Hindutvatization!

In a world where the powerful nations have the impunity to use power as they see fit for their selfish national and business interests, little wonder that autocratic and atrocious regimes would thrive because there remains practically no moral and just regime to compare their actions to. When nations are not bound by the international bodies to prevent them from committing acts of aggression and terrorism, when nations enjoy legal immunity to a mind boggling level, then expecting justice from any state in the comity of nations is asking for too much. By a strange connection, the story of astrology is no different.

Despite stepping foot over the moon and sending probes all the way to Mars, Saturn, and beyond, mankind only understands 4% of the cosmos. There is the dark matter and dark energy. Dark matter is the name given to the blackness in the night sky, which is not a vacuum but rather something with a heavy mass. We still do not know what it is. Dark energy is the name given to a force that pulls all the stars and planets away from each other relentlessly. There is not much known about dark energy beyond that. This energy has been calculated to be more than what is required to pull the heavenly bodies outside their orbit and break freely elsewhere, yet, the bodies remain fixed in their orbit. That has led many scientists to the theoretical conclusion that there may be more universes exerting their pressure from the outside to keep the bodies within the orbit. This is called the concept of multiverses. In a nutshell, very little is understood about these cosmic conundrums.

Just as in the absence of moral and just players in the comity of nations, brutal and atrocious regimes such as Modi’s India thrive; in the absence of sufficient understanding of the cosmos, India’s nonsensical knowledge of astrology is also thriving inside India. The nation as a whole has drifted so much toward extremism. A major terrorist who was even banned from entering the United States due to his role in killing over a thousand innocent Muslims in the state of Gujarat, was elected with an even more overwhelming majority the second time he ran.

The nonsense industry is thriving inside India. It is a great time to be in the media propaganda business there because any sheer and extreme nonsense is deeply adored by the saffron wearing imbecile terrorists. Along with a drift toward extremist and anti-Pakistan sentiments, India has also drifted toward the belief in fiction and denial of science and facts. And that is only a natural outcome of the national mindset.

Little wonder then that the nation is looking for an answer to everything big and small inside their extremist Hindutva religiosity. I thought I personally saw all the craziness of Hindutva when I came across the news that they advocated for consumption of cow urine to fight against the coronavirus. But I was wrong. Now they want to understand the cosmos by invoking their Hindu scriptures. Indira Gandhi National Open University has started offering a Master’s degree in Jyotish (Astrology).

Just as the claims of being the largest democracy only added to the skepticism over the efficacy of democracy worldwide, the filthy mindset turning its attention toward cosmos would only create fake science and lies about space understanding. Space exploration projects could be hurt too because we usually see that among the group of astronauts that go on the long voyage to space, there is almost always an Indian in the group. Instead of practising science that actually works and leads to better understanding, I am afraid Indian astronauts someday might advocate for using cow urine to keep the spaceship engine running. Worse yet, in our collective quest to look for intelligent civilizations in deep space, we might fail because those alien civilizations that are much more advanced than us might just conceal themselves from us if they find out that humans consume cow urine to build up their immune system. Would you let someone like that inside your house?

Refer to the impeccable book by the great Neil Degrasse Tyson. He always says that science is under no obligation to make sense to you. But it seems like the Indians are trying to prove him wrong. They are trying to make sense of science for their own extremist Hindutva mindset. They want to tie up astrophysics, which is still evolving, with their centuries old scripture of Jyotish astrology also known as Hindu astrology or Vedic astrology. Thousands of years ago, it is believed that the Indian astronomers Indianized and Sanskritized Greek astronomy. Today, the Indians might be trying to Hindutvatize, if you will, the currently understood astronomy.