The poem by Abhay Xaxa is the inspiration and provocation for this book, and the book is an exploration of the historical contexts in which the oppressive system of domination through knowledge, as explained in the poem, emerged. In the long history of human societies, the entanglement of power–knowledge2 is rather a recent one. Emperors, kings, popes, witches, priests, landlords, shamans, poets, and even philosophers wielded power through other means: religion, ritual, military, art, rhetoric, or magic. Although knowledge sometimes helped sustain, grab, or increase power, it was not a necessary ingredient for the deployment of power. Only in the era of European imperialisms and colonialisms, knowledge became a measure of civilization and then an integral part of the exercise of power. Thereafter, knowledge experts built their own temples of power, from where power flowed out through various channels of knowledge. Universities, research institutes, and schools, aligning with the State, participated in ordering, categorizing, and controlling the population.