Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1997 07:46:40 PST
Subject: Re: M-I: Meera Nanda's article "Science Wars in India"
From: farmelantj-AT-juno.com (James Farmelant)


Hinrich Kuhls <kls-AT-unidui.uni-duisburg.de> asks two question about Meera 
Nanda's article "The Science Wars in India" which appears in the current
issue
of Dissent:

>1. Is this article identical with the paper that Meera Nanda presented 
>at a
>panel discussion during the recent "Rethinking Marxism" conference? 
>This
>paper has been one of the highlights of that conference according to 
>Louis
>Proyect in his article "Science Wars - a noisy conference" in the 
>current
>issue of Sozialismus and in his reports on the conference to this 
>list.
>

I think Louis Proyect would be in a better position to answering this
question
since I did not attend that conference. 

>2. Does Nanda *only* discuss the fact that postmodernist critiques 
>have
>been the cause for a non-progressive cultural and educational policy 
>in
>India? Or does she outline or even give some answers how to overcome
>reactionary cultural policies - and their causes?
>
>Hinrich
>
Nanda says in her article that she was active in the people's science
movements
of the 1970's and the 1980's which sought to use modern science to
struggle
against the dominant Hindu world views on caste and women.  As pomo
conceptions
of science gained popularity among Indian intellectuals the epistemological
basis for reliance upon modern science as a weapon against ancestral
authority
was undercut.  And the people's science movements were left defenseless
against
the charge that popularizing modern science meant internal colonization.

She does not give specific answers on how to overcome reactionary
policies as such
but she does make one suggestion on how a popular struggle against such
policies
might proceed.  Nanda cites the case of N.T. Rama Rao, the late chief minister
of the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.  He sought the help of a
traditional Vastu 
Shastri (a specialist In the ancient Vedic rules governing the
construction of
sacred buildings) to help him through a rough political period.  The
chief minister
was told that his troubles would cease if he entered his office from an
east-facing
gate.  However, the gate was located facing a slum through which his car
could not pass. Therefore, the chief minister ordered the slum
demolished.

It is Nanda's contention that if the Indian left were still committed to
the people's
science movement it would have struggled not only against the slum
demolition but
also against the superstition used to justify it.  Modern science then
would have
become a weapon for social justice and the irrationality of Vastu Shastra
would have
been exposed.

                                                                         
    James F.

 


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