Brown skins, white coats : race science in India, 1920-66 / Projit Bihari Mukharji.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mukharji, Projit Bihari, author.

Contributor:

Rāẏa, Hemendra Kumāra, 1888-1963.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Race--Research--India--History--20th century.

Race.

Scientific racism--India--History--20th century.

Scientific racism.

Race--Research.

India.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xviii, 348 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Other Title:

Race science in India, 1920-66

Place of Publication:

Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2022.

Summary:

"In recent years, there has been an explosion in studies of race science in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, but the vast majority has remained focused either on Europe or North America and Australia. Projit Mukharji shows not only that India appropriated and repurposed race science to its own ends, he also argues that these appropriations need to be understood within the national and regional contexts of postcolonial nation-making and not merely as footnotes to a European or Australo-American history of normal science. Previous work on the history of race in India has overwhelmingly focused on the pre-WWI era when most of the scientist-bureaucrats engaged in race science were British. This changed dramatically after WWI, when the scientific establishment was rapidly Indianized and science itself became more professionalized and technical. All this transformed the nature, focus, politics, and practice of race science in India and ensured that race science survived the end of formal empire in 1947. This book is uniquely constructed, with seven factual chapters operating at distinct levels--the conceptual, practical, and cosmological--and eight fictive interchapters. Drawing principally on one work of fiction published in 1935 and supplemented by other fictional works written by the same author, the interchapters tease out the full implications of racial research in India with fiction. The narrative interchapters develop as a series of epistolary exchanges between the Bengali author Hemendrakumar Roy (1888-1963) and the main protagonist of his dystopian science fiction novel about race, race science, racial improvement, and dehumanization. In this way, Mukharji fills out the historical moment in which the factual narrative unfolded, vividly revealing the moral, affective, political, and intellectual fissures of the moment"-- Provided by publisher.

"A unique narrative structure brings the history of race science in mid-twentieth century India to vivid life. Recent years have seen an explosion in studies of race science in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, but the vast majority have remained focused either on Europe or North America and Australia. In this stirring history, Projit Bihari Mukharji shows that India appropriated and repurposed race science to its own ends and argues that these appropriations need to be understood within the national and regional contexts of postcolonial nation-making--not merely as footnotes to a European or Australo-American history of normal science. The book is constructed with seven factual chapters operating at distinct levels--the conceptual, practical, and cosmological--and eight fictive interchapters. Drawing principally on one work of fiction published in 1935 and supplemented by other fictional works written by the same author, the interchapters tease out the full implications of racial research in India with fiction. The narrative interchapters develop as a series of epistolary exchanges between the Bengali author Hemendrakumar Roy (1888-1963) and the main protagonist of his dystopian science fiction novel about race, race science, racial improvement, and dehumanization. In this way, Mukharji fills out the historical moment in which the factual narrative unfolded, vividly revealing its moral, affective, political, and intellectual fissures"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction

Interchapter : letter 1

Seroanthropological races

Interchapter : letter 2

Mendelizing religion

Interchapter : letter 3

A taste for race

Interchapter : letter 4

Medicalizing race

Interchapter : letter 5

Blood multiple

Interchapter : letter 6

Refusing race

Interchapter : letter 7

Racing the future

Interchapter : letter 8

Conclusion.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 307-336) and index.

ISBN:

9780226822990

0226822990

9780226823010

0226823016

OCLC:

1304347196