Dispersed Radiance: Caste Gender and Modern Science in India

How did caste nationalism and gender affect modern science? Dispersed Radiance offers a social history of Physics in India in the first half of the twentieth century. Abha Sur writes about the life and work of two preeminent physicists—C.V. Raman and Meghnad Saha. In their caste political investment and cultural upbringing Raman and Saha were diametric opposites. Raman hailed from a conservative Tamil brahmin family and Saha from an unlettered rural family of a shudra caste in eastern Bengal. How did their social locations impact the kind of science they pursued? Sur also reconstructs a collective history of Raman’s women students—Lalitha Chandrasekhar Sunanda Bai and Anna Mani—each a scientist who did not her due. Author: Abha Sur is a scientist turned historian of science. She is presently a lecturer in the Program in Womens and Gender Studies and a research associate in the Program in Science Technology and Society at MIT.