The New Mantra Science Is e=PMc2

We all know that it’s the victors who write history. And they inevitably emerge in flying colours. But who writes science? Who comes up with those staggering discoveries, inventions and formulas?

It’s those same, self-laudatory victors once again. But this time they come out in borrowed feathers. They blithely appropriate credit for accomplishments where credit should have rightly gone to your ancestors and mine.

But they can’t fool us anymore. Since 2014 our minds have been so thoroughly de-colonised that many have begun to see the light. I for one see it bright, and I hasten to give you a primer on Science 3.0.

The new mantra of science is e=PMc2, and it stands for: ‘Everything is Prime Minister’s Creation’. To understand this truth, just keep your eyes and ears open. When a train is flagged off, when a dam is built, when stranded Indians are rescued, when there is a bumper crop of millet, when our reputation in foreign lands is sky high, it’s a sign that our PM is hard at work to make us feel proud, and get us to energetically, amorously pat ourselves on the back.

We not only feel good about ourselves but feel the same about the aforementioned ancestors. Actually, they were smarter than the world gave them credit for. To set matters right, we can now look the West in the eye and tell the ‘goras’ where they get off.

The first gora on my list is Pythagoras, the philosopher who went around telling people about the remarkable properties of right-angle triangles. Turns out, the idea was lifted from the ancient Indian mathematician Baudhayana as neatly as Anu Malik lifts musical compositions from around the world and passes them off as his own.

The witless West, not being able to tell hypotenuse from hype, took him at his word, and even named a theorem after him. Really, there are no goras as bad as Pythagoras.

‘Make in India’ is a catchy slogan. So catchy that we have begun to apply it with retrospective effect. A few years ago, Rajasthan Education Minister Vasudev Devnani claimed it was Brahmagupta-II had discovered the law of gravity, and no thanks to Newton or an apple.

Unfortunately, nobody took the Hon’ble Minister seriously. When he had earlier asserted that cows were the only animals in the world which exhaled oxygen, the West unkindly labelled it bullshit. Be that as it may, let’s ask ourselves if gravity needed to be ‘discovered’.

We all know that what goes up must come down. As simple as that. For proof, ask our fallen heroes returning from the Championship of Test Cricket.

Ancient India’s medical prowess is hailed around the world. Sushruta had been undertaking plastic surgery, and Charaka was busy with stem cell research while the West were still swearing their hypocritical oaths.

Despite these geniuses however and despite the proclaimed wonders of Ayurveda, we are still short of an effective cure for one unfortunate ailment, viz., chronic hallucination. Now, this is serious, because overcoming delusions of grandeur calls for shock therapy. I recommend smelling the coffee.

Finally, we need to chuck Darwin’s Theory of Evolution along with yesterday’s trash. The public has never been very keen to buy in. As 19th Century philosopher William Winwood Reade said: People prefer to believe they are degenerate angels rather than elevated apes.

Reade found vocal support from former HRD Minister of State the Hon’ble Satya Pal Singh. He spotted the killer fallacy in Darwin’s theory. Said Singh: “Nobody has ever seen an ape turning into a human being.”

Neither have I. But I can confirm the opposite. I have seen many human beings turning into monkeys. And more seem to be on their way. Watch this space.

Jairam N Menon runs his jaundiced eye on the world around him, and comments with little sense of decorum and no inhibition. Menon is based in Mumbai and the views expressed here are his own.