External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has called for moving away from the uni-dimensional narrative about mathematics and the sciences to one based on a democratisation of history that recognises India’s foundational contributions.
Dr Jaishankar was speaking after inaugurating an exhibition on India’s contribution to mathematics at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
The Minister cited the example of the binary system developed in India in the third century, on the foundation of which rest the digital age and the world’s journey into AI.
He said, this exhibition is a reminder that mathematics is a universal language, and its spread has served and continues to serve a global good.
The External Affairs Minister added that the AI Impact Summit in India in February this year sent a strong message that creativity and innovation cannot be limited to a few.
Mr Jaishankar said it is only by righting the distortions of the past that we can accurately address issues of the future. He also said that we need to appreciate that democratisation of technology, indeed, the democratisation of the world, requires a democratisation of history.
The interactive exhibition, Global Diffusion of Mathematics, was created under the India International Centre’s SAMHITA programme to project India’s learned inheritance that spans fields including medicine, mathematics, architecture, philosophy, aesthetics and literature.
A series of digital panels shows India’s ancient mathematical prowess, from the basic binary numerical system to algebra and calculus.
