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Robert S. Anderson, Nucleus and Nation: Scientists, International Networks, and Power in India (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), Pages: xxvi+683, Price: $60.00.
The relation between state and science is intricate and interesting. On one hand, the practitioners of science, though highly respected, are not widely understood - as they seem to live in a mysterious world in which incomprehensible language is spoken. On the other hand, when the state or the political leaders look to them to provide more efficient instruments for benefit of the state and the people, the scientists tend to utilise the space to propagate and defend the sanctity of their own dreams. Rightly, therefore, science has a particular presence around the notion of state which is the subject matter of the book under review.
The Nucleus and Nation by Robert S. Anderson is a coherent and comprehensive account of the institutional and individual origins of the development of science and technology in general, and atomic energy in particular, in India. Its focus, as the author asserts, is "less on the first Indian bomb itself than on the nucleus of people who made it possible ... and on their relation to the nation and its political leadership, right up to prime ministers" (p. 6). It explores the untold stories about key scientists behind the Indian nuclear programme, from its roots in the formation of an Indian scientific community in the 1920s to "competitive individualism": between "the war over self reliance in science and technology" for exploration of the peaceful uses...