Analysing A Discriminatory Practice

In one of his earlier books, Deepak Kumar, one of the editors of the present volume, had forcefully argued that science during the Raj was not as universal and scientific as it should have been. It was used to further the interests of the colonial masters. They used it selectively in areas which were beneficial both for keeping the colonial empire intact and exploiting indigenous resources.

The economic imperatives of empire-building determined the course that scientific research was to take in those times. The emphasis was on survey operations with a view to collecting information about India and her people. Botanical, zoological and geological surveys took precedence over everything else. Efforts were made to economically utilise valuable mineral resources available in the country. Medical and technological institutes were set up to ensure the smooth functioning of utility-oriented sciences. Pure scientific research was kept exclusively as a government province. Independent research was not encouraged at all.

 

The governments policy during the Raj as regards science and technology was blatantly discriminatory. The concept that races bred in tropical climate was deemed unfit for original scientific research as it entailed high mental and physical qualifications. In addition to this, the maximum pay of a native scientist was restricted to two-thirds the amount due to his western counterpart. Even an eminent scientist like Jagdish Chandra Basu had to put up with such discrimination.

The present volume takes off from this very argument and deals with specific areas of discrimination faced by those involved in technological development during British rule. Consider the case of the development of railways in that period. Ian Inksters essay outlines its essential features: the development of railways was largely an imported mission with imported manpower and material accounting for most of it, and local participation kept to a bare minimum level.

Inkster shows how the ambitious plan to develop the railways was constrained by colonial considerations so that it did not graduate to a technological system. In addition to that, a lot of money was drained away from the country to develop the railway network.

R J Henry, in his essay on development of agriculture in the Oudh region, says that since commercial and revenue concerns were paramount during the Raj, the introduction of new technologies did not lead to any significant changes. He adds that the traditional social structure (caste system for instance) also worked as constraint for effective development of technology.

The essay on the growth of engineering education in south India by S Ambirajan, demonstrates how western technologies were used as tools for ruthless exploitation pushed by bureaucratic momentum. Chance and bureaucratic momentum are valid arguments so far as one does not lose sight of the fact that it was a colonial bureaucracy, and this bureaucracy had consistently ensured the primacy of colonial requirements, he argues.

Part II of the volume deals with the consequences of these limited technology transfers during the Raj. The means of communication and transportation were areas of high technological innovation.

In another enlightening essay, Saroj Ghose examines how political and military necessities outweighed other considerations during the Raj. The possession of lightning strings and fire carriages (telegraph system) inflated the self-image of the Raj to the point of invincibility, while the fire-breathing iron cow (the railways) became the lifeline of the Empire.

The authors of the volume also take into account the resistance offered by the traditional social system against limited technological innovation. But the authors justify such resistance. They argue that in a society of such historical depth, such resistance is but natural. They also shatter the myth that Indians lack technological creativity and an experimental tradition, and that such limitations are explicable in terms of Hindu shibboleths.

In an otherwise brilliant volume, the authors, however, fail to offer sufficient explanations for their assessment that indigenous technological innovation, howsoever rudimentary it was during the pre-colonial period, disintegrated due to inherent contradictions. Of course, the onset of colonialism did facilitate the downslide, but the process had begun much before that.