Conclusion: Science, fiction and the end of non-alignment

The concluding chapter looks at the legacy of ‘Nehruvian’ techno-science and non-alignment after the death of Nehru, as well as at the interrogation and mobilization of this legacy in Indian science fiction. It briefly discusses the writings of figures such as Adrish Bardhan, J.V. Narlikar and Vandana Singh to show that modern and contemporary Indian science fiction remain a productive site for critical assessment of assumptions about techno-science, ‘development’ and global culture.

Energy matters

The third chapter concentrates on how Indian science fiction met the representational challenges regarding energy during the non-aligned era. These decades were marked by chronic ‘energy crises’ in the country, involving massive shortages in food and fuel. Drawing on recent theoretical developments in Energy Humanities, the chapter suggests that much of the science fiction of the time was animated by attempts to present the pitfalls of thinking about energy exclusively in terms of resource and extraction and imagine what a non-exploitative energy-system could look like.

Introduction: Science, fiction and the non-aligned world

The introduction surveys the central role accorded to certain ideas of techno-scientific development in Indian nationalist imagination. It then examines the recent trend of a ‘post-colonial turn’ in both science studies and science-fiction scholarship and argues that this misses the opportunity to examine both science and science fiction in relation to global capitalism, colonialism and international opposition to these. By looking at the case of Indian science fiction written during the first decades of Indian independence, when the country took a leading role in the non-aligned movement, it suggests that such inter-related literary and political forms tried to chart alternative routes to dominant practices of modernization in the 20th-century.

The uses of weapons

The second chapter begins by considering one of the key challenges facing an independent India – how to balance developmental needs with that militarization. The paradox of militarization was an acute one for a country leading an international movement of peaceful and ‘non-aligned’ co-existence. This paradox provided rich material for the science fiction of the era, where ‘super-weapons’ were often represented in comic-ironic key rather than the dystopic-apocalyptic register familiar to most readers of its Euro-American counterparts.

Laboratory lives

The first chapter examines the representation of scientific laboratories in Indian science fiction of the non-aligned era. Such laboratories were seen as key sites for an acceleration of national ‘development’ in the decades following the country’s independence. But in science fiction laboratories were often treated critically, where key assumptions regarding the relationship of science, truth and progress were rigorously interrogated and revised.