because of a primitive 'pathogen avoidance' theory which got 'hard wired' into religious rituals through ideas of 'auspiciousness'. But plenty of other religions have similar customs.
Yes, I would agree. This is a particular understanding of the bio-ethical and moral role of the “cow” in India today that is driving politics to very dangerous and violent ends. Whether something is “beef” is being adjudicated both by a mob and then by “science.”
Some Indian states have draconian cow protection laws. But they were passed by Congress Governments.
What are the similarities between Hindutva bio-nationalism and the Nazi race theory?
The Nazis merely took over existing Anglo-Saxon 'scientific' race theory propounded by Galton, Pearson etc. America had it to a much greater extent. Hindutva, being ecumenical, didn't have it at all. It was obvious that a Nepali looked different from a Madrasi who looked different from a Punjabi.
For instance, RSS leaders like Gowalkar and Savarkar
Savarkar was a Mahasabha leader
argued foreign races in Hindustan must adopt Hindu culture and language.
Just as Muslim leaders argued that Kaffirs must adopt Muslim culture and language. This was a practical matter. Should the national language be written in the Hindu or the Islamic script?
Is bio-nationalism similar to Wilhelm Stuckart’s Nuremberg laws, which led to the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany.?
The Nuremberg laws were similar to American Jim Crow laws. Hitler was applying American policies towards indigenous and African origin people. But he was doing it in the heart of Europe.
At a very broad level, you could argue that all nationalist movements have common elements – all are trying to build and promote a “nation” of some kind.
No. They are just trying to make the nation economically and militarily viable.
As you say, we could also see elements of an exclusive and nativist vision in both – Aryan and Hindu supremacy. In both, we have also seen violent tendencies – in India the rise of vigilante killings of rationalists,
two were killed. Meanwhile tens of thousands of Hindus were expelled from the Kashmir Valley.
and violence against minorities
Hindu minorities
’ places of worship, beef bans etc
Cow protection is in Ambedkar's Constitution!
. – and these are worrying. More alarming are the direct homage paid to Nazi Germany by some Hindu nationalists.
What about direct homage to Osama and Hamas? Why is this lady cool with that? After all, as an American, her tax dollars have gone towards killing both. Why does she ignore what America is doing so as to pretend Hindus in India are very much more evil? The answer is obvious. America needed darkies like her to pretend that America wasn't the killer-in-chief of Muslims. The Hindus were worse. But this simply wasn't and isn't true. China may kill Muslims. America continues to do so. India simply isn't in that business.
But in many ways they are not the same.
The Nazis followed American policies. Then they made the mistake of declaring war on both the Soviets and the Americans.
What I describe in the book is a bio-nationalism in India that is very unique,
so much so that it does not exist
one that emerges from the long, and very rich, pluralist and syncretic traditions of South Asia.
Pakistan is part of South Asia. No doubt this silly lady finds it very pluralist and syncretic.
Sometimes bio-nationalism promotes progressive ends, and at others supremacist politics.
America waged a supremacist war against 'sand niggers'. This lady had no objection to that.
The book is trying to explore the richness of the entanglements of science and religion in the subcontinent.
There is no such entanglement.
As I argue in the book, we should be researching and promoting the rich and robust sciences emerging in the sub continent. Yet we are not.
The market is keen to invest in Space Rockets and Serum Institutes and IT and Robotics and Pharma and Water conservation technologies and so forth. Smart people are 'researching and promoting' this sort of thing. Venture Capitalists pay a little money to subscribe to such newsletters. Stupid feminists are ignored.
You write that the alleged hyper-fertility of minority women, especially Muslim women, continues to haunt Hindu nationalists? What does this mean?
Demographic replacement haunts lots of people everywhere. Muslims, at this current time, aren't exactly a model minority. This may change. Younger people may turn against the 'Leninist' style of operation of Ikhwan type outfits.
If you look at the history of many conflicts in the world, women and women’s reproductive ability consistently become a key political target.
Not really. Most people are happy if poor people have more babies. The word 'proletarian' means 'child bearing'. Without a proletariat, you either have to import workers or else your economy collapses.
Minority communities are always seen as reproducing too much and as threats to the majority community.
Parsis are a minority. Nobody is worried they are having too few babies. We are worried they don't have enough.
Women, and their reproductive abilities become the “problem.” For example, India and the Indian population, and Indian women’s fertility have long been such a target to the world – which is why India has been such a central focus of world population control. Today, I point out that within India and the rhetoric of Hindu nationalism, we hear repeated concerns about the hyper-fertile Muslim woman.
Only if that is what you are listening for. But you can hear any sort of shite so long as that's what you want to hear.
But what do Hindu nationalists hope to gain by fixating on it?
Hindu votes. D'uh!
Fear of the “other” is a powerful motivation in many nationalisms.
American nationalism- sure. But that's why this lady emigrated there.
Creating religious minorities as “others” —
America had an 'un-American activities committee'. The result was that the Commies became very quiet and peaceful and so more and more South Indians immigrated to the US after racist immigration laws were lifted in 1965.
as non-Indians, and unworthy of citizenship is powerful politics.
America isn't giving refuge and citizenship to millions of Latin Americans. This lady has no problem with that.
Part of “othering” is claiming that religious minorities are increasing in numbers through high reproductive rates — so minority women become central sites of control.
No they don't. I have tried controlling minority women. They kick me in the bollocks and then hand me over to the police.
The same pattern is currently playing out in the United States as well — as it has during much of world history.
Why is this lady who lives in America focusing on India? Is it because she feels she serves her country by pretending that it is India, not America, which has killed 1.3 million Muslims and displaced tens of millions more?
You write about Prime Minister Narendra Modi evoking Hindu mythology to talk about plastic surgery. Evoking Hindu mythology to claim that there was plastic surgery in ancient India
There was. Apparently, Indian kings would cut off the nose of criminals. So there was a market for 'nose jobs'. The Brits noticed this back in the eighteenth century.
or that planes were first mentioned in Ramayana seems unscientific and opportunistic.
The aim is to raise the morale of ordinary people by telling them their ancestors had achieved great things and so their descendants too might accomplish much.
But you cite these examples in the context of science, religion and nationalism. Could you explain?
V.S Naipaul had gassed on about this sixty years ago. It is easy to do a quick Google search and find examples of Indian politicians repeating this sort of claim.
What fascinates me in India is this effortless melding of the past and present.
Sadly, it takes a lot of effort to learn Sanskrit and meld ancient rituals into our busy working day.
The “modern” is given a Hindu/Vedic prehistory
She means 'Puranic'
in claims by some that modern inventions like airplanes, internet and satellite technology, atomic power, theory of evolution, plastic surgery, genomics and other modern sciences were already present in Vedic times. I use Prime Minister Modi’s statement — “We worship Lord Ganesha. There must have been some plastic surgeon at that time who got an elephant’s head on the body of a human being and began the practice of plastic surgery.” — to illustrate how modern science is invoked in the context of a mythological narrative.
This lady had a President who thought injecting yourself with bleach might cure COVID. Another Presidential candidate, an acclaimed surgeon, thought Joseph built the pyramids to store grain. The plain fact is, politicians have to say different things to different audiences so as to appear to share their 'life-world'.
Prime Minister Modi could well have claimed that a god could, through divine powers, connect the bodies of an elephant and human, or that god does not need circulating blood or a central nervous system. Rather, he invented a plastic surgeon to perform an operation to connect the two interspecies body parts.
This meme has been around for a hundred years. Modi would have heard it as a kid- just as I did.
This is precisely the imagination of Hindu nationalism that I find fascinating and significant — science and technology and their practitioners mediate mythological and divine worlds.
There were plenty of 'rationalists' back in the nineteenth century who would give pseudo-scientific explanations for Scriptural miracles. It makes sense for a politician to repeat such claims before specific audiences because it shows the guy is religious but also believes he himself can make things better. He isn't going to leave everything to God.
Even Hindu gods need doctors. Central to these claims is the idea that modern science was invented in and by Vedic India. It is interesting that these claims are always projected backwards – modern science prefigured in the Vedic period – never the other way around.
Because Time's arrow goes from past to future. Feminist Science may disagree. Time gets raped by the Future and runs away to the Past where it gets raped by a dinosaurs. Sad.
“May the force be with you.” PM Modi quoting Star Wars in NYC.
Poor fellow, he confused the X-Men franchise with the Star Wars franchise. I tried to claim that this was because Hugh Jackman was being considered as a replacement for Harrison Ford but nobody believed me. Sad.
How does this relate to science, religion and bio-nationalism?
It doesn't. Modi may not watch a lot of films. Some young IAS officer must have given him that line. But that IAS officer got it wrong.
Here I was using the quote to signal how thoroughly modern and global Hindu nationalism is.
If you watch Star Wars you are modern and global. This is the great discovery of Feminist Science. Of course, if you watch Barbarella, you are friggin' Einstein.
There is much support for Hindu nationalism in the Hindu diaspora.
Because Hindu nationalism is good for the world. India needs to be able to stand up to both Islamic terror and Chinese aggression.
This is not an insular parochial nationalism – but a nationalism that is expansive and open to embrace modern and popular culture to promote itself.
Hindus in America don't want their kids to come home from school crying their little eyes out because Teechur says Hindus are an inferior type of monkey who worship a big ape and a fat guy with the head of an elephant. They want their kids to think that there is nothing inferior about their ancestral home and that grandpa isn't going to cut their head off so as to replace it with that of some animal that chances to be passing by.
But the plastic surgery and planes claims are not true. Isn’t this dangerous?
No. For a thing to be dangerous it must be causally connected to some bad outcome.
Yes, it is dangerous for many reasons. It creates an imaginary and false history,
So does 'Bridgerton' or 'Pirates of the Caribbean'. But no evil outcome arises as a result.
it obfuscates what is true and false.
Nope. It merely says 'hey guys! We used to be scientifically advanced. Let's work hard to rise up in education and technology. Being Indian is hella cool!'
Any politics that causes people to follow leaders or movements without questioning, and prevents people from critical thinking is dangerous, I’d agree.
This lady lost the ability to think critically because she listened to Modi. Thus she gave up doing Science- which is useful- in order to teach useless shite.
Is science in India secular? Is this a western notion? Does it need to be?
Science can be practiced by anybody- including a monk like Mendel. A pioneer of Scientific research in Calcutta was a European Catholic priest.
We need to understand and explore why and how science in India plays out differently than science in other parts of the world.
This simply isn't true. Science is the same around the world. Feminist Science may be different, but it is nonsense.
This is part of my project in the book – I am trying to move beyond the simplistic characterisations of science and pseudoscience.
Because she practices a pseudo-science.
In India, I show through five case studies, how science and religion are thoroughly entangled – both in the everyday lives of people and at the national level.
This silly lady doesn't understand that if a person spends time on two different things, those two different things aren't entangled. Take a guy who does Accountancy at work and has sex with his wife when he gets home. We can't say double entry is entangling his sexual and his professional life.
So for example, medical practitioners may encourage a patient to visit a holy shrine or explore alternative medicine alongside medical treatment.
My GP in Fulham used to do that, till he died of cancer. Doctors have always understood that a religious person's recovery may be helped by certain religious practices but not others.
Individuals may go to multiple doctors and religious gurus, even though the systems are completely unrelated and even contradictory in some cases.
The NHS has no problem with 'complementary therapies'.
The claims of whether Adam’s (Ram Setu) bridge is really the bridge that Hanuman built in the Ramayana go all the way up to the Supreme court for adjudication.
Because Subramaniyam Swamy- whose wife is denied promotion to the Bench- runs to the Supreme Court every time he gets a bug up his ass.
Understanding this, it should not surprise us to hear that the head of ISRO offered pujas before the launch of the Mars orbiter in 2013.
So what? It is merely a customary way to boost morale.
This resurgence of Hindu nationalism has also seen a rise in an exuberant consumerism of Vedic India today — ancient wisdom bottled into household products ranging from toothpastes, pulses and spices, to soaps, cleaners and insect repellents.
But this occurs even States where no Hindu nationalist party has any representation in the Legislative Assembly. There is no causal link. Still Feminist Science has no need for causality. It can just pull any shit it likes out of its arse.
We have seen a proliferation of Vedic sciences in Vaastushastra, Ayurveda, Yoga, and other medical technologies.
The Government subsidises Ayurvedic and Unani Medical training.
Rather than science being seen as oppositional to religion, Hinduism and science are melded together into a formula that is seen as the best of the east and the west.
Communist China was no enemy of traditional Chinese medicine. As the country has grown richer, the demand for traditional therapies has greatly increased. The affluent Chinese diaspora caused Chinese medical shops to open in Western cities. There are two such within five minutes walk of where I live. Increasingly, their clientele is non-Chinese.
t the same time, as I show in the book, western scientific technologies have been used by grassroots struggles, activist organisations, and nationalist groups, and the government to make various claims – for example, how genomics is used to make claims about the population genetics of India.
This lady won't say that it is wrong for the ruling party in her ancestral State to call her own people 'outsiders' who should be expelled from the pure and good Dravidian nation.
Is it secular?
The DMK claim is casteist. Tamil Brahmins are bad because their ancestors came from outside.
About secularism, this is a complex question and much has been written about it. Indeed many scholars would argue that science is not secular anywhere in the world. A case in point is the long history of debates around evolution in the U.S.
There is a religious, or Scriptural, objection to Darwinian evolution. Hindu India sees Darwin as compatible with the doctrine of rebirth.
But it is important here to recognise that secularism in India also isn’t the same as that in other countries. The founders of India constituted a democratic country with a secular and pluralistic vision that was to actively include, support, and encourage all religions (in contrast to an American model of a separation of church and state).
No. A particular State, or indeed the Union Government, may support or restrain specific religious activities but that is a political question which, however, is justiciable.
Hindu nationalists have rather redefined both secularism and democracy – secularism as tolerance and democracy as majoritarianism.
In which case, India should have declared itself a Hindu country because the majority is Hindu.
Thus, they argue that while the presence of religious minorities should be “tolerated,” the majority Hindus should define and govern India. Religious nationalists imagine a Hindu India for a Hindu people. This is what is at stake – how we imagine India.
This lady was quick enough to run away from a State where Hindus of her caste were considered 'outsiders' and subjected to abuse. That was majoritarianism in action.
Ultimately, Indians define the India they want – at present through elected representatives in government. To what extent people voted for the BJP because of their Hindu supremacist agenda versus the promise of good and effective governance is something that time will tell.
In 2004, it became clear that only governance- and the price of onions- matters.
What is worrying is that the two – Hindu supremacy and good governance – may become the same thing.
Which would be cool with the minorities. The fact is Indians keep trying to migrate to where governance is better even if governance is only better because of centuries of 'majoritarianism'.
How would Hindu supremacy and good governance become one thing?
Instead of 'vote-bank politics' and 'freebies' to buy votes, you could have clean, technocratic, leaders though, no doubt, many of them would come from minorities.
Could you explain? Would failure to generate jobs, grow the economy, improve the lot of farmers, not matter?
Good governance grows the economy and creates jobs allowing more and more farmers to get better paid employment.
I’d agree that they shouldn’t but might they not? If religious minorities are constructed as THE problem facing the country, might not the two interests converge?
That's what happened in 1947. Governance improved because India took away reserved seats from Muslims. They had to pipe small or pack their bags for Pakistan. In the South, however, there was no Muslim separatism.
This worries me. Also, there are plenty of periods in history where people vote against their economic interests in order to shore up the nation. Politics and political interests can be very complex.
But a smart guy like Prashant Kishore can get rich and fundamentally alter the way politics is done by using Statistics, and Common Sense, to cut through that complexity. Feminist Science can only stand around holding its imaginary dick.
You write that understanding bio-nationalism is an attempt to understand modernity,
which fails because 'bio-nationalism' is about Bavarians prancing around in lederhosen rather than wearing Levis like the cool kids in Amrika.
but not in the superior mode that Modi invokes. What do you mean?
Mod is Hindu. Hindus are very evil. America is good and never killed niggers or sand-niggers or feather-Indians.
The subcontinent does indeed have a rich and diverse history – to reduce that heritage to Hindu supremacy seems like an impoverished reading of the past.
India turned to shit precisely because the supremacy of the indigenous people was lost to foreign conquerors.
Hinduism itself is astonishingly heterogeneous and multifaceted.
But Brahminism is astonishingly homogeneous.
In addition, we have many ancient animist traditions, religions that were brought into India and several that emerged within India. These rich legacies did not appear yesterday but have coexisted in the subcontinent for centuries.
Do they continue to co-exist in Pakistan?
There is a bountiful gift that India inherited in 1947.
This lady preferred the bountiful gifts available in America. That was before she became a Feminist Scientist.
Yet postcolonial India has done little to draw on this legacy to imagine and develop the sciences.
Why isn't there a Chair in the Physics of Djinns? Tapping Djinn energy could help trillions of bahishkrit ghosts and vetalas.
India has constantly looked westward to craft that future, and today, backwards.
This lady looked and then went westward. Sadly she became a Professor of useless shite and started looking backwards.
There is a tremendous opportunity here that I’m afraid has been squandered.
This lady could have done something useful with her life. She squandered her expensive education.
Therein lies both my worry and hope.
Our worry is that some promising student will give up Science so as to follow in the footsteps of this moron. Our hope is that her book is a Sokol type parody of the Hindu-bashing American academics indulge in.
Public Seminar has also published an interview with Banu. Is it any better? Let us see-
Public Seminar [PS]: I thought we might begin by asking how you began to construct the concept of “archaic modernities.” Was there something you began to see in the modern Indian context that sparked your imagination or your concern? Can you help us understand the concept through its emergence in you?
The Renaissance was the immediate precursor to the Scientific Revolution in the West. It was archaic in that it harkened back to ancient Greece. It is perfectly proper for the Academy in different countries to see itself as returning to and revitalizing ancient, or even imaginary, scholarly practices. Thus China sets up 'Confucius Institutes' around the globe while India sought to revive Nalanda as a great international university.
Banu, obviously, is wholly ignorant of all this.
Banu Subramaniam: Thank you so much for this opportunity to discuss this book. I’m delighted and honored. The concept of “archaic modernity” emerged during my frequent trips to India while living in the United States – the emerging nationalist politics in both countries presented a study in contrasts.
Nationalist politics in the US emerged in the eighteenth century. Nobody told Banu. Sad.
In India, the rise of Hindu nationalism was unmistakable with each trip,
It had attained apotheosis in 1947, long before this lady was born.
as was a rising Christian white nationalism in the U.S.
It had begun to decline before this lady was born- which is one reason she could emigrate so easily to America.
However, while science in the U.S was seen as oppositional and a Godless threat to humanity, in India it was comprehensively embraced in the nationalist vision. Yet, there was a resurgence and entrenchment of patriarchal and casteist power structures.
They have weakened considerably. This lady lives in a fantasy world.
It was striking how Hindu nationalism brought together the past and present, modernity and orthodoxy, science and religion into an “archaic modernity” that embraced capitalism, globalization, science, and technology as elements of a modern Hindu nation.
Come to think of it A.O Hulme- founder of the Congress party- turned into a vegetarian Vedantist. However he supported cow-protection for scientific reasons- the same ones which caused Cow Protection to be made a Directive Principle in the Constitution.
In the western schema it seemed anachronistic, but within modern India, it was the reassertion of a very Indian modernity aptly captured in the slogan: “Be Modern, Not Western.”
Say no to Valentine cards. Say yes to Raksha bandhan. Vandana Shiva explains that nice Indian plants are wearing saree not jeans which are modified to show off the bum or the camel toe. Mind it kindly!
PS: You are careful throughout the text to help your reader understand that religion and science have a much different relationship in the Hindu/Indian context than they do in the west. In India, you write, “science and religion are not oppositional. They are something else — tools, allies, synergies, partners, symbionts, challengers, colluders, or syncretic collaborators.”
Sadly, this is more true of the West where colleges which were founded to train preachers quietly turned into centres of Scientific and Technological innovation.
Can you help us see how that looks by giving us an example of a particularly provocative alliance or collusion between religion and science in India today?
No. The lady is too stupid and ignorant.
Subramaniam: I am not a scholar of religion, and even though I did not grow up in a particularly religious family, working on this book has made me appreciate how central religion is to the cultural imagination. The various case studies in the book highlight the dense and intricate entanglements of science and religion — and what is most striking is how thorough this imbrication is at all levels and scales. For example, we see the exuberant consumerism of Vedic India today — ancient wisdom bottled into household products ranging from toothpastes, toilet cleaners, soaps, and insect repellents to the extolling of the use of Vedic sciences in architecture and medical technologies. Modern Indian gurus are thoroughly technologically savvy,
one or two may be. The vast majority are not.
with vibrant social media campaigns and bold scientific claims presented on a global stage. We have seen the repackaging of ancient Indian sciences as thoroughly modern and robust sciences such as Vaastushastra, Ayurveda, and Yoga
we saw all that back in the 1880s!
— sciences that meld the best of the east and the west. At the same time, western scientific technologies have been thoroughly democratized, embraced and deployed by a varied set of actors — from grassroot struggles, activist organizations, and nationalist groups to the state. The five case studies I discuss in the book present an India brimming with such complex and dense entanglements.
There are no entanglements. Vandana Shiva was and is a nutcase who knows nothing about agronomy. There are various charlatans and a few Deepak Chopra type 'quantum medicine' quacks. But they flourish in America even more than they do in India. Where is the Indian version of 'Scientology'?
PS: What are the particular dangers of the form of bionationalism that is being promulgated in India at the moment? What possibilities do you see being occluded or constrained?
India has disintermediated the 'tukde tukde' gang. There is no prospect of a Dalit-Muslim-Dravidian alliance against the Hindu majority.
Subramaniam: Coming from the field of Science and Technology Studies and Feminist Studies, what was most revealing was how our theories and vocabularies have not kept pace with political transformations. For example, the growing fear about “fake news” and debates about “facts” in the public imagination are most often resolved through a need for increased valorization of “truth” and “science.”
This may be true of America. Indians were cool with the COVID vaccine. Where is the Indian equivalent of Robert Kennedy?
The rise of the new atheists
was accomplished in Tamil Nadu before this lady was born
calls for a marginalization, and indeed opposition, of religion in favor of science.
So, this silly moo is seeing American problems in an India which is much poorer and which has had a very different history.
Yet, in India we see the vibrant growth of “vedic sciences.”
No we don't. There was once a fad for 'vedic mathematics', but it has died away. Where in India will you find a David Bohm who wants to chat with a Krishnamurthy?
So the question becomes: what is science and who gets to define it?
Funding Agencies. I suppose you can get a PhD in Feminist Sociology of Science. But you won't get a well paid job if you do.
Another response has been a call to mobilize the sciences in events such the recent “March for Science”,
in America because Trump said climate change was a hoax. Modi, as Obama tells us, was on the other side of this.
where “science” is the sole arbiter of truth claims and social progress. Yet histories of eugenics, never ending scientific claims of sex, race, class and sexual differences should give us all pause.
No. They can be refuted. Only Structural Causal Models matter. It is fine to say such and such race has a higher predisposition to such and such a disease. Gene therapy which disproportionately helps that race still saves the lives of plenty of other people.
The regular exposure of fraud and false claims in science necessitates a vigilant public.
No. It necessitates better peer review and kicking DIE in the crotch repeatedly till it fucks off.
After all, science is a social enterprise, conducted by humans who are shaped by very particular social histories.
Only in the sense that shitting is a social enterprise. The fact is Robinson Crusoe can shit or do science all by himself.
The history of science reveals an enterprise deeply implicated in histories of sexism, racism, colonialism, heterosexism; ableism.
So is the history of whatever stupid shite this nutter professes. Does it occur to her that Third Wave Feminism is implicated in the rise of Donald Trump and the defeat of Hilary Clinton?
Even an elementary perusal of history will tell us that science and religion are, and have always been, deeply entangled with structures of power (even in the West).
Nonsense! Science is entangled with the market for innovative technology. Where there is no such market, the thing languishes. Power can depend on technological superiority. Some states may invest in Science for that reason.
As a third world woman,
she lives in America. She is 'first world'.
I am deeply cognizant that the very field I am part of once categorized me as incapable of rational thought.
She is part of 'Feminism' which does indeed only appeal to those incapable of rational thought.
It is not that scientists are “bad,” but that science and scientists are always products of their social contexts.
Hers must have been particularly shitty. But there are plenty of other females from Madras University who have done good scientific work.
What we need are not facile slogans of fake/truth, science/pseudoscience but rather a reinvigorated public education on how to think critically and historically.
To think historically you need to know history. Critical thinking should be informed by mathematical logic and the search for Structural Causal Models which yield ways to economically alter outcomes for the better.
The solution is not a retreat to the holy sites of science and religion, but rather in understanding how power has corrupted both sites quite thoroughly.
This is an understanding you can easily find in any lunatic asylum. Is it not a fact that evil Scientists are causing men to have penises? Penises cause RAPE! Ban them immediately save for purposes of butt sex between Gay peeps.
We need to reckon with these histories.
By writing nonsense- right?
PS: One of the things that struck me in reading your book was that you seemed dissatisfied with only offering a genealogical critique of the efforts to create an archaic modernity in India today. And this dissatisfaction seemed to lead to what is perhaps the most innovative and distinctive aspect of your book: the composition of new techno-poetic myths. Can you help the reader who has not yet experienced these stories to understand what they are and what you were hoping to do by including them in your text?
This silly moo fancies herself as a literary genius. But she gushes like a schoolgirl.
Subramaniam: One of the greatest powers of fiction, especially speculative fiction, is the power to make the familiar unfamiliar and the unfamiliar familiar.
She lacks that power- probably because of lack of access to a 'pulsating shaft'. I sympathize. My shaft is nothing to speak about.
The interspersed mythological stories from my childhood and the speculative mythological stories I’ve created are attempts at presenting an “elsewhere” – contrasting narratives of what else is possible, of other worlds that could have been.
Coz worlds with liquid cubes held together by pulsating shafts could easily have come into existence if only evil Scientists hadn't caused dicks to exist.
The architecture of the book and the Avatar stories highlight key elemental nodes of evolution – form, chemistry, geography, temporality, elegance, innovation – and ultimately celebrate the value in their synthesis.
Their synthesis was the book she shat out.
The techno-poetic myths are stories that accompany each chapter. While each chapter presents a contemporary analysis of bionationalism, the Avatar stories contrast this narrative with a different fictional retelling of biological evolution on the planet. So for example, while a chapter chronicles the obsession with purity and nativist claims in our contemporary world, the fictional piece makes a case for why impurity is actually the key to biological evolution.
It isn't. The fitness landscape is what matters. If it is highly uncertain, you will have robustness of the sort we actually see. Otherwise you will have degenerate 'Speigelman monsters'.
These Avatar stories are inspired by the mythological studies I grew up and highlight alternate structures, forms and politics, and futures.
Fantasies are not 'alternative structures'. It is no good saying we don't need to take a shit because in Barbie-world nobody has an anus.
PS: You note near the conclusion of the text that you are unwilling to cede Hinduism to those Hindu nationalists who are attempting to promote an analogous form of the “politics of purity” that is on the rise in many nations today.
'Pak' and 'Khalis' mean 'pure'. Is this lady going to risk her neck by denouncing Pakistanis or Khalistani zealots?
How do you resist this? How, in other words, do you read the Hindu scriptures such that they open up toward a “politics of impurity”
e.g. eating your own shit
rather than simply reinscribing a new version of the friend-enemy relation? Do you think they can be used to tell the story of science, religion, or the nation otherwise today?
Anybody can tell stories about how Science was invented by evil lizard-creatures from Planet X.
Subramaniam: Yes, I honestly do.
Feminist Science seeks to attain the epistemological status of a comic book- not one with interesting super-heroes like Spiderman, but a deeply boring one which however has 'pulsating shafts'.
As someone who was formally trained in the sciences, my forays into the history of science have been revelatory – I have been struck by the vibrancy of scientific thought in most historical periods I’ve studied.
But she hasn't studied many historical periods.
This is also certainly true about religion in the multi-religious contexts of India. Both Hindu nationalism and the often-internalistic scientific histories present a very linear genealogy – as if the past was bound to inevitably lead to the present.
Nonsense! It is obvious that if Islamic hordes had conquered Western Europe, modern Science would not have originated there.
In contrast, a deep engagement with history of the present reveals a vibrancy of thought.
It also reveals that nutters like Banu are Professors at prestigious Colleges.
The book chronicles how we find ourselves actively and deliberately at crossroads between different pasts, presents, and futures.
This lady may be acting. But her role is that of a clown. Still, as a darkie from the Turd World, she deserved DIE affirmative action.
Understanding these as temporal and genealogical “constructions” was both a startling and comforting lesson of this project.
You may be illiterate but if you pay a lot of money to my College, I'll ensure you get a sheepskin in something which sounds Sciencey but for which you get credits if you turn in pictures of pulsating shafts drawn using your own faeces.
PS: Is there an analogy between your creation of the six techno-poetic myths interspersed throughout the book and this way of (re-)reading of the Hindu holy texts? Did you see yourself as writing something like “new scriptures” in the imaginative stories you tell of the avatars of possibility?
How crazy are you, Banu? Do you think you are the incarnation of some Goddess?
Subramaniam: Definitely not “new scriptures”! The idea was not to create new fundamentalist scriptures but about opening up more dynamic and imaginative readings of playful and creative possibilities. In many ways, this was the mode of Indian storytelling I grew up with – stories that morphed each day with new characters and plots into endless variations. It is that spirit that I have tried to recreate here.
Unplug your vibrator and just watch Netflix like the rest of us. Seriously, you are giving Madras University a bad name.
PS: As a scholar who lives and teaches in the United States, are there any parallels you are seeing between current efforts to create an Indian bionationalism via the tactics of archaic modernity and the situation here in the States?
How fucking bat-shit crazy are you, Banu?
Subramaniam: Indeed yes! The U.S. and India at times seem hauntingly similar
because they actually exist. Indian trees are a lot like American trees.
and other times startlingly different.
because they are different
These contrasting visions fueled my growing analysis. There is a deep and fervent nativist politics in both countries, yet they play out differently.
There are no Dynastic political parties in America.
The claims of a dominant state religion, hatred of minorities, growing violence against the “other,” nativist and protectionist policies, the obfuscation of truth and falsity, and the rise of authoritarian and dogmatic leaders are similarities found in both countries.
An authoritarian leader prevents the holding of free and fair elections. Neither India nor America has any leader with any such power.
But there are also strong differences. For example, as an evolutionary biologist and feminist I’m struck by the volatile politics against evolution and abortion in the U.S. Yet, neither evokes similar sentiments in India.
Except among certain Christian groups.
Christian fundamentalism evokes such strong politics against science and medicine,
Not really. Americans aren't killing heretics or blasphemers. Abortion, quite properly, is an issue which States can decide for themselves. They can also decide to ban the teaching of stuff voters find repugnant- e.g. 'critical race theory'.
yet Hindu nationalism embraces science in its own inimitable and strategic way.
Enterprise matters. Science can help enterprises grow and thus generate more tax revenue and well paid jobs.
Religion and science, thus, are not universal or monolithic institutions or fields, but are shaped by the social contexts they find themselves in.
Some Religions- e.g. Catholicism are universal and seek to be monolithic. They try to avoid being shaped by 'social contexts' (or did prior to Vatican II). STEM subjects too try to be the same everywhere. Still, some academics may be too cowardly to reveal what they think of 'Feminist Science'.
PS: It has been a pleasure to learn from you about your new book Holy Science. What’s next for you? Do you have other projects in the works?
Is your next book going to be crazier than this one?
Subramaniam: I am primarily trained as an evolutionary biologist, and biological training inevitably presents “nature” as a site that is removed from culture.
Not to mention Magic.
Once introduced to feminist studies and science and technology studies, I’ve been so struck by their entanglements — not natures and cultures but rather naturecultures. In Holy Science I encountered first hand how, rather than a universal enterprise, science is always inflected by the local.
Science is done locally but its findings have to stand up across the globe.
Today, I think of my biological training as so impoverished!
It did not feature nice liquid cubes with pulsating shafts.
In my new work, I’m trying to re-imagine what a naturecultural view of the world would look like.
Everybody should be a nice liquid cube with a pulsating shaft.
My new project draws on the genealogical work in the first book, and colonialism in the second book to re-think the biological sciences, in particular, to rethink botany.
Why are so many plants green? Is it because of colour prejudice? No. Since no human beings have green skins, evil scientists invented chlorophyll so that pants would have a different colour thus encouraging human beings to eat them.
How have the histories of colonialism shaped how we characterize and theorize plants?
They haven't. Anyway, nowadays, a cladistic approach is more popular.
Historians have demonstrated how central colonialism has been to restructuring the biota of our planet (it is in many ways the original bio-invasion!),
but plants and animals were spread across the globe before there was large scale European colonialism.
yet the sciences have theorized the natural world with little context of the histories that shaped them.
Nonsense! Botanists know that selective breeding has occurred.
In short, I’m trying to think about how we might decolonize botany.
The answer is by telling stories about nice cubes of liquid which have pulsating shafts. They have names like Korma or Zuthulu and are totes Lesbian and regularly say boo to Modi. Then Vandana Shiva turns up and tells those nice cubes of liquid to put on saree rather thang jeans modified to show off their buttocks. Mind it kindly. Aiyayo.
No comments:
Post a Comment