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Cultural Dynamics
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Science, Culture and Conflict in India

Dhirendra Sharma

Centre for Science and Industrial Policy Research (Asian), New Delhi, India

Science and technology have been a vector of social change, but for the nonwestern (Third World) people, modern technoscience advancement has been associated with western domination. For this reason, the evolution of technoglobalization is viewed with suspicion. The Critical Science Movement (CSM) emerged during the decades after the Second World War and led to ecofriendly scientific movements; the new scientific culture assessed science and technology, including the social responsibilities of science and the social studies of science. However, the cognitive impact of science in, for example, India had been mostly reactionary—outright anti-science and anti-intellectualism. Politically, it has encouraged ‘ethnic nationalism’ and culturally ‘ religious revivalism’. Generally, we feel it necessary to glorify the ‘ancient golden age’ which was considered superior to modern science and ‘spiritually superior to the materialist aggressive western’ culture of science. Science as a cognitive factor is not viewed as a liberating source of knowledge and reasoning but as a threat to traditional culture. At best science is regarded as exploitative of natural resources. The article attempts to explain the reasons for India's cultural resistance to the scientific approaches of social engineering.

Key Words: culture • globalization • India • religion • science • technology • tradition

Cultural Dynamics, Vol. 12, No. 2, 164-181 (2000)
DOI: 10.1177/092137400001200204
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