"Do You Have Any Explanation?" - A Scientist's View on India's Obsession with Miracles
As Indian TV channels rush to report every “supernatural” event, engineer, social activist and documentary filmmaker Gauhar Raza offers a scientist’s rebuttal — a calm, clear-eyed reminder that every mystery, once explained, ceases to be a miracle.
It was a miracle; some supernatural phenomenon had been reported, and I received a call from a TV channel, saying, ‘We would like you to explain it scientifically, please join the panel discussion’. ‘Please let me know who the other members of the panel are,’ I asked. They told me the names of some spiritual leaders. It was not the first time this was happening.
Miracles keep happening in India, and TV channels keep reporting and debating them. Sometimes, a ghost appears somewhere; at other times, coins get stuck to a statue or a wall defying gravity, sometimes the water of the seashore becomes sweet; suddenly, a child remembers his previous life; somewhere smoke starts rising from a grave; somewhere someone produces a fresh flower from inside a, not yet broken coconut or a gold watch appears from thin air. It seems that TV channel crews keep chasing babas and fakirs to capture these supernatural happenings. As soon as a miracle happens, they are there to report it. Off the record, I have been told by so many frustrated producers, reporters and editors how channel heads have pressurized them to hunt and search for such unscientific stories and often forced them to invent miracles. The intent is to increase TRP and grab eyeballs.
If there is a debate about miracles on TV, then the channel makes it a point to call a scientist so that they are not accused of violating Article 51A (h) of the Constitution and spreading superstition. In these programmes, the anchor’s job is first to...
It was a miracle; some supernatural phenomenon had been reported, and I received a call from a TV channel, saying, ‘We would like you to explain it scientifically, please join the panel discussion’. ‘Please let me know who the other members of the panel are,’ I asked. They told me the names of some spiritual leaders. It was not the first time this was happening.
Miracles keep happening in India, and TV channels keep reporting and debating them. Sometimes, a ghost appears somewhere; at other times, coins get stuck to a statue or a wall defying gravity, sometimes the water of the seashore becomes sweet; suddenly, a child remembers his previous life; somewhere smoke starts rising from a grave; somewhere someone produces a fresh flower from inside a, not yet broken coconut or a gold watch appears from thin air. It seems that TV channel crews keep chasing babas and fakirs to capture these supernatural happenings. As soon as a miracle happens, they are there to report it. Off the record, I have been told by so many frustrated producers, reporters and editors how channel heads have pressurized them to hunt and search for such unscientific stories and often forced them to invent miracles. The intent is to increase TRP and grab eyeballs.
If there is a debate about miracles on TV, then the channel makes it a point to call a scientist so that they are not accused of violating Article 51A (h) of the Constitution and spreading superstition. In these programmes, the anchor’s job is first to spend sufficient time convincing the viewer that the miracle is real, establish its validity and in the end, challenge the scientist with the question, ‘Do you have any explanation?’ The tone is as if s/he is saying that not only you but the entire scientific community has no answer to explain the miracle. Their job is done! Superstition has been spread; now you can keep countering. Once, before going to the studio, a producer dared to request, ‘Sir, please don’t “kill” my story right in the beginning. Say whatever you want to say in the third round.’ My answer was, ‘You are serving the channel, I am not. I have come here to present the scientific point of view and will do so from the beginning to the end.’ And I did so. That television channel never called me again.
A miracle had occurred, and I was invited to participate in a panel discussion on television. The panel included representatives from three religions: Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. All of them concurred that miracles occur, phenomena that science can never explain, and all three strongly opposed my arguments. The heated debate continued. Each claimed that their sacred texts contained all the knowledge. When I declared during the discussion that religion begins where science ends, one of them remarked, ‘Absolutely right, science is limited knowledge, while religion is unlimited.’ The other two concurred with him as well. I was taken aback. I thought I must have made a mistake. How could these three individuals agree with me?
I took a deep breath, then explained that whatever science discovers, or when it can explain a miracle, that miracle is no longer a miracle. It goes beyond the limits of religion, myth and miracles and is included within the limits of science. As the limits of science expand, the limits of myths and religious claims shrink. But those who live by the gift of the gab are always ready to twist the argument.
To understand how, over centuries, the world of religion has diminished, let us take an example. When science discovered that the Earth is not the centre of the universe, nor is it stationary but rather rotates on its axis, all those myths depicting the Earth as the centre of the universe, stationary or flat, withered away. This discovery created a significant crisis in the realm of religion and mythology. However, now a few challenge the scientific findings except for a small minority of extremists. When it was revealed that the blue sky visible above is an illusion, the narratives based on the universe being divided into seven heavens lost their meaning.
Thus, as the boundaries of scientific knowledge expand, the boundaries of religious superstition contract. Anyway, during the debate, I learned that at least those three ‘religious scholars’ hardly knew anything about science or their own religions. Their understanding of history was poor. ‘Where the limits of science end, there religion begins’ sounded appealing to them, suggesting that what science cannot explain, religion can. They simply liked the catchy phrase and interpreted it in their own way, repeatedly saying, ‘Yes, science is limited, and religion knows even the unknown.’ My argument that religion and science are two different ways of understanding and explaining reality fell on deaf ears. Science is founded on scientific logic and evidence, while religion is rooted in belief and faith.
Excerpt from From Myths To Science: The Evolving Story Of The Universe, By Gauhar Raza, Published By Ebury Press/ Penguin Random House, Copyright © Gauhar Raza 2025. Reproduced With Permissions.
About the author: Gauhar Raza is an Indian scientist, poet, and documentary filmmaker, known for his contributions to science communication and progressive thought. A former Chief Scientist at CSIR-NISCAIR, he is recognised for proposing the ‘Cultural Distance Model’ of Public Understanding of Science, writing acclaimed books of Urdu poetry, and directing powerful documentaries like In Dark Times, Inqilab, and Jung-e-Azadi. Raza blends scientific rigor with poetic sensitivity, making him a unique voice at the crossroads of reason, culture, and social change.