India’s Long Goodbye to Darwin
Meera Nanda | 28 June 2023 | The Wire
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
The recent elimination of Darwin’s theory of evolution from science curricula is a masterclass on doublespeak, Bharatiya-style.
We practically beam with pride when we tell the world that India is the mother of all sciences. We cast ourselves as enlightened Hindus who, unlike the dogmatic Book-thumping Christians and Muslims, welcome the idea of evolution. We happily rewrite history and claim, following Swami Vivekananda, that it was our own Patanjali who lived nearly 2,000 years before Darwin, who gave the world the first rational theory of evolution.