Since University Grants Commission has decided to make astrology a subject for study there is lot of protest from skeptics, communists and many other political parties of Bharat. These people think that such ideas are not worthy of serious consideration. To them, astrology as an academic subject fell off the edge of the flat earth centuries ago. The communist viewpoint is that how can Vedic astrology be a university subject unless the uniform education code of the BJP government is about to paint the universities saffron. The problem is with the tone of the protest. And the organization spearheading the protest, is known for its obsession with redundant causes. If you take its fear seriously, Bharat of tomorrow will be inhabited by star-gazing scholars with PhDs in subjects like "The influence of Saturn on the Stock Market". The end of science and scientific temper.

Not really so any more. Several British institutions are to make the study of astrology mainstream again. Southampton university has formed a research group for the critical study of astrology and some students are to investigate links between the planets and various aspects of human behaviour. Christopher Bagley, the social psychologist who heads the project, says "astrology in the academic community is a tender plant" but believes it is worth putting to scientific test. In this previous work, Bagley analyzed the birth dates of 12,000 people suffering from mental illness such as schizophrenia and found a "blip" in late March and early April. This result, which would come under the sign of Aries, is "compatible with astrological predictions."
Is Southampton boldly going where no sensible university has gone before? Not at all. Out there in the deep space of a academic research, it is not alone.

Researchers from Universities in Manchester and Plymouth are testing data in other projects for astrological "truth". And two more British Universities hope to start astrological research by the end of year 2001, if they can gain the backing of a research fund. A British woman has set up an organization, called the "Sophia Project" which is providing some money for the Southampton research and for individual students at London University's Warburg institute.

Academic astrology could soon be in the ascendant in the United States too, where it is now possible to study for a B.A. in astrology at the Kepler College of Astrological Arts and Sciences in Seattle.
Once upon a time, every court in Europe and Asia had its own astrologers. The influence of the planets seeped deep into our culture (famous "star-crossed lovers" Romeo and Juliet) and language. The word "lunatic" stems from the Latin for moon, which has a long association with insanity. "It is the very error of the moon; she comes more near the earth than she was wont and makes men mad," says Shakespeare's Othello, the jealous husband who murders his innocent wife, Desdemona.

With such a pedigree, astrology was taught at universities for centuries with perfect respectability.
"It was all part of a holistic understanding of human beings" says Helen Cooper, an Oxford University professor who specializes in Elizabethan and Chaucerian England.

"People believed man was a little planet in himself and they extrapolated the same kind of influence as the sun to other planets and humans. They linked the moon to the menstrual cycle and to women and inconstancy because it was always changing. They believed that if they got astrology cracked, they would have cracked everything else."

According to Christopher French, who investigates the psychology of the paranormal at Goldsmiths College in London, about 75 per cent of people read horoscope and one in five believe them. All the newspapers published in Europe and America, Canada publish daily horoscope.

French maintains that modern society's new fascination with astrology, in the face of so many scientific advances, is a symptom of social neuroses and the failure of established religions and belief systems. "Paranormal beliefs increase in popularity when there is a social turmoil and personal insecurity" he says. "People look for an explanation and a sense of control and astrology does provide that. The fatalistic nature of the system can also take away responsibility for failure."

Like comets, attempts to prove the truth of astrology have reappeared from time to time. In the 1970s, French psychologist Michael Gauquelin claimed to have found a correlation between the planet under which a person was born and his or her profession. Gauquelin said he found a "Mars effect" in his study of 2,088 European Sports Champions - they were more likely to be born when Mars was at a particular point of the sky than simple probability would allow.

More recently, British researchers studying the full moon have turned up curious findings. An analysis of data from Bradford Royal Infirmary found that dogs were more prone to bite around the time of the full moon, and research at Leeds University indicated that GP physicians receive thousands more patients than normal after a full moon.

Some big businesses too, take astrology seriously enough to spend money on it. "Astrology can be an invaluable guide to trends and this has been recognised by a lot of large companies that want to predict fluctuations in their particular markets" says Christeen Skinner, a London astrologer who advises retailers and financial institutions. "I think it's very exciting that astrology is once again knocking on the doors of universities after such along absence from main stream education."

In the U.S., former first lady Nancy Reagan brought back the idea of a court consultant when her husband was running the White House. She is said to have rescheduled important meetings when she was advised that the stars were not propitious. The late Diana, Princess of Wales, also had a personal astrologer.
Astrologers argue that, if the gravitational force of the moon can create the tides, it might also affect humans, whose bodies are about 70 percent liquid. But skeptics say that theory doesn't hold water. A respected Dutch astronomer once calculated that the gravitational influence of a jumbo jet flying at 30,000 feet was more significant than that of a planet.

Conventional science appears to be telling itself that it has discovered all the laws of the Universe. Of course, this is only partly true, for, it has discovered many laws that operate at the level of the senses but has reached a dead end in understanding the mystery of life.

It is here that the resurgence of Vedic astrology makes all the difference and marks a point in the advancement of human thought that will open vistas not known to conventional sciences. The frontiers of science must now focus on ideas that may be beyond observation by conventional methods. New methods must be evolved and explored to make such observations. Otherwise, there can be doubt that it has reached a point of obdurate stagnation. One would think this was exactly the case today with modern science in Bharat judging by its hysterical resistance to the study of Jyotisha.

To some scientists, however, astrology is an unwelcome intrusion. Astronomer Heather Couper says, "I feel it is very unhelpful and misleading to raise astrology to the same level as astronomy."
Really, the protest industry has a habit of instutionalising the peripheral. It has a way of finding communal conspiracies in cultural traditions. And it is good at making the word fascism sound so familiar. Hence Vande Mantram is a national imposition, Sanskrit is a Hindu dialect with no cultural relevance. The "intellectual agitationists" of the Left who see the hidden hand of "cultural fascism" protest in almost all cultural proposals from the government. Secularly modern doesn't mean that you have to repudiate your culture or civilizational heritage, that religious rhymes with communal. And of Vedic astrology as a subject, it is perhaps as relevant and academically rewarding as gender studies.

The nationalist people of Bharat openly proclaim that the government was striving to "saffronise education" and applauded human resources development minister Murli Manohar Joshi for "doing a good job". Faced with fire from friends as well as foes in Parliament, the minister Joshi dismissed the Opposition charges of "saffronisation". He said the government has not made any changes in the 1986 national policy on education.

On the issue of "saffronisation of education", many Bhartiya people are happy that the education ministry is working in that direction and Joshi is doing a good job. People are for saffronisation and value-based education. Saffron denotes purity, activity and renunciation and Bhartiya people want that the whole national life should be imbued with it."

Mohan Lal Gupta, E-mail address: <mgupta5558@home.com>