AFTER AYODHYA: POLITICS, RELIGION AND THE E M E R G I N G CULTURE OF ACADEMIC ANTI-SECULARISM IN INDIA

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

(If) we are to develop the study of Indian society and culture within the framework of comparative sociology, we must put back the Indological approach where it properly b e l o n g s . . , a sociology of India that has its orientation to the past and disregards or devalues the present is bound to be unfruitful and in the end self-defeating.l Andr6 Beteille In a society increasingly irrational and barbaric, to regard the attack on reason and objectivity as the basis of radicalism is to perpetuate the nightmare we want to escape. 2 Gerald Graft

In recent years, the erstwhile consensus on the concept and policy of secularism in a multi-religious arid multi-ethnic society like India has been called into question by a number of political parties and organizations like the BJP. VHP, RSS and the Shiv Sena. While some of these political parties and organizations have never made a secret of their goal of establishing a Hindu theocratic state in India, the spectre of anti-secularism gripping some prominent Indian and American intellectuals represents a disturbing trend. Although it is true that the intellectuals now competing with each other to establish their antisecularist credentials and the right wing political parties are marching to the tunes of quite different drummers, this essay seeks to establish that the views of the former provide unintended support for the aims and objectives of the latter. The main argument of this essay is that at the present social and political juncture when the very concept of a
Dialectical Anthropology 21: 317-343, 1996. 9 1996 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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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 allies9 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 identified the 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 "antisecularist 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, represents a variation on his repetitive theme of 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 "dialogue" on the current state of communal 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 crippled and morally flawed," "senile radicals," who are "seduced and brainwashed," Nandy's rather bizarre attempt to engage in a "dialogue:" foreclosed the possibility of any meaningful conversation. In his contribution to the "dialogue" in Seminar, Nandy once again invoked his "blame it on the British" formula to characterize the policy of secularism as a "Western colonial concept introduced into Indian public l i f e . . , to subvert and discredit" Indian society. Perhaps, locked obsessively as he is into rigid dichotomies like East/West, Orient/Occident, tradition/modernity, sacred/secular, "White Man/WOG" (his terms), Nandy presumably
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319 believes that engagement in a dialogue also represents an insidious Western and colonial implant designed to discredit Indian society and culture. As someone who readily admits to being "intellectually crippled and morally flawed" enough to perceive some virtues in strengthening the policy and practice of secularism in India, I have often wondered at the possible sources of Nandy's unrelenting animus against conceptual abstractions like "modernity," "rationality," "Western science," "secular world-view," etc. He has not attempted to disguise his contempt for "modern Indians" and "secularists," who pretend that "they are the ones who have freed themselves from traditional prejudices" and who, having "taken over the white man's burden in this part of the w o r l d . . , see it is their bounden duty to educate and modernize the citizens in this part of the world . . ." In his latest summary dismissal of secularism, Nandy has not named any specific theories or theorists. Apparently, what he seems to be criticizing is "modernization" or "convergency theory," a critique that is neither new nor particularly newsworthy. Since one would be hard pressed to find any academics who would explicitly defend "modernization theory," and because Nandy does not offer any names, it may just be possible that his present-day views represent a desperate attempt to rid himself of his complicity with similar theories in the past. Could it be that his recent writings signify that Nandy is at war with his former self?. Although this is just conjecture, it might help to make sense of his compulsive and uncompromising animus against unidimensional abstractions like "modernity," "rationality," "objectivity," etc. Despite his relatively recent embrace of what can only be called "Occidentalism," Ashis Nandy's writings in the seventies read very much like an attempt to accomplish exactly what he now revels in reviling. To borrow his words, twenty years ago, he seems to have been actively engaged in discharging his "bounden duty to educate and modernize the citizens" of India. In a study of entrepreneurs in Howrah in the early seventies, we have Nandy (together with co-author Raymond Lee Owens) arguing that "to the extent that the economic opportunity presented by the Howrah engineering industry continues to grow and expand, the groups which have taken advantage of that opportunity will become increasingly like each other. "4 In marked

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contrast to his relatively recent discovery of idealized and largely imagined constructs like "traditional values," Nandy then prophesied that "with Independence, education, and so on, India is moving towards a "mass culture" in which the distinctiveness of caste groups is breaking down."5 Given the fact that Nandy has of late concentrated most of his energies on dismissing "modem science," "objectivity," and has even called for the replacement of "objective" historiography by "mythography, "6 his earlier work comes as a surprise. Given the intemperate language now being employed by him to discuss any manifestation or supporter of modernity, the switch from total scientism and positivism in the seventies to the call for the creation of "mythographies" is quite astounding. In his earlier work, Nandy was not only measuring "modernity" on the "OM and RM scale," and assigning "beta weights" to each measures of "N-Achievement" in order to ascertain the "correlates and predictors of entrepreneurial competence," but he was also striving hard to ensure that the measures of "indicators were based on hard performance data, attitudinal data, and assessments. ,7 And in order to ensure that the measurements were indeed accurate and contributed to "hard" data, Nandy was assuring us that the "entrepreneur's innovativeness [was] measured by averaging the ratings for the two independent observers on a two-point scale. "8 After being subjected to "regression analysis," all these accurate measures enabled Nandy to argue that "though the intercaste difference in the correlation between entrepreneurship and n Achievement is not significant, the near-zero beta weight of n Achievement among the Mahisyas suggests that in their less modem but more entrepreneurial subculture, the need does not directly contribute to entrepreneurship. "After all," he continued, "when n Achievement is entered into the regression equation for the Mahisyas, it adds on two percent of variance explained. ,9 While cautioning that "without a nonrecursive path analysis one cannot speak the language of causal modeling in this instance," he nevertheless succeeded in establishing that "even when the effects of all other variable are removed, the beta weight for n Achievement remains a redoubtable .28--the highest among all the variables in the equation for the upper castes."1~ And after drawing

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attention to the "negative beta of overall modernity in the upper caste entrepreneurs," Nandy contended that "while the motives explain more of the variance in entry into entrepreneurship than do indicators of modernity, the indicators of modernity are far more powerful predictors of competence than are the motives. H However, the scientific measurement of motives was not redundant, because "among the motives n Achievement turns out to be the best predictor of entrepreneurship, followed by n Power and sense of efficacy," although "optimism and n Affiliation bear apparently no relationship with entrepreneurship."~2 In the final chapter, the scientistic jargon is abandoned and we are told that "when formerly low-placed groups become involved in secondary industrialization the result is a wide transformation of the society in accordance with more egalitarian values."~3 Not surprisingly, his book received a rave review in the pages of that bastion of "modernization theory" Economic Development and Cultural Change. And despite having authored a book with the title Traditions, Tyranny and Utopias: Essays in the Politics of Awareness, ~4Nandy then seemed to exhibit little awareness of the politics of the "area study programs" in the United States during the time when he was conducting his research. 15In fact, he and his coauthor acknowledged that they were "humbled by the readiness with which we have found funds to carry out the research, data analysis and preparation of materials for publication," from a number of American institutions. Perhaps this expression of humility was merely an ingenious, homespun strategy of resistance expressed in code; perhaps just a glimpse of the techniques to be perfected later for insulting, usually unnamed, "secularists," "decultured," "rootless," "modernized," "urbanized" Indians en route to exorcizing the "intimate enemy" from colonized minds. 16 While it is true that intellectuals change their perceptions and ideas over time, Nandy could be less intemperate in ridiculing others for being seduced by such "alien" ideologies like secularism. Nobody expects him to follow the route of those peddlers of "alien cosmologies," the Marxists, some of whom were so often off the mark in their predictions that they developed a whole genre of "autocritique" to ponder their mistakes. Nor can we expect him to follow a path that is becoming increasingly fashionable. Ronald Inden for

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example, 17 after years of interpreting Indian society through predominantly Indological and Orientalist prisms, has now discovered the linkages 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 dramatic inversion of views, from the simplistic discourse of "modernization," to the newly acquired and equally simplistic and naive contempt for "rationality," "modernity," "secularism," etc. in any form or degree, has enabled Nandy to come up with some quite amazing 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 world 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, "reaffirms, even if in a bizarre, violent and perverted fashion, respect for selfsacrifice in a culture in which increasingly there is no scope or legitimacy for self-sacrifice."2~ Why exactly a woman was chosen 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 time, the handy explanatory device of colonial rule was mobilized by Nandy to explain both the occurrence of sati and the public response to it. 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 complex events, but in explaining the tragic case of Roop Kanwar, Nandy's "intervention" (to deploy a currently fashionable term) in the debate was positively bizarre but not unexpected for anyone who has followed his line of argument for the past few years. In my admittedly "intellectually crippled" view, Nandy was wrong in

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his earlier belief that different groups in India would "become increasingly like each other," just as he is wrong once again, whether he indirectly justifies sati or issues "anti-secularist manifesto(es)."22 Given his views on the Roop Kanwar issue, one wonders what to make of Nandy's belief and claim that his writings "give voice to [the] . . . semi-articulate p r o t e s t s . . , of marginalized Indians."23 In addition to the standard practice of invoking the hidden hand of "colonial rule" which seems to direct most of the problems in contemporary India, intellectuals caught up in the rush to put "secularism in its place "24 rely on another rather vacuous concept-"statism.'25 For Nandy, "secularism and statism in India have gone hand in hand," a remark that is in no way intended as a compliment to the Indian state. According to Harsh Sethi, associated with the same institution as Nandy, "all of us need to rethink the intrinsic merit and efficacy of decultured, statist, secular values," because "efforts at delegitimizing lived faith invariably breed not just reaction," but tend to displace "religion as faith" by "religion as ideology."26 Continuing Nandy's project, historian Harsh Sethi and the anthropologist T. N. Madan seem convinced that an all powerful and omnipotent state, apparently controlled by "decultured," "modern," "brainwashed," "urban" individuals, has in fact succeeded in destroying "religion as lived faith." Under such conditions, the resurgence of violence over religious issues somehow represents a "desperate attempt," to borrow Nandy's words, to retain "something of the religious world view in an increasingly desacralized w o r l d . . . " At the risk of eliciting "incredulity" from the extreme postmodernists, the issue of whether such explanations are "true" or borne by "evidence" must be raised. Nandy conjures up the fable of a tranquil pre-colonial existence that was shattered when the concept of secularism "was introduced in a big way in the early decades of the c e n t u r y . . , to subvert and discredit the traditional concepts of interreligious tolerance that had allowed the thousands of communities living in the subcontinent to co-survive in neighborliness. "27 While granting that "often there were violent clashes among the communities," he argues that the key difference was that "such violence never involved large aggregates such as the Hindus or the Muslims." It seems that the concept of secularism in itself led to

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widespread communal conflict, as "no one produced an iota of convincing empirical evidence to show that such conflicts existed on a large scale and involved religious communities as they are presently d e f i n e d . . . (emphasis added)." Now, to construct his "mythography" of pre-colonial harmony, Nandy engages in a subtle play on words. To exhort others to provide evidence that there were indeed conflicts in pre-colonial times between "religious communities as they are presently defined," is obviously to send them on a fool's errand9 Such an assertion enables him to admit of communal conflicts in pre-colonial India while placing the onus of communal violence on the "concept of secularism [that has] hegemonized the entire domain of religious amity." It also enables him to clinch the argument against the secularists of "the intellectually crippled and morally flawed" by arguing that they can barely conceal their "glee [over the fact] that the incorrigible Hindoos and Moslems are still fighting like cats and dogs [as this enables them] to justify their privileged access to state power . . . . " The fact that religious communities "as they are presently defined," and are increasingly sought to be defined, were not so defined in the past, must have occurred to Nandy. However, he will not allow such considerations to disturb his project of producing "mythographies" to replace his most reviled abstraction, "scientific, objective history." It would seem that there remains no middle ground between objective history cast in stone and subjectivist "mythographies." What about the oft-repeated anti-secularist claim that "statism" has destroyed or delegitimized "religion as faith"? Leaving aside the questionable distinction between religion as "faith" and "ideology," did the Indian state ever intend to, or is it even capable of, destroying peoples' "lived faith"? Anywhere in India that one cares to look and by all contemporary accounts, the vibrancy of "lived faith" in all its forms is very much in evidence. 2s In fact, the anthropologist T. N. Madan, while putting "secularism in its place," employs this very evidence to argue that "the feeble character of the Indian policy of state secularism is exposed9,,29 This is truly having the roti and eating it too: has the Indian state succeeded in destroying "religion as faith" or are the various expressions of religiosity, as Nandy would no doubt argue, simply ingenious strategies by Indians to resist the "onslaught
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on their dignity, autonomy and survival" by "decultured, statist, secular values"? 3~ Is the state in India, or anywhere for that matter, really that powerful? Has the Indian Constitution really destroyed people's "religion as faith" and replaced it with "religion as ideology"? Nandy, Madan and Sethi seem to offer little empirical evidence for their assertions. Empirical evidence would of course mean capitulating to such outmoded pre-postmodernist notions and concepts as "objectivity" and "evidence." If the state has not really succeeded in its conspiracy against religion as faith, and in fact never intended to do so, 31 then the argument that the "concept of secularism" or "statist secularism" is somehow responsible for the rise of religious fundamentalism and the precipitation of communal conflicts is surely unfounded. 32 This argument might have appeared plausible had the policy of secularism in India implied hostility to religion, or even if "secularism" and "religion" were antithetical concepts. Surely, only those who believe that the analysis of Indological texts provides the key to real India would fail to notice that any religious activity is inextricably intertwined with eminently secular factors and vice versa. Whatever the merits of Indology, Peter van der Veer's recent study has amply demonstrated the limitations of the work of those scholars who simply fetishize the pleasures of Indological texts.33 And, as a recent paper by Sheldon Pollock has demonstrated, even Indological expertise can at times generate valuable insights into the roots of the contemporary crises. 34 Continuing the anti-secularist project, Harsh Sethi, while reviewing S. Gopal's recent Anatomy of a Confrontation, 3s makes it clear that he is not terribly impressed by the contributions. For Sethi, it is only the historian Neeladri Bhattacharya who "comes somewhat close to understanding" the complexities of Ayodhya. Romila Thapar's essay merits an honorable mention, but ultimately, both historians "miss the mark." As Sethi tells us, Bhattacharya, Thapar and all the other contributors to the volume "understand little about the shaping of the public mind." He uses the review of the book as the occasion for dismissing a "veritable avalanche of books, pamphlets, articles, even films on this question . . . . ,36 One presumes he is referring to the documentary on Ayodhya, In the Name of God by Anand Patwardhan.

326 Perhaps, having claimed a direct link to the "shaping of the public mind," Sethi is uncomfortable with the film. Horror of horrors, the "real Indian people" he and others take it upon themselves to represent, refuse to follow the script! The voices of people emerge unaffected by conceptual and Indological abstractions. But then, somebody could always come up with the platitude that even Patwardhan's documentary reflects and represents a particular perspective. Perhaps to believe otherwise would be little than a naive foundationalist fantasy! It is true, as Sethi points out, and as the contributors to the volume Anatomy of a Confrontation themselves acknowledge, "rarely have issues of faith and belief been effectively countered by recourse to history." But what then is the recourse for historians or other intellectuals as intellectuals? Abdicate all commitment to any semblance of "objectivity," decry it as a pre-postmodernist ruse, and begin producing "mythographies" a la Nandy or "metahistory," a la Hayden White? The political naivet6 and honest intentions of Ashis Nandy notwithstanding, such proposals place intellectuals on extremely dangerous ground. In this arena, all the Nandys and Sethis put together can never hope to compete with the communalist ideologues who are immensely more successful and resourceful in brewing a more potent mix of mega "mythographies." And in any case, while such organizations and political parties reach millions, it is unlikely that Nandy's impeccable English prose is accessible to anyone except a very tiny fraction of the same urbanized, modernized Indians and "Western" scholars he rails against. To come back to Harsh Sethi's castigation of S. Gopal's volume on the Ayodhya issue, what else can intellectuals as intellectuals do, except invoke the "secular and rationalist counter arguments" that he dismisses so contemptuously? Even if one admits that simply "invoking secular and rational counter arguments" may not work, how will the mantra of anti-secularism and irrationalism help? Do these arguments not concede the terms of debate to parties and organizations like the BJP, VHP, Shiv Sena and RSS? In this context, most antisecularists like Nandy and Madan never seem to tire of invoking Gandhi's remark that "those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means." Nandy, in particular,

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revels in dwelling on Gandhi's ingenuity and political acumen in interpreting "secular" events in religious idioms to communicate his ideas to the people. At times, he even resorts to the use of similar devices. He forgets, however, that he hardly has the legitimacy of Gandhi, his audience is much more limited, and, more importantly, the social and political context of contemporary India is not quite the same as it was in Gandhi's time. In fact, under present political conditions, Gandhi's remark about the relation between religion and politics would constitute a perfect slogan for Hindu or Muslim fundamentalists. It is hardly surprising then that the BJP ideologues have once again adopted specific versions of Gandhi's ideas to pontificate on the relationship between politics and religion. The hubris of Nandy notwithstanding, independent critical intellectuals are essentially powerless. It is true that the analysis of exactly why rational and secular arguments do not cut ice with some people is extremely significant. The surrender of rational debate in favor of the creation of "mythographies" or "metahistory," might be a stimulating, albeit vacuous, intellectual pastime, but under present conditions, it can be, to borrow T. N. Madan's words, nothing short of "moral arrogance and political folly." During the course of his critique and dismissal of the historians and social scientists who do not follow the anti-secularist line, Harsh Sethi goes on to raise the demand for "saner Muslim voices," without which "it will be difficult to counter the Hindu nationalist shift. "37 Such a demand not only reinforces the "mad Mullah" stereotype, but simultaneously redefines the Ayodhya issue exclusively in terms of unbridgeable and homogenous "Hindu" vs. "Muslim" interests. The onus then, is on an imagined "Muslim community," apparently yet again gripped by collective insanity, to throw up "saner voices," while an attempt to view the Hindutva movement as "fundamentalist" or "expressive of Hindu communalism," is to be "simplistic" or betray a lack of "understand[ing]... about the shaping of the public mind."38 All of the contributors to the S. Gopal volume are described by Sethi as criticizing the "promandir position" and adopting a "partisan" view, as if there is only a "Hindu" or "Muslim" alternative, and every viewpoint has to be judged in the context of such mutually exclusive communal categories. Or as if any proposal for the maintenance of

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status quo regarding the Ayodhya mosque is, by definition, a "Muslim" point of view. Interestingly enough, Sethi, who claims privileged insight into the "Shaping of the public mind," does not tell us where exactly he stands on the Ayodhya issue. He does so only implicitly, by arguing that "indeed it is fortunate for all of us (?) that having come into power in U.P., the B.J.P. government has been trapped by its created Frankenstein and conflicts have broken out between the different constituents of the pro-mandir coalition.'39 Of course, Sethi had written these lines before the destruction of the mosque and the predictable bloodbath. The question of whether the mosque in Ayodhya should be demolished is now purely academic. But then, if indeed a new structure or structures come up at the site, some enterprising academic could always analyze the whole episode from a deconstructionist perspective. One could conceptualize the destruction of the mosque as a process of "deconstruction," given the fact that a make-shift temple has already been constructed. After all, isn't deconstruction not to be equated with destruction but to be conceived as a process of reconstruction? Other academics could always explore the relevance of the difference between Derrida's concept of diff~rance and Lyotard's diff~rend for their analyses of the difference between a temple and a mosque. Perhaps one could even analyze the "semiotics of mob violence," or how the dichotomy of the "sacred" and the "profane" was mediated by the violent mobs. One could even reject such dichotomies in favor of mapping out the entire "ensemble of relations" to trace their influence on the "poetics of violence" and how such violence restructured the "cosmologies" of the participants engaged either in destruction, deconstruction, or reconstruction. Alternatively, one could dismiss all talk of any structure in Ayodhya as nothing more than an illusion inspired by a "logocentric metaphysics of presence." Perhaps, one could extend Jean Baudrillard's analysis of the Gulf war "that never happened" to the events at Ayodhya and then other parts of India. One could even abandon all analyses and simply display incredulity towards the totalizing meta-narrative of the communalists, even while attempting to cobble up a "pastiche" of real Indian traditions from various

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Indological texts. The possibilities for the accumulation of "career capital" are endless. 4~ Since Harsh Sethi believes that there is "no running away from the necessity of frontally tackling what is termed the 'Muslim question' in the country, perhaps a federal BJP government, supported by such "cultural organizations as the VHP, the RSS and the Shiv Sena might help? After all, if a BJP government in UP was "fortunate for all of us," why not go the whole hog? Would that take care of what is termed as "the Muslim question"? And while putting "secularism in its place," T. N. Madan claims that secularism will not work in India as it is an "alien cultural ideology," "a gift of Christianity," and, not surprisingly, concludes that he really has no "conclusions to offer, no solutions to suggest."41 However, he does hasten to add that he is "not advocating the establishment of a Hindu state in India," because "it simply will not work.'42 It is not clear what exactly he means by "work," but his remarks beg the question whether he would be in favor of a theocratic state if, in fact, it "worked." The blanket identification of concepts as categorically "Western" or "alien" is not limited to Nandy, Madan and Sethi. Thus, the eminent sociologist Veena Das, in her contribution to the discussion on the resurgence of religious fundamentalism in India, criticizes the "conception of a neutral, secular state" that "relies heavily upon the common sense of Western social sciences." Refusing to name Ayodhya, she prefers to allude to "Hindus organizing into militant communities for the 'release' of various sacred places that, given the cultural geography of India, are also sacred to the Muslims." Sidestepping the question of whether "the demands made by such movements are in themselves good or bad," she prefers to emphasize that "the only answer modernists can offer to them is to substitute national, secular symbols for secular ones--and this is no answer at all." While lamenting the fact that "in the whole nationalist endeavor to transform Indian society, we have paid scant attention to the manner in which our past, in its essence, could be adapted for the future," she sarcastically dismisses some proposals for the conversion of the Ayodhya mosque into a national monument as "a museumlike approach to religion," which is "hardly likely to satisfy those for whom religious belief is not simply a matter of aesthetics.'43 In so

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doing, her arguments lend indirect and unintended support to the BJP/VHP view that "secular" institutions like the Supreme Court of India cannot adjudicate on matters pertaining to religious belief and Hindu sentiments. But while the BHP/VHP discourse refers to "Hindu sentiments," Das strikes an appropriate multi-religious and multicultural balance by invoking the "sentiments of both Hindus and Muslims about the sacred nature of these sites."44 What then is Das' solution to the problem of coming up with an appropriate "design for life"? Even while cautioning that "it is not frozen metaphors that we seek from our past, nor exotic myths and rituals that bear no relation to life whatsoever" and that "no one can wish away the existence of markets or of modern nation-states," she urges us to "create forms of nationhood and states more responsive to our own historical experience," and to inculcate "the courage to experiment with our heritage." Apart from being skeptical of her faith in the pliability of social institutions, or "social engineering" that Nandy now despises, one might legitimately ask what exactly constitutes the essence of "our heritage"? It turns out that all the raw material for such courageous "experiments with our heritage" derives from "the principles of varnadharma and purusartha."45 What follows is the charting out of "another notion of morality," based upon her "reflections on the theory ofpurusartha" or "four ends of life that a person might p u r s u e . . , dharma, artha, kama, and moksa.'46 While this is not the occasion for evaluating the feasibility of her alternative "designs for the future, ''47 do Hindu texts really encompass--to use Louis Dumont's term--and exhaust "our heritage" and "our historical experience"? She discusses "other" religions to pose the question: "rather than asking how Christianity or Islam may help us to discover monotheistic trends within Hinduism, we may ask whether humankind has lost anything in its march towards monotheism."48 She goes on to explore the possibilities of recovering "polytheistic tendencies" in Christianity. However, despite her repeated references to the multiplicity of religious traditions, the ultimate reference point of "our heritage" remain "Hinduism," "polytheism," "Hindu symbols." Do the concepts of varnadharma and purusartha really encompass the diverse heterogenous traditions of India or even of Hinduism?

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But even if all Indians could decide on a perfect conceptual and textual model, will the reconstitution of all the various symbols and ideas by itself restructure Indian society? How does she square her concern for those for whom "religious belief is not simply a matter of aesthetics" with her proposal for a "critique of the dominant monotheistic traditions of Islam and Christianity? How will the recovery of monotheism, polytheism, pantheism or atheism by itself lead to the "means to live together in diversity and make India the spiritual home of all those ideas that are under attack from fundamentalists and purists"? 49 Her views and proposals reflect a valorization of Indological textual constructs at the expense of institutions, social structures and the activities of real human beings. Her explicit critique of fundamentalists of all stripes notwithstanding, are the BJP/VHP not in the process of creating "forms of nationhood and state more responsive to our own historical e x p e r i e n c e . . . " ? At least for the time being, they seem to be on the road to acquiring more power to conduct their own "experiment with out heritage." In such allegedly postmodern times, when "power" and "knowledge" are supposedly inextricably intertwined, who is to decide that they've got it all wrong? How do we capture "our past, in its essence," from all the various local, regional and, one must add, multireligious traditions? And even if one were to decide that the Hindu chauvinists are distorting the "essence" of Hinduism and agree with Das that "we must look again at structures of significance in relation to the sacred," how exactly might one begin to "adapt the conceptual models in such a way that they do not become instruments for inferiorizing certain traditions and those who live by them"? 5~ How shall we override "decultured statism," the "modernized" and "secular" Indians to restore the alleged communal harmony of precolonial times? Is she not ignoring the larger institutional and structural context that is simultaneously constituting and is constituted by a different set of conceptual model and "reading" of history by the BJP, the Shiv Sena, the RSS and their ilk? In the context of a multi-cultural and multi-religious society like India, Das' facile dismissal of the "overarching conception of a neutral, secular sate" is intriguing. In dismissing the concept of a neutral, secular state, Das' arguments follow a pattern established by

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Ashis Nandy and T. N. Madan. My intention here is not to defend the actions of the Indian state which is surely as responsible as any other agency for stoking the present and earlier rounds of sectarian violence over the mosque at Ayodhya. But is it not analytically more useful to be historically specific and identify particular systems of governance, or state policies rather than to criticize an abstraction like a "neutral, secular state"? In increasingly complex societies, surely the state plays both enabling as well as repressive roles. In comparative terms, does the West Bengal state not have a remarkably better record in handling such conflicts? Was it not because of the prompt actions of the state that a bloodbath was avoided in the province of Bihar, which was the worst affected area just a few years ago? What other alternatives to a "neutral, secular state" can one suggest in a multi-cultural, multiethnic, regionally diverse, and one must not forget, multi-religious society? Das invokes disembodied "primordial loyalties" to "one's religion, caste and region" and refers to the Shah Bano case, the conflict in Punjab and Ayodhya to argue that such considerations have "gained in importance in the country's political life. ''51 But her examples do not really demonstrate that such "primordial loyalties" have suddenly emerged in a social vacuum as salient factors in the social life of Indians. It is not even clear whether the concept of "primordial loyalties" has much analytical value: 2 Surely Das is ignoring the work of a number of scholars who have carefully examined the particular conjuncture of political, cultural, "primordial," religious, secular and, yes, even economic factors that have contributed to some of the problems at hand. 53 Das' conflation of "our heritage," "our past, in its essence," with the Hindu heritage, however broadly defined, is taken a step further by the Chicago anthropologist McKim Marriott's attempt to construct an "Indian ethnosociology. "54 He seeks nothing less than to provide alternatives to concepts that "have developed from thought about Western rather than Indian cultural realities" and aims to exorcize "an alien ontology and an alien epistemology" from the discourse of social science in India. Quite apart from yet again reifying social constructs like the "East" and the "West," and his surprising assertion that "class" and "status" may be "helpful concepts in the West, but cannot separately or together define the transactional ways in which Hindu

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institutions order castes or persons," his endeavor resonates well with the prevalent BJP/VHP/RSS discourse on India. While ostensibly attempting to construct an "Indian ethnosociology," without any warning or explanation Marriott effortlessly switches from "Indian" to "Hindu" categories. In a minuscule sub-section titled "Other possible Indian social sciences," Marriott does refer to something about the "windless Greco-Muslim humoral scheme reflected in the notions of Muslim farmers of Panjab and Sindh.'55 However, the first step of his project of constructing an Indian Ethnosociology seems to have been completed with the publication of India Through Hindu Categories, edited by h i m . 56 Not surprisingly, T. N. Madam contributes a preface to the volume. Homogenous Hindu categories for the diverse strands of Hindu and other religious traditions of India? Although not all the contributors to the volume necessarily agree with Marriott's endeavors (for example, his colleague, the late A. K. Ramanujan), what is one to make of the title of the volume? A sign of the times? And all this despite the bluster about the need to "deconstruct essentialism;" to recover heterogeneity; to preserve multiple traditions and identities; to be sensitive to the process of the creation of the "other." What about the specific "others" within an imagined Hindu community? And the many non-Hindu Indians? I should not be misunderstood as promoting the construction of specific Santhal, Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Parsee or Jewish cultural concepts to strike an appropriate balance or for the restoration of a spurious "pluralist" sociology/anthropology of India. The term "infinite regress" haunts any such project. Nor am I suggesting the uncritical and indiscriminate use of rigid concepts. The point, rather, is to draw attention to the dangers of the "violence of abstraction''57 which invariably accompany endeavors to construct tidy conceptual schemes that are completely divorced from the lived reality of human beings. Marriott's conceptual schemes and "constituent cubes" have already been criticized on a number of grounds. 58 But even if, in response to such critiques, Marriott readjusted his "Hindu constituent cubes," obtained, as he tells us, through "mathematical modeling," how exactly will it enable us to better understand Indian society? How will it allow us to break out of what A. N. Whitehead called "misplaced concreteness"?

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But I'm probably mistaken in assuming that the aim of ethnosociologists like Marriott or other anthropologically oriented Indologists has been to interpret and understand the workings of Indian "society." The Indological perspective, as defined by Louis Dumont and David Pocock, clearly argued that "the first condition for a sound development of a Sociology of India is found in the establishment of the proper relation between it and classical Indology.'59 Dumont and Pocock had definite views regarding a sociology for India and their primary object of analysis was "a system of ideas.'6~ They emphasized that they were interested in a "sociology of values" which entailed that sociologists should "describe the common values and take care not to mix up facts of representation with the facts of behavior . . . . ,,61 To achieve their overriding goal of establishing a "holistic" sociology that would apply to the whole country, they argued that one must "never forget that India is o n e . . , and the existence of castes from one end of the country to the other, and nowhere else should impose this idea."62 Their original delineation of the field of sociology in India encompassed only "Hindu India," conceptualized as a homogenous community. Thus, one could talk about categories like "regional Hinduism," "South Indian Hinduism, .... All-India Hinduism," as long as such categories were not "taken to mean that there are really different kinds of Hinduism, but only one in all its regional variety. ,,63 Dumont and Pocock's perspective was immediately criticized by F. G. Bailey, who correctly argued that their conception of " I n d i a . . . does not mean the ideas and values (let alone the behavior) of everyone who lives within the Indian subcontinent. ,,64 Bailey brought the issue into focus by pointing out that Dumont and Pocock "equate 'Indian sociology' with an analysis of the values of Hinduism." He argued that he was not "comfortable with the strait-jacket they have designed for 'Indian sociology'" and criticized them for coming "near to defining 'sociology' out of existence. ''65 Now, while I did not find myself "encompassed" and know countless "others" who were excluded by Dumont and Pocock's plans for Indian sociology, they did not claim that they were promoting anything else than "one particular approach" through the then newly founded journal, Contributions in Indian Sociology, even though why they used the term "sociology" to describe their endeavor is baffling.

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The fact that this perspective continues to be dominant in one form or another constitutes a topic for further sociological analysis. And that even intellectuals from totally opposed theoretical perspectives continue to debate within very similar parameters and assumptions about Indian society also remains an intriguing issue. If the proverbial visitor from outer space glanced through the pages of the New Series of Contributions to Indian Sociology to get a sense of Indian society, what would be the outcome? More likely than not, the visitor would go back well informed about "Male surrogacy, or niyogya, in the Mahabharata;" "Cosmos and paradise in the Hindu imagination;" "Kama in the scheme ofpurusartha: the story of Ram; .... Order and event in puranic myth;" "The Sami tree and the sacrificial buffalo," etc. The same visitor might expectantly open the pages of a special issue, titled The Word and the World, only to find that the "world" which does creep in is marginalized by words analyzing mythologies and religious texts. Although the Indian "world" has not been absent from the journal, it has definitely received short shrift, at least in the past. One presumes, or hopes, that the "errors of judgment" the former editor, T. N Madan, acknowledges while announcing a reconstitution of the editorial committee of the journal, refer to the issues raised above. 66 To come back to the issue of secularism, the recent uncritical, not very original attacks on reified conceptual abstractions like "rationality, .... modernity, .... secularism," "statism," and "the West," seem rather limited and even dangerously ambiguous, under the present social and political conjuncture in India. While there is a lot to be critical about all of the above mentioned concepts and the uncritical adoption of Western concepts and theories,67 the dangers of throwing out the proverbial baby with the bath-water should not be underestimated. Such dangers can only be compounded when selfappointed carriers of the allegedly authentic Indian tradition, like Ashis Nandy, seem to be leading a crusade to destroy all the bathtubs in sight. Whether it is Michel Foucault's enthusiastic support of and characterization of the Iranian revolution as nothing short of a final break with the oppressive regime of "Western" rationality, or Ashis Nandy's justification of sati, they all derive from such unidimensional critiques and are potentially capable of leading to similar conclusions.

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Under present conditions, the identification of "alien concepts" and "alien ideologies" in India, resonates rather comfortably with the "discourse" of the Hindu communalists, give or take a few hundred years. While Ashis Nandy estimates that "alien" concepts and categories invaded and began violating or diluting the "purity" of "traditional" India some six hundred years ago, the Hindu revivalist simply stretches this date back another two hundred years. One does not have to doubt the intentions of Nandy, or anyone else, to worry about the unintended consequences of such arguments. It is hardly surprising that a recent "white paper" by the BJP on the destruction of the mosque at Ayodhya comes down hard on "colonized, Westernized and urbanized intellectuals" who fail to understand "Hindu sentiments." During the bloodbath that ensued after the destruction of the mosque, the latest word from Nandy was that much of the violence could be attributed to "uprooted, decultured people" who were "semiliterate migrants to the city. ,68 To factors like "statism," "secularism," "modernized," and "urbanized" Indians, the "semi-literate" folks have been added to the list. One waits patiently for Nandy's identification of the real carriers of pure and "real" Indian "culture." Or the group of cultured anti-secularists who will resolve the problems by invoking conceptual abstractions, whether Indological or "ethnosociological." Incidentally, it is hard to make sense of the meaningless term "decultured" that constitutes the standard repertoire of anti-secularists. Surely, at least the cultured "cultural determinists" should know that to be human is to possess some form of culture. Presumably, the term is simply used to describe any "culture" they despise or do not agree with. Or perhaps any culture which does not measure up to their idealized theoretical abstractions derived from religious texts. Perhaps the fact of my name has suddenly brought into acute focus the connections between what C. Wright Mills called "personal troubles" and "public issues of social s t r u c t u r e ; ''69 perhaps, as a secularist, I am exhibiting "moral arrogance," to use T. N. Madan's telling phrase, in projecting my "personal troubles" and anxieties into the public sphere. But then, as Gyanendra Pandey7~ has recently pointed out, the slogan "Babar ki santan--jao Pakistan ya kabristan" (descendants of Babar--Pakistan or the grave, take your choice) appears to have been "taken literally by large sections of the police and

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the local Hindu population in Bhagalpur and some other places. ,,71 While not claiming Babar as an ancestor, surely these issues cannot simply be my "personal troubles." In announcing a "change of guard" for Contributions to Indian Sociology, T. N. Madan has argued that the journal "has been guided by the belief that differences of approach must be respected, just as we have trusted that disagreements are borne of genuine scholarly concerns rather than personal considerations."72 While I have no desire to conclude on a defensive note, the disagreements expressed above have not been driven by any "personal considerations," if the term implies "career considerations" or differences emanating from personal disputes. However, my views do arise from an attempt not only to connect "personal troubles" to "public issues of social structure," but also to express concern over the dominance of the "Indological" perspective in Indian sociology. I have not, either directly or by innuendo, claimed that any of these intellectuals are in any way responsible for the social and political problems at hand. The confidence of Nandy and Harsh Sethi notwithstanding, intellectuals are not really that powerful. Nor can they, despite their claims and delusions, "represent" the "people" of India. I have attempted to express the hope that some intellectuals will eventually step out of their conceptual abstractions, even homespun abstractions, to examine not only what people (and texts) "say," but what they "do," as well. As for T. N. Madan's concern over "genuine scholarly concerns," Andr6 Beteille's view that "the sociological, as opposed to the Indological, approach must take its orientation from the lived experience of the present rather than the presumed ideals of the past ''73 cannot but provide a framework fora genuinely Indian sociology. I believe, but these are my personal views, that only such a broad perspective will truly "encompass" all Indians. Besides, such a perspective could also serve to keep a check on what E. P. Thompson accurately described as "the destructive theoreticism of some intellectuals."74 There remains a larger issue concerning the selective constructions of the past and the various uses of such meta-histories. In a number of ways, Nandy's call for the construction of "mythographies," is not very different from the attempts of the British colonial administrators to invent Indian "tradition." Regardless of his intentions, the

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BJP/VHP/RSS/Shiv Sena and other fundamentalist parties and organizations are in a much better position to engage in such games, which continue to have real tragic consequences. The current obsession with the colonial or pre-colonial past and proposals to rectify real or imagined grievances implicitly relies on the assumption that somehow colonial rule or "Muslim" rule were aberrations that disrupted an otherwise "normal" evolutionary process of Indian society. If only such historical process had not come to pass, the "normal" evolution of an Indologically defined Indian civilization would have been ensured. In such reconstructions, real historical events are conceptualized as somehow being outside history, and more effort is expended on attempting to understand "what might have been." Real structural, institutional, and historical transformations and contingencies are ignored, and a naive "voluntarism," in the sense of wishing history and institutions away, suggests itself as the answer to contemporary problems. This is not to suggest that British colonial rule in India represented the culmination of unavoidable structural transformations or the "laws of social evolutionism." In fact, the constant harking back to a romanticized and idealized past, usually at a purely cultural level, tacitly relies on a certain "law of evolution" that was presumably disrupted by "alien" influences. While engagement in what E. H. Carr called "parlour-games with mighthave-beens "75 can be an interesting "mental experiment," it is not clear if such exercises contribute anything towards understanding the current political and social climate of India. In the final analysis, although the intellectuals whose ideas have been discussed represent diverse theoretical perspectives, it remains that they share certain core assumptions about Indian society, despite all their theoretical and political differences. Perhaps such a state of affairs represents a true postmodernist "blurring of genres" within academia. In yet another piece, Nandy has dismissed the "secularism of the JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University) variety as "comical," before moving on to discuss the relevance of the religious symbolism of wearing a "tie" in Western culture, or Mrs. Thatcher's "breaking a champagne bottle," for understanding communal violence in India. 76 Nandy's views notwithstanding, the ordy hope for stalling the continuing tragedy lies in the honest implementation of this "comical"

339 variety of secularism. As for Nandy's use of, presumably, non-selfreferential concepts like "uprooted, decultured people" to explain the communal violence, and his gratuitous attempt to inject red blood cells into the veins of those whom he dismisses as "anaemic academic secularists, "77 one can only hope that the project of a sociology of some Indian intellectuals who are truly colonized and have indeed succumbed to the "imperialism of categories" is already underway somewhere. In general, the philosopher Akeel Bilgrami's critique of some intellectuals' "neurotic obsession with the Western and colonial determination of their present condition," and his observation that it will prove to be a final victory for imperialism if, after all the other humiliations it has visited, it lingers in our psyches and makes genuine self-understanding, self-criticism and free, unreactive agency impossible, 7s seems to provide an apt starting point for making sense of the tendency amongst some intellectuals for substituting an all too easy anti-colonial rhetoric for more sustained and rigorous analysis.

Notes

. .
.

4.
.

6.
.

8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

Andr6 Beteille, "The Reproduction of Inequality: Occupation, Caste and Family," Contributions to Indian Sociology, vol. 25, no. 1 (1991), pp. 34-35. Gerald Graff, "The Myth of the PostmodemistBreakthrough," Triquarterly, vol 26 (1973), pp. 383-417. Seminar, no. 394, June, 1992. Raymond L. Owens and Ashis Nandy, The New Vaisyas (Bombay: Allied, 1977), p. 16. Ibid., p. 17. Ashis Nandy, The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self Under Colonialism (Delhi: Oxford 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 University 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

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16. 17.

18. 19.
0.

21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31.

32. 33.

of the Third Worm (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994); 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 the Social Sciences (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992); George Rosen, Western Economists and Eastern Societies: Agents of Change in South Asia, 1950-1970 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992). Nandy, The Intimate Enemy. Ronald Inden, "Orientalist Constructions of India," Modern Asian Studies, vol. 20, no. 3 (1986), pp. 101-116; Ronald Inden, Imagining India (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990). For a critique if Inden, see Aijaz Ahmad, "Between Orientalism and Historicism: Anthropological Knowledge of India," Studies in History, vol. 7, no. 1 (1992). IbM. Ashis Nandy, "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 Manifesto," Seminar, October (1985). Ashis Nandy, Science, Hegemony and Violence: A Requiem for Modernity (Delhi: Oxford University 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, "Review of S. Gopal, "Anatomy of 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, "Review 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. For an incisive discussion of the politics of secularism in India, see Prakash 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 Religious Experience and Identity in a North Indian Pilgrimage Centre (London: Athlone Press, 1988).
Sheldon Pollock, "Ramayana and Political Imagination in India," Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 52, no. 2 (1993), pp. 261-297.

34.

341 35. 36. 37. 38. S. Gopal ed., Anatomy of a Confrontation: The Babri MasjidRamjanambhoomi Issue (Delhi: Penguin, 1992). Sethi, "Review of S. Gopal." Ibid. For an empirically based critique of the idea of a homogenous Muslim community 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 Hindus?" and Akeel Bilgrami, "What is a Muslim? Fundamental Commitment and Cultural Identity," both in Gyanendra Pandey ed., Hindus and Others: The Question of Identity in India Today (New Delhi: Viking, 1993). Sethi, "Review of S. Gopal." The term "career capital," obviously inspired by Bourdieu's concept of "cultural capital," comes 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. For a critique see Daya Krishna, "The varnasrama syndrome of Indian sociology," 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. Jack David Eller and Reed M. Coughlan, "The Poverty 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 changing structural and political context on the salience of ethnic identity, see Prema Kurien, "Colonialism and ethnogenesis: A study of Kerala, India," 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 of Contemporary Asia, vol. 20, no. 4 (1990), pp. 521539; Partha Chatterjee, "History and the Nationalization of Hinduism," Social Research, vol. 59, no. 1 (1992), pp. 111-150; Susana Devalle, Discourses of Ethnicity: Culture and Protest in Jharkhand (New Delhi: Sage, 1992); Arthur Helweg, "India's Sikhs: Problems and Prospects," Journal of Contemporary Asia, vol. 17, no. 2 (1987), pp. 140-159; Peter van der Veer, "God Must be Liberated! A Hindu Liberation Movement in Ayodhya," Modern Asian Studies, vol. 21, no. 2 (1987), pp. 283-303; Gods on Earth; "Ayodhya and Somnath: Eternal Shrines, Contested Histories," Social Research, vol.59, no. 1 (1992), pp. 85-110; Ainslie T. Embree, Utopias in

39. 40.

41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

47. 48. 49. 50. 51.

52. 53.

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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 Defense of the Fragment: Writing about 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 Mazumdar, "Women 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. McKim Marriott, "Constructing an Indian ethnosociology," Contributions to Indian Sociology, vol. 23, no. 1 (1989), pp. 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 of Historical Materialism (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987). K. N. Sharma, "Western Sociology with Indian Icing," Contributions to Indian Sociology, vol. 24, no. 2 (1990), pp. 251-258; Michael Moffat, "Deconstructing McKim MarrioR's Etlmosociology: an Outcaste's Critique," Contributions to Indian Sociology, vol 24, no. 2 (1990), pp. 215-236. Louis Dumont and David Pocock, "For 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, "For a Sociology of India?," Contributions to Indian Sociology, vol.3 (1959), p. 91. Ibid., pp. 88; 91. T. N. Madan, "Editorial: Change of Guard," Contributions to Indian Sociology, vol. 25, no. 1 (1990), p. 1. For a sensitive discussion that does not lapse into nativism, see Syed Farid Alatas, "On the Indigenization of Academic Discourse," Alternatives, vol. 18, no. 3 (1993), pp. 307-338, and "A Khaldunian Perspective on the Dynamics 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), December 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. 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 Geoffrey 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, May 15, 1991, pp. 61-62; 72. Nandy, "Secularism," Seminar, June (1992), p. 30. Ashis Nandy, "The Politics of Secularism and the Recovery of Religious Tolerance," in Veena Das ed., Mirrors of Violence: Communities, Riots and Survivors in South Asia (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 69. Bilgrami, "What is a Muslim?"

74.

75. 76. 77.

78.