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WHY DOESN’TTHE WORLD KNOWABOUT OUR ILLUSTRIOUS
COMMENT
Who is in charge of
the nukes here?
LET it be said upfront: India is not taking
its nuclear weapons state status seriously
enough. What else would explain the com-
plete absence of a command structure
when it comes to controlling the nuclear
button? The prime minister is the chair-
man of the Nuclear Command Authority,
and by definition, the person this nation
trusts to decide if India needs to use
nuclear weapons to defend itself.
Now that the prime minister is incapac-
itated due to surgery, what does the
Indian establishment do? In one word —
nothing. Even the presumed successor,
External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukher-
jee, has not been told clearly whether he
is acting prime minister or not.
In contrast, in the US, if the President is
incapacitated for some reason, the Vice-
President takes over. If that person is also
unable to take decisions, the Speaker of
the House, the Secretary of State,
Defense Secretary, in that order, are the
next in line to be responsible for the
nuclear weapons.
While it is true that we follow the differ-
ent Westminster model of hierarchy, this
can be no excuse for disorder. The
absence of Plan B clearly leaves the coun-
try vulnerable to attack, since the adver-
sary knows decision making would
be slow.
India also needs to build an effective
protocol to ensure that everyone in the
nuclear weapons chain is aware of who is
in charge. For instance, when President
Barack Obama was being inaugurated on
January 20, Defense Secretary Robert
Gates was present at a command bunker
to ensure that the country was run
smoothly, and that someone had a finger
on the nuclear button, just in case.
The prime minister’s health condition
gives the Indian establishment just the
right circumstances to put this protocol
in place — better late than never.
Settle the matter
CHIEF JUSTICE K G Balakrishnan should
act rather than be a mere party to the
debate on disclosure of assets by judges.
Also, his regular public statements on the
issue do little to resolve the debate when,
as the head of the judiciary, people expect
to hear the last word from him.
After sticking for quite some time to his
argument that there was no law making it
mandatory for judges to disclose their
assets, he has now indicated that a meet-
ing of all judges would be convened to dis-
cuss the issue. It is believed that this stems
from the criticism he has faced from vari-
ous quarters. It is also being reported that
several Supreme Court and High Court
judges want to disclose their assets to put
an end to the controversy. On being con-
fronted with this, the CJI said judges with
such an inclination had his consent. How-
ever, he did not spell out how judges would
be able to declare their assets when there is
no mechanism in place for the purpose.
The CJI’s initial stance of there being no
law on the matter, reiterated in at least two
interviews by him, was not convincing as it
was the Supreme Court itself which had
directed disclosure of assets by politicians
contesting elections — this was done to fill
a vacuum in law. Besides, the CJI’s state-
ments came when an appeal in this regard
was pending before the Delhi High Court.
Focus on essentials
WE must confess to some amusement at
the Delhi High Court striking down the ban
imposed by the government on smoking on
screen. As needs no reiteration, this has
been Union Health Minister Anbumani
Ramadoss’s hobbyhorse, leading him to
public spats with Bollywood personalities
who saw in the move an attempt to stifle
creative freedom.
While there are no two ways about Mr
Ramadoss’ stance that the consumption of
tobacco needs to be seriously discouraged,
what isn’t certain is whether banning
smoking on screen would help the cause
significantly. For, the jury is still out on to
what extent life follows art. On the other
hand, as the HC judge remarked, art mir-
rors society and must reflect its realities if
it is retain its power and relevance.
Mr Ramadoss would be doing his job bet-
ter were he to concentrate on health issues
on which there is no dispute: quality health
care for all, infant and maternal mortality,
the list is long.
ASTRONOMERS WHO MAYHAVE MATCHED COPERNICUS OR GALILEO?
T
O commemorate the
International Year of
Astronomy in 2009, P
Govinda Pillai, a
Communist Party of
India (Marxist) ideo-
logue, in an article in the
Malayalam newspaper Math-
ruboomi, examined the legacy
of Copernicus, Galileo and
Kepler. He also brought up an
important topic — Eurocen-
trism in history writing — due
to which we know about the
work done on telescopes by
Galileo, Hans Lippershey and
Roger Bacon, but almost
nothing by the Muslim scien-
tist al-Hassan.
Mr. Pillai stopped there. He wrote
nothing about the contributions of
mathematicians and astronomers
from his state, Kerala, in developing
the heliocentric model and calculat-
ing planetary orbits. It is not Mr. Pil-
lai alone who is at fault. This apathy,
this ignorance, this refusal to
acknowledge Indian contributions —
all point to a deep malaise in our his-
torical studies. For perspective on
this issue, we need to understand the
contributions of Indian astronomers
and decide if we should be like Con-
fucians during the time of the Ming
dynasty or 21st century Peruvian
archaeologists.
Kerala
In 1832, a paper, “On the Hindu
quadrature of a circle”, was read at
the Royal Asiatic Society. This paper
by Charles M. Whish of the East
Indian Company Civil Service
described eight mathematical series
quoting from a text called Tantra
Sangraham (1500 CE) which he had
discovered in Kerala. These series
were also mentioned in Yukti Dipika
by Sankara Variyar and Yukti-Bhasa
by Jyestadevan; both those authors
had learned mathematics and
astronomy from Kellalur Nilakanta
Somayaji, the author of Tantra San-
graham. Some of those series were
linked to Madhavan of Sangramagra-
mam (1340-1425 CE). These mathe-
maticians who lived between the
14th and 16th centuries formed the
Kerala School of Mathematics and
were proof that Indian mathematics
did not vanish after Bhaskaracharya.
The importance of the Kerala
school can be appreciated only by
understanding the Copernican revo-
lution. The contribution of Coperni-
cus was two fold: first he improved
the mathematics behind the Ptole-
maic system and second, changed
the model from geocentric to helio-
centric. The heliocentric model was
proposed as early as the third cen-
tury BCE by the Greek astronomer
Aristarchus of Samos and so it is the
maths that made the difference.
In his Tantra Sangraham,
Nilakanta revised the Indian plane-
tary model for the interior planets,
Mercury and Venus and for this he
formulated equations to find the
centre of the planets better than
both Islamic and European tradi-
tions. He also described the plane-
tary motion in which Mercury, Venus,
Mars, Jupiter and Saturn moved in
eccentric orbits around the Sun,
which in turn went around the
Earth. Till Nilakanta, the Indian
planetary theory had different rules
for calculating latitudes for interior
and exterior planets. Nilakanta pro-
vided a unified rule. The heliocentric
model of Copernicus did not alter
the computational scheme for inte-
rior planets; it would have to wait till
Kepler (who wrote horoscopes to
supplement his income).
In their propensity to solve astro-
nomical problems, mathematicians
of the Kerala school developed con-
cepts like Gregory's series and the
Leibniz's series. The hallmark of
earlier texts, like those of Madhava,
were instructions and results with-
out proofs or explanations. It is
believed that the proofs and expla-
nations were passed orally and
hence rarely recorded. Yuktibhasha,
the text written by Jyesthadeva,
contains proofs of the theorems and
the derivations of the rules, making
it a complete text of mathematical
analysis and possibly the first
calculus text.
Our education system, based on
content from Western textbooks,
Eurocentric
chronicling
may be one
of history’s
bigger lies
by
Jayakrishnan Nair
have rarely questioned Western
accomplishments. But Peruvians
thought differently. When Peruvian
archaeologists revisited the history
written by the victors they discov-
ered that the romantic tales woven
by the Conquistadors were — well,
tales. According to the original story,
Francisco Pizarro, a Spaniard,
arrived in Peru in 1532 with a few
hundred men. A few weeks after their
arrival, in a surprise attack, they
killed the Inca king Atahualpa and
took Cusco, the Inca capital. Four
years later the Inca rebellion
attacked Cusco and the new city
of Lima.
Peru
On August 10, 1536, while Coperni-
cus and the Kerala school were revo-
lutionising the world of astronomy
half a world away, Francisco Pizzaro
watched as tens of thousands of
Incas closed in on Lima. With just a
few hundred troops, Pizzaro had to
come up with a strategy for survival.
The Spaniards led a cavalry attack
and first killed the Inca general and
his captains. Devoid of leadership the
Incas scattered and once again the
Spaniards won.
Recent archaeological excavations
found a different version of this
story. Out of the many skeletons
found in the grave near Lima, only
three were found to be killed by
Spanish weapons; the rest by Incas.
A testimony by Incas who were pres-
ent in the battle was found in the
Archive of the Franciscans at the
Convent of San Francisco de Lima,
which mentioned that it was not a
great battle, but just a few skir-
mishes. Pizzaro was helped by a
large army of Indian allies and the
battle was not between the
Spaniards and Incas, but between
two Inca groups. It was also found
that the strength of rebels was not
in tens of thousands, but in thou-
sands and there was no cavalry
charge.
Thanks to the work of native
archaeologists dramatic accounts of
a small band of heroic Europeans
subduing the Incas has a new
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narrative.
Instead of following such examples
and popularising the work of Indian
mathematicians, we have been
behaving like Confucians at the court
of the 15th century Ming emperor
Zhu Di who erased evidence of the
large fleets that sailed as far as the
Swahili coast. While the world knows
about the accomplishments of Euro-
peans like Vasco da Gama, Colum-
bus, Magellan and Francis Drake, lit-
tle is known about Zheng He who
arrived in Calicut eighty years before
da Gama commanding a fleet of
three hundred ships carrying 28,000
men; Vasco da Gama arrived with
three ships and less than two
hundred men.
China
Between 1405 and 1433, Zheng He's
fleet made seven voyages — three to
India, one to Persian Gulf and three
to the African coast — trading, trans-
porting ambassadors, and establish-
ing Chinese colonies. Following the
death of the emperor who commis-
sioned these voyages, the Confucians
at the court gained influence. Confu-
cius thought that foreign travel inter-
fered with family obligations and
Confucians wanted to curtail the
ambitious sailors and the prosperous
merchants.
So ships were let to rot in the port
and the log books and maps were
destroyed. The construction of any
ship with more than two masts was
considered a capital offence. A major
attempt at erasing a proud chapter
in their history was done by the
natives themselves.
The goal is not to diminish the
accomplishments of Copernicus or
Galileo but to note that no less
important accomplishments were
achieved by the Kerala school either
before or around the same time.
Interestingly in the West, the Coper-
nican revolution was considered a
movement into science to which the
Church, obstinate in religious
dogma, would take umbrage. In
India no one was burned at the stake
or put under house arrest for propos-
ing a heliocentric model.
Instead of accepting the astronom-
ical concepts of the Church on faith,
Galileo investigated them and found
new truths. Extrapolating that to
historical studies we need to criti-
cally examine the Eurocentric history
like the Peruvians and popularise the
work of our ancestors. In this Inter-
national Year of Astronomy, if we do
not inform everyone about our great
astronomers, who will?
Postscript: In the midst of all this
Eurocentric history, as a surprising
exception to the norm, the only edu-
cational institution where one can
take an elective course in The Pre-
History of Calculus and Celestial
Mechanics in Medieval Kerala is Can-
isius College, Buffalo, New York.
The writer is an engineer based in
the United States