Throughout the 18th century, members of the British East India Company reported their discoveries of native scientific and technological practices to the Royal Society. Here, listing out some of those discoveries (in their own words). 1/5
Issac Pyke, governor of St. Helena, writes on the manufacturing of mortar in Madras that forms a “stucco-work” surpassing any known European composition, particularly “Plaster of Paris...in smoothness and beauty” and it is as durable as “marble”. 2/5
Robert Coult, a doctor in Calcutta, describes a method of smallpox inoculation practiced by Bengali Brahmins at least a century before Lady Mary Wortley Montague pleaded with British doctors to adopt this practice (and almost two centuries before Edward Jenner). 3/5
Likewise, Robert Baker begs the “permission to present to the Royal Society a method to manufacturing ice that was performed at Allahabad, Mootegil, and Calcutta.” This methodology, as Baker argued in the letter, “would make permanent colonial settlements a reality”. 4/5
Helenus Scott, another doctor stationed in Bombay, writes to Joseph Banks of the Royal society that he would include in the next bill of lading a sample of caute, a surgical cement that putatively reattaches severed limbs. 5/5

~ From The Alchemy of Empire by Rajani Sudan
"A mysterious sect of Brahmans wandering up and down the Gangetic plain to popularize the practice of tika, which involved taking matter from a smallpox patient’s pustule and applying it to the pricked skin of an uninfected person".

newyorker.com/magazine/2020/…

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More from @Anuraag_Shukla

8 Feb
This paper, drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, examines how a wealthy class of farmers that is increasingly involved in urban business uses a combination of party connections, cash, & coercion to capture & maintain power at the expense of SCs in Punjab.

epw.in/journal/2015/5…
The SCs may not be capturing political power, but they are often asserting their cultural distinctiveness in a variety of ways and resisting Jat dominance in panchayats and in gurdwara management committees.
It is not uncommon to see cars with stickers proudly proclaiming their owner to be the son of a Chamar, and many SCs are flocking to religious institutions known as Deras that promise the equality and inclusion that the Jat-dominated Sikh Panth has reportedly failed to foster.
Read 16 tweets
7 Feb
This [⬇️] inscription over the arched entrance to the North block quotes British writer Charles Caleb Colton:

“Liberty will not descend to a people. A people must raise themselves to liberty. It is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed.”
Peter van der Veer writes, how, the British, convinced of their moral/intellectual superiority, conceptualized 'liberty' not as a modern political idea, but as an ancient British concept deeply rooted in history. #History
This British claim to antiquity was challenged by the comparative/competitive antiquity of Indian civilization. For example, this remark by VS Sukthankar, "Britain is a small, young nation, compared to India, and our love of knowledge, literature, and scripture is greater."
Read 4 tweets
29 Jan
When Governor-General Bentinck abolished Sati (Suttee, as Britishers called it), he had a larger-than-life statue commissioned showing him dramatically rescuing and Indian women from the funeral pyre. (It can still be seen in the compounds of Victoria museum). #history
Thomas Metcalf writes how despite infrequent occurrences of it, the British were quite fascinated with the act of Sati. With its immolation of a living woman in a raging fire, Sati, even more than the public execution, catered to the English obsession with death as spectacle.
The scene on this statue evokes a salacious mixture of sex and violence. It represents the Indian woman as a helpless victim of a blood-thirsty and superstitious faith, placed on the curved pedestal at the center of the composition, while Bentinck presides majestically above. Image
Read 7 tweets
21 Jan
Gandhi’s arrival on the Indian political scene & his challenge to British rule saw some sharp responses from contemporary Western academia & media. One of the most sensational responses was from Katherine Mayo. (now we know that she was encouraged by the CIA to write the book).
While Mayo laid claim to the academic objectivity, her account was so unremittingly negative that even the people in the US & Britain objected to her muckraking & one-sided portrayal. Her ‘objective’ account drew a portrait of India as a country, not yet ready for Independence.
The book was a journalistic coup. Not only more than 50 books and pamphlets were published in response to it, but it also led to a Broadway play and even made it to the movies. It profoundly affected the American and British perception of India.
Read 7 tweets
9 Jan
J. Farish, a member of the Bombay government, writes in his letter in 1838~

"The natives of India must be kept down by a sense of our power, or they must willingly submit from a conviction that we are wiser, more just, and more humane to improve their conditions."
He further writes, "If well-directed, the progress of education would undoubtedly increase our moral hold over India, but, at the same time, we should also ensuring that it does not lead the Natives to a consciousness of their own strength."
As the Colonial government wanted natives to help British surveyors and engineers in their work, it translated the Engineering curriculum to vernacular languages. The first such attempt was made in a college set up in Bombay by Elphinstone, with Lt. George Jervis as its director.
Read 14 tweets
6 Jan
"There was a great change in the Englishmen's attitude towards India between between 1750 and 1818." writes William Thomas. From a general positive view about Indians and their culture, the British attitude shifted to applying the psychology of contempt in all colonial matters.
Not only Macaulay was dismissive about local knowledge and traditions, he also showed utter contempt for Indian subjects. When he had to visit Ooty (from Madras and back) - a distance of 400 miles- to meet Governor Bentick, he decided to travel on the shoulders of Indian men.
"Twelve bearers- six at a time- carried his palanquin down to Ooty (and back to Madras), as he reclined and read Theodore Hook's Love and Pride. Ten porters and and two police officers with swords and badges ran alongside, as the rain came down in torrents."
Read 6 tweets

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