Alchemies of Industrial South India: Chemical Knowledge, Forests, and the Scales of Development Nikhil Joseph Dharan

Format:

Book

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Dharan, Nikhil Joseph, author.

Contributor:

University of Pennsylvania. History and Sociology of Science., degree granting institution.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

0332.

0485.

0515.

0747.

Local Subjects:

0332.

0485.

0515.

0747.

Physical Description:

1 electronic resource (271 pages)

Contained In:

Dissertations Abstracts International 87-07B

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, 2025

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This dissertation investigates how chemistry as a vehicle for industrialization remade the political, economic, and environmental landscapes of late colonial Madras Presidency and the Kingdom of Mysore. Principally, I frame chemical knowledge itself as a category which held scientific and indigenous practices in tension while forming the substrate for massively impactful development projects. This study casts institutions such as factories, workshops, vocational schools, and universities as crucial sites where the boundaries between knowledge production and industrial labor became blurred. Within novel regimes of development, diverse individuals and communities became incorporated into the industrial economy, including scientists, technicians, foresters, merchants, business elites, political figures, intellectuals, artisans, Adivasis (tribals), and Ayurvedic medical practitioners. In short, the link between these institutions, initiatives, and actors was chemistry, prized for its capacity translate the resources of South India's forests into the grist of industrial production. The central case studies of the dissertation are vegetable leather tanning in the Madras Presidency and sandalwood oil distillation in Mysore State. Leather tanning was performed across hundreds of small workshops by outcaste artisans using tree bark and other forest products as botanical tannins. The interventions of the Madras Development Department proceeded through largely indirect means, such as education, outreach, and petitioning, buttressed by the government Leather Trades Institute. By contrast, the distillation of sandalwood oil was a direct venture undertaken by the Mysore Department of Industries and Commerce, utilizing the resources of the Indian Institute of Science and the princely state's sizable crop of sandal trees. The success of the factories was achieved through coordination across multiple state authorities, including forestry, education, finance, law enforcement, and even religious endowment administration. The two industries offer rich comparisons of political structures, forms of knowledge, regimes of environmental governance, and market relationships. Drawing upon state archives and private libraries across three continents, I argue that late colonial investments in chemistry reshaped technical education, industrial enterprise, statecraft, and forest landscapes in South India

Notes:

Advisors: McKay, Ramah K.; Mukharji, Projit Bihari Committee members: Bhattacharyya, Debjani

Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 87-07, Section: B.

Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania 2025

Vendor supplied data

Local Notes:

School code: 0175

ISBN:

9798276004686

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license