Holy Science

The particular cover of Banu Subramaniam’s book, Holy Science: The Biopolitics of Hindu Nationalism, is provocatively playful. A “Vedic” pundit sits at what appears to be the shoreline of the beach wearing several garlands of rudrākṣa and a sarong-like luṇgi. As well, his hair is worn with a typical top knot and a matching long beard. What makes this cover so delightful is that our pundit also wears a microphone/earphone head piece, as if he is in a call center. And, on top of this, he sits at a computer holding a stylus smart pen topped with a peacock feather. The computer screen seems to have the iconic green circles of a radar image tracking aircraft, and in the Devanāgarī script, it says vimāna (aircraft). Turning to the back cover, two vimānas appear to be bursting out of the ocean as if they were submarine-launched ballistic missiles. This book sits at a crossroad that makes it of interest to anyone curious about the history of India in relation to science, technology, neoliberalism, colonialism, gender, globalization, sexuality, and cultural studies. This occurs within the frame of biopolitics, which is a way to understand the coercive influences employed by the state to create docile subjects. It is accessible to someone not familiar with many of these concepts, particularly the sections related to genomics. The dust jacket explains that this book explores the “euphoric narrative of India as an emerging world power” and looks at the “untold story of an evolving relationship between science and religion” toward the co-mingling of worlds that “demonstrates how Hindu nationalism weaves an ideal past into technologies of the present to imagine a future nation that is modern and ‘Hindu.’”

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