Historiographic concerns underlying Indian Journal of the History of Science - A bibliometric inference

This review proposes that the papers appearing in the Indian Journal of the History of Science fall into a genre of the history of science writing that strictly observes the internal-external divide. The attempt here is to identify the historiographic elements that constitute this genre of the history of science in India. Based on a bibliometric analysis, the priorities of historians of science in India publishing in the journal are identified. These priorities and the underlying historiography render certain kinds of problems amenable for research and investigation and foreclose the pursuit of others. In attempting a sociology of the discipline, a very preliminary one is proposed here, other themes and areas may be identified. In addition, it is suggested that the conservatism of historians of science, tied as they are to the apron-strings of the scientific establishment, has curtailed the growth of the discipline. While this review is partisan, it also seeks to gauge the growth of the discipline in terms of the precepts set down by the founders of the IJHS itself.