History of Science, Technology, Environment, and Medicine in India

Description

This volume studies the concept and relevance of HISTEM (History of Science, Technology, Environment, and Medicine) in shaping the histories of colonial and postcolonial South Asia. Tracing its evolution from the establishment of the East India Company through to the early decades after the Independence of India, it highlights the ways in which the discipline has changed over the years and examines the various influences that have shaped it. Drawing on extensive case studies, the book offers valuable insights into diverse themes such as the East-West encounter, appropriation of new knowledge, science in translation and communication, electricity and urbanization, the colonial context of engineering education, science of hydrology, oil and imperialism, epidemic and empire, vernacular medicine, gender and medicine, as well as environment and sustainable development in the colonial and post-colonial milieu. An indispensable text on South Asia’s experience of modernity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of modern South Asian studies, modern Indian history, sociology, history of science, cultural studies, colonialism, as well as studies on Science, Technology and Society (STS).   Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Table of Contents List of contributors Foreword Acknowledgements List of abbreviations Introduction On methods, questions, and theory Science and society Technology and culture Environmental issues Medical encounters Epilogue Notes Section I: Science and society Chapter 1: Medicine, natural history and the curious case of Soorjo Coomar Goodeve Chuckerbutty Notes Chapter 2: Examining the foundations of science: An essay on Ramendra Sundar Trivedi’s epistemological inquiries Part I: introduction A note on the approach The thinker Intellectual temperament and tendencies Part II: the philosophical backdrop Empiricism and experience Phenomenalism, pragmatism, and the biological approach to knowledge Another aspect of the biological approach to knowledge Part III: elements of Trivedi’s epistemology Physical science Remarks on orthography and usage The notion of normalized experience The first incongruity A clarificatory digression The reasons for the usefulness of the byabahārik jagat Two related points The law of nature—another digression The second incongruity Space and its forms The third incongruity Creation and joy Part IV: in lieu of an epilogue Notes Chapter 3: Professor Balaji Prabhakar Modak: A forgotten science propagator Introduction Professor Modak’s life and work Marathi books on science Views on Indian language terminology and science literature Science exhibitions – a herald of science in the southern Maratha country A champion of science education and a missionary Science and Swadeshi movement The industrial survey of Kolhapur Modak, the historian Place in the history of modern Maharashtra and India Notes Chapter 4: Cultural politics of engagement: Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad and the shaping of a scientific-citizen public in Kerala Introduction Emergence of science activism in Europe Cultural politics of public engagement in India KSSP and the constitution of the scientific-citizen publics Conclusion Notes Section II: Technology and culture Chapter 5: Electricity and urbanization in Madras, 1895–1930 Electricity and urbanization Tramcars: a modern transport Electric light: symbol of new culture Notes Chapter 6: Academic engineering and India’s colonial encounter: Bengal Engineering College, Sibpur, a historical perspective 1 Academic engineering Early diffident steps Quest for technological knowledge Academics and infrastructure: frailty and failures Technology, education and imperialism between the World Wars Engineering education and industrialization Conclusion Notes Chapter 7: Of geologists and water-diviners: The quest for groundwater knowledge in mid-twentieth-century India Water-divining and the state Groundwater geology and the GSI: a useful science? Enter the Americans Project elephant Conclusion Notes Chapter 8: From battlefields to homes: Oil’s imperial and quotidian life in colonized and independent India The many faces of oil Crisis of shortage during the wars Petroleum in the time of independence Oil shock and mass politics Concluding remarks Notes Section III: Environmental issues Chapter 9: Designing scientific mining: Evolution and implementation, c. 1860s–1960s 1 Attitudes towards scientific mining Inception of mining Ecological perspectives Policies and legacies Conclusion Notes Chapter 10: On grazing lands and cultivated fodder 1 Diminishing grazing land: A constant refrain at Board of Agriculture meetings Grazing rights in reserve forests Shift to advocacy on cultivated fodder and botanical research on fodder crops Scientific research on Indian grasslands Experiments on foreign grasses in India Notes Chapter 11: Deforestation, ecological deterioration and scientific forestry in Purulia, 1890s–1960s Introduction Ecological change Forest management Forests under the zamindars and ghatwals Demarcation of protected forests The British Forest Policy of 1894 Reserve forests Minimum diversity Balance sheet Sustained yield Forests management in Independent India Conclusion Acknowledgement Notes Section IV: Medical encounters Chapter 12: When man meets medicine: Some reflections on The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Āyurveda with its epistemological consequences Introduction : The case of Ivan Ilyich Technology, medicine, and human body The new horizon of medicine: risk factors Āyurveda: a journey compliant with modern medicine Conclusions Notes Chapter 13: Therapeutic practices of tuberculosis in the Madras Presidency, 1910–1947 Western medical therapeutic practices Indigenous medical discourse and their assertion Other medical practitioners discourse Diet and nutrition Notes Chapter 14: A case for the social history of homoeopathic hospitals in India: An invitation for its construction and rendition Hospitals in the colonial era and the dearth of homoeopathic hospitals The birth of a new radical pathy The rise of homoeopathy in India The logic of the emergence of homoeopathic hospitals in the Indian context Presence of homoeopathic hospitals; absence of its history Notes Chapter 15: Saviour sisters: Services of the Delhi female medical missionaries in late colonial India Missionary enterprise in India Missionary activities Women’s work for women St. Stephen’s Hospital, Delhi Trainings Dai training Dispensers Village camps Indianization of church Conclusion Notes Appendix List of publications of Professor Deepak Kumar Books Edited books Articles in referred journals Book chapters Select Bibliography Index