The essays brought together in this volume examine the cultural reception of modern science in late colonial India. They look at how the first generation of modern Indian scientists responded to and creatively worked the theories and practices of modern science into their cultural idiom. The process of cultural legitimation of modern science is revealed through the debates that surrounded these theories. The essays in the first section deal with the encounter between the rationality of modern science and so-called traditional ways of knowing. How did the nineteenth-century Delhi intelligentasia respond to the new ideas disseminated through the Vernacular Translation Society, and what role did they play in the development of science textbooks and popular science writing? What was the nature of the interaction between traditional mathematics and a modern discipline like calculus? The second section shifts the focus of attention to Calcutta, which virtually functioned as India’s scientific capital, to examine the reception of theories of science such as biological evolution and Social Darwinism. The essays here also show how a new set of concerns – scientific and technical education, scientific and technological research systems – acquired importance by the end of the nineteenth century, and dovetailed with the thinking of the emerging nationalist movement. They indicate the manner in which the scientific community enlisted the political elite into its vision, and how this elite drew upon the nascent scientific community in the project of decolonization.
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