The width and diversity of this collection mirrors the lifelong research interests of the person it honours. S Irfan Habib did his doctoral work on the great revolutionary Bhagat Singh, a focus—indeed a passion—of his scholarly imagination for long years. Perhaps that aspect of his work remains unrecognized in this spectrum of essays that covers issues from technology policy to the application of science in problem-solving, and science in its relationship with culture, popular faith and the public.
Where do contemporary debates on these issues stand? Does science evolve spontaneously or can it be guided in ways that support defined social purposes? Are there any ethical guardrails it should never breach? How have imperial and popular regimes historically applied science and who have been its beneficiaries? How does technology emerge from science? Or if the relationship is the reverse or reciprocal, how does that dynamic play out in history and contemporary reality?
Gauhar Raza, a one-time colleague of Habib’s, introduces the volume with a poem about shared struggles, memories of ‘gallows’ witnessed, of ‘compassion being slaughtered’, and of a continuing embrace of the nation even in times of deepest sadness. Those are words evocative of Bhagat Singh’s ideals, a poetic introduction that soon yields to less emotive but deeply consequential issues.