Science or Spectacle? The Cow Dung Controversy and the Crisis in Indian Academia

The cow dung row raises questions about the Delhi University's approach to scientific knowledge, writes Rajan Mahan.

Last week, a viral video showed Dr Pratyush Vatsala, who's the principal of Lakshmibai College, coating classroom walls with cow dung to ‘cool’ them. As the video triggered huge criticism, she defended her bizarre act as a part of a “faculty-led research project investigating indigenous and sustainable cooling methods.”

(Photo: Aroop Mishra/The Quint)

In an incident more suitable for a satirical play than an institution of higher learning, a Delhi University college principal’s recent act of coating cow dung on classroom walls—ostensibly to mitigate the effects of summer heat—prompts serious questions about the state of education in India.

Last week, a viral video showed Dr Pratyush Vatsala, principal of Lakshmibai College, coating classroom walls with cow dung to ‘cool’ them. As the video triggered huge criticism, she defended her bizarre act as a part of a “faculty-led research project investigating indigenous and sustainable cooling methods.”

While seemingly isolated, the cow dung drama in Delhi is a potent symbol of the deeper issues plaguing India’s education system where traditional beliefs often supersede scientific temper and threaten to drag academic discourse into the realm of pseudoscience.

The principal's justification that this was part of a research project on “indigenous methods” raises grave questions about the institution's approach to scientific knowledge and problem-solving.

Satire, Protest, and Student Pushback

The storm on social media and her dubious defence soon led to student protests, with the Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) President Ronak Khatri smearing cow dung on the principal's office walls on Tuesday, 15 April. After his satirical protest, Khatri claimed he was “helping” the principal by applying the same natural cooling method to her own workspace.

In a caustic post on X, Khatri asserted, “We have full faith that madam will now get the AC removed from her room and hand it over to students,” and will now function in this “modern and natural” environment.

In recent years, there have been several examples of pseudoscience influencing higher education, often intertwined with exaggerated claims about ancient Indian knowledge and traditional practices.

In reality, the cow dung row reflects an alarming recent trend in Indian academia, whereby rational enquiry often gives way to emotive calls of national pride in overstated feats of ancient India and the goal of scientific temper gets displaced by an overreliance on unproven claims and jingoistic passions.

When Ancient Myths Pass as Science

It's worth recalling some special examples to comprehend how deeply pseudoscience has now permeated Indian higher education. For instance, claims that ancient India had developed aeronautical technology centuries before the Wright Brothers have been made repeatedly in recent years. Vaimānika Shāstra, a text claiming to describe ancient Indian aviation, is presented as proof of India’s mastery of flight despite being scientifically flawed.

While most universities now have courses on “Vedic sciences” or “ancient Indian knowledge systems”, some like Banaras Hindu University (BHU) have even started courses on “bhootvidya” (ghost science), which clearly lack scientific basis. Likewise, claims that ancient Hindus had mastered cosmetic surgery and genetics, are often presented as ‘facts’ needing no scientific validation.

Amazingly, academics who promote such ideas generally get prominence and patronage but those who question them often face marginalisation, even censure.

Conferences and seminars are organised where these ideas are presented without the necessary academic rigour, blurring the lines between serious scholarship and pseudo-science.

IITs and the Institutionalisation of Unscientific Claims

Even the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are being pressed into service for promoting pseudoscience themes and projects. Recently, IIT Mandi made headlines for introducing a first-of-its-kind MS and PhD course in Music and Musopathy.

Besides core courses, all students of IIT Mandi must take one or two courses from the Indian Knowledge System and Mental Health Applications (IKSMHA) Center, where course modules include the study of “the subtle body, reincarnation, and out-of-body experiences.”

Besides the curricula in universities getting impacted, pseudoscience pursuits now often determine the allocation of funds for scientific research. IIT Delhi has coordinated huge funding for research into ‘Panchgavya’, a mixture of five products from cows like milk, curd, ghee (clarified butter), urine, and dung.

This is claimed as a panacea for treating various diseases, though without any scientific basis. Experts say Hindutva ideologues often interfere in the functioning of IITs and to ensure institutional support for unproven claims, such as a conference on “cow science” at IIT Guwahati and lectures at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Delhi on themes like “medical science and Indian scriptures.”

Some observers of India’s educational scenario trace the spread of unscientific beliefs to 2014 when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power. Prime Minister Narendra Modi virtually set the ball rolling when he claimed that ancient Indians knew the science of plastic surgery by citing the elephant-headed Lord Ganesh as evidence.

Later, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders like former education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal described modern science as a “pygmy” compared to ancient Indian knowledge, and a BJP chief minister in Tripura, Biplab Deb, asserted that the internet existed in India in the Mahabharata era. The BJP luminaries have also made other fantastic claims, like dubbing Darwin’s Theory of Evolution as wrong, and that the Vedas contain theories “better than” Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.

With the power elite in full support, the introduction of Indian Knowledge System (IKS) at all levels of education is one of the avowed aims of the New Education Policy (NEP) of 2020.

Besides online IKS courses, conferences and workshops across India are being financed to promote IKS in colleges and universities. But as many academics assert, if the utterances of politicians are examined closely, the IKS seems less an educational programme and more a political project to promote the Hindutva ideology of the ruling regime. Pained by these trends, many prominent scientists issued a joint statement last year urging the government to stop undermining rational thinking and scientific methods. 

Shrinking Space for Scientific Inquiry

Inevitably, academic freedom is rapidly shrinking as depicted by a sharp drop in India’s position in the Academic Freedom Index. Developed by the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, it tracks academic freedom in 179 countries, and its report for 2022 gave India a score of 0.38 out of 1. But the update for 2024, released this March, points to a further slump and ranks India among countries where academic freedom is 'completely restricted'.

While the Modi government’s assault on press freedom and its bid to tame regulatory institutions are well known, its effort to undermine the practice of science and disempower higher academics has largely escaped scrutiny. With leaders making unscientific claims about technological achievements in ancient India, the emphasis on IKS seems a ploy to build hypernationalist narratives for political gains.

As envisioned by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and enshrined in the Indian Constitution, scientific temper emphasises critical thinking and urges citizens to develop a spirit of inquiry.

But incidents like the one at Lakshmibai College reveal a sad departure from these ideals. They are a wake-up call to revitalise and promote scientific temper in Indian education.

It's only by fostering an environment that values critical inquiry and evidence-based practices that India’s education system can produce informed and rational citizens.

(The author is a veteran journalist and expert on Rajasthan politics. Besides serving as a Resident Editor at NDTV, he has been a Professor of Journalism at the University of Rajasthan in Jaipur. He tweets at @rajanmahan. This is an opinion article and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)