Satyapal Singh and his ilk's aversion to evolution seem intricately linked to the views of Swami Dayanand Saraswati, founder of the Arya Samaj and contemporary of Charles Darwin
The Union Human Resource Development Minister (HRD) has done well to contain the damage in the Darwin debate by affirming that the government believes in its scientists over a question that pertains fundamentally to science. His deputy Satyapal Singh, Minister of State, HRD recently drew flak from the scientific community for ridiculing Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution without adducing any scientific evidence. As the turn of events proved, Singh had no intellectual arsenal with him beyond grandma’s fairytales. There may be arguments to be made against Darwin, who built up his theory meticulously through loads of empirical data, but the minister's is certainly not the best way.
We had witnessed such debates even during the naturalist’s lifetime. On June 30, 1860, a debate on Darwin’s theory took place at the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Oxford University Museum. Samuel Wilberforce, the smooth talking Bishop of Oxford, spoke against Darwin’s theory. Darwin did not attend, but his lieutenants zoologist Thomas Henry Huxley and botanist Joseph Hooker were present to defend his theory. Wilberforce, having little grasp of scientific facts, relied on emotions rather than intellect. At one point Wilberforce said he would be distressed if it were proven that he had an “Ape” in the family tree. Then Wilberforce turned towards Huxley and asked whether he also would not feel the same way if an ape were placed in his family tree. Called to respond Huxley replied that he would rather have an ape for his forefather than an intelligent, influential man who used his great gifts for “the purpose of introducing ridicule into a serious scientific discussion”.
The event Singh was addressing holds the clue. It was All India Vedic Sammelan at Aurangabad in Maharashtra. Singh cherishes speaking at such gatherings. His lok Sabha website profile counts International Aryan Conference (Mauritius-2001; Mumbai-2002, Delhi-2013), World Aryan Conference (Chicago, USA, 2006), International Vedic Conference (Netherlands, 2007), World Spirituality Conference at lonavala, Maharashtra, 2013 amongst notable conferences he had addressed. But is he a scholar of the Vedas or SanskritIJ Not really. His educational qualification shows he has M.Sc and M.Phil degrees in Chemistry, Phd in Public Administration and an MBA in Strategic Management.
Is amateurishness in Vedic studies to be blamed, thenIJ I personally do not see knowledge contained in the Vedas is in conflict with Darwin’s theory. The Vedas are no Bible that ingrained the concept of Creationism as an article of faith in the mind of its adherents. The Vedas are quite speculative. They have nothing definite to say on how the universe or the biological world was created.
A Vedic Conclave might be a glorious thing. The Vedas are a sublime product of the Indian mind. But Vedic scholars and students are suffering from a crisis overlooked by the political proponents of Indian culture. Speak to Sanskrit Department students of any university or Gurukul. They appear nervous about their future prospects, and wish to secure jobs as Sanskrit teacher in any school/college. Instead of addressing existential crisis of Sanskrit/Vedic scholars, we are trying to feed them the lozenge that their forefathers were superior to Western scholars or that Sanskrit is the best language for computers. This may arouse their passions momentarily but does not solve their actual problems.
It appears that Singh is a committed Arya Samajist. He is fully entitled to be one, as many eminent Indians have been. He cannot escape the views of Swami Dayanand Saraswati, the founder of Arya Samaj. His statement was a product of an unresolved Darwin versus Dayanand debate. Contemporaries Charles Darwin (1809-1882) and Swami Dayanand Saraswati (1824-1883) had little in common beyond their birthdays — February 12. The method of the former was empiricism or arriving at conclusions from the study of biological or geological specimens that could be living, dead or fossilized. Darwin was the first to use photography for scientific analyses at a time it was an expensive and complicated art. His book Expression of Emotions in Man and Animal (1872) contained hundreds of pictures of facial expressions selected out of thousands clicked. Darwin was essentially a reader of the Book of Nature.
The rallying cry of Swami Dayanand, on the contrary, was: Back to the Vedas. He felt the Vedas, Upanishads and Manusmriti had the answers to all the ills of India. He wanted to purge India of ‘idol worship’ and polytheism to establish the 'true' Hindu or Aryan faith as enshrined in the Vedas. He thus denied all progression that Hinduism had experienced over millennia. He was thus an ‘anti-evolutionary’ in his attitude. His book Satyarth Prakash (1875) was written at a time when Constitutional agitation was taking root in India. But his chapter on Raj Dharma (Science of Government) was completely bereft of them. He looks only into the Vedas and Manusmriti for models of modern governance. He was not familiar with Kautilya’s Arthashastra — whose lost manuscript was discovered by R. Shamasastry by the turn of 20th century. A close reading of Sri Aurobindo’s tribute to Swami Dayanand would reveal that the monk was not an empiricist but a doctrinaire. “Here was one who did not infuse himself informally into the indeterminate soul of things, but stamped his figure indelibly as in bronze on men and things’ (Bankim-Tilak-Dayanand P.42). Dayanand’s method was top-down as against Darwin’s bottom-up.
Hinduism has displayed ambivalent attitude towards theory of evolution. The story of Dasavatara or Ten incarnations of Vishnu from Matsya (Fish) to Kalki (Future Warrior) is metaphor for how life emerged in water before and evolved into human civilization. The Jataka Tales tell the story of Buddha passing through various bird, animal and human births before attaining nirvana. In the 20th century, Sri Aurobindo’s theory of Supramental Transformation also supports evolution. But Swami Dayanand was undoubtedly a Creationist. In Chapter-VIII of Satyarth Prakash he says that the first man was ‘created’ at Tribishtapa, now called Tibet. Dayanand further says that Aryas came to this land (India) direct from Tibet a little after the beginning of the world. I am not sure how many would agree.
(The writer is an independent researcher. Views expressed herein are personal)
