Astrology Is A Science - N Gopalswami, Chief Election Commisioner, India

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ASTROLOGY IS A SCIENCE AND IT SHOULD

BE POPULARISED SAYS NEW CEC , NEW CHIEF ELECTION COMMISSIONER

N GOPALASWAMI PREPARES FOR FINAL EXAMS ON ASTROLOGY

 

By R Prema

 

NEW DELHI: On top of the mind of the 62-year old Needamangalam

Gopalaswami, the Chief Election Commissioer designate, is more than

the excitment June 29 when he assumes the top post in the Election

Commission but July 3 when he has to appear in the final

examination in astrology.

 

 

Fondly called by friends as Gopu, who sports a long " Tilak " on his

forehead to establish his Vadagalai Vaishnavite Brahmin origin, of Tamil

Nadu, is literally burning the midnight oil as he retires to study late

in the night.

 

His wife Raji, who has to get him a flask of hot coffee at 11 in the

night without fail, says he behaves like a kindergarten student fully

engrossed in his studies. She can't make head or tail of the figures he

keeps writing on paper doing her calculations the hard traditional way

instead of using a calculator.

 

 

A retired Gujarat cadre IAS officer, Gopalaswami decided to study

astrology during his previous tenure as the Union Home Secretary when he

felt he was lacking to be a Brahmin without knowing the science of

astrology.

 

 

He goes to a school near the JNU complex thrice a week and says he is

not the only old man falling for quest of astrology at this late age.

There are dozen students in his class and most of them are in his age

group.

The examination for which he is to appear is conducted by the

Chennai-based Astrology Society of India, an old institution approved by

the Union HRD Ministry.

 

 

He has already cleared four papers in 2005 and is to appear for three

more papers in July. The result will be out in August. Gopalaswami is

confident to come out with flying colours to become a qualified

astrologer as he is quite at home with the application of mathematical

calculations of planetic positions needed for forecasts.

 

 

Shy of even mentioning that he is a student of astrology, Gopalaswami

may have to take leave at least for three days as he goes to the

examination hall to sit and write the 3-hour question papers. When the

teacher takes class on astro forecast, Gopu starts analyzing horoscopes

of his friends, relatives and batchmates that he has collected for own

practice and that is only how his interest in astrology became known.

 

 

Someone in the class room having known his background asked Gopu

whether he studied the forecast of his two colleagues B B Tandon and

Navin Chawla. Gopu smiled it away, pointing out that as per the planetic

position of that moment, it was not desirable for him to answer this

question. The classmate could not pursue further as he understands

importance of the planetic movements.

 

 

Each second of the minute and hour has the influence of astology, says

Gopalaswami when pressed to know about his sudden interest. He insists

that it is a science and if given the subject a due respect, one can

become master of the science. He wants to be the master and pursue it as

a hobby in his years of retirement that comes in February 2009.

 

 

A devout Brahmin, Gopalaswami felt for his community or rather for the

Vedic chanting in which the Brahmins are failing. He was literally

thrown into the backwaters as Secretary, Culture Department, during the

NDA regime but he made use of it to push for preservation of the ancient

Indian culture and heritage by promoting special schools exclusively for

Brahmins to undertake a 5-year course under the traditional gurukul

system of oral recitation.

 

 

It was his attempt to approach UNESCO for proclaiming the Vedic

traditions as an " oral and intangible heritage of humanity " so as to

ensure financial support from abroad in promotion of the Vedic culture

that attracted attention of then Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna

Advani, who pulled him from the backwaters and made him his Home

Secretary.

 

Most interesting is that P Chidambaram in his 2006 Budget mentioned

about grants for vedic studies, were all copied from N Gopalaswami's

UNESCO funds. The financial advisor of Department of culture alone knows

how P Chidambaram used the funds sought by Gopalaswamy and got it

towards on Government of India

 

 

Gopalaswami's concern was that the traditional Vedic scholarship that

was preserved down the centuries as an unbroken tradition was getting

corrupted with all sorts of anomalies and may ultimately disappear as

fewer and fewer people were devoting their lives to teaching or learning

the traditional way of chanting.

 

 

What crystalised under his leadership were " Gurukul Pathshalas " aimed at

preserving " the world's oldest wisdom of ancient Indian culture " that

has been kept alive through religious rituals.

 

These schools, called " Pathshala " , will be part of a 5-year Action Plan

of Rs 52.65 million envisaged to revitalise the Vedic culture which is

probably the world's oldest living oral tradition kept alive through

religious rituals. The Government hails it as " the crystalised wisdom of

ancient Indian culture. "

 

As Gopalaswami stresses, the effect of chants is gone if the recitation

is not done in the correct way and hence he hopes that the scholars

coming out of the schools whose foundation he laid will be not only able

to preserve and pursue the Vedic knowledge but also form a battery of

" pundits " who can recite Vedas correctly to have their needed effect in

the host of the Hindu rituals.