Another economist from Kerala, George Gheverghese Joseph, had also written a book on the same subject titled A Passage to Infinity (Sage, 2009) when the author was with University of Manchester. There was a bitter controversy with C K Raju alleging that Joseph had used most of Raju’s work. In 2010, the university declared that 'Indians predated Newton 'discovery' by 250 years'. It also acknowledged that "the significant body of work conducted by Professor C K Raju in this area”.

So, what Hindutva supporters needs to do is to create more research into the history and philosophy of science and integrate it with the curriculum in an inspiring way. They have their job cut out for themselves.

Take for example, the Leibniz-Newton series. If the present government changes, in the forthcoming textbooks, the name of the series as Madhava-Leibniz and Madhava-Newton series, that would be a great first step in the right direction. The progressives would call it saffronisation and make a fool of themselves. Instead, what we see here is the Hindutva supporters making a fool of themselves with unsubstantiated meme-based childish claims. By such claims, supporters of the Hindu cause even hinder the work of scholars labouring hard to bring out the real contributions India has actually made to the evolution of science.

What is that greatness about Indian scientific tradition that has to be communicated to the students?

Almost a thousand years before Galileo and Kepler, Aryabhatta had declared the paths of the planets and the moon should be elliptical; he also declared that the diurnal changes happen because of earth’s rotation – this was, however, not the dominant view then. The dominant view as reflected in Surya Siddhanta was both geocentric and with circular orbits of planets. Thus in comparison, Aryabhatta, was a rebel for more complete than Galileo. But he was not persecuted. India never produced an index of forbidden books and placed Aryabhatiyam in it. Instead, Aryabhatta was, and to this day, is hailed as an acharya. Of course, Aryabhatta never explicitly stated the heliocentric theory. A nationalist like Bankim Chandra Chatterjee did not try to hide the fact, but lamented that though Aryabhatta “distinctly affirmed that the starry firmament was fixed and it was the earth which continuously revolving produced the rising and the setting of the constellations and the planets”, though it should have led to heliocentric theory it “was never positively put forward”. Still, even if Aryabhatta had explicitly arrived at a heliocentric theory, it would not have created a problem in India. Physicist and historian of science Subhash Kak explains: