Title:
Big-science, state-formation and development: the organisation of nuclear research in India, 1938-1959

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dc.contributor.advisor Krige, John
dc.contributor.author Phalkey, Jahnavi en_US
dc.contributor.committeeMember Abraham, Itty
dc.contributor.committeeMember Bullard, Alice
dc.contributor.committeeMember Lu, Hanchao
dc.contributor.committeeMember Usselman, Steven W.
dc.contributor.department History, Technology and Society en_US
dc.date.accessioned 2010-12-17T21:27:47Z
dc.date.available 2010-12-17T21:27:47Z
dc.date.issued 2007-11-15 en_US
dc.description.abstract This thesis is a history of the beginnings of nuclear research and education in India, between 1938 and 1959, through the trajectories of particle accelerator building activities at three institutions: the Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, the Palit Laboratory of Physics, University Science College, Calcutta, later (Saha) Institute of Nuclear Physics, and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bombay. The two main arguments in this thesis are: First, the beginnings of nuclear research in India were rooted in the "modernist imperative" of the research field. However, post-war organisation of nuclear research came to be inextricably imbricated in processes of state-formation in independent India in a manner such that failure to actively engage with the bureaucratic state implied death of a laboratory project or constraints upon legitimately possible research. Second, state-formation, like the pursuit of nuclear research in India for the period of my study, became about India's participation and claim upon the universal. State-formation was equally a modernist imperative. Powerful sections of the nationalist bourgeoisie in India understood "Science" and the "State" as universals in World History, and India, they were convinced, had to confirm its place in history as an equal among equals. These two arguments combined explain how nuclear research came to be established, transformed, and extended through the gradual assembly of material infrastructure to realistically enable the new country take a capable decision on the nuclear question. en_US
dc.description.degree Ph.D. en_US
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/1853/36535
dc.publisher Georgia Institute of Technology en_US
dc.subject Nuclear history en_US
dc.subject Scientific practice en_US
dc.subject India en_US
dc.subject State formation en_US
dc.subject.lcsh Nuclear energy India
dc.subject.lcsh Nuclear physics Research
dc.title Big-science, state-formation and development: the organisation of nuclear research in India, 1938-1959 en_US
dc.type Text
dc.type.genre Dissertation
dspace.entity.type Publication
local.contributor.advisor Krige, John
local.contributor.corporatename School of History and Sociology
local.contributor.corporatename Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts
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relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication 4a394044-f889-462e-bd25-ffd14ad5e9f3
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication b1049ff1-5166-442c-9e14-ad804b064e38
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