Meera Nanda on Hindutva, Postcolonial Theory, and the Saffronising of Science

The Hindu

21-07-2025

Published : Jul 21, 2025 15:52 IST - 9 MINS READ
I am often irked by the term 'Western science'. This phrase not only overlooks the global and collaborative nature of science but also carries more profound implications. As a science writer highlighting the contributions of marginalised voices in Indian science, I believe that the term 'Western science' overlooks scientific contributions made by non-Western scientists. Seeing all endeavours based on empiricism as 'Western' and hence colonial neglects significant movements within our own country that have sought to loosen the hold of superstitions and irrational beliefs, however sporadic these efforts may have been.
Instead, we should call it what it is: modern science. This shift is more than just a linguistic change; it represents an effort to recognise the scientific contributions made by Indians.
This Indian science that I seek to defend is not the same as Vedic science. Nor does it include Ayurvedic recipes of pseudoscientific herbal decoctions that the Central and some State governments promoted during the recent pandemic. My embrace of Indian science has nothing to do with the surge of misleading narratives spread by Hindutva forces claiming that 'we have always been scientific'.
Hindutva co-opting modern science
In this context, studying Meera Nanda's writing has been enlightening. The science philosopher and historian of science is a controversial figure, thanks to her bold dismissal of Hindutva co-opting modern science and of postcolonial theories that question the possibility of objective knowledge. Nanda began her career as a microbiologist at IIT Delhi, later transitioning into a science writer and activist who fought for rational inquiry. Now a retired academic, she spent many years teaching the history of science to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) students in India. She has written on many occasions that her proximity to the scientific method liberated her from oppressive social realities as an Indian woman. When I met her while working on a book about gender gaps in Indian science, she left a lasting impression on me, and since then, I have been diving deep into Nanda's commentary.
Throughout most of her writing, Nanda's concern is about defending the scientific method, and she does not hesitate to issue stark warnings when she sees it being instrumentalised for political gain. In the book Prophets Facing Backwards (an essential Meera Nanda reading), she predicted the rise of Hindutva 10 years before Narendra Modi came to power and the undermining of modern science that has accompanied it. The book explores the comprehensive scope of Nanda's ideas on the intersection of science, religion, and nationalism in India. In its introduction, she explains why she was compelled to write the book: to counter what she was witnessing politically in India, as well as globally, in the academic discipline of science and technology studies (STS). She particularly raises critical concerns about the influence of postcolonial theory in STS, noting that it often diminishes secular and rationalist principles in the name of decolonisation.
Routledge recently published her latest book, Postcolonial Theory and the Making of Hindu Nationalism: The Wages of Unreason, in print, and a South Asian edition is awaited. In this work, Meera fleshes out the synergies between the Hindu Right and the postcolonial Left. She substantiates how the two ideologies that arose from opposing sides of the political spectrum have merged with disastrous implications for India. Both sides would like to see a revival of indigenous cultural norms, and 'both seek to decolonise and indigenize science and social theory'.
However, Nanda emphasises that they are in no way equal partners. In her deeply nuanced critique, she argues that while the Hindu Right did not require the postcolonial Left to ignite its movement, the latter nonetheless has aided in spreading it by providing a conceptual framework.
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Postcolonial scholars ground their theory in the understanding that colonial powers operated under the assumption that the 'uncivilised' needed to be civilised, utilising the tools at hand to administer the colonies. These tools included the empirical scientific methods derived from the Enlightenment that took place in Europe, where these colonial powers came from.
There is no doubt that colonial powers employed science and rationality to set up the extractive industrial landscape we see today, including in the previous colonies. But the problem lies in the overreach of postcolonial theory that suggests that true decoloniality can come only when all the tools deployed during colonisation are rejected and indigenous ways of knowing are excavated.
Nanda warns that while these excavations are negotiated, the Hindu Right is filling them with whatever it sees fit to claim supremacy.
Knowledge is learnt, it is not innate
For her, overemphasis on situated knowledge amounts to nativism, implying that knowledge is innate to groups rather than learnt. To my understanding as a science writer, AI is a good metaphor to help us out of this conundrum. AI improves and develops with every iteration as it is programmed to learn. It carries the biases of the data it learns from, but as shifts in AI research show, algorithmic fairness is a worthy pursuit. Still, I ask Nanda whether she thinks postcolonial theory has anything to offer. 'You got me there!' she said. 'The germ of the idea—that colonial ways of knowing carried Western cultural biases and served colonial interests—of course has some value. But this was plugged into universal claims regarding the impossibility of objective knowledge and progressive improvement in ways of knowing. If all knowledge is 'situated' and constructed, it can't question power. This negates the history of rationalism, feminism, Dalit liberation, and secular humanism.'
Nanda has maintained throughout her academic life that the rise of postmodern critiques of science has unintentionally given credence to the revival of religious forces. Her critics, including other philosophers of science and postcolonialists, argue that she overlooks the power structures that shape modern science.
To this, she responds by saying: 'I don't deny the power structures. I only question how deep they go into the production of factual knowledge.' Nanda is undeterred and focussed on the consequences, as she goes so far as to state: 'Postcolonial theory has now become a veritable arm of Hindu nationalism.' Her new book thoroughly examines this claim.
The end of objective reality?
In another publication, she has explained the standpoint of 'social constructivism' that postcolonial theories of knowledge embody: 'There is no objective truth about the real world which scientifically justified knowledge can aim toward, but rather all 'truth' about 'reality' is literally constructed out of choices between equally justifiable interpretations that a 'thought collective' makes.
These choices, in turn, are driven by the conscious and unconscious biases and interests of the members of any community of inquirers. Though varied in emphases and details, constructivist theorists agree that there simply is no truth, or even reality, that can transcend the local social context of inquiry.'
Such a thesis proposes the end of an objective reality that is shared and agreed on by all humans regardless of their backgrounds, and this is unacceptable to Nanda.
In A Field Guide to Post-Truth India, she sounds the alarm on the state-sponsored 'injection of Hindu Metaphysics' into our education system. The book fearlessly critiques the integration of Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS) into the education framework as part of the recent National Education Policy and other associated initiatives, including Baba Ramdev's Bharatiya Shiksha Board and other projects that have already taken hold in India's education landscape. The first half of the book is darkly comic as it details how Hindutva forces have been busy blending our curriculum with the Vedas.
In subsequent chapters, she takes us through the recent debacles of drug-induced liver injuries related to unchecked Ayurveda promotion and how desperately IKS centres of excellence have been manufacturing scientific evidence to prove somehow that Hinduism's roots run deeper into the ancient history of the subcontinent.
And while we are all tuned in again to the Donald Trump show, she strings together the post-truth scenario in the US, which she terms Big Lies, with that seen in India. She contrasts Trump's Big Lies with Deep Lies in India, which are entangled with a set of cultural and religious beliefs and are thus harder to debunk.
A ban on questioning
Another book, titled Science in Saffron: Sceptical Essays on India's History of Science, critically analyses some of the claims made to portray the Vedas as scientific. Nanda finds that these claims are no different from those found in other creation myths around the world. She examines the claims of Hindu scientific superiority made by historic Hindu fundamentalists, such as Swami Dayananda, Aurobindo, and Swami Vivekananda, who interpreted the Vedas to contain, as well as go above and beyond, all of science.
Drawing parallels between that and the Christian Church's historical and failed approach in employing the growing trust in science to 'reveal' (and not find faults in) God's 'intelligent design', Nanda identifies the subtext passed on in the declarations of the 'scientific' Vedas: 'the scientific must only validate but never question the Vedic.'
Nanda has probed the paradigms derived from interpreting the Vedas that render them as scientific. One example is the claim of all-seeing yogic science, which is 'experienced' rather than 'observed' as in 'Western science' . As these experiences offer a view into the highest truths only through yogic powers, it is hard for 'the normals' to interrogate, leaving them to rely on the 'peer review' of yogis.
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In Hindutva's project of blurring science and religion, Nanda sees through its strategy that is piggybacking on the festering feeling of gulaami (enslavement) and the strong desire of every Indian to decolonise themself. As if the Vedas are the shahi-snan (the holy dip taken during the Kumbh Mela), the modern Indian needs to rid themself of colonial hangover. Nanda's work suggests that this leads to false pride in a religious-based identity.
She asks instead for an honest confrontation with our history and heritage in her bold, direct, yet sometimes humorous style. It leaves us with the question of what kind of country we want to live in.
In her rich body of work, Nanda has been highlighting the dangerous merger of faith and politics under way in India. The work urges a critical look at the growing influence of religious ideologies in public life. Her insights serve as a call to action for those who value secularism and rational discourse.
Aashima Dogra is a science writer; she co-founded the feminist science media portal thelifeofscience.com and is the co-author of the recent book Lab Hopping, which investigates the realities behind the gender gap in Indian STEM.