Science and the politics of colonial collecting: the case of Indian meteorites, 1856–70

Abstract

The case of Indian meteorite collections shows how, during the production of science, knowledge-making institutions such as museums were sometimes strongly linked with coercive institutions such as the police. If geological collecting in India in the Company period was mainly geared towards satisfying the demands of metropolitan science, the period after the 1850s saw a dramatic shift in the nature of collecting and the practice of colonial science, with the emergence of public museums in India. These colonial museums, represented by the Indian Museum, Calcutta, began to compete with the British Museum for the possession of locally formed collections in an effort to form an exemplary ‘Indian’ scientific collection. This resulted in conflicts which changed the very nature of colonial science. This paper shows how the 1860s marked a break with the past. A new breed of colonial scientist arrived, prepared successfully to challenge the status of the British Museum as the ‘centre of all sciences’ and to defend scientific institutions in the land of their practice, the colony. Rather than being driven by a feeling of scientific dependence or independence, or even the patriotic aspiration to build a national collection in London, it was scientific internationalism backed by the strength of local knowledge that now determined their practice.