In the chaotic early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when laboratories across the world were racing to develop vaccines and antiviral drugs, India witnessed an extraordinary episode that would have been dismissed as satire in most democracies.

A schoolteacher in Goa claimed that a Hindu seer had appeared in his dream and revealed a formula to cure COVID-19 using common kitchen spices.

Ordinarily, such a claim might have remained confined to WhatsApp forwards or neighbourhood gossip. Instead, the Indian government treated it with remarkable seriousness. A Union minister was sent from New Delhi to collect the formula, which was then forwarded for laboratory testing.

Scientists later concluded that the concoction had no proven efficacy against the virus. But the larger damage had already been done.

At a time when doctors at premier institutions like the All India Institute of Medical Sciences were struggling to save lives with limited resources, the spectacle of a dream-inspired remedy receiving official attention symbolised a deeper shift in India’s intellectual climate.

For many scientists, educators, and historians, the incident was not an aberration.

It was part of a broader ideological project unfolding steadily under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, where mythology increasingly competes with evidence, and where education is being reshaped through the lens of Hindutva nationalism.

Scientific theories, historical interpretations, and even language education have all become battlegrounds in an attempt to redefine India’s intellectual identity around what the government calls the “Indian Knowledge System”.

More than 1,800 scientists and educators eventually signed open letters warning that India’s scientific temper was being systematically weakened. Among the most vocal critics has been the Breakthrough Science Society, which argues that the state is undermining critical thinking by elevating mythology to the status of science.

“A nation advances when science flourishes,” said Professor Soumitro Banerjee of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research.

“Science questions belief, tests it, and only then accepts it.”

India spends less than one per cent of its GDP on research and development, far below countries like the United States, Germany, or South Korea

India spends less than one per cent of its GDP on research and development, far below countries like the United States, Germany, or South Korea

Banerjee warns that the growing emphasis on astrology and Vedic........

© The Friday Times