Скачать или смотреть Azram Rahman Khan: Science, Technology and Production – Sugar Industry in Colonial India

Azram Rahman Khan
MPhil, DU
Science, Technology and Production – Sugar Industry in Colonial India
The history of science and technology that has been written by historians in the Indian context has largely been constructed to trace the development of the discourse around scientificity and the institutions that accompanied it. It mainly concerned with the emergence of scientists and the major changes brought about them. There has been little work done on how the discourse around science and technology was actualised in the production process. My paper will attempt to locate this actualisation in the sugar industry. Sugar industry was marked by production through indigenous processes but by the start of the 20th century, major impetus was given to it by the colonial regime wherein factory made white sugar was considered to be the product that ought to be produced from sugarcane. The major works done on sugar industry have focussed on two major functions of production, namely labour and capital. This paper will examine a third function of production i.e. technology and locate it in the discursive domain that focussed on technology as the most vital factor for development and its relation with labour and capital as it was primarily for more surplus accumulation that technological changes were introduced. The sources that I will use though will be the official reports of the colonial government and minutes of its various bodies, the attempt would be look for answers that define the contradictions of the present. The focus on mechanization and automation to deal with the issues of production in the present is something that we see throughout the 20th century in the Indian context. It is in this context that it becomes important to see how and why from the different technological options available in a particular time, a particular form is chosen.