‘This is the age of science’, he told the audience. ‘And science challenges the very existence of God’, he continued, and then he asked, ‘In this age should we fight over one true God, one true book, the one last prophet and the only begotten son of God?’



No extolling of ‘Eastern’ spirituality over ‘Western’ science. No batting for theism over atheism. In fact, he sounded more rational in a holistic sense than most pseudo-rationalists we have been made to suffer. His address appealed to the atheist in me. It never offended those who believed and yet it carried the message of reason and real spirituality.

Madukar Dattareya Deoras (1915-1996) defined the vision for Sangh from 1973 to 1994. Going through his addresses, one finds a vision that he had bequeathed on the present day Hindutvaites.



But, are the Hindutvaites of today worthy of that vision?

Today, we see an obsession with the infallibility of old scriptures in the Hindutvaites, even those in very responsible positions like the union minister for science and technology. The minister recently stated that according to Stephen Hawking, the Vedas contain an equation superior to Einstein’s E=mc^2. Anyone who is familiar with the books of Hawking, which he had written for the common public, knows where Hawking stands with respect to scriptures of any faith.



As I have mentioned earlier, the cosmology Hawking unveiled, definitely resonates with the Hindu-Buddhist worldview. Michio Kaku has written about how the picture of multiverse harmonises our conflicting origin myths well in a way that the genesis of Bible becomes but one in many of the universe cycles coming in and out of the Vedic Brahman or the Buddhist Nirvana. But that does not mean, not in the remotest least, that our Vedic seers knew about string theory, Hilbert Space and Hawking radiation.

Balasaheb Deoras was clear with regard to the relation of the ancient sacred texts and modern science. He did not mince words as to what attitudes Hindus should evolve with respect to their ancient sacred texts in relation to the discoveries of modern science. In a remarkable anticipation of some of the fallacies to be committed by modern day Hindutva enthusiasts, the third Sar Sanghachalak said :