Indigenizing Sociology in India: A Need of the Hour (original) (raw)
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Contributions to Indian Sociology 2001 Parthasarathy 104 6
104 and women. By distributing goods like rice and small loans, it could also reach out to a larger number of people than the DMK, which distributed patronage through land and jobs. This form of pro-poor populism was not always coherent with social pluralism, but the ADMK managed to reconcile these, through caste quotas, agrarian subsidies and its handling of trade unions. The author argues that, unlike in other parts of India, ethnicity in Tamil Nadu was not disruptive and violent, and explains this deviance in terms of the organ-isational and social pluralism of the Dravidian parties. The two types of populism had distinct consequences for social pluralism: if the assertive populism of the DMK gave greater cadre autonomy to its supporters, the paternalist populism of the ADMK made them more dependent on the party leader's patronage. However, in both cases, social pluralism and the increased representation of newly emerging groups encouraged stability, contained any potential for violent ethnic conflict, and also kept the forces of Hindu revivalism at bay. Tamil exceptionalism leads the author to argue that social forces such as these, which promote a tolerant conception of cultural identity, are better at combating violent religious revivalism than 'those that assert culturally vacuous notions of Indian citizenship' (p. 326). The onus of making ethnic forces more tolerant is placed on citizens committed to pluralist democracy, who should mobilise autonomously of states and parties, though still engaging with these. While the objective could not be worthier, there is a certain dissonance between the bulk of the book and its last few pages. The political universe of the book is Tamil Nadu, and its main actors are political parties. It is not easy to see how this otherwise compelling argument can be transposed onto the much larger, and more complex , political universe of the Indian nation. Moreover, transferring the initiative from the political parties to citizens is not something logically implied by the case study. Hence, while Subramanian's argument about tolerance being a more effective guarantor of ethnic peace than a pan-Indian notion of citizenship is unexceptionable, the route to an ethic of tolerance is less clear. Notwithstanding this, Subramanian's is a sophisticated and insightful book, which enriches the literature on political mobilisation in India.
The complex web of Indian life and culture with its historic background of hoary past presents ceremonies, customs, and institutions which well-nigh defy the attempts of the anthropologist, sociologist, or the philosophical historian at anything like a systematic and satisfactory account of their sources and careers. For a proper interpretation of the institutions and practices obtaining in India at the present day the scientist has thus to lay under consideration the data of archaeology, ecology, as well as ethnology. But the study of Indian social facts and phenomena is yet in its nonage. We are yet in the stage of collecting materials about the manifold aspects of our socio-economic, socio-religious, and socio-political usages and theories. The science of Indian sociology is only in the making.
Caste(s): Through the Archetypal ‘Orientalist’ Predicament of Sociology on India
This article interrogates the articulations on the concept of caste(s) by digging its origin, pathways and the good fortune it enjoyed since its birth with a brief appraisal of Dumontian notion of caste. The paper also makes an attempt to show how the stereotype of anthropological ‘other’ as an integral part of colonial epistemological and ontological thinking provided the basis for analysing caste as ‘other’ which became the be-all and end-all category for explaining Indian social reality and, which again in its turn have orientalized Indian sociological imagination subsumed under Social Anthropology and Indology. The paper shows how caste and sub-caste have no direct correspondence with Varna or Jati. And, finally, Dumont’s views on caste and hierarchy in India are unsubstantiated as Dumont turns speculative into empirical and empirical into speculative in the distinguished company of Anthropological/Orientalist tradition of Hegel, Marx and Weber. The need of the hour is to critically look at the dependence on caste for explaining reality in India. The paper calls for a more appropriate and reflexive classifications based on theoretical-methodological rigor and in-depth study of Indian society without resorting to Eurocentric and Colonial biases.
Hundred Years of Sociology in India: Mapping the Trajectory
Sage , 2023
Hundred years is not a very long time in the journey of any discipline. Yet, sociology in India seems to have covered a considerable distance in a comparatively short time as the country witnessed unprecedented incidents in the 19th and 20th centuries of colonial rule, the rise of nationalism leading to India's independence and subsequent efforts at development and nation-building. The works of the British administrators, orientalists, missionaries, and Western scholars earlier, and of the Indian pioneers and other sociologists soon after provided fertile ground for the establishment of sociology in India. The first department of sociology and civics was started in 1919 at Bombay University and since then there has been no looking back as the subject has been established well in the country, academically, and professionally. Besides the role of educational institutions and government bodies, the Indian Sociological Society (ISS) set up in 1951 provided a platform for scholars from across the country and outside to discuss, debate, share and write about contemporary issues. As the context of Indian society changed, the subject matter, methods, theoretical perspectives and debates around the discipline also went through a transformation. This article is an attempt at mapping the trajectory of 100 years of sociology in India and discerning its status as an academic discipline, as well as its relevance for policymaking, and for society at large.
Challenges for Indian Sociology
Asian Journal of Social Science, 2006
Challenges for Indian Sociology* The failure of sociology to come to grips with larger societal issues is not just a failure of sociology in India. A widespread problem faced by the discipline at present is the reluctance to raise ‘big questions’. Quite apart from the problem of ‘Euroschauism’ which imposes partial views as the universal view, it is necessary for sociologists in a country like India to raise the issue of social change in India and the rest of the world as a theoretical issue that demands adequate conceptualisation. Such a task demands a critical perspective. It is possible to be critical of one’s culture while being rooted in it. The first step to take is to study the concerns of the average person and to look at one’s society critically, not as an outsider who finds the country of his birth difficult to take but as an insider who chooses to live in his country and undergoes what everyone else is going through. Along with this is the ability to step outside one’s own society, not to go away but to return. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *This is a revised version of the paper presented at the seminar on ‘Global Challenges and Local Responses: Trends and Developments in Society and Sociologyin Asia and Beyond’, Singapore, March 14 to 16, 2004. The seminar was organised jointly by the Department of Sociology, the Asia Research Institute (both of National University of Singapore), and the International Sociological Association
Study of Indian Society and Culture: Methods and Perspectives
Kerala Sociologist, 2019
The journey of 'Sociology of India' that began with 'colonial Anthropology' or 'colonisation' of the non-Western mind, prepared the ground for our pioneers, some of whom were involved in the nationalist struggle against the British, to rely on a textual view for offering alternative explanations about its society and culture. The effort to revive and energize traditional culture and establish Indian sociology in its own footing quite different from that of Western or colonial categories led to the popularity of Indological approach. But Indological approach itself did not give rise to any uniform and common explanation about Indian society and culture. The religious texts of different ages that Indologists very often studied not only emanated the idea of a 'Hindu India'; they also proposed contrasting and conflicting visions of time, space and object. The whole discourse of Indology is eventually interrupted by theories on post-colonialism and Orientalism. As a corollary, the need for supplementing those with field view was also felt by some of our pioneers. Gradually, Indian sociologists have started critically responding to the challenges of studying Indian society using diverse perspectives, approaches, and paradigms. This paper tries to reflect on the criticality of these issues in the context of demand for contextualising Indian sociology by avoiding any 'methodological fundamentalism'.
Hinduism in India: Modern and Contemporary Movements (co-edited with Aditya Malik)
2016
This book focuses on issues and changes that took place in Hinduism since about the end of the eighteenth century and in the post-colonial situation. The essays highlight central issues relating to Hinduism in the colonial and contemporary periods. Examining the relationship between Hinduism and India’s political systems thereafter, the papers highlight issues such as the relationship between Hinduism and economics and the position of Hindu women in arranged marriages in contemporary urban Indian society. CONTENTS Series Note Introduction - Geoffrey A Oddie The Emergence and Significance of the term “Hinduism” - Geoffrey A. Oddie Hinduism and Modernity - Will Sweetman Hinduism and Law - Timothy Lubin Hinduism and Economics - Thomas Birtchnell The Sacred in Modern Hindu Politics: Historical Processes Underlying Hinduism and Hindutva - Robert Eric Frykenberg Media Hinduism - Ursula Rao Modern Hindu Guru Movements - Michael James Spurr Folk Hinduism: The Middle Ground? - Aditya Malik Oral Traditions - Aditya Malik Hinduism and Healing - Fabrizio Ferrari Possession - Elizabeth Schömbucher The Urban Hindu Arranged Marriage in Contemporary Indian Society - Reshmi Roy Caste and Hinduism - Vinay Kumar Srivastava
CIS Book Review:Towards a New Sociology in India
In this collection of essays, the editors ask: What, if anything, is 'new' about new sociology in India? In their reckoning, it is the work of the sociological imagination to capture-or even create-the work of transition, the politics that gives birth to the transitional and the new, and the politics that this transition in turn gives rise to. They remind us of the original sense in which C. Wright Mills used the term to speak about the new Cold War American society of the 1950s and state that the time is ripe for a 'new sociology' to explain the tumultuous changes Indian society finds itself in the midst of-and indeed, to assist in the rise of a new politics. A quick canter through the recent history of sociology in India and its concerns reveals that this is far from the case. This is because, Bandyopadhyay and Hebbar contend, disciplinary concerns have long stifled the research imagination in Indian sociology, keeping it away from paying attention to new formations and politics underway in India today. According to them, rigid systemic thinking and methods infelicitous for researching the contemporary have prevented fresh perspectives from emerging on enduring problems, as well as newer research questions from becoming available for inquiry. This volume then is an optimistic response to this crisis or stalemate that showcases new themes of investigation and provides fresh avenues for a politically engaged scholarship. The essays respectively take up terrorism and the maternal (Hameed), molecular and national life (Ray), the politics of friendship and religious violence (Savyasaachi), the (re)assemblage of the social in cinematic edits (Vakharia), expertise and institutions in policymaking (Ahmed) and community arts projects (Goswami). In themselves, these sites of investigation do not necessarily represent the