ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Space science, International Expertise and Southern Dialogue: Passage of Knowledge between India and Peru, 1977-1978

• In Event: ‘Beyond Bandung: Histories of Scientific, Technological and Medical Assistance between Decolonising Nations during the Cold War’ 1

English Abstract

On December 23, 1977, Carlos H. J. Calderon, the Director General of Peru’s Comisión Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo Aeroespacial (CONIDA), wrote a letter to T. S. G. Sastry, a prominent figure in India’s space research, particularly known for his work with rocket-borne magnetometer experiments. In his letter, expressing interest in national collaboration in space research between Peru and India, Calderon applauded Sastry for sharing the information on rocket payloads. The information included references to Sastry’s collaborative works in Europe and the US regarding magnetometer experiments since the mid-1960s, followed by published research papers. In light of India’s rapidly worsening relations with the US following the Bangladesh Liberation War (1971) and the first nuclear test in the subcontinent (1974), coupled with its growing economic and strategic ties with the USSR during the Cold War, how can one explain the scientific exchanges between India and Peru that incorporated knowledge co-produced by Indian and Western experts? Taking inspirations from the ‘circulation of knowledge’ and ‘traveling materials’ (Podgorny 2024, Raj 2013, Secord 2004), this paper will underline that to understand transnational histories of space science in the Global South it is essential to consider multiple centres of knowledge production across the boundaries set by the superpowers. Moreover, the communication of knowledge within the developing world was just as much fuelled by the dreams of modernization as it was by the aspirations of individual scientists like Calderon and Sastry who sought solidarities inside the emerging networks of space research.

Author

• DIPAK KUMAR CHAKRABORTY, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Bhopal (IISER Bhopal), India