R K Kochhar The production and growth of modern science in India was encouraged by the British with a view to furthering colonial interests. British-sponsored science, by its very nature was field science and its agenda was decided on grounds of political and commercial gain. In the pursuit of this state-sponsored science, Indians provided cheap labour It was only much later, with the westernisation of the Indian middle classes, that Indians began to pursue science on their own initiative but this was as an extension of the nationalist movement and science increasingly began to be seen purely as an intellectual exercise rather than as a means of producing wealth.
