The ‘Pushpak Vimaan' is a flying chariot or vehicle described in the Indian epic Ramayana.
Satya Pal Singh is an MPhil in Chemistry, and former Mumbai Police commissioner, who is currently India's BJP junior government HRD Minister, and who believes that engineering students should be taught about the Pushpak Vimaan, as part of a new engineering curriculum, covering ancient Indian scientific “discoveries” and “inventions”.
He also claims that it wasn't the Wright brothers or possibly several other European rival claimants, who had the first powered flight, and that it was in fact an Indian named Shivakar Babuji Talpade, who using the ideas enshrined in Vedic texts such as the Vaimanika Shastra, flew eight years before the Wright brothers.
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| Ramayana-ram Returning From Lanka On The Pushpak Viman .... An Indian Invention |
Satya Pal Singh is an MPhil in Chemistry, and former Mumbai Police commissioner, who is currently India's BJP junior government HRD Minister, and who believes that engineering students should be taught about the Pushpak Vimaan, as part of a new engineering curriculum, covering ancient Indian scientific “discoveries” and “inventions”.
He also claims that it wasn't the Wright brothers or possibly several other European rival claimants, who had the first powered flight, and that it was in fact an Indian named Shivakar Babuji Talpade, who using the ideas enshrined in Vedic texts such as the Vaimanika Shastra, flew eight years before the Wright brothers.
The inventor in the ancient texts was a sage named Bharadwaja ... Mr Singh has also claimed that trees in the demon king Ravana's realm of Lanka, did not require to be watered as they contained Chandramani, a mythical elixir ... “Such ancient technology should be taught to our students.”
According to Indian Nationalists such as Satya Pal Singh, Talpade demonstrated his aircraft, a cylindrical structure made of bamboo, in 1895 on Bombay's Chowpatty beach, in front of a large crowd that included dignitaries including Sayaji Rao Gaekwad III, the Maharaja of nearby Baroda.
According to Indian Nationalists such as Satya Pal Singh, Talpade demonstrated his aircraft, a cylindrical structure made of bamboo, in 1895 on Bombay's Chowpatty beach, in front of a large crowd that included dignitaries including Sayaji Rao Gaekwad III, the Maharaja of nearby Baroda.
The superstructure was apparently filled with liquid mercury, which released hydrogen and made the craft lighter, and the craft looks more like a Zeppelin, rather than a plane .... Mercury and Hydrogen seem a somewhat poisonous and combustible mixture to fuel aircraft. These claims are all discussed in a book Maharashtracha Ujwal Itihaas by Pratap Velkar a retired engineer.
Laughably he went on to say that while India produces 40,000 PhD students every year, the quality of the research is not up to the mark, and added that students can buy research papers on-line these days ... His solution? Teach them this mythology and other fraudulent facts, such as this story of Shivakar Babuji Talpade!
Sadly he is not alone. An advertising professional, Ganesh J Acharya, some years ago launched an online signature campaign to get S B Talpade's story incorporated into school syllabus books, with claims that the incident is part of a long history of British suppression. "The British tried to ensure Talpade's work did not succeed. They did not want an Indian to build the first aeroplane. After the Chowpatty show, the British tried to make sure that Talpade could not continue with his research. Unfortunately, many of us still don't know anything about him."
The whole Hindu Nationalist party, the BJP, is riddled with these sorts of claims that India invented everything first, and laced with a brand of Hindutva ideology.
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| Illustration Of India's First Plane ... Pilot On Top From The Maharashtracha Ujwal Itihaas |
Laughably he went on to say that while India produces 40,000 PhD students every year, the quality of the research is not up to the mark, and added that students can buy research papers on-line these days ... His solution? Teach them this mythology and other fraudulent facts, such as this story of Shivakar Babuji Talpade!
Sadly he is not alone. An advertising professional, Ganesh J Acharya, some years ago launched an online signature campaign to get S B Talpade's story incorporated into school syllabus books, with claims that the incident is part of a long history of British suppression. "The British tried to ensure Talpade's work did not succeed. They did not want an Indian to build the first aeroplane. After the Chowpatty show, the British tried to make sure that Talpade could not continue with his research. Unfortunately, many of us still don't know anything about him."
The whole Hindu Nationalist party, the BJP, is riddled with these sorts of claims that India invented everything first, and laced with a brand of Hindutva ideology.
- Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told a gathering of doctors and medical staff at a Mumbai hospital in 2014 that the story of the Hindu god Ganesha showed cosmetic surgery existed in ancient India. "We worship Lord Ganesha. There must have been some plastic surgeon at that time who got an elephant's head on the body of a human being and began the practice of plastic surgery".
- Captain Anand Bodas, a retired pilot and head of a pilot training facility, claimed that India had interplanetary aircraft thousands of years ago, along with sophisticated radar that was superior to today's systems.
- Vasudev Devnani, the education minister for the western state of Rajasthan said in January 2017, that the cow, was the only animal in the world to both inhale and exhale oxygen, and that it was important to "understand the scientific significance" of the sacred animal.
- Vijay Rupani, the chief minister of the western state of Gujarat, told the Institute of Infrastructure Technology Research and Management in 2017 said that Hindu deity Lord Ram built a bridge from India to Sri Lanka showing "engineering skills" .... The quoted text was "Imagine what kind of engineers Lord Ram had to build the Ram Setu that links Sri Lanka and India… Even squirrels offered their help in building the bridge… Even today people say that remnants of Ram Setu are in the sea".
In 1974, scientists of Bangalore's Indian Institute of Science debunked the claims of Mr Talpade's supporters as being 'unfeasible'. They noted that although Talpade had built models using principles based on the Vaimanika Shastra, he did not succeed in making any of them fly:
'The planes described are at best, poor concoctions, rather than expressions of something real. None of the planes [models] have properties or capabilities of being flown; the geometries are unimaginably horrendous from the point of view of flying; and the principles of propulsion make them resist rather than assist flying.'
.... its a shame that BJP hard-liners such as Messrs Modi, Singh, Rupani, Devnani, Bodas, and Acharya don't apparently read science papers.
.... its a shame that BJP hard-liners such as Messrs Modi, Singh, Rupani, Devnani, Bodas, and Acharya don't apparently read science papers.
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