Pathways: Approaches to the Study of Society in India 9780195636505, 0195636503

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9 OXFO RD INDIA P A P E R B A C K S

PATHWAYS APPROACHES

TO THE S T U D Y OF S O C I E T Y IN I NDI A

T. N. Madan

P athw ays

pATHWAYS APPROACHES T O THE ST U D Y OF SOCIETY IN INDIA

T. N . M A D A N

DELHI

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS BOM BAY CALCUTTA MADRAS 1995

Thomas J Bata Library

TRENi uNi PETERBOROUGH, C

TY ARIO

O xford U niversity Press, W alton Street, O xford

0x 2

6dp

Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bombay Calcutta Cape Town Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madras Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi Paris Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto and associates in Berlin Ibadan

© Oxford University Press 1994 Oxford India Paperback 1995

IS B N 0 19 563650 3

Phototypeset by Imprinter, 89, N ew Rajdhani Enclave, Delhi 110092 Printed by Rajkamal Electric Press, Delhi 110033 and published by Neil O ’Brien, Oxford University Press Y M C A Library Building, Jai Singh Road, N ew Delhi 110001

U m a M a d a n nee C h a t u r v e d i

C

ontents

P reface A cknow ledgem ents N o t e o n E p ig r a p h s

jx x iii xv

P a r t O n e : P a t h f in d e r s

1.

TR A D ITIO N A N D M O D ERN ITY IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF D .P . M UKERJI

2.

1

3

D .N . M A JU M D A R O N THE DEVELOPM ENT OF CULTURES

24

3.

AN IN T R O D U C T IO N TO M .N . SRINIVAS’S CEUVRE

37

4.

LOUIS D U M O N T A ND THE STUDY OF SOCIETY IN IN D IA

52

5.

IMAGES OF IN D IA IN AM ERICAN ANTHROPOLOGY

85

P a r t T w o : In S e a r c h o f a P a t h : A P e r so n a l A c c o u n t

109

6.

O N LIVING INTIM ATELY W IT H STRANGERS

7.

O N THE M U TU AL INTERPRETATION OF CULTURES

131

8.

O N CRITICAL SELF-AWARENESS

147

9.

THE SOCIAL CO N STR U C TIO N OF CULTURAL IDENTITIES IN RURAL KASHMIR

10.

T W O FACES OF BENGALI ETH N ICITY : BENGALI

11.

ASIA A N D THE M O D ERN W EST: IN D IA N AND JAPANESE

M USLIM OR MUSLIM BENGALI

RESPONSES TO W ESTERN IZA TIO N

111

167 202

226

R eferences

247

In d e x

277

P reface This is a book about sociological and social anthropological approaches to the study o f society in India. It is offered to those readers w ho sym ­ pathize w ith the view that no author is an island complete unto himself, that every scholar has predecessors, consociates, and succesors. T h e essays collected here w ere w ritte n b etw een 1971 and 1991, and are g ro u p e d in to tw o parts. P a rt I— ‘P a th fin d ers’— contains five chapters dealing w ith selected aspects o f the w ork o f D. P. Mukerji, D. N . M ajum dar, M . N . Srinivas, Louis D um ont, and some American anthropologists. Between themselves these scholars represent a wide range o f m eth o d s and perspectives including n e o -ev o lu tio n ism , functionalism , structuralism , M arxism , and ethnosociology. W hile D . P. M ukeiji and D. N . M ajum dar w ere m y teachers at the U niversity o f L u c k n o w in the early 1950s, I have learnt m uch fro m th e o th er scholars too by studying their w orks arid th ro u g h personal contact w ith m ost o f them . T hey are all ‘pathfinders’ in their distinctive ways and have been w idely influential. This, o f course, does no t m ean that I m y self have alw ays follow ed in their footsteps. P a rt II o f the b o o k — ‘In Search o f a Path: A P ersonal A c c o u n t’— consists o f tw o sets o f three chapters each. The first three essays (nos. 6, 7, 8) describe the scope o f social an th ro p o lo g ical studies as I have u n d e rsto o d and articu lated it from tim e to tim e. T h e m o v e m e n t is from a som ew hat m uted unease about the exclusivism o f the idea o f a n th ro p o lo g y as the study o f ‘other cultures’ tow ards a m ore pointed and, I hope, co n v in cin g plea for a n th ro p o lo g y as the m u tu al in te r­ pretation o f cultures and, ultimately, as critical self-awareness. A nthro­ pology as know ledge about h ow other people live their lives does not mean much, it seems to me, unless it helps us to live our ow n lives better. T he follow ing three chapters (nos. 9, 10, 11) illustrate the m ethod o f understanding th ro u g h the com parison or m utual interpretation o f cultures. T he first o f these essays is based on m y ow n fieldw ork in the K ashm ir Valley. It reflects a w ell-established em pirical approach in anthropological research w hich seeks to p o rtray social situations and even whole societies through intensive observation o f day-to-day activities in situ. W hatever w ritten m aterials (e.g. unpublished village records and published books) are draw n upon for inform ation, are treated as a secondary source or supplem entary texts. W hat is presented

X

Preface

to the reader is n o t the m inute details o f everyday life, b u t an over-all p attern , a picture, co n stru cted fro m stable in terp erso n al relations and social encounters. Society itself is conceived as socially constructed in this perspective, n o t th ro u g h a deliberate fabricative endeavour, bu t m ostly spontaneously. It is n o t suggested that the actors w hose actions constitute society are unthinkig pawns at the m ercy o f ‘social fo rces’. T hey have shared u n d erstan d in g s ab o u t th eir society, the so-called first-order interpretations, w hich are also regarded as data by the anthropologist. Thus, Chapter 9 presents the differing percep­ tions o f Kashmiri rural society am ong Hindus and M uslim s, and shows h o w these su p p o rt a larger social fram e w o rk , a single society th a t stood in place for centuries until quite recently. C hapter 10, like the preceding one, is concerned w ith the pheno­ m enon o f cultural pluralism , b u t w ithin M uslim society itself, and w ith the H indu-M uslim interface at the macro-level. There are m any historical, cultural and social stru ctu ral resem blances b etw een the K ashm ir Valley and Bangladesh. N otably, the m ajority population in both areas (about 95 per cent in Kashmir and 85 per cent in Bangladesh) consists o f M uslim s, m ost o f w h o m are descended from converts to Islam. T he cultural life o f these M uslim peoples bears the im p rin t o f th eir H in d u past. T his fact m akes for considerable c o -o p e ratio n b etw een them and the H indus at the local level, b u t conflict at the m acro-level also is present. T he factor that is m o st significant at the latter level is ‘p o w e r’ expressed in political and econom ic term s. To u n d erstan d such a com plex w eb o f relations, one has to ad o p t the historical perspective. I am n o t, h o w ev er, a h isto rian and have n o t m ade any a tte m p t to look into the original sources, b u t dep en d ed w holly on published accounts. B oth these chapters (9 and 10) attem pt to sh o w th a t cultural id e n tity is co n stru cted fro m the dialectic o f ‘self-ascription’ and ‘other-ascription’, and that it has m ore to do w ith ‘process’ than w ith ‘substance’. T he last chapter broadens the scope o f inter-cultural com parison further: it is concerned w ith Japanese and Indian reactions to the im pact o f the W est in the nineteenth century. O nce again the data are draw n from published sources. Given the vast scope o f the inquiry, the discussion w ithin the form at o f an essay is inevitably couched in very general term s, and the portrayal is by broad brush strokes, as it w ere. T he purpose is m ore to highlight contrasting cultural perspec­ tives o f national elites rather than to provide historical details. A lthough the w riting o f the articles was spread over tw en ty years,

Preface

XI

and was concerned w ith authors having divergent theoretical positions, o r w ith varied them es, I w o u ld like to claim a certain u n ity fo r the book. It arises from , first, the fact that the general perspectives and sub­ stantive analyses o f the various scholars that I have discussed in Part I do n o t appear here in sealed capsules, as it w ere, b u t are exam ined in their m utual relatedness. Secondly, m y ow n views and ethnographical o r historical discussions in P art II w ill be seen to have been influenced by the ‘pathfinders’ (as I call them), although m y intellectual indebted­ ness is greater to som e than to the others. N o tw ith sta n d in g the com plem entarity o f the essays constituting th e tw o parts o f th e b o o k , th e fact th a t the w ritin g has been spread o v e r tim e is n o t inconsequential. T h e date o f c o m p o sitio n and o f publication o f each essay is, therefore, given in an initial footnote to each chapter. I have refrained from any m ajor revisions, additions or deletions (except in th e th ird section o f C h a p tr 4) and confined the changes to occasional rew ording in the interests o f clarity. Prefatory rem ark s at th e b eg in n in g o f C h a p te r 4, p o stscrip ts at the end o f Chapters 3, 4, 5, 9, and 10 have, how ever, been new ly written. A few ad d itio n al references to later, relev an t pub licatio n s have also been in tro d u c e d in the o riginal texts. C h a p te r 8 repeats a few p o in ts o f in fo rm a tio n o r in te rp re ta tio n fro m tw o earlier chapters; I have allo w ed these to rem ain for they are w oven in to th e text. T he debts incurred in the w riting o f these essays have been many. A t the beginning o f each chapter, I have acknow ledged m y gratitude to the generous friends and colleagues w ho read drafts, gave advice, or helped in o th e r w ays. All th a t rem ains fo r m e to do here is to th an k A ra d h y a B h ard w aj, fo r co m p ilin g the b ib lio g rap h y and th e index, and C onnie C ostigan, for her painting w hich appears on the jack et o f this book. I also w ish to express m y gratitude to the authorities and faculty o f the Institute o f E conom ic G ro w th for their indulgence, to the O x fo rd U n iversity Press for their support, and to m y wife, U m a, fo r b eing w h a t she is. T h e felicity o f m y L u ck n o w U n iv e rsity days derives in very large m easure from m y association w ith her there. She has stood by m y side ever since. T he book is dedicated to her. D elhi l j u l y 1992

T. N . M adan

A

cknow ledgem ents

I th an k the follow ing copyright holders for their perm ission to rep ro duce m aterials, w ith or w ith o u t changes, published by them earlier. Full bibliographical details are given in the acknow ledge­ m ents n ote o f each chapter. T h e D . P. M ukerji M em orial Lecture E n d o w m en t C om m ittee (L u ck n o w U n iv e rsity ) for the essay th a t appears as C h a p te r 1 o f this book; Ethnographic and Folk-Culture Society, Lucknow, for Chapter 2; Institute o f E conom ic G row th, Delhi, for C hapters 3, 4, 6, 9 and 10; T h e R iverdale C om pany, G lenn Dale, M aryland (USA) for C h ap ter 5; T h e W enner-G ren Foundation for A nthropological Research, Inc., N e w Y o rk (U SA ), for C hapter 7; O x fo rd U n iversity Press, D elhi for C hapter 8; Sage Publications India Private L td., for C hapter 11.

N

ote o n the

E

p ig r a p h s

T he sources o f the epigraphs used at the beginning o f each part o f the b o o k and o f each chapter are given below . Full bibliographical details are given in the list o f references. P a rti C hapter C hapter C hapter C hapter C hapter

1 2 3 4 5

P art II C hapter 6 C hapter 7 C hapter 8 C hapter 9 C hapter 10 C hapter 11

: : : : : :

Confucius 1989 M ukerji 1952: 13; Popper 1963: 122 M ajum dar 1956—7: 131 Srinivas 1966: 157—8 D u m o n t 1966a: 30, 1957a: 7 W hitm an 1980; R am anujan 1986

: E liot 1971a : G ibran 1962 : C o o m a rasw a m y 1948: 21; L evi-S trauss 1966a: 127 : G oethe 1959 : M erleau-P onty 1964: 159; Stanner 1957 : E liot 1971b : Stryk and Ikem oto 1981

T h e Sanskrit quotation form ing part o f the dedication is from the Rig V eda V I.9.6

PART

ONE

PATHFINDERS D . P. D. N.

D A V ID

M U K E R JI M A JU M D A R

M. N.

S R IN IV A S

L O U IS

DUM ONT

M ANDELBAUM E T A L.

T h e M aster said, To learn and at due times to repeat w hat one has learnt, is that not after all a pleasure? T H E A NA LECTS O F C O N F U C IU S

T

r a d it io n a n d

in th e

I

M

S o c io l o g y

o d e r n it y of

D. P.

M

u k erji

For the important and immediate task o f reconstructing Indian culture through intelligent adaptation to and assimilation of the new forces in the light of a reinterpreted past, Sociology is the most useful study. D..P. MUKERJI

I do not think that we could everfree ourselves entirely from the bonds o f tradition. ,Theso-calledfreeing is really only a change from one tradition to another. But we canfree ourselvesfrom the taboos of a tradition; and we can do that not only by rejecting it, but also by critically accepting it. Wefree ourselvesfrom the taboo if we think about it, and if we ask ourselves whether we should accept it or reject it. KARL POPPER

In this essay I make an attem pt to examine briefly some central ideas in the w ork o f D hurjati Prasad M ukerji (1894-1961).1 H e was one o f the founding fathers o f sociology in India and taught during the second quarter o f the century at Lucknow University, where it was my privilege to have been his student, in the early 1950s, during his last years there. T h is chapter is a revised versio n o f the first D . P. M ukerji M em orial Lecture delivered under the auspices o f the D . P. M ukerji M em o ria l Lecture E n d o w m en t C o m m itte e at th e U n iv e r sity o f L u ck n o w on February 25, 1977. I am grateful to the C o m m itte e — particularly to its first Secretary, the late Professor V . B . Singh— for the honour o f asking m e to g iv e th e Lecture. I w o u ld like to w a r m ly thank D r K. P. G upta and P rofessors R am krishna M ukherjee, A . K . Saran and K. J. Shah for their helpful criticism s o f an earlier draft o f the essay. I am also beholden to Professors C lem ens Heller and Y ogendra Singh for earlier publication o f the text during their editorship o f Social Science Information (17,6,1978: 777—800) and Sociological B ulletin (26,2,1977: 1 5 5 -7 6 ) resp ectively. 1 A s is w e ll k n o w n , D . P. M u k eiji w ro te in b o th B en gali and E n glish , but I have read o n ly his E n glish w o rk s. In this essay I have draw n m ain ly on four o f his five m on o g ra p h s and three o f his four co llectio n s o f essays. T h e exclu d ed b o o k s are Prob­ lems o f Indian Youth (1946), a co llectio n o f essays and addresses, and Introduction to Indian M usic (1945). References to his w orks are b y date alone; references to other sources are b y au th or’s n am e and date.

4

Pathways

A fter taking degrees in history and econom ics at C alcutta U n iv er­ sity, and opting for a career in teaching, M ukerji w en t to L ucknow in 1924 in response to the invitation o f R adhakam al M ukerjee, w ho had been appointed Professor and H ead o f the D ep artm en t o f Econom ics at the new ly established university there. A lthough there w ere significant differences o f intellectual concerns and approach betw een them , they w ere in agreem ent about the im portance o f the comparative or sociological perspective in the teaching o f economics. W hile B om bay U niversity had established a sociology departm ent around the same tim e (in 1919), and C alcutta U niversity had in tro ­ duced the teaching o f anthropology (in 1920), L ucknow U niversity opted for an interdisciplinary department. Courses in cultural anthro­ pology were added in 1928 w hen D. N . M ajum dar was brought over to Lucknow from Calcutta by Radhakamal M ukeijee (see Chapter 2). In the years to com e D P (as P rofessor M u k erji w as k n o w n am o n g friends, colleagues, and students alike) was to establish a great repu­ tation as a scholar o f wide ranging interests, which included literature and music, and a highly influential teacher. 1 w ould like to m ention here that, apart from its inherent interest, I have another reason for w an tin g to tu rn to D P ’s o w n w o rk . It so happens that considerable misrepresentation o f his w ork has occurred in recent years. O ne m ight ignore w hat is said inform ally, b u t som e grievous distortions have appeared in p rin t.2 In fact, tw o tendencies are noticeable. T he m ore general o f these has been to sim ply ignore D P ’s w ork. H is books are o u t o f p rin t and n o t readily available in libraries, but w here they are to be found they are n o t read. T hey rarely find a place in courses o f studies. A reason for this m ay w ell be the contem porary concern w ith im m ediate goals and w ith a n arro w empiricism. Besides, one w ould have to adm it that not all o f w hat D P published was oflasting value. Nevertheless, the neglect is quite unjust, and not only to him but, in fact m ore so, to ourselves, precisely because he was an uncom prom ising critic o f narrow dogm atism s. M oreover, how can we hope to build sound scholarly traditions in India if w e do 2 See, for exam p le, Srinivas and Panini 1973. T h is fairly lo n g essay con tain s o n ly tw o paragraphs about D . P. M ukerji (pp. 189-90), and nearly every statem ent in them is either factually incorrect or o th erw ise m islea d in g . It is in d eed su rp risin g that the authors sh ou ld su g g est that D P ‘v ie w e d the processes o f ch an ge u n der B ritish rule as sim ilar to changes under earlier alien rulers’, or that th ey sh o u ld th in k that he ch an ged his v iew s about ‘synthesis’ in his later w ritings. H is concern for the cultural ‘specificity’ o f India is m isrepresented as an em phasis o n ‘u n iq u en ess’, and this after th ey h ave th e m ­ selves draw n attention to the in fluence o f M a rx ism o n D P .

Tradition and Modernity

5

not take the w ork o f our predecessors seriously? Surely, their experience should be as relevant to our tasks today, if not m ore so, as the concerns o f intellectuals in other parts o f the w orld. T hen there is the m isrepresentation I m entioned, arising ou t o f a casual acquaintance w ith D P ’s w ork. It w ould seem that n o t only his critics b u t also som e o f his adm irers have arrived at evaluations o f his w o rk w ith o u t studying it closely. This is harder to explain and, needless to stress, the m ore dangerous tendency. D P ’s w o rk dem ands to be seriously exam ined as was done, for instance, in his lifetim e by one o f the very ablest o f his students and colleagues, P rofessor A. K. Saran (see Saran 1959 and 1965). I u n d e rta k e here to m ake a sm all c o n trib u tio n to this im p o rta n t task in the h o p e m o re o f perhaps persuading others to do the sam e, and do it b e tte r than I am able to do here. Tradition and M odernity

T he them e I have chosen for discussion is the relationship o f tradi­ tion and m odernity in D P ’s thought. It is true that this bipolarity is n o w becom ing quite outm oded. Yet, I think, there w ould be a con­ sensus am ong intellectuals and policy-m akers in defining our national endeavours today as the quest for m odernization: or, as D P w o u ld have p u t it, the effort to give a push to history tow ards the next higher stage. We m ay have becom e w eary o f the concept o f m odernization, b u t the im p o rtan t question is, have w e carefully for­ m ulated the reasons for this weariness? A nd did we earlier develop adequately the argum ent for m odernization and exam ine its nature and scope? I am n o t sure w e have done these things; and it is m y belief that D P is an excellent guide to n o t only the clarification o f the concept o f m o d e rn ity , b u t also to this self-questioning. H e drew atten tio n to som e o f the hazards that attend the task; and his ow n w o rk illustrates others. T hus, he w ould have argued that ou r m odernity is spurious, a sham , and indeed a m ajor obstacle in the path o f genuine m oderni­ zation. B u t his criticism ultim ately fails to p o in t to a satisfactory solution. I should like to construct this argum ent in som e detail. Let m e begin w ith D P ’s early w o rk to exam ine the seeds o f his ideas regarding tradition and m odernity that came to flow er later on. It is interesting to note here that he considered his first tw o books, Personality and the Social Sciences (1924) and Basic Concepts o f Sociology (1932), ‘personal docum ents’— products o f his endeavour to formulate

Pathways

6

an adequate concept o f social science. From the very beginning he organized his ideas around the no tio n o f Personality. H e to o k u p the position that the abstract individual should n o t be the focus o f social science theories, and pleaded for a ‘h o listic ’, p sy ch o -so cio lo g ical approach. It was this ‘synthesis o f the double process o f individuality and the socialization o f the uniqueness o f individual life, this perfect u n ity ’ that he called Personality (1924: ii). Looking back at his w o rk o f a lifetim e, he said in his presidential address to the first Sociological C onference in 1955 that he had com e to sociology from econom ics and history because he was interested in developing his personality th ro u g h know ledge (1958: 228). T he office o f a com prehensive social science, transcending the prevailing com partm entalization o f social sciences, was conceived b y him to be the developm ent o f an integrated th o u g h m any faceted personality. This is an idea w hich, as A. K. Saran (1962a: 167) has p ointed o ut, is ‘in som e w ays parallel to the ideal suggested by M oore in his Principia Ethica'.

Thus, at the very beginning o f his intellectual career D P co m m it­ ted him self to a view o f know ledge and o f the k now er. K now ledge was not, as he p u t it, m ere ‘m atter-of-factness’, b u t ultim ately, after taking the em pirical datum and the scientific m eth o d for its study into account, philosophic (1932: iv—v). Econom ics had to be ro o ted in concrete social reality, that is it had to be sociological; sociology had to take full cognizance o f cultural specificity, th a t is it had to be historical; h isto ry had to rise above a n a rro w concern w ith the triv iality o f b y -g o n e events th ro u g h the in c o rp o ra tio n in it o f a vision p f the future, th a t is it had to be philo so p h ical. G iven such an enterprise, it is obvious th a t the k n o w e r had to be a darin g a d v en tu rer w ith a large vision rath er th an a tim id seeker o f the safety o f specialization. H e p o in ted ly asked in th e m id -fo rtie s (1946:11): We talk o f India’s vivisection, but what about the vivisection o f know­ ledge which has been going on all these years in the name o f learning, scholarship and specialization? A ‘subject’ has been cut off from know ­ ledge, knowledge has been excised from life, and life has been amputated from living social conditions. It is really high time for Sociology to come to its own. It may not offer the Truth. Truth is the concern o f mystics and philosophers. Meanwhile, we may as well be occupied w ith the discipline which is most truthful to the wholeness and the dynamics o f

Tradition and Modernity

1

th e o b je c tiv e h u m a n r e a lity .3

T h e philosophical approach w hich D P w ished to see cultivated was that o f rationalism, o f ‘Practical and Speculative Reason’. Reason w as to be understood as a tool, ‘n o t o f understanding m erely, b u t o f the developm ent o f Personality’ (1932: x). It seems a reasonable con­ jectu re, th o u g h one could hardly assert it, that at this tim e he m ay have been under the influence o f the teachings o f Hegel. In fact, such an influence seems to have persisted till the very end, prom inently in his concern w ith reason and hum an dignity, his attitude tow ards the past, w anting to preserve w hatever was ju d g ed as valuable in it, and his fascination for dialectics. B ut, then, these values could also have been im bibed from the H indu U panishadic tradition. D P ’s concern in the 1920s and 30s w as w ith the m ental m ake-up o f m o d ern Indian intellectuals and their w orld-view , w hich he rightly ju d g e d to be a b o rro w in g o f the W estern liberal o u tlo o k w ith its various preoccupations, m ost notably the notions o f ‘progress’ and ‘equality’. These and the related concepts o f ‘social forces’ and ‘social control’ were subjected to critical analysis in Basic Concepts o f Sociology. It is in his discussion o f the relation o f ‘progress’ to ‘personality’ that, it seems to m e, w e com e across early intim ations o f his later view s on the nature o f m odernization. Rejecting the evolutionist notion o f ‘progress’ as a natural phenom enon, D P stressed the elem ent o f ‘purpose’ in the life o f h u m an beings. D evelopm ent is n o t grow th, he adm onished us, bu t th e b ro a d e r process o f th e unfo ld in g o f potentialities (in this he follow ed H egel and M arx th ough he did n o t say so explicitly), and added that the ‘emergence o f values and their dynam ic character’ m ust receive adequate consideration (1932: 9). H e further w rote (ibid.: 15): P rogress can b est b e u n d ersto o d as a p ro b lem c o v erin g the w h o le field o f 3 C p . E lio t 1940, T w o C horuses fr o m the ‘R o c k ’: ‘W h ere is th e L ife w e h a v e lo s t in liv in g ? /W h ere is th e w is d o m w e h a v e lo st in k n o w le d g e? /W h er e is th e k n o w le d g e w e h ave lo st in in form ation ? ’ I w o u ld lik e to record here that the m o st lastin g im p ressio n that D P m ade o n m e, as indeed o n m an y other students, w as o f his lu m in ou s co n viction that genuine scholarship w a s so c ia lly u sefu l n o less than p erso n a lly sa tisfy in g , that th e life o f ideas w a s n o t for th e con ten ted and th e la zy but o n ly for the scep tical and the restless, and that the life o f an intellectu al w a s an h on o u ra b le life and in tellectu als w ere the v e ry salt o f the earth. G iv e n th e c o n te m p o r a r y c y n ic ism a b o u t and a m o n g in te lle c tu a ls, D P ’s faith n eed s rea ssertio n . T h e rew a rd s h e s o u g h t w e r e la rg e, and so w e r e th e risk s. I h a v e o fte n w on d ered h o w deeply his b rief stint w ith the 1937 C on gress govern m en t in U P hurt him .

8

Pathways hum an endeavour. It has a direction in tim e. It has various m eans and tactics o f d ev elo p m en t. F undam entally, it is a p rob lem o f balancing o f values. T h e scop e o f the problem is as w id e as h um an so ciety , and as deep as hum an personality. In so far as h um an values arise o n ly in contact w ith hum an con scio u sn ess at its different lev els, the p rob lem o f progress has unique reference to the ch a n g in g in d ivid ual liv in g in a particular region at a particular tim e in a sso c ia tio n w ith o th er in d iv id u a ls w h o share w ith him certain co m m o n custom s, beliefs, traditions, and possibly a c o m m o n tem peram ent.

It seems to m e perm issible to derive from the foregoing statem ent the conclusion that ‘m odernization’ is the special form w hich ‘p ro g ­ ress’ takes for people in the T hird W orld countries today. If this is granted,4 then the following w ords need to be pondered (1932: 29—30): P r o g r e s s . . . i s . . . a m o v e m e n t o f fr e e d o m . . . . W hat is o f vital sig n ifi­ cance is that our tim e-ad ju stm en ts sh o u ld be m ade in such a w a y that w e sh ou ld be free from the n ecessity o f rem aining in social contact for every m o m e n t o f our life. T h is is an im p o rta n t co n d itio n o f progress. In leisure alone can m an conquer the tyranny o f tim e, b y investing it w ith a m eaning, a direction , a m e m o r y and a purpose. O b stacles to leisure, in clu d in g the d em a n d s o f a h ectic so cia l life, o fte n m ista k en for p r o g r e ss, m u st be rem oved in order that the inner personality o f m an m ay get the opportunity for d ev elo p m en t. T h is is w h y the H in d u p h ilosop h er w is e ly in sists on the daily hour o f con tem p la tio n , and after a certain age, a w ell-m a rk ed period o f retirem ent from the tu rm o il o f life. T h e bustle o f m od ern civilization is g r o w in g apace and the need for retirem ent is b e c o m in g greater.

The above passage has a contem porary ring; and it is very relevant. If we paraphrase it, using w ords and phrases that are m ore fam iliar today, we get a succinct reference to the un thinking craving for and the hum an costs o f modernization, including alienation, to the values o f individual freedom and hum an dignity, and to social co m m it­ m ent. For D P progress was, as I have already quoted him saying, a problem o f balancing o f values; and so is m odernization. W hen w e introduce values into our discourse, and the rationalist perspective that he recom m ended will have it in no other w ay, w e are faced w ith the problem o f the hierarchy o f values, that is w ith the quest for ultim ate 4 K. P. G upta (1977) objects to su ch a form u lation : ‘I th in k it is undesirable to link the concepts o f “social progress” and m od ern ization . . . because it [the linkage] provides a co n v e n ie n t b rid g e to le g itim iz e the sh ift fr o m the u n iv er sa l co n c er n w ith p ro g re ss in all so c ie tie s to the n a rro w er and p reju d icia l co n c e rn s o le ly w ith the T h ir d W o r ld d e v e lo p m e n t.’ ^

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o r fundam ental values. For these D P turned to the U panishads, to shantam , shivam , advaitam, that is harm ony, welfare, unity. T h e first is th e p rin cip le o f h a r m o n y w h ic h su stain s th e u n iv er se a m id st all its in c e s s a n t c h a n g e s , m o v e m e n t s a n d c o n flic ts . T h e s e c o n d is th e p r in c ip le o f c o - o r d in a t io n in th e so c ia l e n v ir o n m e n t. T h e th ir d g iv e s e x p r e s s io n t o th e u n it y w h ic h tr a n sc e n d s all th e d iv e r s e fo r m s o f sta tes, b e h a v io u r s a n d c o n ­ flic ts , a n d p e r m e a te s t h o u g h t a n d a c tio n w it h in e f f a b le j o y ___ O n th is v ie w , p r o g r e s s u lt im a t e ly d e p e n d s o n th e d e v e lo p m e n t o f p e r s o n a lity b y a c o n ­ sc io u s realization o f th e p rin cip les o f H a r m o n y , W elfare an d U n it y (1 9 3 2 :3 5 ).

T h is appeal to V edanta, w hile discussing the W estern n o tio n o f progress, is a disconcerting characteristic o f D P ’s thought throughout. H e so u g h t to legitim ize it by calling it ‘sy n th esis’, w hich itse lf he described as a characteristic o f the historical process, the third stage o f the dialectical triad. H e thus evaded, it w ould seem, a closer exami­ nation o f the nature and validity o f synthesis. Its existence was assumed and se lf-y a lid atin g .-O n e ’s d isap p o in tm en t and criticism o f D P ’s position is n o t on the g round o f the source o f this trinity o f values— I am rem inded o f the research student at an Indian university w ho told m e o f her deep disappointm ent that D P was at heart a H in d u — but on the g ro u n d that H arm ony, W elfare and U n ity are too vague and esoteric, as they m ake their elusive appearance in D P ’s discourse; and he does n o t show how they may be integrated w ith such values o f the W est as are em bodied in its industrial civilization. O n the positive side, however, it m ust be addded that his preoccupation w ith ultim ate values should be assessed in the light o f his deep distrust o f the installation o f Science as the redeemer o f mankind and o f Scientific M ethod (based on a narrow empiricism and exclusive reliance on inductive inference) as the redeem er o f the social sciences. I have heard it said that D P ’s intellectual life reveals a striking lack o f continuity betw een his early w ork, w hen he was interested alm ost exclusively in broad conceptual issues rather than in understanding the nature and problems o f Indian society, and his later w ork, w hen he became increasingly immersed in India. Also, it is asserted that, this transition in his ideas was marked by a grow ing salience o f a M arxist, or pseudo-Marxist (depending upon the critic’s ow n ideological position), orientation in his w ork. T hat the emphases in his w o rk changed w ith the passage o f tim e may not be denied— and w hat is w rong w ith that? — b u t to m aintain that there is a sharp break in the tw o phases o f his w o rk w ould seem to be unw arranted.

10

Pathways

DP, it w ould seem, was always deeply sensitive to the social environ­ m en t aro u n d him . T o the ex ten t th a t the society in w hich he lived th e life o f a scholar was u n d e rg o in g change, th ere was a discernible shift in his intellectual concerns also, and he was conscious o f this. H e even w ro te about it: ‘In m y view , the thing changing is m o re real and objective than change per se’ (1958: 241). H e was a very sensitive person, and m any o f those w ho knew him intim ately w ill recall ho w a tu rn in events— w hether o f the university, the city, the country o r the w o rld — w ould cast a gloom on him o r bring him genuine jo y . H e had an incredible capacity for intense subjective experience: it perhaps killed him in the end. (O ne o f his favourite books was G oethe’s Werther.) In all his writings he addressed him self to his contemporaries: he had an unstated cohtem pt for those w ho w rite for posterity w ith an eye on personal fame and som e kind o f im m ortality, and I think he was right in this attitude.5 It w ould seem that w hat D P was m ost conscious o f in his earlier writings was the need to establish links betw een the traditional culture o f w hich he was a proud though critical inheritor and the m o d e m liberal education o f which he was a critical though adm iring product. The tw o— Indian culture and m odem education— could no t stay apart w ithout each becoming impoverished— as 'ih'deed had been happening — and therefore had to be synthesized in the life o f the people in general and o f the middle classes and intellectuals in particular. In this respect, D P was a characteristic product o f his tim es. H e was attracted by the im age o f the future w hich the W est held o u t to traditional societies and, at the same tim e, he was attached to his o w n tradition, the core o f which was the Hindu tradition. The need to defend w hat he regarded as the essential values o f this tra d itio n thu s becam e a co m p ellin g concern, particularly in his later w ritings. D ualities never ceased to b o th e r D P , and he alw ays so u g h t to resolve the conflict im plicit in persistent dualism th ro u g h transcen­ dence. This transcendence was to him w hat h isto ry was all ab o u t— or ought to be. B ut history was not for him a tablet already inscribed, once for all, and for each and every people. H ence his early criticism that, in the hands o f Trotsky, Lenin and Bukharin, history had degen­ erated into ‘pure dialectic’ (1932: 184). This criticism was repeated by him again and again. In 1945, he complained that the Marxists had made the ‘laws o f dialectics’ behave like the ‘laws o f Karma ’—'-‘ p r e d e t e r m i n i n g 5 I am rem in d ed o f R. G . C o llin g w o o d w h o w r o te in his fa m o u s a u to b io g ra p h y that g o o d w riters alw a y s w rite for their con tem p oraries (C o llin g w o o d 1970: 39).

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every fact, event and hum an behaviour in its course; o r else, they are held fo rth as a m oral justification for w hat is com m only described as o p p o rtu n ism ’ (1945: 18). For D P historiography was meaningless unless it was recognized that the decision to w rite history’ entailed the decision to ‘act history’ (1945: 46). A nd history was being enacted in India in the 1930s, if it ever w as during D P ’s lifetim e, b y the m iddle classes and, under their leadership, by the masses. W hat they were doing increasingly bothered him , for h istory had n o t only to be enacted b u t to be enacted right. T he question o f values could not be evaded. The middle classes whose intellectual life was his concern in his earlier w ork were also his concern in his later w ork, b u t n o w it was their politics that absorbed him . In this respect his concern avowedly w ith him self was in fact sociological, for he believed that no m an is an island u nto himself, bu t em bedded no t m erely in his class but also in his total socio-cultural environment. The focus was on m odem Indian culture and the canvas naturally was the w hole o f India. M odern Indian C ulture

T he year 1942 saw the publication o f M odern Indian Culture: A Socio­ logical S tu d y and a second revised edition was com pleted in 1947, the year o f independence, b u t also o f partition. It was w ritten under the im pending shadow o f the vivisection o f India; anguish and sorrow are the m o o d o f the book. T h e p ro b lem , as he saw it, w as first to explain w h y the calam ity o f com m unal division had befallen India, and then to use this know ledge to shape a better future. Sociology had to be the handm aiden o f history and it was no m ean role; indeed it w as a privilege. H is analysis led h im to the conclusion th a t a dis­ to rtio n had entered into the long-established course o f Indian history and crippled it. T he happening responsible for this was B ritish rule. B u t let m e first quote D P ’s succinct statem en t o f the character o f m o d ern Indian culture (1948: 1): . . . A s a social and historical p r o c e s s . . . Indian culture represents certain c o m m o n tradition s that h ave g iv e n rise to a n u m b er o f general attitudes. T h e m ajor in flu en ces in their shaping h a v e b een B u d d h ism , Islam , and W estern c o m m e r ce and culture. It w a s th ro u g h the assim ilation and co n ­ flict o f such v a ry in g forces that Indian culture b ecam e w h a t it is tod ay, neither H in d u nor Islam ic, neither a replica o f the W estern m od es o f livin g and th o u g h t n o r a p urely A siatic product.

In this historical process, synthesis had been the dominant organizing

12

Pathways

principle and the H indu, the B uddhist and the M uslim had together shaped a w orld-view in which, according to D P, ‘the fact o f Being was o f lasting significance’. His favourite quotation from the U panishads was charaiveti, keep m o v in g fo rw a rd . T his m ean t th a t th ere had d eveloped an indifference to ‘th e tran sien t and th e sen sate’ and a preoccupation w ith the subordination o f ‘the little se lf to and ulti­ m ately its dissolution in ‘the Suprem e R eality’ (1948: 2). This w o rld ­ view D P called ‘the mystical outlook’. H e maintained that Islam could have on its arrival in India shaken H in d u society in its very roots, bu t B uddhism served as a cushion. B uddhism itself had failed to tear H indu society asunder and had succeeded only in rendering it m ore elastic. M uslim rule was an econom ically progressive force but, on the w hole, it bro u g h t about only a variation in the already existent socio-econom ic stru ctu re (ibid.: 65—7) and p ro v id ed n o real alter­ natives to native econom ic and political system s. ‘T he M uslim s ju s t reigned, b u t seldom ruled’ (ibid.: 24). B ritish rule, how ever, did prove to be a real turning point in as m uch as it succeeded in changing the relations o f production, o r to use D P ’s ow n w ords, ‘the very basis o f the Indian social eco n o m y ’ (1948: 24). N ew interests in land and com m erce were generated; a new pattern o f education was introduced; physical and occupational mobility received a strong im petus. O vershadow ing all these developm ents, how ever, was the liquidation o f an established m iddle class, and ‘the em ergence o f a spurious m iddle class’, w h o do n o t play any truly historical part in the so c io -e c o n o m ic e v o lu tio n o f the cou n try, rem ain distant fro m the rest o f the p eo p le in p rofession al iso la tio n or as rent receivers, and are d iv o rced from the realities o f social and econ om ic life -----T heir ignorance o f the background o f Indian culture is p r o fo u n d . . . . T heir pride in culture is in inverse p ro p ortion to its lack o f social content (ibid.: 25).

It was this m iddle class w hich helped in the consolidation o f B ritish rule in India but later challenged it successfully; it was also this same m iddle class w hich b rought about the partition o f the country. Its rootlessness made it a ‘counterfeit class’ and therefore its handiw ork (w hether in the dom ain o f education and culture, in the political arena, or in the field o f econom ic enterprise) had inevitably som ething o f the same spurious quality. ‘T he politics and the culture o f a subject country’, D P wrote, ‘cannot be separated from each other’ (1948: 207). T o expect such an ‘elite’ to lead an independent India along

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the path o f genuine m odernization, D P asserted w ith rem arkable prescience, w o uld be unrealistic. H e w arned that before they could be expected to rem ake India, m odernize it, the elite themselves m ust be rem ade. A nd he w rote a forthright, if no t easy, prescription for them : ‘conscious adjustment to Indian traditions and sym bols’ (1948: 215), for culture cannot be “m ade” from scratch’ (ibid.: 214). It is im p o rtan t to understand w hy he m ade this particular recom ­ m endation, w hy he w anted the w ithdraw al o f foreign rule to be accom panied by a w ithdraw al into the self w hich, let m e hasten to add, was quite different from a w ithdraw al into the past or inaction. D P was n o t only not a revivalist, he was keenly aware o f the im m i­ nent possibility o f revivalism and its fatal consequences. H e noted that it w o uld be the form that political hatred disguised as civil hatred w o u ld take after independence. B ut he was n o t hopeless, for he fondly believed that revivalism could be com bated by giving sali­ ence to econom ic interests through a ‘m aterial p ro g ram m e’ that w o u ld cut across com m unal exdusiveness. H e envisaged India’s em ancipation from the negative violence o f the constrictive p rim o r­ dial loyalties o f religion and caste through the em ergence o f class consciousness (1948: 216). H e was silent on class conflict, how ever, and his critics m ay justifiably accuse him o f no t seeing his analysis th ro u g h to its logical conclusion. His optim ism was the sanguine hope o f an Indian liberal intellectual rather than the fiery conviction o f a M arxist revolutionary. In any case, w e k n o w today, three decades after D P ’s expression o f faith on this score, that class does n o t displace caste in India. N o r do they coexist in com partm ents: they com bine bu t they do n o t fuse. D P ’s vision o f a peaceful, progressive India b o m ou t o f the ‘un io n ’ o f diverse elem ents, o f distinctive regional cultures, rather than ou t o f the type o f ‘u n ity ’ that the B ritish im posed from above, how ever, rem ains em inently valid even today. T h e accommodation o f various kinds o f conflicting loyalties w ithin a national framework, rather than national integration, is the strategy which new African and Asian states faced w ith cultural pluralism are finding to be both feasible and advan­ tageous. We all know how Pakistan broke up in 1971 (see C hapter 10). D P ’s plea for a reorientation to tradition was, then, o f a positive n ature— an essential condition for m oving forw ard, for restoring historical dynam ism , for reforging the broken chain o f the socio­ cultural process o f synthesis. Em ploying Franklin Giddings’s classifi­ cation o f traditions into prim ary, secondary and tertiary, he suggested

Pathways

14

that by the tim e o f the B ritish arrival, H indus and M uslim s had yet n o t achieved a full synthesis o f traditions at all levels o f social exis­ tence. T here was a greater m easure o f agreem ent betw een them regarding the utilization and appropriation o f natural resources and to a lesser extent in respect o f aesthetic and religious traditions. In the tertiary traditions o f conceptual thought, how ever, differences sur­ vived prom inently. It was into this situation that the British m oved in, blundering their way into India, and gave Indian history a severe jolt. As already stated, they destroyed indigenous m erchant capital and the rural econom y, pushed through a land settlem ent based on alien concepts o f profit and property, and established a socially useless educational system . Such opportunities as they did create could no t be fully utilized, D P said, for they cut across India’s traditions, and ‘because the m ethods o f their imposition spoilt the substance o f her need for new life’ (1948:206). T h e M aking o f Indian H istory

A t this p o in t it seems p e rtin e n t ju s t to p o in t o u t th at, w h ile D P follow ed M arx closely in his conception o f h istory and in his charac­ terization o f British rule as uprooting, he differed significantly no t only w ith M arx’s assessment o f the positive consequences o f this rule, but also w ith his negative assessment o f the pre-British traditions. It is im portant to note this because som e M arxists have claim ed D P on their side, despite his repeated denials that he was a M arxist; he jestingly claim ed to be only a ‘M arx o lo g ist’ (Singh 1973: 216). Som e n o n M arxists also have, it m ay be added, described him as a M arxist. It w ill be recalled that M arx had in his articles on B ritish rule in India asserted that India had a long past b u t ‘no h istory at all, at least no k now n h isto ry ’;6 that its social condition had ‘rem ained unaltered since its rem otest antiquity’; that it was ‘the B ritish in tru d er w ho broke up the Indian handloom and destroyed the spinning-w heel’; that it was ‘British steam and science’ which ‘uprooted, over the whole surface o f Hindustan, the union between agriculture and manufacturing in du stry ’. M arx had listed E ngland’s ‘crim es’ in India and proceeded to point out that she had becom e ‘the unconscious tool o f h isto ry ’ w hose actions w ould ultim ately result in a ‘fundam ental rev o lu tio n ’ (see M arx 1853a, 1853b). H e had said: ‘England had to fulfil a double m ission in India: one destructive and the o th e r re g e n e ra tin g — th e annihilation o f old A siatic society, and th e lay in g o f th e m aterial foundations o f W estern society in India’ (1959: 31). 6 A s is w e ll-k n o w n , M arx o w e d th is ju d g e m e n t ab ou t India to H e g el.

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T hus for M arx, as for so m any others since his tim e, including Indian intellectuals o f various shades o f opinion, the m odernization o f India had to be its w esternization. As has already been stated above, D P was intellectually and em o­ tionally opposed to such a view about India’s past and future, w hether it came from M arx or from liberal bourgeois historians. H e refused to be asham ed o f o r apologetic about India’s past. T he statem ent o f his position was unam biguous (1945: 11): O u r attitude is o n e o f h u m ility tow ard s the g iv en fund. B u t it is also an aw areness o f the need, the utter need, o f recreating the g iv en and m aking it flo w . T h e g iv en o f India is v ery m u ch in ourselves. A n d w e w an t to m ak e so m e th in g w o r th w h ile o u t o f i t . . . .

Indian history could not be m ade by outsiders: it had to be enacted by Indians. In this endeavour they had to be n o t only firm o f purpose b u t also clear-headed. H e w rote (1945: 46): O u r so le interest is to w rite and to act Indian H isto ry . A ctio n m eans m ak­ ing; it has a starting p o in t— this sp ecificity called India; or i f that be to o va g u e, this sp ecificity o f the contact b e tw e e n India and E ngland or the W est. M a k in g in v o lv e s ch an gin g, w h ic h in turn requires (a) a scientific stu d y o f the ten d en cies w h ic h m ake up this sp ecificity, and (h) a deep und erstan d in g o f the C risis [w h ich m arks the b eg in n in g n o less than the end o f an ep o ch ]. In all these m atters, the M arxian m eth od . . . is lik ely to be m o r e u sefu l than other m eth o d s. I f it is n ot, it can be discarded. A fter all, the ob ject su rvives.

‘Specificity’ and ‘crisis’ are the key w ords in this passage: the fo rm er points to the im portance o f the encounter o f traditions and the latter to its consequences. W hen one speaks o f tradition, o r o f ‘M arxist specification’, one m eans, in D P ’s w ords, ‘the com parative obduracy o f a culture-pattern’. H e expected the M arxist approach to be g rounded in the specificity o f Indian history (1945: 45, 1946: 162ff.), as indeed M arx him self had done by focusing on capitalism, the d om inant institution o f W estern society in his time. M arx, it will be said, was interested in precipitating the crisis o f contradictory class interests in capitalist society (1945: 37). D P, too, was interested in m ovem ent, in the release o f the arrested historical process, in the relation betw een tradition and m odernity. H e asked for a sociology w hich w o u ld ‘show the w ay out o f the social system by analysing the process o f transform ation’ (1958: 240). This could be done by focus­ ing first on tradition and only then on change.

16

Pathways T h e first task for us, therefore, is to stu d y the social traditions to w h ich w e have been born and in w h ic h w e have had our b ein g . T h is task includes the stu d y o f the changes in traditions b y internal and external pressures. T he latter are m o stly e c o n o m ic .. . . U n less the eco n o m ic force is extraordinarily strong— and it is that o n ly w h e n the m o d es o f p rod u c­ tion are altered— traditions su rv iv e b y ad justm ents. T h e capacity for adjustm ent is the m easure o f the vitality o f traditions. O n e can have a full m easure o f this vitality o n ly b y im m ed ia te exp erien ce. T h u s it is that I g iv e to p priority to the understan din g (in D ilth e y ’s sense) o f traditions even for the stu d y o f their changes. In oth er w o r d s, the stu d y o f Indian tr a d itio n s. . . sh ou ld precede the so cialist interpretations o f changes in Indian traditions in term s o f e c o n o m ic forces (1958: 232).

This brings us to the last phase o f D P ’s w ork. Before I tu rn to it, how ever, I should m ention that Louis D u m o n t has d raw n o u r atten­ tion to an unresolved problem in D P ’s sociology. H e points ou t that one’s ‘recognition o f the absence o f the individual in traditional India’ obliges one to ‘adm it w ith others that India has no history’ for ‘history and the individual are inseparable’; it follow s that ‘Indian civilization [is]. . . unhistorical by definition’ (D um ont 1967b: 239). V iew ed from this perspective, D P ’s impatience w ith the M arxist position is difficult to justify. In fact, it is rather surprising that, having em phasized the im portance o f the group as against the individual in the Indian tradi­ tion, and o f religious values also, he should have opted for a M arxist solution to the problems o f Indian historiography (see D u m o n t 1967b: 231) and for a view o f India’s future based o n synthesis. H e hovered betw een Indian tradition and M arxism and his adherence to M arxist solutions to intellectual and practical problem s gained in salience in his later w ork w hich was also characterized b y a heightened concern w ith tradition. M odernization: G enuine or Spurious?

For D P the history o f India was n o t the history o f her particular form o f class struggle because she had experienced none w o rth the nam e. T he place o f philosophy and religion was dom inant in this history, and it was fundamentally a long-draw n exercise in cultural synthesis. For him ‘Indian history was Indian culture’ (1958: 123). India’s recent w oes, nam ely com m unal hatred and partition, had been the result o f the arrested assimilation o f Islamic values (ibid.: 163); he believed that ‘history halts unless it is pushed’ (ibid.: 39). t T he national m ovem ent had generated m uch m oral fervour b u t, D P complained, it had been anti-intellectual. N o t only had there been

Tradition and Modernity

17

m uch unthinking b o rro w in g from the W est, there had also em erged a hiatus betw een theory and practice as a result o f w hich thought had becom e im poverished and action ineffectual. Given his concern for intellectual and artistic creativity, it is not surprising that he should have concluded: ‘politics has ruined our culture’ (1958: 190). W hat was w orse, there w ere no signs o f this schism being healed in the years im m ediately after independence. W hen planning arrived as state policy in the early 1950s, D P expressed his concern, for instance in an im p o rtan t 1953 paper on M an and Plan in India (1958: 30-76), that a clear concept o f the new man and a systematic design o f the new society were now here in evidence. As the years passed by, he came to form ulate a negativejudgem ent about the endeavours to build a new India, and also diagnosed the cause o f the ram pant intellectual sloth. H e said in 1955: ‘I have seen how our progressive groups have failed in the field o f intellect, and hence also in economic and political action, chiefly on account o f their ignorance o f and unrootedness in India’s social reality’ (1958:240). T he issue at stake was India’s m odernization. D P ’s essential stand on this was that there could be no genuine m odernization through im itation. A people could not abandon their ow n cultural heritage and yet succeed in internalizing the historical experience o f other peoples; they could only be ready to be taken over. H e feared cultural imperialism m ore than any other. The only valid approach, according to him, was that which characterized the efforts o f men like Rammohun R oy and R abindranath Tagore, w ho tried to make ‘the m ain currents fo f w estern tho u g h t and a c tio n . . . run thro u g h the Indian bed to rem ove its choking weeds in order that the ancient stream m ight flo w ’ (1958: 33). D P form ulated this view o f the dialectic betw een tradition and m o d ern ity several years before independence, in his study o f Tagore published in 1943, in w hich he w orte (1972: 50): T h e in flu en ce o f the W est u p o n T agore w as g r e a t. . . but it sh ou ld n o t be exaggerated: it o n ly collaborated w ith o n e vital strand o f the traditional, the strand that R am M o h a n and T a g o r e ’s fa th e r . . . r e w o v e for T a g o re ’s gen eration . N o w , all these traditional values T a gore w as perpetually e x p lo itin g bu t never m o re than w h en he felt the need to expand, to rise, to g o deeper, and b e fresher. A t each such stage in the e v o lu tio n o f his prose, poetry, drama, m usic and o f his personality w e find T agore draw ing

18

Pathways u p o n s o m e b asic reserv o ir o f th e s o il, o f th e p e o p le , o f th e sp irit and em e r g in g w ith a capacity for larger in v e stm e n t.7

This crucial passage holds the key to D P ’s view s o n the nature and dynam ics o f m odernization. It em erges as a historical process w hich is at once an expansion, an elevation, a deepening and a revitalization— in short, a larger in v e stm e n t— o f trad itio n al values and cultural patterns, and not a total departure from them , resulting fro m the interplay o f the traditional and the m odern. D P w o u ld have agreed w ith M ichael O akeshott, I think, that the principle o f tradition ‘is a principle o f continuity’ (1962: 128).8 From this perspective, tradition is a condition o f rather than an obstacle to m odernization; it gives us the freedom to choose b etw een alternatives and evolve a cu ltu ral pattern w hich cannot b u t be a synthesis o f the old and the new . N ew values and institutions m ust have a soil in w hich to take ro o t and from w hich to im bibe character. M odernity m ust therefore be defined in relation to, and not in denial of, trad itio n .9 C onflict is only 7 D P d rew an in terestin g and sign ifican t contrast b e tw ee n B a n k im C handra C h a tterjee and Rabindranath T agore. H e w ro te (1972: 7 5 -6 ): [B ankim ] w as a path-finder and a first class in tellect that had ab sorb ed the then current th o u g h t o f E ngland. H is g r o u n d in g in Indian th o u g h t w a s w ea k at first; w h en it w a s su r e r . . . [it] en ded in his plea for a n e o -H in d u resurgence. Like M ich ael M ad husu d an D u tta , B a n k im the artist rem ain ed a d iv id e d b ein g . T a g o re w a s m ore lu ck y . H is saturation w ith Indian traditions w as deeper; hence he could more easily assimilate a bigger dose o f Western thought (em p h asis added). 8 M arx, it w ill be recalled, had w ritten (in 1853) o ft h e ‘m e la n c h o ly ’ and the ‘m ise r y ’ o f the H in d u arising o u t o ft h e ‘lo ss o f h is o ld w o r ld ’ and h is separation fr o m ‘an cien t trad ition s’ (M arx and E n g els 1959 :1 6 ). T h e task at han d w as to m ak e the vital currents flo w . T hat this co u ld be d on e b y re-estab lish in g m ea n in g fu l lin k s w ith the past w o u ld have been em phasized , h o w e v e r , o n ly b y an Indian such as D P . I su sp ect D P w o u ld have sym p ath ized w ith O a k e sh o tt’s assertion that the ch an ges a trad ition ‘u n d erg o es are potential w ith in it’ (1962: 128). 9 M an y con tem p ora ry thinkers h ave exp ressed sim ilar v ie w s . See, e .g ., the m o tto o f this essay taken fro m P opper (1963: 122). O r S chneider (1974: 205): ‘Social life is m eaningful; n e w m eanings are established w ith reference to old m eanings and g r o w ou t o f them and m u st be m ade, in so m e degree, congruent w ith them ; and exch an ge, w h en ­ ever and w herever it occurs, m u st be articulated w ith the existin g sy stem o f m eanings. ’ Shils puts it so m e w h a t differen tly (1975b: 2 0 3 -4 ): O n e o f the m ajor p rob lem s w h ich co n fro n ts us in the analysis o f trad ition is the fusion o f originality and traditionality. T . S. E lio t’s essay, ‘T radition and Individual T alent’, in The Sacred Wood, said very little m ore than that these tw o elem ents co ex ist and that o rigin ality w o rk s w ith in the fra m ew o rk o f trad ition ality. It adds and m o d ifies, w h ile accep tin g m u ch . In any case, ev en th o u g h it Rejects or disregards m uch o f w h at it confronts in the particular sphere o f its o w n creation, it accepts very m uch o f What is inherited in the con text o f the creation. It takes its p oin t o f departure from the ‘g iv en ’ and go es forw ard from there, correcting, im p ro v in g , transform ing. O n e mcire exam ple: M erlea u -P o n ty w rites (1964: 59):

Tradition and Modernity

19

the intermediate stage in the dialectical triad: the m ovem ent is tow ard c o in c id e n t oppositorum. Needless to emphasize, the foregoing argu­ m en t is in accordance w ith the M arxist dialectic w hich sees relations as determ ined by one another and therefore bases a ‘p ro p e r’ under­ standing o f them on such a relationship. Synthesis o fth e opposites is not, however, a historical inevitability. It is n o t a gift given to a people unasked o r m erely fo r the asking: th e y m u st strive for it self-consciously, for ‘C u ltu re is an affair o f total consciousness’ (1958: 189), it is a ‘dynam ic social process, and n o t another nam e for traditionalism ’ (ibid.: 101-2). H istory for D P was a going concern’ (1945: 19), and the value o f the M arxist approach to the m aking o f history lay in that it w ould help to generate ‘historical conviction’ (1958: 56), and thus act as a spur to fully awakened endeav­ our. T h e alternative to self-conscious choice-m aking is m indless im ita tio n and loss o f a u to n o m y and, therefore, dehum anization, th o u g h he did n o t p u t it quite in these w ords. Self-consciousness, then, is the form o f modernization. Its content, one gathers from D P s w ritings in the 1950s, consists o f nationalism , dem ocracy, the utilization o f science and technology for harnessing nature, planning for social and economic development, and the culti­ vation o f rationality. The typical m odern m an is the engineer, social and technical (1958: 39—40). D P believed that these forces w ere be­ com ing ascendant: T h is is a bare h istorical fact. T o transm ute that fact in to a value, the first requisite is to have active faith in the historicity o f that f a c t .. . . T he second requisite is social action . . . to p u s h . . . c o n scio u sly , deliberately, collec­ tiv e ly , in to the n e x t historical phase. T h e valu e o f Indian traditions lies in the a b ility o f their co n serv in g forces to pu t a brake o n h asty passage. A d ju stm en t is the en d -p ro d u ct o f the dialectical co n n ection b etw een the tw o . M e a n w h ile [there] is ten sion . A n d ten sio n is n o t m erely interesting as a subject o f research; i f it leads up to a h igh er stage, it is also desirable. T h e h igh er stage is w h ere p erson ality is integrated throu gh a planned, so c ia lly directed, co llectiv e en d ea v o u r for h istorically u n d erstood ends, w h ich m ean s . . . a so cialist order. T e n sio n s w ill n o t cease there. It is n ot the peace o f the grave. O n ly alienation from nature, w o rk and m an w ill stop in the arduous course o f such high and strenuous endeavours (1958:76).

It is thus that the w orld as soon as he has seen it, his first attem pts at painting, and the w h o le past o f painting all deliver up a tradition to the painter— that is, H usserl remarks, the pow er toforget origins and to g iv e to the past n o t a survival, w h ich is the hypocritical form o f forgetfulness, but a n ew life, w h ich is the n ob le form o f m em ory.

20

Pathways

In view o f this clear expression o f faith (it is that, not a demonstration), it is not surprising that he should have told Indian sociologists (in 1955) that their ‘first task’ was the study o f ‘social traditions’ (1958: 232), and should have rem inded them that traditions gro w th ro u g h conflict. It is in the context o f this em phasis on tradition that his specific re­ com m endation for the study o f M ahatm a G andhi’s views on machines and technology, before going ahead w ith ‘large scale technological developm ent’ (1958: 225), was made. It was no small m atter that from the G andhian perspective, w hich stressed the values o f w antlessness, non-exploitation and non-possession, the very notions o f econom ic development and under-developm ent could be questioned (ibid.: 206). B ut this was perhaps only a gesture (a response to a poser), for D P m aintained that G andhi had failed to indicate h o w to absorb ‘the new social forces which the W est had released’ (ibid.: 35); m oreover, ‘the type o f new society enveloped in the vulgarised notion o f Rama-rajya was not only non-historical but anti-historical’ (ibid.: 38). B ut he was also convinced that G andhian insistence on traditional values m ig h t help to save India from the kind o f evils (for exam ple, scientism and consum erism ) to w hich the W est had fallen prey (ibid.: 227). T he failure to clearly define the term s and rigorously exam ine the process o f synthesis, already noted above, reappears here again and indeed repeatedly in his w o rk . T h e resu ltan t self-cancellation , as Gupta (1977) puts it, ‘provided a certain honesty and a certain pathos to D P ’s sociology’. In fact, he him self recognized this w hen he described his life to A. K. Saran as ‘a series o f reluctances’ (Saran 1962a: 169). Saran concludes: D P ‘did not wish to face the dilemma entailed by a steadfast reco g n itio n o f this tr u th ’, th a t the three w o rld v ie w s— V edanta, W estern liberalism, M arxism — w hich all beckoned to him ‘do not m ix ’.10 O ne w onders w hat his autobiography w o u ld have been like. Theories o f M odernization

I hope to have show n in this necessarily b rief presentation that, despite understandable differences in emphasis, there is on the w hole a rem ark­ able consistency in D P ’s views on the nature o f m odernization. N o t that consistency is always a virtue, b u t in this case it happens to be so. 10 It m ay be n oted th o u g h that in his earlier w ritin g s D P had sh o w n a greater w ar­ iness ragarding the p o ssib ility o f c o m b in in g M a rx ism w ith H in d u trad ition . R efer­ ring to the ‘forceful sanity’ o f the ‘exchange o f rights and o b ligation s’ o n w h ich H indu society w as organ ized , h e had w ritten (1932: 136): ‘ . . . b efo re C o m m u n ism can b e in trod uced, national m e m o r y w ill h a v e to b e sm u d g ed , and n e w habits acquired. There is practically nothing in the traditions on which the new habits o f living under an im per­ sonal class-control can take root (em phasis a d d e d ).’

Tradition and Modernity

21

G enuine m odernization, according to him , has to be distinguished fro m the spurious product and the clue lies in its historicity. T he pre­ sentation o f the argum ent is clear b u t it is n o t always tho ro u g h and com plete, and m ay be attacked from m ore than one vantage point. Professor Saran (1965), for instance, has rightly pointed ou t that D P does n o t subject the socialist order itself to analysis and takes its benign character on trust, -that he fails to realize that a technologyoriented society cannot easily be non-exploitative and n o t anti-m an, th at the traditional and the m odern w orld-view s are rooted in diffe­ rent conceptions o f tim e, that traditional ideas cannot be activated by h u m an effort alone, that given our choice o f developm ent goals we cannot escape w esternization, and so forth. It seems to m e that D P ’s principal problem was that he let the obvious heuristic value o f the dialectical approach overw helm him and failed to probe deeply enough into the multidimensional and, indeed, dynamically integrated character o f em pirical reality. H e fused the m ethod and the datum . I do w a n t to suggest, h o w ev er, th a t D P ’s approach has certain advantages com pared to those others that are current in m oderniza­ tion studies. A n exam ination o f m odernization theories in general is outside the scope o f this essay; I will therefore m ake only a rather sweeping generalization about them. They seem to me to fall into tw o very broad categories. There are, first, w hat we m ay call the ‘big bang’ theories o f modernization, according to which tradition and m odernity are m utually exclusive, bipolar phenom ena. This entails the further view that before one may change anything at all, one m ust change everything. T he exam ples that com e to m ind are m any, bu t G unnar M y rd a l’s A sia n D ram a (1968) is notable. This view is, how ever, un­ fashionable now , and to that extent sociology has m oved forw ard. Secondly, there are w h a t w e m ay call the ‘steady state’ theories o f m o d e rn iz atio n , according to w hich m o d ern izatio n is a gradual, piecemeal process, involving compartmentalization o f life and living; it is n o t th ro u g h displacem ent b u t ju x taposition that m odernization proceeds. Examples are too num erous to be listed here (but see Singer 1972 and.Singh 1973). As a description o f em pirical reality, the latter approach is perhaps adequate, but it creates a serious problem o f under­ standing, for it in effect dispenses w ith all values except m odernity, w hich is defined vaguely w ith reference to w h at has happened else­ w h ere— industrialization, bureaucratization, dem ocratization, etc., and alm ost abandons holism. B y this la tte r view , one is co m m itte d to the co m p letio n o f the

22

Pathways

agenda o f m odernization, and hence the boredom , the weariness and the frustration one sees signs o f everyw here. T he gap betw een the ‘m odernized’ and the ‘m odernizing’, it is obvious, w ill never be closed. N o w onder, then, that social scientists already speak o f the infinite transition— an endless pause— in w hich traditional societies find them selves trapped. M oreover, b o th sociology and history teach us, if they teach us anything at all, that there always is a residue, th a t there alw ays w ill be trad itio n al and m o d e rn elem ents in the cultural life o f a people, at all times and in all places. T he virtue o f a dialectical approach such as D P advocated w ould seem to be that it reveals the spuriousness o f som e o f the issues that the other approaches give rise to. A t the sam e tim e, it m ay well be criticized as an evasion o f other basic issues. I m ig h t add, though, that it does provide us w ith a suggestive notion, one w hich w e m ay call generative tradition, and also a fram ew ork for the evaluation o f on-going processes. All this o f course needs elaboration, b u t the pre­ sent essay is not the place for such an undertaking. Suffice it to say, the notion o f generative tradition involves a conception o f ‘stru ctu ral’ tim e m ore significantly than it does that o f ‘chronological’ tim e. ‘Structural’ tim e implies, as m any anthropologists have show n, a w orking out o f the potentialities o f an institution. Institutions have a duration in ‘real’ tim e, but this is the surface view ; they also have a deeper duration w hich is not readily perceived because o f the trans­ form ations they undergo. Concluding Rem arks

T o conclude: the task I set m yself in this essay was to give an explorat­ ory ex p osition o f a selected aspect o f D . P. M u k e rji’s sociological w ritings, using as far as convenient his o w n w ords. I chose to organize som e o fth e available materials around the them e o f ‘tradi­ tion and m o d ern ity ’ because it occupied an im p o rtan t place in his w ork and also because it survives as a m ajor concern o f contem porary sociology. T aking D P ’s w o rk as a w hole, one soon discovers that his concern w ith tradition and m odernity, w hich becam e particularly salient during the 1940s and rem ained so until the end, was in fact a particular expression o f a larger, and it w ould seem perennial, concern o f w esternized H indu intellectuals. T his co n cern , m an ifested in a variety o f w ays, and referred to by som e critics as the apologetic p at­ terns o f the H indu renaissance (see B harati 1970), was w ith arguing th at In d ia’s intellectual and artistic achievem ents w ere in no w ay

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23

rnfenor to those o f the West. Hence the urge for a synthesis o f Vedanta, W estern liberalism and M arxism . I have referred very briefly to D P 's fascination fo r the M arx ist m eth od as also his insistence that he was n o t a M arxist. This needs a deeper exam ination than has been possible here. W hat is clear, h o w ­ ever, is that he should n o t be claimed to be on this o r that side o fth e tence w ith o u t actually dem onstrating such a stance. In this regard, his overw helm ing emphasis on synthesis needs to be exam ined. ’ A n equally im portant and difficult undertaking w ould be the elab­ oration and specification o f his conception o f the content o f tradi­ tion. W hereas he establishes, convincingly I think, the relevance o f tradition to m odernity at the level o f principle, he does no t spell out its em pirical content except in term s o f general categories, such as those suggested by Giddings and already quoted above. O ne has the uncom fortable feeling that he him self operated m ore in term s o f intuition and general know ledge than a deep study o f the texts. A confrontation w ith tradition th ro u g h fieldw ork in the m anner o fth e anthropologist, was, o f course, ruled out by him , at least for himself. His tribute to G. S. G hurye as the ‘only Indian sociologist to d ay ’, w hilst others w ere ‘sociologists in India’ (1955: 238), is to be under­ stood in this light. Also required is an exam ination o f the general indifference o f Indian sociologists to D P ’s plea for the study o f trad­ ition. R am krishna M ukerjee (1965) has a suggestive first essay on this problem , b u t m uch m ore needs to be d o n e .11

11 For a further discussion o f D . P. M ukeiji’s views, see Chapter 2, pp. 31 -3 and Chapter 6, p. 117. See also Chapter 11.

D. N . M on

the

a jum d ar

D

evelopm ent

of

C

ultures

W ith h is e x p e rt k n o w le d g e o f social rela tio n sh ip s, th e sociologist can h e lp p re d ic t, con tro l a n d direct social ch a n g e, a n d sp e e d u p social p ro g ress. D. N . M A JU M D A R

T h e D ynam ics o f Cultural Change

Dhirendra N ath M ajum dar (1903-60) began his career as an anthropo­ logist at C alcutta U niversity, w here he received his M aster s degree in 1924 and was later aw arded the coveted Prem chand R oychand Scholarship. B y the tim e he jo ined LucknoW U niversity in 1928 (he stayed there the rest o f his life) as a lecturer in ‘prim itive econom ics’, he had already acquired a conception o fth e scope o f an th ro p o lo g y as the comprehensive study o f m an from the biological and cultural points o f view . From available accounts it seems that tw o influences w ere dom inant in the A nthropology D epartm en t o f C alcutta U niversity during the years M ajum dar was there. B ut before I proceed to describe these, it should be poin ted o u t th a t I am co ncerned here o n ly w ith cultural anthropology and not physical anthropology, though M ajumdar made outstanding contributions in the latter field also. First, there was the ethnographic tradition, recording o fth e customs and beliefs o f tribes and castes, which had been initiated by the colonial g o v ern m en t and cultivated by scholarly civil servants. In fact this tradition had had its beginnings in Bengal itself w hen, in 1807, Francis B uchanon was appointed by the G overnor-G eneral to undertake an T his essay is the first o f the tw o D . N . M ajum dar (M em orial) Lectures that I w as privileged to deliver at L u ck n ow in January 1982 under the auspices o ft h e E thnographic and Folk-C ulture Society. (T he S ociety w as fou n d ed b y M ajum dar and publishes T h e Eastern Anthropologist, o f w h ich he w as the founder-editor.) T h e secon d lecture, ‘C ultures o f D ev elo p m en t’, w as a critique o fh e g e m o n ic theories o f d evelop m en t. T h e tw o lectures w ith ‘C on cluding R em arks’ w ere later published as C ulture and D evelopm ent b y T . N . M adan, D elhi: O x fo rd U n iv ersity Press, 1983. I w o u ld like to express m y gratitude to the Ethnographic and F olk-C ulture S ociety for their m any courtesies. 1 For a b rief account o f M ajum dar’s life and w o rk see M adan 1966a. See also M adan 1961a, 1961c, and 1968a.

Development o f Cultures

25

ethnographic survey o f ‘the conditions o f the inhabitants o f Bengal and their religion’ (M ajumdar 1947: 40—1). People outside the govern­ m ent, including the intelligentsia, had also contributed to this stream o f scholarly w o rk o f a descriptive factual nature. Second, w ith the introduction o f anthropology in the curricula o f C alcutta U niversity in 1920, a form al theoretical underpinning for ethnographic w o rk had com e to be provided by its being linked to theories o f culture and social organization then prevalent in academic circles in the W est, particularly in Britain. T he concept o f culture that appears to have been dom inant was that o f T y lo r’s celebrated form ulation o f it as ‘that com plex w hole w hich includes know ledge, belief, art, law, m orals, custom s and any other capabilities and habits acquired by m an as a m em ber o f society’ (1871: 1). Also, the ‘distrib u tio n is t’ and ‘diffu sio n ist’ theories o f C lark W issler, W. H . R. Rivers and others seem to have appealed to many, including Majumdar, as these represented an advance upon the dogm atic unilinear evolu­ tionist theories o f the late nineteenth century. N evertheless, a basic adherence to evolution as a historical process was never abandoned. W hen we look at M ajum dar’s earliest cultural anthropological publi­ cations, w hat appears to be n o tew o rth y in them is, am ong other things, his interest in the study o f ‘culture traits’. As far as I have been able to find out, the first three papers he w ro te w ere published in 1923, all o f them in M an in India (founded b y S. C. R oy tw o years earlier), and dealt w ith ‘the custom o f burning hum an effigies’, ‘Kali n au ch’, and ‘custom s and taboos’ connected w ith ‘pregnancy and childbirth’. T he data came from East Bengal (now Bangladesh) where M ajum dar had been bom and brought up. T he concern w ith ‘cultures’ as ‘w holes’, which became conspicuous in his later w ork, is not prom i­ nent in these papers. N o r did he seem to be particularly interested in the phenom enon o f social change. B ut soon w e find him w riting about social change, particularly in situations o f culture contact. This was to become, as I will try to show, a lifelong interest, and even m ore than that, a lifelong concern. T he basic prem ise appears to have been that w hile som e cultures g ro w or evolve, others stagnate and die. For the latter, contact w ith the form er could becom e the engine o f social change. In this regard, it is w o rth noting, M ajum dar anticipated the form ulation o f the nature o f the dynam ics o f culture change by B ronislaw M alinow ski (1945), w ho regarded developm ent as being a result o f the im pact o f ‘advanced u p o n ‘sim ple and passive’ societies.

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M aju m d ar was also perceptive en o u g h to see th a t this process o f developm ent was not, how ever, an easy one. H e felt that as an anthropologist he had to do som ething about the tensions, conflicts and burdens placed upon the w eaker people, for the tribes in contact w ith caste H indus seemed to be losers on all fronts— cultural, social, econom ic, psychological. H e bothered about w h at he called ‘the decline o fth e prim itive tribes in India’ (M ajum dar 1936). T he doc­ toral dissertation w hich he w ro te at C am bridge U niversity on the basis o f fieldw ork am ong the H os o f Singhbhum in B ihar dealt w ith the problems faced by a ‘tribe in transition’ (M ajumdar 1937). The book also reveals the im pact o f the holistic app ro ach o fth e fu n ctio n alist paradigm as form ulated by M alinow ski, w hose derivation o f culture fro m social responses to biological and psychological needs held a particular fascination for M ajum dar, as those w ho attended his lectures at L ucknow U niversity in the 1940s and 1950s will rem em ber well. This view point also perm eates his other w ritings o f the period. The teachings o f M alinowski, whose famous seminar at the London School o f Economics M ajum dar attended w hen he was at C am bridge (1933-5), provided him w ith a fram ew ork w hich b ro u g h t together all his interests and unified his theoretical perspectives. T o quote one o f his m ost considered statem ents on this subject: T h e em phasis o f functional stu d y has been on ‘a cu ltu re’ rather than on cultures. F rom this p o in t o f v ie w the fun ctional approach is su rely sig ­ nificant. W e h ave also been to ld that the fu n ction al approach is n o t an tihistorical or anti-distributional, i.e . neither is it h o stile to the stu d y o f the d istrib ution nor to the reconstruction o f the past in term s o f e v o lu tio n , h isto ry or diffusion . . . th e integral approach o f fu n ction alism , therefore, puts the field a n th ro p o lo g ist o n an u n im p each ab le base, for h e gets illu m in a tio n on the tota lity o f a culture and on the co n te x t o f its linkages that m u st be u n d erstood b efore the traits are v ie w e d in iso la tio n . B esid es, th e m e th o d o lo g y d ev elo p ed b y th e fu nctional sc h o o l, in respect o f the stu d y o f p rim itiv e culture, helps in appraising the role o f traits in a total cultural situation (1950: v .).

In the context o f the present discussion, it is im p o rtan t that I locate, w ithin the above broad fram ew ork, M aju m d ar’s conception o fth e contact o f cultures o f unequal level o f elaboration or grow th and his view o fth e contribution that anthropology could m ake to easing the tensions inherent in such situations. The notion o f unequal elabor­ ation or g ro w th o f culture, explicitly an evolutionary one, was given precise definition by him . H e w ro te o f the ‘base’ o f a culture w hich

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he considered to be the resu ltan t o f the in teractio n o f four crucial variables w hich, arranged in the ‘order o f im portance’, w ere M an, Area, Resources and Co-operation (M ARC). ‘C o-operation’, he clari­ fied, com p rised the cultural responses to b io-psychological needs w h ich are the essence o f ‘M a n ’. H e also envisaged v ariability in the nature and m agnitudes o f these variables (see M ajum dar 1950: xiiff.). This late form ulation had been anticipated at least ten years earlier, w hen he had w ritten: T h e m o n o g ra p h ic m eth o d in am ateur hands has invariably failed to sepa­ rate the native w arp from the foreig n w o o f, and has failed also to evaluate the im p ortan ce o f the role o f d iffu sion in culture p rogress. In India m ost o f the tribal grou p s have co m e in contact w ith higher social groups and rites and c u sto m s in trod u ced fro m h ig h ly organized societies have b len d ed w ith th ose o f a p rim itiv e or infantile character. . . . A n alysis has s h o w n h o w sign ifican t are the effects o f such contacts, h o w social groups are adapting th em selv es to ch anged so c io -e c o n o m ic con d ition s, and h o w m a l-a d a p ta tio n is lea d in g to tribal e x tin c tio n or a b so r p tio n in to m ore d y n a m ic and vital cultures (1939: 1 -2 ).

T w o elem ents in the foregoing fo rm u latio n seem n o te w o rth y . First, there is an explicit acknowledgement o f a gradation o f cultures. M ajum dar did n o t subscribe to any o f the extravagant notions o f ‘culture relativism ’ w hich w ere m ade popular by certain A m erican anthropologists, and w hich w ould invoke a contextual justification for all kinds o f custom s and practices. H e referred to cultures as ‘d o m in an t’ and ‘decadent’ w ithout hesitation, and em phasized that ‘decadent’ cultures could hardly hope to survive except by ‘surren­ dering their values and even identifying completely w ith the dom inant culture’ (1944: 219). A t the sam e tim e, M ajum dar advocated an approach— and this is the second no tew o rth y point— to the tribal problem w hich was based on a concept o f creative or generative adaptation: he was against wholesale cultural invasion from the outside but feared that, unless helped, w eaker peoples w ould fail to w ithstand external pres­ sures: For him V errier E lw in’s crusade in favour ofleaving the tribes alone (see El w in 1943) and G. S. G hurye’s counter-cam paign to treat them as indistinguishable from backw ard H indus (see G hurye 1943), represented a Rousseauan romanticism on the one hand, and a political posture on the other, rather than the fruits o f objective scientific inquiry. Optimistically, he discerned ‘the avowed policy o f the Indian Govern­ m e n t’ after independence, to be one o f ‘contact and un d erstan d in g

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rath er than laissez faire and seg reg atio n ’ (1951: 809). H e fu rth e r w rote: T h e tw o a x io m s o f cultural rehabilitation sh ou ld be: (1) w e cannot be civilized unless ev ery o n e o f us is civilized , and (2) ev ery p eo p le, h o w e v e r p rim itive or civilized , has a right to its o w n w a y o f life, and to the d ev e lo p m e n t o f its o w n culture. T o reconcile these t w o requires a c o m ­ p lete grasp o f the details, and a sym p ath etic understanding o f the realities o f tribal aim s and aspirations (ibid.: 812)

M ajum dar did not elaborate the strategy that he m ay have consi­ dered adequate for the purpose and it is rather curious that he should have considered it m erely a m atter o f inform ation about and under­ standing o f tribal cultures. He posed no questions about the so-called civilized ways o f life. M ajum dar had earlier enum erated the processes ‘th ro u g h w hich tribal cultures are usually transform ed or m odified’. These were: first, ‘simple adoption’; secondly, ‘acculturation’ involving ‘accep­ tance and adaptation’; and thirdly, ‘social com m ensalism ’ o r ‘plural association’ (1947:161). Again, no questions about the desirability o f the civilized ways o f life were asked beyond their being regarded as available for adoption. Indicating his clear preference for ‘acculturation’, but at the same tim e acknow ledging the risk o f reaction o r ‘contraacculturation’, o f w hich he him self recorded evidence am ong certain tribes, he w rote: W hat is needed is m utual respect and u nd erstanding, and w h ere the dom in an t or ruling grou p has s h o w n . . . respect and u n derstanding, culture adjustm ent has been sm o o th and easy. It is I think p o ssib le for the tribes to d a y to feel m o re secu re and take greater share in the cultural progress o f the coun try p rovid ed the attitude forced o n the caste p eop le b y the num erical preponderance o f the tribes and backw ard grou p s is n ot m erely used for political e x p ed ien cy bu t as a sincere gesture tow ard s a broad cultural m o v e m e n t seek in g to absorb and assim ilate the bulk o ft h e p rim itive and backw ard substratum o f p o p u lation in the cou n try. If the p olitical leaders o f the cou n try fail to reco gn ize the trends o f political th o u g h t and aspirations su rgin g in the m in d s o f t h e n e w ly co n scio u s tri­ bal grou p s and exterior castes, a p o ssib ility w h ich , h o w e v e r , can n ot be ruled ou t as the in d ication g o es, the future o f Indian culture m u st be v ie w e d w ith m isg iv in g s (1947: 174—5).

This was w ritten in the year o f independence and yet there is a con­ te m p o ra ry ring to som e o f these statem ents. M aju m d ar p u b lish ed his last book in the old style o f ethnography — T he Affairs o f a Tribe — in 1950, and in it restated his position on the problems o f acculturation and the notion o f developm ent o f culture. He w rote:

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T h e H o s are o v e r w h e lm e d b y th e su p eriority o f their n e i g h b o u r s . . . . W h en th e y adop t or im itate alien habits or w ays o f life, th ey find th em ­ selv es cut o f f from their o w n tribesm en, but are n o t considered equal to th o se w h o m th e y i mi t a t e . . . . In so m e cases, this failure has d evelop ed an in ferio rity c o m p le x a m o n g a section o f the tribal p eop le, w h ile m any have fallen back o n their o w n sy stem s o f b eliefs, values and activities. A rev iv a lism is m anifest to d a y a m o n g the advanced section o f tribal p o p u ­ la tio n . . . [w h ich ] finds its natural o u tlet in the g r o w th o f tribal solidarity, in a political consciousness, w h ich m anifests itselfin the Adibasi m ovem ent, a su b -n a tio n a lism , w h ic h is the result o f contra-acculturation (3 1 4 -1 5 ).

M ajum dar concluded this book w ith a very clear statem ent o fth e n o tio n o f developm ent o f culture: T h e past m u st be understood in the con text o f the present, and the present w ill stabilize th e future i f it can find its fu lfilm en t in the m o o rin g s o f the past. T h ere w as no g o ld en age, there can be n o n e in the future. Life is a process o f adjustm ent and in its unfolding, it has th ro w n ou t individuals w h o are m isfits and th e latter have b oth helped and hindered cultural progress; th e m isfits are m isfits in the c o n tex t o f a d yn am ic settin g, and i f o n ly , the m isfits could b e fitted in to the structure o f life, the process that is life w ill co n tin u e to unfold itself, adjust and m arch o n to m an ’s destiny th ro u g h an integration and synthesis that con stitu te the core o f the dynam ics o f culture change and culture crises (ibid: 124, em phases added).

T he em phasis on ‘unfolding’— one presum es the reference is to the unfolding o f the potentialities o f a culture, its spontaneous develop­ m ent— and synthesis is interesting, but it w ould be far-fetched to read in to it any deep ideological (H egelian or M arxian) significance or interest in a m acrotheory o f social development. M ajum dar was essen­ tially a fieldw orker, interested in attending to concrete problem s like a ‘clinician’. H e derived his research interests from the realities o f life around him rather than from any special concern w ith sociological or cultural anthropological theory. The early 1950s saw the launching o fth e C om m unity Developm ent P ro g ram m e in India (in 1952) and the com m encem ent o f planned d evelopm ent (in 1953). M ajum dar’s response to these initiatives was positive and in a sense dram atic. His num erous publications on the tribes o f India had u n d ersco red his conv ictio n th at a n th ro p o lo g y could offer useful know ledge and usable advice to the policy-m aker, the adm inistrator and the social w orker. H e reiterated this tim e and again in his lectures as well as in his publications. T he changed situ­ ation in the early 1950s offered new challenges and he responded to them sw iftly and energetically.

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Anthropology and Sociology at L ucknow U niversity (1950s)

A t this point a b rief digression on the climate o f debate on develop­ m ent at L ucknow U niversity in the early 1950s w o u ld seem to be w orthw hile. D uring these years the social science departm ents o f the university w ere notable alike for the calibre o f their faculty and the quality o f their research activities. I will, how ever, confine m y remarks to three scholars only, namely Professors Radhakamal M ukeijee, D. P. M ukerji and D. N . M ajum dar. R adhakam al M u k erjee’s w id e -ra n g in g in terests as eco n o m ist, sociologist and ecologist, and his abiding concern w ith the solution o f socio-econom ic problem s and alleviating the sufferings o f the p o o r o f this country— w hether the farm er in the fields o f O u d h and else­ w here or the Indian w orking class— are (or used to be) well know n. Just a year before independence his book Planning the Countryside (1946) had been published. It contained his recom m endations to the Maharaja o f G w alior on the ‘reconstruction’ effort o f that state. Earlier, he had w orked as Chairm an o f the Sub-Com m ittee on the ‘Aims and Purposes’ o f the N ational Planning C om m ittee set up by the Indian N ational Congress. He had then evolved precise targets or norm s for nutrition, clothing, housing, leisure, literacy and health. B u t a deep sense o f distrust had entered his thinking about the possible course o f events in independent India. It is surprising h ow little he reacted to the in­ auguration o f the developm ent plans at the national and state levels. His published w ork during the 1950s was m ore concerned w ith culture history, philosophy o f history, philosophy o f science, religion and sym bolism rather than w ith socio-econom ic problem s. B ut he did express his fears in a long essay, significantly entitled T he Indian Scheme o f L ife (1951). He w rote at its very beginning: T h e m o d ern p h ilo so p h y o f the secular state im p lies an exaggerated b e lie f n ot m erely in the a ll-su fficien cy o f e c o n o m ic g o o d s, but also in the ach iev em en t or lapse o f rightness in h um an relationships in the fields o f ec o n o m ic s and p olitics, o f law s and in stitu tion s, rather than in the d om a in o f religion . T h is is the sam e intellectual slant that underlies W estern Socialism or C o m m u n ism , con cen tratin g o n the equ alization o f the g o o d s o f life, o b liv io u s o f the relations o f m eans and ends, lo w e r and higher values, and understanding eq uality and freed om o n ly from the e c o n o m ic and political v ie w p oin ts (i-ii).

It is obvious that though Radhakamal M ukerjee accepted the modern notion o f a self-directed hum anity, he was not w holly in tune w ith the times. H e had, in fact, never been a m odernist, having always stressed

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that th e task o f m odern India was to seek a renewal of, rather than a reak with, the past. Thus in an early and characteristic w ork, Borderands o f Economics (1925), he had w ritten that nothing w ould be m ore detrim ental to the econom ic progress o f India than the destruction o f the com m unal2 background w hich he considered the expression o f India s race tem peram ent’. The great task o f social reconstruction in the E ast w as to renew and adapt the old and essential im pulses and habits to the em erging com plex and enlarged needs (ibid.: 85). In fact in the very first book he w rote, nam ely T h e Foundations o f Indian Econom ics (1916), he had confidently p roclaim ed th a t India w ould n o t adopt W estern industrialism in its m odern phase w ith its too exclusive adherence to the principle o f division o f labour, and th at she w ould n o t divide society into a num ber o f distinct groups or classes, w ith their divergent and even conflicting interests (p. 448). D. P. M ukerji had a different view o f the prospect o f India after the attainm ent o f independence.3 C onvinced o f the creative role o f ten­ sion and struggle, or class conflict, and o f the state in o ur times, and o f th e im portance o f purposive leadership by m en o f high stature w ith a sense o fth e purposefulness o f history, he w arm ly w elcom ed the daw n o fth e era o f planning. A t the same tim e, how ever, he gave expression to a sense o f disquietude and foreboding. In an essay titled ‘M an and Plan in India’ (1953) he affirm ed that the real active elem ent’ o f the socio-politico-econom ic situation in India in the 1950s was ‘the P lan ’ (1958: 49). A greeing w ith som e o f the ‘a ssu m p tio n s’ o f the ‘n ew social o rd e r’ th a t was so u g h t to be introduced notably, the gradualness o f change in the interest o f harm ony, the emphasis upon science and technology, the advisability o f a m ixed econom y— he also sounded a sharp note o f w arning that w ith o u t a holistic perspective— a philosophy o f history— nothing o f significance would be gained: mere affirmations would serve no useful purpose. H e further w rote: ‘T he developm ent, according to the Plan, is to be com prehensive. B u t little or no assum ption is m ade in regard to the organization o f patterns o f values in the process o f their evolution th ro u g h the im plem entation o f the Plan’ (ibid.: 51). H e feared that enough attention had n o t been given by the plan­ ners to outlining clearly the nature o f ‘a new social o rd e r’ and ‘a new m an’, and also w arned o f a too narrow conception o f implem entation 2 It m a y be n o ted here that the w o r d ‘c o m m u n a l’ did n o t h ave in the 1920s the nega­ tiv e m ea n in g it has acquired in d iscu ssion s o f S ou th A sian societies sin ce then. 3 For d iscu ssio n s o f D . P. M u k erji’s w o r k fro m tw o d ifferent p o in ts o f v ie w see C hapter 1 and Saran 1965. See also Saran 1959.

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on the part o f bureaucrats. He said: ‘T hose w ho com posed the Plan are highly educated people, competent, knowledgeable, scrupulously honest and industrious . . .; still they do n o t seem to be o f their Indian earth, earthy; n o r do they create the im pression o f being the agents o f m ighty social forces’ (1958: 53—4). M ukerji w ent on to caution: T h e Plan is a b en eficent social force, an endogenous one\ b u t its im p le m e n ­ tation m ay m ake it m aleficent, even i f w e ex clu d e the u g ly p o ssib ilities o f its b ein g tied up so early in its career w ith foreign aid. T h e reported basis o f this fear and uncertainty is our bureaucratic in efficien cy, corru p tion and u n im agin ativen ess . . . . [W orse still] the real d efect o f bureaucracy is that it feeds on itse lf. . . and thereby it r e m o v es its e lf from reality (ibid.: 54—5, em ph asis added).

T he real task, according to M ukerji, was ‘to push on w ith the Plan and to push it consciously, deliberately, collectively into the next historical phase’ (ibid.: 76), but w ith o u t a total break w ith tradition. M ukerji was torn between optim ism and pessimism; and that was in 1953— the year in which the First Five-Year Plan was formally adopted. In fact his doubts w ere deep-seated. In another paper (also published in 1953), he had w ritten, apropos G andhi’s insistence on the prim acy o f values: From th em [G andhi’s statem ents on values] o n e m ig h t also infer that the term ‘under-developed e c o n o m y ’, w h ich is the excuse o f technical assis­ tance, w as inappropriate in so far as it confused the coexistence o f tw o diffe­ rent value system s by placing them on the assem bly line o f historical develop m en t in w h ich eco n o m ic g ro w th being the suprem e value w as sub­ servient to and dependent o n ly upon technological advance (1958: 2 0 6 -7 ).

D . P. M u k erji’s fears deepened as the years passed. In 1955 he lam ented that he had seen h ow India’s progressive groups had failed in the field o f intellect, and hence also in economic and political action, chiefly on account o f unrootedness in India’s social reality (1958: 240).4 4 It is n o te w o r th y that a sim ilar ju d g e m e n t ab ou t ro o tlessn ess and lack o f u n d er­ stan ding sh ou ld n o w be lo o k ed u p on in C hina as the m ain cause o f the p o o r results o f d ev elo p m en t efforts in that cou n try. Why were the economic returns so poor and w hy was there such great waste in developing the national economy? These deficiencies were caused first o f all by our expectations o f easy suc­ cess. The im petuosity in guiding ideology is to blame. In developing the productive forces, we one-sidedly sought high speed and high accumulation rates and hankered after large-scale cap­ ital construction. In relations o f production, we gave undue stress to the transition to a higher level o f ownership o f the means o f p ro d u ctio n . . . . T o trace these mistakes to their ideological soruce, apart from a one-sided understanding o f the economic theories o f M arxism , they were rooted mainly iti our insufficient understanding o f China's reality (XianZhcn 1981:14, emphasis added).

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By 1959 he had almost totally lost faith in India’s economists w ho were th e ex perts o f th e planning process b u t reg rettab ly , in M u k erji’s opinion, ‘M ostly busy with spinning cocoons o f model-building, with form ulating com parative or static m odels o r a notional system that is neither here n o r there , and in the process running the risk o f contri­ butin g nothing significant and them selves becom ing ‘dehum anized’ (1959:71.). T h e S tu d y o f D evelopm ent: Problems and Processes

R eturning to D . N . M ajum dar, it is n o tew orth y that in his w ritings w e find no sy m p ath y either for R adhakam al M u k erjee’s idealist speculations or for D . P. M ukerji’s socialist aspirations for o r fears about the future. As an anthropologist, he had always concerned h im self w ith the here-and-now o fth e peoples he had studied. It was precisely in this same spirit that he turned to the study o fth e problems o f rural and urban developm ent, and he did so w ith im m ense zest and confidence. N o tin g the long-lasting interest o f econom ists in rural studies, but castigating them for a preoccupation w ith the per­ fection o f techniques o f quantitative analysis, and for a neglect o f ‘the cultural background’ and ‘the interrelation that exists between different sets o f social phenom ena’, he too (like M ukerji) called for a holistic approach to the problem s o f developm ent (M ajum dar 1955: iii). M aju m d ar’s enthusiasm for a better future and confidence in the capability o f social sciences to contribute to its making is best expressed in his ow n w ords. Thus: I f social relations at any stage o f d e v e lo p m e n t hinder or ham per the his­ torical p ro d u ctiv e relations, that is the relationship o f m an to nature, the o n ly w a y to a v o id catastrophic cultural b lo w -u p is to m o d ify the ex istin g social relations. H ere co m es the real role o f a so cio lo g ist, for in this sense his d iscip lin e represents an in stru m en t o f social p o licy . W ith his expert k n o w led g e o f social relationships, the sociologist can help predict, control and direct social change and speed up social progress’ (1956-7:131)

M ajum dar was obviously as confident o fth e usefulness o f sociology as some o f its European founding fathers. Accordingly, he pressed for an active association o f sociologists and anthropologists w ith the plan­ ning process: D etailed k n o w led g e o f the dynam ics o f culture change in different com ­ m unities, based on em pirical investigations, can equip us to forestall resist­ ances and so lv e m any o f the problem s o f personality adjustm ent and inter­ group conflict which follow disequilibrating or induced changes. Association

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o f so c io lo g ists and a n th ro p o lo g ists w ith the c o m m u n ity d e v e lo p m e n t p rogram m e, at all le v e ls— ad v iso ry , ad m inistrative and field e x e c u tio n — can help in safeguarding against p o ssib le pitfalls and insure the su ccessfu l im p lem en ta tio n o f v illa g e d e v e lo p m e n t p rogram m es (1 9 5 6 -7 : 135).

M ajum dar was not the m an to w ait for responses or invitations: he was a m an o f action. Characteristically, he initiated a n u m b er o f studies on the problem s and processes o f planned developm ent. O n the side o f highlighting em erging problem s, he focused atten­ tion on unem ploym ent. P inpointing social responsibility, he w rote: U n e m p lo y m e n t is a curse, a traged y, a ch allen ge to so c iety . In a w elfare state, the social loss resulting th erefrom is an in tolerable en ervation o f s o c ie ty ’s vital l i f e b l o o d . . . . W ith o u t a guarantee o f the right to w o rk , d em ocracy is d ev o id o f its essential e c o n o m ic nucleus. H en ce there is a clear shift o f stress tod a y from a v a g u e co n cep t o f d em ocracy to that o f a planned social order the essential core o f w h ic h is full u tilization o f h um an resources (1957: 1).

In his village studies M ajum dar un d erto o k to exam ine b o th selected problem s calling for im m ediate relief, such as w ater scarcity in hillside villages injaunsar Bawar (M ajumdar 1955: iii-xv)— show ing in these the im pact o f som e o f the w o rk o f A m erican anthropologists on the problems and processes o f developm ent— and the w hole range o f social relations in the setting o f underdevelopm ent in the villages o f south-eastern, central and north-w estern U ttar Pradesh. A persistent refrain in the conclusions he derived from these studies was that villagers were apathetic and im m ured in timeless inertia and, therefore, change had to be induced externally. Such intervention, he w arned, w ould m eet w ith resistance from pow erful castes and com m unities ifit led to the erosion o f their privileges. Inter-group relations w ere the locus o f b o th traditional pow er and authority and consequently o f exploit­ ation and stagnation. T he attack on these relations w ith a v iew to changing them had to be m u ltip ro n g ed and had to include the key factors o f education and technological innovation. In the absence o f such a broad-based strategy, the villagers w ould soon reduce develop­ m ent personnel to being, as he quoted som e villagers near L ucknow telling him , ‘tamasha-walas ’ (entertainers) (1958: 343). M ajum dar identified several factors w hich im peded the ability o f backw ard villages to benefit adequately by co m m u n ity develop­ m ent and other program m es. T he villagers’ past experience had m ade them generally distrustful o f outsiders w ho often came pre­ tending to be friends, b u t stayed only to exploit them and rob their

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habitat o f its natural wealth. G overnm ent officials and agents had also been traditionally know n to seek the villagers’ submission and m oney (as taxes, levies or bribes) rather than their welfare. W ithin the village co m m unity itself caste differentiation and factionalism m ilitated against collective welfare and nourished the w ell-being o f som e at the cost o fth e m any. V arious kinds o f cultural practices (e.g., group m arriage in ja u n s a r B aw ar), religious beliefs, superstitions, etc. w ere seen by M aju m d ar as fu rth er obstacles to d ev elo p m en t (see 1962: 353-81). M ajum dar did not, how ever, consider villagers or tribesm en to be irrational o r unchangeable: the issue was o f right approach, o f focus­ ing on genuinely felt and not im puted needs, and o f carrying convic­ tion to them . In achieving this, M ajum dar believed that the social scientist had m uch to offer in tribal, rural and urban settings. Thus, he concluded his book on K anpur, the first city survey by an Indian anthropologist (published ju st a couple o f m onths before his death at the height o f his intellectual life) w ith the follow ing exhortation: ‘O u r tow ns and cities are grow ing, our vigilance m ust not wane, sociologists m u st line up fo r social research and help the ad m in istratio n in its assigned task o f building an u rb an po p u latio n , socially aw are and m entally conditioned for city life’ (1960: 219). Concluding R em arks

I have relied on M ajum dar’s published w o rk to bring out b o th the continuity o f interest and approach in it as also the responsiveness to changing social environm ent that it displays. H e began in the 1920s am ong the tribes w ith a conception o f levels o f culture w hich entailed a n o tio n o f the historical developm ent o f cultures. B y the tim e o f the com ing o f independence he had refined this notion and form ulated it as the concept o f acculturation, w hich provided scope for both the retention o f selected elem ents o f traditional cultural heritage as also the adaptation and assim ilation o f new elem ents from other cultures. His evolutionary view o f cultural developm ent com m itted M ajum ­ dar to the no tio n o f convergence o f cultures (as a result o f develop­ m ent). M odern W estern culture, based on science and technology, was the model for him and he advocated interventionist social policy, backed by applied social science, to achieve m odernization, bu t w ith due regard for the specific character o f India’s societies. M odernization o r social developm ent and econom ic g ro w th w ere seen by M ajum dar as generally desirable and interrelated goals— as an unquestioned ‘g o o d ’— w ith the clear im plication that the country

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needed to develop in its villages and cities, in its hom es and offices, a culture o f development, i.e. a culture w hich w ould initiate, p ro m o te and sustain developm ent. O n e was not to w ait and w atch fo r the ‘unfolding’ o f the potentialities o f a culture b u t to take charge o f the process o f innovation, n o t only to speed it up b u t also to give it a par­ ticular content and direction. W hatever stood in its w ay was to be eradicated. Since developm ent had n o t been generated from w ithin the traditional cultures, it had to be introduced into them from w ithout. M ajum dar’s views on the nature and processes o f developm ent m ight appear unduly uncritical today, b u t it should n o t be forgotten that he was a representative social scientist o f his generation. M any m ore Indian social scientists shared M aju m d ar’s confidence during the early years o f planning than the anxieties o f D. P. M ukerji o r the dism ay o f Radhakam al M ukerjee. It should also be added that there are m any social scientists today w ho hold the sam e view s as M ajum ­ dar did on developm ent and the role o f the social sciences, th o u g h they are likely to state them in m ore sophisticated phraseology and w ith greater caution, being the w iser for the experience gained.5This is w h y it is w o rth w h ile to have an ex p o sitio n o f his view s (and o f other intellectuals o f his generation) in ou r effort to outline the course o f the d evelopm ent o f th in k in g on the p ro b lem s and processes o f m odernization.

5 A s an exam p le, I m ay cite the fo llo w in g o b serv a tion s o f S. C . D ube: A sian traditions are n o t u n ch a n g in g . T h e y have d em on strated great adaptability and resilience over tim e. W here the structure o f o p p o rtu n ities w as favourable the p rivileged section o f the p o p u lation to o k full ad van tage o f it, and w estern ized itse lf in several areas o f life. It w as n o t slo w to pick up the e c o n o m ic gains o f m o d ­ ernization. If others also co u ld n ot d o the sam e the b lam e d o es n o t lie at the d o o r o f tradition. O n e has to lo o k search in gly at the inner lo g ic o f the culture o f p o v erty to explain the causes o f their inability to ad op t the n ew id io m o f p rogress (1977: 83)

A n I n tr o d u c tio n t o M . N . S r i n i v a s ’s ( E

uvrb

Though he still remains a member o f his society, he [the sociologist studying his own society] is able to look at it to some extent as an outsider. H is position is similar to that o f a novelist w ho manages to observe his fe llo w man as well as to participate in the life around him. M .N . SRINIVAS

The village as the microcosm oflndian society and civilization emerged as a m ajor intellectual preoccupation in sociological and social anthro­ pological studies o f India around the middle o f the twentieth century. T he division o f labour betw een Indological studies o f H indu society by sociologists and fieldwork-based studies o f tribal com m unities by anthropologists, w hich had generally characterized the w ork o f the 1 earlier generation o f scholars, civil servants and others, alm ost dis­ appeared rather rapidly. In this new intellectual venture, the w ork o f M . N . Srmivas (b. 1916) came to occupy a unique place and enjoyed w id esp read influence. W hen D avid M an d elb au m ’s encyclopaedic su rv ey o f published m aterials on society in India cam e o u t in 1970, Srinivas, by then the acknow ledged doyen oflndian anthropologists, expectedly was the m ost freq u en tly cited a u th o r in its 700 pages (see M andelbaum 1970). I w ill recapitulate briefly in the first part o f the present essay the content o f Srinivas’s published w ork up to the publication in 1976 o f his m agnum opus, T h e Remembered Village, and try to highlight w hat in retrospect seem to have been his m ost influential contributions. T he intention, I w ould like to emphasize, is to describe Srinivas’s earlier w o rk so that his new book m ay be appraised in the light o f w hat preceded it. In the second part o f the essay, I will present a very T h is essay w as w ritten in 1977 as the in tro d u ctio n to a rev ie w sy m p o siu m on M . N . S rin ivas’s T h e Rem em bered Village, w h ic h w as p u b lish ed as a special issue o f C ontribu­ tions to Indian Sociology (N S ) (vol. 12, n o. 1, 1978). I am grateful to P rofessor M . N . Srinivas for his help and u nderstanding.

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b rief sum m ary o f the contents o f T h e Remembered Village and follow it up, in the last part, w ith a discussion o f som e o f the observations m ade by the participants in the review sym posium . Earlier W ork

Srinivas’s first tw o publications in 1942 included his book, M arriage and Fam ily in M ysore, and a short article w ith the interesting title, ‘T he fam ily versus the state’. T he book had originally been w ritten in 1938 as an M. A. dissertation at the U niversity o f Bom bay at the suggestion o f P rofessor G. S. G hurye. Srinivas dealt w ith K an n ad a-sp eak in g H indu castes and based his description on data draw n from published sources o f various kinds, including compendia o f ethnographic infor­ m ation, folklore, w orks o f fiction, and on in fo rm atio n o b tain ed through the personal questioning o f ‘m any caste leaders on their beliefs and rites’ (1942a: 13). The reader is provided w ith an account o f customs relating to marriage, divorce, childbirth, interpersonal relations w ithin the family, kinship term inology, death cerem onies, etc. It is obvious that Marriage and Family is modelled on the w ell-know n series o f w orks o f the colonial period on tribes and castes in various parts o f the country. T he focus is on descriptive ethnography rather than on sociological analysis. Thus, as Shah (1973: 267) has pointed out, the book does not provide quantitative data, n o r does it go into the question o f definitions (of m arriage and the fam ily w hich have since attracted so m uch scholarly attention). Srinivas’s ow n judgem ent o f the book is perhaps too severe: ‘In re tro sp e c t. . . the book appears im m ature and its style brash, and I was glad w hen it w ent o u t o f print in the 1950’s’ (Srinivas 1973: 134). T his early interest in m arriage and kinship persisted in som e o f Srinivas’s later w o rk b u t never again occupied a central place in it. H e published a paper on a jo int family dispute in 1952 (Srinivas 1952a), w hich was based on fieldw ork in a south K arnataka village w hich he called R am pura. T h e sam e year his b o o k on the C o o rg s cam e o u t (Srinivas 1952b). T h o u g h it contains valuable data o n th ep atrilin eag e (okka) and the rituals associated w ith fam ily life, including m arriage, the principal them e o f the book is the relation o f religion to the w ider social organization. A part from one later piece on ‘Indian m arriages’ (Srinivas 1956b), Srinivas never again published anything on marriage, kinship, or the family, except in relation to the status o f w o m en (see footnote 6). T h e study o f these subjects in India has n o t been, o n the w hole, particularly influenced by his w ork.

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It was Religion and Society A m o n g the Coorgs o f South India (1952b) th a t established Srinivas’s leading p o sitio n in Indianist studies. As D u m o n t and Pocock (1959: 9) pointed out, the book became ‘a classic’ w ithin a few years o f its publication. In it he produced a sophisticated sociological analysis o f data collected earlier and first presented in his rather m assive (900 typed pages) P h.D . dissertation at the U niversity o f B o m b ay in 1944. G hurye w as again the supervisor, and it was ap p aren tly he w ho suggested to Srinivas to stu d y the C o o rg s (see Srinivas 1973: 137). T he published version is, how ever, based on his second doctoral dissertation w hich he w rote at O x fo rd U niversity u n d e r the sup erv isio n first o f R adcliffe-B ro w n and then, after the latter’s retirem ent in 1946, o f E vans-Pritchard. T he strength o f the C oorg book lies in its being firm ly grounded in a clearly defined theoretical fram ew ork which happened to be esse­ n tially the one developed by R adcliffe-B row n w h o suggested the them e o fth e dissertation to Srinivas (see Srinivas 1973:140). Religion and Society is a very lucid exposition o fth e com plex interrelationship betw een ritual and the social order in C oorg society. It also deals at length and insightfully w ith the crucial notions o f purity and pollu­ tion as also w ith the process o f incorporation o f no n -H in d u com ­ m unities and cults in the H indu social order and w ay o f life. W hile the exposition o f the interrelatedness o f different aspects o f society, made possible by the adoption o fth e functionalist paradigm, is the strength o fth e C oorg book, its weakness also stems from the same source. Religion is here reduced to ritual and is sought to be understood in term s o f its fu n ctio n in the m aintenance o f the social order. It is obvious that E vans-Pritchard did n o t interfere w ith the developm ent o f Srinivas’s thesis, for his o w n N u e r Religion (1956) was to be a very different kind o f w ork, w ith its concern w ith m eaning, rather than function, and w ith god, soul, sin and sacrifice— themes which Srinivas either om its altogether or ju s t touches briefly. In fact, the treatm ent o f religion in the C oorg book is highly specialized com pared to even N a d e l’s N u p e R eligion (1954) w hich is also, like Srinivas’s b o o k , a functionalist interpretation o f the role (Nadel used the w o rd ‘com ­ p e ten c e ’) o f relig io n in society, th o u g h influenced m uch m o re by M alinow ski’s teaching than RadclifFe-Brown’s. C haracteristically, Srinivas him self has draw n attention to som e o f the lim itations as well as the strong points o f the C o o rg book. He w rites (1973: 141): As I looked at my material from the functionalist viewpoint, I found it falling into a pattern. The data was no longer unrelated and disorderly.

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The different levels of reality were discernible as were the links between them. In retrospect, one of the troubles with my analysis was that every­ thing was too neatly tied up leaving no loose ends. I must also add that the data was too thin for my analysis. H e also m entions the dogm atism and the narrow ness o f function­ alism w hich obviously cram ped his scope and style. R elig io n and Society remains a m ost notew orthy book, Srinivas’s subsequent second thoughts notw ithstanding; in fact, it is regarded by m any readers as his best book so far. T he data w hich w ent into the m aking o fth e C o o rg book w ere col­ lected over a period o f four years (1940-43). Ill-health, how ever, precluded continuous im m ersion in fieldw ork and Srinivas had to resort to the technique o f data-collection th ro u g h ‘short hit-an d -ru n trip s’ (Srinivas 1973: 138). O bviously data o f a quantitative nature either w ere n o t collected or, if collected, w ere n o t ju d g ed as relevant or useful to be included in the analysis presented in the book. Srinivas has w ritten that, earlier in his career, he had an interest in ‘theory’, and that Ghurye did not encourage it bu t insisted on his under­ taking fieldw ork (Srinivas 1973: 137). His stay at O x fo rd apparently enabled him to fulfil his interest in theory: it also aroused a new interest in fieldw ork. W hat is m ore, Srinivas’s a p p o in tm e n t to the n ew ly created lectureship in Indian sociology at the U niversity o f O x fo rd in 1948, enabled him to undertake intensive fieldwork in a peasant village stretched over alm ost a w hole year. M ore about this later. T o return to the C oorg book, Srinivas introduced in it tw o related ideas w hich have indeed been very influential. H e w ro te about the ‘sp read ’ o f H in d u ism , categorizing it for analytical purposes in to local, regional, peninsular, and all-India varieties. H e stressed th a t these distinctions could be seen in their proper perspective only w hen th e cohesive role o f all-India ‘S anskritic’ H in d u ism and its central values was recognized. Related to this was thenotion o f ‘Sanskritization’ w hich Srinivas em ployed to describe the hoary process o f the ‘penet­ ration o f Sanskritic values into the rem otest parts o f India. Im itation o fth e w ay o f life o fth e ‘to p m o s t’, tw ic e-b o rn castes w as said to be the principal m echanism by w hich low er castes sought to raise their ow n social status. Curiously, Srinivas did not take up for consideration the phenom enon o fth e persistence o f masses o f H indus o f low o r no status w ithin the caste system . For him the m o st significant aspect o f the history o f the C oorgs, w o rth y o f being recorded and discussed, was the history o f their incorporation into the H indu social order. A

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crucial observation in this regard is the following (Srinivas 1952b: 166): Splinter groups like A m m a C oorgs are decades, if no t centuries, in advance o f their parent-groups: the form er have solved their problem by Sanskritizing their custom s entirely w hile the latter are m ore con­ servative.’ This reads like the announcem ent o f a new age. The notion o f yugantara has, indeed, a.perennial fascination for the H indu m ind. Srinivas has, m oreover, noted that, in his initial preoccupation w ith tra d itio n and S anskritization, he failed to take notice o f th e parallel process o f w esternization (see C hapter 11). A ctually he found the tw o processes linked in a ‘dynam ic relationship’ (1966: 151). Srinivas’s interest in caste, w hich he called the ‘structural basis’ o f H induism , turned out to be stronger than his interest in H induism in its totality. H e never again did any w o rk on religion though he w rote on H induism for Encyclopaedia Britannica (1958) and T h e International Encyclopedia o f the Social Sciences (1968, w ith A. M. Shah). There is also an interesting essay (Srinivas 1974) in w hich he describes w hat being a H indu means to him . It m ight also be noted here that, th ough there is a sim ilarity o f v iew p o in t betw een M ax W eb er’s and S rinivas’s delineation o f the relationship betw een caste and H induism , there is no evidence that Srinivas has been influenced by Weber. This is rather curious for, am ong other things, W eber did m ention at the beginning o f his book the very process which Srinivas calls Sanskritization. Weber w ro te o f the advance o f the barbarian ‘by w ay o f m etem psychosis’, further pointing out that his ‘social status depends upon his w ay o f life’ (1958: 8). As is w ell-know n, Srinivas’s nam e is associated above all w ith the n o tio n o f Sanskritization. H e has w ritten m any tim es about it (e.g., see Srinivas 1956a, 1956c, 1958, 1966, 1967), refining it as he w en t along w ith his w ork, and it has been m uch w ritten about by others. In fact, Sanskritization has becom e a w ord o f com m on parlance in Indianist studies and has generated cognate w ords (not always elegant), such as Islam ization and de-Sanskritization. In focusing attention on the uneasy relationship between those w ho are b o m to high status and those less fortunate groups w ho aspire to rise higher in the caste system , Srinivas inevitably encountered situations o f conflict. H e conceptualized these in the n o tio n o f the ‘d o m in an t caste’, first proposed in his early papers on the village o f R am pura (see Srinivas 1951, 1955 and 1959). T he concept has been discussed and applied to a great deal o f w ork on social and political organization in India. R epu d iatin g the charge th a t he had sm u g g led th e idea o f

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‘d o m in an ce’ fro m A frican sociology, Srinivas p o in ts o u t th a t his fieldw ork itself had im pressed upon him that com m unities, such as the C oorgs and the Okkaligas, wielded considerable pow er at the local level and shared such social attributes as num erical preponderance, econom ic strength, and clean ritual status. H e further noted th at ‘the dom inant caste could be a local source o f Sanskritization, o r a barrier to its spread’ (1966: 152). A recent co m m en tato r, Suraj B an d y o p ad h y ay , has p o in te d o u t that the tw o notions o f Sanskritization and dom inant caste, in fact, deal w ith the same phenom enon b u t from opposed vantage points, Sanskritization postulating gradual and peaceful status adjustm ent and dom inant caste, perpetual conflict and non-accom m odation. H e suggests that m any sociologists do n o t seem to be aw are o f this and are, therefore, unable to achieve ‘a com prehensive understanding o f the process’ referred to by these tw o term s (B andyopadhyay 1977: 121). This is a useful insight, b u t m ust n o t be allow ed to obscure the fundam ental distinction betw een culture and politics, i.e. betw een status and pow er, in the Indian context (see C hapter 4). Srinivas’s w ork on caste alm ost inevitably led him to the exam ina­ tion o f an em ergent dim ension o f the social situation in India, nam ely the linkage o f caste to politics, adm inistration, education, etc. H e m ade this the subject o f an im p o rtan t address w hich he deli­ vered in 1957 in his capacity as the president o fth e an th ropology and archaeology section o f the Indian Science C ongress. This seminal essay (Srinivas 1957), based on the w o rk o f several scholars and o f selected new spaper reports, drew attention to the m anipulation o f the processes and institutions o f dem ocratic politics by caste lobbies generally and by dom inant castes in particular. R esponsive to the im perative need for the cultivation o f national integration, he w arned about the attendant pitfalls w hich included caste-exclusive loyalties as also a narrow view o f nation building. H e w ro te in 1958 (see Srinivas 1962b: 110): There is no need, however, to be unduly frightened by the existence of ‘divisions’ in the country. It is true that a person does feel that he is a member of a particular caste, village, region, state and religion but these loyalties can represent a hierarchy of values and are not necessarily incon­ sistent with being a citizen of the Indian Republic. T h e relevance o f Srinivas’s w ritin g s on caste and politics and related problem s appeared during the 1950s, w hen political m anage­ m en t em erged as a first concern o fln d ia n leadership and v o tin g in

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elections becam e a significant activity fo r m illions o f Indians. His ready w illingness to w rite on these issues in professional journals as well as new spapers and w idely circulated m agazines and journals o f opinion helped in the dissem ination o f his views. H e thus cam e to be recognized as the outstanding authority on the sociology o f India and on caste in m odern India in particular. A bout a dozen o f these influential essays— dealing w ith such themes as caste and politics, the problem oflndian unity, the future o fth e caste system, Sanskritization, westernization, industrialization, etc.— were reproduced from various sources and published together in 1962 as C aste in M odern India and O th e r E ssays, w hich was S rinivas’s fo u rth m ajor publication. It is also one o f his m ost reprinted books. Earlier, he had authored w ith three colleagues a trend report on caste w hich cam e o u t in 1959. Srinivas returned to the themes o f contem porary politics and society in his Tagore memorial lectures delivered at Berkeley in the University o f C alifornia in 1963 and published in 1966. Social C hange in M odern India was an ambitious book inasmuch as he chose to tread well beyond familiar anthropological stamping grounds and discussed macro-level historical processes, though only o f the recent past. A cknow ledging w h at he called the ‘need to see cultural and social processes in an allIndia perspective’ (ibid.: xiv), Srinivas proceeded to analyse selected data in term s o f the notions o f Sanskritization and westernization (see pp. 232-3 below ), and added caste m obility and secularization to the discussion. H e concluded w ith an expression o f views on the study o f his o r her ow n society by the anthropologist. H is discussion o f various nineteenth cen tu ry h appenings tu rn s o u t to be, in effect, an evaluation o f the forces set in m otion b y the confrontation o f India w ith W estern liberal values and C hristianity. T h e p o in t o f d ep artu re is the caste system . T h e assessm ent o f th e outcom e is, on the w hole, favourable. T he focus is on cultural p ro ­ cesses, n arrow ly defined, and econom ic changes are barely m en­ tioned. It is n o t therefore surprising that the view s o f Karl M arx and nationalist econom ic historians are not discussed (see C hapter 11). Sanskritization, w esternization, etc. had by the m id-sixties begun to appear rather familiar themes and Srinivas’s prom ised m onograph on R am pura village began to be eagerly aw aited. H e w en t to Palo A lto at the beginning o f 1970 for w hat should have been the final phase o f w ork on the book. His processed fieldnotes w ere, how ever, destroyed in a fire soon after, and preparatory w o rk o f tw o decades

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was suddenly lost. It was Sol T ax w ho suggested to Srinivas no t to b o th er about this loss but to w rite a book about the village on the basis o f his m em ory. He accepted the advice and the result is T h e Remembered Village (1976),1 w hich is n ow acknow ledged as the capstone o f his oeuvre. T he Remembered Village

The idea o f studying a multi-caste village, Srinivas informs us (p. 1), was planted in his m ind by R adcliffe-B row n in 1945—6. Later, w hen the o p portu n ity for fieldw ork in India came after his appointm ent as Lecturer in Indian Sociology at Oxford, he came to his native Karnataka, then called M ysore (the initial ‘M ’ in his name stands for M ysore), and em barked upon intensive fieldw ork such as he had n o t done before. C hapter I o f R V describes ‘how it all began’, and how the choice o f the village was m ade m ore on sentim ental rather than rational grounds. Chapter II introduces the reader to the village and describes the relation­ ships w hich Srinivas was able to establish w ith th e villagers. T he advantages and disadvantages o f his being a M ysore Brahm an anthro­ pologist and the successes and failures o f his fieldwork are m entioned. His choice o f friends, and som e villagers’ choice o f him as their friend and patron, are also described. The next chapter is devoted to ‘three im portant individuals’: the headm an; Kulle G ow da, Srinivas’s field­ w ork assistant and factotum; and N adu Gowda, a rich elderly peasant leader.2 The description o f the relations o f these m en to oth er people in the village brings out som e salient aspects o f social and econom ic life in the village— for instance, the relations betw een a landow ner and those villagers o f other castes w ho are dependent upon him . C hapter IV is devoted to ‘the universe o f agriculture’, which Srinivas calls the ‘dom inant’(he obviously means the m ost im portant) activity in the village. Land, w ater, crops, animals and trees are discussed in terms o f an overall agricultural complex. There are, o f course, no hard q u an titativ e data: these w ere consum ed in the arson at Palo A lto. E co n o m ic activities are the brid g e betw een the d o m estic and the extra-dom estic dom ains. M oving into the household (C hapter V), Srinivas discusses the sexual division o f labour and some other aspects 1 H en ceforw ard in this chaptcr, T h e Remembered Village is also briefly referred to as R V. C itations from the b o o k are id en tified b y page n u m b ers o n ly w ith o u t the usual identification o f the source by the year o f its p u b lication . 2 T h ese three m en m ay be said to h ave co m p rised S rin ivas’s ‘c o n y o y ’. I h ave u sed this term to design ate th ose associates o f a field w o rk er w h o are m o re than in form an ts, and help in p rovid in g orien tation to the ou tsid er jo u r n e y in g th ro u g h their so c iety (see M adan 1989: x x ii, 2 7 0 -3 ).

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(conjugal and sexual) o fth e relations betw een adult m en and w om en. Relations between castes occupy the centre o f the book in Chapter VI as they do o f the discussion as a whole. It is almost as long as C hapter III which is the longest in the book. The reader w ho remembers Srinivas’s earlier papers on R am pura w ill find h im se lf on fam iliar gro u n d . H arijans and M uslim s are discussed along w ith the others. Srinivas, how ever, expresses regret over the paucity o f his field data on these groups, and therefore ofhis m em ory o f them. ‘I realize only too clearly’, he w rites, ‘that m ine was a high caste view o f village society’ (p. 197). T he ideas in term s o f w hich the data are organized are social ranks and p u rity and pollution. H e proceeds to describe w hat he calls the landbased hierarchy o f classes (Chapter VII). The traditionally harmonious patron-client relationships and the interplay o f factional interests form the substance o f this chapter. As elsew here in India, technological change occupied a prom inent place in the life o fth e people o f R am pura soon after independence. Technological change, o f course, w ent hand in hand w ith economic, political and cultural changes. These are discussed in C hapter VIII. In the m idst o f these changes there w ere abiding values, attitudes and behavioural patterns w hich together bestow on social relations any­ w here their m ost characteristic qualities. C hapter IX o f the book is devoted to the explication o f this them e under the headings o f ‘recip­ ro city ’, ‘hierarchy’ (not in the D um ontian sense), ‘face’ (that is, hon­ our), ‘friendship and enm ity’, ‘gossip’, ‘envy’, and ‘sense o f hum our’. Religion is dealt w ith in C hapter X. Srinivas is not concerned w ith Sanskritic H induism here but religion as one encounters it in the every­ day life o f villagers. The kinds o f deities and their characters, sectarian orders, belief in astrology, etc. are all described. Some religious ideas o f the villagers are also discussed. In the concluding chapter (‘Farew ell’), Srinivas writes o f himself, as he does in the opening chapter, describing w hat fieldw ork did to him and h ow the village and its people came to possess him , as it were, in some measure. Three short appendices, mainly on calendrical m atters, and a glossary o f K annada term s follow. E valuation T h e Remem bered Village is a rather big book (about 350 pages), w ith a

large aim. It attempts to present a comprehensive account o f the village o f R am pura in south K arnataka as also o f the experience o f fieldw ork: it is n o t only an account o f w hat the ethnographer saw and heard but

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also o f w h at the seeing and h earing did to him . S rin iv as’s first tw o books, as I have described above, had specific them es: m arriage and the fam ily in the one case and religion and society in the other. T he C o o rg b o o k also had a self-conscious theoretical load. i? F h a s no sociological problem perse as its central concern and Srinivas apparently w ould like to assure the reader that he has no theoretical axe to grind. His explicitly stated intention, it m ay be repeated, is to w rite about R am pura and its people as he fo u n d th em in 1948. H ence Srinivas writes about several aspects o f village life— social structure, economy, culture, religion, social change, and so forth. O ne notices the neglect o f marriage and the family. Perhaps m ore surprising is the fact that politics should not have been dealt w ith at any length, for it had been one o f his im p o rtant concerns as a sociologist during the 1950s and 60s. This is particularly noticeable because caste, the other m ajor them e o f Srinivas’s sociological w ork, retains a central place in R V. T h o u g h the b o o k is ab o u t the village, it is in fact p re-em in en tly ab o u t caste or, m o re specifically, about upper castes and the rural elite. T he question o f the contents o f the book is, o f course, no t im p o r­ tant in itself. W hat is im portant is the fact that m ost o f the con­ tributors to the review sym posium think that Srinivas has succeeded in evoking the totality o f village life in his account o f it, that he has been able to vividly capture the hum an elem ent and convey the ‘feel’ o f R am pura to the reader. This is in contrast to his earlier m ajor w orks in w hich w e encounter no hum an beings, only custom s and rules o f social intercourse, only status structures and role occupants. It is suggested that Srinivas has n ow been able to do this, despite the lack o f detailed hard data, by recapitulating the im pressions o f his stay in the village and his m em ories o f real people and real events. Scarlett Epstein, w ho also did her fieldwork in Karnataka and collected am ple hard data, frankly confesses her failure w here Srinivas has suc­ ceeded. C hie N akane suggestively com pares R V to a high-quality painting which, she w rites, reveals m ore o f the essence o f a scene th an does a p h o to g ra p h , by dram atizin g certain elem ents in it. Sol T a x ’s trib u te to R V (in the F orew ord) as an eth n o g ra p h ic w o rk w hich is also a w o rk o f art is echoed by m o st o fth e review ers. A lan Beals calls it an ethnographic ‘m asterw ork’, and Epstein, a ‘classic’. B ut there are also questions asked and doubts expressed about the content and quality o fth e narrative and about the narrator’s theoretical stance and m ethod. Thus, it is asked w hether Srinivas has unw ittingly produced an account w hich is in som e essential respects m isleading if

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n o t untrue. Has he frozen w hat m ust have been changing? Has he treated as an isolate w hat could properly be understood only w hen related to the ‘outside’ w orld? Has he underem phasized som e aspects o f social life and potentially im portant trends o f change? Is he unable to disentangle his sociology from an interest in caste at the cost o f an im perative concern w ith class? A m ajor reason for this to have hap­ pened, it is suggested, is Srinivas’s theoretical stance, w hich the cri­ tics find conservative and perhaps incapable o f com ing to grips w ith the new and highly relevant questions o f today. W hile one need no t w ear one s theoretical fram ew ork on one’s sleeve, one m ay n o t take its adequacy for granted, o r silence queries about it by taking it on trust. In short, w hat are the questions underlying Srinivas’s ques­ tions? In contem porary jarg o n , w hat is his ‘problem atique’? Srinivas’s theory is judged by some reviewers to have been derived m ainly from R adcliffe-B row n, w ith som e elem ents taken from R edfield, perhaps. O thers discern the influence o f Evans-Pritchard. O w en Lynch describes Srinivas’s theory as interpretive and reflexive and his ap p ro ach p henom enological. A ccording to him these are n o t only significant but welcome developments in Srinivas’s w ork. T he subjectobject continuum a la phenom enology is explicitly denied by David P o co ck w h o considers the p o sitiv ist su b je c t-o b je c t d ich o to m y a regrettable feature o f R V. O n the w hole, the review ers find Srinivas’s range o f interests and sym pathies lim ited, and this accounts for the apparently holistic narrative n o t being after all com prehensive.3 A part from w hat is not noticed, there is also the problem o f Srinivas’s reactions, intellectual and em otional, to w hat he did notice, inquire about and rem em ber. M ost o f the reviewers draw particular attention to th e fact th a t he often w as surprised by things and happenings in R am p u ra w hich he as an Indian m ig h t have expected o r taken for granted. This is, o f course, the com m on experience o f anthropologists e v ery w h ere, b u t then the object o f his stu d y was his o w n society. W ere his reactions an effort, perhaps unconscious, to protect his ow n beliefs and his o w n concept o f rationality ? If so, Srinivas’s alienation from traditional H indu culture assumes salience as an elem ent in his narrative. In this regard, it has been suggested that, there is an unresolved struggle betw een the anthropologist and the basically sensible Indian in 3 In a recent comment, Andre Beteille, who acknowledges Srinivas’s influence upon him early in his career, observes: ‘analytical rigour was not Srinivas’s strong suit; his strength lay rather in his sensitive imagination and his unerring instinct for the ambiguities in a social situation, or what he called its “messiness”’ (1991: 5).

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Srinivas. Srinivas apparently operated in the village as any other anthropologist from outside the cultural region, if no t India, m ight have done. T he tools o f his study and analysis, it has been pointed out, w ere those designed for the study o f ‘other cultures . T here is a sense in w hich he was an outsider in Ram pura: an urban, E nglandretu rned’ (to use this expressive phrase), highly educated Indian. A dd to this his caste status o f a B rahm an, and you have a clue to the social distance and the cultural surprise that seem to have charac­ terized his situation in the village. N akane, how ever, asks w hether a deliberate exercise o f anthropological surprise (doubt) was at w ork; if this was so, then it m ay well be a w orthw h ile technique for those w ho w ant to study their ow n society.4 But, one recalls, Srinivas him self had earlier em phasized the im portance o f em pathy, rather than ‘distantiation’ (see Srinivas 1966: 156), in the w ork o f any anthropologist. Q uestions about the technique em ployed in the com position o f R V , nam ely, a total or alm ost total reliance upon m em ory, thus becom e im portant. O nce again there is a diversity o f opinion on this issue. O n the one hand, it is asserted that, the least significant thing about R V is that it is based on m em ory, because it is no t a basically different kind o f ethnography that Srinivas has n o w provided us w ith from w hat he had published earlier. O n the other hand, it has been claimed that, the special flavour o f the narrative is the result o f the com bination o fth e faculties o f observation, reflection and recall. But, it is asked, has Srinivas’s need to rely on the rem em brance technique landed him in contradictions and resulted in unsatisfactory coverage o f hard data? M ayer asks the m ore fundamental question: has Srinivas indeed w ritten from m em ory? H e could no t have, suggests M ayer, because, he had m aintained fieldnotes and had analysed and used them before the w riting o f R V . H e also had his field diaries which he occasionally consulted to check the accuracy o f w hat he had w ritten. It is indeed a pity that Srinivas does not take up this question h im ­ self, for it is im portant. B ritish em piricists, w hose influence on social anthropology has been very prom inent, have a long tradition o f con­ cern w ith the problem o f m em ory, going back at least to H um e; and, o f course, there is the later interest o f psychoanalysts in the related problems o f remembering and forgetting. Fredrik B arth (1966) devised his ow n remarkable version o f m em ory ethnography w hen he rriemorized the fieldnotes o f his friend, Robert Pehrson, in an effort to capture the wholeness o f M arri Baluch life. If only Srinivas had revealed to us 4 For an elaboration o f this p oin t, see C hapter 6.

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the kind o f book he had em barked upon w riting before the arsonists set fire to his study, one w ould have had some clue to the kind o f filter his m em o ry has been. T he w o rry about the lack o f hard data in R V — whatever this means seems to m e the less im portant issue: the nature and significance o f w hat is in the book is certainly m ore crucial. W hat Srinivas chose to include in R V is , o f course, not to be entirely a ttrib u te d to his theoretical fram ew o rk o r technique; the kind o f audience he had in m ind also m ust have played an im portant part in this. Was the book intended for the intelligent layman or the specialist or both? A statem ent about the book being intended for the laym an notw ithstanding (p. xv), Srinivas does not face this problem squarely. (The publisher’s blurb says that R V ‘ought to be essential reading for all those concerned w ith India and w ith peasant societies’.) W hich­ ever the audience, can the fact o f Srinivas being a sociologist, even though engaged in w riting a book which is part ethnography and part autobiography, be ignored? H e had w ritten earlier (Srinivas 1966: 158): ‘U nlike the novelist. . . the sociologist is prim arily interested in a theoretical explanation o f hum an and social behaviour, and in generali­ zations rather than the developm ent o f concrete particularizations. ’ It seems that R V does not quite answ er to the foregoing descrip­ tion n o r does it really constitute a personal anthropology. T he book has its outstanding portions— C hapter IX on ‘T he quality o f social relations’ by com m on consent; also the account o f ‘T hree im portant m e n ’ in C hapter III. Each reader will doubtless choose som e other parts o f the book also as being o f high quality and deep interest, depending upon his or her o w n interests. C om plete agreem ent on this w ill understandably be difficult, as is illustrated by E pstein’s and Ravindra Jain ’s satisfaction w ith the discussion o f religion, and K. P. G u p ta’s and Beals’s dissatisfaction w ith it. T h e above m erely indicates the kinds o f questions w h ich Sri­ n iv a s’s professional colleagues have raised and w ill raise ab o u t the innovative book that R V is. These are questions about theory, m eth o d and data. R V poses other questions, too, such as that o f the ethics o f sociological fieldw ork am o n g o n e ’s o w n people. O n e wishes Srinivas had attended to this question, particularly because ethical considerations cannot but have acted as a constraint on his p u ttin g dow n on paper m any things that he m ust have rem em bered. I f they did not, w hy not?5 A question that arises from the sym posium is, w hy is there such a 5 For S rinivas’s resp on se to the r e v ie w sy m p o siu m , see Srinivas 1978: 1 2 7 -5 2 .

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diversity o f opinion am ong Srinivas’s professional colleagues about his book as is revealed in it? D ifference o f opinion is, o f course, quite com m on in social science review literature, b u t it seems to be rather sharp in the present case. It is possible that w hat is m ost distinctive about R V, nam ely the a u th o r’s intention to w rite a personal account o f life in a village, also explains the range o f reaction to it, for there is no standard yardstick to m easure the success o f such a w ork. R V is, perhaps, m ore like the first M ysore book than like the C o o rg or the social change book: it is descriptive rather than analytical. Srinivas says so himself. B ut w hereas F am ily and M arriage was a new kind o f w ork w hen it came out in 1942, R V as an account o f an Indian village, p ublished in the m id-1970s, is not. Its d istinctiveness is difficult to identify in term s o f the story that Srinivas has to tell. His m anner o f telling it is w here he excels. T he contributors to this sym posium are sociologists or social anthropologists and, as M ayer has noted, their response to the book is bound to be o f a different nature from that o fth e so-called ‘intelligent laym an’. T he latter m ay well like to read Srinivas’s T h e Remem bered Village alongside such outstanding novels o f rural life in K arnataka as Raja R ao’s Kanthapura (1938) or U . R. A nantha M u rth y ’s Sam skara (1976). . Raja Rao portrays a village in the 1930s, m uch like R am pura, w ith its caste streets and tem ples, untouchables and B rahm ans, folklore, belief and ritual, and the encroaching adm inistrative, econom ic and political frontiers. It is, in fact, a rem arkable novel w hich anticipated the concerns o f social anthropologists as these to o k shape in the 1950s. T he village o f K anthapura, how ever, em erges as significant not in itself but in term s o f its relations w ith ancient traditions and w ith contem porary events beyond its m ud walls. A nantha M u rth y describes not so m uch a village and its institutions as a trapped hum an being struggling to discover him self and make his ow n choices. T he focus apparently is on the local B rahm an com m unity, b u t their predicam ent has universal im port. Som e readers w ill, perhaps, say that R V belongs m ore w ith the novels o f Srinivas’s fam ous friend, R. K. N arayan. It has the sam e em phasis o n character and o n the scenic in everyday life, the sam e delectable sense o f h u m o u r as in N arayan’s w ell-loved novels and stories about life^n M algudi. A nd did not Srinivas tell us in his Social C hange in M odern India that the sociologist w ho chooses to study his o w n society is rather like the novelist? O thers to o — M arcel M auss, E d m u n d Leach, and C lifford

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G eertz, to nam e only a few spanning three g en eratio n s— have c o m m e n ted in sig h tfu lly on the affinity betw een the crafts o f the e th n o g ra p h e r and the novelist.

P O S T S C R IP T

As it has turned out, Srinivas has not authored another book since The Remembered Village was published sixteen years ago; but he has written several m ajor essays and addresses including his H uxley, Frazer, and J. P. N a ik Lectures (Srinivas 1977, 1984a, 1984b). In these he has, besides providing further reflections on old them es (such as the nature o fth e caste system), turned to new subjects, m ost notably the persistence o f stresses and strains in the changing position o f w om en in India. He has also w ritten about policy matters o f national concern, such as nation building and the cultural dimensions o f hum an fertility, and given his assessment o fth e m eaning and significance o f contem ­ p o rary change. In his usual thoughtful m anner Srinivas observes that Indians are today ‘living in a revolution’, although m any o f them do no t seem to be aw are o f this crucial fact. H e points out that the key elem ents o f this revolution are ‘adult franchise, protective discrim i­ nation and land reform s’. H e warns that, although this revolution began non-violently, it is ‘now entering an increasingly violent phase’ (1986:24). H e has also w ritten o f science and technology in the context o f rural developm ent and briefly discussed secularism. B ut lack o f sustained attention to the rhetorics o f secularism, socialism and technology in his studies o f social change is rather surprising. The interface o f caste and politics in rural India has been his m ain interest, and this he has analysed insightfully. C onveniently from the readers’ point o f view, m ost o f these essays and addresses have been m ade available in three volum es (Srinivas 1987, 1989, 1992). A nd, alm ost predictably, Srinivas has given us a delightful short story, ‘T he Im age M aker’, w hich is about rural life in K arnataka and, o f course, about hum an fate (Srinivas 1988). B ut w h y only one?6

6 For a d iscu ssion o f Srin ivas’s v ie w s on w estern ization , see pp. 2 2 6 -7 , 245.

Louis

D um ont and

t h e S t u d y o f S o c ie t y in I n d ia

y|

India . . . teaches us hierarchy, and this is no little lesson.

It should be obvious, in principle, that a Sociology o f India lies at the conflu­ ence o f Sociology and Indology. LOUIS D U M O N T

I IN T R O D U C T IO N

Som etim e in 1954, Louis D u m o n t (b. 1911) gave a lecture on m ar­ riage and kinship in South India at the U niversity o f Lucknow , w here I had ju st begun m y research and teaching career. I think he was on his w ay to G orakhpur, w here he later (1957-8) conducted extensive fieldw ork in a m ulti-caste village. I had already seen his early papers on the subject o f his talk. T he first o f these (incidentally also his first publication on India) had been published in T h e Eastern Anthropologist, w hich was edited by D . N . M ajum dar at the A n thropology D epartm ent o f the U niversity. T w o other articles had com e out in M an in 1953 (see Louis D u m o n t’s bibliography in M adan 1982b). M o st o f us at the L uckno w U n iv e rsity had fo u n d these papers rather ‘technical’ and difficult to grasp. His lecture was helpful to som e extent in m aking us appreciate w h at he was doing. I was particularly interested because I was at that time contem plating a stu d y o f m arriage, fam ily and kinship am o n g the B rah m an s o f rural K ashm ir. M y anthropological studies until then had been con­ ducted under the guidance o f D . N . M ajum dar (see C hapter 2), w ho W hile Part I o f this chapter, and the p ostscrip t, h ave been n e w ly w ritten , Parts II and III are reproduced here from Contributions to Indian Sociology (N S ), v o ls. 5 (1971) and 15 (1981) resp ectively. I o w e thanks to A n d re B eteille and Jit Sin gh U b e r o i for their ad vice and help w ith the preparation o f the r e v ie w sy m p o siu m o'f w h ic h Part II w a s the in trod u ction .

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was a functionalist, combining the perspectives o f Bronislaw Malino­ wski and R uth Benedict. M y difficulties w ith D u m o n t’s way o f ethno­ graphic analysis were, therefore, quite understandable, but this was not clear to m e then. As is well know n, A. R. Radcliffe-Brown him self was quite puzzled by w hat these tw o Frenchmen, Claude Levi-Strauss and Louis D u m o n t, w ere doing to his favourite areas o f intellectual con­ cern, namely social structure and systems o f kinship and marriage’. In the event, m y fieldw ork am ong the Pandits o f rural K ashm ir (1957-8), im m ediately preceded by six m onths o f preparation in the D ep artm ent o f A nthropology at the Australian N ational U niversity (an o u tp o st o f B ritish social anthropology) was n o t at all influenced by D u m o n t s ideas (see C hapters 6 and 8). T he books I carried w ith m e to the field w ere the N u e r and Tallensi kinship books o f E. E. E vans-Pritchard (1951a) and M eyer Fortes (1949) respectively, and Iraw ati K arve’s K inship O rganization in India (1953). In 1958, however, when the first issue o f Contributions to Indian Socio­ logy (1957) becam e available to m e in C anberra, I was particularly attracted by the program m atic statem ent, ‘For a Sociology o f India’. D u m o n t (and co-author D avid Pocock) seemed to offer an approach to the study o fln d ian society w hich was refreshingly different from the prevailing A nglo-A m erican perspectives. W hat appealed to m e m o st was n o t only the acknow ledgem ent that the people being studied m ig h t have points o f view , but also, in fact m ore so, the affir­ m ation that these points o f view— ‘the principles that the people them ­ selves give’ (ibid.: 12)— m ust be taken seriously, and even treated as fruitful points o f departure for anthropological inquiry. D um ont and Pocock had at the same time pointed out that the distinctiveness o f the an th ro p o lo g ist’s m ethod lay in attem pting to ‘see things from w ithin (as integrated in the society w hich he studies) and from w ith o u t’ (ibid.: 11-12), that is as ‘collective representations’ as well as ‘social facts’. This way o f putting things seemed to m e to broaden the anthro­ pological p erspective m o st m eaningfully and open n ew vistas o f research. A ctually one was only going back to fim ile D u rk h eim , b reak ing aw ay from a n a rro w exegesis o f his view s by B ritish and A m erican scholars. T h e w ritin g o f m y dissertation, how ever, proceeded (1958-9) independently o f this aw akening, m ainly because m y fieldw ork had been guided by other ideas, b u t also because I was no t clear about all the nuances o f the new approach and the w ay they w ere interrelated. O n m y re tu rn to L ucknow in 1959, I found th at C ontributions to

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Indian Sociology had arrived there, and w hile everybody else saw it as

yet another serial publication, A. K. Saran (one o f m y form er teachers) regarded it as offering a misleading perspective. His rejection o f it was vehement and he gave expression to his views in an extended review o f the fourth num ber o f the periodical w hich he w ro te at m y invitation (see Saran 1962b: 53-68), focusing mainly on D um ont’s essay on renunci­ ation. Saran’s criticisms touched different issues from those that con­ cerned me, but were not w holly unrelated. D uring 1962—3, I was in London, at the School o f O riental and African Studies, and encoun­ tered yet another sharply critical response to D u m o n t’s position from F. G. Bailey, in w riting (see Bailey 1959), b u t m uch m ore strongly in the spoken w ord. Saran’s and B ailey’s positions w ere, how ever, dia­ m etrically opposed to each other. Back in India (at the K arnatak U niversity, D harw ar), I decided to w rite to D u m o n t directly ab o u t m y doubts: I did so in 1964. H e p ro m ptly responded by asking me to prepare an article on the subject for publication in Contributions. I prepared a short paper in 1965, and this was published in the last issue o f the jo u rn al (see M adan 1966b), alongside an article o f his o w n , w hich in clu d ed a response to m y queries as well as to Saran’s criticism s (see D u m o n t 1966a). M y m ain p o in t had been this: ‘I am n o t w h o lly satisfied w ith the D u m o n tPocock argum ent regarding the external point o f view w hich they say the sociologist shares w ith the natural scientist. I am no t sure that such a point o f view e x ists___ If it did, it should have been possible for us to study social life th ro u g h observation unaided by co m m uni­ cation w ith the observed people’ (M adan 1966b: 12). (Were I w ritin g to day, I w o u ld perhaps m en tio n the ph en o m en o lo g ical and h e r­ meneutic approaches and even speak o f fieldwork as comm unicative experience’.) I had clarified th a t ‘w h en the so cio lo g ist allow s “ the principles that the people them selves give” to enter into his analysis and explanation he surrenders a truly external position (ibid.). I had also w ondered if the proposed approach did n o t carry the reliance on the texts— on Indology— as against w hat ordinary people say, too far (ibid.: 15). In his response D u m o n t acknow ledged that the approach he had proposed could be called ‘positive-cum -subjective , b u t said that the viability o f the external point o f view could no t possibly be doubted, given the ethnographic analyses that had been published in C ontribu­ tions, in w hich the tw o perspectives (internal and external) had been effectively com bined (D u m o n t 1966a: 22). H e added: ‘D u ality ,

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or tension is here the condition sine qua non o f social anthropology or, if one likes, o f sociology o f a deeper k in d ’ (ibid.: 23). I was no t w holly convinced, and reiterated in a rejoinder that ‘the existence o f a b o d y o f literatu re [does not] settle the questio n o f its u tility o r epistemological status’ (M adan 1967: 90). I w as, ho w ev er, satisfied that D u m o n t had conceded that ‘the implications’ o f their position ‘should be m ore fully w orked o u t’ (D um ont 1966a: 22).1 T he publication o f the English edition o f H om o Hierarchicus in 1970 seem ed to offer an excellent opportu n ity for further discussion o f the D u m o n tian approach and its substantive analytical results. A lthough the original French edition had come out three years earlier (see D um ­ on t 1966b), it had rem ained inaccessible to all but a very few Indian readers. A ccordingly, I tho u g h t it w orthw hile to organize a review sy m p o siu m on the b o o k for publication in C ontributions. D u m o n t readily gave his consent. (A similar request from Sol Tax, editor o f C urrent A nthropology, reached D u m o n t after m y suggestion, and he decided to advise against a second sym posium .) N early all the scho­ lars I invited to contribute reviews agreed. M . N . Srinivas, how ever, w ro te that he was n o t ready w ith a considered response, and G. S. G hurye did n o t reply. R eproduced below as the second part o f this C hapter is m y com ­ m ented sum m ary o f Hom o Hierarchicus (D um ont found it quite depend­ able [see D u m o n t 1971: 58]), w hich appeared as the introduction to the review sym posium in Contributions to Indian Sociology (NS) 5, 1971: 1—13. The article also highlighted some o f the issues which were raised by the contributors to the sym posium . As had been agreed, D u m o n t w ro te an essay in w hich he clarified the notion o f hierarchy and res­ ponded selectively to some o f the points made by the other contributors 1 T w o p oin ts for record. (1) In the letter I w r o te D u m o n t in 1964 (m en tion ed a b o v e), I also exp ressed regret that C ontributions w as g o in g to cease p u b lication and u rged h im to reconsider th e d ecisio n . H e o b v io u sly had received sim ilar rem onstr­ ances fro m oth er colleagu es. H is reply to m e w as to ask w h y w e did n o t take respon­ sib ility for a su ccessor jou rn al. A th ree-corn ered corresp on d en ce and personal con su l­ tation s fo llo w e d in 1965, in v o lv in g D u m o n t, A drian M ayer and m y self, and later F. G . B ailey and D a v id P o co ck also. C ontributions to Indian Sociology, N e w Series, w as th us launch ed in 1967, a year after the origin al periodical ceased publication. (2) N ea rly th irty years after th e ev en t, a careful Brazilian scholar has p oin ted ou t that I had m isq u o ted A . K. Saran in m y 1966 paper; that his statem en t (in his 1962 r e v ie w o f D u m o n t, cited ab ove) had b een that ‘social reality qua social has n o “o u t­ sid e”’ and n o t, as I had w ritten , ‘social reality qua reality has n o “o u tsid e” ’ (Pierano 1 9 9 1 :3 2 5 , fn. 1). R egrettab ly, D u m o n t, th o u g h fam iliar w ith Saran’s original tex t had relied o n m y q u ota tion . T h e m isq u o ta tio n w a s, o f course, n o t in ten tion al, and I do n o t thin k it serio u sly m isled him .

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as well as by review ers elsew here (notably M cK im M arrio tt) (see D um o n t 1971: 58-81). O ne o f m y ow n m ain observations was in line w ith m y 1966 query about the problem o f integrating the views from w ithin and w ith ­ out. T he particular form this had taken in H om o Hierarchicus was reflected in w hat I described as the unusual design o fth e book, w ith a main and a supplem entary text, the form er constructed theoreti­ cally and deductively, and the latter derived from em pirical evidence available in Indian ethnography and constituting a considerable body o f elucidatory notes. Ascertaining the fit betw een the m odel and the contem porary social reality seemed, I had w ritten, to be only a secondary concern, resulting in the ‘devaluation o f the ethnog­ raphic d atu m ’ (M adan 1971: 4). R esponding to this point rather fleetingly, and in the specific con­ text o f contem porary social change, D u m o n t had observed that ‘de­ v e lo p m e n t’ was n o t a ‘social’, b u t ‘at b o tto m ’ an ‘in d iv id u alistic category’, and hence it was not surprising that I was ‘w orried about the lim ited usefulness o f the theory expressed in H om o Hierarchicus for the study o f “contem porary change’” (D u m o n t 1971: 78). Responding m ore directly in the Preface to the ‘com plete revised English edition’ o f H om o Hierarchicus (1980), he em phasized that, in his considered judgem ent, the textual duality, or unresolved tension, that I had detected, did not in fact exist: ‘the “m o d el” is given in order to account for “contem porary social reality” entirely in the perspective governed by social a n th ro p o lo g y . . . . I state that I have always given the last w o rd to observed reality . . . . I think this is con­ firm ed by the fact that, w hen necessary, I have em phasized the dif­ ficulties the argum ent contains and the antinom ies it draw s near, so that critics w ho wish to stress them often need only to quote the te x t. . . . If one wishes, there is certainly devaluation in the sense that not all the empirical data are situated at the same level o f ideology. T he objection bears on the hierarchization o f traits’ (ibid.: xxii—iii). T he tw o responses read to g eth er have the m e rit o f clarifying D u m o n t’s position, b u t they also reinforce m y suspicion th at the relationship betw een the ‘id e o lo g y ’ and the ‘o b serv ed re a lity ’ is problem atic. If observed reality indeed has the last w o rd , th en this seems to be so only in particular expressions o f it, w h ich are p re­ d eterm in ed by the ideology. P u t sim ply, this m eans th a t all th a t is observed is not equally significant. O ne w ould hardly w ant to disagree

Louis D um ont and the Study o f Society in India

57

w ith that, n o r w ith the principled stand that clearly stated criteria are needed to m ake the judgem ent. T he problem lies w ith the m anner in w hich a particular criterion emerges as self-certified, as it were, and o f an all-encom passing character. D u m o n t’s relative lack o f interest in on-going social change is an aspect o f the sam e problem . I concede, how ever, that he, like any other scholar, had the right to decide on w hat to focus his attention. A nd he has stated it explicitly, in m ore than one place, that he considers the continuities in social life in India m ore significant than the changes. It is obvious that such judgem ents about the empirical reality are derived from other judgem ents m ade at the level o f ‘first principles’, w hich actually go beyond, and indeed confront, the principles that the people being studied them selves enunciate. D u m o n t ack n o w ­ ledged this encounter o f ideologies later in a m ajor statem ent on the subject. Taking note o f the increasing attention being paid by anthro­ pologists to ideas, values, and ideologies, he called for, ‘by way o f com­ plem entarity’, ‘reflection on the ideology o f the anthropologist himself; in the double sense o f the ideology o f his speciality and that o f the sur­ ro u nding society’ (1986b: 203). I guess this w ould be called the culti­ vation o f ‘reflexivity’ in to d ay ’s jarg o n (see C hapter 8). M ax W eber, o f course, anticipated all o f this, but that is another story. P a rt T h ree o f the C h ap ter is an abrid g em en t o f the essay ‘For a Sociology o f India’ (M adan 1982a), w hich appeared as the epilogue in the volum e that I put together to felicitate D u m o n t on his seven­ tieth birthday in 1981, and to m ark the tw enty-fifth anniversary o f the founding o f Contributions to Indian Sociology in 1957. T he Festshrift was released early in 1982 as volum e 15 (1981) o f Contributions and as a book, W ay o f Life: K ing, Householder, Renouncer: Essays in H onour o f L o u is D u m o n t (M adan 1982b), w hich was published in b o th D elhi and Paris. T h e c o n trib u to rs had been invited to tu rn atten tio n to D u m o n t’s w o rk in the specific context o f the H indu (Brahmanical) notions o f ‘goal-oriented action’ (purusartha ) and ‘the good life’. T he result had been a very rich volum e o f essays covering a variety ofthem es from several disciplinary perspectives. In the epilogue I had tried to co n tex tu ally locate D u m o n t’s c o n trib u tio n s to th e m aking o f the so ciology o f India. I had also h ig h lig h ted the issues w hich the con­ tributors had raised in relation to his w ork, acknowledging its seminal influence. Given the nature o f the book, w hich was a tribute to Louis D u m o n t’s role as an outstanding pathfinder, no response had been

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solicited from him , though it included an edited version o f a conver­ sation b etw een him and Jean -C lau d e G aley bearing o n different aspects o f his professional life (see ibid.: 13-22).

II O N T H E N A T U R E O F C A ST E IN IN D IA H om o Hierarchicus: General Principles Louis D u m o n t’s credentials as an Indianist are o f an exceptionally high order. H e is a scholar o f international renow n w ho is equally at hom e in the domains o f sociology, social anthropology, and Indology. T he subjects on w hich he has w ritten have an im pressive range and include Hinduism , caste, kinship, marriage, kingship in ancient India, and social-political m ovem ents in m odern India. His m agnum opus, H om o Hierarchicus , 1 is an unusual w o rk in its conception, design and execution. It is deserving o f our m ost serious study. T he task that D u m o n t set him self is succinctly announced in the subtitle o f the book: an inquiry into ‘the caste system and its im plica­ tions’.2 T he first question that will, therefore, occur to the reader is: H o w does D u m o n t define caste? D efinitions, w hich should consti­ tute part o fth e conclusions o f a scientific inquiry, by necessity have to be its starting point as well. This tact often is at the ro o t o f consid­ erable confusion as all kinds of