As recently as 1833, Indian bar iron, metal etc were the best in the world for manufacturing steel wires, electrical conductors, absorbers etc ! The steel was in great demand in England which the English obviously copied, banned it in India & invested in developing it at England

Obviously moulding metal, extracting iron, creating dyes and many other developments absolutely essential for industrial revolution were developed in India.
Thailand and Japan developed railways soon after England. India was never allowed to !

The British took control of Bengal by bribing the Nawab, while in the south they took advantage of Syrian Christian’s loyalty to bible. This gave them Control of India’s textile industry. The British would import the best textile (+ techniques) in the world for pennies !

As the British got control over other parts of India, they extensively studied and learnt the best scientific practices and techniques, started similar things in Europe and then banned them in India. In a few years the British got ahead & India became dependent on their industry

Once industry dies, investment in those practices and techniques dies out. This naturally means that the scope of learning, training and innovation corresponding to those practices stopped.
The story of cultural superiority hence science is so fraudulent !

European progress in science did happen at the start of 1800’s. India or the east in general had hit a snag but years of established tradition and practice meant Indian industry still dominated.
British through their savagery killed it and imposed their education on us !

Using Indian languages for science education, reinventing and preserving vocational traditions would be part of the decolonisation of the science and technology paradigm.
Science unfortunately today largely depends governance and not tradition. India is a colonial state

Join the dots.
China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Thailand have all managed to retrieve their scientific traditions while updating them with modern practices.
Indian academia and bureaucrats have only pontificated about their imitation of the west which is “superior”

Their leadership has been detrimental to science in India. There are many lore reasons but this is enough for now. Kindly do write in the comments if I have missed something.

Suggested reading

https://insa.nic.in/writereaddata/UpLoadedFiles/IJHS/Vol17_1_7_AKBag.pdf

The scientifically superior British had to use vigorous state action in banning Indian cotton weaving and textile methods and practices because they could not compete.
Today they do it by influencing govt policy and promoting their own product as best in the world.

As far as science and technology is concerned we should look at British/European progress at science in stages. There is the phase of exploration and procurement. Ricci comes to India for knowledge of calendars. Others come for superior gunpowder and controlled chemical explosive

This phase should not be underestimated. The Europeans did seek wealth and knowledge and they did find it in India and east. The missionaries amongst them studied Indian society to convert.
This phase lasted for approximately 200-250 years starting from 1550’s to 1750’s.

Studying Indian society and political situation had it’s benefits. Around 1750’s as the west built it’s public goods on the back of slave trade, opium trade and piracy, and gold and land in Americas they also got control over parts of India. Through bribery, deceit &/or treachery

They would impose great taxes on Indian industrial products which made it hard for them to continue. Remember there was the Mughal exploration of Indian industry earlier.
This is in effect disinvestment in Indian industry which means no scope for innovation.

This was the case throughout the British period. But in this phase the British and Europe begins to establish scientific schools and starts innovation. As they caught up with India they kept India handicapped. In the meantime they completely destroyed our education system !

With Indian industries disintegrated and Indian education completely destroyed, Indians were dependent on British Grace for scientific and technological knowledge. This dependence has been exploited to the hilt through stories of superiority. This is the third phase !

This phase probably began around 1870’s and has continued ever since.

As a caveat I would like to add that the towering achievement of the west in science w/o suppressing others through deceit came around 1780’s to 1860’s when they made great strides in electricity, magnetism and our understanding of Gases. This is when they went ahead for 1st time

These developments really allowed the west to stamp their place as an equal. With colonialism, the 19th century saw absolute suppression of Indian intellectual, industrial and philosophical life. Naturally India’s suppression meant Asia fell behind. The catch up has happened fast

As Britain and Portugal started trade with the wealthy east around 1650’s they assumed control over the Americas. They made money out of trade with India, used it to establish themselves as a military power in Europe and finally defeated France in 1815 with a continent to invest

This is how the British made money off of the land, gold, slavery and other resources of the Americas. This greatly allowed them to compete with Indian and Chinese industries and commerce before destroying them by funding colonial adventures.

https://files.stlouisfed.org/files/htdocs/publications/review/98/05/9805ln.pdf

I have so spoken only about the situation of Science and technology and the corresponding industries and commerce in India. India has been repeatedly invaded since 8th C and yet India managed stupendous success in sciences. Let’s look at other Eastern countries and their work

Let’s take China for example. China and India had knowledge sharing through numerous scholars travelling to each other countries. There are extensive records in both countries though what was shared may not be known. One can only guess. But some accurate guesses can be made. See

The credit for effective use of Gunpowder is usually given to China though India also has a historic record of using gunpowder for various weaponry, chemical retorts and other applications. The east can take credit for it in my opinion if one were to play that game. Lets see more

Wikipedia mentions dry docks as a Chinese invention which could very well be the case. It also credits ancient Egypt. What is surprising is that a naval commercial powerhouse like India is not mentioned which I find unreasonable.
Let’s clear the controversial ones off first

Piston pump (Double action) is credited to China. China’s use of steam to navigate large boats, create chemical weapons and medicine could attest to this. What is fascinating is they are very useful in water irrigation systems which we find in , , & built into temples

Many palaces in the east also have water irrigation systems built in. They were probably managed through these piston pumps. The best engineers and architects for this would have certainly been present in India, Cambodia, China and possibly the Far East.

Cast Iron invention seems to be firmly believed to be Chinese. Can’t speak for or against it. India should have either got directly from China or developed in the same period. Indian metallurgy and Chinese engineering was the best in the world atleast until the 1790’s !

I forgot to mention that it possible that European travellers could have used the piston pump technique from China to study gases which allowed folks like Faraday, Joules and Maxwell to study these phenomena in ever greater detail.

The multi tube seed drill was invented in China. I don’t know if it came about in the same period in India. With the 2 countries highly successful in developing tools required for efficient and sophisticated agricultural this invention in the east did not reach Europe until 1800

I meant to type “until much later” instead of 1800. Europe got it directly from China or India or one of the eastern countries as shown by Needham. On to the next invention in the upcoming tweet.

Thangtong Gyalpo of Tibet built the world’s first sustainable suspension bridge. Gyalpo went on to build 8 bridges in Bhutan, Brahmadesh, This knowledge/technique must have obviously travelled to China and further to Japan and Korea. He was also a Tibetan siddha.

Many more similar bridges start coming up in Tibet, China, Korea and Japan in the following centuries. The Europeans who travelled to China to sell their products certainly learnt from Chinese/Japanese engineers. Should read James Finley’s history for more. His bridge was bad.

Was hardly used and destroyed in 1833. Notice also that 1833 was still the time when Indian Cast iron, metal wires and foldable iron bars were the best in the world. Indians would have to sell them for pennies. But Indians would not stop work - स्वधर्म निधनं श्रेय...

The printing press was invented in Japan, Korea and China as far back as 9th C. Europe would only learn about it 600 years later. The technique was certainly improved but because it required many characters, an improved version was only possible 600 years later in Germany.

Notice that in the last 1000 years no inventions and discovery related to public goods happened in India. Why ?
Because rapacious Islamic rulers of India were not interested so much in ruling but exploiting. The lack public good infrastructure would prove disastrous for us later

@authorAneesh can tell you how the Mughals ceded centuries of trade routes (sea) in exchange of liquor or flesh ! They were happy with the traders paying sea taxes to European pirates because India was so wealthy. But Laxmi has to be respected, protected and cultivated!

The Mughals would extract great taxes out of the world class industry and commerce of Indian sweat and ingenuity but they would not re-invest into it. Ship building died out precisely because of this. Complex tools like astronomy thrived but eventually were destroyed.

Mughal capacity for the disregard of tradition, vocation and knowledge is unparalleled in the world. Possibly only the church can compete. Destruction of the sea related industry and technology through neglect and extraneous taxes set up India to fail in face of aggression.

The great Marathas would set up the navy once more from scratch with 7 foreign enemies vaunting for the paradise that was India.
The great Ahom general Borphukan developed inland waterways in Assam which neither the Nawab or the British later on sustained or developed !

That was public goods and foreign invaders of India. Don’t let them tell you about the Mughal or British benevolence. Even Europe built better public goods than the rapacious sultanas, Nawabs and Mughals.

The British would build public goods to transaport goods and consolidate their empire in India. Let’s not go into how that was the greatest disguised exploitation. Let’s move to other important discoveries of India and the east !

Natural gas was discovered in China. They transported the gas through bamboo pipelines to boil salt water for salt extraction among other things. This technique naturally must have been discovered or transmitted to Indian subcontinent to cut rocks and for salt extraction.

Mercator’s chart is a poor mathematical imitation of raised relief map developed in China and Japan. Mercator did not have the mathematical tools (theory and practice) available in India and the engineering in China to create a better version. It came only in the late 1800’s !

As is the tradition, everything ingenious is credited to ancient Greeks without primary source of course. We know for sure that propellers were developed in the hilly areas of China, Japan and Korea. Possibly also in northern Cambodia. More on the screw in the following tweet.

Though we find no evidence for Greeks knowing about it, Egyptians, Chinese, Indians, Japanese were using early designs. It was when Robert Hooke designed a water jet propulsion propeller in 1683 similar to the ones Chinese used did the west develop it further. Credit where due.

I wonder what India could have done in this field had her sea fading industry not been destroyed by the Islamic invaders. It was only in the 1800’s through work on gases, electricity etc did western propellers over take the east. Let’s move to the next invention.

The history of the parachute is unclear. Early work on it was done surprisingly in the Muslim world. First by Armen Firman in Spain. Later on Da Vinci’s drawings would help people understand the process better. Great breakthrough came in 1907 in England when they had killed comp

The so called 4 great inventions of China include many developments that happened in China, Japan, Korea India etc. Investigating them in detail could provide more clues to modern scholars and could make for many great PhD thesis for many people.

What I have learnt from all this is that the propaganda of western superiority in science is a tool of mental disarmament and colonisation. To reject it is to study Eastern and western achievements in science for what they were and their practical use & it’s Asthetics !

The great churn in Europe began around 1600’s where the grip of the church loosened and creative expression flourished more than ever in their past 1000 years. This set them up well for the coming 200 years of exploration and learning. Finally around the 1780’s they went ahead

Scientific churn in Europe coincides with intellectual stagnation in the east. This thread has tried to address why India fell behind. There could be various other reasons. What happened in China, Japan etc I would like to know very much.

What is clear though is that the scientific leaps in Europe happened when they went out, explored and learnt from other cultures and civilisations and then consolidated all the knowledge through their own ingenuity and hard work. This neither makes them superior nor us inferior

I would say though that Indian and eastern philosophy, social sciences in general etc seem to be far sophisticated than that of the west.
To this end we will see it being played out in this century

It is interesting to note that factories in Europe from Robert Hooke’d time in 1680 revolved largely around ship building technology, navigation instruments, guns and later (1790-1800’s) around tea and textiles.
They amassed great wealth by selling their produce in the colonies

Countries like France were American allies in 1776. Note that early work in electricity and magnetism happened in France, Italy (1780,1790) and the US. (1760). In the 1800’s with more work by the likes of Faraday and Ohm, it was the US and not Europe that showed Industrial power

British laid down their railways and soon the other countries followed. The US had a great labour force whom they made to work for free (slave trade, slave labour) ! This is set up the US for the coming promise of the Industrial Age -> large factories powered by electricity

While Europe did basic research in Electricity and magnesium’s (Faraday, Maxwell etc) it was in the US where the invention of the bulb and the potential of nearly free labour would help the US compete and match Europe in technology.

Let’s not forget that US was also a safe haven to invest money for the aristocratic families of Europe. This allowed the US to set up it’s own factories in competition with the Europe. But the US had nothing cutting edge yet nor did they have customers !

While the Far East was made customers of American products or European products made in the US, the cutting edge came when the US managed to generate electricity for everyday use and in factories. Edison-Tesla Westinghouse managed to put the US on the map as equal competitors !

The mistake we should not make is to attribute any/all scientific discoveries, traditions and/or practices as belonging to being part of the western tradition. The west tries to do this. Those seeking the truth should avoid this.

One learns by imitation. This is how kids naturally learn in the east. Imitation of who though ?
Never forget that the west in the exploration phase (1490-1750) came to the east, learnt and imitated scientific practices and techniques in the east.

Phase of exploration soon turned into colonisation and knowledge flow became one way. India had great tradition of knowledge sharing but it never got anything back nor were the sultans interested. It was only during the Marathas that Indian naval capacity was reinvented.

With trade routes destroyed, ship building became non profitable. Investing in Products dependent on overseas trade became non profitable. All because Mughals only took out of India. Never put in. knowledge is like infrastructure. It needs frequent cultivation and upkeep.

India had competition in establishing sea routes for the first time in the late 16thC from China. Partly the reason why China overtakes India for the first time in GDP. Akbar only knows how to extract taxes on the big ships and send them to Khorasan and Mecca

The ships going to Mecca or Khorasan would no longer go for trade but to take pilgrims and nobles. This meant the state paid for it. What revenue could the नाविक‘a generate. The ship industry’s volume decreased at a rapid pace with competitors capitalising (Portugal, England etc)

This was already happening in Akbar’s time. He wasn’t yet foolish enough as Jehangir to concede the control of sea routes to the Portuguese and English. Imagine the wealth they were extracting to be OK to pay even the pirates. 1605-27 was the death of Indian shipbuilding !

No wonder that China went ahead in the 1600’s for the first time. The destruction of the Naval industry was really the final blow of the Mughals to Indian exploration and self confidence. We were open to attacks and had no trade to generate wealth that we once used to.

The Portuguese simply had to invade , block the sea routes etc to inflict heavy damages on the Bijapur Sultanate. A foreigner lost our land to another foreigner. How this did not alarm the “Indian minded” Mughals I don’t know. The decay had already set in by 1510’s !

The Portuguese would not allow Indian ships to dominate. Mughals won’t invest into shipbuilding and would infect strengthen Portuguese and later British control of Indian coasts. It was the Marathas who would re-kindle naval defence. Takes a long time to est. sea routes.

Marathas would defeat the Portuguese in naval battles very easily. They also inflicted great defeats to the British. But around 1750’s the British & Dutch had overtaken Indian shipbuilding. India has not recovered from this destruction yet.

Never forget that ever since the Portuguese rule in Goa, they learnt and sent back all the knowledge they could find on astronomy, navigation, shipbuilding techniques, harmonic instruments to measure latitude etc back to Europe. Their rule here enabled their scientific progress

I don’t why but we became politically short sighted from the time of the first Islamic invasions. Why did not the southern kings drive away the Portuguese ? Why did not the Cholas, who are great Shaivites go and protect the Somnath Temple ? These are questions that remain

What is undeniable though is that European progress in science was primarily based on the knowledge they imported from all over the world. It only secondarily comes down to their engineering practices.
We should address this political question so that this debacle does’nt repeat

The क्षात्र India had for the first 1100 years of the Christian Era, it completely let go of in the next 600 years. With the Marathas, Ahoms and the Vijaynagar re-kindling it.
It is time for us to access that क्षात्र by accessing our traditions.

India’s story of supercomputer shows that the technology gap is not really that big. What it comes down to is good governance and efficient bureaucracy. But how can we achieve it ? By basing government and it’s organs on Indian philosophical and and political insights.

No wonder that European scientific progress would begin with extensive contacts with the East and only increase as their political rule over the east increased. Never let mughal fanboys or neoColonialists tell you that brought science to you.