February 2001
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117 Reads
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17 Citations
American Journal of Ophthalmology
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Publications (9)
February 1996
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33 Reads
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24 Citations
Social Studies of Science
This paper takes up the discussion of a nineteenth-century theory of science - that of biological evolution - among members of the Indian National Council of Education, and in the pages of an important journal called The Dawn, published from Calcutta between 1897 and 1913. It discusses how, toward the turn of the century, science was legitimated as a morally worthy endeavour among the Bengali Bhadralok community. The debate pursued in The Dawn was representative of the anxieties and aspirations of that community, which had embarked upon the project of modernity, and was the first on the Indian continent to take modern Western science seriously. The socio-political context of the debate is important, in that the nationalist struggle for freedom from British rule was gathering momentum, and received notions of progress and social evolution were open to questioning and challenge. While colonialism is a backdrop for this study, the paper's main focus is the act of cultural redefinition of modern science in a non-Western context.
January 1996
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142 Reads
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10 Citations
March 1995
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35 Reads
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7 Citations
The Indian Economic & Social History Review
February 1993
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39 Reads
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17 Citations
Studies in History
January 1992
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7 Reads
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3 Citations
The three jewels in the imperial crown, Bombay, Calcutta and Madras, had acquired universities by the 1870s1. By 1887, Punjab and Allahabad had also acquired university status. In the Native Indian States the project of modernization had to be undertaken, not through imperial structures in alliance with local elites, but at the initiative of the native elites and ruling classes themselves. The process was in turn catalyzed, among other factors, by the demand for an emerging class of literates and professionals. Thus it is of interest to investigate the founding of a technical institute in the Native State of Baroda in 1890. This interest does not merely rest in commemorating the centenary of the event as institutional history, but in identifying one more modality for the introduction of modern sciences to 19th century India.
August 1990
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15 Reads
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19 Citations
Social Studies of Science
In 1850, Yesudas Ramchandra published a work entitled A Treatise on the Problems of Maxima and Minima. The inspiration behind the work lay in the nineteenth-century understanding that the Indian tradition of mathematics was essentially algebraic. As part of the task of `revitalization' undertaken by the avant-garde of the Indian intelligentsia, Ramchandra sought to introduce the Indian people to the latest developments in calculus, in their `native' idiom. In the paper, we discuss the conditions under which the work emerged, as well as the cultural grounding of this mathematical pedagogy. Even though the work evinced the interest of leading mathematicians such as Augustus De Morgan, who campaigned for its publication in England and circulation in Europe, the book did not find a niche for itself in Indian school/college curricula. On this count, we raise some conjectures and questions. We argue that, in the post-1857 period, the theories of knowledge that held that it was possible to graft modern scientific learning on to a Sanskritic base could not overcome the Macaulayan education programme. The spirit of Ramchandra's Treatise was quite at odds with the imperial education policy, though it would have been in tune with the early Orientalist educational programme.
November 1989
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17 Reads
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12 Citations
Annals of Science
This is a study of Master Ramchandra, a nineteenth-century Indian mathematician, social commentator and Urdu journalist. The contradictions manifest in his projects, it is contended, were actually the products of the contradictions manifest in the political and ideological thinking of the period. One encounters in his writings a dominant critique of the prevalent religious, social and educational systems and also a call for social transformation, wherein scientific rationality and realism came to play an important role. Ramchandra's understanding is quite close to that of the Comtean positivists. An attempt is made here to locate this emerging scientism within the context of nineteenth-century colonial politics.
March 1989
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10 Reads
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23 Citations
Social Scientist
Citations (9)
... the private aid for education was 54 per cent of the total expenditure for Bengal in 187%1880, which was increased to 56per cent (Bengal Administration Report, 1 W 1 8 8 1 , p. 53, quoted in Kumar, 1986). For a detailed study of Kala Bhavan from 1890 to 1910, see Raina and Habib (1992). Organization (1904). ...
- Citing Chapter
January 1992
... Over the centuries, Indian science was influenced by Greek astronomy, Islamic mathematics, and with British colonization, western science (Khan 1989). During the colonial period, science was a means of expanding British control (e.g., through railways, agriculture, and so on) and producing a stable colony, but was also used by Indian nationalists to reimagine their past and envision a modern India (Habib and Raina 1989;Prakash 1999). Famous figures in India who exemplify this trend include Prafulla Chandra Roy, a Bengali chemist who founded Bengal Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals, India's first pharmaceutical company, and wrote a book on the history of "Hindu Chemistry" (Harsha and Nagaraja 2010). ...
- Citing Article
March 1989
Social Scientist
... Several astronomical works and even encyclopaedias were written in Persian and Urdu in the eighteenth century and the early part of the nineteenth century that dealt with modern aspects of astronomy, including telescopes (e.g. see Ansari, 2000;Ghulām Ḥusain Jaunpūrī, 1835;Habib and Raina, 1989), and several works of a similar kind came out in Bangla around the same time. While it is not possible to comment on the accuracy of the translation, there are obvious grammatical mistakes and ‗typos' (for example, on page 73 the elongation of Venus is given as 40 , not 35 , as in Ragoonatha Chary, 2012: 27). ...
- Citing Article
November 1989
Annals of Science
... 11 In a sphere distant from that of the NCE Gandhi was to pose a cognate question: "Does economic progress clash with real progress? By economic progress, I take it, we mean material advancement without limit and by real progress we mean moral progress which again is the same thing as progress of the permanent element within us". 12 A colleague and I had ploughed through the archive of this debate more than a decade ago and had conjectured that Gandhi had been deeply informed by these 8 Raina and Irfan Habib (1993). 9 Ibid. ...
- Citing Article
February 1993
Studies in History
... Kumar (1994).5 Visvanathan (1985).6 Raina and Irfan Habib (1996).7 Raina and Irfan Habib (1995).14 Understanding Gandhi's Approach to Technology: After the Critique … ...
- Citing Article
March 1995
The Indian Economic & Social History Review
... A different interpretation of centre-periphery relation is the dichotomous separation of the peripheral STI as solving locale-specific problems (of poverty and hunger) while the Centre STI as engaging with universal, expeditious, and exploratory questions in science (Joseph 2013;Pandey and Pansera 2020). Though heavily criticized in scholarly writings for neglecting cross-cultural exchanges and circulations in making knowledge (Prasad 2014;Rajan 2006;Raina and Habib 1996), this Centre-periphery relation, in different incarnations (such as the idea of catching-up 6 in innovation studies and patenting regimes), continues to dominate the imaginary as well as the materiality of knowledge exchange between north and south Prasad 2014). ...
- Citing Article
February 1996
Social Studies of Science
... Lancelot Wilkinson (1801-1841), an official of the Bombay Civil Service, was very closely involved in school mathematics and astronomy education. 7 Based on the work my colleague S. Irfan Habib and I published in the late 1980s and early 1990s on an Indian mathematician, Yesudas Ramchandra (Raina, 1992;Raina & Habib, 1990), we argued that his book A Treatise on Problems of Maxima and Minima 8 was a pedagogic effort to introduce elementary calculus to Indian students who had a grounding in algebra. The publication of this work was inspired by a colonial official, Dr Sprenger, who was acquainted with Ramchandra's earlier work on mathematics, published in Urdu titled Sari-ul-Fahm. ...
- Citing Article
August 1990
Social Studies of Science
... La perspective comparatiste à l'échelle internationale a permis de souligner l'importance des dynamiques sociales, économiques et politiques pour comprendre à la fois les apports des sciences arabes ( Rashed, 1997), indiennes ( Raina, 2003), chinoises ( Needham, 1977), préhispaniques ( Saldana, 2005a) et les expériences coloniales des empires britannique, français, espagnol et portugais dans la construction de la science moderne. À travers la prise en compte de l'influence des circulations, des échanges, des conflits et des négociations sur les interconnexions ( Habib & Raina, 1999Petitjean, 2007Petitjean, , 2009Cueto, 1994) ces travaux historiques ont largement contribué à recontextualiser la globalisation contemporaine dans le long mouvement historique des mondialisations des sciences entre les XVII e et XX e siècles ( Raj, 2007 ;Gruzinski et al., 2005 ;Jacob, 2007Jacob, , 2011Pestre, 2015). Ils ont posé les bases d'un questionnement sur les rapports entre domination politique, circulation des savoirs et production d'espaces asymétriques de recherche scientifique qui est au coeur des préoccupations de la Nouvelle histoire des sciences ou de la global history ( Werner & Zimmermann, 2004 ;Romano, 2014Romano, , 2015). ...
Reference:
Les "Studies" à l'étude
- Citing Article
February 2001
American Journal of Ophthalmology
... Few British scientists were also neutral in recognising merit in Indian scientists. However, the literature is replete with models of engagement, for example, George Basalla's triangular model including centre-periphery interaction (Kumar, 1980;Raina & Habib, 1996). The benefits of a partnership based on science persuaded the British regime to cooperate with the Indian intellectuals, which was welcomed by the Indian scientists. ...
- Citing Article
- Full-text available
January 1996