Economic and Political Weekly Economic and Political Weekly

Uses of Scientific Argument: The Case of 'Development' in India, c 1930-1950
Author(s): Benjamin Zachariah

Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 36, No. 39 (Sep. 29 - Oct. 5, 2001), pp. 3689-
3702
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly
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Uses of Scientific Argument
The Case of 'Development' in India, c 1930-1950
This essay seeks to carry out an apparently simple task: to recover some of the ways in which
'science' was used as a category by nationalists in late colonial India in connection with the
need for 'development'. In so doing, the essay also looks at ways in which 'science' became
part of a legitimating rhetoric in late colonial India.
BENJAMIN ZACHARIAH
his is not a new theme, although the science of earlier generations is often If this is to be an exercise in disaggre-
contours and limits of both the recognised as pseudo-science on the basis gation, in making distinctions, it is nec-
rhetoric and practice remain de- of tools of analysis provided by scientific essary to make explicit the principles of
bated. The complications encounteredresearch by itself, and not merely on the basis selection of the voices presented. This
such a task are not a few. Just as in the of changing ethical considerations. Such essay deals with questions of science or
heyday of development planning it was intellectual debts to the enemy are seldom technology discussed by scientists or tech-
customary to appeal successfully to the acknowledged.2 A generalised attack on nologists and by Indian nationalist poli-
authority of science and technical exper- 'science' may be thus part of a wider ticians in connection with problems of
tise, in the post-developmental era it is reason-as-post-enlightenment-tyranny- development, broadly construed; it tries to
conventional within the humanities and post-modernist-universal-doubt set cf trace the influence of these discussions on
social sciences to attribute the ills of the positions which indulges in much creative the conceptualisation of a future, possible
world to science and the arrogance of itsanachronism: that is, mixing up current, India. In so doing it also attempts to trace
assumptions and practitioners. As a resultretrospective concerns with contemporar- the influence of science or scientists on
the category 'science' has always had aies' concerns and projecting the former nationalist politics orpoliticians;4 but also
polemical aura about it, a normative cat-into the past.3 A careful separation of the the other way round - it examines major
egory without much descriptive bite. Ancontemporary and the retrospective must nationalist politicians' use of the category/
attempt to restore some of the descriptivebe made, therefore, without surrendering ies 'science'. These influences were
content might appear to implicate thethe right to retrospective commentary mutually reinforcing, contributing to a
historian in a justification of the allegedon the discursive assumptions of earlier language of political legitimacy in part at
tyrannies of science, a good case of killingperiods and their possible implications. least based on a desire for a scientific,
the messenger who bears bad news. A fewFor this reason, for the purposes of this modern and developed Indian nation/state.
preliminary clarifications are therefore nec-essay, an external or universal definition In tracing such a language of legitimacy,
essary before spectres of giant, geneti- of 'science' can be avoided and instead an it becomes important to look at appeals to
cally-modified chickens and Americanattempt can be made at eavesdropping on legitimacy framed in a language of 'sci-
multinationals patenting all seeds appear the past. ence', but which were only secondarily
in continuum with this essay. If 'science' is the normative negative in about science itself, even when the appeals
'Science' was the basis of claims to much of today's polemics, academic or were made by scientists themselves. There-
legitimacy made by many people in late then any argument made in the
otherwise, fore, the essay turns briefly to some de-
colonial India. Not every claim topast 'sci-using science as a normative positive bates ostensibly basing themselves on a
ence' as a legitimator was regarded mayasmerely be reproduced today in order scientific language of race, which, I argue,
'science' by contemporary practitioners to discredit
of it. But the flatness attributed borrow a current language for different
science. This obviously means that to the
those past arguments is spurious. The uses. The essay does not examine the whole
historian must make a distinction between historian's duty to describe is often over- spectrum of things called 'science' - that
a professional practice of science and the ridden by the duty to impose order. And would be a case of confusing the name for
claims made, for instance, by the Arya this disciplining of the sources, post-ex- the thing itself; for as I remarked earlier,
Samaj to a 'Vedic' science, and carefully facto, silences the voices of the past. To not everything that people claimed was
avoiding conflating the two.1 This does identify diversity of argument and to allow 'science' was accepted as science by prac-
not mean that those scientific theories and the separate strands space should surely be titioners of science at the time.
practices which were regarded as self- as important in dealing with arguments The phrase 'late colonial', used in con-
evidently scientific in the 1930s or 1940s about science as in dealing with delicate nection with this essay, might seem to be
by practitioners of science should continue matters of 'cultural' difference. This essay's a straightforwardly retrospective term,
to be regarded as scientific - this is often attempt at disaggregating arguments might sitting uneasily with the approach outlined
done by the opponents of science in order assist in a not unimportant task: to identify above, especially in the light of the inability
to construct a better polemic against a different ways of appealing to science and of anyone to understand when colonialism
generalised conception of 'science'. For how these appeals worked, or did not work, becomes 'late': what is the criterion of
what may be forgotten is that the pseudo- as the case may be. lateness? In order for this category to be
Economic and Political Weekly September 29, 2001 3689
meaningful as a way of understanding combinations. A fourth theme, which could the insistence on the need to industrialise
contemporary perceptions, it may be pos- attach itself variously to arguments using - a call which went back to the 19th century
sible to suggest a working definition. The any or all of the other themes, but which - a great deal of attention had been paid
'lateness' of the colonial state begins from on its own was ineffective as a yardstick to the lack of technology and technological
the point at which it declares its own of legitimacy, was what might be called skills in India. The main concern with the
impending demise: rhetorically, in the the 'indigenist' theme: to be legitimate, teaching of science was centred in imperial
Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms docu- 'development' had to take an Indian, not arguments around its clearly practical
ment,5 and more generally after the first a 'foreign' path. The four themes were applications - the promotion of engineer-
world war, when the Wilsonian principle contained within a view of development- ing colleges being one such area. The debate
of self-determination was on everyone's as-progress - which had to be 'modern' around 'technical education' was also a
lips; and the formula of 'trusteeship' was (implying a progress possibly universal in strong strand in British India, merging
invented to cover the division of parts of nature), but not 'western'. 7 Interlocking with the demand for industrialisation.
the former Turkish empire and the colonies and intermeshed, these themes provided While for the Indian side of the argument,
of the Central Powers among the victorious the basic building materials of develop- this was to be combined with constructive
allies. This declaration of its own latenessment debates in late colonial India, a government activity, a protective tariff
on the part of the colonial state, even if discursive framework that included both policy, and genuine fiscal autonomy, it
widely recognised to be more rhetoricalproponents and opponents of the develop- was often the limit to what the government
than real, is nonetheless an important event:mental model that many in India came to was willing to do. Nevertheless, in con-
it sets in motion certain anticipations of know and love in the 1950s: heavy indus- nection with 'development' it was urged
a future situation of impending decoloni-try, state protection, centralisation and that science should be put to the service
sation and independence. Anticipations ofplanning. This essay highlights for discus- of industrial research and technical train-
decolonisation and independence set insion one of these themes: science and ing of scientists who would thereafter serve
motion certain debates of an urgency thattechnology - without, it is hoped, losing industry - a phenomenon, it was claimed
was lacking in their earlier versions, be- sight of its linkages to the other themes.by opponents of the government, which
cause they were less immediate.6 Why is this discursive framework worth was well known in Britain and other
Notable among these debates in Indiadiscussing at all? Ideas that form the basis industrialised nations. Nationalists were
were those on 'development'. In readingof the accepted political rhetoric of public quick to blame government policy for the
the writings of people who were concernedarenas are ideas that define the boundaries
inadequate promotion of industrial research
with 'development' at the time, it becomes of publicly acceptable political behaviour.
or technological training.8
clear that they were not merely interestedThey therefore define public standards to
In the course of these debates, scientists
in 'economic development' or 'economicwhich people are expected to conform: werea increasingly being cast as the most
planning'. The debates reveal a surpluslanguage of politics that becomes inescap-
potentially influential group in a new India;
meaning and an emotive significance thatable in that claims to political legitimacy
they were increasingly being included in
is not explicable merely with reference tomust be made in that language. This cre-
discussions on developmental matters as
the state of the discipline of economics atates the basis for public debate and the
'experts'; and a number of them had al-
the time, or even to conventional politicalstandards for acceptable action. Devia-
ready begun to take this role extremely
economy explanations regarding 'inter-tions from such norms need to be hidden, seriously, carrying the message of the
ests'. 'Development' now stood forth as or justified as only apparent deviations,
importance of science to a wide and con-
a category through which concerns related ultimately assimilable within the bounds
stantly increasing readership among the
to a future, possible India could be or-of the norms. The point, therefore, is educated
not middle classes. Journals which
dered, and connected with ideas of regen-whether the users of a language of legiti-
catered to a general middle-class reader-
eration and progress. Although catalysed macy always believe in the language them-
ship carried articles on the importance of
by contemporary worldwide discussionsselves, but why they must use it evenscience,if on occasion discussing compli-
about how to manage economies or howthey don't. And this involves tracing how cated concepts in various branches of
to industrialise quickly - the New Deal,a language came into being. science taking for granted the interest of
Soviet and Fascist planning, the begin- its readership in these matters;9 a scien-
nings of Keynesianism - these debates Applied science, Technology,tific journal could cater to a general inter-
contained and incorporated far wider 'Modernity' ested readership beyond the scientific
concerns.
community, carrying articles on the intri-
Four themes stand out in these debates.
There was, of course, a very straightfor-
cate details of electronic engineering, sta-
Nationalists spoke about development
ward reasonin
to claim importance for sci-
tistics or physics problems alongside news
terms of the need for government todevelopment.
ence in ex- Technology was
of the latest developments in Sigmund
press certain social concerns recognised
(called 'so-
as a necessary means to Freud's
the work in Vienna and the successes
cialism', but whose criteria varied desired enor-
end of industrialisation, throughof the Soviet industrialisation pro-
mously); in terms of the importance which Indian of economic development gramme.10 It might be said, therefore, that
science and technology, therefore would of
be achieved
the - this is well-docu- the need for technology gave way to a
directing expertise of technically qualified
mented in existing writing. But this was
heightened interest in scientific practice,
personnel; and of the need for more'national
a concern with technology - practical
which of course was in congruence with
discipline', often expressed in termsapplication
of the of engineering or technical the perceived need to be modern ' - a
moral unity of the 'nation'. These skills - three normative term usually related to in terms
than with scientific practice and
recurrent themes appeared in various method for its own sake. In the course of of technological or material conditions,
3690Economic and Political Weekly September 29, 2001
and more specifically in terms of Science and the benefits of technology on on an important point: planning under
industrialisation. which industrialisation was based per se; private ownership of technology could also
For others, the instrumental use of tech- if it appeared that they were not universally lead to the replacement of workers by
nology was of more interest than the wider valid, this was due to their misuse. which machines. Mehta and other Congress
intellectual pretensions of science. In 1934, had distorted the results obtained. In the socialists had made the point clear else-
the engineer and former Dewan of Mysore hands of a nationalist government withwhere, when he argued, describing the
Sir M Visvesvaraya wrote to Gandhi, "I due regard for Indian conditions they couldinitiatives of the New Deal, that planning
feel that in this machine age, we should be put to the best possible use. under capitalism merely strengthens capi-
not hesitate, except in temporary situa- The Gandhian voice, on the other hand,talism.19 In the above passage, it was
tions, to utilise mechanical power to the represented to them an unfortunate com-possible to interpret planning and social-
utmost limit that circumstances permit... mitment to 'backwardness' - it was admit- ism as somehow necessarily connected.
I am enclosing an extract from a speech ted by 'modemisers' that village industries This was a conflation of terms often made,
by the Russian leader J Stalin...".11 might have a place in an economically with a planned economy and a large state
Visvesvaraya was no socialist, believing rational scheme to provide employment at sector being allowed to stand forth as
in the virtues of private capital, and was the local level, and for this purpose might socialism.
in fact an admirer of Mussolini's ability even be worthy of government protection, The reclaiming of science as a legiti-
to get things done properly by disciplining but, as the journal Science and Culture put mately Indian concern was also central to
and thereby modernising the masses;12 it, to place a commitment to 'the philoso- the arguments in the often polemical debate
the appeal of Stalin was therefore the phy of spinning wheel and bullock cart' against Gandhi: science was not to be
Stalinists' apparent ability to solve prob- at the centre of national economic life regarded as outside the Indian cultural
lems of production and industrialisation could only be a denial of the progressframework: of
by the use of technology. In this he was science, of the 'techniques of modern
It is probably not so well known that the
not alone. A K Shaha, practical scientist civilisation'.16 This was an unviableeast has originated all those arts and crafts
and 'scientific socialist', the man who approach "[i]f India is to grow intowhich a are responsible for the greatness of
claimed to have persuaded Subhas Bose, powerful world-entity like the US, Soviet the present European civilisation. It was
Congress president at the time, to set up Russia, and the countries of western in the east that copper was first discovered
the Congress' National Planning Commit-Europe... A nation, however great its moral from its ores and used to replace tools
tee in 1938, and a member of the NPC and spiritual qualities may be, can not hope made from stones. The east has used bronze
himself,13 wrote in 1948, "'Industry and to win battles with bows and arrows against which is far superior to copper for offence,
technique solve all roblems", rightly said tanks and artillery. In this world of strife defence, and work, upto [sic] 1200 BC. It
Comrade Stalin'. 4 and competition, if a nation wants to was again the east which first showed that
The connection of science and techno- survive, it must develop the latest tech- iron by special treatment could be con-
logy with industry and ultimately with niques of civilised existence".17 This, it verted into steel, a product far superior to
'modernity' was a theme stressed in the might be noted, was a view of the state bronze for fighting and tool making. Even
1930s, and particularly-in the course ofand of state power being conflated with the use of mineral coal originated in the
east.20
the nation.
arguing against the Gandhian line on not
using machinery.15 This was not the only This was also a scientist's or a Thus, European civilisation having bor-
point of criticism of Gandhi. Others were technologist's critique; it assumed rowed from
a goodthe east, the east is entitled
on the line of his ideas inadvertently serv-deal in terms of the transformative to reclaim
capac-the fruits of its own achieve-
ing capitalism by providing legitimationity of technology. The Congress ments. Social-
Science thereby performs its right-
for the capitalists through the idea of the ists' critique was more subtle,ful duty.in
and took developing a modem India
'trusteeship' role of the wealthy; that his Gandhian ideas more seriously,whose whilemodernity
still is her own, not
ideas were 'backward' and not conducive maintaining a strong polemic against plagiarised.
them.
to modem life; and that contrary to Gandhi' The
s CSP were always careful to preface
It has, following contemporary critiques,
claims, they were not 'indigenous'. On the their criticism of Gandhian ideas with the but sometimes with a new, positive twist
question of 'indigenism', unlike the other assertion that they had no doubts as to rather than a negative one, become con-
points, it was his opponents who felt more Gandhi's own good intentions - it was ventional to see Gandhi and the Gandhians
defensive. Gandhi's claim that *i oppo- merely the logic of his ideas that they as resistant to 'modernity'.21 But it would
nents' positions were not in keeping with questioned. Asoka Mehta, addressing the have been impossible to make a valid
Indian traditions or conditions; that they Gandhian question of whether machines argument related to development in India
were 'western', was the main strength caused unemployment, accepted that this on the basis of a rejection of 'modernity',
which Gandhian arguments could rely on, was indeed the case in many countries of especially as these arguments were addres-
the world at present, but concluded that sed to intellectuals. What had to be achieved
as it drew on old anxieties regarding cultural
disruption or what constituted legitimate this was only the case under capitalism - was the disassociation, in the Gandhian
borrowings from the 'west'. On the subject "the logic of capitalism demands an army position, of the categories 'western' and
of machinery and industrialisation, there- of unemployed as its reserve force, and it modern' , not through a straightforward
fore, the response of 'modernisers' to will not eliminate it". Under socialism, acceptance of the universality of the
accusations of their 'westernisation' or a"there will be planned economy and work modern' , but through the introduction of
lack of respect for 'tradition' was basedwill be so evenly distributed that all will separate criteria of 'modernity' - criteria
on a strategy which claimed that there washave their share of work and leisure".18 which were not 'western', but truly Indian,
nothing wrong with the principles of This rebuttal was conducive to confusions but which by implication it was desirable
to make universally applicable. The crite- correspondence of master and disciple, It might be noted that one set of players
ria of 'modernity' had themselves to be although Kumarappa himself did not dis- who steered clear of the machinery/
tested by 'science' as well as 'morality', pense with the mystical in his own writ-antimachinery debate with the Gandhians
which were, the argument went, compat- ing.24 Dissatisfied with one ofKumarappa'swere Indian capitalists.Their legitimation
ible. If this were done, it would be the effforts, Gandhi wrote sternly to him in through Gandhian ideas of the 'trustee-
'east' which would be seen as 'modern'. 1941, ship' role of the wealthy made this a prudent
This may have been a question of stra-Your article on industrialisation I consider step; and the legitimation of machinery
weak. You have flogged a dead horse. was left to scientists, technologists and
tegic placement of an argument. The moral
could not of course be abandoned for the What we have to combat is socialisation socialists.
scientific if Gandhi had to maintain his of industrialism. They instance the Soviet
image as the moral philosopher whose exploits in proof of their proposition. You Why'Science'? Lineages
politics was based on that morality. Buthave to show, if you can, by working out and Crossovers
he did make some concessions to reach an figures that handicrafts are better than power
audience who might have been less reach- driven machinery products. You have Science as practical technology and
able by his more extreme anti-technology almost allowed in the concluding para- science as legitimiser both had long lin-
graphs the validity of that claimed5
views. It must also be said that his oppo- eages in India. As far as the first was
nents were prone to presenting a somewhatSignificantly, Gandhi did not phrase the concerned, the connection between 'de-
caricatured version of his arguments, forintended project in terms of the need tovelopment' and science was an obvious
which they were given plenty of oppor- combat the use of machinery, as he was one if 'development' was intended to
tunity by the mystical and elusive natureconventionally wont to do, but in terms ofprivilege industrialisation and increased
of Gandhian rhetoric itself. Phrased dif- the need to combat the 'socialisation of production in any form. For this purpose
industrialism'. Perhaps he was being in-
ferently, and outside that rhetoric, some of it was perfectly sensible to defend the use
it could sound quite conventional. consistent, perhaps more honest in private
of technology. But all arguments had one
Gandhi's extreme anti-machinery doc- than in public. thing in common: the appeal to science as
trine seems to have been modified over the J C Kumarappa sought to establish thelegitimiser of a position. As a legitimiser
years to accommodate the use of somepracticability of the village-based economy'science' also carried wider connotations
machinery. In 1924, discussing his Hind on the basis of the scientific wisdom of of 'rational', and 'progressive' activity.
Swaraj position in which he denounced the principles of economics on which it These connections were self-evident for
the use of machinery, Gandhi clarified to rested. This was not a rejection of 'mo-many of the personnel who came to be
Mahadev Desai that he was not against alldernity'; Kumarappa challenged the basis closely associated with the planning of
machinery, but was against the 'craze' for of generally accepted yardsticks of 'mo- industrialisation, men who were often
labour saving devices while men wentdernity', claiming to establish a case for also closely involved in the practice of
about unemployed. He called the Singera better yardstick in the consideration of 'science' or the promotion of technology.
sewing machine 'one of the few useful a longer time-frame: 'the perspective of A few obvious examples come to mind.
things ever invented' (as good an endorse- eternity'. Far from rejecting conceptionsMeghnad Saha, physicist, of Presidency
ment as a commercial product ever had); of 'modernity', and consequently ofCollege, Calcutta, and Imperial College,
and when it was pointed out to him that'science' or 'economics'. London, was author of a scheme to dam
these machines had to be made in factories Kumarappa therefore sought to persuade the river Damodar, and a member, from
with power-driven machinery, Gandhi his readers that his standards of 'moder- 1938, of the Congress' National Planning
replied that this was true, but he was nity', 'science' and 'economics' were better Committee, and on the Sub-Committee for
'socialist enough to say that such factories than those which had currency. In many River Training and Irrigation, and the Sub-
should be nationalised, state-controlled' .22 of his articles he argued strongly that science Committee for Power and Fuel.27 P C
In 1933, Gandhi, writing in the Harijan, and technology should be placed at the Mahalanobis, Presidency College, Calcutta
praised the Nazis for reviving village disposal of village industries, and denied and King's College, Cambridge, physicist-
industries and for de-mechanising certain the charge that the AIVIA was 'against turned-mathematician-turned-physicist-
industries to create more employment, human progress'. The idea that the village turned-statistician-turned-development-
arguing that even a technically advanced should be self-sufficient should not, he alist, a relative late-comer to debates on
country such as Germany recognised the argued, be taken to imply that the artisans Indian Development' (although he had
need for limiting the use of machinery.23 should be left to themselves: a chamar's been a close member of Rabindranath
The arguments put forward on the expertise in leather-working should not be Tagore' s circle, and peripherally connected
Gandhian side with respect to the compat- restricted by the older technologies of with the Sriniketan experiment in rural
tanning to which he was accustomed; rather,development), and later to be author of
ibility of scientific thought with a Gandhian
socio-economic order were usually the the assistance of scientific research should the eponymous 'Mahalanobis Model' of
work of J C Kumarappa, the head of be available to him. Science should, how-development planning, set up the Indian
Gandhi's All-India Village Industries ever, be put to such correct uses, to trans- Statistical Institute at Presidency College,
Association, who had the benefit of an form the 'crude village economy'. 'We in a corer of the physics department. Both
economics education at Columbia Univer- want to yoke science to human progress',were close associates of Satyendranath
sity, a discipline that could at the timeKumarappa wrote. 'Today, science isBose, Einstein's sometime collaborator -
claim to be 'scientific'. That this was not being prostituted', its use 'denied to theand had worked together with him on a
simply Kumarappa's gloss on Gandhi's masses'; it needed to be harnessed to villagebook on relativity.28 This was a social and
mystical position is evident from the problems.26 professional circle which had begun closely
3692 Economic and Political Weekly September 29, 2001
-to associate Science, Development and 'Civilisation' here is apparently under- view, though I have not divorced myself
Modernity: Saha set up the monthly jour- stood in material terms, opposed to the from facts in India. I move about the country
nal of the Indian Science News Associa- more abstract connotations of 'culture';a great deal and see vast numbers of people
tion, Science and Culture to promote but a still carrying with it the idea of beingin the villages and in the towns. Never-
'scientific' approach towards problems ofopposed to 'barbarism', or 'backwardness'. theless it is true that my outlook on life
development and national progress, and This distinction does not seem to have and politics is what might be called sci-
entific.40
did a great deal of writing for it himself;
been rigorously maintained, the existence
Mahalanobis and Saha were regular con- of two terms being useful to distinguish Here Nehru collapsed the categories
tributors to the annual Indian Science one from the other in the same space.35 'scientific' and 'western'; the latter term,
Congresses; both Saha and Mahalanobis Certain aspects of 'culture', according onetomost often used as abuse in colonial
had worked on the problem of floods in view, needed to be jettisoned: India, was appropriated by Nehru as a
this
the Damodar valley in the 1920s and positive trait. This was far from what most
...if this country is ever to enter the path
1930s.29 Sir M Visvesvaraya, ex-Dewan Indian scientists perceived themselves as
of progress, her younger generations must
be cut adrift from many medieval ideas doing;
of Mysore, highly successful former civil and and Nehru himself did not consis-
engineer and government servant, and traditions which are instilled into their tently make this equation, usually stressing
minds in the name of religion, philosophy, the universal rather than the 'western'
author of several books on developmental
custom, tradition or history. Only a goodaspects of science. A closer analysis of
schemes, was one of the vice-presidents
of Mahalanobis' Indian Statistical Insti- dose of scientific education can undo the
these slips would require a closer study of
tute for a while; and Saha, Visvesvarayaevil influences to which young minds are Nehru's psychological history, which is
and Mahalanobis were all involved in the subjected.36 not of primary importance to this argu-
Congress' National Planning Committee,Or as Jawaharlal Nehru put it: ment; it must be said, however, that the
though Mahalanobis more peripherally: he ...I realised that science was not only a anxiety recurrent in Indian political dis-
wrote to Nehru in 1940 suggesting that he pleasant diversion and abstraction, but was course of the time, of the need for
examine all the reports of the National of the very texture of life, without which 'Indianness', is encountered again here,
Planning Committee from a 'purely sta- our modem world would vanish'away. with the distinction between 'eastern' and
tistical point of view'.30 Politics led me to economics and this led 'western' ways of thought and action
The educational and intellectual ante- me inevitably to science and the scientific remaining crucial. This theme, which
cedents of Jawaharlal Nehru, a BA in approach to all our problems and to life dominated earlier political debates, and
itself. It was science alone that could solve
natural sciences from Trinity College, survived notably in the Gandhian position,
Cambridge, with Fabian connections, these problems of hunger and poverty, of tended to be used by the right wing of the
insanitation and illiteracy, of superstition
left-wing links and strong sympathies, for nationalist movement to delegitimise its
and deadening custom and tradition, of
a period, with 'scientific socialism',31 leftist opponents. Nehru's own tracing of
vast resources running to waste, of a rich
Jayaprakash Narayan, whose American the trajectory of his 'discovery of India'
country inhabited by starving people.37
education had brought him in touch with was more honest than most who sought
the Communist Party of the US;32 or The 'science alone' part is surprising - to claim the necessary eastern authenticity:
Minoo Masani, LSE student with Labour possibly meant for his specific audience he found the east via the west.41
Party and ILP experience to go with the of scientists, possibly a rather revealing 'Sciepce' as a universal framework, with
Fabian connections of LSE life33 - this Freudian slip. Those with socialist sym- a capacity to legitimise the work of the
was well before his CIA days - contained pathies were not usually willing to claim colonised and to create equality between
strong doses of scientific optimism - sci- that science was an apolitical practice, colonised and coloniser - 'progress' in
ence as a panacea for most ills, scientific merely that it could be a search for uni- science as being neutral and universal -
socialism in varying proportions, and a versally relevant knowledge if it was freed was a powerful ally to claim in colonial
belief in progress, the possibilities of social from its bondage to capitalism.38 As an India. This was one ground on which a
change. editorial in Science and Culture put it in claim to abolishing the particular claims
Most claims to 'science', whether made 1938, "It is true that the Industrial Revo-
of 'nativeness' and consequent difference
by scientists themselves or their close lution in Europe caused great social dis- which was the basis of colonial construc-
supporters, fell short of a well-worked-out location and political unrest, but this was tions of its own superiority. The universal
due to the fact that the discoveries of
philosophy of science, however; the belief of this dynamic - a downtrodden group's
in the capacities of applied science to science were first utilised by capitalists,
need for legitimating criteria, its escape
change existing conditions was built on a for the sake of private gain...".39 Nehru
from negative placings of itself - the sci-
conception that it was the use of technol- was not a particularly reliable guide toentist
the as scientist, not as native, Jew or
ogy which marked out the 'advanced' from consensus among socialists or the scien-
Negro - has been discussed in different
the 'backward' societies. tific community, despite being facilitator
contexts.42 At the same time the scientist
of communication and organisation. was He an Indian scientist - the Indian part
...if we take the motor car industry as an
wrote in 1939, in reply to a letter by ofone
it was relevant, not in Indian science
index of civilised existence, the US stands
Ahmed Bashir, Secretary of the Majlis being separate from 'western' science or
easily first, with over 30 million cars in
Kabir Pakistan of Lahore, in which the science as a whole, but in that Indians
use; about one man in five possesses a car,
latter had urged him to accept the partition
could contribute as equals in the scientific
i e, every family possesses a car... in India,
of India: world.43
there is one car for every 2300 persons.
This figure gives an appalling picture of Perhaps it is true, as you say, that I look If there was an initial anxiety involved
the low index of civilised life in India...34at the facts from the westerner point of in practising a science seen as 'western',44
by the 1930s, anxieties arising from being taught by Ray at Presidency College. practical science, technology and entre-
an 'Indian' practising 'western' science The tentativeness of early debates on the preneurship with his support for Gandhian
hardly arose in a significant manner; if they validity of science for India could be ideas (he had actively campaigned forkhadi
had once existed, resolutions to the argu- overcome not merely through a historical in the 1920s in connection with the Non-
ments had been found; the confidence in quest for an ancient Indian science, but Cooperation Movement, and was a be-
the practice of modern science was widely also because of the recognition on a world liever in a moderate version of Gandhi's
accepted. Initially, the importance of sci- stage achieved by Indian scientists, such anti-machinery doctrine) even as many of
ence teaching had been strongly linked to as P C Ray, Jagadish Chandra Bose, and his students and fellow-scientists rejected
inculcating modern values in the Indian.45 later Satyen Bose, Meghnad Saha or Gandhian views sharply and found them-
Modernity was seen to be linked, in the C V Raman, and the erosion of some of selves closer to views on socialism and
colonial project as well as in much of the discrimination in terms of employment science that eventually came to be called
Indian resistance to that project, to an suffered by Indian scientists in earlier 'Nehruvian'.57 Ray was extremely eclec-
attempt to impose 'western' values on years.53 It was possible in the 1930s to tic in his choice of influences and his views
Indian society. Partly as a result, from the argue with far greater confidence that of past and future; in a most un-Gandhian
middle of the 19th century to the first Science, if not an universal philosophy, manner he attributed the 'intellectual re-
decades of the 20th century there had been was certainly not to be regarded as outside naissance in Bengal' to the efforts of
lively debates as to the relevance of sci- the Indian cultural framework; for it was Rammohun Roy and Thomas Babington
ence and the need to negotiate an 'Indian' in the 'east' that 'all those arts and crafts
Macaulay, and agreed with James Mill that
version of science and scientific practice. the 'Hindu' mind was capable of great
which are responsible for the greatness of
These acquired immediacy in the period the present European civilisation' had metaphysical subtlety but deficient in
surrounding the Swadeshi movement and originated.54 If, then, 'science' was notpractical skills.58 Three years later, he
the corresponding demand for 'national used the same Minute of 1835 as a quote
'western', but originally 'eastern' and now
education'.46 The resolution of this de- universal, it could be successfully andbeginning a chapter dealing with the
bate seems to have been achieved through legitimately regarded as indigenised for Bengali's imitative tendencies: adopting
a conception that the technological achieve- use. European dress, customs, manners, and
ments of 'western' science needed to be The sectarian nature of some of this consumption patterns, embodied in tea,
appropriated so that a national programme rediscovery of 'Hindu' science has been tobacco and automobiles: the Macaulay's
of industrialisation could be launched; this commented upon;55 but its complexity Minute-led process, he implied, had gone
despite the material nature of 'western', and ambivalence needs to be noted as too far and in the wrong directions.5 He
'natural science'-based civilisation, as much as its sectarianism. The tendency also maintained respect for Mussolini,
opposed to the moral civilisation of India; itself was not unlike Gandhi's argument quoting him on the inadequacy of univer-
for without industry Indian sovereigntyon the purity and beauty of villagesity life,
learning and the need for actual ex-
could not be realised.47 reaching backwards to a better, golden perience,
age alongside Ramsay Macdonald
A universal science that accommodated and to
- with the consequent implication that Lord Haldane - a reminder of the co-
Indians as equals required the acknow- existence of often contradictory ideas
relive that golden age in the present consti-
ledgement in its history that Indians had among Indian thinkers on 'development'
tutes liberation. Perhaps more to the point,
the reading of 'science' which became
contributed to the making of thatscience. problems at the time.60 While some of his
Crucial links in such a resolution were contemporaries slid into sectarian argu-
central to the developmental imagination
found in the rediscovery for India of was an clearly non-sectarian. 'communalism'
ments in (sometimes uncritically) unearth-
was backward, and would wither away
ancient past of scientific practice. Acharya ingin
a glorious 'Hindu' past and lamenting
Prafulla Chandra Ray, of Bengal Chemi- the onset of decline with Muslim inva-
the face of the assault on the negative
cals and Swadeshi fame,48 a larger-than- material conditions that sustained it;sions,61
this Ray was able to avoid a situation
assault would be achieved by a scientific
life figure who became a major inspiration in which his historical quest turned into
behind Indian Science, wrote a two-vol- developmental programme.56 The norma- ancestor-worship and sectarianism.62
ume History of Hindu Chemistry which P C Ray was a figure appropriated as
tive rhetoric of Indian political life was
contributed to an ongoing challenge to unambiguous
the on this point: development
the embodiment of the legitimacy - and
idea that Science was the achievement of good, science good, communalism the bad,possibilities - of science. Meghnad
'western' thought alone.49 He was himself Saha,
irrationality bad. Whether or not there was both as a scientist and as a socialist,
a major influence on Brajendranath Seal, as sharp a separation between the goodused
and his old teacher's legitimacy in many
philosopher and educationist, incidentally the bad as the rhetoric suggested,public
the campaigns. In 1941 Ray wrote an
the man who introduced a young PC silencing of undesirable voices by open
the letter to Sir Richard Gregory, presi-
Mahalanobis to practical statistics,50 and dent of the British Association for the
legitimate rhetoric resulted in an edited
the future vice-chancellor of Visvesvaraya' version
s Advancement of Science, who had re-
of the debates reaching the public;
creation, Mysore University. Seal's trea- and sectarian arguments had to appearcently
in condemned Fascism for putting
tise on The Positive Sciences ofthe Ancient various legitimate disguises. science to anti-human uses. Ray wrote that
Hindus.51 originated in his contribution The selection of science's national it was not only fascism, but also imperia-
to the second volume of Ray's History of lism which frustrated the 'human welfare'
heroes who would embody the legitimacy
Hindu Chemistry, which he enlarged and object of science. "Industrialisation, which
of science and the possibilities of progress
recast for publication.52 P C Ray was aalso indicate this reading. Acharya P isC essential
Ray for the prosperity and strength
major influence on Meghnad Saha and hiswas a complex figure who managed of a to
nation in the modern age, has been
associates, of whom not a few had been combine an insistence on the virtues of persistently opposed, and even recently
the government of India has refused to memoirs, Ray had noted that in Vedic debates were incorporated into later dis-
suport the growth of an automobile indus- times Brahmins used to eat cows;71 and cussions on development. Socialists were
try in India...".63 And yet the authority of he himself seems not to have been particu- perhaps more stringent about their selec-
'science', through the person of P C Ray, larly concerned with cow-protection; but tion of methods and examples through
was also claimed by Gandhians - logically he was now dead, and could be used more which to achieve this dispossession, and
enough, for P C Ray had been a Gandhian freely as a legitimating figure than when would certainly have taken much trouble
and the mainstay of the non-cooperation he was alive. consciously to maintain a distance from
Khadi campaigners in Bengal in the 1920s. what they saw as Fascist ideas; but the
In the Foreword to a book on cow-keeping Science of Times: Towards a project is nonetheless recognisable. How-
written in 1945,64 Gandhi commended the Scientific Conception of 'Nation' ever, it was also possible to be influenced
author, Satish Chandra Dasgupta, as "one by contemporarily available metaphors of
of the first and best pupils of the late Straightforward appeals to 'science' as
national purification and health, discipline
lamented P C Ray", and the book 'to the legitimator in a generalised sense apart, and control, many of which were authori-
lover of the cow as also to every one who there were also elements of scientific tarian in nature, and were not necessarily
would learn that the slaughter of cattle for discussion that were drawn from contem- seen as Fascist; such influences cut across
food is a pure economic waste'; he called porary worldwide scientific trends, appar-political lines. Moreover, as is evident
the cow the 'Mother of Prosperity'.65 The ently state-of-the-art scientific concerns from several instances provided above,
work was clearly positioned primarily as which were also closely associated with Fascism was not necessarily discredited in
a 'scientific' book both by Gandhi and by the period's general concerns with humanIndian eyes in the 1930s, linking up with
Dasgupta; Acharya P C Ray was widely improvement. There was, for instance, aIndian concerns with creating an efficient
recognised as a figure who had stood for trend towards conceiving the national state and disciplined nation in the process of
both science and swadeshi, and was a as a body, a physical entity composed ofnation-building: 'merely an aggressive
heroic public figure to whom both a lay morally and physically healthy citizens. form of nationalism'.75 And there was
public and a scientific community could General Education Sub-Committee of
The less than an intellectually rigorous and
relate.66 Dasgupta engaged in a long debatethe Congress's National Planning Com- consistent engagement with the origins of
against some of the findings of the Royal mittee proposed a compulsory social or the ideas borrowed for Indian use.
Commission on Agriculture in India, whichlabour service to make all young men and The language of race efficiency and
had misled 'the scientific men and the woman [sic] between the ages of 18 and eugenics was also much used in connec-
economists'; consequently he had 'had22tocontribute a year of 'national disci- tion with national discipline. Once again,
quote expert opinion' for the 'findings'plined
he service in such form and place, and this had not clearly been discredited until
had arrived at.67 A long section on phar- under such conditions as the state maycarried to its logical conclusions by the
macology in the second volume, essen- Nazis during the second world war; in the
prescribe in that behalf [sic]'. It moreover
tially a veterinary tract, betrayed the proposed to fix general norms of physical 1920s, Fabians discussed 'socialist man';
author's background in chemistry; the drugsfitness to be adhered to.72 The sub-com-and socialists as well as liberals spoke of
he prescribes include 'indigenous' herbs, mittee on Population, while stressing the improving the human stock;76 John
need for birth control as well as 'self-
but far from giving them primacy, he treated Maynard Keynes had toyed with eugenics
them as supplementary - hardly in keeping control', spoke of the need for removing in his writings on mathematics and eco-
with Gandhi's Hind Swaraj position that the barriers to inter-marriage "for eugenicnomics.77 In India too, there was a strong
'to study European medicine is to deepen and other social reasons".73 In 1938, confusion
the among terms like 'race', 'nation',
our slavery'.68 Yet such argument was National
not Planning Committee's Sub-Com- and 'civilisation', often used interchange-
to be considered merely scientific: 'The mittee on 'Woman's Role in Planned ably, for instance in the tendency to speak
book is no mere collection of formulae for Economy' came up with the following of a 'Hindu nation' or a 'Hindu race'.78
feeding a cow, or directions for obtaining resolution: In part this can be seen as a problem of
the utmost milk from a cow. Cow-keeping translation, both linguistic and cultural:
The health programme of the state shall
is a yajna, and I have tried to show why aim at the eradication of serious diseases, linguistically to discover equivalent terms
and how it is so'.69 The cow, if 'lifted frommore especially such as are communicable in Indian languages for those in English,
its downtrodden condition' by the 'con- or transmissible by marriage. The state and vice versa; and culturally to map Indian
structive workers in the village', would should follow a eugenic programme to concerns onto debates current in British
prove a 'most responsive animal'; and make the race physically and mentally and European contexts. This cultural trans-
more importantly, the uplift of the cow healthy. This would discourage marriages lation had important political motives, in
would 'amount to lifting the nation'.70of unfit persons and provide for the a public sphere dominated by the British
sterilisation of persons suffering from trans- colonial state: political arguments in co-
The potential meaning of yajna as 'sacri-
missible diseases of a serious nature, such
fice' seems to have been missed by lonial India were necessarily interventions
as insanity or epilepsy.74
Dasgupta. into arenas structured by the British co-
Cow-protection books masquerading as Once again, there are lineages of these lonial power; an intervention which was
economic or scientific tracts were com- ideas which need to be taken into account. to be effective had to appeal to principles
mon enough in India: a necessary mas-
Nationalist debates in India had long been which the colonial power recognised as
concerned with questions of how to over- valid, and therefore was forced to rebut.
querade if cow-protection was not to appear
come the stigma of being a backward nation This meant that an idea which had already
as a Hindu sectarian argument against cruel
Muslims. But the invocation of P C Ray- to this end various forms of education secured political and/or academic respect-
in this regard was ironic. In his own and discipline had been advocated. Theseability in Britain was particularly useful
in arguments put forward in India: the entity, a potentially divisive category such The term 'race' can be read, as used in
credibility of the idea on which the argu- as 'race' was turned to an use implying
debates on development, as a red herring;
ment was to be based had already been solidarity and collective effort. it was a term which did not properly denote
established. The confusion of 'race' and The routes to such semantic shifts were the idea which it conventionally implied
'nation' can similarly be observed not
in always straightforward. One strange in European contexts at the time. More
contemporary perceptions regarding lan- trajectory was that of the statistician P C relevant was the need for national disci-
guage, culture and race: The distinction Mahalanobis.81 Although closely associ- pline, a factor agreed upon by intellectuals
was never quite clear to the Theosophists,ated with Presidency College, and the across political barriers. The 1920s, in the
who played a crucial role in the rediscov-circles which discussed the role of science aftermath of the great war and the Montagu-
ery of Hinduism in India as well as pro- in the development of national life, he was Chelmsford reforms, saw a focus on a
vided echoes of recognition for predeces- a relative latecomer to the concerns which rhetoric and practice of 'nation-building';
sors of the Nazis with their theories of his colleagues articulated.82 Much of histhis process of 'nation-building' was seen
Aryan supremacy.79 Moreover, the temp-first published work, in the 1920s andas necessary in advancing towards self-
tation in India to claim a similar racial 1930s, related to anthropometrics, eugen-government. Imperialist arguments stressed
origin to rulers who claimed racial supe- ics and race; he kept extensive notes onthe need for a period of 'nation-building'
riority was particularly strong; although race and anthropometry, and also tookbefore India could qualify for self-govern-
extensive head-length measurements ofment. Although nationalists denied the need
one consequence of this manoeuvre was
Bengalis by caste, from which data he for a period of qualification, they none-
to deny such resources to those among
published his articles.83 Mahalanobis'theless believed that a greater sense of
Indians who could not claim an 'Aryan'
origin. interest in statistics was channelled in these national solidarity and discipline had to be
Not all these strands found their way into directions as a consequence of his workingcreated. A number of initiatives for cre-
the conceptualisation of 'development': with N Annandale, then director of the ating this sense of solidarity were already
crucially, 'race efficiency' was a relevant Zoological and Anthropological Survey of in existence: social service organisations,
category, but not as a sectarian category; India, on some of the latter's anthropo-'constructive Swadeshi' measures, reli-
rather, 'race' in development debates metric data.84 This was the sort of problemgious reform movements; Indian appro-
appears as an approximate synonym for to which the young discipline of statisticspriations of that specifically imperialist
'Indian national', having shed its 'Aryan' was being applied, especially through the organisation; the Boy Scouts; paramilitary
or 'Hindu' connontations. work of Karl Pearson, socialist and Galton 'Hindu' outfits like the Rashtriya
professor of Eugenics at University Col-Swayamsevak Sangh; and the Congress'
An example might be provided here. At
the Third International Conference on lege, London, with which these early own volunteer corps. Some of these groups
Eugenics in 1932, the Indian contribution
writings engage.85 were explicitly Hindu, sectarian and vio-
was from Henry E Roseboom and Cedric At first Mahalanobis maintained his lent:92 others less so, or not at all. Expli-
.Dover, 'The Eurasian Community asdistance
a from the project in which hecitly was sectarian arguments were, however,
involved, absolving himself of responsi-
Eugenic Problem'. It cited PC Mahalanobis' not acceptable in a programme for national
1922 work with Annandale on the Anglo-bility for the conclusions. 'I frankly con- development, which was expected to carry
fess', he wrote, "that I know very little ofthe whole nation with it; if a sectarian
Indians, and his analyses of race mixture
in Bengal. Dover was an Eurasian and a
anatomy. My work on the data suppliedargument had to be made to appear legiti-
has been purely statistical".86 Annandaiemate, it had to be framed within the rheto-
member of the Congress Socialist Party,
and one of Jawaharlal Nehru's self-ap-clarified that he was 'doubtful about the ric of economic need (as in the case of
pointed educators. He insisted (along with
value of bodily measurements taken on the arguments for cow protection as preserva-
his co-author) on the one hand that 'the
live person', and 'suspicious that there was tion of national wealth), or national soli-
problem of the Eurasian community, as some
the fallacy in the whole method'.87 darity, in which a sectarian argument
Simon Commission (1930) points out,Although
is the general conclusions bore out operated by blaming an opposing sect of
essentially economic', but on the otherAnnandale's doubts, the relevance of the itself being sectarian, and of breaking the
category of race itself was not questioned,88rules of national solidarity.
hand insisted that 'anthropometric study
will demonstrate the physical equalityandof Mahalanobis stated in his definition Many of these movements stressed dis-
of terms, following Karl Pearson's 'Co-cipline, physical fitness and martial arts,
its members with those of any other com-
munity in the east, even if it does notefficient of Racial Likeness': 'By 'race the ability to use weapons, and obedience
suggest the possibility of the physicalefficiency', I would denote stability, com- to a leader, in different combinations. This
superiority under improved conditions'. bined with capacity to play a part in thewas not necessarily seen a commitment to
He argued for the influence of environ- history of civilisation'.89 In later writing,militarism: it was a question of discipline
ment in addition to 'miscegenation'Mahalanobis
as overcame his diffidence and and of mass mobilisation rather than of
influencing the 'characteristics of the entered the debates in earnest. In particu- violence. Such mobilisation, it was felt,
community', appealed to a notionlar, ofhe attempted, through statistical analy- could bring less mainstream groups into
'hybrid vigour': 'a carefully nurtured ses of anthropometric material, to modify the nationalist movement - into which
hybrid is superior to either parent'.the He work of H H Risley on the Castes and category, for instance, women might be
advocated miscegenation - the 'develop- Tribes ofBengal.90 By the time he became placed. In 1938, Subhas Bose wrote to a
ment of mixed breeds' would also remove involved with national planning, possibly woman who told him of her desire to serve
racial friction - and envisioned a future through the influence of his colleagues,91 the country through a women's welfare
world of 'one composite race'. 80 Thus, this strand was no longer particularly organisation that she had set up, advising
important to him.
in being used to conceptualise a 'national' her to 'give physical training to younger
women. They have to learn lathi and dagger of scientific argument in context. In the
tance of technology in the progress of the
play, etc,' in order to defend themselves.93 context of the declared goal of socialism,
nation.96 It might be said, therefore, that
It was in this context - of both mobilisation the need for technology gave way toita could, for instance, be claimed that
and control of mass participation in poli- 'socialism' was scientific, or could be
heightened interest in scientific practice,
tics - that Mussolini's success in Italy was which of course was in congruence with achieved given the right technical skills;
interpreted - as a version of what Indian the perceived need to be 'modern' -ora could not be achieved without the
nationalists hoped to achieve with the required disciplined behaviour of the In-
normative term usually related to in terms
Indian masses, and as a particularly effec- of technological or material conditions, dian citizenry. Or it might be claimed that
tive form of nationalism.94 If these trends and more specifically in terms of extreme or excessive forms of socialism
appealed to a language of eugenics or race industrialisation; but also in terms of the were incompatible with disciplined na-
efficiency, it was often without a consis- need to be 'indigenous'. tional life - this latter claim was often
tent or well-thought-out position. The But there was also a great deal of writing accompanied by the claim that extreme
exceptions, from Hindu fundamentalists' that picked up the language of the times socialism was not properly 'Indian'.
close engagement with Fascist and Nazi rather than maintained a coherent engage- The privileging in this discourse of a
forms of mobilisation, were less concerned ment with it. The necessity of being cur- professional directing elite which was to
with the alleged 'science' of their position, rent, up to date in a colony was especially make decisions for the 'nation' as a whole
and were quite distant from the debates on acute so as to link up with metropolitan is clear. But it is not enough to attribute
'development' which could bring scien- arguments and borrow their legitimacy. this only to a technocratic or scientistic
tists and politically active nationalists The currency of the language could for a approach. The claimed expertise went
together. time hide the fact that those who used it beyond merely technical matters, and
- because it could claim legitimacy assought to encompass both the moral and
Connections, Separations 'science' - were not necessarily highlythe material: even the Gandhians, who
regarded as practitioners of that 'science'.claimed to empower the masses, still
The coupling of conceptions of order, Some of this using of a current languagemaintained the right to decide who had
progress, reason, science, discipline, held was therefore strategic; public argumentsreached the correct level of moral develop-
together by a general concern with the could be more effective if they employedment in order to be allowed to represent
need to escape from backwardness, is an already legitimate idiom, and could citethemselves. One consequence of this was
evident in debates on 'development' in metropolitan scholarship in their support.that the 'masses' all too often entered the
India. The common assumption was a faith This was especially important in a societypicture only as the somewhat abstract
in directing expertise, shared among all in which arguments that were ostensiblyultimate beneficiary, whose interests were
advocates of'development' towards 'mod- internal arguments among Indian nation-claimed to be represented by various
ern' goals. 'Expertise' was strongly linked alists were to a certain extent staged beforesocialist parties or even capitalists, in an
to the claims of technology, properly the imagined audience of the colonial ruler obligatory populist rhetoric, but whose
utilised in the service of national progress; and before metropolitan public opinion.active participation was hardly envisaged,
whatever the wider parameters of 'develop- This disaggregation of levels of argu-except in the limited sense of producing
ment' might require, it was generally agreed ment regarding science and developmentthe required effort and sacrifices for the
that a necessary component of 'develop- might be considered slightly academic ifsuccess of 'development'. The failure of
ment' would be the technology to over- the consequences for a politics of develop-the masses to conform to the norms of
come backwardness. This is unobjection- ment are not touched upon, even if in a'modernity' as defined by its leadership,
able, even commonplace: technology for rather allusory manner. As has been pointedeither placed them beyond the pale or
development, therefore directing expertise out, the appeal to purely 'technical' criteriaprompted ardent efforts to impose on them
- an approach which the Gandhians shared, was a favourite mode of argument in politics the correct modes of behaviour, efforts
despite disagreement regarding the goals which sought not to foreground divergent often not far different from the colonial-
envisaged for a 'developed' society. The political perspectives, and to insulate apaternalist civilising mission.
implicit - or sometimes more explicit - particular process from close political How much praise or blame can 'science'
corollary was that it was the 'experts' who scrutiny or interference. For instance, intake for this? Science was a prevalent
could judge what 'modernity' might in- the 1950s, the claim made that the Plan- language of legitimacy which nationalists
volve. Those who won the argument, it ning Commission was a body representingcould not but confront and appropriate in
might be added, had the trends of history technical expertise and was consequentlyone way or another; and the legitimacy that
on their side: industrialisation, as beyond politics, was indeed 'used as anscientists themselves gave to this nation-
Visvesvaraya put it, 'connotes production,instrument of politics'.97 But it must notalism was crucial to that appropriation.
wealth, power and modernity'.95 Thisbewas forgotten that claims to technical ex- But if this was all it was, then this is not
a fact: speculation about alternativespertise
was could only operate as legitimatevery interesting. We could use as a point
within a consensus: the British colonial
not, then, particularly interesting. 'Moder- of departure the fact that 'science' became
nity' itself was perhaps more abstract:government's
but claims to superior technicalincreasingly important from the late 19th
it was 'science' that had to endorse what expertise had never been accepted as valid, century in all bourgeois ideologies of
'modernity' was. for instance, because the goals of colonial domination. And that the discourse of
For many, science was interpreted as government were not seen as within a'progress' seems to have split in the late
technology, and those who believed that consensus. This is where the other three 19th century into two - growing pessi-
there was more to science than technology themes referred to in the introduction mustmism regarding social progress of the
also placed a high premium on the impor- be restored in order to understand the uses 'masses' even as the 'masses' began to
grow more assertive; and on the other And if such intellectuals ended up by under colonialism, an Indian capitalist's
hand, a certain optimism regarding scienti- legitimating what looked suspiciously like demand was a nationalist one; and Saha's
fic and technological progress.98 We could a capitalist order, it is not always to their support reflected this without explicitly
argue, then, that 'eugenics' was in large intentions that we must look - how, in- using arguments that justified capitalism;
measure an attempt to impose scientific deed, might we find our way to someone via Visvesvaraya, he found himself con-
solutions, imported from the optimistic else's actual intentions - but perhaps to nected to a very different project. IF
side of the split to the pessimistic, to the logic of the situations they found them-
problems of the 'masses' and their lack of selves in. A brief reprise of an example Notes
capacity for 'progress'. Socialist partici- might be a good way to end: there were
pation in the eugenics project was substan- of course adherents of scientific or tech- [I should like to take this opportunity to thank Ravi
Ahuja and Jeff Vernon for their comments on
tial and committed, and much of it was not nological solutions who thought of them-
earlier drafts of this essay. I should also like to
specifically 'racist', in the sense of dis- selves as socialists as well as scientists.
thank Margret Frenz, Jan-Georg Deutsch and
criminating against and attempting to breed Meghnad Saha counted himself as one of Heydrich for their comments on other
Joachim
out certain ethnic groups. The concern them. He was a firm believer in the prin-
related issues, echoes of which they might recognise
seems to have been more about 'bad stock' here. I gratefully acknowledge the support of the
ciple that the true emancipation of Science
Centre for Modern Asian Studies in Berlin, where
- the underclasses of the metropolitan and its use for the betterment of society
I wrote most of this essay as 'Gastwissenschaftler'
countries themselves - perpetuating back- was possible only under Socialism. Yet
in in
August 2001.]
wardness and preventing progress. Fur- practice he was confined to recommend-
1 This conflation is particularly evident in
thermore, it might be pointed out that the ing solutions to limited problems arising Gyan Prakash, 'Science Between the Lines'
class origins of most socialists were bour- within the framework of colonial or indi- in Shahid Amin and Dipesh Chakrabarty
geois, and that most who considered them- genous capitalism. At the same time, the (eds), Subaltern Studies IX (Delhi 1996);
selves socialists were committed to the and Gyan Prakash, Another Reason: Science
linkages between business and science -
and the Imagination of Modern India
bourgeois order with a few adjustments.99
or technology - were facilitated by inter-(Princeton, 1999).
If this picture might be said to applymediaries
to such as the former Dewan of 2 See for instance Claude Alvares, Science,
Mysore, Sir M Visvesvaraya, who was
the metropolitan bourgeoisies, then per- Development and Violence: The Revolt
Against Modernity(Delhi 1992), in particular
haps it should not be surprising thatconvinced
it of the necessity to industrialise his analysis of the green revolution in
applies to the Indian bourgeoisie. and less committed to questions of social Chapter Two, or more generally in environ-
The Indian 'bourgeoisie' is of courseorganisation
a in terms of capitalism or mentalist positions on the limitations and
problematic construct - where exactly socialism. These linkages worked in cu- dangers of unfettered technology, much
of which criticism is based on science
might one place the lines of class solidar-
rious ways: in Visvesvaraya's campaign itself.
ity? The Gramscian concept of 'passive for the setting up of an automobile industry 3 Not all of past science, moreover, needs to
revolution' has been invoked as an expla-
in India, one of his main allies was Meghnad be discussed by practitioners of science today
Saha's journal Science and Culture.
nation of the bourgeois leadership of Indian as if it were an embarrassing grandmother
- modern embryology, neuroscience or
nationalism; 00 but it is doubtful, if we Visvesvaraya
are was also operating through physics might be said to stand on the basis
to use Gramscian terminology, whether the industrialist Walchand Hirachand, of 1930s science - there have been no major
the Indian professional bourgeoisie -
whose reputation as a defender of- the paradigm shifts here - and the generalised
attack cannot claim to be based on a careful
politicians, scientists, engineers or aca-
rights of Indian shipping had won him
understanding of all of these fields.
demics - who largely conducted the de- his nationalist credentials,102 and nego-4 Historians of science in India will probably
bates on 'development' - and on 'science'tiating with the government of Mysore for find unexceptional the space given to
- among themselves, were the 'organic land and a collaborative venture on the scientists and spokesmen for science from
Calcutta, given the importance of that city
project. Saha, whose dislike for business-
intellectuals' of the industrial bourgeoisie. in the practice of science in India. Calcutta
If anything, many of the former were men was well known, defended the project was strategically located in the debates on
suspicious of or downright hostile to theon the grounds of the need to lift India to the validity of science in and for India; the
latter, taking sides with state control aorhigher plane of technological existence. debates that began in the 19th century had
their successor debates in the 20th as they
socialism. They were not 'organic intel- Visvesvaraya, who had less qualms about were incorporated into concerns with national
lectuals' of the working class, either, businessmen, provided the principled development and eventual independence and
conforming more closely to what Gramsci assault on the government for its obstruc- sovereignty for India. Both the dramatis
called 'traditional intellectuals', thoughtive
it tactics, through his organisation, the personae and the stage were often provided
by Presidency College or Calcutta
is possible further to complicate matters All-India Manufacturers' Organisation, University's science teaching departments.
and raise the question of where intellec- arguing that it was short-sighted and See Benjamin Zachariah, Subhas Ranjan
tuals created by colonial education to fill
malicious of the government to refuse to Chakraborti and Rajat Kanta Ray,
'Presidency College, Calcutta: an Unfinished
professions 'traditional' in the metropolegrant permission to set up an industry History' in Mushirul Hasan (ed), Knowledge,
might have stood in this scheme.101 These which would, in addition to building up Power and Politics: Educational Institutions
intellectuals, an articulate, multilingual
Indian industry, - and here he was not in India (New Delhi, 1998).
averse to using a loyalist argument - be 5 Report on Indian Constitutional Reforms
elite, often highly educated and self-con-
(Calcutta, 1918).
so useful to the War Effort.103 This strand
sciously cosmopolitan in outlook, domi-
6 For an elaboration of this argument, see
nated a good deal of the space of organised
was used strongly by Hirachand to justify Benjamin Zachariah, 'British and Indian
the importance of his venture (it was
political activity, and especially the politi- Ideas of 'Development': Decoding Political
cal philosophy behind it. This applied to Conventions in the Late Colonial State',
somewhat ironic that through all this he
Itinerario 1999, 3-4.
politics of all kinds, from the 'right' to never
the succeeded in learning to spell 7 For a more detailed mapping of these
'left'. Visvesvaraya's name).104 In practice, themes, see Benjamin Zachariah, 'Beyond
Economics: Ideas of Developing India, 17 Science and Culture IV, 10 (April 1939), capacity to understand Einstein's work on
c 1930-1950', PhD dissertation, University editorial, p 533. relativity.)
of Cambridge, 1999. 18 Asoka Mehta, 'The Victory of Socialism 29 A C Mukhopadhyay, 'A Brief Account of
8 See Bipan Chandra, The Rise and Growth over Romanticism', Congress Socialist, PCM's Work on Meteorology and Flood
of Economic Nationalism in India: Economic February 3, 1935. Control and Irrigation', in Ashok Rudra,
Policies of Indian National Leadership, 19 Asoka Mehta, Planned Economyfor India? Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis: A
1880-1905 (5th edn, New Delhi, 1991; first (Bombay, 1935), a CSP pamphlet which Biography, p 160.
published New Delhi, 1966), pp 76-81. contains the substance of his articles in the 30 Quoted in RaghabendraChattopadhyay,
9 For instance the Modern Review and the Congress Socialist; Mir Alam, 'India's New Idea of Planning in India, 1930-195
Prabashi in Bengal. Deal', Congress Socialist, February 3, 1935, unpublished PhD dissertation, Austra
10 One of the stronger advocates of 'modern'p 15, which includes a review of M National University, Canberra, 1985, p 1
solutions to problems of Indian development Visvesvaraya's Planned Economyfor India. 31 S Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biogra
was the journal Science and Culture, which 20 Science and Culture IV, 10 (April 1939), Vol 1 (London, 1975)t
called itself 'a monthly journal of natural and editorial, p 535. 32 G D Overstreet and M Windmiller, Co
cultural sciences', published from Calcutta,21 The most influential of these accounts has munism in India, Berkeley, 1959, p 15
and founded and edited by the physicist and been Partha Chatterjee, 'The Moment of33 Masani, Bliss Was It in That Dawn... (
socialist Meghnad Saha. Scientists subscribed Manoeuvre', Nationalist Thought and the Delhi, 1977), pp 19-36.
to. it, (see Bhatnagar to Saha, December 12, Colonial World: A Derivative Dicourse?, 34 Science and Culture IV, 5 (November 1
1935, Meghnad Saha papers, Nehru London 1986. editorial, p 256. Figures based on Sir
Memorial Museum and Library [hereafter 22 Mahadev Desai, preface to MK Gandhi, Hind Visvesvaraya's statistics - this edito
NML], correspondence with SS Bhatnagar); Swaraj, (revised new edition, Ahmedabad, examines Visvesvaraya's two pamphl
but among its supporters could be ranked 1939), pp ix-x. Proposals for an Automobile Factory
other middle class intellectuals; Shyama 23 Harijan, October 27, 1933, reprinted in TheBombay, Note I and Note II (Confident
Prasad Mookerjee wrote to Saha in 1936, "It Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi Vol (Bangalore, 1938); the quote above
will be a great pity if Science and Culture LVI, New Delhi, 1973, pp 146-48. paraphrase of Visvesvaraya. The edito
has to be discontinued for want of funds and 24 See J C Kumarappa, Why the Village continues, "We learn further from these
Bengali enterprise. We must devise a way Movement? (Wardha, 1936), which ran to pamphlets that 'Cheap Cars for All' is the
out of this possibility". S P Mookerjee to Saha, several editions. For an analysis of latest watch-word in Nazi Germany, which
October 28, 1936, Meghnad Saha papers, Kumarappa's arguments, see Benjamin is contemplating the introduction of a people's
NML, correspondence with S'P Mookerjee. Zachariah, 'Interpreting Gandhi: J C car, for the use of people with a monthly
1 1 Visvesvarayato Gandhi, November20,1934. Kumarappa, Modernity and the East' in income of Rs 175/pm...".
This was in response to Gandhi's request to Tapati Guha Thakurta (ed), 'Culture' and 35 The distinction between 'culture' and
him to be one of the advisers to Gandhi's 'Democracy': Papers from the Cultural 'civilisation' is often unclear or blurred in
All-India Village Industries Association in Studies Workshops, Vol 1, Calcutta, 1999. non-specialised modem usage. See Raymond
matters in which he possessed 'special 25 'Bapu' to 'Ku', August 12, 1941, J C Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of
knowledge': Gandhi to Visvesvaraya, Kumarappa Papers, Nehru Memorial Library, Culture and Society (revised edition, 3rd
November 15, 1934. Visvesvaraya said that New Delhi (hereafter JCK, NML), Subject Impression, Glasgow, 1989), pp 59-60, 90-93.
he was willing to advise the AIVIA without File No 5, f 75. Emphasis mine. 36 Science and Culture IV, 1 (July 1938),
being officially involved with it. He objected 26 'Place of Science in the Industrial editorial, 'The Next Twentyfive [sic] Years
to Gandhi's views on machinery, and said of Science
Development of India', inaugural lecture to in India', p 2
that he would send him a copy of his book 37 Science and Culture III, 7 (January 1938);
the Science Association of Nagpur University
Planned Economy for India. Gandhi's reply Jawaharlal Nehru's message to the Indian
at the Convocation Hall, by J C Kumarappa,
acknowledged that the two held 'perhaps secretary, All-India Village Industries Science Congress', Silver Jubilee Session,
diametrically opposite views' and that the Association', nd, pp 299-305, speeches p 350.
and
excerpt from Stalin had no appeal for him. writings in bound volumes, Vol 38 X,Such
JCK,views were also commonly expressed
He nonetheless acknowledged Visvesvaraya's NML. in the Congress Socialist. For some in the
'love of the country'. Gandhi to Visvesvaraya 27 See KT Shah (ed), Report: National Planning CSP, 'scientific socialist' politics implied
November 23, 1934. These letters are re- Committee (Bombay, 1949) (hereafter NPC that political practice as well as political
printed in Shakuntala Krishnamurthy, Report), for members; Ravindra Chandra understanding was a 'science' (although such
Dr Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya, Bangalore, Ray, Colonial Economy: Nationalists' rigid interpretations of 'socialism' were not
1980, pp 61-63. Response (Varanasi, 1996), p 74. See alsouniversal).
12 M Visvesvaraya, Planned Economyforlndia, National Planning Committee: Power and 39 Science and Culture IV, 4, October 1938,
Bangalore City, 1934, pp 260-63. Fuel (Bombay, 1947); National Planning editorial on the Wardha primary education
13 A K Shaha, author of Flameless Combustion Committee: River Training and Irrigation scheme, p 200.
Process in Industry (in Russian) (Leningrad (Bombay, 1947). 40 Nehru to Ahmed Bashir, December26,1939,
and Moscow, 1934); and Lectures on Fuels 28 Mahalanobis' official biographer describes Jawaharlal Nehru Papers, NML, Vol 1, f 87.
and Furnaces (in English) (Calcutta, 1944); the three as co-authors of a book on relati- 41 Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India,
BSc (Dacca) Aspirant (Moscow) equiv PhD. vity: see Ashok Rudra, Prasanta Chandra Calcutta, 1946, passim.
Candidate of Sciences (USSR) equiv DSc. Mahalanobis: A Biography, Delhi, 1996, 42 Frantz Fanon made this argument about the
Ex-foreign specialist invited by the Soviet p 199. This is not quite accurate: it was a tension between a (universal) metropolitan
government during the First and Second Five- book of translations of papers from the original education and the inescapable particularities
Year Plans. Title page, A K Shaha, India on German, the translations having been done of 'negritude' - see Frantz Fanon, Black
Planning: Planning for Liquidation of Un- by Saha and Bose, with Mahalanobis pro- Skin, White Masks, London, 1980. The argu-
employment and Illiteracy, Calcutta, 1948. viding a 'historical introduction'. M N Saha ment about tension between the Jew as a
14 A K Shaha, India on Planning, p 108. and S N Bose (transl), The Principle of practitioner of science, claiming inclusion
15 The main outlines of what has come to be Relativity; Original Papers by A. Einstein within the Christian/Aryan environment, and
known as 'Gandhian economic thought' are and H Minkovski. with a kistorical introduc- the Jew as Jew despite this claim, both
well known and easily available - a tion by P C Mahalanobis (Calcutta, 1920). excluded, and excluding himself, has also
decentralised, village-based economic order (This is also the place to acknowledge the been made: see for instance Sander L Gilman,
which was as self-sufficient as possible, of inadvertent factual error - reflecting the Freud, Race and Gender, Princeton 1993.
rural small-scale agriculture, and industries hazards of secondary sources - in my review These questions are resolved ifi different
which employed low technology. See the article: Benjamin Zachariah, 'The Develop- ways by different commentators thereon; but
chapter on 'Gandhian Economics' in ment of Professor Mahalanobis', Economy this is not the place for me to enter into a
Bhabatosh Datta, Indian Economic Thought: and Society, Vol 26, No 3 (August 1997), discussion on the relative merits of these
Twentieth Century Perspectives, New Delhi, p 438, in which I cite Rudra's error. I owe resolutions.
1978, pp 150-58. the correction to former students of P C 43 On the claims of imperialism to science, the
16 Science and Culture IV, 10 (April 1939), Mahalanobis in his 'avatar' as a physics use of apparently scientific arguments in the
editorial, pp 534-35. teacher, who cast doubts on Mahalanobis' justification of imperialism, or the tendency
of science to act as, and be seen as, an agent me has been P C Ray.' He asks Saha to hand, and with magic on the other: P C Ray,
of imperialism, much has been written. For convey this to Ray - "I think it will please History of Hindu Chemistry, Vol 1, p (v).
the Indian case, and on the debates surround- him to know that at least one amongst his Ray's avoidance of this formula is particularly
ing the relevance and possibilities of an chemical grand children confesses where the significant in that he was close to both Benoy
indigenised science, see for instance Deepak source of inspiration lies hidden". Bhatnagar Sarkar and PN Bose: Bose had been his
Kumar (ed), Science and Empire: Essays in to Saha, October 13, 1934, from university colleague at Presidency College (he was in
the Indian Context (1700-1947) (Delhi, chemical laboratories, Lahore, Meghnad Saha the geology department) and Benoy Sarkar
1991); Deepak Kumar, Science and the Raj; papers, NML, correspondence with S S was prominent in the Swadeshi movement,
Dhruv Raina and S Irfan Habib, 'Bhadralok Bhatnagar, f 1. of which Ray's company, Bengal Chemicals,
Perceptions of Science, Technology and 50 Mahalanobis' own acknowledgement of this was an inspirational institution.
Cultural Nationalism', Indian Economic and debt is cited by his biographer: Ashok Rudra, 63 P C Ray, open letter to Sir Richard Gregory,
Social History Review 32, 1 (1995); Dhruv Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis: A Bio- President of the British Association for the
Raina and S Irfan Habib, 'The Unfolding graphy, pp 127-28. Advancement of Science, Hindusthan
of an Engagement: The Dawn on Science, 51 Brajendranath Seal, The Positive Sciences Standard, November 16,1941. The influence
Technical Education and Industrialisation', of the Ancient Hindus, London, 1915. of Saha, who had been a major campaigner
Studies in History 9 (1), January-June 4993, 52 P C Ray, Life and Experiences of a Bengali for automobiles produced in India, is apparent
p 15. See in particular Deepak Kumar's Chemist, p 163. here. See his editorials in Science and Culture,
discussion of the contours of 'colonial sci- 53 On hie subject of such discrimination see particularly IV, 5 (November 1938), and
ence', Science and the Raj, pp 1-15. P C Ray, Life and Experiences of a Bengali throughout the war years.
44 Ashis Nandy puts it strongly: "...modem Chemist, pp 79-82. 64 Satish Chandra Dasgupta, the Cow in India,
science which, though overtly universal, had 54 Cited above: Science and Culture IV, 10 Vol I- Breeding- Dairy Industries (Calcutta,
come to acquire an essentially western culture (April 1939), p 535. 1945); The Cow in India, Vol II - The Body
over the previous three hundred years'; in55 For instance, on 'romanticism' in science of the Cow - its Diseases and Treatment
a colonial society such associations 'were and its connections with 'Hinduness', David (Calcutta, 1945). Both volumes were
bound to make science a symbol of western Arnold, 'A Time for Science: Past and Present published by the Khadi Pratisthan, in May
intrusion': Ashis Nandy, Alternative in the Reconstruction of Hindu Science, 1860- and September, 1945 respectively.
Sciences: Creativity and Authenticity in Two 1920', in Daud Ali (ed), Invoking the Past: 65 M K Gandhi, Foreword, to Satish Chandra
Indian Scientists (Delhi, 1980; 2nd edn, The Uses of History in South Asia (Delhi, Dasgupta, The Cow in India, Vol I, p (i),
Delhi, 1995), p 19. This is of course too 1999); and David Arnold, Science, dated Mahabaleshwar, May 20,1945. Gandhi
strong a formulation, reflecting Nandy's own Technology and Medicine in Colonial Indiaadded, "It will interest the reader to know
agreement with strongly 'culturalist' (Cambridge, 2000), pp 169-76. that the author wrote the whole work during
positions. (An interesting shift in meaning 56 This is, for instance, reiterated several times
his recent imprisonment" in Alipur central
of the term 'culturalist' has come about over in Jawaharlal Nefiru, The Discovery of India. jail, from 1942. The author added, in his own
the last fifteen or so years; from being 57 P C Ray, Life and Experiences of a Bengali preface, that much of the book was based
derogatorily applied to deviant Marxists to Chemist, pp 361, 387-88, 392. on his own experiences in running the jail
being happily accepted by defenders of 58 P C Ray, Life and Experiences of a Bengali dairy in this and in previous spells of
essentialised 'traditions'.) Chemist, pp 140-42, 147. "Macaulay's imprisonment: Dasgupta, The Cow in India,
45 In this connection see the debates surrounding famous minute (1835) was in no small Vol I, p (iii).
the establishment of the Hindu College in measure responsible for the intellectual
66 See P C Ray, Life and Experiences of a
Calcutta, and subsequently of the Presidency renaissance of India, however much neo- Bengali Chemist (Calcutta and London,
College of Bengal, and the strong emphasis Hindu revivalists may take offense at some 1932), esp pp 129-51; for the context of PC
on the teaching of science therein; for the of the passages in it" (p 142). And (p 147)Ray's stature as a public figure, see the
highlighting of this argument, see Zachariah, where science should have flourished as a essays in the somewhat ironically-titled
Chakraborti and Ray, 'Presidency College, result of the 'ferment all around', Acharyya Ray Commemoration Volume
Calcutta: an Unfinished History'; see "[u]nfortunately, the Hindu intellect, lying (Calcutta, 1932), edited by Satya Chum Law,
especially my sections on the Hindu College dormant and fallow for ages, was overgrown afestschrift for the Acharya on the occasion
and on the relevance of the teaching of science. with rank weeds and brambles". of his 70th birthday, published half a year
46 See Ashis Nandy, Alternative Sciences; Sumit 59 P C Ray, Life and experiences of a Bengali late, but certainly during his lifetime.
Sarkar, The Swadeshi Movement in Bengal, Chemist, vol II (Calcutta, 1935), pp 333-43. 67 Dasgupta, The Cow in India, Vol I, p (vii).
1903-1908 (Calcutta, 1973); Raina and 60 See P C Ray, Life and Experiences of a Much of Dasgupta's opposition to the Royal
Habib, 'Bhadralok Perceptions...'; Raina and Bengali Chemist, p 259. Commission was due to the latter's
Habib, 'The Unfolding of an Engagement'. 61 On the 'Hinduness' of scienceandcivilisation recommendation that the buffalo was a more
47 Raina and Habib, 'Bhadralok Perceptions...', in India, and their decline from the time of useful agricultural animal than the cow;
pp 106, 114. the 'Muslim conquest', see P N Bose, A Dasgupta argued strenuously against that
48 P C Ray was an alumnus of Presidency History of Hindu Civilisation during British position: Chapter IV, pp 87-203. This caused
College, Calcutta, and joined the staff of its Rule, Vol 2 (Calcutta, 1894), and vol 3 Gandhi to emphasise, in his Foreword, that
chemistry department after returning from (Calcutta, 1896); Benoy Sarkar, Hindu this argument was not intended to imply that
Edinburgh with a DSc in 1889. He established Achievements in Exact Science (New York, the buffalo "should be killed or starved out",
a strong tradition of research in chemistry 1918). Such arguments are often dismissed merely that it should "not be favoured at the
at the college (during the period 1889-1916, as 'Hindu revivalist'; although they often expense of the cow'. Gandhi, 'Foreword",
77 original research papers were published were, the dismissiveness is unwarranted and p (i).
by him and his co-workers). He founded the retards a closer understanding of why they 68 Dasgupta, The Cow in India, Vol II, part VI,
Bengal Chemicals Swadeshi Works, which were so - they would merit closer attention pp 291-316; Gandhi, Hind Swaraj, in A J
became celebrated in the period of the on the grounds that they were often not Parel (ed), Gandhi: Hind Swaraj and Other
Swadeshi movement as an exemplar of the directly or instrumentally sectarian or anti- Writings (Cambridge, 1997), p 64.
possibilities of Indian entrepreneurship. Muslim; and they drew strongly on 69 Dasgupta, The Cow in India, Vol I, p (vii).
Prafulla Chandra Ray, Life and Experiences conventions of metropolitan academic writing 70'Dasgupta, The Cow in India, Vol I, p (viii).
of a Bengali Chemist (Calcutta, 1932); Sumit in their references to and mixing of the 71 P C Ray, Life and Experiences of a Bengali
Sarkar, The Swadeshi Movement in Bengal categories of 'Hindu' and 'Aryan' - see for Chemist, p 28.
1903-1905, pp 95, 125, 498-99; Zachariah, instance PN Bose, A History of Hindu 72 NPC Report, pp 207-08.
Chakraborti and Ray, 'Presidency College, Civilisation During British Rule, Vol 1 73 NPC Report, pp 148-49.
Calcutta: an Unfinished History', p 332. (Calcutta, 1894), p 20; Vol 2, pp 1-5. See 74 NPC Report, p 114. At this time, Nehru was
49 Prafulla Chandra Ray, The History of Hindu also below, on race and national discipline. in Europe, establishing his solidarity with
Chemistry (2 Vols, 1902 and 1908). The 62 It is impossible to do justice to P C Ray's anti-Fascist and socialist forces. See his
influence of P C Ray was acknowledged by regular contributions to the National Herald
work in a short summary; but see for instance
S S Bhatnagar in a letter to Meghnad Saha: his critical remarks on the close links of in that year.
'the guiding spirit invisibly working within Hindu chemistry with medicine on the one 75 This was the phrase used by Subhas Chandra
Bose in an interview with Rajani Palme Dutt material and social environment which it Studies 31, 2 (1997), though Watt's concern
of the CPGB in 1938. Palme Dutt asked him imposes on them" (p 141). But he agreed, is not with the significance of this confusion
to comment on his view of Fascism in the 'That imbeciles should be sterilised is of in terminology. That a concern with 'Hindu'
light of his remarks on Fascism in his book course unquestionable' (p 138). nationhood tended to exclude or alienate
The Indian Struggle. Bose replied: minorities who could not be discussed in
77 On Keynes' encounters with the Galton
My political ideas have developed further Laboratory, see the public exchanges betweensuch terms has often been pointed out before,
since I wrote my book three years ago. Keynes and Karl Pearson (1857-1936, to the extent of having replaced the old
What I really meant was that we in India professor of applied maths and mechanics nationalist tales of triumphant mass
wanted our national freedom, and having at University College, London; in 191 1, upon mobilisation interrupted by 'communalism'
won it, we wanted to move in the direction Galton's death, he became Galton Professor caused by British divide-and-rule strategies
of Socialism. This is what I meant when of Eugenics, which he remained until 1933: in many textbooks. However, there is now
I referred to "a synthesis between Commu- see Dictionary of National Biography 1931- a tendency to carry the argument too far in
nism and Fascism". Perhaps the expression 1940 (Oxford, 1949, pp 681-84) in 1910 an opposite direction: namely, that all
was not a happy one. But I should like to over a study of 'the influence of parental mainstream .Indian nationalist ideologues
point out that when I was writing the book, alcoholism on the physique and ability of the leaned towards an exclusionary and
Fascism had not started on its imperialist offspring', reprinted in The Collected consciously 'Hindu' movement, provoking
expedition, and it appeared to me merely Writings of John Maynard Keynes, Vol XI necessarily separate minority, and especially
an aggressive form of nationalism. (London, 1983), pp 186-216 - categories Muslim, nationalisms: see Peter van der Veer,
Subhas Bose, quoted from 'Report of an such as 'feeble-mindedness' and 'racial Religious Nationalism: Hindus and Muslims
interview with R Palme Dutt', published in in India (Berkeley, 1994); and against this,
difference' in samples from Manchester and
the Daily Worker, London, January 24, 1938, Edinburgh were hotly debated in terms of Benjamin Zachariah' s review, Modern Asian
reprinted in Sisir Kumar Bose and Sugata the representativeness of the sample -Studies
a 32, 1 (1998). Once again, those who
Bose (eds), Netaji Collected Works, Volume debate which was given much of its heat used such arguments included some who
9: Congress President: Speeches, Articles built their solidarity around anti-Muslim
because of its importance in connection with
and Letters, January 1938-May 1939 (Delhi, sentiment, and others who sought to include
the claims of temperance reformers, but which
1995), p 2. The 'imperialism' of Fascists did was conducted in terms of the discipline ofMuslims and other minorities in their
not prevent Bose from seeking an alliance nationalism through various devices - the
statistics. Keynes argued that the Edinburgh
with the Axis powers during the second Swadeshi movement had appealed to the
population in particular was of low quality,
world war. therefore biasing the study: "...the authors
Muslims as brothers, using the rakhi- tying
76 On the history of eugenics and its uses in are comparing drunken stock with bad sub- ceremony, usually performed by sisters on
political argument from the turn of the century normal sober stock, and find, naturally brothers, to indicate this tie. Rabindranath
onwards, see GR Searle, Eugenics and enough, that there is not much to choose
Tagore, who had. been prominent in the
Politics in Britain 1900-1914 (Leyden, 1976); between them" (p 195, emphasis in original)Swadeshi movement, was later to realise the
Daniel J Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics: - or in Pearson's paraphrase of his argument,
limitations of such strategies of creating cross-
Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity community solidarities; others were less
that the Edinburgh sample was from "an
(New York, 1985); Donald K Pickens, aware of this. Gandhi was later to use a
exceptionally "low grade" population in
Eugenics and the Progressives (Nashville, which "physical and moral squalor are strategy of coalition of specifically religious
Tennessee, 1968), pp 3-36, and especially feelings in the Non-Cooperation/Khilafat
rampant" (p 205) - therefore the differences
pp 23-36 on Francis Galton, the man who in degeneracy between the alcoholics and movement. See Sumit Sarkar, The Swadeshi
coined the term and was regarded as the non-alcoholics would not be significant.
Movement in Bengal, 1903-1908, pp 287,
founder of eugenics; on liberal and socialist 426; Modern India 1885-1947 (Madras,
Pearson argued that the sample was quite
interpretations of eugenics, see Marouf Arif representative. In this debate on the 1983), pp 196-97, 233-34.
Hasian Jr, The Rhetoric ofEugenics in Anglo- interpretation of figures, Keynes' absolute 79 See Norman Cohn, Warrant for Genocide
American Thought (Athens, Georgia, 1996), contempt for people from 'low districts' (London, 1967), pp 110-11 ; see also Gandhi's
pp 112-138. For an account of the German comes across clearly; neither Keynes nor remarks on the sources he read on Hinduism,
case, not limited to the Nazi period, see Paul Pearson questioned the validity of figures MK Gandhi, An Autobiography, or The Story
Weindling, Health, Race and German derived from measurements of Manchester of My Experiments with Truth (2 Vols,
Politics between National Unification and and Edinburgh schoolchildren by an Ahmedabad, 1927 and 1929; this edn
Nazism (Cambridge, 1989); on eugenics Anthropometric Committee. Keynes Harmondsworth, 1982), pp 76-77. See also
outside Europe and North America, see Nancy continued to take the categories of theTheosophical Society's journal, TheAryan
Leys Stepan, 'The Hour of Eugenics': Race, anthropometrics as valid, and discussed them Path.
Gender and Nation in Latin America (Ithaca, in his Treatise on Probability (1921); his 80 Henry E Roseboom and Cedric Dover, 'The
1991). On the continued respectability of bibliography cites a good deal of Pearson's Eurasian Community as a Eugenic Problem',
eugenics in the 1930s, see Third International work: The Collected Writings of John in Third International Conference on
Conference on Eugenics, 1932, A Decade of Maynard Keynes, Vol VIII (London, 1973), Eugenics, 1932, A Decade of Progress in
Progress in Eugenics (Baltimore, 1934; pp 498-99. Eugenics.
reprint, New York, 1984). Progressives were 78 In this connection, see Christophe Jaffrelot, 81 Mahalanobis, as mentioned before, was at
well represented: one participant argued that 'The Idea of the Hindu Race in the Writings the time only peripherally connected with the
"fundamental economic forces" were at work of Hindu Nationalist Ideologues in the 1920s debates on Indian development planning -
which were "quite beyond the control of us and 1930s: A Concept between Two he offered to examine all the NPC's reports
as eugenists"; that unfortunately "Galton lived Cultures', in Peter Robb (ed), The Concept from a 'purely statistical point of view': see
too early to appreciate the principle brought of Race in South Asia (Delhi, 1995); for the above.
out by Marx" (H J Muller, of the University tendency to see caste in terms of race, and 82 Mahalanobis was at Presidency College from
of Texas, 'The Dominance of Economics the importance of the category 'Aryan' in 1915 to 1948, teaching physics, with spells
over Eugenics', p 139); but nonetheless saw 19th and early 20th century British colonial as acting principal, head of the department
a role for eugenics, in 'scientific birth control' ethnography - and the tendency of Indian of physics, and Principal. Employed as a
and 'the actual increase of those having the writers to absorb these then state-of-the-art physics teacher, he was far more interested
more valuable genes', to which ends economic academic concerns, see Susan Bayly, 'Caste in conducting his statistical research, the
obstacles had to be removed (p 140). He and "Race" in the Colonial Ethnography of college playing host, in a crner of the physics
called for a 'revolutionary attitude towards India'; on anthropometry and its colonial department, to his statistical laboratory, which
women' and asked, "Do male eugenists suffer uses, see Crispin Bates, 'Race, Caste and was later to grow into the Indian Statistical
from the illusion that most intelligent women Tribe in Central India: The Early Origins of Institute. Indian Statistical Institute, History
love to be pregnant...?" (pp 140-41). The Indian Anthropometry', both in Robb (ed), and Activities, 1931-1963 (Calcutta, nd), pp
economic system, he argued, "acts to foil the The Concept of Race in South Asia. See also 1-11. His first encounter with the discipline
true purposes of eugenics by masking the Carey Watt, 'Education for National of statistics was apparently through thejournal
genetic constitution of individuals and of Efficiency: Constructive Nationalism in Biometrika at Cambridge; on his return to
vast groups through the gross inequalities of North India, 1909-1916', Modern Asian India, Sir Brajendranath Seal, professor of
philosophy at Calcutta University, asked him p 335. Risley wrote in the 1890s, and greatly the responsibility for which I am not fitted.
to work with some figures relating to Calcutta annoyed many Bengalis by concluding that Let it be thrown on the political and industrial
University examination results. Seal was they were not Aryan but 'Mongolo- leaders". Saha to Bhatnagar, March 29, 1940,
himself acquainted with the statistical Dravidian'. See H H Risley, The Tribes and Meghnad Saha papers, NML, correspondence
methods in use at the time, and gave Castes of Bengal: Ethnographic Glossary with S S Bhatnagar, f 7. Saha made the same
Mahalanobis detailed guidelines on what to (2 Vols, Calcutta, 1891); HH Risley, The point in writing to the government: Saha to
do, the latter's first encounter with actual Tribes and Castes of Bengal: Anthropo- Ramaswami Mudaliar, March 20, 1940,
statistical analysis. Rudra, Prasanta Chandra metric Data (2 Vols, Calcutta, 1891). Meghnad Saha papers, NML, correspondence
Mahalanobis: A Biography, pp 127-28. Mahalanobis himself took a moderate line, with Ramaswami Mudaliar, ff 7-11.
83 Trunk T-2, P C Mahalanobis Archive, Indian arguing that 'social barriers and caste restric- 97 Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and its
Statistical Institute, Calcutta. tions' had not succeeded in suppressing inter- Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial
84 Indian Statistical Institute, History and mingling of the 'indigenous stock in Bengal Histories (Princeton, 1993), p 205.
Activities, 1931-1963 , p 1. with the north-east tribes and the aboriginal98 See for instance Eric Hobsbawm, The Age
85 Karl Pearson (1857-1936), sometime tribes from Chota Nagpur; as a consequence of Capital (London, 1975); TheAge of Empire
professor of applied maths and mechanics 'a larger Hindu Samaj has evolved which is (London, 1987).
at University College, London, founded not only not identical with the traditional99 See for instance the exchange between Keynes
in 1901, along with Francis Galton, the society of Vedic or classic times but is in and Pearson, cited above.
journal Biometrika. In 1911, upon Galton's many respects even antagonistic. Sectarian100 Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought
death, he became Galton Professor of obstacles have not proved insormountable...'. and the Colonial World: A Derivative
Eugenics, which he remained until 1933. Mahalanobis, 'Analysis of Race Mixture in Discourse? (London, 1986); Raghabendra
Pearson was a barrister, and in his early years Bengal', pp 322-23. He nonetheless seems Chattopadhyay, 'The Idea of Planning i
lectured on maths and physics, philosophy to have accepted the idea of a racially pure India'; Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and it
and medieval languages, and talked on 'traditional' Vedic society, which raises Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial
Lassalle and Marx at revolutionary clubs uncomfortable questions about his own views Histories (Princeton, 1994); and others,
in Soho on Sundays. See DNB 1931-1940, on caste. after Antonio Gramsci, 'Notes on Italian
pp 681-84, which, however, makes no91 The only article on industry he wrote before
History', Selections front the Prison Note-
references to Pearson's politics - for which, the Planning Commission papers was one books
for (London, 1971).
and for Mahalanobis' contributions to the Meghnad Saha's new journal, Science 101 For
anda discussion of intellectuals and their
field of population genetics, see R L Kirk, Culture: P C Mahalanobis, 'Application social of role, see Antonio'Gramsci, Selections
'P C Mahalanobis and Population Genetics Statistical Methods in Industry', Science from and the Prison Notebooks, pp 5-18. The
in India', Samvadhvam: House Journal of Culture 1 (1935), pp 73-78. Gramscian debate is concerned with who
the Indian Statistical Institute, Vol 10, 92
For instance the RSS: see WK Andersen and leads the revolution, passive or otherwise,
Nos 1-4 (P C Mahalanobis Memorial SD Damle, The Brotherhood in Saffron: the or movement of emancipation otherwise
Volume), December 1974. Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Hindu defined; the leadership question itself, as
86 P C Mahalanobis, 'Anthropological Revivalism (Boulder, Colorado, 1987). far as India is concerned, has been
Observations on the Anglo-Indians of 93 Subhas Bose to Amita Purkayastha, somewhat diverted by the debate over
Calcutta, Part I: Analysis of Male Stature', September 3, 1938, reprinted in Sisir Kumar whether businessmen benefitted from the
Records of the Indian Museum, Vol XXIII, Bose and Sugata Bose (eds), Netaji Collected post-independence order of things, despite
April 1922, p 7. Works, Volume 9, p 271. Translated from the claims to socialism of nationalist
87 Annandale clarified that he meant Eurasians, Bengali. politicians, or not. But leadership of th
as the new terminology agreed upon by the 94 Several articles in the Modern Review in the nationalist movement was provided by th
government of India went, to avoid the 1920s, for instance by Benoy Sarkar, express 'traditional intellectuals' - who have been
derogatory connotations of the term 'Eur- this fascination. Acharya P C Ray, a professed influentially described in the Indian context
asian'. Annandale, Introductory Note, to Gandhian, quoted Mussolini; P C Ray, The as a separate class by Pranab Bardhan, The
Mahalanobis, 'Anthropological Observations Life and Experiences of a Bengali Chemist, Political Economy of Development in India
on the Anglo-Indians of Calcutta, Part I', p 1. p 259. Rabindranath Tagore accepted an (Oxford, 1984).
88 Annandale's note contains an involved invitation from Mussolini to visit Italy in 102 Amiya Kumar Bagchi, Private Investment in
debate on racial categories, relative purity 1926, with P C Mahalanobis and his wife India, 1900-1939 (Cambridge, 1972), pp
of blood, 'civilised and uncivilised tribes, joining him as travel companions. 210-11, 350-51. In this campaign, he had
'recent Negro blood', 'persons of mixed (Mahalanobis moved on to London and from also used the historian Radha Kumud
blood', and so on. Annandale, Introductory January 1927 spent some months at Karl Mookerji as an intellectual ally - Mookerji's
Note, to Mahalanobis, 'Anthropological Pearson's laboratory). Rudra, Prasanta History of Indian Shipping justified
Observations on the Anglo-Indians of Chandra Mahalanobis: A Biography, p 106. Hirachand's position by referring to India'
Calcutta, Part I', p 1. 95 Visvesvaraya, Planned Economy for India, glorious past of shipping and maritim
89 Mahalanobis, 'Anthropological Observations p 220. commerce - in which the technologica
on the Anglo-Indians of Calcutta, Part I', 96 Although the importance of technology was achievements of Indian shipbuilders wer
Appendix I: Note on Statistical Terms, p 94. strongly argued by Science and Culture - highlighted. See Radha Kumud Mookerji, A
90 P C Mahalanobis, 'Analysis of Race Mixture as well as by Visvesvaraya in all his speeches History of Indian Shipping and Maritim
in Bengal', Journal of the Asiatic Society and writings (see also Visvesvaraya Papers, Activity from the Earliest Times (London
of Bengal XXIII (1927), pp 301-33; P C NML, Microfilm) - there was also a sense 1912).
Mahalanobis, 'Revision of Risley's Anthro- that the connection between science and 103 M Visvesvaraya Papers, NML, Microfilm;
pometric Data relating to the Tribes and technology or industrial research could be Visvesvaraya, Reconstruction in Post-War
Castes of Bengal', (Abstract), Proceedings pushed to extreme lengths. In 1940 India, pp 10-15; M Visvesvaraya, Indian
of the Indian Science Congress (Nagpur) 18, Meghnad Saha wrote to his fellow scientist Automobile Factory Scheme: Government
(1931), p 411 (a version of this paper was S S Bhatnagar, in connection with the of India's Obstructive Attitude (Bombay,
published in the first issue of Mahalanobis' proposed scientific and industrial research 1942), All-IndiaManufacturers' Organisation
ownjournal, Sankhya, thejournal of the Indian board to be set up by the government, that pamphlet, copy in Walchand Hirachand
Statistical Institute, founded in 1933; Sankhya though such a board was necessary and in Archive, NML, File 563, ff 10-60;
1, 1933, pp 76-105); P C Mahalanobis, fact long overdue, it was necessary to make M Visvesvaraya's address to the AIMO,
'Revision oPRisley's Anthropometric Data a distinction between scientific research and reported in the Hindustan Standard, January
relating to the Chittagong Hill Tribes' (Ab- industrial research to avoid disappointing 15, 1942; news item, 'Visvesvaraya Exposes
stract), Proceedings of the Indian Science the public or inviting government accusations India Govt's Tactics', Bombay Chronicle,
Congress (Bangalore), Anthropology Sec- of making money. He cited the experience July 17, 1942.
tion 19, (1932), p 424; Sankhya 1, 1934, pp of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, 104 He referred to the scheme as 'Sir Vishveshva
267-76; PC Mahalanobis, 'Analysis of Racial as an example, stated that many industries Aiya's Motor Mfg Scheme'. Letter to
Likeness in Bengal Castes' (Abstract), Pro- that needed setting up, needed protection, Lalchand Hirachand, July 9,1939, Walchand
ceedings of the Indian Science Congress not research, and added, "I, as a scientific Hirachand Archives, File No 552 Part I,
(Calcutta), Anthropology Section 22, (1935), man [sic], do not wish to take upon myself Vol II, f 265, NML.

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Uses of Scientific Argument: The Case of 'Development' in India, c 1930-1950

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