IIT Kharagpur. File
| Photo Credit: The Hindu
Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur has issued a clarification saying it has nothing to do with a 2024 calendar being circulated in its name on social media that seeks to prove that India is the birthplace of practically everything in the world and that religion, science and culture are actually connected.
Just like the past few yearends, when the institution was credited with the creation of similar calendars, this calendar (titled ‘India of the Ages’) is also being shared widely on social media, with its top officials being named as members of the ‘advisory board’ responsible for the calendar.
The document opens with a quote by American historian-philosopher Will Durant and his wife Ariel Durant, apparently from one of their books: “India was the motherland of our race, and Sanskrit the mother of Europe’s languages: she was the mother of our philosophy; mother, through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics; mother, through the Buddha, of the ideals embodied in Christianity; mother, through the village community, of self-government and democracy. Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all.”
The calendar ends with a note saying: “IIT Kharagpur has immense pleasure to present the Calendar of the Centre of Excellence for Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS) for the year 2024. The aim of the calendar is to bring to light an array or pool of scientific and historical evidence to best stitch and interconnect apparently separate systems of religion, science and culture as One Single Global System of Humanity. The pool of evidence presented here is just the tip of an Iceberg, which is based on detailed investigation, iteration and mutual calibration of facts and the correlations between facts from history, conducted by IIT Kharagpur.”
The institution, however, is now running a ticker on its website saying it has nothing to do with the calendar. “The IKS Calendar of 2024 (India of the Ages), purported to be published by the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, presently under circulation in social media, is NOT an officially published calendar of IIT Kharagpur. Accordingly, the institute, or any of its authorities, owe no responsibility whatsoever for the veracity of its contents or any other issues arising therefrom. The institute bears No Knowledge of the content that is represented in individual capacity,” IIT Kharagpur said.