Social Studies of Modern Science in India, Spring 2003 at MIT

Massachusetts Institute Of Technology, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

The post independence era has seen a vast expansion in the infrastructure of science and technology in India, which now claims to have the third largest scientific personnel in the world. Yet we know very little about the social and cultural specificities of knowledge production and practices of science in India. We know very little about the pedagogy, cultural substrate, and training of Indian scientists who currently occupy significant positions (both in numbers and in rank) in the increasingly multicultural, transnational, and global scientific enterprise. Today, India is in the throes of increasing religious nationalism on the one hand and accelerated technological development on the other. In this milieu science, religion and nationalism have fused together in the popular imagination. Assertions of the sanctity of science and technology as well as the scientific validation of religion by the Hindu nationalists, as manifested in the euphoria surrounding the "Hindu Bomb," point to the need for understanding the processes of co-production of science, nationalism and religion. Science has always been a site of political and social contestation. In the earlier Nehru era as well, industrial development, and scientific rationality had defined the terms of India's modernity but in distinctly secular idioms. How do we understand the historical evolution of scientific structures and practices in modern India? In order to address these issues, we would like to organize a conference of scholars working on science-studies in India during the Spring semester of 2003 at MIT. The conference will bring twelve junior and senior scholars from a range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary backgrounds. The participants will share their work as well as discuss how best to further the emerging field of science studies in India. The papers will be collected in an edited anthology. Our objective is to probe deeper into the different perspectives of the scholars on nationalism, on local, religious and caste identities, and on the nature of science, for instance, in order to understand the ways in which different frameworks engender some questions and foreclose others. Such an engagement is essential for consolidating the intellectual base of the scholarship and for creating a vibrant and interactive community of scholars working on science in India.