Everyday Technology: Machines and the Making of India’s Modernity by David Arnold (review)

The way innocuous utensils are arranged or used in a kitchen can say as much about a household and its members as the more decorative furnishings spread out in the drawing room, if not more. David Arnold seeks to make a similar point about India’s engagement with technology and modernity: He argues that a study of “everyday” technologies like typewriters, bicycles, sewing machines, and rice mills will be at least as illuminating as the continued focus on “big” technologies like railways, telegraphs, electricity, and large irrigation systems. In this well-researched work, Arnold brings to the table a rich array of sources—encompassing archival materials (including vintage photographs), novels, newspapers/magazines, and his own photography. Armed with these, he engages with a wide range of scholarly writing, from social construction of technology to the imagination of self, other, and nationhood; adds his own original insights; and presents a finely woven narrative that highlights the mutually constitutive roles played by everyday technologies, their promoters and users, and their socio-cultural-economic goals and aspirations—all of which are punctuated by colonial and nationalist elements.

The book has two central messages. One is that, although most of these technologies or their parts were imported until about the 1950s, it was not a case of simple transfer of technology. Rather, the technologies assumed their own values and meanings in the local context and significantly altered social, economic, and cultural equations among Indians, and between India and the colonial state. The transfer process also allowed significant space for indigenous creativity, and a sense of ownership in the areas of assembling and marketing, and in deploying the technologies in more ways than one. Second, all of these had a lasting impact on India’s postindependence engagement with technology—particularly as a foundation for many later enterprises. In pursuing these arguments, the author underlines the curious intersections of race, class, gender, colonial policies, and nationalistic expressions.

The sewing machine was initially intended to be marketed in India only to the English households, reflecting the overall prejudicial view that Indians were not intellectually fit enough to acquire and handle modern technologies. High cost was also a prohibitive factor. Yet by some ingenious marketing methods developed by a local entrepreneur the machine slowly but steadily found its way into the local households, acquired either by the traditional tailors themselves or by their patrons. But its success and spread hinged on various other factors, like transformations—under Western influence—in the local dressing culture and the novelties of the colonial state like uniforms for personnel in the police, municipal, tram, railways, and other such services. Most important, unlike in cases where the arrival of the machine displaces women from some of their traditional roles/jobs, here women found new opportunities of gainful employment while also satisfying the traditional “ideal” of being within the household.

Mobility being a crucial factor in the running of a vast colonial state, the bicycle provided a big opportunity especially in postal and medical services and in security and policing (where, however, it had mixed results). It was also a fad among the Englishmen in India to own bicycles and belong to bicycle clubs. However, bikes were not beyond the reach of Indians for their own personal use and pleasure. In fact, with the arrival of automobiles, colonial officials above particular ranks (with a tinge of race/class consciousness) no longer wanted to be seen on bicycles. Among ordinary Indians, though, the popularity of the bicycle rose steadily, aided by the establishment of local companies to assemble bicycles and by bikes’ increasing affordability. The assembly of bikes (though parts were imported) and the active participation in their marketing contributed to the sense that bicycles belonged in India. Also, a homegrown touch was seen in the various uses the basic technology was put to in different locales. Indians’ supposed inability to handle this particular technology was a...