Abstract
Prima facie, and as admitted by the author himself, the volume is a collection of some of his essays published in various journals and edited books over the last four decades. In this sense, it is old wine in a new bottle. Superficially and apparently, it may appear so. In reality, the compiled chapters of the book are a creative rendition of old and well-received essays that have been recast with reworked causal connections on a wider canvas, intersecting the concerns around science and its impacts on society in the overarching colonial and imperial contexts. The added advantage of suffused insights privileged by hindsight from one of the most renowned scholars in the field of the social history of science in India privileges this volume to serve as a ready reckoner for scholars working on South Asia.
Prof Kumar has been a serious protagonist, contributor and defender of HISTEM (History of Science, Technology, Environment and Medicine) and has nurtured scholars, motivating them to propagate this conceptual category. Through the reconfiguration of conventional sources, he has initiated and supported research based on hitherto unknown and novel sources as well. The book opens by underlining the efficacy and defence of HISTEM as a valid area of enquiry. This has remained the lifelong mission of his scholarship, and the book at hand is the latest example of the same. In brief, the book is about the role of science in the making of modern India and also alludes to the inheritance that formed the bedrock of scientific activities in premodern times of the subcontinent. There is a specific chapter on ‘Perspective on Scientific Knowledge in Ancient India’ as well as a concrete delineation of ‘Techno-Scientific Knowledge in Eighteenth Century India’. The rest of the book is largely about the colonial context of science and science institutions in South Asia. There are two unique chapters that deal with Tagore’s views on science, technology and rural reconstruction and Gandhi’s take on technology or machinery.
The most thought-provoking part of the book is Part I, which reflects on the inheritance of science in its broadest sense, but the travesty is that, in a haste to claim one more title, this section misses out on a crucial phase of cultural osmosis with the larger part of Asia during the medieval age. The connectedness of ‘connected histories’ is missing, as this section takes a leap from ancient India directly to the eighteenth century, fleetingly touching upon the contributions of medieval times. A sprinkling of information and ideas abound, but these are too sketchy to characterise the Sultanate and Mughal periods from the perspective of science and medicine. It is lamentable because the same scholar has provided significant insights into the developments of this period in his other works. The erasure of the medieval appears all the more glaring in the present prevailing times, when India’s medieval inheritance is being contested, purged, purified and selectively appropriated in a cavalier manner. A rigorous and responsible portrayal from a seasoned scholar like him would have gone a long way in remedying the prevailing skewed scenario. The presentism of the political scenario could have been gently remedied through his scholarly interrogation and attention. In this sense, it is a missed opportunity. The negative impact of post-Ghazali Islam has been underlined. The fact though remains that Islam came to India at various points in time through several routes. The first wave of Islam that came with Arab traders to Kerela had a different complexion. Conversely, the Islam that came to North India with Ghorid conquest had a very different stamp. To assume that it was all post-Ghazali impact is to purge Islam of its own diversity, on the one hand, and to underestimate its mutative potential during the long-drawn Indian encounter, on the other hand.
Prof Kumar ardently professes the view that science is also about how cultures and civilizations put material artefacts to use and, more importantly, the purpose for which they were deployed. He passionately argues that India was a civilization obsessed with opaque stones to which the great architectural beauty of the subcontinent stands testimony. Glass was used for ornaments and decorative purposes. The intricate craft of bangle and bead making was exquisite and excellent, and Indian literature abounds with tales of longing and separation that included the acts of adorning and breaking glass bangles. Despite such aesthetically appealing Indian achievements, the cultures of the subcontinent did not and could not rub or shine glass for the microscope and telescope to unravel the celestial and terrestrial worlds. In Europe, the rubbing of glass, in the long run, led to such accomplishments that aided great developments in medicine, astronomy and science in general. The author contrasts the ‘glass-bound civilization of Europe’ and ‘stone-bound civilizations of South Asia’ to characterise their different technological cultures and orientations. The metaphors of ‘stone and glass’ may not explain everything, but they certainly provoke the reader to ponder and reflect on attitudes towards experiments, which are the basis of science and technology. The entire book bears the imprint of the Needhamian question applied to India, that is, why did the scientific revolution elude the otherwise creative cultures of India and China?
Another aspect the author repeatedly underscores, almost as a cliché, is that India was/is not a xenophobic society. With due respect to the assimilative potentiality of Indian society, it must also be admitted that the rigidities of caste were a slow-fomenting and unfolding xenophobia of sorts. Interestingly, the author considers, in consonance with P. C. Ray, that caste rigidities were inimical to the growth of science. The Gandhian chemist underlined that caste created a perpetual chasm between the head and the hands. In a similar vein, Prof Kumar laments the poverty of tools and techniques of Indian craftsmen. He points out that investment in tools and techniques was poor, and craftsmen were often left in the lurch. Neither the nobility nor the traders made much effort to invest in tools and techniques. In this sense, the craftsmen stood vulnerable and did not have the potential to invest in and refine their tools. Thus, this had serious consequences for the growth of science, technology and medicine in South Asia.
A more intense and intimate dialogue in and between the last three chapters on ‘Science, Technology, and the Development Discourse, 1900–1947’ and ‘Tagore’s Pedagogy, Science, and Rural Reconstruction’ along with ‘Mahatma and the Machine: Gandhi on Technology’ from a comparative framework was warranted, but we are provoked and left to ponder. Perhaps the author desires so!
Despite dealing with contentious ideas, the book’s lucidity will attract a large readership, particularly those readers who would like to avoid labouring through the author’s classic Science and the Raj, as they may find it too dense and informative. In contrast, general readers will relish this book, for it is simple, coherent and at the same time offers creative, penetrative and provocative analysis.