There is something peculiarly revealing about the latest controversy over the now-infamous "gaumutra expert." Member of Parliament from Wayanad, Priyanka Gandhi never identified anyone by name. Yet, within minutes of her remark in Parliament, an astonishing number of ministers, party spokespersons, television panellists and right-wing social media warriors seemed to know precisely who she had meant.

Scotland Yard has spent decades searching for criminals with less enthusiasm than the ruling ecosystem has displayed in identifying unnamed individuals. If nothing else, it was an extraordinary demonstration of collective intuition. And once the identity had been enthusiastically supplied by her critics themselves, the operation shifted into its second, more familiar phase.

Also Read: The slow death of scientific temper

The discussion has ceased to be about whether the public promotion of medically unsupported claims by the head of one of India's premier scientific institutions was appropriate. Instead, it has become an elaborate exercise in advertising his academic credentials while simultaneously ridiculing Priyanka Gandhi's educational qualifications.

The argument, apparently, is that degrees constitute scientific evidence. It is an odd line of attack. Priyanka Gandhi possesses perfectly legitimate academic qualifications, and the same cannot always be said of everyone occupying high political office in contemporary India, where questions about mysterious degrees, inaccessible university records, and even an unheard-of discipline and its “entirety” continue to linger in public memory.

One might have expected a little caution before transforming academic credentials into a political weapon. But intellectual consistency has never been an abundant natural resource in ecosystems where ad hominem attacks routinely substitute for reasoned argument.

The truly interesting question disappeared beneath the noise almost as soon as it was asked. It was never whether the individual concerned is academically accomplished. By all accounts, he is.

The real question is whether occupying one of the highest scientific offices in the country entitles anyone to publicly legitimise claims that have not survived even the ordinary tests of scientific evidence. Those are entirely different propositions. While the first deserves admiration, the second demands scrutiny. That scrutiny became even more necessary when Sudhanshu Trivedi rose in Parliament armed with American patent numbers, presenting them almost as though they constituted divine certification of the medicinal virtues of........

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