DIPESH CHAKRABARTY: We
are living through now--
where, for one thing, certain
forms of conservatisms-- quite
comparable forms of conservative
thought see to be of the rise.
Maybe we need to think
about them together.
But that-- sort of
thinking about the
Rudolphs because,
as Gary mentioned,
I just think of
Rudolph's openness
to anything new--
good or bad-- that
was happening in the world,
and of course in South Asia,
and in India, particularly.
One example of that
was that when I joined,
it was in Chicago, I found
that the Rudolphs had actually
got money from Mellon to
run a three or five year
program on subaltern
studies-- without having
any formal connection
with subaltern.
So that's where I
met Shail first,
was because Shail
came as a visiting
fellow with that program.
They ran a workshop on
comparative South Asia
then Middle Eastern studies,
which was only the wonderfully
stimulating seminar to go to.
They were always so proud
of [INAUDIBLE] politics.
And I remember them talking
about that as an achievement,
and they would go around
saying how India had achieved
a silent revolution,
electorally,
by transferring a lot
of political power
to lower castes, and people
from these various backgrounds,
like [INAUDIBLE].
And one always wonders
what they would
make of the present situation,
or how one could even
think of the present situation
through their frameworks.
And they were, of course,
evolving in their own thinking.
So with that in mind, we invited
the three very distinguished
scholars here,
sitting next to me,
and I will give them a short
introduction before they speak.
And we'll hear them speak
for about 15, 20 minutes,
and then we'll open
it up for discussion.
I thought I would
go alphabetically,
but it also works out nicely
because Ron deSouza to my left,
has offered to speak
on a large theme,
whereas Shail and Asha
are kind of working
more directly through Rudolphs,
or talking about Rudolphs.
So just to introduce Peter
Ronald deSouza from the Center
for Study of
Developing Societies.
So he will be talking about
"The Imperialism of Categories,
Situating Knowledge in
a Globalizing World."
And Professor deSouza
is a professor at,
as I said, at the CSDS, and
holds the Dr. S Radhakrishnan
Chair of Rajya Sabha.
He was the director
of Indian Institute
of Advanced Study,
Shimla, where he served
two terms from 2007 to 2013.
He worked on issues of
democratic politics,
and in the comparative
politics of South Asia.
He's also served as an expert
and consultant for the UN DP
World Bank, ICNRD, international
IDEA, Ford Foundation,
and inter-parlimentary union,
and writes regular columns
for The Hindu, The
Tribune, and Outlook.
So with that, on to
Professor deSouza
on imperialism of categories.
PETER RONALD DESOUZA:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me begin by saing
how privileged I
feel to be invited to speak
on a panel at the University
of Chicago in honor of
Susanne and Lloyd Rudolph.
I have never been their
student-- moving from chemistry
to political science.
I sort of grew into the subject
by reading some of their work.
So when the invitation came
to speak on this panel,
I was delights.
So I'm going to really
speak to some of their work,
and sort of think through
with them some of the issues
that they raise.
The essay that I've
taken--because it's an essay
that, in a sense, speaks
to my own current interest,
"The Imperialism of Categories,"
and which I think is a concern
that connects up with all their
work-- with their first study,
in the rule of regions of
Tamil Nadu to their much later
presidential address.
And also an address given
in the 50 year celebrations
of the [INAUDIBLE].
And now that's a
very important essay,
given by Susanne Rudolph,
and it raises the whole--
it's an overview of how
does a political scientist
from a different location
work in an alien context.
She begins with this
wonderful story of 1956,
when they came to Tamil Nadu,
fresh from being trained
by the [INAUDIBLE]
Junior, and others,
to actually go into the
field, and elicit opinions--
it was a public opinion
survey-- of the people of Tamil
Nadu on a range of issues.
So they were all trained in
the methodology of interviews.
And one of the elements
of that training
was to assume that
the interview would
be between the interviewer
the interviewee.
And on the basis of that, they
would elicit opinions, and then
be able to discern
certain trends.
But when they went
to the village,
they were completely
unprepared for the fact
that the interviewee
was not just
the person, but the family,
the children, and sometimes
there was the village elder who
became part of the responses
that they were eliciting.
That's when they realized that
underlying the methodological
framework was a
certain notion of
methodological individualism.
And that was something that
needed to be contested.
Now when we look at their
work "The Imperialism
of Categories," that
essay actually has,
if I may organize the
argument, it has four stages.
The first stage is actually
an epistemic argument
that is made, which is
the serious argument
that I want to engage with.
And I may just quote
from the essay.
"They say, without
concepts and methods,
we would not know where to
look and what to look for.
The question was,
and still is, to what
extent were those
concepts and methods
amenable to infiltration,
adaptation, modification,
and transformation by the
forms of life and worldview
of the alien others?"
I think this is
the question that
not only permeates their
work, but for me, it's
our work, as well.
I don't think we-- we really
haven't exerted that problem.
We've acknowledged
it, and Dipesh
has acknowledged it in
his provincializing Europe
argument.
But my sense is that, even
today, having acknowledged it
and won the arguments that they
are not as universal as they
think they are-- that they're
actually parochial masquerading
as universal, if I may
summarize the argument somewhat
literally.
We don't push the
argument far enough.
Can we infiltrate
those concepts?
Can we modify and adapt
and transform them?
Is that available to us?
Because unless we have concepts,
we cannot access the world
of [INAUDIBLE].
And this remains the challenge,
and I think the Rudolphs,
somehow, in this wonderful
essay, made the argument
at two levels.
They made the argument, this
analytical argument up front,
and then the rest
of the essay is
a series of illustrations--
from modernization period,
to Locke, through work, through
classical universalist debate,
and the modern
universalism, they
brought to economic
theory-- Gary Becker,
et cetera, et cetera.
They go through the
responses to that.
So there's a very
interesting overview,
through a series
of illustrations,
of the fact that the
universalism, the imperialism
of categories still exist.
And that is where I would like
to begin an argument with them.
So if it still persists,
how do we escape it?
And I really think all
the subsequent literature
hasn't really engaged it.
I mean to me, the
seminal statement of this
actually belongs to 1931.
But the enslavement of the
mind, we don't even know.
So we begin to adopt
those categories.
And Tagore talks about
it when he's writing
about the eastern university.
Now there has been a debate
insufficiently developed--
we remain satisfied with
pointing out that these are not
really universals.
So what we do?
How do we escape it?
Do we create our own universals?
Is that available to us?
Just because they are deficient,
of because they've been merged
with a certain
historical context--
which is what the argument
is, that it's deficient--
it cannot help us understand.
Or, because it merged in a
certain context in Europe,
and we must recognize
the context.
Or that it is state-driven--
when area studies emerged
in the United States, it emerged
because the State Department
wanted knowledge about
Iraq, or India, or whatever.
So it camouflages an interest
of the state department,
and therefore diminishes.
Another question
is, so what is our--
and this is my study--
what is our critique?
What are we saying?
OK, having won that
first argument,
that it's not as universal,
where is our lament?
Is our lament that the
imperialism of categories
is so powerful, that it clouds
the way we see the world?
And we meaning not
just social scientists,
or humanities scholars, but
all of us thinking people.
Which is what Frantz
Fanon would argue--
Frantz Fanon has
lovely-- I don't have
the time-- but some
lovely passages
where he talks in terms of how
a black man and a white woman,
that he wants to be white,
because the entire imperialism
of categories to you-- I'm going
to keep using that phrase--
produces a perception
of inferiority in India,
in the colonists.
So this inferiority is a
burden that the colonizers
to continuously
carry, and therefore
wonder, well, we're coming to
this pretending to be white.
So is that the argument?
Or is the argument
a narrow argument--
that it's interfering
with the way
we social scientists
and humanities
scholars are representing them.
So we're representing it
with all the deficiencies
that these categories bring.
It fits the first,
and then there's
a much larger argument--
in case he [INAUDIBLE].
I'll engage with that, but
I'll keep it aside for now.
If it's just the humanities
and social sciences community
that this paper is
addressing, then
we have to ask the question,
are we seriously searching
for different categories?
Is the argument only
about categories?
Or is the category also
about the framework,
and which categories are OK?
If it's only what
categories, OK, we
can look for all
different categories,
maybe we can tweak them,
we can infiltrate them,
we can adapt them-- it's
like these advertisements
in German cars-- adapt it
to suit the Indian roads.
Can we do an adapt it
to suit the Indian roles
understanding of India?
But it's not so simple.
We work with another
University of Chicago
scholar, who should
have been part
of this debate-- [INAUDIBLE],
do we walk with [INAUDIBLE],
and say, that is an
Indian way of thinking.
These universals are
all-- if you factor India
into the debate, then it's
space, it's time, it's
community.
It's universal for who?
For this caste group,
and [INAUDIBLE].
Suddenly the debate has become
the nature of universals.
So that's one problem we
have to wade through--
and again, I don't
have the time to do it.
Or do we, for
example-- and I want
to pose the counter problem--
are we saying, [INAUDIBLE]
and others, that
they have to speak.
We don't represent them.
Now, they are now
Woolf-- you know
the husband of
Virginia Woolf, who
was part of the
administration in Sri Lanka,
wrote a wonderful
little book called
The Village in the Jungle.
Which, to me, captures
the village in the jungle
as well as [INAUDIBLE].
So how does the learned
world achieve that leap
of imagination to tell the
story that, in many ways,
is superior to representations
by Sri Lankans of themselves.
So how do we negotiate
these two positions?
Now, the third
problem that I think
"The Imperialism of
Categories" deals with
is the question of hybridity.
Hybridity not of our spaces,
because Susanne Rudolph
talks in terms of modernity.
Then she concedes all
the political challenges
through universalism,
she concedes.
We can't work with
binary resources,
ask if they're effective--
that was conceded.
Conceded is the area
studies question,
conceded is the aspect
of making categories more
sensitive to their location.
But hybridity--
there is a non-West
which doesn't have the West in
it-- and the other way around.
This problem of Buddhism
in Europe, for example,
would be a problem for her.
She ends by saying, you know, if
you're wearing jeans and eating
hot dogs, that really does not
count for-- civilizations still
remains.
Does it?
I mean, does it?
Are we living in a world
where our categories must also
be hybrid to reflect
and represent
the hybridity of our lives?
And this aspect of hybridity
is missing from the argument.
So how does on escape the
imperialism of categories?
What should one do?
Should one turn nativist, and
say no, I'm not going to do it?
I'm going to only look
for native categories?
Or should one move in a
kind of hybridity direction?
Maybe try and forge
new-- forge concepts,
which have elements of both?
Or are we going to
rely on the fact
that-- we talk of the
classical awareness.
There is this rationality that
which is driving the world--
people don't just reject it
[INAUDIBLE] modernization.
But let's recognize, the
transformations taking place
in the world, are actually
moving in a certain direction.
And let's recognize that
Japan, China, India-- in India,
we celebrate too much
this India exceptionalism.
I put Japan on the [INAUDIBLE].
So what is the position to take?
And I think "The
Imperialism of Categories"
makes five political points,
but doesn't [INAUDIBLE].
DIPESH CHAKRABARTY:
Their publications
include books, such
as Against History,
Against State--
Counterperspectives
from the Margin.
Shail Mayaram.
SHAIL MAYARAM: The whole rise of
the backward castes, the ruling
middle class.
Also their book,
Modernity of Tradition,
where they're talking about the
whole modernization of caste,
and that caste has, in
terms of its new form
as political associations,
is playing now
a completely different role
in the context of democracy--
which is quite removed from the
kind of civilization or role
of caste, which was
more hierarchical.
But let that be.
Let me say that this is--
I'm really happy to be here,
and to speak about the Rudolphs.
This is the third
event, Rudolphs event,
I guess that Asha and
I have been part of.
I'd organized a memorial
meeting for Susanne
at IAC, which Dipesh mentioned--
it was called Celebrating
Susanne Hoeber Rudolph.
And we had some wonderfully
moving presentations
on that panel.
Then at the Jaipur
Literature Festival,
there was a spot
of an event called
Remembering the
Rudolphs, and that's
on the website of the
Jaipur Literature Festival.
Let me say that I've known
the Rudolphs-- first of all,
I began knowing them as
friends of my parents,
and then they were my
teachers-- the reason
I went to Chicago-- colleagues,
and friends-- and really
mentors.
And I think after
my mother, Susanne
was the person who was most
concerned that-- and keep
asking me the question, when are
you submitting your PhD thesis?
So I really deeply
mourned their passing.
Theirs was a unique
partnership, and I feel really
privileged to have known them.
I refer to theirs as
a [SPEAKING HINDI],
this is from Indian
classical music.
We also have another
term, thinking
about the idea of
[SPEAKING HINDI], question
and answer.
And very much their
presence together,
in a lot of discussions, was
something like that, where
each filled in for the other.
I'm going to basically
focus on the Rudolphs
as comparativists, and their
methodological creativity.
And I want to, first of all-- I
mean, first of all, of course,
is that their contribution
as political scientists,
and theorists, is most evident.
But the fact that they did
historical sociology, very much
in the Weberian mode, and were
given to these large scale
macro comparisons, is
something that I have found
very compelling in their work.
Also, I think they were also
political anthropologists.
And I've been reading,
recently, something
which I recommend to everybody--
Susanne Rudolph's book, called
Destination India, which begins
with their arrival in India,
in their mid 20s.
They've undertaken a
journey from Salzburg
to Peshawar, something like
7,000 miles in just $350 US,
since the vehicle is
also their bedroom,
and they've also lost, over this
journey, 10 pounds of weight,
each.
And this first part
of this book is
titled "The Year
of Arrival in North
and South India--
Rajputs, Brahmans,
and the End of the Old Order."
And there's some tremendously
interesting vignettes
in Susanne's letters.
And these letters actually
combine the two genres--
I mean, in terms of form-- the
epistolory genre of letters,
but it's also ethnography.
And it's wonderful ethnography.
Take for instance, they
have these pen portraits
of congress politicians,
both from the center
and from the States.
And there's a
Rajastan politician
called Mathura Das Mathur,
whom Susanne refers
to as the new politician.
You know, he's not the
Gandhian khadi-clad politician.
So he's dressed in a
more-- obviously influenced
by Bollywood kind of
style, and is also
a kind of maker and breaker of
alliances of different kinds.
And what I want
to also emphasize
is their emphasis on
methodological pluralism--
this is something which came up,
especially in their later work.
And I think it's for that
reason that Susanne, in a sense,
became a natural leader of
what was called glasnost
and perestroika in American
political science, which
is a kind of revolution
against the kind
of quantitative,
mathematical, game theory
oriented political
science discipline.
Now I'm just going
to focus really
in looking at them
as comparativists
on an article
which was published
in the international Political
Science Review in 2010,
it's called "Federalism--
a State Formation:
a Theory of Shared and
Negotiated Sovereignty."
Now, in this they
make the argument
that in the master
narrative of the formation
of the modern state, its
unified monopoly sovereignty
is presented as universal--
the natural culmination
of a teleological process.
And they're arguing that
the article challenges
the naturalness and
universality of that claim
by historicizing sovereignty.
They locate federalism in the
context of state formation,
rather than in the
context of what they
call definitional or
comparative federalism,
and so historiciize it in
the debate on sovereignty.
Now, federalism, of
course, as we know,
has become a particularly
important political solution
to violent societies, as well
as has generated reflection
on the post-national, and
as a possible alternative
to the international
system of nation states.
They cite the doctoral
thesis of Joon Suk Kim, who,
my impression is, was a Korean
student, for whose wedding--
he's one of the something
like 200-odd PhDs
whom they supervised.
And I remember them having
gone for his wedding.
In any case, so his
doctoral work is cited,
which challenges [INAUDIBLE]
contention, and examines
the polity of the
Holy Roman Empire,
the Swiss Confederation,
and the Dutch Republic
in the late medieval/early
modern period-- which
have been undermined,
they point out,
in the literature
on state formation,
and enlightenment
historiography.
The Rudolphs point
out in this article
that theorists and
historians have highlighted
the idea of shared and
negotiated, dispersed, divided,
and contested sovereignty.
And I quote, "India's pluralist
state and federal system
may be a better way to deal
with a multicultural society,
than a French-style
nation state.
Indeed, France now
shares its sovereignty
with 26 other EU states,
and negotiates with them
about its scope and direction.
As the EU becomes more
viable and plausible,
the accomplishments of
India's federal system
become more apparent."
Unquote.
Now, this article
makes the point
that while the
idea of federalism
and the idea of empire have
different genealogies-- one
is authoritarian, whereas the
other is based on autonomy--
both involve a sharing of power
with subordinate, parcelated,
multi-ethnic polities.
And they see Indian
history as an alternation
between the sub-continental
empire and regional kingdoms.
And they make the argument that
in this kind of alternation,
it was the imperial form
which eventually won.
This is in contrast to Europe,
where monopoly sovereignty came
to prevail the absolute state.
And in India, on
the other hand, you
had what was a more segmentary
conception of state power.
So they make the
argument-- and this
is where I am coming
to my disagreement,
and I'm going to map my
disagreement with them on some
of the arguments in
three points that follow.
They point out that this
multi-centered sovereignty
and contestation between
empire and regional kingdoms
continue through the period of
rule of the East India Company.
The [INAUDIBLE]
according to them
were autonomous and represented
a federal way of thinking.
Further, the Indian
Council's act of 1867
established a federal state,
strengthened by the [INAUDIBLE]
reforms, and the
Montagu-Chelmsford Act,
that established diarchy,
or shared sovereignty,
at the provincial level.
And it also gave
way to minorities
in Hindu and Muslim
majority provinces.
The Nehru Report and
Simon Commission Report,
they maintained, contributed
to thinking about federalism.
Now, my problem
with this argument
is that the colonial state--
and the question I'm asking
is, did the colonial state
really deepen and extend
India's experience
with federalism?
And my question is, what
about the instruments
of centralization, of paramouncy
and governmentality that
include the census,
law, revenue,
and for the
settlements, that worked
to undermine all the modes
of federal, segmentary,
and the [INAUDIBLE]
organization of sovereignty
that the Rudolphs
discuss elsewhere.
Now, the article goes on to
also talk about the congress
commitment to federalism,
the multi-law Nehru
Report, and the
Gandhi Urban Pact,
and they see the national
debate between those
who supported majority rule,
and unified sovereignty--
such as Nehru-- and
those who supported
shared and layered
sovereignty, which
derives from the regional
kingdom perspective.
Now, regarding Jinnah,
they make the point
that the congress reneged on its
commitment to share sovereignty
with the Muslim minority, and
rejected Jinnah's six points
in 1928.
But the point that
I want to push--
and this is something that
they do not raise, and do not
content with in the
article-- is that Jinnah
was asking for 33 percentage
weightage for Muslims, which
is much more than in
proportion to their population,
then population, which
was something like 25%.
And, of course, after the
cabinet mission negotiations,
the Viceroy Wavell calls
him a Frankenstein monster.
In any case, they go on to
discuss the long and short term
causes of partition.
And the long term,
they make the argument
that it was Nehru's inability to
share sovereignty territorially
in a federal system,
and I'm quoting here,
"his commitment to majority
leader in democracy uniform
citizenship and a
unified central state
stood in the way of
sharing sovereignty."
Nehru remained an
enlightenment rationalist,
who viewed religion-- Hindu
and Muslim-- as retrograde
knowledge, and
religious identity
as false consciousness.
In the short term, there
was Jinnah's intransigence
in the face of
congress unwillingness
to share sovereignty,
and Jinnah eventually
abandoned his liberal
constitutionalism
for religious demagoguery.
And that was a call for direct
action on August 16, 1946,
which led to communal violence.
Now the third area of my
disagreement is on James Todd.
And James Todd, I guess, will
be the Rudolph's last work--
it's in the press.
And I've read some
of Lloyd's pieces,
where he makes
the argument where
he contrasts Todd with Mill.
And he sees Mill as the upholder
of the centralized imperial
form, while he sees
Todd making the argument
for shared and
dispersed sovereignty,
because of his orientation,
his empathy for the Rajputs.
And so Lloyd, in his
argument, makes the point
that eventually, when
it came to empire,
it was Todd who won
out, and therefore
the areas of indirect
rule remained,
that what were called
the princely states.
My disagreement--
I'm currently working
on a book on the transitions of
Indian nationalism from the Pax
Britannica to the Pax
Americana, and I'm
making an argument about
vernacular nationalism.
And I Todd's Annals and
Antiquities of Rajasthan
was a crucial orientalist
text, which actually
begins and shapes, in very
fundamental ways, vernacular
nationalism, specifically in
the languages of Bangla, Hindi,
Rajasthani, but also other
languages like Oriya,
and so on.
And Todd's image of
the heroic Rafput
then becomes inspirational for
a kind of popular nationalism,
which inflames the literary
public sphere, and hence
my disagreement on Todd.
So thank you.
DIPESH CHAKRABARTY:
The main areas
of her interest are political
and cultural economy
of development, in modern India,
state of development in India,
identity of politics
in South Asia.
And she's held
various fellowships,
including one from the American
Institute of Indian Studies.
ASHA SARANGI: Susanne
and Lloyd Rudolph,
just wanted to share with
you that we also, at JNU, had
remembered them soon
after Lloyd passed away.
And we had a large
number of speakers,
including some of their close
friends and colleagues, who
admired their lives and works.
As Dipesh said, I
was their student,
and I spent quite some
time looking at them
as iconic teachers, as scholars,
as travelers of life and work,
together with each other.
So it's very difficult
to speak about them,
thinking that they
are no more, even
though it has been
almost three months
ever since Susanne passed away.
So what do I have
to say about them?
They said that it would be good
to speak about their work, as
well as about some way in
which we can expand and extend
their work, and think about
new issues of our times.
So I prepared my
presentation accordingly.
I was happy that Peter and Shail
spoke before me, because then I
don't have to speak about
imperialism of categories,
or federalism that I was
planning to speak in my talk.
I thought what I would do is to
talk about one category, which
actually haunts us all the time,
particularly in our difficult
times at this state-- that
is the category of the state.
And how the Rudolphs continued
to think through this category
in all their numerous writings.
Of course, not just because
they were political scientists,
but I think [INAUDIBLE]
of the category,
even though they
contested it always,
remains central to almost
all their writings.
And not just about the
state-- or Indian state, more
particularly-- but also the
idea of a state formation, which
I think is quite unique and
remarkable in their writings.
And they continue to tell
us that the state, and state
formation, in case of India
and South Asia-- and Shail
has already
mentioned that-- they
work in tandem with each other.
I have made my presentation
in three parts.
In 60 years of their life
together, 60 years of work
together, I would
like to describe them
as contrapuntal couple in life,
as well as contrapuntal work
in their life.
So the title, "Framing the
Question of India," I think,
is absolutely appropriate
to characterize their work.
And let me start with
a quote that comes
in one of their last works.
And here it goes.
"We have had long innings,
and batted our fair share
of runs in our long running
academic test match with India.
India, and Jaipur,
in particular,
have become central
to our lives."
The quote goes on to suggest
that the much that they
worked on India or learned,
was also with association
of large number of people,
with whom they associated,
and particularly with the large
number of graduate students
who worked under them--
almost 200 of them
got PhDs under
their supervision.
And I think this is the
best gathering, where
we have students from JNU,
and other places here today.
So the first
experience of theirs
which has been captured
in Destination India,
and many other places, in
which they continue reminisce.
As in when one got
talking to them,
because I spent numerous
sittings with them,
over lunches, dinners,
inside the classroom,
outside of the classroom-- and
the first road journey in 1956
was something that
they always remember.
But it is also
interesting time when
they came-- 1956 was the
time when the states were
being formed in India.
We were going through this very
interesting, amazing process
called the state reorganization.
And Rudolphs were
there to see it,
as if to feel the nerve of it.
And that journey about the
state and the state formation
continued to stay with them
till their last breath.
In all of their writings--
which are numerous.
I think if one
starts counting, it
is breathtaking-- about one
dozen books, 150 articles,
and don't forget to read the
article without the footnote.
Lloyd was very particular that
you should write long and very,
very intense footnotes.
And I was reading one essay
on state formation-- essay's
only 14 pages long, but
there are 80 footnotes.
And you can't miss
a single footnote,
because every footnote
is connected to the text.
Such a plethora of writing,
such a huge canvas,
how does one make sense?
Even if one talks about
one particular aspect, that
is about the state,
or state formation,
it's extremely
difficult and not easy.
So what I have done, I have
chosen two books, and two
articles to, in a
way, some loosely
summarize their argument about
state and in state formation.
And the two books also
have a gap of 30 years.
The one is Pursuit of Lakshmi,
which was published in 1987.
And 30 years, Lloyd edited
a volume with Jacobson,
called Experiencing the State.
And I think there,
you can actually
see the significant departure--
both in methodologic, as well
as in substance, in terms
of their understanding
about the idea of the state,
and the process of the state
formation, and
how they continued
to reflect in indicated
in these 30, 40
years of their
intellectual life.
So the first part will be
about Pursuit of Lakshmi,
second part would be
about Experiencing
the State, and third part,
I would concentrate on what
are the new areas, maybe, that
Rudolphian framework enabled
us to understand and address.
Given the fact that Experiencing
the State was published
in 2006, so there has
already been a decade--
a turbulent decade,
rather-- and much
has changed in the
last 10 years, as well.
So I'll also be
making some sense
of these 10 years, when
I talk about how to take
Rudolphs' legacy forward.
As they said,
themselves, you know
Rudolphs wrote a lot-- not
just about numerous issues,
but also wrote on
their own writings,
and they called it a
"Carrier Overview,"
which they published
in India Review,
a long, long essay in which they
have indicated that they worked
in seven different
areas, related to seven
different forms of knowledge.
And these they categorized
as modes of inquiry, theory
about political, cultural
and social change,
state formation, institutional
change, identity politics,
interpreting lives, emerging
society, foreign policy,
international relations,
inter-US relations, and lastly,
interpreting India to the
US and public intellectuals.
So this was the huge canvas
of intellectual world
that they traveled on.
Area studies were central
to their inquiries,
and they considered that it
captured a central tendency
of the method and substance of
their work on Indian politics.
But by 2003-- that is
almost from 1956 to 2003--
they had come to understand
that area studies knowledge had
become what they called
situated knowledge
in their understanding.
So they strongly argued
in their numerous works
how the diversity of
the country affected
in providing them
with differences
of conceptual categories.
So you will see that,
in their writings,
there is quite a [INAUDIBLE]
of different concepts
and categories that
they use-- it's not
just one framework with
which they have worked.
They always aimed at building
bridges between given theories,
or rather, I would say
theoretical paradigms,
and existing
empirical realities.
And in the process,
reshaping and defining both,
and not to be burdened
by either of them.
This allowed them to question
the Western hegemony of theory,
as much as to learn and
inform from their field
to dwell upon
[INAUDIBLE] to weave
into their
theoretical framework.
So when you read any
of their writings--
and I have been reading
their writings ever since I
was a student-- so there is this
very amazing complementarity
between theory and practice,
or between conceptual world
and the empirical world.
They were truly inclusive
interdisciplinarian,
as incorporating the works of
anthropologists, sociologists,
economists, historians,
and social psychologists--
a whole range of
social sciences.
And therefore, I think,
reading them also,
in some way, informs us of the
different paradigms of thinking
in social science, at large.
But it was also with nuanced
critical modes of inquiry
that they conversed with a
large number of interpreters
and analysts.
It was more like being a
consistent interlocutor,
bringing in new methods
and modes of interpretation
and forms of
knowledge, expanding
the frontiers of social
science research in India.
And this enabled them--
this kind of a huge canvas--
enabled them to be
in tune with newer
sensibilities of the field.
Let me now say a little bit
about The Pursuit of Lakshmi
the Political Economy
of the Indian State,
which has been considered as
one of their magnum opus works.
It is very comprehensive,
it covers a large canvas,
it has been used as a textbook
in many Indian universities
and abroad for the
last three decades.
It goes without
saying that it was
one of the most celebrated works
on Indian political economy
of the time.
But the book, I
would like to say,
did not have the same
degree of political punch
as modern edition.
Even though it was based on
a very detailed, descriptive
empirical world.
It is a book on the politics
of economic development,
covering the journey
of the Indian state
along different policy areas.
It is also a book on political
institutions, their growth
and decline.
And how do Rudolphs characterize
the Indian state in this book
is something that I would
like to now talk about.
Indian state in
this book-- and it
was much criticized,
challenged in several forums,
including the Journal of
Comparative and Commonwealth
Politics, which carried out
a special issue on the book.
They describe Indian state
as centrist, multiclass
equilibrium seeking,
and at once domineering,
and [INAUDIBLE] status quo,
from which some benefit more
than others, define
Green Revolution,
settling the regional
inequalities, to some extent.
And a very well-known
theory that the book gave
was a demand and
command politics.
Dominance of the state makes
class politics marginal,
according to Rudolphs.
The state, itself, is an
element in the creation
of the centrist-oriented
social pluralism that
has characterized the Indian
politics since independence,
is one of the core arguments
of the seminal text.
They also argued that the state
is a third actor in relation
to capital and labor, dominated
the organized economy,
making organized labor and
capital dependent on the state,
and marginalizing
the class politics.
And I think this came
under heavy criticism
from a large number of
scholars, at the time when
the book was published.
This, they argued, through
another concept in which they
borrowed from Clifford
Geertz, an anthropologist,
called "involuted
pluralism"-- that's
what they emphasized was that
the presence of the state
as a third actor contributes
to the marginality, not
the absence, but the
marginality of class politics,
by making the state, rather
than private capital,
organized labor what they
call principle counter player.
Organized labor,
the second actor,
also faced-- according to
them-- formidable ideological,
sectoral, and structural
constraints on its capacity
to engage in class politics.
Private capitalism, since
they were focusing more
on the idea of the state, in
the narrowing of the state
became Permit License Raj, which
was independent capitalism.
It had to rely on the
patronage and protection
of the third actor--
the narrowing state--
for its profits and security.
For them, the
post-1991 shift is one
from an interventionist
state-- that plans and directs
India's economy-- to a
regulatory state, that
attempts to constrain and
improve a market economy.
But unlike many
others, they argue
that poverty,
landlessness, on its own,
does not result in political
mobilization or protest.
Instead, these variables
need intervening agency
to translate into the more
political mobilization of forms
of protest.
In their understanding,
it is important to know
how a gradient
mobilization occurs,
and why differences in
root and conditions,
and structures of
poverty and landlessness
affect the outcome in
the form of protests.
The book is very big-- I
really cannot do justice to it
by summarizing it in few words.
But just to give you a gist
of the idea of the state,
or their understanding about
the category of the state.
Let me move to the second part
of this brief presentation,
which has to do with the book
on experiencing the state,
the edited volume.
And I think this book we really
need to read at this moment,
because we are
experiencing the state
in a very intimate manner--
particularly most of us at JNU.
It is a provocative
volume, departing
from conventional
studies on the state.
Here, the emphasis is not
on the state as an idea--
an abstraction- but the
state in its stateness,
or its construction as an
encounter in everyday life.
Not by naturalizing
and universalizing--
which I think they talked about
in many of their articles--
but by historicizing,
going beyond
the present understanding of
the state as a category itself,
throws what I would like to
say in [INAUDIBLE] terms,
a conceptual confusion.
So journey of the state, in
their writing-- from feudal,
to modern, to postmodern
times-- also they
would way has an
inverse relationship
between attention to stateness,
and attention to civil society.
This story is one of the
rise of the modern state,
in their early writings, to
the story of the modern state
in decline, in the later
years, but never about the end
or death of the state.
This, Lloyd says
very categorically
in the introduction
of this volume.
So situated framework,
according to Lloyd,
would help in experiencing the
state in a variety of arenas--
how state forms, and
manifestations are experienced
by themselves, or by
citizens, and explore
the consequences of those
experiences for politics
and society.
In this book, the idea is to
treat states like nations,
in Benedict Anderson sense,
as imagined communities.
That, they say, in
the very beginning.
It matters what and who
regularly and routinely gets
left out; how things, people,
events, relationships, are
represented; how meanings
are produced within relations
of power-- and that's where
the question of experiencing
of the state becomes important.
So in a somewhat
prophetic manner,
the book suggests that for
the foreseeable future,
the modern democratic
state remains the leading
institutional
alternative for citizens
to exert, direct,
and compel influence
over those who govern them.
It is, therefore,
not simply stayed
as high monism-- not as just
an [INAUDIBLE] state paradigm.
It is not just an a priori,
abstract context-less
rationality-- but
also, it's increasingly
ubiquitous surveillance
of what James Scott would
call legibility and control,
that limits human freedom
and threatens citizen rights.
Suggesting that the
idea of the state
has come to acquire a
certain degree of abstraction
by universalizing
and standardizing it
in terms of what the
state is, does, and means
in the discipline of
political science,
is the strength of this book.
To avoid naturalization,
therefore, they
suggest that one must
historicize the state
by locating states in time,
and place, and circumstances,
so one can be contingent
and evocative,
rather than definitive
and essentializing.
Idea of the state,
then, and how it
has changed in more than
half a century, from 20th
to 21st century-- and I
think Rudolphs were there
to see this long [INAUDIBLE]
transition and transformation
of the Indian state from
1956 to 2016, I would say.
They later defined by
globalization process,
challenging both the
sovereignty and territory--
the two cardinal principles
on which the idea of the state
rests-- both nationally
and internationally.
Now the sates, in
this book, they say,
have become problems
rather than the solution.
Having given us such
sophisticated and critical
canvas of thinking, through
the complexities of the world,
and of South Asia
and India around us,
I hope we continue to engage and
be inspired through their work
and lives.
And it is here that I
would like to suggest
that their work shows new
and substantive categories
of analysis, critical
interpretative
modes of inquiry, concepts
formation-- many concepts
we know from their
writings-- and directions
for research for the alternative
ways of understanding
for the younger generation.
Let me come to the last
and the final section,
which I think it is suggested
that we should talk about,
is about the future research.
How does Rudolphian paradigm,
if there is one, would help us,
and if there are certain
issues and concerns
that their work did not
cover-- maybe this time, now,
to think about it.
So I've listed some of them,
and I'll share those with you.
I think a lot has changed in
the field of state formation,
both in terms of the
conceptual apparatus,
in terms of the
methodological pluralism,
in terms of the
empirical reality.
So if one is
talking about rights
and entitlement-based
discourses,
one also needs to situate
the whole concept of rights
and entitlement
discourses and practice
within the particular
regimes-- within the context
of certain textures of
epistemic and political violence
that actually goes parallel
in those discourses.
Whether it is a question of RTI,
MGNREGA, food security, UID,
or service delivery
mechanism, one
needs to foreground
how there is a broader
structure of epistemic and
political violence involved
in it.
That's the first area,
I think, where one
can begin to think about it.
Second, I think,
and which I think
Rudolphs continue to return
to in different ways,
is the idea not
just of the state,
but idea of the nation state.
Or, should I say, the idea
of nation and nationness,
to be more precise,
which is actually
gazing us these
days so much more.
Third aspect, or third
frontier of future research
could be-- on which Lloyd wrote
a beautiful piece long back
in EPW, about media
and cultural politics,
about the corporatization and
mediatization of the state.
And it's this that actually
haunts our imagination,
and us as critical
citizens of this country--
how does this
state get affected,
or can one go beyond this
corporatization, mediatization
of our lives?
Fourthly, the increasing violent
intervention of the market--
along with the state--
how does that impact
the democratic politics,
the imagination
of the democratic politics
in so many different ways?
Fifthly, the question of
the governmentalization
of the Indian state, I think,
is extremely important,
particularly that we in
very difficult times,
where the concept of
governmentalization
makes sense to us more and
more on day to day basis.
Interfaced between political
economy and cultural politics,
which I think, also, remained
very dear to Rudolpohs' work
in so many different
ways, but we
can see how the state has
become oppressively intrusive
in the daily lives of
peoples and communities,
and how the vilification of
individuals and communities,
some are seeing as suspect, has
become much more in our times.
So the question of
surveillance, question
of legibility
exercised by the state,
is something to think about.
The nature and form of
violence, nature and form
of a fascist state that seems
to be on the rise in India
at the moment, needs
to be grappled with.
Intra-state,
inter-state disparities
which have deepened the
hierarchies of caste, class,
gender, and region, and in
turn have also given rise
to ethnic identities
and aspiration,
is something that reverberates
in their writings,
particularly in
Pursuit of Lakshmi.
They use the term, cultural
bond, as form of categories,
and they used to
explain the context
that they were studying.
This could be another useful way
of using different categories,
newer categories, newer
forms of analysis,
that could come by using
culture bond categories.
And I would just
like to end by saying
that the two short essays
that were published
in New Republic, one was
titled, "Modern Hate:
How Ancient Animosities
Get Invented,"
and another was, "Organized
Chaos: Why India Works."
I think that a lot
of the students
here, you should be going
back and reading these two
essays-- in fact, all of us
should be reading these essays,
because it seems the
idea of "modern hate"
has come back in a very
disturbing way to us.
The idea of involuted
pluralism, of shared layer
divided sovereignty
that they talked about,
the idea that multi-national
states like Russia and India,
which they considered as
exemplars for what is possible,
is further worth exploring.
So what is happening at
the moment, events at JNU
and other universities,
is something
that I think Lloyd
and Susanne would
have been deeply
disturbed, but also would
have given us some way out.
Because it's one work, which
we do not much talk about,
which they did, which they wrote
on university education, which
is a masterpiece, I think, for
their time and for our time
now.
Their edited volume is
called Education and Politics
in India-- Studies in
Organization, Society
and Policy, and it was
published in 1972, 44 years ago.
There are essays on almost
all major universities--
University of Baroda,
[INAUDIBLE], Bombay--
JNU doesn't figure,
because JNU was yet not
formed at that time, or
was just being formed,
just about to finish.
So in this, I think because
these students have come from
JNU, I thought I would just
end with this, in this,
what they have shown, in the
1960s and '70s, that students,
more than workers,
shape the national--
They were scholar adventurers,
they were iconic teachers,
they were organic
intellectuals--
if I could call them-- they
were very careful researchers,
that you can see
in their writings.
They were great
political ethnographers,
something that we
should create as a field
of political ethnography.
And most of all, they were
exceptional, extraordinary,
exemplar, contrapuntal
intellectual couple.
Thank you.
