84 SOCIAL SCIENTIST three themes that are probed include science, colonialism and the question of modernity. Prakash presents a rather linearised image of Indian history in context of the post-1857 Rebellion from the point of view of both the coloniser and the colony. He talks about the impulses to develop India as a secure and modern colony and the 'profoundly5 contradictory idea of liberating (viz. from superstition, etc.) in order to dominate. Were not both these — which were a part of the 'civilising mission' — perfectly compatible in a colonial situation? It's of course outside the purview of the author to say anything about the imprints of the colony on the coloniser and whether 'he5 too needed liberation. As Prakash puts it, his work deals with Indian (actually the Hindu middle class) science's history as a sign of Indian modernity. Methologically one is uncomfortable with the idea of science 'penetrating5 (sic) the fabric of social life — perhaps a fall-out of his idea of an autonomous middle class. And, talking about translation, he projects a mono-dimensional picture of the western-educated elite's mission of critiquing the 'irrational' social and cultural practices (p.6). A closer look at some of the sources cited by the author will in fact show areas of grey. Prakash mentions the Hindu intellectuals' effort to identify Hinduism as the 'central texture' of the nation. This however assumes the virtual non-existence of other categories, excepting the 'Muslim5 upper classes like Sayyid Ahmad Khan (discussed briefly in the third chapter). While locating the emergence of science, he highlights a co-existence, which saw the revival of old traditions and the importance of science and rationality. However, his formulation that the western-educated elite 'reinterpreted classical texts and cast them in the language of the Western discourse' (p.6) ignores the advent of print-culture and its allied complexities, which also conditioned it. Moreover, he ignores the themes related to colonial exploitation and the 'drain of wealth' in the late c.l9th — some of which were relatively outside the revivalist framework and which, simultaneously, harped on science to interrogate colonialism. We are told about classification strategies, which were important to gain knowledge and exercise power. Prakash refers to the museums and exhibitions and locates them as mediating points of power, which they were. However, the empirical data, which he provides in the second chapter questions his generalisation about the extent of its reach, even in the urban world of India. The second chapter refers to the disturbing presence of the 'subaltern' in the dominant discourses. This point is not developed to