Abstract
The book under review is an attempt to resolve an intellectually stimulating question within the purview of reception of modern science in colonial Bengal: What are the historical–sociological processes of institutionalisation of scientific research through the medium of interaction between individual agents and cultural agencies? Asoke Basu and Saibal Datta attempt to resolve this by examining the engagement between traditional and modern knowledge systems to identify the links between agent and agency—capacity of an agent (individual or community)—to interact in the society. The authors locate five reforms or vernacular movements, viz. (a) Navya-Nyaya: cognitive linguistics, (b) Sri Chaitanya and spiritual humanism, (c) Sufi aesthetic ecstasy, (d) Brahmo Samaj and its two successive variants, and (e) Ramakrishna-Vivekananda neo-Vedanta Order, which grew to become the harbinger of modern science in colonial India.
The book under review is divided into eight chapters. The first chapter captures the rise of modern science in colonial Bengal. The second chapter is a comprehensive review of literature by identifying three models of scholarship, viz. (a) ideational (prescriptive), (b) hagiographical (borrowed from ancient texts), and (c) material (Marxist). The third chapter analyses why modern science education was the timely anodyne to much delayed institutional reforms. The fourth and fifth chapters demonstrate how over four centuries, 1500s to 1800s, Bengal mind steadily expanded the institutional corridors of culture of both universal and temporal knowledge. The sixth chapter depicts the lived narratives of the growth of science organisations. The seventh and eighth chapters capture the profiles of Akshaykumar Datta and Mahendralal Sircar, respectively.
The institutionalisation of modern or Western science in India began with the establishment of the Great Surveys—the Geological, the Botanical and the Trigonometric—under the inspired impetus of the Asiatic Society of Bengal inaugurated in 1784. This was followed by the establishment of universities in the port towns of Bombay, Calcutta and Madras in 1857. This period saw the consolidation of British rule in India, especially with the failure of the First Indian War of Independence of 1857. The British rule in India was primarily based on its improved mode of production—improved technology, organisational abilities, etc. It was important for the colonial government to maintain its superiority, if it were to continue its rule. Colonisation is always inimical to any organised development of creativity amongst the colonised. As India was a large country to be governed, the British realised that it was important to have a cadre of well-trained Indians in all areas, including science and technology. Therefore, the British set up a small number of universities loosely based on the British pattern in the 19th century. Till 1850 India had only one university, founded at Serampore near Calcutta in 1818 by a group called The Danes, it was primarily a theological university. Between 1850 and 1900, five more universities were set up at Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, Allahabad and the erstwhile-undivided Punjab, intending to cover the entire country. The first two medical colleges were set up at Madras and Calcutta in 1835. The first scientific research organisation set up by an Indian, Mahendra Lal Sircar, was the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science at Calcutta in 1876. At the end of the 19th century, India had a total of six science-related societies (including the Asiatic Society of Bombay, set up in 1804), out of which two were professional societies: the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of India (1820, Calcutta), and the Bombay Natural History Society (1883). However, we must remember that modern science was not introduced in a vacuum that we had a rich tradition of knowledge systems, including positive sciences and that some of them like ayurveda and astronomy were more democratised than perhaps modern science, then or now.
The introduction of modern science in colonial Bengal must be put in perspective. The native intellectuals were quick to take note of the introduction of modern science in colonial Bengal. They had two options: the first option was to convince themselves that the best products of modern science were already anticipated by what they considered to be the national philosophy of India, namely the Vedanta. Such effort aimed at internalising an alien system of knowledge on the one hand and exhibiting rational and empirical significance of the Vedantic thought which was treated at best as ethno-philosophical by the Western philosophical world, on the other. It is this concern that has been expressed in the works of Vivekananda, Aurobindo and many others. The second option was to build an indigenous tradition of modern science by establishing scientific institutions for pedagogy and research.
The colonial government started building scientific organisations to use the knowledge generated by the institutions for gaining better understanding of the territory, climate, flora and fauna of the colony to administer the colony and perhaps exploit the resources in a more efficient manner. The first generation of nationalist scientists attempted to build scientific institutions and showed enthusiasm to embrace modernity. Modern science may be construed as an attempt to get closer to the colonial rulers. On the contrary, those who were suspicious of things Western or modern, including modern science, cannot be viewed as anti-science. Some of them at least perceived modern science as part of colonial dispensation and alien imposition. Such ambivalence towards modern science should be situated within the gamut of broader socioeconomic, politico-cultural and ideological factors.
No doubt, the Basu and Datta’s book is an important contribution to thought provoking questions within philosophy, history and sociology of science.
The authors do not suggest that there constitutes a binary between science and religion, between faith and reason. Nonetheless, inclination towards science itself is a severe attack on the sovereignty of religion.