The Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science: A Tortuous Tryst with Modern Science

The Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS) founded by Mahendra Lal Sircar in Calcutta in 1876 was the first large-scale indigenous enterprise in colonial India for the propagation of modern science. The efforts towards the formation of the IACS were marked by a range of ideas and positions which reflected mainstream elite Indian attitudes to western science as also the many paradoxes that the colonial situation imposed on the whole enterprise. The first exposures of the Indian elite to western education had evoked an admiration for modern science, its values, and its infinite possibilities. But the admiration so generated could not run on a momentum of its own because of the limitations of the colonial education system itself. The appreciation of modern science also brought about a soul-searching as to why a civilization with a hoary tradition of science had stagnated. This, in turn, led to vigorous socio-cultural self-criticism aimed at ending what was perceived to be long slumber and degeneration. Science itself was seen as a force for such liberation and the alien colonial government as its chief facilitator. The latter was not too eager to promote science at large. Hence the need for an indigenous initiative. However, the plain existential realities of colonialism dictated that little could be achieved without the support of the government. With all its paradoxes and ironies, the IACS project was yet a grand endeavour, forming a lasting part of the Indian scientific landscape. In fact, given its peculiar circumstances, it would have been very unreal without its paradoxes.