Locating The ‘Two Cultures’ Theory In India Context

Abstract

‘Two Culture’, a phrase and a theory only known to intellectuals working on the history and sociology of science and technology in Western Europe and North America should have crossed the boundaries of continents and should have become more popular throughout the world as it has addressed one of the core issues of the world i.e. lack of engagement between sciences literature. Charles Percy Snow or C.P Snow, a novelist and Physical Chemist in his Rede Lecture at Cambridge titled as Two Cultures in 1959 addressed this question for the first time. In this lecture, he has put forth his observations on the existing distance between scientists and literary intellectuals who are comparable in intelligence, identical in race, not grossly different in social origin, earning about the same income had almost ceased to communicate with each other and in intellectual life, they split into two polar groups (Snow, 1959). He is a novelist and scientist, and with his membership with both groups at a professional level and as well as a friend, he had greater access to two groups, their discussions, their views, and their opinions. He intentionally went for dinners of groups separately to understand how one is thinking about the other group. After observing these groups, he came to the conclusion that the gulf between literary intellectuals and scientists is the outcome of mutual incomprehension, hostility, and dislikes but most of it is a lack of understanding. They have distorted images of each other. C. P. Snow made these observations in Western society, particularly in the United Kingdom. Since Western Europe witnessed epistemological revolutions, not only in the United Kingdom but across Europe and North America the division between these two groups could be the same.