01-19-2006, 11:59 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In explaining the obliviousness of western thinkers to their
acceptance of secularised theology, I suggested that only when we
present *alternate* ways of describing the world could they gain
insight to the theological nature of their endeavour. If this
diagnosis stands up to scrutiny, our task is also clear: start working
towards the goal of building such theories. In the last two decades, I
have come to the realisation that there is far *more* to this task
than is apparent at first sight. My ideas on this matter have evolved
not only by studying histories and sociologies of science (about how
theories grow, get propagated and get accepted) but also by
appreciating the complexity of the task while trying to carry it out.
In this mail, I want to share some of my thoughts on this subject.
1. Let me begin by picking up an obvious question: Why should we be
bothered to carry this task out (and all that it entails) at all? Of
course, no one is or can ever be *compelled* to carry this task out.
Yet, there is a partial answer that can go some way in meeting the
*real concern* behind this problem. *Because of reasons of space*, let
me make talk about Indian culture as an entity and about its
experiments to provide some semblance of an answer.
2. Imagine, if you will, that Indian culture is an entity and that all
Indians are its members. Imagine too that one day, it realised that it
was not sure any more about the nature of the world it inhabited: What
should it be doing? What is its place? How should it adapt? What does
adaptation consist of? The only way it can ever find answers to these
questions is through experimentation: trying out this or that
strategy, growing new things as and when needed. Only its members can
help of help; they are the ones to experiment with. Let us agree not
to ask further questions about how this culture came to this
realisation and that we do not dispute about dating this even t:
India's independence from the British. Thus, this entity, the Indian
culture, takes to *massive experimentation* telescoping, in this
process, events of many decades elsewhere into a single decade (and
sometimes even less) in its history. Let us chronicle these experiments.
First, it takes to `socialism': `Nehruvian' socialism, the socialism
of Lohia, the socialist attempts of the communist parties of India.
Just as these experiments take-off, this culture starts exploring
*their limits* even before a new generation is born: the Naxalites and
the ML movement in Bengal impact India's youth in different parts of
India and both socialisms (of Lohia and of Nehru) begin to crack under
the pressure of events even as, in the late 60's, people elsewhere in
the world begin to discover `student power'. Many activist youth
groups emerge in different parts of India, born outside the existing
left, but already radicalised. Just as these groups appeared to run
out of steam, the Indian culture paused, and as though considering,
plunges into another massive experimentation: `Dalit' movement,
`secessionist' movements, which pits not the bourgeoisies against the
proletariat but groups against each other. Even as these impact the
culture, through `reservation policies' and contraction of the living
space for some of India's children, a new experimentation begins: it
is time for *ratha yatra* and Babri Masjid. This experimentation still
continues and as it does, this entity launches yet another with no
parallels in human history: the Indian culture sends two or more
millions of its members to America. This is no exodus, much less of an
exile, even if these members insist on speaking of the `Diaspora'.
3. What has Indian culture found out through all these experiments?
Some of India's children still continue with these experiments; some
have ceased doing so. This means either some answers are no answers at
all or at best, partial ones. Is India `socialist'? Or is she the
proletariat? Or, perha ps, the landless peasant? Is she the `Dalit',
or merely the `woman'? Has she always been a Sikh, a Tamil or a
Marathi, and never a single entity? Is she a `Hindu', a Muslim or
merely `secular'?
India, it appears, has been interrogating herself through all these
experiments: who is she? This is no third-rate `identity politics' of
the post-colonials taught in Chicago or Columbia, but the strivings of
a culture. We, her children, express this striving as well. Whatever
our individual motives, whatever our individual biographies, today, on
this thread, we too are asking the same question: what is it to be an
Indian?
4. Much like her, we cannot reject the past: without it, we are not
who we are any more. Nor could we turn our back to the present: that
is where we have to live. Our cultural past must be made to talk in
the language of the present: that, I have discovered, is the task for
the future. At this moment, however, we need to become aware that we
are asking this question and tha t the answer *matters* to each one of
us. That is why we should be bothered about carrying out the task I
spoke of.
What is involved in accomplishing this task? Here too the answer is
simple: *a collective effort*. What does such an effort entail? Not
being a strategist like either Rajiv or Arjun Bhagat, I can only share
the results of my reflections on my experience in pursuing this task
for nearly two decades now.
5. The first step, quite obviously, calls for spreading awareness
about the nature of western representations of India. This entails
that we find (a) *people* willing not only to challenge the western
`scholars', where and when they give talks in public forums about
India etc. but also (b) *speakers* from the Indian community in the
US, who try actively to *supplant* these `scholars'.
This requires that such speakers are continuously fed with literature
of two sorts: (a) a debunking kind; and (b) the sort which provides
new and novel conceptualisations of many as pects of the Indian
culture itself.
This suggests that a serious and systematic research must be
undertaken by many different people on many different themes. My
knowledge of the intellectual scene tells me that there are very few
such people. So, one has to look at *recruiting* younger, gifted
people into doing research.
For this to happen, we need three things: (a) an intellectual
visibility and respectability for this kind of research so that fine,
younger minds are attracted: (b) a reward system that makes it
worthwhile for them to pursue such a research for a decade at least;
© a *training* in not only doing such research, but also help in
publishing them in highly visible journals so that they can then go on
to populate chairs in the academia.
6. Parallel to doing all these, there is also the mammoth task of
planting these seeds in the Indian soil itself. In order to appreciate
the complexity of this task, we need to have some answers I raised in
the first paragraph. Let us, therefore, leave this aspect of the
enterprise out of this post for the moment.
7. If these things are to happen at all, it is obvious that we need an
*organisation*. Only such an entity can formulate such long term
plans, translate them into viable strategies, and pursue them
systematically.
8. Can this be done? I personally believe so. Even on this thread,
based purely on the evidence of their interventions, we have the kind
of brains we need: people who can strategise; those can build
organisations: those who can raise finances; those who can go straight
to the heart of a problem and represent it in simple terms; based on
little material, those who anticipate and formulate central questions
for enquiry; and, above all, an interested and concerned audience.
(For each of these, I can cite the posts and give reasons why I think
so. For the latter, you need merely see the hits on this web-page. But
that would be overkill, I think.)
9. Should some under you feel the same way I do, I would like to make
a proposal. Let some of us try and meet sometime next year.
(Preferably during either the spring or the summer holidays.) We need
no agency, no organisation to sponsor such an event. Each of us should
be able to meet our travel and accommodation on our own: it can take
place either here in Europe or there in the US. Let us meet for a day
or three for an intense brain-storming session, so that when we leave
each one of us knows our responsibility. An organisation will be
successful only when many, many people with different talents and
interests work on the same thing at many different levels. I am
willing to put time, energy, and effort in participating in such a
venture.
10. India, today, is at a cross-road: she has been in many such
cross-roads in the past, and she will be in many more in the future.
Neither is relevant to us, because we can make a *difference* only to
this one. We have the persons. We have the brains. We have the
talents. We have the en ergy. We have the money. We have the
instruments, the knowledge and the abilities. We have the capacity to
create the know-how as we work on the project. What more do we need?
<b>*Satya* said in his post (# 192) that he makes bold to announce the
birth of an Indian renaissance. I believe he is right in more ways
than one. I think our culture is going to see a renaissance. Such a
renaissance will be of importance not just to us, Indians, but to the
entire humankind. Because it is going to lay the real foundations for
the sciences of the social and thus give a surprising answer to the
question, `what is to be an Indian?' This process is going to take
place: sooner, if we can accelerate the pace; later, if we do nothing
about it. In the latter case, that event may not happen in your
lifetime or mine; but happen it shall. Of this, I am utterly
convinced. It is this conviction that has kept me going all these
years; it is the same conviction that has made me want to reach out to
those of you who have followed this discussion.</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
acceptance of secularised theology, I suggested that only when we
present *alternate* ways of describing the world could they gain
insight to the theological nature of their endeavour. If this
diagnosis stands up to scrutiny, our task is also clear: start working
towards the goal of building such theories. In the last two decades, I
have come to the realisation that there is far *more* to this task
than is apparent at first sight. My ideas on this matter have evolved
not only by studying histories and sociologies of science (about how
theories grow, get propagated and get accepted) but also by
appreciating the complexity of the task while trying to carry it out.
In this mail, I want to share some of my thoughts on this subject.
1. Let me begin by picking up an obvious question: Why should we be
bothered to carry this task out (and all that it entails) at all? Of
course, no one is or can ever be *compelled* to carry this task out.
Yet, there is a partial answer that can go some way in meeting the
*real concern* behind this problem. *Because of reasons of space*, let
me make talk about Indian culture as an entity and about its
experiments to provide some semblance of an answer.
2. Imagine, if you will, that Indian culture is an entity and that all
Indians are its members. Imagine too that one day, it realised that it
was not sure any more about the nature of the world it inhabited: What
should it be doing? What is its place? How should it adapt? What does
adaptation consist of? The only way it can ever find answers to these
questions is through experimentation: trying out this or that
strategy, growing new things as and when needed. Only its members can
help of help; they are the ones to experiment with. Let us agree not
to ask further questions about how this culture came to this
realisation and that we do not dispute about dating this even t:
India's independence from the British. Thus, this entity, the Indian
culture, takes to *massive experimentation* telescoping, in this
process, events of many decades elsewhere into a single decade (and
sometimes even less) in its history. Let us chronicle these experiments.
First, it takes to `socialism': `Nehruvian' socialism, the socialism
of Lohia, the socialist attempts of the communist parties of India.
Just as these experiments take-off, this culture starts exploring
*their limits* even before a new generation is born: the Naxalites and
the ML movement in Bengal impact India's youth in different parts of
India and both socialisms (of Lohia and of Nehru) begin to crack under
the pressure of events even as, in the late 60's, people elsewhere in
the world begin to discover `student power'. Many activist youth
groups emerge in different parts of India, born outside the existing
left, but already radicalised. Just as these groups appeared to run
out of steam, the Indian culture paused, and as though considering,
plunges into another massive experimentation: `Dalit' movement,
`secessionist' movements, which pits not the bourgeoisies against the
proletariat but groups against each other. Even as these impact the
culture, through `reservation policies' and contraction of the living
space for some of India's children, a new experimentation begins: it
is time for *ratha yatra* and Babri Masjid. This experimentation still
continues and as it does, this entity launches yet another with no
parallels in human history: the Indian culture sends two or more
millions of its members to America. This is no exodus, much less of an
exile, even if these members insist on speaking of the `Diaspora'.
3. What has Indian culture found out through all these experiments?
Some of India's children still continue with these experiments; some
have ceased doing so. This means either some answers are no answers at
all or at best, partial ones. Is India `socialist'? Or is she the
proletariat? Or, perha ps, the landless peasant? Is she the `Dalit',
or merely the `woman'? Has she always been a Sikh, a Tamil or a
Marathi, and never a single entity? Is she a `Hindu', a Muslim or
merely `secular'?
India, it appears, has been interrogating herself through all these
experiments: who is she? This is no third-rate `identity politics' of
the post-colonials taught in Chicago or Columbia, but the strivings of
a culture. We, her children, express this striving as well. Whatever
our individual motives, whatever our individual biographies, today, on
this thread, we too are asking the same question: what is it to be an
Indian?
4. Much like her, we cannot reject the past: without it, we are not
who we are any more. Nor could we turn our back to the present: that
is where we have to live. Our cultural past must be made to talk in
the language of the present: that, I have discovered, is the task for
the future. At this moment, however, we need to become aware that we
are asking this question and tha t the answer *matters* to each one of
us. That is why we should be bothered about carrying out the task I
spoke of.
What is involved in accomplishing this task? Here too the answer is
simple: *a collective effort*. What does such an effort entail? Not
being a strategist like either Rajiv or Arjun Bhagat, I can only share
the results of my reflections on my experience in pursuing this task
for nearly two decades now.
5. The first step, quite obviously, calls for spreading awareness
about the nature of western representations of India. This entails
that we find (a) *people* willing not only to challenge the western
`scholars', where and when they give talks in public forums about
India etc. but also (b) *speakers* from the Indian community in the
US, who try actively to *supplant* these `scholars'.
This requires that such speakers are continuously fed with literature
of two sorts: (a) a debunking kind; and (b) the sort which provides
new and novel conceptualisations of many as pects of the Indian
culture itself.
This suggests that a serious and systematic research must be
undertaken by many different people on many different themes. My
knowledge of the intellectual scene tells me that there are very few
such people. So, one has to look at *recruiting* younger, gifted
people into doing research.
For this to happen, we need three things: (a) an intellectual
visibility and respectability for this kind of research so that fine,
younger minds are attracted: (b) a reward system that makes it
worthwhile for them to pursue such a research for a decade at least;
© a *training* in not only doing such research, but also help in
publishing them in highly visible journals so that they can then go on
to populate chairs in the academia.
6. Parallel to doing all these, there is also the mammoth task of
planting these seeds in the Indian soil itself. In order to appreciate
the complexity of this task, we need to have some answers I raised in
the first paragraph. Let us, therefore, leave this aspect of the
enterprise out of this post for the moment.
7. If these things are to happen at all, it is obvious that we need an
*organisation*. Only such an entity can formulate such long term
plans, translate them into viable strategies, and pursue them
systematically.
8. Can this be done? I personally believe so. Even on this thread,
based purely on the evidence of their interventions, we have the kind
of brains we need: people who can strategise; those can build
organisations: those who can raise finances; those who can go straight
to the heart of a problem and represent it in simple terms; based on
little material, those who anticipate and formulate central questions
for enquiry; and, above all, an interested and concerned audience.
(For each of these, I can cite the posts and give reasons why I think
so. For the latter, you need merely see the hits on this web-page. But
that would be overkill, I think.)
9. Should some under you feel the same way I do, I would like to make
a proposal. Let some of us try and meet sometime next year.
(Preferably during either the spring or the summer holidays.) We need
no agency, no organisation to sponsor such an event. Each of us should
be able to meet our travel and accommodation on our own: it can take
place either here in Europe or there in the US. Let us meet for a day
or three for an intense brain-storming session, so that when we leave
each one of us knows our responsibility. An organisation will be
successful only when many, many people with different talents and
interests work on the same thing at many different levels. I am
willing to put time, energy, and effort in participating in such a
venture.
10. India, today, is at a cross-road: she has been in many such
cross-roads in the past, and she will be in many more in the future.
Neither is relevant to us, because we can make a *difference* only to
this one. We have the persons. We have the brains. We have the
talents. We have the en ergy. We have the money. We have the
instruments, the knowledge and the abilities. We have the capacity to
create the know-how as we work on the project. What more do we need?
<b>*Satya* said in his post (# 192) that he makes bold to announce the
birth of an Indian renaissance. I believe he is right in more ways
than one. I think our culture is going to see a renaissance. Such a
renaissance will be of importance not just to us, Indians, but to the
entire humankind. Because it is going to lay the real foundations for
the sciences of the social and thus give a surprising answer to the
question, `what is to be an Indian?' This process is going to take
place: sooner, if we can accelerate the pace; later, if we do nothing
about it. In the latter case, that event may not happen in your
lifetime or mine; but happen it shall. Of this, I am utterly
convinced. It is this conviction that has kept me going all these
years; it is the same conviction that has made me want to reach out to
those of you who have followed this discussion.</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->