Pythagoras, Baudhayana or Meera Nanda?

 I recently started reading Meera Nanda's Science in Saffron: Skeptical Essays on History of Science. This is about some pseudoscientific claims made routinely by people on the Hindutva side. While our side is indeed suffering from many quacks, something which I myself have noted previously, but still the publisher 'Three essays collective' is a known leftist publisher. Also the book is dedicated to her "comrades". Predictably the preface starts with bashing the Sangh. 

However, while ideologically opposite to us, Nanda is still a scholar. She is not a a humanities type trying to weasel her way into the debates of sciences. She is a PhD in Biotechnology from IITD who have later branched into history of sciences. She is a someone no responsible person should ignore, for निंदक नेड़ा राखिये. Her sharp tounge and witty-to-her comments are more than countered my her scholarship and research. One can disagree with her philosophy that harmonizing science with traditional worldview is not conductive to reasearch (while I agree that radical decolonized relativist "science" say as taught in New Zealand is, but disagree with Nanda on the very thought being wrong), still, her footnotes does not care about our feelings. We can't attack the thesis unless we learn the facts. Perhaps she is not actually anti Hindu and writes against Hindutva side exclusively only for it is now rightfully and joyfully the dominant force politically. Still even in the first 50 or so pages she did give a much softer rapt to African scholars claiming more than their share of mathematical discoveries. This is much relevant when now there have been attempts to portray Yoga as an African practice.

I have read till the end of first chapter only and I did change my views. I read a rejoinder to it ( more accurately a earlier version published as an article) but it is mostly rhetorical and trying to catch her in a gotcha moment when there are none. As facts stand now (or at least in 2016 when the book was written) the first statement as well as proof to what we call the Pythagoras theorem are chinese in origin. Nothing can be done about this fact. It does not make us inferior. She rightly acknowledge that the Suvlasutras tackle a very challenging problem and can be appreciated even if it were not the source of Pythagoras theorem. There is a very nice article in Bhavana (excellent magazine) exploring this. The author however uses the term Baudhāyana-Pythagoras Theorem. To Meera Nanda the mere act of naming is just a childish act of one-upmanship and turing science into a zero sum olympics fought by civilizations. 

Her exposition is very clear, it would be a delight to read a textbook written by her. The citations check out. One has to concede this chapter to Nanda.