Midnight's Machines: A Political History of Technology in India

Every Prime Minister of independent India has guided, if not personally overseen, one prized portfolio: technology. If, in the early years, Nehru and his scientist-advisors retained an iron grip on it, subsequent governments created a bureaucracy that managed everything from the country's crown jewels-its nuclear and space programmes-to solar stoves and mechanized bullock carts.

But a lesser-known political project began on 15 August 1947: the Indian state's undertaking to influence what th...