– THR Correspondent
COIMBATORE, August 18: Where would you find a person who has delivered more than 4000 lectures, in the span of a few years, to students, teachers and the general public exhorting them to learn more about India’s contribution to science and technology from the ancient to modern times? Not in the Guinness Book of World Records, but certainly in India. Meet Dr. N. Gopalakrishnan, scientist at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and a tireless campaigner for Indian heritage. He awakens a great thirst for this knowledge with his fascinating exposition of ancient Indian scientific discoveries, theorems and mathematical problems, astronomical knowledge and technological feat.
He established the Indian Institute of Scientific Heritage (IISH), which has been popularising Indian science through lectures, seminars, group discussions, quizzes, essay competitions and publication of hundreds of books and cassettes. The topics covered include Indian mathematics, astronomy, metallurgy, health sciences, agriculture, study of the Indian approach to nature, environment and management based on the principles mentioned in Indian texts such as the Bhagavad Gita, a scientific analysis of Indian social systems, Vedic literature, Indian values in education and Indian spiritual heritage.
While on a lecture tour in Coimbatore, he inaugurated the Science Association of Shree Dharma Sastha Matriculation Higher Secondary School on August 18. He asked the students to orient the Science Association towards Indian heritage and study the life and works of Indian scientists, ancient and modern, who have made seminal contributions in various fields and yet who remain unknown to Indian students. In the afternoon, he also inaugurated the Students Union of the Avinashilingam Deemed University (for girls). In the evening, speaking to the students of the Chinmaya International Residential School at Siruvani, he pointed out that a peculiar situation exists in India – Indians suffer from an inferiority complex, disown their own heritage and feel ashamed of anything that is truly Indian in character! Prior to India’s Independence from British rule, he said the colonisers were trying hard to destroy this heritage. But more unfortunately, in the post-independence era, Indians themselves have been continuing this destruction, albeit with more vigour and efficiency!
Narrating the overwhelming response he received recently, from the students of the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M), where he was invited to deliver an “extra-mural lecture” and interacted with the students for nearly three hours – giving them Sanskrit equivalents of many well-known scientific theorems and discoveries – he said the younger generation is very much interested in discovering this suppressed dimension. THR wishes him good luck and hopes that he will double the number of his lectures to 8000, awaken many more young Indians and thus help in accelerating the decolonisation of the Hindu mind.
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