Abstract
Science, War and Imperialism by Jagadish N. Sinha is a welcome publication on the state of science and technology in India during the Second World War. It is probably one of the few books on the subject, for which not only the author but also the editors of the series and its publisher deserve our appreciation. There are books on the Second World War by such authors as Bisheshwar Prasad, Johannes H. Vogt and S.B. Singh, but they deal generally with politics, war and economy; the present book is the only one focused on science and technology.
In its seven chapters, the author has focussed on the interaction between science, war and imperialism, in the background of the colonial policy in India during the Second World War. It deals with the interface of science and empire, highlighting how science and technology became a victim of the imperial control during the war. The principal question appearing on the blurb of the book—‘why could not the Second World War catalyse science in India as it did in the West?’ and the question is answered in the main text. The factors and forces responsible are identified and developments and the issues involved are presented coherently and analysed meticulously.
The book opens with a discussion on the meaning and social perspectives of science with reference particularly to war and imperialism (Introduction). The second chapter brings the focus on India as a colony of the British Empire and discusses the background to the developments during the Second World War. Here the imperial policy and the material realities in India are brought face to face. Nationalism is pitted against imperialism and myriads of factors and forces active underneath the developments are delineated and analysed. India’s indigenous resources—scientific and cultural heritage—and the contemporaries who mattered (Gandhi, Nehru and M.N. Saha) are called for to square up with the exploitative regime of the British Raj. The third chapter goes at length to discuss how the scientific and technical resources of India were managed and exploited to meet the exigencies of the war. Various areas of the subject are studied in detail, such as technical education, scientific and industrial research, agriculture and allied sciences, medical science and public health, and transport and communications. A whole chapter (fourth chapter) is devoted to those areas of scientific application where the colonial policy was indifferent, wavering or selective. The fifth chapter deals with science in the context of post-war reconstruction, in which the author uncovers the forces that would influence the future developments in India and the world—retreat of the Imperial Britain from India and a forceful entry of the USA on the Indian scene, heralding neo-colonialism on the Indian subcontinent and beginning of the Cold War. The next chapter takes stock of the colonial endeavours to organise and control science and technology in India in a way so that she remained a friendly partner in the post-war world order. While the conclusion recapitulates the major issues and developments discussed in the preceding chapters, it brings to the fore certain concerns in newer perspectives that may engage future researchers for answer—Was the victory of the Allies over Japan after the nuclear holocaust also the victory of the Western science and technology over the Eastern culture, crippling the latter’s progress to a virtual doom, for example?
Of the many issues addressed in the book, we may reflect on some of them. First of all, though India’s relation with Britain as one of a coloniser and a colony is not a new fact, what draws our attention in the book is its varied dimensions and their implications for the progress of science and technology in India. In that, the British tendency to exploit India’s scientific resources initially for the Empire and finally for the World War in various ways is perceptible throughout the book. In this context, the conflict between the colonial policy on the one hand and nationalism and indigenous tradition and response on the other, are thoroughly discussed (Chapter 2). The inherent racial discrimination and conflict of interests between colonialism and nationalism, discussed in the first chapter and elsewhere, vitiated into colonial intrigues—as in connection with the affairs of the Indian Institute of Science (pp. 49–50) and communal considerations in recordkeeping of the scientific and technical manpower around the war (pp. 49, 180) and the total segregation of India—the ‘Jewell in the Crown’—from the secret Allied initiatives (p. 128) are some of the major highlights of Sinha’s narrative. Likewise, entry of the USA in the India affairs under the Allied technical cooperation leading to an Anglo-American rivalry in the Indian affairs appears to have been discussed for the first time in such a detail and meaningful perspective. The political and diplomatic contents of the Allied cooperation are fairly known; but the fact that a friendly mission under an American Under-Secretary Grady to advise on how to develop India for victory in the global war would lead to a mutual rivalry between the two friends is a revelation from this book. Notably, this rivalry turned into a mutual bitterness on the question of India’s development and freedom (pp. 63–65). The episode had serious repercussion for India’s international relations and for her approaches to national reconstruction in the future. This historical reconstruction gives a clear perspective for understanding the entry of neo-colonialism in the Indian subcontinent and the beginning of the Cold War in the world (pp. 160, 198; p. 122).
In the free flowing narrative, certain cultural issues emerge for contemplation: The meaning and scope of science in the Asian/Indian milieu is discussed in the background of India’s indigenous heritage and the modern science of the West; and Indian savants, like Anand K. Coomarswamy, Rabindranath Tagore and Gandhi, are made to speak their mind against the background of international developments—Russia’s national reconstruction on modern lines, the Social Functions of Science Movement in Britain and their echoes in India, as well as the cultural implications of the Second World War for the East.
The book ends with mixed feelings: The author recollects how the World War gave impetus to local economies and scientific developments in the advanced countries; but the process in India was weak and insignificant—uneven, lopsided and illusory. India lost an opportunity to boost her scientific progress. As ‘a matter of fact the influence of colonialism was so deep rooted and crippling that even one of the most powerful catalysts to science and technology – the war – failed to take them out of the colonial rut and put them on a natural course of progress fully’, Sinha laments (p. 192). However, ‘at long last India had at least broken out of the British monopoly of exploitative control; and thanks to the war, she had now more options before her to look for help. In place of Britain, she could now seek help from America, which supported the cause of liberal democracy, and follow her model of progress, or from the Soviet Union which beckoned the poor and the backward of nations to a new horizon of hope’, reassures the author (p. 202).
There are certain areas, however, about which a curious reader would have liked to know more, such as environment, as the global war entailed huge ecological and environmental degradation and about the state of the indigenous knowledge and crafts of the Assam region which was directly affected by the war. And lastly the price: in spite of its very rich contents, the book is inaccessible on account of its exorbitant price. At US$132 (quoted on Brill home page) and selling in India for up to ₹11,000, it is too costly for most of the Asian readers to afford. Therefore, in view of its great value and immediate relevance for the region, the book must be brought out in a cheaper Asian edition by a publishing major.
Overall, Sinha has produced a well-researched, heavily documented and carefully crafted book of immense value. In getup and production quality also the book is world class and fully lives up to the expectations from a publisher like Brill. The variety and volume of sources used in the book are astounding. They have been collected, besides the numerous locations in India, from the premier repositories in the UK, the USA, France, Canada and elsewhere. The thirty-five page ‘Bibliography’ is the reflection of the massive research exercise that has gone into the making of the book. A truly interdisciplinary work, it is sure to attract scholars from many other disciplines, and shall be a useful addition to the growing literature on the history of science and technology in south Asia.