Dialectical Anthropology Volume 21 issue 3-4 1996 [doi 10.1007%2Fbf00245772] Zaheer Baber -- After...

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A F T E R A Y O D H Y A : P O L I T I C S , R E L I G I O N A N D T H E

E M E R G I N G C U L T U R E O F A C A D E M I C A N T I- SE C U L A R IS M

I N I N D I A

Zaheer Baber

Zaheer Baber is Professor of Sociology at the National University of Singapore.

(If) we are to dev elop the s tudy of Indian society and cul ture wi thin

the f ramework of compara t ive soc io logy , we mus t pu t back theIn d ol o gi cal ap p ro ach wh ere i t p ro p e rl y b e l o n g s . . , a s oc io l og y o f

India that has i ts orientation to the past and disregards or devalues the

present is bound to be unfrui t ful and in the end sel f-defeat ing.l

Andr6 Beteil le

In a so ciety increasingly irrat ional and barbaric , to regard the at tack

on re ason an d objectivity as the basis o f radicalism is to perpetuate the

n igh tmare w e want to escape . 2

Gera ld Gra f t

In recent years , the erstwhile consensus on the concept and policy

of secular ism in a mult i - re l igious ar id mult i -e thnic socie ty l ike India

has b een cal led into quest ion by a num ber o f pol i t ica l par t ies and

organization s like the BJP. VH P, RSS and the Shiv Sena. W hile som e

of these political parties and organizations have nev er made a secret of

their goal of establishing a Hin du theocra tic state in India, the spectre

of ant i - secula r ism gr ipping some prominent Indian and Amer ican

intellectuals represen ts a distu rbing trend. Alt hou gh it is true that the

inte l lectuals now competing with each other to establ ish their ant i-

secularist credentials and the r igh t wing p olitical parties are m arch ing

to the tunes of qui te dif ferent drumm ers, this essay seeks to establ ish

that the views of the former provid e unintended support for the a imsand object ives of the lat ter . The main argument of this essay is that a t

the p resent socia l and poli t ica l juncture wh en the very concep t of a

Dialectical Anthropology 21: 317-343, 1996.

9 1996 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.



318

secular India is under siege by a motley coalition of extreme right

wing, religious and chauvinist political parties, the emerging culture

of anti-secularism amongst a dominant group of Indian intellectuals is

naive, misguided and dangerous. It fails to contribute to any realistic

appraisal of the gravity of the crisis confronting Indian society and

reinforces the wave of anti-secular views and practices being

propagated by the BJP and its allies 9 Written in the context of the

destruction of the sixteenth century mosque in Ayodhya and the

bloodletting and soul-searching that followed, this essay seeks to

critically examine the views of some intellectuals who have identifiedthe concept and practice of secularism as the driving force behind the

recurring communal conflicts in contemporary India.

Spearheading the emerging culture of academic and anti-secularism

in India is Ashis Nandy, who has been quite prolific in issuing "anti-

secularist manifestos" laced generously with vitriolic invectives for all

those simple-minded enough to have any faith in the virtues of the

policy of secularism in India. Nandy's recent interest in debunking the

concept of secularism, in as insulting and abusive a language as

possible, represen ts a variation on his repetitive theme o f pointing to

the ubiquitous hand of colonialism as the main, if not the only, source

of the problems confronting contemporary India. In a recent issue of

Seminar,3 a number of intellectuals were invited to contribute to a

"dialo gue " on the current state of comm unal politics and society in

India. Ashis Nandy, however, was not prepared to engage in any

dialogue or conversation as the term is conventionally understood.

Instead, he used the occasion to launch a predictable polemic against

secularists of all stripes. Dismissing supporters of secularism as

"intellectually cr ippled and morally f lawed," "senile radicals," who

are "seduced and brainwashed," Nandy's rather bizarre attempt to

engage in a "dialogue:" foreclosed the possibil i ty of any meaningful

conversation. In his contribution to the "dialogue" in Seminar, Nandy

once again invoked his "blame it on the Brit ish" formula to

characterize the policy of secularism as a "W est ern colonial concept9 . . introduced into Indian public l i f e . . , to subvert and discredit"

Indian society. Perhaps, locked obsessively as he is into rigid

dichotomies l ike East/We st, Orient/Occident, tradit ion/modernity,

sacred/secular , "White Man/WOG" (his terms) , Nandy presumably



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believes that engagement in a dia logue a lso represents an insidious

W estern and colonial implant designed to discredi t Indian socie ty and

culture .

As som eone wh o read ily admits to being "intellectually crippled and

moral ly f lawed" enough to perceive some vir tues in s trengthening the

policy and practice o f secularism in India, I have often wondered at the

possible sources of Nandy's unrelent ing animus against conceptual

abs t rac t ions l ike "moderni ty , " " ra t iona l i ty , " "Weste rn sc ience , "

"secular world-view," e tc . He has not a t tempted to disguise his

contempt for "modern Indians" and "secula r is t s , " who pre tend tha t"they are the ones who have f reed themselves f rom tradi t ional

pre judices" and who, having " taken over the white man ' s burden in

th is part of the w o r l d . . , see i t i s the i r bounden duty to educa te and

modernize the c i t izens in this par t of the world . . . " In his la test

summ ary dismissal of secularism, N andy has not named any specific

theories or theorists. Apparently, what he seems to be criticizing is

"mo derniza t ion" or "convergency theory , " a c r it ique tha t is ne i ther

new nor par t icular ly newswo rthy. Since one would be h ard pressed to

f ind any academics w ho wou ld explic i t ly defend "m odern izat ion

theo ry," and because Nan dy does not offer any names, i t may just be

possible that his present-day views represent a desperate attempt to r id

himse lf of his complic i ty with s im ilar theor ies in the past . Could i t be

that his recent w ri t ings s ignify that Nandy is at war w ith his form er

self?. Although this is just conjecture, i t might help to make sense of

his compuls ive and un comprom is ing animus aga ins t unid imensiona l

abs t rac tions l ike "m odern i ty , " " ra t iona l i ty , " "objec t iv i ty , " e tc .

Despite his re la t ively recent embrace of what can only be cal led

"Occ identa l i sm ," A shis Nan dy ' s wr i tings in the seventies read very

much l ike an a t tempt to accomplish exact ly what he now revels in

revi l ing. To borrow his words, twenty years ago, he seems to have

been actively engaged in discharging his "bou nden duty to educate and

modernize the c i t izens" of India . In a s tudy of entrepreneurs in

H ow rah in the early seventies, we have Nan dy (together with co-authorRaymond Lee Owens) arguing that " to the extent that the economic

opportunity presented by the Howrah engineer ing industry continues

to grow and expand, the groups which have taken advantage of that

opp ortun ity wil l beco me increasingly l ike each other . "4 In m arked



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contrast to his re la t ively recent discovery of ideal ized and largely

imagined constructs l ike " tradi t ional value s," Nan dy then prophesied

that "with Independence, educat ion, and so on, India is moving

towards a "mass cul ture" in which the dist inct iveness of caste groups

is breaking d own."5

Given the fact that Nandy has of la te concentra ted most of his

energies on dismissing "m od em science," "object ivi ty," and has even

cal led for the replacement of "object ive" his tor iography by

"m yth og raph y, "6 his ear l ier w ork comes as a surpr ise . Giv en the

intemperate language now being employed by him to discuss anyma nifesta t ion or supporter o f mo derni ty, the switch f rom tota l

scientism and positivism in the seventies to the call for the cre ation o f

"my thograp hies" is qui te astounding. In his ear l ier wo rk, Nan dy was

not only measur ing "moderni ty" on the "OM and RM sca le , " and

ass igning "be ta weights" to each measures of "N-Achievement" in

order to ascer ta in the "corre la tes and predic tors of entrepreneuria l

com peten ce," b ut he was also str iving hard to ensure that the measures

of " indica tors were based o n hard perform ance data, a t t itudinal data ,

and assessments. ,7 An d in order to ensure that the measurements were

indeed accurate and contr ibuted to "hard" data , Nandy was assur ing

us that the "entrepreneur ' s innovativeness [was] measured by

averaging the ratings for the two independent observers on a two-po int

scale . "8

After being subjected to "regression analysis ," a l l these accurate

measures enabled N and y to argue that " thou gh the intercaste difference

in the corre la t ion between entrepreneurship and n Ach ievem ent is no t

signif icant , the near-zero beta weight of n Achievement among the

Mahisyas sugges ts tha t in the i r less mo dem but more ent repreneur ia l

subculture , the need does n ot direct ly contr ibute to en trepreneurship.

"After a l l , " he continued, "when n Achievement is entered into the

regression equation for the Mahisyas, i t adds on two percent of

var iance explained. ,9 Wh ile cautioning that "with out a nonrecu rsive

path analysis one cannot speak the language of causal modeling in thisinstance ," h e nev er theless succeeded in establ ishing that " eve n wh en

the effects of a l l other var iable are removed, the beta weight for n

Achievement remains a redoubtable .28-- the highest among al l the

var iab les in the e quatio n for the upper castes ."1~ An d af ter drawing



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at tent ion to the "negative beta of overal l mo derni ty in the upp er caste

entrepreneurs ," Nan dy contended that "while the motives explain mo re

of the var iance in entry into entrepreneurship than do indicators of

moderni ty , the indica tors of moderni ty a re fa r more powerful

predic tors of co mpetence than are the motives. H Ho wev er , the

scientif ic mea surem ent of motives was no t redundant, because "am on g

the motives n Achievement turns out to be the best predic tor of

entrepreneurship, fol lowed by n Power and sense of eff icacy,"

al thoug h "op tim ism and n A ff i l ia t ion bear apparently no re la t ionship

with entrepreneurship."~2 In the f inal chapter, the scientistic ja rg on isabandoned and we a re to ld tha t "when former ly low-placed groups

beco me invo lved in secondary industr ia l izat ion the resul t is a wide

transformation of the socie ty in accordance with more egal i tar ian

values."~3 Not surpr is ingly, his book received a rave review in the

pages of tha t bas tion of "moderniza t ion theory" Economic

Development and Cultural Change. And despite having authored a

book with the t i t le Traditions, Tyranny and Utopias: Essays in the

Politics o f Aware ness, ~4Nan dy then seemed to ex hibit l i tt le awareness

of the politics of the "area study prog rams " in the United States during

the tim e w he n he was cond ucting his research. 15 In fact, he and h is co-

author ackn owled ged that they were "hum bled by the readiness with

wh ich we h ave fou nd funds to carry out the research, data analysis and

preparat ion of mater ials for publicat ion," f rom a nu mber of Am erican

inst i tut ions. Perhaps this expression of humil i ty was merely an

ingenious, h om espu n strategy of resistance expressed in code; perhapsjust a gl impse of the techniques to be perfected la ter for insul t ing,

usua l ly unnam ed, "secula r is t s ," "decul tured , " " root less , "

"modernized , " "urbanized" Indians en route to exorcizing the

"int imate en em y" from colonized minds. 16

W hile it is true that intellectuals chang e their perception s and ideas

over t ime, Nandy could be less intemperate in r idicul ing others for

being seduced by such "al ien" ideologies l ike secular ism. Nobody

expects him to fol low the route of those peddlers of "a l iencosm ologies," the Marxists , some of whom were so of ten off the mark

in their predic t ions that they developed a whole genre of "auto-

cr i t ique" to pon der their mistakes. N or can we expect him to fol low a

path that is becoming increasingly fashionable . Ronald Inden for



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exa mp le, 17 after yea rs of interpreting Indian society throug h

predominantly Indological and Orientalist prisms, has now discovered

the l inkages between "knowledge" and "power" and has almost

reverted to Occidentalism, attaching "Western" modes of "knowing."18

But in the course of accomplishing his objectives, Inden at least

engages in an auto-critique. Nandy will have none of this.

This dram atic inversion of views, from the simplistic discourse o f

"modernization," to the newly acquired and equally simplist ic and

naive contempt for "rat ional i ty ," "moderni ty ," "secular ism," etc . in

any form or degree, has enabled Nandy to come up with some quiteamazing pronouncements. Such an inversion of views, combined with

his readiness to invoke the ubiquitous "pathology of colonialism" to

explain all aspects of Indian society and politics has led him to argue

that the much publicized case of Roop Kanwar in 1987 was nothing

less than a "desperate attempt to retain through sati something of the

religious w orld view in an increasingly desacralized, secular world."19

After all , as Nandy goes on to argue, under pressure from a social

sphere controlled by "colonized," "secularized," "decultured"

individuals, the practice of sati, or widow immolation, "reaff irm s,

even if in a bizarre, violent and perverted fashion, respect for self-

sacrifice in a culture in which increasingly there is no scope or

legitimacy for self-sacrifice."2~ W hy exactly a wom an was ch osen for

this particular mode of reaffirmation of the legitimacy of self-sacrifice

is not an issue for him. In fact, he went on to rebuke those women and

men who demonstrated against that particular incident, and

predictably, labeled them as "modernized," and urbanized individuals

whose minds had been "colonized." This t ime, the handy explanatory

device of colonial rule was mobilized by Nandy to explain both the

occurrence of sati and the public response to i t . As Aijaz Ahmad has

aptly put it in a different context, "colonialism is now held responsible

not only for its own cruelties but, conveniently enough, for ours

too."21 Under normal circumstances, one expects intellectuals to clarify

admittedly c omplex events, but in explaining the tragic case of RoopKanwar, Nandy's "intervention" ( to deploy a currently fashionable

term) in the debate was posit ively bizarre but not unexpected for

anyone who has followed his l ine of argument for the past few years.

In my admittedly "intellectually cr ippled" view, Nandy was wrong in



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his ea r l ier bel ief that dif ferent groups in India wou ld "beco me

increasingly l ike each other ," just as he is wron g once again, wh ether

he indirect ly just i f ies sati or issues "anti-sec ularist manifesto(es)."22

Given his views on the Roo p Kanwar issue, one w onders what to make

of Nan dy 's bel ief and c la im that his wri t ings "give voice to [the] . . .

semi-ar t icu la te p r o t e s t s . . , o f margina l ized Indians ."23

In ad di t ion to the s tandard prac tice of invoking the h idden hand o f

"co loni a l ru le" which seems to d i rec t most of the problems in

con tem por ary India , inte l lectuals caught up in the rush to put

"secu lar ism in i ts place "24 re ly on another ra ther vacuous c on cep t--"sta t ism. '25 For Nandy, "secular ism and sta t ism in India have gone

hand in han d," a rem ark that is in no way intended as a compliment to

the Indian sta te . Ac cordin g to Harsh Sethi, associa ted with the same

inst i tut ion as Nand y, "a l l o f us need to re think the intr insic me ri t and

eff icacy of decultured, s ta t is t , secular values," because "effor ts a t

delegi timizing l ived fa i th invar iably breed not just react ion," but tend

to displace "re l igio n as fa i th" by "re l ig ion as ideology."26 Con tinuing

N an dy ' s pro jec t , h is tor ian Harsh Se th i and the anthropologis t T . N.

Madan seem convinced tha t an a l l powerful and omnipotent s ta te ,

apparent ly cont ro l led by "decu l tured , " "m odern , " "b ra inwash ed,"

"u rb an " individuals , has in fact succeeded in destroying "re l ig ion as

l ived fa i th." Under such condit ions, the resurgence of violence over

religious issues somehow represents a "desperate attempt," to borrow

Na ndy 's w ords, to re ta in "something of the re ligious world view in an

i n cr ea s in g ly d e sa cr al iz ed w o r l d . . . "

At the r isk of e l ic i t ing "increduli ty" f rom the extreme post-

mod ernists, the issue of whether such explanations are " true" or born e

by "evidence" must be ra ised . Nandy conjures up the fable of a

tranquil pre-colonial existence that was shat tered w hen the concep t of

secular ism "was introduced in a big way in the ear ly decades of the

c e n t u r y . . , to subvert and d isc redi t the t radit ional concepts of in te r-

re l igious tolerance that had a l lowed the thousands of communit ies

l iving in the subcontinent to co-survive in neigh borl iness. "27 W hilegrantin g that "of t en there were v iolent c lashes among the

communit ies ," he argues that the key dif ference was that "such

violence never involved large aggregates such as the Hindus or the

M usl im s." I t seems that the concept of secular ism in i tse lf led to



324

widespread communal conf l ic t , as "no one produced an iota of

con vinc ing empir ical evidence to show that such conf l ic ts existed on

a large scale and inv olved religious comm unities as they are presently

d e f i n e d . . . (emphasis added) ." Now , to construct his "m ythog raphy "

of pre-colonial harmo ny, Nandy engages in a subtle play on words. To

exh ort o thers to pro vide evidence that there were indeed confl ic ts in

pre-colonial t imes between "re l igious communit ies as they are

presently defined," is obviously to send them o n a foo l 's errand 9 Such

an ass ertion enables him to admit o f commun al conflicts in pre-colonial

India while placing the onus o f comm unal violence on the "conce pt ofsecular ism [ that has] hegemonized the ent ire domain of re l igious

amity." I t a lso enables him to c l inch the argument against the

secularis ts of " the inte l lectual ly cr ippled and moral ly f lawed " by

arguing that they ca n barely conceal their "glee [over the fact] that th e

incorrigible Hind oos and M oslems are sti ll fighting like cats and d ogs

9 . . [as this enables them] to justify their privileged access to state

pow er . . . . " T he fact that re ligious communit ies "as they are presently

def ined," and are increasingly sought to be def ined, were not so

def ined in the past , must have occurred to Nandy. However , he wil l

not a l low such considerat ions to dis turb his project of producing

"m ytho grap hies" to replace his most revi led abstraction, "scient if ic ,

object ive histo ry." I t would seem that there remains no m iddle ground

between object ive history cast in s tone and subject ivis t

"mythograph ie s . "

W hat abou t the of t-repeated ant i-secular is t c la im that "sta t ism" has

destroy ed or delegi t imized "re l ig ion as fa i th"? Leaving aside the

ques t ionable d is t inc t ion be tween re l ig ion as " fa i th" and " ideolo gy,"

did the Indian state ever intend to, or is i t eve n capable of, d estroyin g

peoples ' " l ived fa i th"? Anywhere in India tha t one cares to look and

by al l contem porary accounts , the vibrancy of " l ived fa i th" in a l l i ts

forms is ver y m uc h in ev idence. 2s In fact, the a nthro polo gist T. N.

Madan, while putt ing "secular ism in i ts place ," employs this very

evidence to argue that " the feeble character of the Indian policy ofstate secu larism is exposed 9 ,29 Th is is tru ly hav ing the roti and eating

it too: has the Indian state succeeded in destroyin g " relig ion as faith"

or are the va rious expressions of religiosity, as Nand y would n o doub t

argue, simply ingenious strategies by Indians to resist the "onslaught



325

on their dignity, autonomy and survival" by "decultured, s ta t is t ,

secula r va lues"?3~ Is the state in India, or any wh ere for that matter ,

real ly that powerful? Has the Indian Con st i tut ion real ly destroyed

peo ple ' s " re l ig ion as fa i th" and replaced i t wi th " re l ig ion as

ideology"? Nandy, Madan and Sethi seem to offer l i t t le empir ical

evidence for their assertions. E mp irical evidence would of course mean

capitulating to such outm oded pre-postm odernist notions an d concep ts

as "objec t iv i ty" and "ev idence . "

If the state has n ot really succeeded in its consp iracy against religion

as faith, and in fact ne ver intend ed to do so, 31 then the a rgum ent th atthe "concept of secular ism" or "sta t is t secular ism" is somehow

responsib le for the r ise of re ligious fundamental ism and the

precipi ta t ion of com mu nal conf l ic ts is surely unfounded. 32 This

argument m ight have appeared plausible had the policy of secular ism

in India implied host i l i ty to re l igion, or even if "secular ism" and

"rel igio n" w ere ant i thet ical concepts . Surely, only those who bel ieve

that the analysis of Indological texts provides the key to real India

would fa i l to notice that any re l igious act ivi ty is inextr icablyinter twined w ith eminen tly secular factors and vice versa . W hateve r

the meri ts of Indology, Peter van der Veer ' s recent s tudy has amply

demonstra ted the l imitat ions of the w ork of those scholars wh o simply

fetishize the pleasures o f Indolog ical texts.33 An d, as a recen t pap er b y

Sheldo n Polloc k has dem onstra ted, eve n Indological exper tise can a t

t imes generate valuable insights into the roots of the contemporary

cris es. 34

Co ntinuin g the anti-secularist project, Harsh Sethi, wh ile review ing

S. Gopal 's recent Anatomy of a Confrontation, 3smakes it clear that he

is not terribly impressed by the contributions. Fo r Sethi, i t is onl y the

his tor ian Nee ladr i Bha t tacharya who "comes somewhat c lose to

unders tanding" the complexi ties of Ayodhya . Romila Thapar ' s essay

meri ts an ho norable mention, but ul t imately, both histor ians "miss the

mark." As Sethi te l ls us , Bhattacharya, Thapar and a l l the other

contr ibutors to the v olume "understand l i t t le about the shaping of thepublic m in d." He uses the review of the book as the occasion for

dismissing a "ver i table avalanche of books, pamphlets , ar t ic les , even

f i lms on this quest ion . . . . ,36 One presumes he is referr ing to the

documentary on Ayod hya , In the Name of God by A nand Patwardhan.



326

Perhaps, having c la imed a direct l ink to the "shaping of the public

mi nd," Se th i i s uncomfor table wi th the f i lm. Ho rror o f hor rors , the

"real Indian people" he and others take i t upon themselves to

represent , refuse to fol low the scr ipt! The voices of people emerge

unaffected by conceptual and Indological abstract ions. But then,

somebody could a lways come up with the pla t i tude that even

Patwardhan's documentary ref lects and represents a par t icular

perspect ive . Perhaps to bel ieve otherwise would be l i tt le than a naive

foundation al is t fantasy!

It is true, as Sethi points out, and as the contribu tors to the volum eAna tomy o f a Confrontat ion themselves acknowledge, "rare ly have

issues o f fa i th and b el ief been effect ively countered by recourse to

history." But what then is the recourse for his tor ians or other

intellectuals as inte l lectuals? Abdicate a l l commitment to any

semblance of "ob ject iv i ty," decry i t as a pre-postmo dernist ruse , and

begin produc ing "my thographies" a la Nandy or "metahis tory , " a la

Hayden White? The poli t ica l naivet6 and honest intent ions of Ashis

Nan dy notwithstand ing, such proposals place intellectuals on extremely

dangerous ground . In this arena, all the Nandy s and Sethis put together

can nev er hope to compete w ith the comm unalis t ideologues wh o are

immensely mo re successful and resourceful in brewing a more potent

mix of mega "mythographies . " And in any case , whi le such

organizat ions and poli t ica l par t ies reach mil l ions, i t is unl ikely that

Nandy's impeccable English prose is accessible to anyone except a

very t iny f ract ion of the same urbanized, modernized Indians and

"W ester n" scholars he ra ils against.

To come back to Harsh S ethi 's cast igat ion of S. G opal ' s volum e on

the Ayodhya issue, what else can intellectuals as intellectuals do,

except invok e the "secular and ra t ional is t counter argum ents" that he

dismisses so contemptuously? Even if one admits that s imply

"invok ing secular and ra t ional counter arguments" may not w ork, how

wil l the mantra of an t i-secular ism and ir ra tional ism help? D o these

arguments not con cede the terms o f debate to parties and organizationsl ike the BJP, VHP, Shiv Sena and RSS? In this context , most ant i-

secular is ts l ike Nandy and Madan never seem to t i re of invoking

Gan dhi ' s remark tha t " those who say re l ig ion has noth ing to do w i th

pol i tics do not kno w what re l ig ion means . " Nandy, in par ticu la r ,



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reve ls in dwel l ing on Gandhi ' s ingenui ty and pol i t ica l acumen in

interpret ing "secular" events in re l igious idioms to communicate his

ideas to the people . At t imes, he even resor ts to the use of s imilar

devices. He forgets , however , that he hardly has the legi t imacy of

Gan dhi, his audience is much m ore limited, and, more im portantly, the

social and political context o f contemp orary India is not quite the same

as i t was in Gandh i ' s t ime. In fact , under p resent pol i t ica l condit ions,

Gan dhi ' s remark about the re la t ion between re l igion and poli tics would

const itute a perfect s logan for H indu or M uslim fundamental is ts . I t is

hardly surprising then that the BJP ideologues have once again adoptedspecif ic versions of Gandhi ' s ideas to pontif icate on the re la t ionship

between poli t ics and re l igion. The hubris of Nandy notwithstanding,

independent crit ical intellectuals are essentially powerless. I t is true

that the analysis of exact ly why ra t ional and secular arguments d o not

cut ice with some people is extremely signif icant . The surrender of

ra t iona l deba te in favor of the c rea t ion of "mythographies" or

"metahistory," might be a s t imulat ing, a lbei t vacuous, inte l lectual

pas t ime , but under present condi t ions , i t can be , to bor row T. N.M adan 's words, nothing short of "m oral arrogance and poli t ica l fol ly ."

Du ring the course of his crit ique and dismissal of the historia ns and

social scientists who do not follow the anti-secularist l ine, H arsh Sethi

goes on to ra ise the demand for "saner Muslim voices," w ithout which

"i t w il l be dif f icul t to coun ter the Hind u nat ional is t sh i f t . "37 Such a

demand not only re inforces the "mad Mul lah" s te reotype , but

simultaneously redef ines the Ayodhya issue exclusively in terms of

unbr idgeable and homo genous "H indu" vs . "M usl im" in te res ts . The

onus then , i s on an imagined "Musl im communi ty , " apparent ly ye t

again gr ipped by col lective insanity, to throw up "saner voices," while

an a t tempt to v iew the Hindutva movement as " fundamenta l i s t" or

"express ive o f Hindu co mm unal ism ," i s to be "s impl is tic" or be t ray

a lack of "u nd er st an d[ in g] . . . about the shaping of the public mind."38

All of the contr ibuto rs to the S. Go pal volume are descr ibed by Sethi

as cr i tic iz ing the "prom andir posi t ion" and adopting a "par t isan" view,as i f there is only a "H ind u" or "M uslim " a l ternat ive , and every

vie wp oin t has to be judg ed in the context of such mutual ly exclusive

com mu nal categor ies . Or as i f any proposal for the maintenance of



328

status quo regarding the Ay od hya mosque is , by def ini t ion, a

"Mus l im " po in t o f v iew.

Interest ingly enough , Sethi, who cla ims pr ivi leged insight into the

"Shap ing of the public min d," does not tell us w here exactly he stands

on the A yo dh ya issue. He does so only implic i tly , by arguing that

"ind eed it is fortunate for all of us (?) that having com e into power in

U .P. , the B.J .P. gove rnm ent has been trapped by i ts created

Frankenste in and confl ic ts have broken out between the dif ferent

const i tuents of the pro-mandir coal i t ion. '39 Of course , Sethi had

writ ten these l ines before the destruct ion of the mosque and thepredic table bloodbath. The quest ion of whether the mosque in Ayo dhya

should be d emolishe d is now purely academic. But then, i f indeed a

new structure or structures come up at the site, some enterprising

academic could a lways analyze the whole episode f rom a

deconstructionist perspective. O ne could conceptualize the des truction

of the mosqu e as a process of "deco nstruct ion ," given the fact that a

make-shif t temple has a lready been constructed. After a l l , isn ' t

deconstruct ion not to be equated with destruct ion but to be co nceived

as a process o f reconstruction? Other academics could alw ays explo re

the relevance of the difference between D errida 's concept of diff~rance

and Lyota rd ' s diff~rend for their analyses of the d ifference betw een a

temple and a mosque. Perhaps one could even analyze the "semiotics

of mob vio lence , " or how the d ichotomy of the "sacred" and the

"p rof an e" was m ediated by the violent mobs. One could even re ject

such dichotomies in favor of mapping out the ent ire "ensemble of

relations" to trace their influence on the "poetics of violen ce" and ho w

such violence restructured the "cosmologies" of the par t ic ipants

engaged e i ther in destruct ion, deconstruct ion, or reconstruct ion.

Alternat ive ly, one could dismiss a l l ta lk of any structure in Ay odh ya

as noth ing more than an i l lusion inspired by a " logocen tr ic

metaphysics of presence." Perhaps, one could extend Jean

Baud r i l la rd 's ana lys is of the Gu lf war " tha t never happened" to the

events a t Ayodhya and then other par ts of India . One could evenabandon al l analyses and simply display increduli ty towards the

tota l iz ing meta-narra t ive of the com munalis ts , even w hile a t tempting

to co bble up a "past iche" of real Indian tradit ions f rom var ious



329

Indological texts . The poss ibi l i t ies for the accumulat ion of "career

cap ital" are endless. 4~

Since Harsh Sethi bel ieves that there is "no running away fro m the

necessity of frontally tackling wha t is termed the 'Mu slim q uestio n' in

the country, perhaps a federal BJP government, supported by such

"cultural organizat ions as the VH P, the RSS and the Shiv Sena might

help? A fter a l l, i f a BJP gov ernm ent in UP was "for tunate for a l l of

us , " why not go the whole hog? Would tha t take ca re of what i s

te rmed as " the M us l im ques t ion"? And whi le put ting "secula r ism in

i ts place ," T. N. M adan cla ims that secular ism wil l not w ork in Indiaas i t is an "al ien cul tural ideolo gy," "a gif t of Chris t ian i ty," and, no t

surprisingly, concludes that he really has n o "con clusion s to offer, no

solution s to suggest."41 H ow eve r, h e does hasten to add that he is "n ot

advocating the es tabl ishment of a Hindu s ta te in India ," because "i t

s imply wil l not work. '42 I t is not c lear what exact ly he means by

"work," but h is remarks beg the ques t ion whether he would be in

favor of a theocrat ic sta te i f , in fact , i t "w ork ed."

The blank et identif ication of concepts as categorically "W estern" or

"al ie n" is not limited to Nandy, M adan and Sethi . Thus , the eminent

sociologis t Vee na Das , in her contr ibu tion to the discussion on the

resurgence of re l igious fundamental ism in India , cr i t ic izes the

"co nce ptio n of a neu tra l , secular s ta te" that "re l ies heavily up on the

common sense of Western socia l sc iences ." Refus ing to name

Ayodhya, she prefers to a l lude to "Hindus organizing into mil i tant

com mun it ies for the ' re lease ' of var ious sacred places that , given the

cultural geography of India , are a lso sacred to the Muslims."

Sides tepping the ques t ion of whether " the demands made by such

movem ents are in themselves good or ba d," she prefers to emphasize

that " the only answer modernis ts can offer to them is to subs t i tute

nat ional , secular symbols for secular ones--and this is no answer a t

a l l . " W hile lamenting the fact that " in the who le nat ional is t endeav or

to transfo rm India n society, we have paid scant attention to the m ann er

in whic h our past, in its essence, could be adapted for the futu re," shesarcas t ical ly dismisses some proposals for the convers ion of the

Ay odh ya mosque in to a na t ional mon ument as "a museumlike

appro ach to re l igio n," wh ich is "h ardly l ikely to sa t is fy those for

whom rel igious bel ief is not s imply a matter of aes thet ics . '43 In so



330

doing, her arguments lend indirect and unintended support to the

BJP/VHP view that "secular" inst i tut ions l ike the Supreme Court of

India cann ot adjudicate on matters per ta ining to re l igious bel ief and

Hind u sentiments. But wh ile the BHP/V HP discourse refers to " Hin du

sentiments ," Das s tr ikes an appropria te mult i - re l igious and mult i -

cul tural balance by invoking the "sentiments of both Hindus and

M uslim s abo ut the sacred nature of these sites."44

W hat th en i s Das ' so lu t ion to the problem of coming up w i th an

appropria te "design for l i fe"? Even while cautioning that " i t is not

f rozen metaphors that we seek f rom our past , nor exotic myths andr i tuals that bear no re la t ion to l ife wha tsoever" and that "no o ne can

wis h away the existence of markets or o f mo dern nat ion-sta tes ," she

urges us to "create forms o f nat ionhood and sta tes more responsive to

our own histor ical exper ience," and to inculcate " the courage to

exper iment with our her i tage." A part f rom being skeptical of her fa i th

in the pl iabi l i ty of socia l inst i tut ions, or "socia l engineer ing" that

Nandy now despises, one might legi t imately ask what exact ly

constitutes the essence of "our heritage"? I t turns o ut that all the rawmater ia l for such courageous "exper iments with our her i tage" der ives

from "the pr inciples of varnadharma and purusartha."45 W hat follows

is the char ting out o f "an other not ion of mora l i ty , " based upon her

"re f lec t ions o n the theory ofpurusartha" or "fou r ends of l ife that a

p ers on m ig ht p u r s u e . . , dharma, artha, kam a, and moksa.'46 Whi le

this is not the occ asion for evaluating the feasibili ty of her alternative

"des igns for the fu ture , ' ' 47 do Hindu texts real ly encompass-- to use

Louis Dumon t ' s te rm--and exhaus t "our heritage" and "our historical

experience"? She discusses "other" re l igions to pose the quest ion:

"ra ther than asking how Christiani ty or Is lam may help us to discover

monotheist ic t rends within Hinduism, we may ask whether humankind

has lost anythin g in its ma rch tow ards monotheism."48 She goes o n to

explore the possibi l i ties of recover ing "polytheist ic tendencies" in

Christ iani ty. However , despi te her repeated references to the

multiplicity of religious traditions, the ultimate reference point of "ou rhe r i tage" r ema in "H indu i sm, " "po ly the ism, " "Hindu symbols ." Do

the concepts of varnadharma and purusartha real ly encompass the

diverse heterogeno us tradi t ions of India or eve n of Hinduism?



331

But even if a l l Indians could decide on a perfect conceptual and

textual m odel , wil l the reconst i tut ion of a l l the var ious sym bols and

ideas by i tse lf res tructure Indian socie ty? How does she square her

conce rn for those for who m "rel igious bel ief is not s imply a m atter of

aes thet ics" with her proposal for a "cr i t ique of the dominant

monotheis t ic t radi t ions of Is lam and Chris t iani ty? How wil l the

recov ery of mon othe ism, polythe ism, panthe ism or a the ism by i t se l f

lead to the "means to l ive together in divers i ty and make India the

spir i tual home of a l l those ideas that are under a t tack f rom

fundam ental is ts an d pur is ts"? 49 Her views and proposals ref lect avalor izat ion of Indological textual constructs a t the expense of

institutions, soc ial s tructures and the activities of real hum an beings.

Her explic i t cr i t ique of fundamental is ts of a l l s t r ipes

notwiths tanding, are the BJP/VHP not in the process of creat ing

"form s of nat ionhood and s ta te more responsive to ou r o wn his tor ical

e x p e r i e n c e . . . " ? At l ea st f o r the time be ing , they seem to be on the

road to acquir ing more po wer to cond uct their ow n "exper im ent with

out her i tage." In such a l legedly pos tmodern t imes , wh en "pow er" and"kn ow ledg e" are suppo sedly inextricably intertwined, who is to decide

that they 've got i t a l l wrong? How do we capture "our pas t , in i ts

essence," from all the various local, regional and, one must add, multi-

re l igious t radi t ions? And even if one were to decide that the Hindu

chauvinis ts are dis tor t ing the "essence" of Hinduism and agree with

Das that "w e must loo k again a t s tructures of s ignif icance in re la t ion

to the sacred," how exact ly might one begin to "adapt the conceptual

models in such a way that they do not become ins truments for

infer ior iz ing cer ta in t radi t ions and those who l ive by them"?5~ Ho w

shall we overr ide "decultured s ta t ism," the "modernized" and

"secular" Indians to res tore the a l leged communal harmony of pre-

colonia l t imes? Is she no t ig noring the larger institutional and structural

context that is s imultaneously const i tut ing and is const i tuted by a

dif ferent se t of conceptual model and "reading" of his tory by the BJP,

the Shiv Sena, the RSS and their i lk?In the context of a mult i -cul tural and mult i - re l igious socie ty l ike

India , Da s ' faci le dismissal of the " overa rching conception of a

neutra l , secular sa te" is intr iguing. In dismiss ing the concept of a

neutral, secular s tate, Das ' arguments follow a pattern established by



332

Ashis Nandy and T. N. Madan. My intention here is not to defend the

actions of the India n state whic h is surely as respons ible as any other

agency for stoking the present and earlier rounds o f sectarian violence

over the mosque a t Ayo dhy a. But is i t not analyt ical ly more useful to

be histor ically specific and identify par t icular systems of go vernance,

or state policies rather than to criticize an abstraction like a "neu tral,

secular state"? In increasingly complex societies, surely the state plays

both enabling as w ell as repressive roles . In com parat ive terms, does

the West B engal s ta te not have a remarkably bet ter record in handling

such confl ic ts? Was i t not because o f the promp t act ions of the s ta tethat a bloodbath was avoided in the province o f Bihar, w hich was the

worst affected area just a few y ears ago? W hat other a l ternat ives to a

"neutral, secular state" can one suggest in a multi-cultural, multi-

e thnic , regionally diverse , and o ne must not forget , mult i - re ligious

socie ty? Das invokes disembodied "pr imordial loyal t ies" to "one 's

re l igion, caste and region" and refers to the Shah Bano case , the

confl ic t in Punjab and Ay odh ya to argue that such considerat ions have

"gaine d in importance in the cou ntry 's pol i t ica l li fe. ''51 But her

examples do not real ly demonstra te that such "pr imordial loyal t ies"

have suddenly emerged in a socia l vacuum as sa l ient factors in the

socia l l i fe of Indians. I t is not even c lear whether the concept of

"pr im ordia l loya l t ies" has much ana ly t ica l va lu e : 2 Sure ly Das i s

ignor ing the work of a number of schola rs who have care fu l ly

examined the par t icular conjuncture of pol i t ica l , cul tural ,

"pr i mo rdia l ," re l igious, secular and, yes, ev en economic factors that

have contr ibuted to some of the problems at hand. 53

Da s ' conf la t ion of "o ur her i tage," "ou r past, in its essence," w ith

the Hind u heritage, ho we ver broadly defined, is taken a step further by

the Chicago anthropologist M cKim M arr iot t ' s a t tempt to construct an

"Ind ian e thnoso ciology. "54 He seeks nothing less than to provid e

al ternat ives to concepts that "have developed f rom thought about

W estern rathe r than Indian cultural realities" and aims to exorcize "a n

al ien ontology and an a l ien epistemology" f rom the discourse of socia lsc ience in India . Quite apar t f rom yet again re ifying socia l constructs

l ike the "Ea st" and the "W est ," and his surpris ing asser t ion that

"class" and "sta tus" may be "helpful concepts in the West , but cannot

separate ly or together def ine the t ransact ional ways in which H indu



333

institutions order castes or persons ," his endeavo r resonates well w ith

the prevalent BJP/VHP/RSS discourse on India . While ostensibly

a t tempt ing to cons t ruc t an " Indian e thnosoc io logy," wi thout any

warn ing o r explan ation M arriott effortlessly switches from "Ind ian" to

"H indu " categor ies . In a minuscule sub-section t i tled "Oth er possible

Indian socia l sc iences," Marr iot t does refer to something about the

"windless Greco-Muslim humoral scheme ref lected in the notions of

M uslim farm ers o f Panjab and Sindh. '55 How ever, the f irst step of his

projec t of construct ing an Indian Ethnosociolog y seems to have been

comple ted wi th the publ ica t ion of Ind ia Through Hindu Categories,edited by h i m . 56 Not surpr is ingly, T. N. M adam contr ibutes a preface

to the volume. Hom ogenous Hindu categories for the diverse strands

of Hind u and other re l igious t radi t ions of India? Altho ugh not a l l the

contributors to the volum e necessarily agree with M arriott 's en deavors

(for example, his colleague, the late A. K. Ramanujan), w hat is one to

make of the t i t le of the volume? A sign of the t imes? And al l this

despite the bluster about the need to "deconstruct essentia l ism;" to

recov er heterog eneity; to preserve multiple traditions and identities; to

be sensi t ive to the process of the creat ion of the "ot her ." W hat about

the spec i fic " o thers" wi th in an imagined Hindu comm uni ty? And the

man y no n-Hind u Indians? I should not be m isunderstood as prom oting

the constru ct ion of specif ic Santhal, M uslim, Sikh, Chris t ian, Parsee

or Jew ish cultural concepts to str ike an appropriate balance or fo r the

restorat ion of a spur ious "plural is t" sociolog y/anthro polog y of India .

The term "inf ini te regress" haunts any such project. N or am I

suggesting the uncritical and indiscriminate use o f r igid concepts. The

poin t , ra ther , is to draw at tent ion to the dangers of the "violenc e of

abstraction '57 wh ich invariably accompan y endeavors to construct t id y

conceptua l schemes that are com pletely divorced from the lived reality

of human be ings . Marr io t t ' s conceptua l schemes and "cons t i tuent

cub es" have a lready bee n cr i t ic ized on a n umb er o f grounds. 58 But

even if, in response to such cr it iques, Marr iot t readjusted his "H indu

const i tuen t cubes," obta ined, as he tel ls us , throu gh "mathem aticalmodeling," how exact ly wil l i t enable us to bet ter understand Indian

society? Ho w wil l it a llow us to break out of what A. N. Wh i tehead

ca l led "misplaced concre teness"?



334

But I 'm probably mis taken in assuming tha t the a im of

ethnoso ciologists l ike Marr io t t or other anthro pological ly or iented

Indologists has be en to interpret and understand the working s o f Indian

"so cie ty ." Th e Indolog ical perspect ive , as def ined by Lou is Dum ont

and Da vid Pococ k, clearly argued that "the f irst con dition for a so und

deve lopm ent of a So ciology of India is found in the establ ishment of

the prop er re la t ion between i t and c lassical Indology. '59 Du mo nt and

Pocock had def ini te views regarding a sociology for India and their

pr imary object of analysis was "a system o f ideas.'6~ They emphasized

that they were interested in a "sociolo gy of values" wh ich entailed thatsociologists should "descr ibe the co mm on values and take care n ot to

mix u p facts of representat ion with the facts of behav ior . . . . ,,61 To

achieve their overridin g goal of establishing a "holis tic" sociology that

wo uld apply to the whole country, they argued that one must "nev er

forge t tha t India is on e . . , and the exis tence of cas tes from one end

of the country to the other , and nowhere e lse should impose this

idea."62 Their or iginal del ineat ion of the f ie ld of sociology in Ind ia

encompassed only "Hindu India , " conceptua l ized as a homogenous

community. Thus, one could ta lk about categor ies l ike "regional

Hind uism ," "South Indian Hinduism, . . . . All- India Hin duism ," as lon g

as such categor ies were not " taken to mean that there are real ly

different kinds of Hindu ism, but only o ne in all i ts regional v ariety. ,,63

Du mo nt and Po coc k's perspective was immediately criticized by F. G.

Bailey , who cor rec t ly a rgued tha t the ir concept ion of " I n d i a . . . does

not me an the ideas and values ( let alone the behavior) of everyone w ho

lives w ithin the Ind ian subcon tinent. ,,64 Bailey bro ug ht the issue into

focus by point ing out that Dumont and Pocock "equate ' Indian

sociology' with an analysis of the values of Hinduism ." He argued that

he was not "com fortable with the s tra it - jacket they have designed for

' Indian s oc io lo gy ' " and c r it icized them for coming "near to def in ing

'soc iolo gy ' out of existence. ''65 Now , while I did no t f ind m ysel f

"encom passed" and know count less "o thers" who were exc luded by

Dumont and Pocock's plans for Indian sociology, they did not c la imthat they were prom oting anyth ing else than "on e particular approach"

through the then newly founded journa l , Contributions in Indian

Sociology, even though why they used the te rm "soc io logy" to

descr ibe their end eavor is baff l ing.



335

The fact that this perspect ive continues to be dom inant in one form

or anoth er constitutes a topic for further sociological analysis. And that

even inte l lectuals f rom tota l ly opposed theoret ical perspect ives

continue to debate within very s imilar parameters and assumptions

about Ind ian society also remains an intriguing issue. If the prov erbia l

visi tor f rom outer space glanced through the pages of the New Ser ies

o f Contributions to Indian Sociology to get a sense of Indian society,

wh at w ould be the outcome? M ore l ikely than not , the vis i tor would

go back wel l informed about "Male sur rogacy, or niyogya, in the

Mahabhara ta ;" "Cosmos and paradise in the Hindu imagina t ion;""Kama in the scheme ofpurusartha: the story of Ram; . . . . Order and

even t in puran ic myth ; " "The Sami tree and the sacrif icial bu ffal o,"

etc . The same visi tor might expectant ly open the pages of a specia l

issue, t i t led The Word and the World, only to f ind that the "world"

wh ich does creep in is marginal ized by words analyzing myth ologies

and re l ig ious tex ts. Al though the Indian "w or ld" has not been absent

from the jou rna l , i t has def ini te ly received shor t shr if t, a t least in the

past . O ne presumes, or hopes, that the "errors of judg me nt" the

form er edi tor , T. N Mad an, acknow ledges while announ cing a

reconst i tut ion of the edi tor ia l committee of the journal , refer to the

issues raise d abo ve. 66

To com e b ack to the issue of secular ism, the recent uncr i tica l , not

very or iginal a t tacks on re if ied conceptual abstract ions l ike

"rat ional i ty, . . . mod erni ty, . . . . secularism," "sta t ism," and "the W est ,"

seem rather l imited and even dangerously ambiguous, under the

present social and political conjuncture in India. W hile there is a lot to

be critical abou t all of the above mention ed concepts and the uncritical

adop tion o f W est ern co ncepts an d theories,67 the dan gers o f thro win g

out the proverbia l baby with the bath-water should not be

underest imated. Such dangers can only be compounded when self -

appointed carriers of the allegedly authentic Indian tradition, l ike A shis

Nandy, seem to be leading a crusade to destroy a l l the bathtubs in

sight . Whether i t is Michel Foucault ' s enthusiast ic support of andcharacter izat ion of the I ranian revolut ion as nothing shor t of a f inal

break with the oppressive regime of "Western" ra t ional i ty, or Ashis

Na ndy 's just i ficat ion of sati, they a ll der ive from such unidimen sional

cr it iques and are potent ia l ly capable of leading to s imilar conclusions.



336

Un der present con dit ions, the identif icat ion of "a l ien concepts" and

"al ien ideologies" in India , resonates ra ther comfortably with the

"discourse" of the Hindu communalis ts , give or take a few hundred

years . While Ashis Nandy est imates that "a l ien" concepts and

categories invaded and began viola t ing or di lut ing the "pur i ty" of

"tradi t io nal" India some six hundred years ago, the Hindu revival is t

s imp ly stre tches this date back another two hun dred years . One does

not have to doubt the intent ions of Nandy, or anyone e lse , to worry

about the unintended consequences of such arguments . I t is hardly

surprising that a recent "wh ite pape r" by the BJP o n the destruction ofthe mosque a t Ayo dhy a comes down hard o n "colonized, W esternized

and urbanized inte l lectuals" who fa i l to understand "Hindu

sentiments ." During the bloodbath that ensued af ter the destruct ion of

the mosque, the latest wo rd fro m Nan dy was that mu ch of the violence

could be attr ibuted to "u prooted, decultured peop le" who were "sem i-

literate mig rants to the city. ,68 To factors like "s tatism ," "se cul arism ,"

"m od erniz ed," and " urban ized" Indians, the "semi-literate" folks have

bee n add ed to the l is t. O ne waits pat ient ly for Nan dy's identif icat ionof the real carriers of pure and "real" Indian "c ulture ." Or the group

of cultured anti-secularists who will resolve the problem s b y inv okin g

conceptual abstract ions, w hether Indological or "e thn osocio logical ."

Incidental ly, i t is hard to make sense of the meaningless term

"decu ltured" that constitutes the standard repertoire of anti-secularists.

Surely, a t least the cul tured "cultural determinists" should know that

to be hum an is to possess some form o f culture. Presum ably, the term

is s imply used to descr ibe an y "culture" they despise or do not agree

with. Or perhaps any cul ture which does not measure up to their

idealized theoretical abstractions derived fro m religious texts.

Perhaps the fact of my name has suddenly brough t into acute focus

the connections between what C. Wright Mil ls cal led "personal

troubles" and "public issues of socia l s t r u c t u r e ; ' ' 6 9 perhaps, as a

secular is t , I am exhibi t ing "moral arrogance," to use T. N. Madan's

telling phrase, in projecting my "personal troubles " and anxieties intothe public sphere . But then, as Gyanendra Pandey7~ has recen tly

pointed out, the slogan "Babar k i santan-- jao Pakis tan ya kabris tan"

(descendants of Babar--Pakistan or the grave, take your choice)

appears to hav e been "take n literally by large sections of the police and



337

the local H ind u po pu latio n in Bhagalpu r and some othe r places. ,,71

While not c la iming Babar as an ancestor , surely these issues cannots imply be my "persona l t roubles . "

In announc ing a "change of guard" for Contributions to Indian

Sociology, T. N. M adan has argued that the jour nal "has been guided

by the belie f that differences of approach must be respected, just as we

have trusted that disagreements are borne of genuine scholar ly

concerns rather than personal considerations."72 W hile I hav e n o desire

to conclude on a defensive note , the disagreements expressed above

have not been dr iven by any "persona l cons idera t ions , " i f the te rmimplies "ca reer cons iderations" or differences emanating from personal

disputes. However , my views do ar ise f rom an a t tempt not only to

connect "personal t roubles" to "public issues of socia l s t ructure ," but

a lso to express concern over the dominance of the "Indological"

perspect ive in Indian sociology. I have not , e i ther direct ly or by

innuendo, c la imed that any of these inte l lectuals are in any way

respon sible for the socia l and poli t ica l problems at hand. The

confiden ce of Na ndy and H arsh Sethi notwithstanding, intellectuals are

not real ly that powerful . Nor can they, despi te their c la ims and

delusions, "represent" the "people" of India . I have a t tempted to

express the hop e that some intellectuals will eventually step o ut o f their

concep tual abstract ions, even hom espun abstractions, to examine not

only what people (and texts) "say," but what they "do," as well . As

for T. N . Ma dan's concern over "genuine scholarly concerns," Andr6

Bete i l le ' s view that " the sociological , as opposed to the Indological ,appro ach m ust take i ts or ienta t ion f rom the l ived exper ience of the

prese nt ra ther than the presu med ideals of the p ast '73 canno t but

provide a f ramework fora genuine ly Indian sociology. I believe, but

these are m y p ersonal views, that only such a broad perspect ive wil l

truly "encompass" all Indians. Besides, such a perspective could also

serve to keep a check on what E. P. T hom pson accurate ly descr ibed

as "the d estructive the oreticis m of some intellectuals."74

There remains a larger issue con cerning the se lect ive construct ionsof the past and the various uses o f such meta-histories. In a nu m ber of

ways , Na ndy ' s ca l l for the cons t ruc tion of "mytho graphies , " i s not

very dif ferent f rom the a t tempts o f the Bri t ish colonial administra tors

to invent Indian "tradi t ion." Regardless of his intent ions, the



338

BJP /VH P/R SS/S hiv Sena and other fundamental is t par t ies and

organ izat ions are in a m uch b et ter pos i t ion to engage in such games,

wh ich continue to have real tragic consequences. T he current ob session

with the colon ial or p re-colonial pas t and proposals to rect ify real or

imagined gr ievances implic i t ly re lies on the assumption that someh ow

colon ial rule or "M uslim " rule were aberra t ions that dis rupted an

otherwise "no rm al" e volut ion ary process of Indian socie ty. I f only

such his tor ical process had not come to pass , the "no rm al" ev olut ion

of an Indologica l ly def ined Indian c iv il izat ion would have been

ensured. In such reconstructions, real historical events areconcep tual ized as somehow being outs ide his tory, and m ore effor t is

expended on a t tempt ing to unders tand "what might have been." Rea l

structural, institutional, and historical transformations and

contingencies are ignored, and a naive "volu ntar ism ," in the sense of

wishing history and institutions away, suggests i tself as the answe r to

contem porary problem s. This is not to suggest that British colonial rule

in Ind ia represented the culm inat ion of unavoidable s tructural

transformations or the " laws of socia l evolut ionism." In fact , theconstant harkin g back to a rom anticized and idealized past, usu ally at

a purely cul tural level , tac i t ly re l ies on a cer ta in " law of evolut ion"

that was presumably dis rupted by "al ien" inf luences . While

engagement in what E. H. Carr cal led "par lour-games with might-

have-beens "75 can be an interesting "men tal experime nt," i t is not clear

if such exercises contribute anything towards understanding the current

political and social climate of India. In the f ina l analysis , alth oug h the

inte l lectuals whose ideas have been discussed represent diverse

theoretical perspectives, i t remains that they share certain core

assumptions about Indian socie ty, despi te a l l their theoret ical and

political differences. Perhaps such a s tate of affairs represents a true

pos tmodernis t "b lur r ing of genres" wi th in academia.

In yet another piece , Nandy has dismissed the "secular ism of the

JNU (Jawahar la l Nehru Univers i ty) var ie ty as "comical ," before

moving on to discuss the re levance of the re l igious symbolism ofwear ing a " t ie " in W estern cul ture , or Mrs . T hatche r ' s "break ing a

cham pagn e b ott le ," for und ers tanding comm unal violence in India . 76

Nandy's views notwiths tanding, the ordy hope for s ta l l ing the

continuing tragedy l ies in the hones t implementat ion of this "com ical"



339

v a r i e t y o f s e c u la r i sm . A s fo r N a n d y ' s u s e o f , p r e s u m a b l y , n o n - s e l f -

re fe ren ti a l concep t s l ike "up roo ted , d ecu l tu red peop le " to exp la in the

com mu na l v io lence , and h i s g ratu itous a t t empt to in jec t red b lood ce l l s

i n t o t h e v e i n s o f t h o s e w h o m h e d i s m i s s e s a s " a n a e m i c a c a d e m i c

secu la r i s t s , "77 one can on ly hop e tha t the p ro jec t o f a soc io logy o f

som e Ind ian in te l l ectua l s wh o a re t ru ly co lo n ized and have ind eed

s u c c u m b e d t o t h e " i m p e r i a l i s m o f c a te g o r i e s " i s a lr e a dy u n d e rw a y

s o m e w h e re . I n g e n e ra l , t h e p h i l o s o p h e r A k e e l B i l g r a m i ' s c r i t i q u e o f

some in te l l ec tua l s ' "neuro t i c obses s ion wi th the Wes te rn and co lon ia l

d e t e rm i n a t i o n o f t h e i r p r e s e n t c o n d i t i o n , " a n d h i s o b s e rv a t i o n th a t i tw i l l p rove to be a f ina l v ic to ry fo r imper ia l i sm i f , a f t e r a l l the o the r

hum il ia t ions it has v is i ted , i t l ingers in our psych es and ma kes ge nuin e

se l f -und e rs tand ing , s e l f -c r i ti c i sm and f ree , un reac t ive agency

impo ss ib le , 7s s eems to p rov ide an ap t s t a r ting po in t fo r ma k ing sense

of the t en den cy am ong s t som e in te l lec tua ls fo r subs ti tu ting an a l l too

easy an t i -co lon ia l rhe to r ic fo r mo re sus ta ined and r igorous ana lys i s.

No t e s

.

.

.

4.

.

6.

.

8.

9.10.11.

12.13.14.

15.

Andr6 Beteille, "The Reproduction of Inequality: Occupation, Ca ste and

Family," Contributions to Indian Sociology, vo l. 25, no. 1 (1991), pp. 34-35.Gerald Graff, "The M yth of the PostmodemistBreakthrough," Triquarterly,

vol 26 (1973), pp. 383-417.

Seminar, no. 3 94, June, 1992.Raymond L. Ow ens and Ashis Nandy, The New Vaisyas (Bombay: A llied,

1977), p. 16.Ibid., p. 17.Ashis Nandy, The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self Under

Colonialism (Delhi: O xford University Press, 1983).Owens and Nandy, The New Vaisyas, pp. 165; 169.

Ibid., p. 166.Ibid. , p. 160.

Ibid., pp. 160-161.Ibid., p. 176.

Ibid., p. 152.Ibid., pp. 196-197.Ashis Nandy, Traditions, Tyranny and Utopias: Essays in the Politics of

Awareness (Delhi: Oxford U niversity Press, 1987).For recent studies of the politics of area studies research in the United States,see Arturo Escobar, Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking



340

16.

17.

18.

19.

0.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

of the Third Worm (Princeton: Princeto n Univ ersity Press , 199 4); Vincente

L. Rafael, "The Cultures of Area Studies in the United States," Social Text,

vol. 41 (1994), pp. 91-112; Donald Fisher, Fundamental Development of theSocial Sciences (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992); Geo rge

Rosen, Western Economists and Eastern Societies: Agents of Change in South

Asia, 1950-1970 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992).

Nandy, The Intimate Enemy.

Ro nald Inden, "Orientalist Constructions o f India," Modern Asian Studies,

vol. 20, no. 3 (1986), pp. 101-116; Ronald Inden, Imagining India (Oxford:

Basil Blackwell, 199 0). Fo r a critique if Inden, see Aijaz Ahm ad, "Be twe en

Orientalism and Historicism: Anthropological Knowledge of India," Studies

in History, vol. 7, no. 1 (1992).IbM.

Ashis N andy, "The Sociology of Sati," Indian Express, vol. 5, October

(1987).

Ibid.

Aijaz Abroad, In Theory: Classes, Nations and Literatures (New York:

Verso, 1992), pp. 196-197.

Ashis Nandy , "An Anti-Secularist M anife sto," Seminar, October (1985).

Ashis Nandy, Science, Hegemony and Violence: A Requiem for Modernity

(Delhi: Oxfo rd Un iversity Press, 1988), p. 13.T. N. Madan, "Secularism in its Place," Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 46,

no. 4 (1987), pp. 747-759.

Ashis Nandy, "Secularism," Seminar, June (1992), p. 30; Harsh Sethi,

"R evie w of S. Gopal, "An atomy o f a Confrontation,'" Seminar, June (1992),

p. 49; Veena Das, "Difference and Division as Designs for Life," in Carla

Borden ed., Contemporary Indian Tradition: Voices on Culture, Nature, and

the Challenge of Change (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press,

1989), pp. 50-51.

Sethi, "Rev iew of S. Gopal."

Nandy, "Secularism."

See Chris Fuller, The Camphor Flame: Popular Hinduism and Society in

India (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992).

T. N. Madan, "Secularism in its Place," p. 750.

Nandy, "Science, Hegemony and Violence," p. 13.

Fo r an incisive discussion of the politics of secularism in India, see Prak ash

Chandra Upadhyaya, "The Politics of Indian Secularism," Modern Asian

Studies, vol. 26, no. 4 (1992), pp. 815-854.

IbM.

Peter van der Veer, Gods on Earth: The Management of ReligiousExperience and Identity in a North Indian Pilgrimage Centre (London:

Athlone Press, 1988).

Sheldon Pollock, "Ram ayana and Political Imagination in India," Journal of

Asian Studies, vol. 52, no. 2 (1993), pp. 261-297.



341

35.

36.

37.

38.

39.40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

48.

49.

50.

51.

52.

53.

S. Gopal ed., Anatomy o f a Confro ntation: The Babri Masjid-

Ramjanambhoomi Issue (Delhi: Penguin, 1992).

Sethi, "Rev iew of S. Gopal."

Ibid.

Fo r an e mpirically based critique of the idea of a homog enous Mu slim

com mun ity in India, see E. A . Mann, Boundaries and Identities: Work and

Status in Aligarh (New Delhi: Sage, 1992). Other prominent discussions on

the topic include: Gyanendra Pandey, "Which of us are Hindu s?" and Akee l

Bilgrami, "What is a Muslim? Fundamental Commitment and Cultural

Identity," both in Gyanendra Pand ey ed., Hindus and Others: The Question

o f Identity in India Today (New Delhi: Viking, 1993).

Sethi, "Rev iew of S. Gopal."The term "career capital," obviously inspired by Bourdieu's concept of

"cultural capital," co mes from Ben Agger, "Why Theorize?," Current

Perspectives in Social Theory, vol. 11 (1991), pp. ix-xii.

Madan, "Secularism in its Place," p. 758.

Ibid., pp. 46; 52.

Das, "Difference and Division," pp. 45-46.

Ibid., p. 46.

Ibid., pp. 46; 52.

Fo r a critique see Day a Krishna, "The varnasrama syndrom e of Indiansociology," Contributions to Indian Sociology, vol. 26, no. 2 (1992), pp.

281-298.

Das, "Difference and Division," p. 49.

Ibid., p.51

Ibid., p. 56.

/bid., p. 46.

Jac k D avid Eller and Reed M. Coughlan, "The P overty of Primordialism:

the Demystification of Ethnic Attachments," Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol.

16, no. 2 (1993), pp. 183-202. For a discussion of the impact of changingstructural and political context on the salience o f ethnic identity, see Pre ma

Kurien, "Co lonia lism and ethnogenesis: A study of Ke rala, Ind ia," Theory

and Society, vol. 23, no. 3 (1994), pp. 385-418.

Das, "Difference and Division."

Dipankar Gupta, "The Indispensable Centre: Ethnicity and Politics in the

Nation State," Journal o f Contemporary Asia, vol. 20, no. 4 (1990), pp. 521-

539; P artha Cha tterjee, "His tory and the Nationalization of Hind uism ,"

Social Research, vol. 59, no. 1 (1992), p p. 111-150; Susana Devalle ,

Discourses o f Ethnicity: Culture and Protest in Jharkhand (New Delhi: Sage,

1992); Arthur Helw eg, "India's Sikhs: Problems and P rospec ts," Journal of

Contemporary As ia, vol. 17, no. 2 (1987), pp. 140-159; Peter van der Veer,

"G od Must be Liberated! A Hindu Liberation Movem ent in Ayodhy a,"

Modern Asian Studies, vol. 21, no. 2 (1987), pp. 283-303; Gods on Earth;

"A yo dh ya and Somnath: Eternal Shrines, Contested Histo ries," Social

Research, vol .59, no. 1 (1992), pp . 85-110; Ainslie T. Em bree , Utopias in



342

54.

55.

56.

57.

58.

59.

0.

61.

62.

63.

64.

65.

66.

7.

68.

69.

70.

71.

72.

Conflict: Religion and Nationalism in Modern India (Berkeley: University of

California Press, 1990); Gyanendra Pandey, "In Defen se o f the Fragment:

Writing abou t Hindu-Muslim Riots in India Today," Representations vol. 37

(1992), pp. 27-55; Gyanendra Pandey ed., Hindus and Others: The Question

of Identity in India Today (Delhi: Viking, 1993); Aparnu Basu, "Why Local

Riots are not Simply Local: Collective Violence and the State of Bijnor, India

1988-1993," Theory and Society, vol. 24 (1995), pp. 35-78; Sucheta

Maz umd ar, "W om en on the March: Right Wing Mobilization in

Contemporary India," Feminist Review, vol. 49 (1995), pp. 1-28; B. Mehta

and T. Shah, "Gender and Communal Riots," Economic and Political

Weekly, vol. 27, no. 47 (1992), pp. 2522-2524.

McK im Marriott, "Constructing an Indian ethnosociology," Contributions toIndian Sociology, vol. 23, no. 1 (1989), p p. 1-40.

Ibid., p. 32.

McKim Marriott ed., India Through Hindu Categories (New Delhi: Sage,

1990).

Derek Sayer, The Violence of Abstraction: The Analytic Foundations o f

Historical Materialism (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987).

K. N. Sharma, "W estern Sociology with Indian Icing," Contributions to

Indian Sociology, vol. 24, no. 2 (1990), pp. 251-258; Michael Moffat,

"Deconstructing Mc Kim M arrioR's Etlmosociology: an Ou tcaste's Critique,"Contributions to Indian Soc iology, vol 24, no. 2 (1990), pp. 215-236.

Louis Dum ont and D avid Pocock, "Fo r a Sociology of India," Contributions

to Indian Sociology, vol .1, no. 1 (1957), p. 7.

Ibid., p. 11.

Ibid.

Ibid., p. 9.

Ibid., p. 40.

F. G. Bailey, "F or a Sociology of India?," Contributions to Indian

Sociology, vol.3 (1959), p. 91.Ibid., pp. 88; 91.

T. N. Madan , "Editorial: Change of Gu ard ," Contributions to Indian

Sociology, vol. 25, no. 1 (1990), p . 1.

Fo r a sensitive discussion that does not lapse into nativism, see Syed Farid

Alatas, "O n the Indigenization of Acade mic Discourse," Alternatives, vol.

18, no. 3 (1993), pp. 307-338, and "A Khaldunian Perspective on the

Dynam ics of Asiatic Societies," Comparative Civilizations Review, vol. 29

(1993), pp. 29-51.

Ashis Nandy, quoted in Arthur Max, "Culture of Violence Source of

Bloodletting," The Globe and Mail (Toronto), De cem ber 8, 1992, p. 14.

C. W. Mills, The Sociological Imagination (Hamondsworth: Penguin, 1980).

Pandey, "In Defense of the Fragment," p. 44.

Madan, "Editorial," p. 1.

Beteille, "The Reproduction of Inequality," p. 26.



343

73.

74.

75.

76.

77.

78.

E. P. Thompson, "In the Gentleman's Cause: The Irish Layer in the Silences

of Edmund Burke ," The Times Literary Supplement, December 4, 1992, p.

3.E. H. Cart, quoted in Geoffre y Hawthorn, Plausible Worlds: Possibility and

Understanding in History and the Social Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1991).

Ashis Nandy, "Cross-Fire: Discussion on Secularism," India Today, M ay

15, 19 91, pp. 61-62; 72.

Nandy, "Secularism," Seminar, June (1992), p. 30.

Ashis Nandy, "The Politics of Secularism and the Recovery of Religious

Toleran ce," in Veena Das ed., Mirrors of Violence: Communities, Riots and

Survivors in South Asia (Delhi: Oxford University Press , 1990), p. 69.Bilgrami, "W hat is a Mu slim?"

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