Science,geography, and nation: the global creation of Thumba

Abstract

The origins of the Indian space program are typically traced back to the founding of a rocket launch base in Thumba in the state of Kerala in India in the 1960s. In creating infrastructure at Thumba, Indian scientific elites used geography as an instrument to create a vast international network of scientific and political actors committed to the science that was possible within India, particularly cosmic ray studies. They were drawing on a long tradition of linking geography to science redolent of the colonial era but were inspired by their newly constituted political imaginary of independent India as a place where science, geography, and nation were perfectly mapped on to each other. NASA’s help was crucial in this regard, enabled as a tool in Cold War high politics, as American technocrats sought to steer India towards the West, while India itself was keenly aware of a more proximate phenomenon, Pakistan’s own burgeoning efforts to do the same. Concerned about domestic opprobrium to large Indian investments in space technology, Indian and American actors shielded the Thumba project from critique by installing it under the umbrella of the international order, in this case the United Nations. This internationalism was complemented by a deep and firm belief in the universalism of modern science as a portable instrument, capable of improving the social order anywhere, regardless of political or social context.