Science Studies sans Science: Two Cautionary Postcolonial Tales

A disturbing aspect of postcolonial science studies is that for some of its adherents, the content of science does not matter. For them science studies can thrive minus the science. The consequences of this mentality are of great interest because of its distortion of the nature of the scientific enterprise. This seriously undermines the credibility of the postcolonial discourse in the realm of science. In this essay I examine some of the writings of two influential Indian postcolonial scholars, the historian Gyan Prakash and the psycho-social critic Ashis Nandy, as cautionary tales that illustrate the distorting effects and misrepresentations of science and its history that result from the ‘science-studies sans science’ mentality.