ABSTRACT
This chapter tries to unfold the debates on rationality and scientific temper in postcolonial India. It narrates the story of the emergence of science as the paradigm for modernity in India. As India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru’s love and admiration for science and his friendship with scientists is well known. This state–science relationship gave science and scientists a superior status in India. No discussion about science in postcolonial India would be complete without discussing Nehru and his ideas on scientific modernity. Although the book is an ethnographic investigation of ‘religion and science’ in the contemporary India, it is imperative to have a historical understanding of the debates on science and rationality in order to understand how they shaped the way we understand the question of science and religion in India today. This chapter discusses the construction of rationality and scientific temper in postcolonial India, and how these ideas were debated and negotiated by different actors in different points of time.
