The Freedom Struggle and Scientific Community
India’s struggle to gain independence from the British took on many dimensions - it was a political and revolutionary struggle, but quite importantly, it was also a struggle to establish our own intellectual and scientific movement. The struggle saw resurgence of India’s scientific momentum and the rise of a new scientific community in the 19th century, which not only fought the discriminatory attitude of the British but established an indigenous movement by Indians to reassert and carve their own unique identity. This special series of Science for a Self-reliant India will commemorate India’s 75 years of Independence. We will take you to a period of history that saw India’s rising sentiments against British intellectual colonialism especially in the areas of science & technology. We will also see the contribution of the Indian scientific community to establish indigenous intellectual and scientific institutions, journals and traditions. It can be correctly inferred that this period between 1757 and 1900, did witness the birth of the self-reliance movement in India.
