“Living Physics, Non-Living Physics, Indian Physics: Jagadish Chandra Bose”

SOMADITYA BANERJEE (Austin Peay State University)

Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858-1937) was a very influential physicist cum plant physiologist living in colonial India. Being mentored by a Belgian Jesuit Father Eugene Lafont at St. Xavier’s College, Calcutta, Bose was instrumental in mentoring the first generation of Indian physicists—most notably Satyendranath Bose, Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman and Meghnad Saha. He established the Bose Institute in Calcutta in 1916. His initial scientific work focused on the generation and reception of electrical waves from 1895 to 1902. Later, between 1903 and 1934, Bose switched his research to electro-physiology—i.e. how plants respond to external stimuli. He earned a D.Sc from London University in 1896 and was honored with a knighthood in 1917.

However, there has been precious little work on J.C. Bose apart from an isolated monograph by Subrata Dasgupta in 2000. Historians of science working on South Asia have preferred to focus on the Indian nuclear program with an emphasis on Indian physicist Homi Bhabha and Jawaharlal Nehru—the first prime minister of independent India.

This paper aims to show that science in South Asia had a humbler yet romantic origin, similar but independent of the 'naturphilosophie' movement in Germany. Focusing especially on Bose’s career, I will argue that in spite of having an indigenous side, Bosean science also displayed multifarious influences which cannot be neatly conceptualized. Instead, one needs a multi-dimensional analysis which takes into account the cultural influences as well as the content of science to appreciate the origins of this romantic Indian science.

“‘The Free Side of the Meter’: Improper Use of Electricity and Middle-class Identity in Urban Colonial India”

Animesh Chatterjee (Leeds Trinity University)

This paper follows recent works on users and non-users of technologies to explore the ‘improper use’ of electric supply in urban colonial India. The term ‘improper use’ is used broadly here to refer to a variety of practices that electric supply companies believed to be interferences to their property. These included theft of electricity by bypassing meters, breaking seals on electric meters, or using electricity for purposes other than that for which it was supplied to the customer. The paper argues that such non-prescribed uses of electricity, studied by scholars as forms of resistance to a new technology, were becoming increasingly common within the middle class, and were linked to class politics in colonial India. Considering some of the diverse motivations that led to such practices, this paper will argue that prescribed and non-prescribed uses of electricity supply were parallel to and contiguous with the historical rise of the Indian middle class based on contradictory stances on colonial rule, Indian nationalism, domesticity and the meanings of respectability. This paper, through an examination of newspaper reports and documents of the colonial administration, aims to provide new perspectives on the history of technology and modern Indian history by studying how consumers, suppliers and promoters of electricity interacted during the early days of the electrification of urban colonial India.

“Modernity, Women and Science- Reading Vernacular Popular Science Literature in India 1847-1957”

Urmila Unnikrishnan (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi)

The paper is located within the framework of the history of science popularisation and feminist history of colonial science. It examines science related literature in Malayalam (a language in South India) women’s magazines between 1847and 1957, and tries to contextualise it within the history of the construction of the modern women. I try to explain that science was an integral part of the process of construction of the modern women and we see an assertion of this in women’s magazines. Scholars of gender history in India consider women’s magazines as an important source to understand the formation of gendered subjectivities under colonial rule. These magazines served an important role in the institutionalisation of the modern domestic space and the establishment of women within it. They have been understood variously as sites for casting and recasting the ideal of women, articulation of agency of women, and also as sites for negotiating nationalist patriarchal concerns. However, the role of science in engendering these discourses is overlooked, and a large number of science articles in these magazines go unnoticed. The fact that this lacuna persists despite a rich body of feminist studies of science hints on the disjuncture between the history of women and history of science, especially in colonial context.

This study on science literature in women’s magazine helps toward covering that gap and also underlines the relevance of vernacular popular science literature in the history of colonial science. Focusing on the vernacular also contributes to counter the dominant nationalist frames of history of science.

“Readership, Approaches and Science Popularization in Hindi in Colonial India (1860–1947)”

Pooja Mishra (Jawharlal Nehru University, New Delhi)

History of science as a discipline provides a significant hold to understand the evolution of any civilization or society as whole. There has been various historiographical concern within the history of science, and popularization of science is one of those concern. The proposed paper is about popularization of science in Hindi. Historians of social history of science in colonial India have revealed the responses toward the introduction of modern science in colonial India, how it was perceived, assimilated and disseminated by the recipient culture. This involves investigating the different socio-cultural contexts of the adaptation and dissemination of science in culture. To unearth the social roots and contexts of science it is necessary to study the processes and actors involved in the vernacularisation of Western scientific knowledge. Thus, the discussions entail studying the science education in Hindi in North Western Province, the availability of sources in terms of textbooks, the relation between textbook production and education system, and its expansion. This discussion provides a context to understand the emergence of science education in Hindi. Majorly, the relationship between science education, print culture and Hindi nationalism is discussed. It follows the account of ascent of Hindi as a language, its acquiring the status as a prominent language of the region, and its incorporation into the education system as medium of instruction. This in turn entails an exploration of the institutions and intellectuals involved in the popularization of science.