It is important to note
that amongst all the conquered and colonized civilizations of the Old World,
India is unique in the following respect: Its wealth was industrial and created
by its workers' ingenuity and labor. In all other instances, such as the Native
Americans, the plunder by the colonizers was mainly of land, gold and other
natural assets. But in India's case, the colonizers had a windfall of
extraordinary profit margins from control of India's exports, taxation of
India's economic production, and eventually the transfer of technology and production
to the colonizer's home. This comprised the immense transfer of wealth out of
India. From being the world's major exporting economy (along with China), India
was reduced to an importer of goods; from being the source of much of the
economic capital that funded Britain's Industrial revolution, it became one of
the biggest debtor nations; from its envied status as the wealthiest nation, it
became a land synonymous with poverty; and from the nation with a large number
of prestigious centers of higher education that attracted the cream of foreign
students from Eurasia, it became the land with the highest number of illiterate
persons. This remains a major untold story. The education system's subversion
of India's TKS in its history and social studies curricula is a major factor
for the stereotyping about India. Even when told of these things, few
westerners and elitist Indians are willing to believe them, as the prejudices
about India are too deeply entrenched.
THE GLOBAL PROBLEM TODAY
The present day
globalizing economy with its mass media glorification of the western lifestyle
is resulting in the homogenization of human 'wants' and in unachievable
expectations. Conventional western technology by itself cannot deliver or
sustain this false promise to the world, for several reasons:
Westernized living is
unachievable by billions of poor humans, because the capital required simply
does not exist in the world, and the trickle down effect is too slow to reach
the bottom tier where most of humanity lives.
Western civilization
depends upon inequality -- there must be cheap labor 'somewhere else', and
cheap natural resources purchasable from somewhere, without regard to the big
picture of world society or global ecology. This practical necessity of the
present-day global capitalist system conflicts with the equal rights of states
and persons long theorized and promoted. All sorts of reasons are offered
against such drastic proposals as opening all borders and allowing free
competition among all available laborers, contradicting the 'freedom' position
so popular in theory.
The western economic
development model demands 'growth' to sustain valuations in the stock markets,
and growth cannot be indefinite. A steady state economy in zero growth
equilibrium would devastate the wealth of the west, since the financial models
are predicated on growth.
Even if the above
obstacles could be overcome and the world's six billion persons were to achieve
western lifestyle, it would be unsustainable for the planet's natural resources
to sustain.
When Gandhi was asked
whether he would like India to develop a lifestyle similar to England's, his
reply may be paraphrased as follows:
The British had to plunder the Earth to
achieve their lifestyle. Given India's much larger population, it would require
the plunder of many planets to achieve the same.
If the idealized
lifestyle is unavailable to all humanity, then on what basis (morally,
intellectually, and in terms of practical enforcement) do a few countries hope
to sustain their superiority over others so as to maintain such a lifestyle?
The point is that employing TKS is an imperative for humanity at large, while
reducing global dependence on inequitable and resource draining
"advanced" knowledge systems.
We have to study,
preserve, and revive the Traditional Knowledge Systems for the economic
betterment of the world in a holistic manner, as these technologies are
eco-friendly and allow sustainable growth without harming the environment.
India's scientific heritage needs to be brought to the attention of the educated
world, so that we can replace the Eurocentric History of Science and Technology
with an honest globalization of ideas. This goal requires generations of new
research in these fields, compilation of existing data, and dissemination
through books, seminars, websites, articles, films etc.
INDIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO
GLOBAL SCIENCE
Civil Engineering
The Indus-Sarasvati
Civilization was the world's first to build planned towns, with underground
drainage, civil sanitation, hydraulic engineering, and air-cooling
architecture. Oven baked bricks were invented in India in approximately 4,000
BC. From complex Harappan towns to Delhi's Qutub Minar and other large
projects, India's indigenous technologies were very sophisticated in design,
planning, water supply, traffic flow, natural air conditioning, complex stone
work, and construction engineering.
Metal Technologies
Textiles
India's textile exports
were legendary. Roman archives contain official complaints about massive cash
drainage because of imports of fine Indian textiles. One of the earliest
industries relocated from India to Britain was in textiles, and it became the
first major success of the Industrial Revolution, with Britain replacing India
as the world's leading textile exporter. Many of the machines built by Britain
used Indian designs that had been improved over long periods. Meanwhile,
India's textile manufacturer's were de-licensed, even tortured in some cases,
over-taxed, regulated, etc., to 'civilize' them into virtual extinction.
Shipping and Ship
Building
India participated in the
earliest known ocean based trading systems. Regarding more recent centuries, it
is known to scholars but not to the general public that Vasco da Gama's ships
were captained by a Gujarati sailor, and much of Europe's 'discovery' of
navigation was in fact an appropriation of pre-existing navigation in the
Indian Ocean, that had been a thriving trade system for centuries before
Europeans 'discovered' it. Some of the world's largest and most sophisticated
ships were built in India and China. The compass and other navigation tools
were already in use at the time. ('Nav' is the Sanskrit word for boat, and is
the root word in 'navigation', and in 'navy', although etymology is not a
reliable proof of origin.)
Water Harvesting Systems
Scientists estimate that
there were 1.3 million man-made water lakes and ponds across India, some as
large as 250 square miles. These are now being rediscovered using satellite
imagery. These enabled most of the rain water to be harvested and used for
irrigation, drinking, etc. till the following year's rainfall. Village
organizations managed these resources, but this decentralized management was
dismantled during the colonial period, when tax collection, cash expropriation,
and legal enforcements became the primary function of the new governance
appointed by the British. Recently, thousands of these 'talabs' have been
restored, and this has resulted in a re-emergence of abundant water year round
in many places. (This is a very different approach compared to the massive
modern dams built in the name of progress, that have devastated the lives of
millions.)
Forest Management
Many interesting findings
have recently come out about the way forests and trees were managed by each
village and a careful method applied to harvest medicines, firewood, and
building material in accordance with natural renewal rates. There is now a
database being built of these 'sacred groves' across India. Again, it's a story
of an economic asset falling into disuse and abuse because of dismantling the
local governance and uprooting respect for traditional systems in general.
Massive logging by the British to export India's timber to fund the two world
wars and other civilizing programs of the empire are never mentioned when
scholars try to explain India's current ecological disasters. The local
populations had been quite sophisticated in managing their ecology until they
were dis-empowered.
Farming Techniques
India's agricultural
production was historically large and sustained a huge population compared to
other parts of the world. Surpluses were stored for use in a drought year. But
the British turned this industry into a cash cow, exporting massive amounts of
harvests even during shortages, so as to maximize the cash expropriation. This
caused tens of millions to die of starvation while at the same time India's
food production was exported at unprecedented rates to generate cash. Also,
traditional non-chemical based pesticides have been recently revived in India
with excellent results, replacing Union Carbide's products in certain markets.
Traditional Medicine
This is now a well-known
and respected field. Much re-legitimizing of Indian medicine has already been
done, thanks to many western labs and scientists. Many multinationals no longer
denigrate traditional medicine and have in fact been trying to secure patents
on Indian medicine without acknowledging the source.
Mathematics, Logic and
Linguistics
Besides other sciences,
Indians developed advanced math, including the concept of zero, the base-ten
decimal system now in use worldwide, and many important trigonometry and
algebra formulae. They made several astronomical discoveries. Diverse schools
of logic and philosophy proliferated. India's Panini is acknowledged as the
founder of linguistics, and his Sanskrit grammar is still the most complete and
sophisticated of any language in the world.
There were numerous other
indigenous Indian industries. India's manufactured goods were highly prized
around the world. We must evaluate the historical importance of these TKS based
on their economic value for their time, when their importance could be compared
to today's high tech industry. India's own English educated elite should be
made aware of this to shed their Macaulayite inferiority complexes.
Furthermore, the development, refinement and extension of TKS offer potential
benefits capable of resolving or diminishing some of the inequities in modern
societies worldwide.
FOLK SCIENCE
Besides the above
examples of Indian contributions to the very foundations of so-called 'western'
science, another category of Traditional Knowledge Systems is non-literate folk
science. Western science as a whole has condemned and ignored anything that it
did not either appropriate or develop, as being magic and superstition.
However, in countries such as India that have cultural continuity, ancient
traditions survive with a rich legacy of folk science.
In North America and
Australia, where original populations have been more than decimated, such
continuity of folk tradition was disrupted. In Western nations with large
colonies in the Old and New Worlds, such knowledge systems were looked down
upon. It is this prejudice that subverts the importance of folk science, and
ridicules it as superstition. The process of contrasting western science with
folk knowledge systems extends to the demarcation of knowledge systems in
different categories of science versus religion, rational versus magical, and
so on. But we need to insist that these western imposed hegemonic categories
are contrived and artificial.
Western science seldom
realized that non-literate folk science preserves the wisdom gained through
millennia of experience, direct observation, and has been transmitted by word
of mouth. Development projects based solely on new technologies are pushing the
Traditional Knowledge Systems towards extinction. This traditional wisdom of
humankind needs to be preserved and used for our survival.
Westernized 'experts' go
to non-literate cultures assuming them to be 'knowledge blanks' which need to
be programmed with modern science and technology. Ramkrishnan, the renowned
ecologist, humbly admitted that the ecological management practiced today by the
tribes of the northeastern states of India is far superior to anything he could
teach them. A good example in this regard is the alder (Alnus nepalensis),
which has been cultivated in the jhum (shifting cultivation) fields by the
Khonoma farmers in Nagaland for centuries. It has multiple usages for the
farmers, since it is a nitrogen-fixing tree and helps to retain the soil
fertility. Its leaves are used as fodder and fertilizer, and it is also
utilized as timber. One could cite numerous such examples. Unfortunately, many
plants which the tribes traditionally cultivated for specific benefits have now
disappeared in the name of progress.
The vast majority of
modern medicines patented by western pharmaceutical firms are based on tropical
plants. The most common method to select candidates for detailed testing has
been for western firms to scout tropical societies, seek out established 'folk'
remedies, and to subject these to 'western scientific legitimizing'. In many
cases, patents owned by multinationals are largely for isolating the active
ingredients in a lab, and going through rigorous protocols of testing and
patent filing. While this is an important and expensive task, and deserves
credit, these are seldom independent discoveries from scratch. Never has the
society that has truly discovered it through centuries of empirical testing and
trial and error received any recognition, much less any share of royalty.
India's recent fights in international courts, over western patents of its
traditional intellectual property in agriculture and medicine, have brought
much needed publicity for this arena.
Colin Scott writes:
"With the upsurge of multidisciplinary interest in 'traditional ecological
knowledge', models explicitly held by indigenous people in areas as diverse as
forestry, fisheries, and physical geography are being paid increasing attention
by western science specialists, who have in some cases established extremely
productive long-term dialogues with local experts. The idea that local experts
are often better informed than their western peers is at last receiving
significant acknowledgment beyond the boundaries of anthropology."
But in too many cases,
western scholars reduce India's experts to 'native informants' destined to live
below the glass ceiling: the pandit as native informant to the western
Sanskritist; the poor woman in Rajasthan as native informant to the western
feminist seeking to cure her of her tradition; the herbal farmer as native
informant to the western pharmaceutical firm appropriating medicines for
patents; etc. Given their poverty in modern times, these 'native informants'
dish out what the western scholar expects to hear in order to fit his/her
model, because in return they receive gifts, rewards, compensation,
recognition, and even trips and visas in many cases. Rarely have western
scholars acknowledged India's knowledge bearers as fellow scientists and equal
partners, as co-authors or as co-panelists. This competitive obsession to make
'original' discoveries and to put one's name on publications, has exacerbated
the tendency to appropriate with one hand, while denigrating the source with
other hand so as to hide the plagiarism. We have referred to this as 'academic
arson'.
RITUALS AS KNOWLEDGE
TRANSMITTERS
Villagers in remote areas
like Uttaranchal have events called 'Jagars', in which the Jagaria sends the
Dangaria into a sort of trance. The Dangaria then helps sort out problems,
provides remedies for ailments, resolves social conflicts of the village
society etc. One could dismiss this as superstition; but this is also
considered a traditional method of reaching the unconscious. Does the Jagaria
use his spiritual powers to reach and tap the unconscious region of the mind of
the Dangaria? Or, as propounded by Vaclav Havel, did these rituals represent
the attempts of ancient humans to come to terms with the unknown, the
non-rational, and the unconscious parts of our beings? Were these devices
useful to invoke lost memories of the ancient past?
We are, therefore, not
willing to dismiss Jagar as some mumbo-jumbo, but a phenomenon worth scientific
investigation. This should be an important scientific research connecting
Traditional Knowledge Systems to Inner Sciences. Ironically, from Jung onwards,
many westerners have studied and appropriated these traditional 'inner
sciences', renamed and repackaged them. Meanwhile, the original discoverers and
practitioners have been dismissed as primitive societies awaiting cure by
westernization.
Myths & Legends
Myths and legends
sometimes represent the attempts of our ancestors to explain the scientific
observations that they made about the world around them and transmitted to the
future. They chose different models to interpret the observations, but the
observations were empirical. Let us compare some of the old legends with modern
scientific observations about the geological history of the Indian
subcontinent. We will discuss three examples, and each could be seen as fiction
or hard fact or some combination of both:
1. The geology of Kashmir
(India)
The geology of Kashmir
(India) has been studied for more than 150 years now. As a result of these
studies, it is now known that due to the rise of the Pir Panjal range around 4
million years ago, a vast lake formed, blocking the drainage from the Himalayas.
Subsequently, the river Jhelum emerged as a result of the opening of a fault
near Baramula, draining out the lake about 85,000 years ago. This is accepted
as the geological history of the Kashmir valley.
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| Physical Map of Jammu & Kashmir |
Now let us compare this
to the old legend: In Kashmir there is a very old tradition which describes a
vast lake, called Satisara, in the valley in very ancient times. Kalhana, a
poet chronicler, wrote his book Rajatarangini, or 'The River of Kings', in 1150
AD. In this book, he mentions an ancient lake (Satisara) giving a reference
from a still earlier text, Nilamata Purana. Aurel Stein (1961), who translated
Rajatarangini, describes the legend of Satisara in these words: "This
legend is mentioned by Kalhana in the Introduction of his Chronicle and is
related at great length in Nilamata.... The demon Jalodbhava who resided in
this lake was invisible in his own element and refused to come out of the lake.
Vishnu thereupon called upon his brother Balabhadra to drain the lake...".
Ignoring the mythical struggles between gods and demons, the legend does depict
an account resembling the draining out of the primeval lake.
2. The sea level on the
West Coast of India
The sea level on the West
Coast of India, as elsewhere during the Ice Ages, was about 100 meters lower
than today and started rising only after 16,000 years ago. This is the accepted
eustatic history.
The related legend says
that when Parasurama donated all his land to the Brahmins, the latter asked him
how he could live on the land that he had already donated away. Parasurama went
to the cliff on the seashore and threw his Parasu (hatchet) into the sea and
the sea receded, and then he occupied the land that thus emerged. This is
possibly a reference to the regression of the sea and the newly emerged land.
3. The river Satluj
The third example is of
the river Satluj, a tributary of the Indus today. In finding its new course,
the Sarasvati braided into several channels. This is the accepted geology.
The relevant legend says
that the holy sage Vashista wanted to commit suicide by jumping into the
Sarasvati, but the river wouldn't allow such a sage to drown himself, and broke
up into hundreds of shallow channels, hence its ancient name Satadru. Unless
the early author of such a legend observed the braiding process of the Satluj,
he could not have imagined such a legend. This is another instance of legends coinciding
with a modern geological observation.
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| Indus river system |
Theorizing
the possible role of myths, Scott says: "The complimentarity of the
literal and the figurative help us to realize that the distinction between myth
and science is not structural, but procedural.... Myths in a broader,
paradigmatic sense are condensed expressions of root metaphors that reflect the
genius of particular knowledge traditions.... Numerous studies have found that
the "anthropomorphic" paradigms of egalitarian hunters and
horticulturalists not only generate practical knowledge consistent with the
insights of scientific ecology, but simultaneously cultivate an ethic of
environmental responsibility that for western societies has proven
elusive."
The Israelis have been
very successful in rediscovering many lost technologies relevant to their
environment and culture by investigating their ancient myths and traditions.
Through this, they have become pioneers in many processes of economic value
that conventional European technology lacks.
THE GOAL
India's intellectual
resources are not limited to (though they are limited by) its 'Indi-Genius'
doubting intellectual elite. Today, there are Indian economists, social
developers, and scholars who are working hard to revitalize many TKS'.
Resources for research and teaching of India's Traditional Knowledge Systems
should be made available for the following reasons:
- India has amongst the
best cases for successful revival of TKS: It has a rich heritage still intact
in this area. It has the largest documented ancient literature relevant to TKS.
It has the intellectual resources to appreciate this and to implement this
revival, provided the Macaulayite mental blocks could be shaken up through
re-education of its governing elite. It has dire needs to diversify beyond
dependence solely upon the new panacea of globalization and westernization.
- India's scientific
heritage, besides its philosophical and cultural legacy, needs to be properly
understood. The aim is not inspired by chauvinism, but to understand the genius
of Indian civilization better. This would overhaul the current assessment of
India's potential.
- To correct the portrayal
of the History of Science, the History of Ideas, mainstream accounts of World
History, anthropology and culture. This entails emphasizing to scholars and
educators that TKS should be included, especially India's achievements and
contributions to world science that have been very significant but
unappreciated.
- To include Traditional
Knowledge Systems in economic planning, because they are eco-friendly,
sustainable, labor rather than capital intensive, and more available to the
masses. This should be done in parallel with the top down 'modern' scientific
development using westernized 'globalization', as the two should co-exist and each
should be used based on its merits.
INTERCONNECTIONS WITH
OTHER GATES OF THE MANDALA
Inner Sciences
The Inner Sciences of
India have been on the one hand appropriated by the west, and on the hand have
been depicted as being in conflict with the progressive, rational, and
materialistic west. In fact, inner and outer realms are often viewed as
opposites, that can at best be balanced because one contradicts the other. This
assumes that Inner Sciences make a person and society less productive, creative,
and competitive in the outer realm.
However, India's TKS are empirical evidence
to demonstrate that Inner Sciences and outer development did coexist in a
mutually symbiotic relationship. This is a major reason to properly study
India's TKS. Without removing this tension between inner and outer, it would be
difficult to seriously motivate the modern world to advance in the Inner
Sciences in a major way. Inner progress without the outer would be a world
negating worldview, which India's TKS record shows not to be the case in
classical India. Outer progress without inner cultivation results in societies
that are too materialistic, too selfish to the point of genocides and
holocausts, eco-unfriendly, and dependent upon force and control for social
harmony.
History
Until the 1800s, TKS
generated large scale economic productivity for Indians. It was the TKS based
thriving Indian economy that attracted so many waves of invaders, culminating
with the British. Traditionally, India was one of the richest regions in the
world, and most Indians were neither 'backward' nor uneducated nor poor. Some
historians have recently begun to come out with this side of the story,
demonstrating that it was massive economic drainage, oppression, social
re-engineering, and so forth at the hands of colonizers that made millions of
'new poor' over the past few centuries. This explanation yields a radically
different reading of the poverty in India today. Upon acknowledging India's
traditional knowledge systems, one is forced to discard accounts of its history
that essentialize its poverty and the accompanying social evils. The reality of
TKS contradicts notions such as:
- India was less
rational and scientific than the west.
- India was world
negating in its outlook (which is a misreading of the Inner Sciences), and
hence did not advance itself from within.
- India's
civilization was mainly imported via invaders, except for its problems such as
caste that were its own 'essences'.
- Indian society was
socially backward (to the point of being seen as lacking in morality); hence it
depends upon westernization to reform its current problems.
Society Today
Is India a 'developing'
society, or is it a 're-developing' society? Without appreciating the TKS of a
people, how could anthropologists and sociologists interpret the current
condition of a society? Were they always poor, always living in polluted and
socially problematic conditions as today, in which case these problems are
essences? Or is there a history behind the present condition? This history
should not, however, excuse the failures of fifty years of independence to deal
properly with the economic and social problems that persist. Going forward,
Traditional Knowledge Systems are eco-friendly, symbiotic with the environment,
and therefore can help provide a sustainable lifestyle. Since the benefits of
heavy industries do not trickle down to the people below the poverty line or to
so-called developing countries, a revival of traditional technologies and
crafts must complement the modern 'development' schemes for eradication of
poverty. In this regard, the distinction between elite and folk science was non
existent in ancient times: India's advanced metallurgy and civil engineering was
researched and practiced by artisan guilds.
