Science As a Tool in British India
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Science as a Tool in British India Ft K Kochhar The production and growth of modern science in India was encouraged by the British with a view to furthering colonial interests. British-sponsored science, by its very nature was field science and its agenda was decided on grounds of political and commercial gain. In the pursuit of this state-sponsored science, Indians provided cheap labour. It was only much later, with the westernisation of the Indian middle classes, that Indians began to pursue science on their own initiative but this was as an extension of the nationalist movement and science increasingly began to be seen purely as an intellectual exercise rather than as a means of producing wealth. WHILE discussing the impact of modern that human prosperity depended not upon determination of the latitude[6]. It was science on India, it is important to take note the goodwill of the king or god, but on Portugal's way of paying tribute to a science of India's role in the development of modern human skill. Since the source of money was to which it owed its power. The Portuguese science. The arrival of the first British ship science, the pursuits the leisured class chose arrived in India even before the Mughals did, in India coincided with the invention of the were also scientific. The new craftsmen loved Christianity more than they loved telescope in Europe. There were huge pro- became rich and respectable; and the new Indian territory, and did not know how to fits to be made from trade with India, pro- wealthy became patrons of science. It is successfully deal with the scurvy deaths on vided the ocean navigation could be made significant that the profits of the makers of the sea. safe. To survive on a vast featureless ocean, scientific instruments did not come from the The earliest men of science from Europe a mariner had to know his latitude and government, who paid less but imparted were the missionaries of the Society of Jesus, longitude, and for this he needed telescopes, prestige and recognition. The profits instead who first arrived in 1542 and remained ac- sextants, clocks, and star charts. Farmers, came from the private buyers [4]. It was thus tive for more than 200 years[5a]. In 1759 the weavers, and other traditional craftsmen in the accumulated wealth of India that fund- king of Portugal banished all Jesuits from Britain now took to making scientific in- ed the industrial and scientific revolutions Portuguese colonies; and in 1773 the Pope struments. Many apprentices in the clock- of Europe. Note that the scientific revolu- banished the Order altogether. It was revived making trade later became inventors of in- tion came after the industrial revolution. The in about 1818, with the first English Jesuits dustrial machines and helped usher in the existence of a wealthy middle class, indepen- arriving in Calcutta in 1833. The Jesuits were industrial revolution [1J. Thus it was a clock- dent of the government, is a prerequisite for the only European men of science in India maker who helped barber-turned- the growth of science. The purpose of who did not have a materialistic axe to grind. industrialist Richard Arkwright build his science is to produce and protect wealth. The No wonder their work did not have any con- epoch-making 'water frame'. Also, James purpose of this wealth is to support science. temporary significance. The Jesuit geogra- Watt started his career as a maker of Western science was not a cut-and-dried phical data were dug up from the archives mathematical instruments, like sextants and product that was taken off the shelf and and put to use in the mid-18th century when compasses. shipped to India. The British influence in knowing India became a paying proposition. For an invention to make an impact, it India, modern science in Europe, and the use The Portuguese success brought British should take place at a time when the socie- of science in India all grew together, so that and the French traders to India. The parent ty has the capital as well as a market. A tur- by the beginning of 20th century Indians companies started compiling sea charts and ning point in the history of India as well in were ready for a tryst of their own with keeping records of voyages. Observatories the history of-science and technology is the modern science. We present here a model as were opened at Paris (1667) and Greenwich battle of Plassey. Before 1757, Bengal had a framework for discussing the advent and (1675) to solve the problem of the longitude. a surplus balance of payments; its exports growth of modern science in colonial India. The Astronomer Royal supplemented his exceeded the imports by a factor of four. In The model distinguishes between three meagre salary by giving tuition to young contrast, during 1757-80 Bengal pumped in mutually overlapping stages of development. men seeking employment with the East India a substantial sum of 38 million pound sterl- The first stage here called 'the colonial- Company. It paid to join the company, and ing into England [2]. Its effect was electric. tool stage' encompasses the whole span of it paid to know astronomy. The first inventor of a textile machine, European presence in India and consists of With the post-Aurangzeb collapse of the John Kay, who patented his fly shuttle in introduction and use of science, especially Mughal empire, the European 'vaishya' out- 1733, barely escaped with his life, finally dy- by the British, as an imperialist tool, with fits developed 'kshatriya' ambitions and got ing pennyless in far-away France. His incidental benefits to science. The second down to the task of acquainting themselves machine was smashed by other weavers [3] stage, the 'peripheral-native stage", came into with their future empire. The French were who sensed that it would drive them out of being when the British were well entrench- more successful on the scientific front than the limited domestic market they all com- ed in India. In it, the Indians were assigned on the colonial. The first worthwhile map peted for. But by the time John Hargreaves the peripheral role of providing cheap labour of India was compiled in 1752 by the French made his spinning jenny (1764) times had to the colonial science machinery. The third geographer Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon changed. His very first machine was also stage, 'the Indian-response stage', arose as D'Anville at the request of French East India smashed, but very soon he had weavers back a reaction to the second stage, and is Company, who based it on whatever geogra- ai his door, this time asking him to make characterised by scientific activity by Indians phical information he could lay his hands machines for them. They could now form themselves and on their own initiative. We on. The value of D'Anville's Carte de I'lnde a guild and jointly enjoy the overseas shall now discuss each stage separately, can be judged from the fact that it was market. It is thus no wonder that cure for drawing illustrations mostly from the Survey reprinted in England in 1754 and then again scurvy, the dreaded disease of the mariner of India [5], which represented science in lhe in 1759, along with the annotated transla- (1754) came just before Plassey, while spin- most dedicated service of the state. tion of his memoirs[5a]. ning jenny (1764), water frame (1769) and Astronomy was the first modern science steam engine (1769) soon followed. COLONIAL.-TOOL STAGE to be brought to India for use as a geo- The money from trade with the east Indies graphical and navigational aid[5a]. Its use created a wealthy middle class in Europe The gold coins minted by the Portuguese was however sporadic and mostly out of per- whose way of looking at things was dif- for use in India depict the armillary sphere, sonal curiosity. Systematic scientific effort ferent. It was for the first time in the history the basic instrument of navigation used for became essential when the 1757 battle of Economic and Political Weekly August 17, 1991 1927 Plassey transformed the British East India desirable it was to determine the length of the assertion of the local British pride, suc- Company into a jagirdar. The company a degree of latitude on the Coromandel coast cinctly expressed in the letter written by the bahadur was fully conscious of its needs: and in Bengal. It was too early for the com- Madras director of public instruction to his survey of its present and future lands, safe- pany to bother about the shape of the earth chief secretary[8]: "I earnestly hope that ty navigation; increased revenue; and pro- when its ships were getting wrecked. Rennell the rulers of India will take a higher per administration. The first need was and Alexander Dalrymple, the company's and more extended view of the matter, and geographical knowledge. In 1757 itself when hydrographer at London made a joint consider what is due to this country. " Clive was still at the nawab's capital Mur- reply[5a]. This rhetoric, and the workshops of shidabad, he proposed that "an exact and Whatever Advantage to Science may be the public works department, ensured useful survey may be made which will enable derived from the exact determination of the the observatory's survival but not its us to settle beneficial boundaries". Accor- figure of the Earth, we conceive no other prosperity. dingly a 'Surveyor of the New Lands' was benefit can possibly attend the Admeasure- India's astronomical fortunes revived with appointed in 1761, and in 1767, two years ment in Bengal; but that proposed on the the advent of the new field of solar physics.