Arthur C Clarke, born on December 16, 1917, would have been 106 today.
“Arthur who?” A millennial reader today might well ask.
Krishna Dronamraju died on December 3, 2020.
“Krishna who?” The same reader would ask this too.
There is a thing such as generational change. Names fade fast.
Before I come to these two fading names, a brief background.
On January 26, 2001, I was working at the High Commission of India in Colombo. Around mid-morning, ringing my sister in Delhi, I learnt that an earthquake had jolted the city, of which the epicentre was believed to have been in Gujarat. Later in the day, more news came in — 500 dead, then 1,500. The customary reception on Republic Day was to be held that evening on the grounds of India House, the high commissioner’s residence. The question immediately arose: Should we cancel the reception? Ideally yes, but we would not be able to call every invitee in time. So we just went ahead with nothing changed. Most invitees had learnt of the earthquake. Congratulations on the Republic Day and commiseration on the earthquake mingled in natural contradiction. Life is not simple.
After the last invitee had left, I rang family and friends in Delhi and Gujarat to ascertain details of the tragedy. They gave details, deeply disturbing. When the ground beneath you shifts, breaks and the mortar above you cracks and falls, you are suddenly powerless. You realise something far more powerful is taking over, is in charge.
Over the next two days, many Lankans — Buddhist, Bohra, Christian, Hindu — came forward with donations. This was heartening but not without piquancy. India was not a “receiving party” in Sri Lanka. Rather, the opposite. The government of India was, in fact, about to open a line of credit on very generous terms for the government of Sri Lanka. But, as I said, life is not simple. Need is not about size, but about situations.
I too needed, in my “within” something: I needed to meet someone, talk to someone on things beyond rescue and relief. I sought time for a call on Arthur C Clarke, the English science writer, science fiction writer, undersea explorer, and passionate promoter of the idea of space travel, who had migrated to Sri Lanka in 1956 to pursue his passion for scuba-diving, and had lived in Colombo ever since.
The then 83-year-old received me from a wheelchair in his spacious and busy-looking office-cum-residence. He showed me a letter from the Indian scientist Krishna Dronamraju based in Houston, in which the latter put forward the theory that the January 26 earthquake could have been triggered by anti-India people manipulating the fault line. Clarke said such a malevolent act is tectonically possible but, like germ warfare, is likely to recoil on its perpetrators. And then wheeling his mobile chair to a bookshelf, Clarke pulled out a book of his – Richter 10. Giving it to me, he said the book starts in Delhi when standing on the balcony of his hotel room he felt a movement under his foot and asked an attendant if there was a Metro under the hotel. He was then told that no, what he had just experienced was an earthquake. Reading the gripping book authored by him and Mike McQuay later, I realised its importance. An earthquake at 10 will leave nothing undestroyed. The “solution” prescribed by the story was, I found, not something I could accept — nuclear explosions deep inside the fault lines to “spot-weld” them. And Dronamraju’s thought-sharing with Clarke seemed to me to be “hyper”. The distinguished Andhra-born president of the Foundation for Genetic Research in Houston, Texas, to my regret, I had no occasion to meet. That Dronamraju’s work was influenced by another science great, JBS Haldane made my regret all the greater. Haldane had made India his home like Clarke had made Sri Lanka his, and Dronamraju, the US. Science owns no territorial bounds, seismic pulsations know no bounds of any kind whatever.
Contemplating Arthur Clarke around his birthday and Krishna Dronamraju around his death day, two thoughts occurred to me.
First, 22 years after the 2001 hypothesis of Dronamraju, the chance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) being used today to trigger earthquakes or “natural” occurrences, is as undeniable as it is fanciful. India is behind no other country or institution in studying the myriad uses of AI for humanity’s good and the infinite abuse to which AI can be put. But as a people, we are in the pre-nursery of understanding AI. Is it going to become a third mind, after the one with a small “m” that is ours, and the great one with a big capital “M” that we call by different names like the Creator and God?
Second, our experience last month of the tunnel collapse in Uttarakhand, ending so triumphantly in the rescue of 41 trapped workers, tells us that our mountain policies must be such that they will not trigger disasters and will not pit development against nature. The Himalayas need to be cherished, and nurtured, not drilled, or pummelled. Earthquakes in the Himalayan and sub-Himalayan zones are being seen as episodes, when their increased frequency and velocity need to be seen as warnings of a much greater seismic shock awaiting us. The tectonic plates’ inherent pressures are working away and we are adding to their lethality by short-term goals and plans and by neglecting danger signals.
How long will the Himalayas stay silent against our actions? Ramdhari Singh Dinkar was a poet, not a scientist. But his poem Himalaya has a line that could come from a philosopher of science — “tu maun tyag, kar sinhnad, re tapi! aaj tap ka na kaal”, which translates as “Forsake your silence, oh ascetic, roar! This is no time for silence”. That “roar”, coming from the heart-mind of human experience must ignite our human intelligence and make it more than human — a Vishnu that protects, preserves and redeems.
Gopalkrishna Gandhi, a former administrator, and diplomat, is a student of modern Indian history. The views expressed are personal
Gopalkrishna Gandhi read English Literature at St Stephen’s College, Delhi. A civil servant and diplomat, he was Governor of West Bengal, 2004-2009. He is currently Distinguished Professor of History and Politics at Ashoka University ...view detail
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