“We will prove, the purity of our culture”: Technology and History in Anglophone Indian Science Fiction.

Abstract

This paper explores the nuanced portrayal of technology and history in Anglophone Indian science fiction, focusing on how their representation problematises the notion of ‘Indian identity’. The argument centres on two key themes: the influence of Western Enlightenment thought on Indian SF’s depiction of technology and India’s appropriation of indigenous science during the colonial independence movement–both of which reveal an underlying tendency toward ideological essentialism. This duality further complicates the genre’s tendency of “estrangement and cognition” (Suvin 1972, p.5) while simultaneously providing interactions with the contemporaneous environment. The selected texts—The Last Jet-Engine Laugh (2004), Signal Red (2005), and Leila (2017)—address these concerns in distinct ways. Jet-Engine reconstructs pivotal moments in protagonist Paresh Bhatt’s life while engaging with a nuclear war scenario in a futuristic India, ultimately reinforcing exclusionary right-wing Hindu ideologies. Signal Red juxtaposes indigenous Indian science with its Western counterpart while questioning the notion of ‘purity’ in Indian knowledge, while, Leila follows Shalini’s search for her daughter in a religious-right dystopia, exposing the horrors of fundamentalism. By analysing these narratives, this paper seeks to interrogate the representation of technology and history, offering a critical lens on contemporary Indian socio-political dynamics.