Rocketing from the Galaxy Bazaar

millennium essay Rocketing from the Galaxy Bazaar Indian rockets were once the best in the world, and gave the Duke of Wellington a shock he never forgot. But India’s social system prevented such technology from fuelling the kind of scientific revolution seen in the West. attack on Boulogne, where Napoleon had Roddam Narasimha assembled forces to take war to British soil, set ockets helped the Mysore army to the town on fire, and ended French plans for a achieve a famous victory over the cross-Channel expedition. This success was British in 1780. The army was led by followed by the use of rockets in various other R V&A PICTURE LIBRARY Hyder Ali, a bold officer who had become the wars in Europe, and in the United States in the effective ruler of the state, and his son Tipu. War of 1812, when rockets were responsible The battle is celebrated in a mural at the sum- for the fall of the city of Washington. mer palace in Tipu’s capital, Sri-ranga- One major reason for interest in this pattana. “The fortunes of the English in episode is that it occurred during a time of India had fallen to their lowest water-mark,” global transition in geopolitics, economics said the British historian Sir Alfred Lyall, and technology. Clearly, even in the late eigh- writing in 1914 about this battle in the sec- teenth century there were several Indian ond Anglo–Mysore War. products technologically superior to Western A celebrated victim of such a rocket attack equivalents, and this was recognized by both was Colonel Arthur Wellesley (later Duke of sides. But the British effort that followed had Wellington and the hero of Waterloo). In the the sophistication of research and develop- fourth Anglo–Mysore War of 1799, Wellesley ment today. Scientific principles were applied, suffered a nasty encounter in a mango grove designs made, products developed and tested, just outside Sri-ranga-pattana. He lost his Technology buff: Tipu, painted in about 1800. and all of this was carefully documented — a way, several of his men were killed and the rest process alien to Indians of that time. The Indi- retreated in disorder. This incident had an bursting pressures and hence higher propel- an rockets were well-made but not standard- indelible effect on Wellington, for even late in lant packing density. (European rockets still ized, being the creation of traditional artisans. life he would revert to it with his own “expla- used some kind of pasteboard.) Interestingly, the Indian literature on nations”, presumably to counter what his The British were so impressed by these such technological subjects is rather scarce detractors hinted was a blot on his career. rockets that they soon began a vigorous tech- — even in metallurgy, where the tradition The Rocket Corps in the Mysore army was nology programme led by Colonel William extends over more than three millennia in 5,000 strong in Tipu’s time. His rocketmen Congreve. Several Indian rocket cases were India. Some of the available texts were writ- were skilled in adjusting the elevation of the sent to Britain for analysis. In 1801–02, Con- ten with great authority. A thirteenth-centu- rocket depending on its size and the distance greve confirmed with tests that the biggest ry author said: “I describe for the benefit of to the target, and they launched rockets rapid- sky-rockets then available in London had a the world what I have done myself or ly using a wheeled cart with ramps. Tipu was a range less than half that of the Mysore rockets. observed with my own eyes, not something ‘technology buff’, and promoted the manu- At the Royal Laboratory at Woolwich Arse- recorded only from hearsay or from a facture of rockets and other novel devices in nal, he tested various combinations for pro- teacher’s instruction.” But another exhorted areas of his towns often called Tara-mandal- pellant, and developed a series of rockets with the reader to “guard [this knowledge] with pet (which translates loosely as Galaxy Bazaar, a stout iron case, and iron hoops on one side determination, as you would the privacy of probably named after the spectacular fire- making it easier to fix the stabilizing stick. your mother”: knowledge was handed down work known as a star cluster). The rockets’ In 1804 he published A Concise Account of only to selected pupils and family members. range was typically 2.4 kilometres, an out- the Origin and Progress of the Rocket System. Although a certain kind of practical infor- standing performance for the time, attribut- Reasoning on the basis of Newton’s third law mation has always been closely protected able chiefly to the iron employed for the cas- of motion, he recognized that the rocket did around the world, the prevailing social sys- ing. Indian iron and steel had long been about not suffer from the recoil that made cannons tem in India seems to have encouraged great the best in the world, and permitted increased so difficult to use on ships. In 1806 a rocket secrecy. The interdependence among the castes, a strong feature of the system that con- Rocket horse: tributed to its remarkable stability, was sus- Congreve’s six-pound tained in part by an ‘allocation’ of different ‘service rockets’, knowledge subsystems to different castes. So, pictured on a pack horse the craftsmen making the best rockets in the in 1813, were said to be world had no contact with scholars. SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY SCIENCE PHOTO more effective at Apart from the various causes that have frightening the enemy been widely discussed to explain why the sci- with their noise than at entific and industrial revolutions took place inflicting harm. in Europe and not in, say, India, I suggest two others. First, India, being already wealthier, did not need these revolutions. And, second, Indian intellectual property resided in dis- tinct communities that guarded it more jeal- ously and for longer than elsewhere. Roddam Narasimha is at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore 560 012, India. NATURE | VOL 400 | 8 JULY 1999 | www.nature.com © 1999 Macmillan Magazines Ltd 123.

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