Book Review : Science, War and Imperialism: India in the Second World War

Jagdish N. Sinha, Science, War and Imperialism: India in the Second World War , New Delhi: Manohar, 2023, ix+278 pages, Rs 1495

The relationship between science and colonisation has been influenced and complicated by the complex dynamism of knowledge and power. In the early phase of colonisation in India, the British attitude towards science was of ‘ad hocism’ and the use of science to meet the exigencies of running the empire by way of exploration and survey. The politicoeconomic interests and the military requirements of the empire played an important role in the development of science in India. In the works of Ronald Ross on Malaria and Haffkine on the Plague in the late nineteenth century, some fundamental study was conducted by the colonial scientists.