Siddaramaiah Wants To Ban Astrology Shows On TV. Here's Why He Should Not.

The political hatred for astrology is more because of theological bias rather than scientific temper. The actions of Congress leaders in Karnataka prove this beyond doubt.

On 7 December 2015, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah made an ominous statement when talking to a Dalit group. He suggested a ban on astrological sessions popular in Karnataka TV channels. Though later the government sources denied issuing such a blanket ban, government sources informed a news portal that the state is firm on bringing effective laws to curb occult and superstitious practices though passing Anti-Superstitious bill.

What is disturbing here is the way the Chief Minister had talked about womenfolk falling prey to astrology and the fact that he was talking about this to a ‘Dalit’ group. Therefore, it is not just gender stereotyping that is happening here but an effective culture-cleansing of a legacy which is part of the scheduled class communities in South India. It also shows a totally undemocratic mindset that shall ultimately hamper much needed scientific inquisitiveness. This sort of tendency dangerously transforms the term ‘scientific temper’ into a tool for ideologically motivated inquisition. After all, the term  ‘scientific temper’ was sneaked into the constitution during the emergency when the Indian state almost slipped into an undemocratic coma triggered by the same INC.

Photo: Muhammad Mahdi Karim

Though there are enough and more reasons to be skeptical about the claims of astrology as a science we have to view the proposed TV telecast ‘ban’ as an assault on our individual, cultural and religious freedom. Here the genuine rationalists –if such a species exists in India- can learn from Carl Sagan.

In 1975 Professor Bart J Bok a famous American astronomer came out with a strong statement against astrology. The petition declared on behalf of the scientists that ‘the time has come to challenge directly, and forcefully, the pretentious claims of astrological charlatans’. Interestingly Sagan, who also held astrology as a pseudo-science, refused to sign the statement. Explaining his stand, Sagan pointed out that he was unable to sign the petition not because he thought astrology has any validity whatsoever, but because he felt that the tone of the statement was authoritarian.

The statement had condemned astrology for having its roots in superstition and the scientists could think of no mechanism by which astrology could work. Sagan pointed out the same was true even for chemistry and medicine. As far as the absence of any known mechanism to explain the ‘working’ of astrology was concerned Sagan pointed out the same was also true when Alfred Wegener first proposed continental drift theory:

The notion was roundly dismissed by all the great geophysicists, who were certain that continents were fixed, not floating on anything, and therefore unable to ‘drift’. Instead, the key twentieth-century idea in geophysics turns out to be plate tectonics; we now understand that continental plates do indeed float and ‘drift’ (or better, are carried by a kind of conveyor belt driven by the great heat engine of the Earth’s interior), and all those great geophysicists were simply wrong.

Objections to pseudoscience on the grounds of unavailable mechanism can be mistaken – although if the contentions violate well-established laws of physics, such objections of course carry great weight.

While many modern astrologers and their websites quote the above statement of Sagan, they often do not go into the more important valid criticism of Sagan listing out the real problems astrology has with its claim of celestial objects having a say in our destiny:

..its acceptance of precession of the equinoxes in announcing an ‘Age of Aquarius’ and its rejection of precession of the equinoxes in casting horoscopes; its neglect of atmospheric refraction; its list of supposedly significant celestial objects that is mainly limited to naked eye objects known to Ptolemy in the second century, and that ignores an enormous variety of new astronomical objects discovered since (where is the astrology of near-Earth asteroids?); inconsistent requirements for detailed information on the time as compared to the latitude and longitude of birth; the failure of astrology to pass the identical twin test; the major differences in horoscopes cast from the same birth information by different astrologers; and the absence of demonstrated correlation between horoscopes and such psychological tests as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. (Carl Sagan, Demon haunted world, 1997, pp.285-6)

Again, interestingly, both the supporters of astrology and real sceptics like Sagan fall into the same trap of making a literal meaning out of the supposed mechanism of astrology. Perhaps the science behind astrology is not physical but psychological and its operative realm is in healing the psyche.

And it is this area of astrology that requires a detailed study. It is important to understand that the claim of the planetary influence as the basis of astrology, a contention which Sagan would call as violating ‘well-established laws of physics’, is itself outdated.

Physicist Subhash Kak along with Georg Feuerstein and ‘Vedic’ astrologer David Frawley explain:

Astrology is traditionally considered to be effective not because of any actual physical influence of the planets or stars upon the human individual or collectivity, but because of the pre-established harmony between macrocosm and microcosm. In other words, astrology is deemed an expression of the inherent generative mechanism of Nature, which we can grasp, to some extent, though the theory of correspondences or equivalences. (In Search of the Cradle of Civilization, 1995, p.211)

In other words, what we have in astrology is essentially a psychological healing of the self which uses the archetype of an inherent harmony – the Vedic Rta – which has more to do with the depths of the self than the expanses of the outer universe. In the West famous psychiatrist Carl Jung made a valiant attempt to study astrology as a sort of inner science of the self, much like his approach to alchemy. He considered astrological charts not star maps but treasure maps of the psyche.

In India predictive astrology most probably came with the Greeks, it got integrated into the cultural life of the nation. In Tamil Nadu ‘auspicious times’ were calculated by the traditional community of Valluvars who are today classified as a scheduled caste. The Valluvars served as astrologers and soothsayers too, they defined the auspicious days, drew up horoscopes, and foretold one’s future with the help of yantras (Cf. Thurston 1909: VI, 107 f., 122 ff., VII, 305).

When there was a fear that the astrological palm leaf treatises would be taken away by the British, the Valluvar community came together and bought the palm-leaf manuals during an auction. Even the prejudiced Catholic missionary-scholar Constantine Beschi had recorded that the religious heads consulted Valluvars when it came to deciding auspicious timings.

Nevertheless, whenever there has been an attempt to over-emphasize the power of stars over humanity Hindu tradition has rejected the power of stars over the grace of the Deity, as well documented as for example, in the hymns of Gnana Sambandar and Arunagirinathar. Later, Swami Vivekananda also criticized excessive belief in astrology.

What has to be noted here is that throughout history Hindu tradition is not known to have shown any violent tendency towards astrology. The Hindu society had no qualms in the democratization of the spiritual authority. It is exactly this aspect which irritated the Protestant mindset and the colonial project of ‘civilising’ Indians. Often astrology was picked up by colonialised Indians to prove that they had a scientific mindset – hence demonstrating they suffered from an undemocratic colonial mindset.

Sometimes it is even a throwback to the burning times of inquisition. Periyar, the pseudo-rationalist demagogue of the Dravidian movement, even called for a state-sponsored annihilation of all astrologers.

If proof is needed that the political hatred for astrology is more because of theological bias than scientific temper, then one should note that it was the same Congress party that had its chief minister and ministers participate in the utterly anti-scientific, Christian evangelist ‘miracle crusade’ conducted by Benny Hinn at Bangalore in 2005.

There are even older precedents. American evangelist Billy Graham who had thundered ‘If the Bible told me that two and two were four I would believe that’ visited India during Nehruvian regime and led evangelical conventions. And who presided over it?

It was Rajkumari Amrita Kaur the minister for health in the Nehru government. The same Nehru who criticized Rajendra Prasad for his personal belief in astrology does not seem to have raised much of his voice for this blatant display of ministerial support to evangelism.

Astrology is targeted not because of ‘scientific temper’ but because it does not fit the Protestant colonial value system. What is actually needed in India today is not an undemocratic and theologically biased telecast ban on astrology. We need an intensive academic-astrologer partnership to put to use the positive aspects of astrology as a healing science while cleansing it off the charlatans who exist in all fields.

And do I believe in astrology? No. Being a Gemini I am skeptically indecisive by nature.