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COVER STORY: ASTROLOGY
Divided Political Opinion
Yet the opposition
to the astrology courses was on a much too elevated plane of ideas to
polarise political opinions. West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya's
grandiose plan of using it as a platform to mobilise all non-NDA chief
ministers at a meeting in the capital backfired. Delhi's Sheila Dikshit
was the only Congress party chief minister to show up. Madhya Pradesh
Chief Minister Digvijay Singh not only stayed away from the meeting but
offered the cryptic comment that those who "prescribe and proscribe"
academic courses would be "swept away by history".
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RATIONALISTS DISUNITE:
Dikshit was the only Congress CM at the Left's anti-astrology meet |
While the leftist attempt to mobilise the Opposition
on the astrology platform was a non-starter, there was a legal mine in
the UGC's path. The Supreme Court issued it a notice last week on a petition
filed by scientist P.M. Bhargava and two others. The petitioners sought
the court's intervention because, among other things, the UGC had agreed
to finance the astrology course in 20 approved universities and allocated
Rs 2 crore this year for the purpose.
However, astrology is not the only "controversial"
subject that has recently got the UGC's stamp of approval. Nor were the
decisions unanimous. Commission insiders claim that the prodding had come
from the ministry. M.K. Kaw, member and education secretary known for
his ideological proximity to the minister, had been the prime mover on
introducing courses centred on Hindu heritage.
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VOICES
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"Jyotirvigyan
is a science, so there is nothing wrong if some do research in astrology."
DigvIjay Singh, Chief Minister, Madhya Pradesh |
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"Saffron is a much
abused word. By using it off and on we are hurting sentiments."
A.K. Antony, Chief Minister, Kerala
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At a meeting of the 12-member commission on October
16 last year, a decision was taken, reportedly at Kaw's initiative, to
start departments of Vedic astrology in universities in order to "add
a new dimension for research in the fields of Hindu mathematics, Vaastu
Shastra, meteorological studies, agricultural science, space science,
etc". The commission then set up a nine-member committee to design
the course. The guidelines were framed at a UGC meeting on January 25
this year. Joshi claims that 45 universities expressed interest in running
the course. Of these, the claims of 20 were approved after scrutiny.
As the cost of the astrology course is to be
met by the UGC, it is not surprising that the cash-strapped universities
welcomed it. Ironically, one of them is Kolkata's Rabindra Bharati University,
a Marxist bastion. Its former vice-chancellor is the architect of the
West Bengal Government's education policy while the incumbent was a CPI(M)
candidate in the 1999 Lok Sabha elections.
While the astrology course attracted attention
because of the academic debate it triggered, the HRD minister's passion
for legitimising traditional subjects left its stamp on quite a few UGC
decisions. On February 26 this year, for example, it approved the funding
of graduate and post-graduate degrees in human consciousness and yogic
sciences in 10 universities. The course, according to the UGC guidelines,
includes the "science" of parapsychology and delves into such
metaphysical depths as "the seven levels of consciousness" and
the "altered state of consciousness". The course has been accepted,
among others, by Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University, supposedly a citadel
of leftist thought. Yet another graduate course on pourahitya, the Hindu
priestly rituals, has been foisted on Kashmir University and the North-East
Hills University, both in minority-dominated states.
The astrology course claimed public attention
following the campaign by the rationalist lobby, for no other traditionalist
discipline recently introduced by the UGC threatens to turn some of the
basic tenets of modern science upside down. The UGC guideline says that
Vedic astrology "lets us know the events happening in human life
and in universe on a time scale". The question is whether the taxpayer
should be made to foot the bill of such a monumental inquiry.
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