RES/RSE
Full text
Português
Energy and Dreams of Diversity
Shiv Visvanathan - India

This is a study of the metaphor of energy in the making of the Indian State. It attempts to show that energy was a polyvalent term which was disciplined into a standardized unit as calorie or watt. It traces how "energy" became a disciplinary term in the writings of the national planning committee. Jawaharlal Nehru's ideas of planning merely officialized this when he claimed that dams are the temples of modern India. The chapter then shows how energy becomes an official metaphor for the State especially with the glorification of electricity. Firewood as women's energy was not even listed in the energy budget. The chapter then tries to pursue how energy had to be pluralized to trigger the debates in alternative knowledge and civil society. It then examines in detail the work of alternative energy experts like C.V. Seshadri (Chennai) and Amulya Reddy (Banalore). It traces how Seshadri's attempts to produce a theory of energy becomes a work in the politics of knowledge connecting energy to democracy. Alternative models of energy become alternative models of polity. Locating itself in Seshadri's laboratory in Chennai, the monograph examines his critique of entropy exploring how his philosophy of thermodynamics is a theory of diversity, locality and plurality. This work is based on field-work in the laboratory, the Murgappa Chettiar Research Centre. It is an attempt to connect science and democracy using diversity as a site.

 
[ Home ] [ Countries ] [ Themes ] [ Voices of the World ] [ Team ] [ Agenda ] [ Contacts ]

Centro de Estudos Sociais MacArthur Foundation
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian