Dialogues Across Disciplines
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DIALOGUES ACROSS DISCIPLINES FROM THE NIAS ARCHIVES VOLUME ONE Edited by Roddam Narasimha Dilip Ahuja NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED STUDIES NIAS@25 Bangalore, India DIALOGUES ACROSS DISCIPLINES FROM THE NIAS ARCHIVES VOLUME ONE Edited by Roddam Narasimha Dilip Ahuja NATIO N AL IN STITUTE OF ADVA N CED STUDIES Bengaluru, India © National Institute of Advanced Studies 2012 Published by National Institute of Advanced Studies Indian Institute of Science Campus Bangalore - 560 012 Tel: 2218 5000, Fax: 2218 5028 E-mail: [email protected] Cover Photos: Archaeological Survey of India Front Cover: Carved pillar, Diwan-i-khass, Fatehpur Sikri Back Cover: Circular platform, Diwan-i-khass, Fatehpur Sikri Typeset & Printed by Aditi Enterprises Magadi Road, Bangalore - 23 [email protected] To the Memory of J.R.D. Tata Contents Preface ................................................................................................ ix Acknowledgements ........................................................................... xi Introduction ..................................................................................... xiii National Institute of Advanced Studies: The Evolution of an Idea J. R. D. TATA ................................................................................. 1 Communalism and History ROMILA THAPAR ............................................................................ 8 Violence in India: A Psychological Perspective R. L. KAPUR ................................................................................ 25 U.S.-India Tensions: Misperceptions on Nuclear Proliferation DEEPA OLLAPALLY AN D RA J A RAMANNA .................................. 39 Literatures in India U R ANANTHAMURTHY ............................................................... 47 Visvesvaraya as Engineer-Sociologist and the Evolution of his Techno-Economic Vision DHRUV RAINA ............................................................................. 63 Political Leaders of Independent India H. Y. SHARA D A PRASA D .............................................................. 85 An Obituary on Caste as a System M. N. SR I N I VA S ........................................................................ 100 Religion in the Modern World T. N. MA D AN ........................................................................... 117 The Globalisation of Literature SHASHI DESHPAN D E ................................................................. 136 Can the Cultures of India Survive the Information Age? KENNETH KENISTON ............................................................... 151 The Idea of the Atom N. KUMAR ................................................................................ 167 Platonic Ideals and the Real World ROGER PENROSE ...................................................................... 179 Faith and the Pursuit of Understanding in Science & Religion CHARLES TOWNES .................................................................... 195 A response to the address of Prof. Charles Townes M. S. SWAMINATHAN ................................................................ 204 A response to the address of Prof. Charles Townes RAMANATH COWSI K ................................................................. 207 Do Chimpanzees have Souls? Possible Precursors of Religious Behaviour in Animals JANE GOO D ALL ........................................................................ 213 The Indian Half of Needham’s Question: Some Thoughts on Axioms, Models, Algorithms, and Computational Positivism RO dd AM NARASIMHA ............................................................. 218 The Flora of Tamil Sangam Poetry JOHN R. MARR .......................................................................... 250 What Euclid is to Europe, Pā�ini is to India – Or Are They? FRITS STAAL .............................................................................. 275 Is There Hope for Humanity? DESMON D TUTU ....................................................................... 297 Phenomenology of Fun and Boredom ARIN D AM CHA K RABARTI .......................................................... 303 Actors, Acting and Action GOPAL K RISHNA GAN D HI ......................................................... 325 Scientific and Philosophical Studies on Consciousness B. V. SREE K ANTAN ................................................................... 340 Munzalas in the Mist: The Discovery of the Arunachal Macaque CHARU D UTT MISHRA and ANIN D YA SINHA .......................... 360 I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any. Mahatma Gandhi (Young India 1-6-1921, p.170) Preface The National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) Bangalore was established primarily to enable persons of exceptional quality to address complex and important problems facing society. The NIAS Society came into existence on June 20, 1988, and NIAS moves into its Silver Jubilee Year this June 2012. In keeping with the original vision of its Founder Chairman, the late Mr. J.R.D. Tata, the Institute has emphasised right from its foundation a multi-disciplinary approach, bringing together the natural and social sciences, technology and the arts, industry and management, administration and civil society. The Institute has done this not only through its own faculty but also through guest faculty and its unique outreach programmes such as public lectures and the Senior Associates Programme involving peers from all walks of life. We recognise that NIAS is a small institution. To fulfil its multi-disciplinary mandate, the required expertise for any specific study is not always available in-house. We have been fortunate in being able to attract several distinguished scholars and visitors to NIAS. Over the years, we have built up an impressive corpus of publications drawing on lectures that were given at NIAS and it has been my concern that the best of these lectures should be available to a wider audience than the persons who had the privilege of listening to them. The occasion of the silver jubilee year provides us with an opportunity to bring out some of the earliest and the best of these talks in the first volume which is in your hands. I am grateful to Professor Roddam Narasimha, who despite the multiple demands on his time, agreed to edit this volume in a remarkably short time. It contains memorable lectures from some of those who provided NIAS its foundational genes—Mr. J.R.D. Tata, Dr. Raja Ramanna, Professors M.N. Srinivas, R.L. Kapur and ix B.V. Sreekantan, and several visitors from India and overseas. I am sure that readers will benefit from these lectures as much as the listeners did. We expect to bring out the second volume in June 2013. Clearly inter-disciplinary research, relevance to national needs, and human resource development will dominate our efforts as NIAS now moves into its next phase. Professor V.S. Ramamurthy Director, NIAS June 2012 x Acknowledgements The publication of this volume would not have been possible without the active participation of several individuals. The Editors would like to acknowledge the support received from Ms. Revathi Sampath Kumaran in the preparation of this volume. Ms. Hamsa Kalyani, the librarian at NIAS provided material from the Archives. Ms. V.B. Mariyammal helped with converting old texts into electronic forms, and with Sanskrit diacritical marks. Several colleagues from NIAS helped with the proof-reading. Professor Ramamurthy provided enthusiastic support for this exercise. xi Introduction This collection of essays contains talks delivered at NIAS. In the book they have been arranged in chronological order. We did not attempt to group essays on related topics. We summarize briefly these essays here and link similar ones together. A reader may consider reading them in the order indicated here. JRD Tata’s piece provides the historical background to how NIAS came to be established, and demonstrates his pursuance of the idea over a period of 24 years. R. L. Kapur delves into the psychological bases for both violence and its inverse, which he calls empathy. He proposes several principles which could be invoked to reduce violence in India. His analysis still has an uncanny relevance today. Romila Thapar clearly demonstrates that communal ideology is not something that grows out of our ancient or medieval history; rather it grows out of our colonial past and out of the present, often with devastating consequences. T N Madan traces the ups and downs of religion’s estimation in the intellectual debates since Comte and Marx, Durkheim and Weber. Today, he finds, there are two kinds of people: those who are fanatic in their adherence to religion, and those who are fanatic about the avoidance of religion altogether. Drawing on Nietzsche’s powerful caricature of the ‘mad man,’ Madan argues that nihilism is not going to take us anywhere; rather it is likely to frustrate us and leave us questioning our efforts to live. Charles Townes argues that the ‘assumptions’ of science and the ‘faith’ of religion indeed are very similar. And there are many questions that science yet has to answer about this ‘intelligently designed’ universe of ours. xiii M. S. Swaminathan feels that the values inherent in the idea of religion can help science remain morally rooted. In this context he alludes to the Indian notion of karma – doing actions consciously that their