Holy Science: The Biopolitics of Hindu Nationalism

by Banu Subramaniam, Rebecca Herzig (Series Editor)

Behind the euphoric narrative of India as an emerging world power lies a complex and evolving relationship between science and religion. Evoking the rich mythology of comingled worlds where humans, animals, and gods transform each other and ancient history, Banu Subramaniam demonstrates how Hindu nationalism sutures an ideal past to technologies of the present to make bold claims about the Vedic Sciences and the scientific Vedas. Moving beyond a critique of India's emerging bionationalism, this book explores the generative possibility of myth and story, interweaving compelling new stories into a rich analysis that animates alternative imaginaries and "other" worlds of possibilities.

Genres: Nonfiction

312 pages, Paperback

Published May 15, 2019

About the author

Banu Subramaniam is a professor of women, gender and sexuality studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Originally trained as a plant evolutionary biologist, she writes about social and cultural aspects of science as they relate to experimental biology.

Reviews

[Sharad Pandian · Rating 4 out of 5]

"If there is one insight that emerges through the five cases that animate this book, it is that the act
of tracing the arcs of power tells us more about the past, the present, and the future rather than any objective truth or any subjective belief that science or religion can reveal." (211)

maybe.

[Amrutha Subbukrishna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why are there random fictional stories between the chapters?

[Guzarish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really fun to read for such a politicaly dense book. This would be my second book which falls into STS (Science, Technology and Society) studies after Meera Nanda's Science in Saffron. This one focuses more on extending Foucault's idea of bionationalism to India's scientification of religion mainly. Mainly, it tries to show how in both science and religion, marginalized groups have been excluded and both science and religion are given a power to hold over others and shape the hegemonic ideals of the society. It goes over how hindu nationalism came to be with Swami Vivekananda and Dayananda - turning women into 'shakti', the powerless mother weeping the sorrows of her son. In subsequent chapters, it shows how homosexuality was proven to be scientifically unnatural drawing from Western traditions and then Hindi nationalists re-writing the narrative by calling them the 'sexual others'. It also goes over the environmental angles of religionized science, caste and Aryan Migration Theory, and the surro-gods created for commercializing surrogacy. Overall, gave me a new way of thinking, would think about this for a while.

[Vani · Rating 3 out of 5]

I completely get what he is saying and agree with an overwhelming majority of it but this was not methodologically robust enough to quite stick the landing.