Scientific Method and Shastras: Can the twain ever meet?

Let’s spell it out: this is a non-scientific, irrational move, masquerading as inclusivity. At its core, it seems designed not for improving Indian science, but for soothing a collective inferiority complex - an anxiety-ridden infatuation with India’s “civilisational ethos” and the fantasy of a golden age when Indian knowledge apparently held every answer, from calculus to the cosmos, before any other nation stumbled out of the intellectual primordial soup armed with a slide rule.

The risk, however, is that this is swapping out the hard-won, peer-reviewed wisdom of the modern scientific method for a rose-tinted leap of faith. Recognising the wealth of knowledge embedded in the Shastras and Indian Knowledge Systems, which is apparently the intention behind this move, is one thing. Fast-tracking gurukul graduates - without any test of whether they can tell a hypothesis from a mantra - into the hallowed grounds of IITs, is quite another. Was Newton ever asked to recite from memory the laws of Manu? Did Einstein crack the theory of relativity through Vedic maths?

Scientific method rests on scepticism and falsifiability

At its heart, the very idea of modern science is not merely about “knowledge,” but about a particular way of knowing - a method that insists on skepticism, repeatable experiments, falsifiability, and constant critical evaluation. Scientific rigour functions like a sieve, letting only ideas that survive harsh scrutiny be accepted, no matter how old or popular.

By granting traditional gurukul graduates unfettered access to IITs without the same grounding in empirical methods, hypothesis-testing, and peer review, the system effectively confuses “possessing knowledge” with “understanding how to test it.” This is not a celebration of intellectual diversity; it is the abandonment of the standards that make genuine science possible. When entry requirements are diluted in the name of inclusivity or nostalgia, the risk isn’t just the arrival of the odd outlier - it is the quiet, cumulative erosion of the very practices that allowed India (and the world) to build the technologies, medicines, and theories that define our era. Science, when stripped of its rigour and method, morphs quickly into belief - and belief, however cherished, is not science.

If you think this slippery slope is theoretical, allow me to jog your memory. Not long ago, the director of IIT Madras, V Kamakoti, praised the “anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, and digestive” properties of cow urine at a public celebration, narrating tales of miraculous cures reminiscent of the best WhatsApp forwards. His remarks sparked outrage, with rationalist groups calling out the blatant absence of scientific temper, and medical researchers pointing to studies that found cow urine containing more bacteria than a five-day-old street-side pani puri. The episode was less about Indian cows and far more about Indian education’s willingness to dilute itself with poorly disguised superstition.

Just as memorable: IIT Bombay recently hosted a talk on “Garbhavigyan” - the “science” of producing high-quality babies, based on Ayurveda and a blend of genealogy, nutrition, vibes, and wishful thinking. Students openly protested, calling the event pseudoscience. The optics were ugly, the implications worse: an institution that built its reputation on skepticism, experimentation, and rigour was now blurring the line between research and religious tradition. It’s a short walk from here to formal lectures in Vastu Shastra for quantum engineers, or a symposium on the role of snake charmers in Indian robotics.

First rate scientific research is expensive

And lest India deludes itself, its resources are anything but infinite. Running world-class engineering and science institutions costs literal billions. Of all the things India cannot afford to waste, scientific output and public investment sit high on the list. Pouring precious taxpayer money into research grants for ancient practices - many of which fail on the most basic standards of evidence, reproducibility, and rationality - is a dereliction of responsibility. It’s like subsidising alchemy in MIT or paying Oxford dons to divine the future in tea leaves. When the world’s top science and tech schools double down on AI, climate science, and next-gen medicine, India’s response is... Jyotish and Ayurveda on the IIT bandwagon?

The most galling part is that this “integration” has not, in practice, raised the rigour of traditional learning to meet scientific standards. Rather, scientific standards are being unilaterally lowered for the express purpose of validating tradition. If the real goal is to foster a dialogue between cultures of knowledge, start by demanding of gurukul students the same evidence and skepticism expected of any other researcher. Don’t hand out fellowships and IIT-branded degrees for being able to recite the Upanishads backwards.

Don’t confuse nostalgia for rigour

It’s not just the dumbing down of Indian science that should worry us, but the precedent - for what counts as research, who is a scholar, and what the IITs themselves stand for. Today, it’s Ayurveda and Jyotish. What’s next? Palmistry with a PhD stipend? As ever, the road to educational decline is paved with noble intentions - sometimes inscribed in Sanskrit.

So yes, let’s take pride in ancient Indian knowledge. Let’s study it, preserve it, and, where evidence supports, even advance it. But let’s stop confusing nostalgia for rigour, and wishful thinking for the scientific method. The IITs, and indeed all of Indian science, deserve no less than our most skeptical, most rational, most demanding selves. Anything less is a betrayal of both our past glories and our future hopes.