In an event marking 100 years of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) at the Jamia Millia Islamia University, Vice-Chancellor (V-C) Mazhar Asif was heard saying that despite differences in tradition and culture, everyone is Indian as they “share a common DNA of Mahadev.” If this is indeed what he said, two very straightforward questions arise: How did the V-C obtain the DNA of the Hindu deity Mahadev to compare it with that of present-day Indians?Where did Mahadev’s DNA originate? Or did he generate it himself? Why do those leading our higher education institutions make such careless statements? Do they not anticipate the questions their words would inevitably invite? Are they simply toeing the right-wing line of thinking to please the ruling regime? These questions cast a serious doubt on the existence of any coherent conservative intellectual tradition in India. Also read: At Event Marking RSS Centenary, Jamia V-C Says All Indians ‘Share Common DNA of Mahadev’Ramachandra Guha raised precisely this concern in a 2015 article: where are India’s conservative intellectuals? He noted a paucity of credible right-wing thinkers compared to those at the centre or left of the political spectrum. Instead, he argued, what exist are ideologues. More interested in promoting social and political change than advancing knowledge and scholarship through rigorous research. As Merriam-Webster defines it, an ideologue is “an often blindly partisan advocate or adherent of a particular ideology,” uncompromising and dogmatic. Ideologues draw certainty from the past, leaving no room for curiosity or rational inquiry. In this way, they become anti-intellectual. Scholarship demands open minds and dogma forestalls it. Given this mindset, it is perhaps unsurprising that figures in senior academic positions make such statements. This is illustrated by the below mentioned examples. The Indian government had issued calls for research proposals on the efficacy of gaumutra, or cow urine, in cancer treatment. In this vein, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras director V. Kamakoti, who was awarded the Padma Shri this year, claimed that cow urine had anti-fungal, antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties, a claim widely criticised on social media. In a separate incident, the director of IIT Mandi attributed natural disasters like landslides and cloudbursts in Himachal Pradesh to people eating meat and engaging in cruelty towards animals.A broader ecosystem of ideologue-influencers has emerged to aggressively amplify such views, occupying a large discursive space. Figures like S. Gurumurthy, Rajiv Malhotra, J. Sai Deepak and Anand Ranganathan, to name a few, play a vital role in championing Hindu cultural chauvinism and advocating for a ‘Hindu rashtra‘ rooted in a glorified, mythologised past under the garb of ‘naya Bharat.’ Also read: How a Dikshitar Celebration at IIT Madras Turned Into a Platform For PseudoscienceThe decolonial approach leveragedWhat is striking about these ideologues is their selective approach to science. They appropriate modern scientific concepts to lend legitimacy to ancient ‘Indian knowledge systems,’ while rejecting scientific reasoning when it challenges traditional beliefs. This contradiction is not incidental, but systematic, with premier institutes joining hands with ideologue-influencers to peddle preposterous and pseudoscientific views. The Vice-Chancellor’s invocation of DNA, a hereditary material in humans and other organisms, to describe a shared spiritual lineage and V. Kamakoti’s claims about cow urine having medicinal properties, are cases of science being co-opted to meet ideological ends. S. Gurumurthy was recently given a platform at IIT Madras to draw parallels between the Upanishads and modern science, a form of epistemic atavism that ends up distorting both. In other cases, where non-scientific traditional beliefs are contested on purely logical grounds, the typical response is not engagement but deflection, dismissing critics as victims of a “colonial mindset.” This is where the theoretical framework of the decolonial approach is instrumentalised.Decolonial theory (or decoloniality as it is sometimes called) holds that colonialism imposed Western epistemological paradigms on colonised populations, suppressing indigenous knowledge and ways of thinking. According to the theory, even after liberations from colonial rule, these paradigms continue to shape thought and what has been termed as the “colonial mindset.” The right has weaponised this framework. Anyone questioning traditional belief systems, even on commonsensical grounds with no connection to Western thought processes, is branded as having a “colonial mindset.”The Charvakas, the materialist philosophers of ancient India, challenges traditional Hindu beliefs hundreds of years before British colonisation. Thus, rational inquiry is not a product of Western colonialism. In an earlier article, I had called into question Sai Deepak’s vague at attempt at connecting the practice of burning firecrackers on Diwali to forefathers returning to pitraloka, a scriptural ritual of guiding ancestral souls back to heaven after they descend to accept food offerings. It is for this reason, he explained, that the sky has to be lit up. I posed the following questions: if ancestors do not know their way back, and require firecrackers to guide them, how did they arrive in the first place? Why not return during day time? And on what basis do we assume that heaven is above the sky? Deepak’s immediate response was to label The Wire, which published my article, as “brown sahibs” and proclaiming that people like me, who raise logical questions, that they require “mental decolonisation.” He deftly avoided the accountability to answer through mockery and labelling, a reliable refuge for those who cannot defend their stances. Yaay.Finally d Brown Sahibs at The Wire have blessed us with their attention.Pls do read this piece where d author rubbishes Hindu philosophy & traditions as pseudo-science/superstition. It is these specimens tht reinforce d need for mental decolonisation. https://t.co/xaW2zLPk7B— Sai Deepak J (@jsaideepak) November 13, 2022In another instance, Deepak has talked about the doctrine of karma. The doctrine delineates that karma is guided by adrshta (the unseen) and that punya and papa (merits and demerits of one’s actions) are accumulated as unseen potencies which accompany the soul, producing rewards or punishments. These accumulated merits and demerits determine one’s circumstances in subsequent births, a reasoning frequently used to justify caste hierarchy. A.R. Wadia noted in his article Philosophical Implications of the Doctrine of Karma, that the karma doctrine is used as the key explanation for a person to be born into a particular caste, however it cannot be proved and must be accepted as dogma. There are substantial logical difficulties in this belief. If person A wrongs B and benefits from doing so, do we say A is reaping karmic rewards and B punishment? Or will A face consequences in subsequent births? When does the karmic cycle begin, what constitutes the first, untainted act?I wonder what the response to these questions would be. Are the going to labelled as arising from a colonial mindset? Perhaps.I am also surprised at Deepak’s drift into irrationality to connect the doctrine of karma with ethics and then again to meander, in a bizarre manner, into the idea of how there can be no country without a religion. The contradiction at the coreThe central contradiction of right-wing cultural chauvinism is that on the one hand, its proponents reject scientific temper as a part of Western colonialism, while on the other, they eagerly appeal to modern science to claim that ancient Indians discovered these theories much before the West. Guha’s question then, answers itself. There can be no genuine conservative intellectual tradition with such contradictions plaguing the discourse. The problem is not merely a lack of scholarship; it is a failure of basic reasoning. When pressed with logical questions, ideologues respond with pejorative labels like “woke,” “brown saheb,” and “colonised mind.” It is a rhetorical strategy designed to silence rational thought. If these self-appointed guardians of Bharatiya sanskriti wish to be taken seriously, they must answer questions put to them with reason and evidence.S.K. Arun Murthi taught Philosophy at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali.