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Papers by Suvobrata Sarkar

Nature Communications, 2023

We examine the call for decolonising academic disciplines, and the extent which this applies to e... more We examine the call for decolonising academic disciplines, and the extent which this applies to engineering. We argue that anticolonial endeavours should systematically recognise colonial legacy in contemporary science and technology, and reframe technological innovation in light of neocolonial extraction and exploitation.

Indian Journal of History of Science, 2020

Why an alternative history of technology in South Asia? If one explores the literature, which has... more Why an alternative history of technology in South Asia? If one explores the literature, which has gathered momentum since the 1990s, it has thus far focused on the renowned scientists, technologists, doctors and other elite actors while dealing with Indian contribution to modern techno-science. Of course, they are important. But if we study the journals, periodicals, tracts, monographs written in Indian languages in the 19th and early 20th century, one can get numerous examples of indigenous efforts in the field of technology. These men excelled as "engineers" without institutional training in engineering but seldom get the desired intellectual limelight. They were the unknown viśvakarmās. The use of the term 'viśvakarmā' here is purely metaphoric, not to promote any religion or ideology. For a better understanding of the Indian appropriation of modern technology, we need to include them in the existing literature. This is a humble initiative to present the histories of a few of them and a homage to Siddhartha Ghosh who originally started the project in the early 1990s, but was unable to complete due to his sad demise.

Studies in History, 2018

From as early as the 1880s until today, electrical power has served as a useful medium for usheri... more From as early as the 1880s until today, electrical power has served as a useful medium for ushering an urban industrial era throughout the world. This article examines the process of electrification in a colonial setting—Calcutta, the capital of British India till 1911. Access to electricity depended upon economics and technological advances, as well as a combination of local community and regional characteristics such as location, landscape, demographics, politics and culture. Western techno-scientific discourse occupied an extremely important place in the colonization of India. It is known that Western technology and ideas manipulated various technological projects in the colony, including electrification. Was there something unique about Calcutta and its plan that led to the elec-trification of a colonial metropolis almost simultaneously with other Western industrial nations? By the middle of the twentieth century, electricity, with its elaborate infrastructure of wires, generation stations and poles, emerged as the industrial era's most prominent symbol of progress in Calcutta. The Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation Ltd (CESC), with its head office in London, played the most vital role, debating and resolving various technical questions, such as load factor, fuel sources, operating generation stations and electricity supply to industry, traction and population centres. This article, based on extensive archi-val research, shows how, despite colonial derivatives, the resulting electrical systems were locally initiated and customized to the needs and characteristics of the region.

The Indian Economic and Social History Review, 2015

Public electricity supplies became available in Calcutta as early as the 1890s and by the 1940s h... more Public electricity supplies became available in Calcutta as early as the 1890s and by the 1940s had developed to become the major source of power and lighting both for industries and private use. Could the electrification of Calcutta act as an agent of industrial development? What impact did it have on the socioeconomic condition of the city? The twentieth century was to be the age of electricity. Apart from industrial use of this new technology, to realise its full practical capacities a new discipline emerged—electrical engineering. The Bengali electrical engineering community, alumni of Sibpur and Jadavpur Engineering Colleges, gradually oriented themselves towards ideas of industrial development based on Indian realities. Few trained electrical engineers entered in the business sector and became very successful. High level of technological innovation such as that of hydroelectricity was also exploited by the Bengali entrepreneurs. The credentials of the Bengali erudite and ordinary people in the field of electricity, which this article tries to explore, offer an interesting example of Indian response to the new knowledge. Modern machine helps to boost the productivity of any industry. We would request the young men of our country to learn the art of electricity, because future is here. The current industrial trend indicates the acceptance of electricity as the main motive power over other sources of energy.

ARCHIV ORIENTÁLNÍ , 2014

There is an abundance of literature on the history of industrialization in India. This has engage... more There is an abundance of literature on the history of industrialization in India. This has engaged the attention of scholars for long and even today has a huge audience. It has been generally recognized that the colonial government consciously and deliberately adopted policies that had deleterious effects on the economy and industry of the subject country. Along with such exploitation paradigm, there are few issues which need to be investigated in the interest of a more comprehensive understanding of the dynamics of economic change during the British rule. The attitude adopted by the Indian promoters of industry for the selection of technology for their industrial ventures is one of such issues. Were they self-sufficient in the realm of production technologies or the borrower of such technologies from the west? Can one locate Bengali entrepreneurship in the engineering industry? How did the Bengali entrepreneurs situate modern technical knowledge in the project of establishing large-scale industries? For example, Prafulla Chandra Ray, the great chemist, endeavoured to make his science directly relevant to the immediate needs of the society. He started the ‘Bengal Chemical and Pharmaceutical Works Ltd’ (1892) which sought to put scientific knowledge to immediate industrial use. Taking into account two case-studies, Sir Rajendra Nath Mookerjee and Dr. Prafulla Chandra Ray, the article investigates the perceptions and response of the Bengali entrepreneurs towards modern technology and their role in transforming the industrial life of Bengal.

Indian Historical Review, 2010

The nineteenth century was a very significant period in the history of modern India. It was durin... more The nineteenth century was a very significant period in the history of modern India. It was during this period that the country witnessed the emergence of many intellectual currents in all aspects: religious, social, political, economic and cultural. For the colonial power, by the beginning of the nineteenth century, the empire had more or less been won. The job was to keep it, and to use it for profit. Colonialism was not the result of mere Western superiority, but of the unleashing of overwhelming force backed by technology at minimal cost. Technological changes affected the timing and location of European conquests and thus determined the economic relations of colonialism. It made European expansion swift, thorough and cheap. The new ability of Europeans in the nineteenth century to conquer other territories arose from relatively few inventions like iron-hulled steam ships, improved firearms, telegraph, railways and so on. With these tools, Europeans brought about a shift in global relations. The current study seeks to find answers as to how various technological tools and projects were used by the British in the nineteenth century Bengal and whether the relocation of Western technologies on Indian soil was really successful.

Harvard Asia Quarterly, 2012

Social Scientist, 2010

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Books by Suvobrata Sarkar

Springer, 2024

This book offers a unique perspective on the colonial roots of modern science, technology, and me... more This book offers a unique perspective on the colonial roots of modern science, technology, and medicine (STM) in South Asia. The book questions the deconstruction of imperial visions and definitions of science and modernity in South Asia. It presents an in-depth analysis of the contested relationship between science, modernity, and colonialism. It explores how new research can contribute to the diversification of perspectives in the history and sociology of modern South Asian studies. The chapters in the book delve into various aspects of STM in South Asia. It covers diverse topics, including the social, cultural, and pedagogic context of early modern Bengal, the popularization of science in colonial Punjab, the Hindi science periodical Vigyan, and the emergence of the Indian science community. The book also examines the intersection of indigenous medical practices, ayurveda, Unani, and medical revivalism and highlights peripheral creativity in science. The contributors engage with the existing historiography to raise new questions concerning the global circulations of scientific knowledge from the perspective of South Asia and the regional appropriation of the same. It connects the history of science and modernity with South Asia's socio-economic and cultural background. It offers valuable insights into the decolonization of STM. It greatly interests scholars and students of modern South Asian history, sociology, social anthropology, and Science, Technology and Society Studies (STS).

Routledge, 2022

This volume studies the concept and relevance of HISTEM (History of Science, Technology, Environm... more This volume studies the concept and relevance of HISTEM (History of Science, Technology, Environment, and Medicine) in shaping the histories of colonial and postcolonial South Asia. Tracing its evolution from the establishment of the East India Company through to the early decades after the Independence of India, it highlights the ways in which the discipline has changed over the years and examines the various inﬂuences that have shaped it. Drawing on extensive case studies, the book oﬀers valuable insights into diverse themes such as the East–West encounter, appropriation of new knowledge, science in translation and communication, electricity and urbanization, the colonial context of engineering education, science of hydrology, oil and imperialism, epidemic and empire, vernacular medicine, gender and medicine, as well as environment and sustainable development in the colonial and postcolonial milieu. An indispensable text on South Asia’s experience of modernity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of modern South Asian studies, modern Indian history, sociology, history of science, cultural studies, colonialism, as well as studies on Science, Technology, and Society (STS).

Manohar Publisher & Distributor, 2021

The new cultural history has rendered the historical epistemology of the human body a privileged ... more The new cultural history has rendered the historical epistemology of the human body a privileged site for scholarly intervention in social anthropology and other related disciplines. As a cultural metaphor, as manifestation of lived experience, as medium of existential encounter with the outer world and as a surface of social calligraphy, the human body spans varied categories of the extant strands of contemporary hermeneutic discourses.
The essays in the present volume regard the human body more as a social subject than a social object. The volume accommodates variegated encounters of the biological body with the exterior world mostly from an Indian standpoint. The authors have explored the varied experiences of being embodied — the social subject’s interactions with the surrounding context — as also its role as carrier of cultural, social and symbolical agents. While exploring the various contours of the ‘corporeal self’ the authors have captured fascinating glimpses of the ‘representative’ body. The present volume does not claim to represent a comprehensive account of body history. It is rather an incoherent bundle of scholarly conceptualizations of the human body discursively shaped to facilitate practices of knowledge production.

Cambridge University Press, 2020

Social and economic history of science and technology has emerged as a major theme of interdiscip... more Social and economic history of science and technology has emerged as a major theme of interdisciplinary research in South Asian history since the late 1990s. This book contributes to the field by exploring the correlation between technological knowledge and industrial performance with a focus on electricity, an emerging technology
during 1880 and 1945. The arrival of electricity necessitated the introduction of new institutional facilities and with the growth of technological systems, the culture of entrepreneurship grew – there was demand for trained manpower to handle machines and need for better educational facilities. Taking a broad view of the subject, the narrative is built around the historical experiences of the local Bengali-speaking
population in colonial Bengal.
While recent research on science and technology under the colonial rule tends to focus on elite actors–both European and Indian – it is important to identify people, mostly Indians, who excelled in the field of technology, without prior academic training in engineering or science. This monograph brings back focus on the hitherto unexplored
vernacular sources and emphasizes that the history of technology in India is basically a history of India, the history of its people, and not simply a history of the Indian techno–scientific tradition as proposed by the literature emerging from the West. Adopting the social constructionist model, it presents an amalgamation of archival and
Indian language source materials to delineate the diverse nature of the appropriation of technological ideas into Indian culture.

Manohar Publication, 2012

This book delineates the perceptions and response of the Bengali erudite elites towards modern te... more This book delineates the perceptions and response of the Bengali erudite elites towards modern technical knowledge as reflected in the Nineteenth Century Bengali language journals.

Book Reviews by Suvobrata Sarkar

Ananda Bazar Patrika, 2024

Science, war and imperialism: India in the second world war by Jagadish N. Sinha, Manohar Publish... more Science, war and imperialism: India in the second world war by Jagadish N. Sinha, Manohar Publishers & Distributors, New Delhi, 2023, ISBN: 978-81-960546-0-1, Pages, XVI+278, Price, INR 1495

The Korean Journal for the History of Science, 2023

Book Review: Deepak Kumar, ‘Culture’ of Science and the Making of Modern India. New Delhi: Primus... more Book Review: Deepak Kumar, ‘Culture’ of Science and the Making of Modern India. New Delhi: Primus Books, 2023. 330 pp. and Deepak Kumar, Science and Society in Modern India. Cambridge and New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2023. 168 pp.

Book Review, 2023

Ritajyoti Bandyopadhyay (2022): Streets in Motion: The Making of Infrastructure, Property and Pol... more Ritajyoti Bandyopadhyay (2022): Streets in Motion: The Making of Infrastructure, Property and Political Culture in Twentieth-century Calcutta (Series: Metamorphoses of the Political), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

HoST - Journal of History of Science and Technology, 2021

Sarkar, Suvobrata. "Book Review: Ajantha Subramanian. . Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harv... more Sarkar, Suvobrata. "Book Review: Ajantha Subramanian. . Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press, 2019. 374 pp. ISBN: 978-0-674-98788-3" HoST - Journal of History of Science and Technology, vol.15, no.2, 2021, pp.173-175.