Prophets Facing Backward: Postmodern Critiques of Science and Hindu Nationalism in India

The leading voices in science studies have argued that modern science reflects dominant social interests and cultural values of Western society. Following this logic, postmodern scholars have urged non-Western societies to develop their own "alternative sciences" as a step toward "mental decolonization." In this passionate and highly original study, Meera Nanda reveals how these radical critiques of modern science are enabling Hindu ideologues to propagate religious myths in the guise of science and secularism. Nanda contends that at the heart of Hindu supremacist ideology lies a postmodernist assumption: that each society has its own norms of reasonableness, logic, rules of evidence, and conception of truth, and that there is no non-arbitrary, culture-independent way to choose among these alternatives. This logic is enabling Hindu nationalists to celebrate the most mystical and obscurantist elements of Hinduism as "Vedic science." By eroding all distinctions between modern science and other local sciences, the postmodernist left has unwittingly aided the growth of reactionary modernism in India.