Science and Modern India

CHAPTER 22

Subaltern Science in the South, 1792–1947

M.S. Raghunathan and G. Rajasekaran^*

The establishment and growth of some scientific institutions in south India during the colonial period has been traced in this chapter. The Madras Observatory, the University of Madras, and its affiliated colleges are the chief institutions whose evolution has been described, up to 1947. The Observatory and the University were headquartered in the City of Madras¹ (Now Chennai). We briefly touch on other universities of that period in the south, too, and also offer brief sketches of the formative years of some of the major scientific figures who emerged from these institutions. The chapter closes with some comments that have a bearing on the sociological ...