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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 of Western society. Following this logic, postmodern scholars have urged postcolonial societies to develop their own “alternative sciences” as a step towards “mental decolonization”. These ideas have found a warm welcome among Hindu nationalists who came to power in India in the early 1990s. In this passionate and highly original study, Indian-born author Meera Nanda reveals how these well-meaning but ultimately misguided ideas are enabling Hindu ideologues to propagate religious myths in the guise of science and secularism. At the heart of Hindu supremacist ideology, Nanda argues, lies a postmodernist 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. What is being celebrated as “difference” by postmodernists, however, has more often than not been the source of mental bondage and authoritarianism in non-Western cultures. The “Vedic sciences” currently endorsed in Indian schools, colleges, and the mass media promotes the same elements of orthodox Hinduism that have for centuries deprived the vast majority of Indian people of their full humanity.
By denouncing science and secularization, the left was unwittingly contributing to what Nanda calls “reactionary modernism.” In contrast, Nanda points to the Dalit, or untouchable, movement as a true example of an “alternative science” that has embraced reason and modern science to challenge traditional notions of hierarchy.
By denouncing science and secularization, the left was unwittingly contributing to what Nanda calls “reactionary modernism.” In contrast, Nanda points to the Dalit, or untouchable, movement as a true example of an “alternative science” that has embraced reason and modern science to challenge traditional notions of hierarchy.
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First published November 27, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
November 14, 2025
A few days back, I asked a young intellectual friend to tell me about postmodernism. I am a voracious reader, but as far as literary theories go, I am stuck somewhere between the classical period and modernity - in fact, despite all my pretensions to intellectualism, I am actually a dumbass (don't tell anyone, please). This naturally handicaps me in literary discussions where people throw around terms like post-colonialism and deconstruction as through they were part of everyday discourse; to keep up my facade of intellectual superiority, I just keep quiet, nod my head, and toss in "indubitably!" and "precisely!" at strategic intervals. It has worked so far, but it's a strain.
This young person I asked for help is a fierce intellectual who eats, drinks and perhaps dreams literary theory. She told me that postmodernism was not just connected to literature; it's a whole new worldview which is actively at loggerheads with enlightenment values. In fact, it even denies the superiority of the method of science as a tool to approach truth - all methods of knowledge are seen as equally valid, based upon "narratives". And as far as the third-world countries are concerned, their traditional ways of approaching truth have been mercilessly destroyed by their former colonial masters, who pushed "Western science" as the only way to enlightenment to further their capitalist and imperialist agenda. So the duty of postmodernism and post-colonialism is to jettison the "colonial mindset" and to go back to their roots, and re-discover their "ancient wisdom".
Now, as an engineer and a person who values the objectivity of science, this is something which I consider to be pure drivel; absolute, unadulterated poppycock. You can analyse something subjective like literature through your particular lens: but science, no. When I stated this in pretty non-ambiguous terms, my young friend suggested that I read this book. And I am glad she did - because Meera Nanda shines a mercilessly bright light into the black hole that modern India has currently fallen into.
Postmodernism rejects the dualistic view of nature, a basic assumption of science. It's only through the separation of the observer and the observed that the standard scientific method of hypothesis-experiment-observation-inference can proceed. However, postmodernists go for a holistic view, where the observer and the observed are part of the same whole. So, there can be no "objectivity" - everything is subjective. Therefore, all systems of knowledge are equally true. Science is just another dogma.
The author says that one can readily see how this penchant for holism gained traction in the West. Enlightenment and modernism created an exclusively materialistic universe which left people craving for spiritual sustenance. Also, science's bent towards materialism helped create a society which saw exploitation as laudable, and where there were no moral values. It was an understandable rebellion.
But one must remember that in the East, especially India, modernism never took root. The process of secularisation which is essential for the creation of an egalitarian society never happened. We are still a deeply religious nation, full of inequalities which have been institutionalised over centuries. So the postmodern rebellion against science had the opposite of its intended effect - it gave an intellectual veneer to systemic oppression.
By harping on holistic knowledge, the liberal left in India has actually provided ammunition for the fascist Hindutva brigade. Hindu bigots have gleefully taken up holism to mean the wisdom of the Upanishads - that is, the concept that the world is made up of a universal soul called the "Brahman" of which each living being is only an expression (tat tvam asi or "thou art that"). While this is a very nice philosophical toffee to chew on, it is absolutely useless as a practical tool. You can't cure smallpox or send rockets to the moon using Vedic chants.
The fascists know that. They have no problem in embracing science where it helps them. However, they take great pains to tell all and sundry that "everything is contained in the Vedas" - that is, all of the discoveries of "Western" science have already been foretold in Vedic literature. However, unlike the exploitative West, our sages kept the knowledge to themselves because they did not want any material benefits. They enjoyed knowledge for knowledge's sake. It is very easy to make such claims retrospectively (especially when most of the population can't understand Sanskrit).
This could have been ignored as an amusing idiosyncrasy, had not these bigots seized power in India and is now actively engaged in feeding this bovine excrement to the youth through school textbooks. Their aim is produce a population who can apply science in engineering and medicine, while at the same time continuing to swallow the myth of Vedic science. And they are succeeding. Unfortunately, our well-meaning postmodernist liberal intellectuals have become "prophets facing backwards": looking to move towards a "golden age" that never existed.
Is there a way out?
The author believes there is. She sees Ambedkar's reinterpretation of Buddhist philosophy as a scathing critique of the caste system. By using our own tradition of rationalist thought (the Buddha spurned speculative metaphysics like the plague), we can effectively counter the spiritual gobbledygook our current administration is peddling in the name of science. While I agree, I am worried that we may have left it too late.
This young person I asked for help is a fierce intellectual who eats, drinks and perhaps dreams literary theory. She told me that postmodernism was not just connected to literature; it's a whole new worldview which is actively at loggerheads with enlightenment values. In fact, it even denies the superiority of the method of science as a tool to approach truth - all methods of knowledge are seen as equally valid, based upon "narratives". And as far as the third-world countries are concerned, their traditional ways of approaching truth have been mercilessly destroyed by their former colonial masters, who pushed "Western science" as the only way to enlightenment to further their capitalist and imperialist agenda. So the duty of postmodernism and post-colonialism is to jettison the "colonial mindset" and to go back to their roots, and re-discover their "ancient wisdom".
Now, as an engineer and a person who values the objectivity of science, this is something which I consider to be pure drivel; absolute, unadulterated poppycock. You can analyse something subjective like literature through your particular lens: but science, no. When I stated this in pretty non-ambiguous terms, my young friend suggested that I read this book. And I am glad she did - because Meera Nanda shines a mercilessly bright light into the black hole that modern India has currently fallen into.
Postmodernism rejects the dualistic view of nature, a basic assumption of science. It's only through the separation of the observer and the observed that the standard scientific method of hypothesis-experiment-observation-inference can proceed. However, postmodernists go for a holistic view, where the observer and the observed are part of the same whole. So, there can be no "objectivity" - everything is subjective. Therefore, all systems of knowledge are equally true. Science is just another dogma.
The author says that one can readily see how this penchant for holism gained traction in the West. Enlightenment and modernism created an exclusively materialistic universe which left people craving for spiritual sustenance. Also, science's bent towards materialism helped create a society which saw exploitation as laudable, and where there were no moral values. It was an understandable rebellion.
But one must remember that in the East, especially India, modernism never took root. The process of secularisation which is essential for the creation of an egalitarian society never happened. We are still a deeply religious nation, full of inequalities which have been institutionalised over centuries. So the postmodern rebellion against science had the opposite of its intended effect - it gave an intellectual veneer to systemic oppression.
By harping on holistic knowledge, the liberal left in India has actually provided ammunition for the fascist Hindutva brigade. Hindu bigots have gleefully taken up holism to mean the wisdom of the Upanishads - that is, the concept that the world is made up of a universal soul called the "Brahman" of which each living being is only an expression (tat tvam asi or "thou art that"). While this is a very nice philosophical toffee to chew on, it is absolutely useless as a practical tool. You can't cure smallpox or send rockets to the moon using Vedic chants.
The fascists know that. They have no problem in embracing science where it helps them. However, they take great pains to tell all and sundry that "everything is contained in the Vedas" - that is, all of the discoveries of "Western" science have already been foretold in Vedic literature. However, unlike the exploitative West, our sages kept the knowledge to themselves because they did not want any material benefits. They enjoyed knowledge for knowledge's sake. It is very easy to make such claims retrospectively (especially when most of the population can't understand Sanskrit).
This could have been ignored as an amusing idiosyncrasy, had not these bigots seized power in India and is now actively engaged in feeding this bovine excrement to the youth through school textbooks. Their aim is produce a population who can apply science in engineering and medicine, while at the same time continuing to swallow the myth of Vedic science. And they are succeeding. Unfortunately, our well-meaning postmodernist liberal intellectuals have become "prophets facing backwards": looking to move towards a "golden age" that never existed.
Is there a way out?
The author believes there is. She sees Ambedkar's reinterpretation of Buddhist philosophy as a scathing critique of the caste system. By using our own tradition of rationalist thought (the Buddha spurned speculative metaphysics like the plague), we can effectively counter the spiritual gobbledygook our current administration is peddling in the name of science. While I agree, I am worried that we may have left it too late.
January 15, 2019
This book gets cited a lot by scholars who see postmodern critiques of Enlightenment reason as creating opportunities for fascism. While it's not really a close reading of postmodern philosophical texts, and shares some of the problems of other critiques of those, she does engage with the uses to which such theories are put in the justifications for Hindutva. Ultimately, this book is more useful for explaining the rise of that movement, including the ways in which it benefited from populist left version of anti-imperialism, as expressed in the writing of Vandana Shiva and others who seemed to circulate from what she calls the "Gandhian left" to the far right.
November 14, 2023
Although written 20 years ago, this brave and unapologetic study of the rise of Hindutva has arguably never been more topical than it is today, and I don't mean with reference to the particular Indian context but for understanding some central mechanisms that paradoxically bring the radical left to be (unwittingly) allied with the far right with an eye to contemporary global political currents. Meera Nanda is, without doubt, one of our keenest cultural commentators, and now also one of my personal heroes.
February 9, 2017
This was a pretty good book on the rise of Hindu nationalism and its ideological similarities with the postcolonial arm of the academic cultural Left in its critique of scientific ideology, which is a relativist one. The position against the charlatanry of relativism is always welcomed. Nanda for me loses points because she accepts aspects of the philosophy of science that are now highly questionable, namely Kant's noumena/phenomena distinction and the sustenance of positivism. She is too quick to dismiss 'holism,' in which she lumps Hegel, which by itself took a star off the book's final rating. Finally, I feel as if she is a bit harsh on some of the better Indian postcolonial theorists such as Spivak and Bhabha (yet agreeing with her characterisation of their writing as unnecessarily 'verbose'), although Ashis Nandy and Dipesh Chakrabarty are certainly fine to critique in this regard.
April 19, 2022
Absolutely stunning...A tour de force...Amazing.
Meera Nanda's understanding, writing and arguments are outstanding and superlative.
It is a real classic, though seems neglected, which is understandable as it asks difficult questions, puts deeply held belief and convictions to rigorous analysis and highlights the blind spots in our thinking.
The book asks, examines and analyzes fundamental questions which are generally brushed aside or are avoided. It examines the intellectual sources of reactionary modernism. It also deeply, nuancedly and passionately analyses and in the process shows that there is a convergence between Vedic sciences/Hindu modernity and postmodernist/postcolonial critique of science by left-inclined intellectuals and new social movements.
And of course, you need a certain level of intellectual maturity and sophistication to understand and appreciate this book, and the valuable insights offered here.
Meera Nanda's understanding, writing and arguments are outstanding and superlative.
It is a real classic, though seems neglected, which is understandable as it asks difficult questions, puts deeply held belief and convictions to rigorous analysis and highlights the blind spots in our thinking.
The book asks, examines and analyzes fundamental questions which are generally brushed aside or are avoided. It examines the intellectual sources of reactionary modernism. It also deeply, nuancedly and passionately analyses and in the process shows that there is a convergence between Vedic sciences/Hindu modernity and postmodernist/postcolonial critique of science by left-inclined intellectuals and new social movements.
And of course, you need a certain level of intellectual maturity and sophistication to understand and appreciate this book, and the valuable insights offered here.
September 1, 2024
Highly absurd parallels drawn and extreme leaps have been taken in this assessment. "Hitler being seen as an incarnation of (Lord) Vishnu" !!! It's a complete waste of time and a chance to learn something.
The thoughts and the positions are laughable at best.
0/10
The thoughts and the positions are laughable at best.
0/10
January 12, 2011
Great work with a critical look at the collision of Indian religion and science as well as the unwitting support of reactionary Hinduism by postmodern intellectuals in India and the west. Incisive and thorough.
April 27, 2010
Scary book about fascism in India.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews