On State, Society and Discourse in India

Summary This study analyses changes in the ways that the state and society in India have been thought about and talked about since the days of M. K. Gandhi. This is partly intended to improve on the ahistorical and excessively economistic perceptions of social and political change which have loomed large in discussions of India. It is possible to identify certain misperceptions in India's evolving discourse which reveal concrete, structural problems in its state?society relations. The state has remained largely external to society since independence, despite the huge extension of the state machinery. This externality is the result of the failure of political elites to reconstitute the popular understanding of politics. Had they knitted the new conceptual vocabulary concerning rights, institutions, impersonal power, secularism, etc., into everyday vernacular discourse, had they created a single political language for the entire polity, then state and society, and elites and mass would have been more adequately integrated. Political theory and discourse are important. It is not only that they reveal how politics works. Changes in theory and discourse can make a material difference in the workings of politics. Résumé Discours sur l'Etat et la Société en Inde Cette étude fait l'analyse de l'évolution de la façon dont sont considérés l'état et la société en Inde depuis l'époque de M. K. Gandhi. Son objectif est en partie d'améliorer la perception non?historique et excessivement économiste de l'évolution sociale et politique largement présente dans les débats sur l'Inde. Il est possible d'identifier certaines perceptions déformées dans les discours sur l'évolution de l'Inde, révélant des problèmes de structures dans ses relations état?société. L'état est en grande partie resté en marge de la société depuis l'indépendence, malgré le développement important des rouages de l'état. Cette marginalisation est le résultat d'élites politiques qui n'ont pas réussi à reconstituer la signification populaire de la politique. Si le nouveau vocabulaire conceptuel concernant les droits, les institutions, le pouvoir non?personnel, la laicité etc … était intégré dans le language de tous les jours, si un seul et unique language politique était adopté dans la totalité de l'administration, l'état et la société, les élites et la masse seraient mieux unifiées. La théorie et le discours politique sont importants, et non seulement révèlent la façon dont la politique fonctionne, mais les changements dans la théorie et le discours peuvent également avoir une influence importante sur le fonctionnement des politiques. Resumen Sobre Estado, Sociedad y Discurso en la India Este estudio analiza los cambios habidos en las diversas formas de pensar y dialogar sobre el estado y la sociedad en la India desde los días de M. K. Gandhi. Por una parte se intenta mejorar las percepciones no históricas y excesivamente economistas de los cambios sociales y políticos que se han presentado largamente en las discusiones sobre la India. Es posible identificar ciertas percepciones incorrectas en los discursos sobre la India que revelan problemas concretos y estructurales en sus relaciones estado?sociedad. Desde su independencia el estado ha permanecido en gran medida al margen de la sociedad a pesar de la expansión de la maquinaria estatal. Esta marginalización es el resultado del fallo de las elites políticas de no renovar el entendimiento popular de las políticas. Si hubieran unido el nuevo vocabulario conceptual sobre derechos, instituciones, poder impersonal, secularidad, etc., con el discurso local de cada día, si hubieran creado un lenguaje político común al gobierno entero, existiría una integración más adecuada de estado, sociedad, elites y masas. La teoría política y el discurso son importantes, no solamente porque revelan cómo funciona la política, sino porque cambios en política y discursos pueden tener una influencia importante en el funcionamiento de la política

A Strange Love of the Land: Identity, Poetry and Politics in the (Un)Making of South Asia

In this paper I shall try to explore how the idea of space in what we call ‘South Asia’ today got reconfigured by modernity. I shall explore three spatial conceptions of South Asia—strategic, geographic and cultural; and I shall try to explain the patterns of space-thinking underlying each one of them, show their connection with modernity, and observe why and how South Asia is still not a space that can be conceived in nationalistic or state terms as a space of belonging. Two political processes of modernity introduce a new kind of space-making—nationalism and state-formation. In the paper, I shall follow some significant points of this dual process—of the emergence of new state structures—of British colonial India—and its animation of the rise of variant forms of nationalism—in 19th century Bengal, in the Islamic imagination of the 20th century, and eventually through the institution of state-nationalisms in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. These state forms and gestalts of affect make it impossible to think of South Asia as a space of emotional inhabitance—like India or Pakistan. Yet, despite this state-nationalist borders of consciousness, there still exist long-term historical commonalities which people spontaneously practice and enjoy—in food, material culture, literature, art, music—which have a deep and long history. This marks peoples of this region (not states) by a common intelligibility which is reflected in their easy commingling when outside their countries, and free of the pressures of state nationalism, or in artistic public spheres

Des avantages d’être un barbare

Le savoir sur l'Inde dans le champ universitaire occidental se caractérise par deux tendances : d'un côté, un climat général de rectitude politique et la défense du colonialisme décline. De l'autre, un affaissement des forces traditionnelles propres aux études orientalistes fondées sur une connaissance intime des langues vernaculaires et classiques. Ce double contexte a permis que les chercheurs sud-asiatiques soient traités avec hospitalité intellectuelle – et quelquefois surestimés. Je discute quelques-uns des axes de mon travail de recherche : la tentative de développer une compréhension scientifique de la société indienne, notamment sa politique, en restituant les façons singulières dans lesquelles les traductions conceptuelles ont été effectuées ainsi que l'exploration de la littérature pour l'étude de la réflexion indienne sur la modernité. Je termine en exprimant mon scepticisme envers la théorie « postcoloniale » telle qu'elle a été présentée jusqu'à présent ; mais je suggère qu'elle peut être reprise et approfondie.On the Advantages of Being a Barbarian. – Western scholarship about India is at present characterised by two developments. On the one hand, there is a general climate of political correctness, and academic defence of colonialism is decaying. On the other hand, there has been a decline in the traditional strengths of Orientalist studies based on in-depth knowledge of vernacular or classical languages. This dual context has ensured that South Asian academics are treated with intellectual hospitality – sometimes being overestimated. I discuss some strands of my academic work: the attempt to develop a theoretical understanding of Indian society, particularly its politics, tracing the peculiar ways in which conceptual translations take place, and the examination of literature in the study of Indian reflection upon modernity. I end with being rather skeptical about what “post-colonial” theory has offered until now; but suggesting it can be taken further

"The fruits of independence": Satyajit Ray, Indian nationhood and the spectre of empire

Challenging the longstanding consensus that Satyajit Ray's work is largely free of ideological concerns and notable only for its humanistic richness, this article shows with reference to representations of British colonialism and Indian nationhood that Ray's films and stories are marked deeply and consistently by a distinctively Bengali variety of liberalism. Drawn from an ongoing biographical project, it commences with an overview of the nationalist milieu in which Ray grew up and emphasizes the preoccupation with colonialism and nationalism that marked his earliest unfilmed scripts. It then shows with case studies of Kanchanjangha (1962), Charulata (1964), First Class Kamra (First-Class Compartment, 1981), Pratidwandi (The Adversary, 1970), Shatranj ke Khilari (The Chess Players, 1977), Agantuk (The Stranger, 1991) and Robertsoner Ruby (Robertson's Ruby, 1992) how Ray's mature work continued to combine a strongly anti-colonial viewpoint with a shifting perspective on Indian nationhood and an unequivocal commitment to cultural cosmopolitanism. Analysing how Ray articulated his ideological positions through the quintessentially liberal device of complexly staged debates that were apparently free, but in fact closed by the scenarist/director on ideologically specific notes, this article concludes that Ray's reputation as an all-forgiving, ‘everybody-has-his-reasons’ humanist is based on simplistic or even tendentious readings of his work