‘Deleting Darwinism’: Influential Indian nationalist calls for rejection of evolution, turns towards Hindu creationism

The [Indian right-wing Hindu nationalist paramilitary organization] Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) magazine Organiser carried an article (dated 5 June 2023) by a former vice chancellor of Gautam Buddha University arguing in favour of the ‘logic of deleting Darwinism’ and ‘Intelligent Design’.

It was shocking because the third all-India head (sarsanghchalak) of the RSS, Madhukar Dattatraya Deoras, in one of his famous talks spoke about how the West, despite its religion-motivated psychological inhibitions, had embraced Darwinian science, citing the famous Scopes Monkey Trial.

The essay published by the authoritative RSS mouthpiece is a worrying indication of the creeping in of a fundamentalist creationist tendency that is more an imitation of Western creationism, and a vision alien to any Indian darshana, but, more importantly, a falsehood.

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The Indian knowledge system does not reject evolution, but if it does, then it is not a knowledge system but rather a system of sophisticated ignorance.

Hindu seers like Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo have argued for the acceptance of evolution.

This is an excerpt. Read the full article here