Archives: Books

How Cold War geopolitics and domestic capitalism changed the trajectory of India’s computing industry

India today is widely recognized for producing world-class tech talent and Silicon Valley leaders, yet captures only a fraction of the global tech industry’s profits, primarily providing skilled but inexpensive labor for Western corporations. Computing in the Age of Decolonization uncovers the overlooked history behind this paradox, tracing India’s ambitious but ultimately thwarted drive to build a self-reliant computing industry from the 1950s to the 1980s.

After independence in 1947, Indian scientists and policymakers at institutions such as the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research saw computing as central to national sovereignty, economic growth, and scientific advancement. Through projects such as the groundbreaking TIFRAC computer and the decisive expulsion of IBM, they aimed for technological independence. But almost immediately, these initiatives faced powerful political and economic headwinds. Indian computer scientists grappled with Cold War politics, international trade imbalances, US corporate monopolies, and strategic decisions by India’s technocratic elite, who favored profitable technical services over costly investments in research and manufacturing.

In narrating this lost future, Computing in the Age of Decolonization shows that genuine technological independence requires more than technical expertise—it demands addressing enduring political and social structures rooted in colonial legacies. As global struggles over technology intensify, this book reveals how historical pathways continue to shape contemporary battles for technological and economic sovereignty.

How Third World women seized the means of knowledge production to fight against rising authoritarianism and imagine a future freer than our present.

Beginning in the 1970s, women of the decolonizing world offered new visions of liberation that centered the ideas and lives of women. Galvanized by International Women’s Year in 1975 and the UN’s Decade of Women, Third World women developed novel ideas of equality and self-determination, building a new internationalism in opposition to neocolonialism and postcolonial authoritarianism. In The Future That Was, feminist historian Durba Mitra offers a pathbreaking account of how these women wrote Third World feminism into being, catalyzing a momentous expansion of knowledge about women, gender, and sexuality that transformed emancipatory politics across the globe.

Mitra shows how women from former colonies in South Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and beyond envisioned a radically just world—and did so by insisting that research on the world’s women lay at the heart of debates about global inequality, development, and human rights. Women gathered at international conferences, wrote reports on the dangers facing women, and took to the streets in protest, building a world of knowledge that contested the devastating effects of patriarchy and colonialism. Yet, despite hundreds of laws, institutions, and publications created through the efforts of these women, the future they imagined was never fully realized. The Future That Was transforms the story of decolonization and its aftermath through the history and ideas of women. By excavating these vital pasts, Mitra shows how we might envision a future of our own that is freer than the present.

India, c. 377 CE

The mighty Gupta Empire stands on the brink of collapse. After the celebrated reign of Samudragupta, his ineffectual son Ramagupta inherits the throne at Pataliputra. His marriage to the Licchavi princess Dhruvadevi secures a vital political alliance, but beyond the empire’s western frontier, the formidable Saka ruler Rudrasena waits for the right moment to strike.

In Malwa, Ramagupta’s ambitious half-brother Chandragupta plays a dangerous game. Secretly travelling to the Saka capital of Ujjayini, he builds a network of spies, gathers intelligence, and courts discontent within the enemy’s ranks—actions that could preserve the empire or shatter the fragile peace.

As the crisis deepens, Dhruvadevi faces an impossible choice. Should she remain loyal to her husband despite his disastrous leadership and his ill-treatment, or place her faith in Chandragupta—the capable, charismatic prince she secretly admires—before the Gupta Empire is lost forever?