Science, European Modernity, and Swaraj in J.P.S. Uberoi’s Writings: An Intervention in Postcolonial Sociology and Science and Technology Studies

The author critically engages with the writings of J.P.S. Uberoi, a towering figure in Indian sociology and anthropology whose studies of modern science and European modernity have, nonetheless, been largely ignored within the fields of sociology as well as science and technology studies in the West. Uberoi, as the author shows, provides a unique and important perspective on European modernity by tracing an overlooked genealogy of modern science. Specifically, he critiques positivist modern science and traces its genealogy, as well as that of European modernity, to medieval Christian debates over liturgy. He also presents a nondualist alternative science through Goethe’s theory of colors, despite his strong anticolonial and swarajist (self-rule) commitment. Uberoi’s work, the author argues, represents a postcolonial cosmopolitanism that does not rely on dualist separation between the West and the non-West that forms the basis of Orientalism. Nevertheless, while offering a unique and useful understanding of European modernity, Uberoi’s work remained complexly entangled within European colonialism.