The Science Wars in India

Dissent

Volumn 44, Issue 1, 1997, Pages 78-83

  Nanda, Meera ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0344367707     PISSN: 00123846     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (7)

1. The Hindu-nationalist BJP won 194 (about 36 percent) of the 543 seats in the lower house of India's Parliament in the general elections held in May 1996, with the secular Congress party trailing with only 139 seats (25 percent). As the short-lived BJP government failed to come up with the two-thirds majority needed, it had to hand the reins of power to a coalition of center-left parties. However, most observers don't expect the current coalition government to last for long, and anticipate that BJP will emerge even stronger in the next elections. The BJP's rise to national prominence is truly impressive - and frightening. Until the last decade or so, the BJP was considered a communal party, a pariah with barely 2 percent of seats in the parliament. Its increased popularity represents a defeat of the ideals of secularism and modernity that India set for itself after its independence from the British.
2. For representative postcolonial science critiques, see Ashis Nandy (ed.), Science, Hegemony and Violence: A Requiem for Modernity (Oxford University Press, 1988); Ziauddin Sardar (ed.), The Revenge of Athena (London: Mansell, 1988). For a representative science critique from a Western multicultural perspective, see Sandra Harding, "Is Science Multicultural?" Configuration (2:301-330, 1994). The Hindu right's views on science and technology mentioned in this paper are gleaned from press reports from India.
3. For representative postcolonial science critiques, see Ashis Nandy (ed.), Science, Hegemony and Violence: A Requiem for Modernity (Oxford University Press, 1988); Ziauddin Sardar (ed.), The Revenge of Athena (London: Mansell, 1988). For a representative science critique from a Western multicultural perspective, see Sandra Harding, "Is Science Multicultural?" Configuration (2:301-330, 1994). The Hindu right's views on science and technology mentioned in this paper are gleaned from press reports from India.
4. For representative postcolonial science critiques, see Ashis Nandy (ed.), Science, Hegemony and Violence: A Requiem for Modernity (Oxford University Press, 1988); Ziauddin Sardar (ed.), The Revenge of Athena (London: Mansell, 1988). For a representative science critique from a Western multicultural perspective, see Sandra Harding, "Is Science Multicultural?" Configuration (2:301-330, 1994). The Hindu right's views on science and technology mentioned in this paper are gleaned from press reports from India.
5. See Andrew Ross, " Introduction," Social Text (46-47 Spring/Summer, 1996), p.4.
6. See Sandra Harding, " Science is 'Good to Think With'," Social Text (46-47, Spring/Summer, 1996).
7. Reproduced in Ziauddin Sardar (see note 2).