Islamic fanatics trace all advancement in science to Koranic revelation. One can also recognise racism of the theocratic Jewish State of Israel as a strong base of science and technology in the Arabian deserts, and the advancement of Russian sciences was based on ideological faith and the Cold War. Our contention is that racial or religious fundamentalism is likely to misuse advanced scientific knowledge and technology for narrow political goals. It is, therefore, no surprise that Hindu chauvinists and Islamic fundamentalists both are votaries of atom bombs.

In the recent revival of religious fundamentalism, the issue of affecting inter-relations of science and society has once again come to the fore. In India, the emergence of caste or religious intolerance as a political force will have far-reaching consequences for the entire sub-continent. Think of a million Hindus assembled at Allahabad-sangam at the confluence of two holy rivers — Ganga and Jamuna — on kumbha for a holy dip praying for safety (mukti) of the planetary system from demonic forces of Rahu and Ketu.

Islam was born to overthrow icons of faith but it has now turned into dogmatic ritualism of worshipping a stone by millions at Mecca during the Haj pilgrimage. The huge mass of humanity is under the spell of faith and age-old ignorance.

From the archaeological discoveries of early civilisations of India, China, Egypt, Maya and Incas of the American continent, it is evident that faith (religious) was founded in scientific reasoning and at no time in history could there be a people devoid of scientific acumen. To assume that any people at any given time were totally bereft of science is an unscientific belief. An Upanishadic saying alludes to the conflict between faith and reason or religion and philosophy (science): "faith must be placed (only) in a true preposition (Satyam Shradhayam Juhuyat)". Similarly, Manu clearly states that one who follows the scientific method (reasoning or tarka) knows the true Dharma, not the one who follows faith blindly.

Islam, in its revolutionary beginning was admittedly an iconoclastic faith. Indian philosophy of Vedanta also admits reality as nirankar or nirguna, or nameless, and shapeless. But nirguna can be realised by common persons through an icon (murti or image). The Sikh gurus tried to reconcile this paradox of the opposites by giving up image-worship (murti-pooja). Instead they accepted words of wisdom (Granth) to guide them to the right path of liberation.

Ritualism was secondary to the path of knowledge which was integral to Indian philosophy and is the very foundation of Indian ethos. The late Professor AL Basham, in his monumental study, The Wonder that was India, describes the debt of the Western world to India. He wrote that the great discoveries and inventions of which Europe is so proud would have been impossible without the developed system of mathematics, and that in turn would have been impossible if Europe had been shackled by the unwieldy system of Roman numerals.

The unknown man who devised the new mathematical system was from the world’s point of view, after the Buddha, the most important son of India. Yet, in the entire scientific writings of ancient India there is not a single hint of chauvinism of one’s race or religion. Admittedly, the searching rishis of ancient India were not advocating ideological intolerance. They were propounding secular, scientific wisdom for all humankind.

Today, religious violence and hatred endanger the well-being of our entire sub-continent. We, the Hindus and the Muslims of the sub-continent, have over the centuries developed a common interest in the fields of arts, architecture, music, drama and language. Cultural exchanges have so united us that we have symbiotically become a unit. Any split now will cause another Rwandan holocaust type destruction to followers of both the faiths. Any attempt by historians to solve the problem of Ayodhya on the basis of historical evidence, or to justify the Hindutva politics will be meaningless. History is not an exact (natural) science, and there is no Sanskrit source which would support an aggressive approach to religion. Peace and unity is evidently more important for human existence than dying and killing for a stone structure.

Admittedly, Hindutva is a modern-day reaction to the western racial-imperial domination of eastern peoples. In the 1930s, the former chief of the RSS, the late Guru Golwalkar, in order to match the Nazi ideology had propounded a Hindutva political philosophy. During the 1939-45 war years we Indians were sympathetic to Hitler because the German Nazi was fighting against the British.

But Nazism was rooted in racial hatred and intolerance, whereas the Sanskritic heritage of India does not support the intolerance of Hindutva. The word ‘Hindu’ is, in fact, a Persian/Arabic word, in its origin, and is a recent 16th century expression for the inhabitants east of the river Sindhu (Indus). The word "Hindu" is not found in Sanskrit literature. It is alien to the Upanishads, Ramayana and Mahabharata.

Bal Gangadhar Tilak in his Arctic Home in the Vedas tried to establish that India was the original home of the Aryans. Swami Dayanand, the founder of Arya Samaj insisted on calling ourselves ‘Arya’, not ‘Hindu’. Whether Aryans came from outside or were the original inhabitants of India, they were not Hindus. Hindutva has thus no historical or philosophical claim to monopoly rights over the South-Asian sub-continent. Various beliefs, languages and cultures have confluenced in the South-Asian civilisation.

If we do not learn from history, we are bound to repeat mistakes of the past. To assume that the Hindus are some kind of ‘spiritual’ peace loving people is as fallacious as to believe that no Muslim can live in peace with non-Muslims. Fanaticism can equally drive us both to madness. I recall the years of partition and independence (1947-50). Those were traumatic years when I was working at makeshift camps at the railway station, receiving and helping refugees, distributing food and clothing. I was also assisting in the task of registration and transfer of tens of thousands of destitutes coming from Sindh and Punjab. Shocking scenes of those days are still vivid in my memory.

I was at Amritsar station to receive the refugees coming from West Punjab. As the sun rose in the eastern horizon — there was low visibility due to mist — a train slowly steamed into the platform. As it came to a final halt, a solitary figure (the driver) jumped out of the engine and ran away. The entire train was covered with blood and dead bodies — men, women, children, old and young, some hanging from windows and open doors, some piled on each other, many more bodies hanging headless from the roof of the train.

It was a nauseating scene. Even as we were struggling to cope with the shock, another train arrived on the next track. And a few minutes later, a third train steamed in. All the three contained the massacred human bodies, pushed into the eastern border of Punjab. Evidently, it was an outcome of the religious frenzy and violence prevailing on both sides of the border. Immediately, the entire area was cordoned off by a few armed soldiers.

Later we learnt that in order to teach a lesson and in revenge, similar acts of violence, were perpetrated from the Indian side. I do not know how many train loads of massacred people were sent across. How I overcame that shock to my young mind, or what I did there as a young volunteer I don’t remember. But I do remember rushing back to my headquarters in Delhi and never visited Amritsar again for the next fifty years. Later in my ‘50s when I visited the Jewish extermination camps in Poland (Auschewietz), I could not eat for days. What bothered me was the question of how civilised people could justify such violence?

The paradox is that all world religions had advocated the use of violence for advancement of their presumed divine truth. Jewish persecution in Europe had long history in which many Christian saints and philosophers, including Thomas Aquinas, preached hatred and violence against Jews as justifiable homicide. In the history of the Christian church, the Holy war and violence against Jews and Muslims was an act of faith and blessedness.

Similarly, the history of Islam is not known for its tolerance towards other faiths. In the Islamic tradition, too, war and violence in defence of the assumed revelation is justified as an act of nobility. Surprisingly, in the most Catholic and peaceful Hindu tradition, the text quoted most often is the Gita where Lord Krishna, describes the Holy-war (Dharma-Yudh). In the great epic-battle of Mahabharata, Krishna candidly declares that violence committed in defence of one’s Dharma has scriptural sanction. A hesitant Arjuna rightly refuses to kill his elders and cousins for kingdom but Krishna commands him to overcome such sentiments, and as God personified, he orders him to kill. But what is the meaning of a Jihad, Dharm-yudh or Holy war, in our nuclear age?

Once again, I hear the fanatic voices of Jihad and Dharm-Yudha. We hear ‘saints’, and the jagatgurus and sadhus holding ‘trishuls’ delivering hateful sermons, invoking the call of the Gita. And the followers of the Prophet are not far behind with their war-cry, ‘Allah-o-Akbar’ – "the Islamic God is the greatest".

And it is significant that they express no concern about the nuclear arms race. The religious leaders are oblivious of the hazards of nuclear radiation. They know little about the scientific understanding of the universe, the cosmic truths. Yet, they hold very powerful weapons of faith to incite the masses into total, mutually-assured destruction.