"A Big Machine Not Working Properly": Elite Narratives of India's Community Projects, 1952–58 (October 2019)
Kumar, Prakash (Author)
Technology and Culture
Volume: 60
Issue: 4
Pages: 1027-1058
Edition Details: Special issue: History of Technology and South Asia
Language: English
This article argues against the common assumption in the field of development studies about "depoliticization" of the terrain in which development is conceived, implemented, and received. Taking the case of the history of "community development project" in India between 1952 and 1958, it makes the case that technocratic development in post-independence India involved a case of active, all around politics of negotiation. India's postcolonial elites were quite self-consciously geared to "own" the program in the name of nation and nation-building. The subjects of development were not passive either. It is certainly possible to read their politics of resistance in the process of development's implementation and in elite narratives of development.
...MoreArticle Mukharji (October 2019) Akarnan: The Stethoscope and Making of Modern Ayurveda, Bengal, c. 1894–1952. Technology and Culture (pp. 953-978).
Article Prasad, Amit (October 2019) Burdens of the Scientific Revolution: Euro/West-Centrism, Black Boxed Machines, and the (Post) Colonial Present. Technology and Culture (pp. 1059-1082).
Article Berger, Rachel (October 2019) Clarified Commodities: Managing Ghee in Interwar India. Technology and Culture (pp. 1004-1026).
Article Venkat, Bharat Jayram (October 2019) A Vital Mediation: The Sanatorium, before and after Antibiotics. Technology and Culture (pp. 979-1003).
Article Kumar, Prakash (October 2019) Introduction to Special Issue of T&C: History of Technology and South Asia. Technology and Culture (pp. 933-952).
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