Ponmala

A futuristic journey into the past – that is what James Webb Space Telescope represents. Launched into space on Christmas Day, it is smoothly on course on its one million mile journey lasting 29 days. If all goes well, it will take us 13.5 billion years into the past to the time when stars and galaxies formed out of primordial dust; in other words, to the time when God began forming man out of dust. It took that many years of relentless evolutionary progress for dust to become man. James Webb will also give us a glimpse of the first light: “Then God commanded, ‘Let there be light’ – and light appeared” (Gen 1:3).
Some ask, but what do you gain by going deep into the past? Just for the fun of it? Why spend 10 billion dollars to satisfy man’s curiosity when existential needs of a good portion of humanity are crying for monitory assistance? Not all knowledge is utilitarian. Knowledge is like food, often consumed by the intellect just for the pleasure of it; after all, not all that we eat or drink are necessary to keep an individual alive and kicking. In a way, knowledge is its own end – the bliss of knowledge… Nirvana.
Still, the James Webb can bring many practical benefits. It will help us discover if there is life in other parts of the universe. Knowledge of how the universe began and became what it is, can give a hint about its future evolutionary trajectory, and may be also of how it will end up. Right away, we can expect many technological and commercial spin-offs from it. Also, whether it succeeds in meeting its goals or not, it will be a precursor for even more advanced telescopes, which are already under planning.
It took 13.8 billions for a spaceless-timeless dot to evolve into the universe of today. Man’s endeavour to know the past is God’s way of using man, the only creature who is created in His image by merit of his rational intellect, to take the universe forward to what He ultimately intents it to be. Evolution is movement in the direction of progress, which automatically happened as an emergent natural phenomenon, like a seed growing into a tree or a fertilised egg growing into an animal or man, until rational man appeared. Nothing got reversed until then. But man’s intellect is a double edged sword: it can both build or destroy, take creation forward or backward. Unfortunately, both are now happening simultaneously: humanity is forging ahead on the wings of scientific and technological feats, and is, at the same time, reversing into the past through the destruction of painstakingly achieved social progress.
The unravelling of democracy, which represents the summation of all the noblest social values humanity has achieved in the past, is the most striking example of this destructive reversal. The study of history helps us to understand how man and society evolved into the present state of civilization. It also makes us appreciate the progress we have collectively made, albeit through many a pitfall. But what a tragedy it is when society becomes nostalgic about the past and wants to return to it to rectify its real or imagined pitfalls! That is sheer evolutionary reversal.
India as a nation is now in the grip of this nostalgic reversal. BJP MP Tejasvi Surya said a week ago: “The only option for the Hindus is to covert all the people who have gone out of the Hindu fold. There is no solution other than this for Hindus. When we think about it, we may ask if it is possible at all, because this isn’t natural to us. But we have to evolve and adopt this metamorphosis, change into our DNA. Recently, a senior functionary of the RSS made everyone take an oath that every Hindu will not only protect the religion, but also reconvert others and ensure their ghar wapsi. This is the only way. For 1000 years, friends, either by force or by fraud or by allurement the Hindu has been taken out from his mother religion… Those people who have left their mother religion for various socio-political-economic reasons over the course of India’s history… must be in whole brought back to the Hindu faith… It is my appeal that every temple and every mutt should have a yearly target on the number of people they bring back to the Hindu fold…”
Well, Tejasvi, take that ghar wapsi to its logical conclusion and take the nation back to all the glorious practices of our mother religion – one wife for five brothers, besides as many concubines as each would want; rule by hereditary kings; chopping off the head of dalits who sit in tapas to attain divine powers; thinking warrior monkeys; many-headed arrows for wars; raging and cursing rishis; and, of course, resettling in the Horn of Africa, the place where we all originally came from.
This nostalgic reversal to a lesser past is happening also in America, which will observe the anniversary of the Capitol attack this week, in Russia, which wants to regain the glory of communist Soviet Union, in Turkey, which wants to regain Caliphate glory, in Israel, which wants to become the David who fells all the Goliaths… and in many other countries.
People of good will cannot any more afford to stand and watch this evolutionary reversal dispassionately. They must battle against this regressive trend, because progress alone can bring the Kingdom of God on earth to fulfillment. Humanity should move ahead, looking at the past for guidance through James Webb and every other tool man can develop.