Nucleus and Nation
Scientists, International Networks, and Power in India
In 1974 India joined the elite roster of nuclear world powers when it exploded its first nuclear bomb. But the technological progress that facilitated that feat was set in motion many decades before, as India sought both independence from the British and respect from the larger world. Over the course of the twentieth century, India metamorphosed from a marginal place to a serious hub of technological and scientific innovation. It is this tale of transformation that Robert S. Anderson recounts in Nucleus and Nation.
Tracing the long institutional and individual preparations for India’s first nuclear test and its consequences, Anderson begins with the careers of India’s renowned scientists—Meghnad Saha, Shanti Bhatnagar, Homi Bhabha, and their patron Jawaharlal Nehru—in the first half of the twentieth century before focusing on the evolution of the large and complex scientific community—especially Vikram Sarabhi—in the later part of the era. By contextualizing Indian debates over nuclear power within the larger conversation about modernization and industrialization, Anderson hones in on the thorny issue of the integration of science into the framework and self-reliant ideals of Indian nationalism. In this way, Nucleus and Nation is more than a history of nuclear science and engineering and the Indian Atomic Energy Commission; it is a unique perspective on the history of Indian nationhood and the politics of its scientific community.
“In this fascinating book, based on considerable research, Anderson recounts in detail the role and relevance of scientific activists, their interactions with Western scientists, and the encouragement they received from the Indian government and support from the West.”
“Robert Anderson was the first to study systematically the rise of nuclear science and physicists in India. This landmark study, the outcome of four decades of careful archival and ethnographic research, has been long awaited. It is by far the most comprehensive study of the international and domestic networks of scientists and scientific policy makers ever completed. It fills countless holes in the historical record and provides a wealth of new details regarding the functioning of Indian scientific establishments and the careers of the founding ‘political’ scientists who shaped independent India’s scientific and technological institutions.”
“It is not easy to write a gripping narrative of the technical details, institutional arrangements, and interpersonal relationships within scientific institutions and between political powers, but Robert Anderson has pulled it off. Nucleus and Nation is a complex, wide-ranging, and engaging work.”
“The history of Indian science since independence is the canvas on which Anderson has painted an intricate picture of the development of nuclear power in India. Nucleus and Nation embraces a breathtaking range; it includes incisive portraitures of key participants, analysis of political events, and deep insights into social and public contexts of modernization and industrialization that reveal the links between the public and the private at significant junctures in Indian history. Anderson’s mastery of his archival materials and their narrative exposition, as well as his personal observations about the functioning of scientific institutions in India combined with his informed grasp of science and debates within Indian nationalism and the contentious context of globalization, make the book one that many of us working in this area have been waiting for.”
Preface
Acknowledgments
Note on Spelling, Photographs, and Currencies
Map of Atomic Energy, Space, and Defense Research Centers
Atomic Energy and Space Research Establishments in 1974
one Introduction
two Building Scientific Careers in the 1920s: Saha and Bhatnagar, from London to Allahabad and Lahore
three The Bangalore Affair, 1935–38: Scientists and Conflict around C. V. Raman
four Imagining a Scientific State: Nehru, Scientists, and Political Planning, 1938–42
five Homi Bhabha Confronts Science in India, 1939–44
six Indian Scientists Engage the Empire: The CSIR and the Idea of Atomic and Industrial Power
seven Saha, Bhatnagar, and Bhabha in Contrast, 1944–45
eight Restless in Calcutta: Meghnad Saha’s Institution-Building
nine Bhatnagar Builds His Chain of Laboratories and Steps Upward
ten Bhabha Builds His Institute in Bombay
eleven The Politics of the Early Indian Atomic Energy Committee and Commission
twelve Scientific Networks, Nehru, and Defense Research and Development
thirteen A Scientist in the Political System: Professor Saha Goes to Parliament, 1952–55
fourteen The Cabinet and Scientific Advice in the 1950s and 1960s: Bhabha, Atomic Energy, and Scientific and Industrial Research
fifteen A New Scientific Elite: Sarabhai Builds Another Atomic Energy Network, 1966–71
sixteen A Day in the Life of Two Research Institutes in Bombay and Calcutta
seventeen Governance, Management, and Working Conditions in Research Institutes Founded by Saha and Bhabha
eighteen Governance and Influence in the Research Institutes Bhatnagar Built
nineteen Articulating Science and Technology Policy for Indira Gandhi’s Cabinet
twenty Building a High-Technology Economy through Atomic Energy, Space, and Electronics
twenty-one Nuclear Expectations and Resistance in India’s Political Economy
twenty-two Scientists in India’s War over Self-Reliance
twenty-three The First Bomb Test: Its Context, Reception, and Consequences in India
twenty-four The Scientific Community, the State of Emergency, and After, 1975–80
twenty-five Conclusions
Chronology of Events
Biographical Notes
Notes
Index
Geography: Cultural and Historical Geography
History: Asian History | History of Technology
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