Reframing Colonialism and Modernity: An Endeavour through Sociology and Literature
Gurminder K. Bhambra
In the early- to mid-twentieth century, debates on the need to differentiate “indigenous“ knowledge production from colonial hegemonic discourses were unsurprisingly linked to wider movements for decolonisation and liberation. The Lucknow School of Economics and Sociology, for example, founded in the 1920s under the leadership of Radhakamal Mukerjee and D P Mukerji, sought to engender “a spirit of self-reliance“ and creativity through the medium of social science that would dovetail with what others such as Tagore were doing in the realm of culture,or Gandhi in the realm of politics,as part of the overarching project for national liberation (Joshi 1986: 1456). They critiqued the use of colonial approaches and concepts to understand social and political issues in India and, instead, argued for the development of “an alternative approach or model which corresponds to Asian conditions as well as traditions“ (Joshi 1986: 1460). They believed that attempts to understand India through “Eurocentric concepts derived from the pre-industrial stage of European socio-economic evolution“ were not only inadequate to the task at hand, but had also had disastrous consequences in the operationalisation of policy based on such understandings (Joshi 1986: 1464). What was needed, as Mukerjee argued in 1922, was to recover alternative values from the history of Indian civilisation that would enable the reconstruction of conceptual frameworks adequate to the reality of contemporary Indian society (Joshi 1986; see also Patel 2010). Mukerjee argued against the “the narrow sectional view of human history which ignores the lives and life-values, the experiences of more than half of the human race“ and strongly urged recognition of the “social constructions and organisations [of the Asiatic peoples] which are in essence not less real and significant than the Graeco- Romano-Gothic consciousness with its works and experiences“ (quoted in Joshi 1986: 1460). This call for intellectual independence and the development of alternatives has found echoes through the decades and across national and disciplinary boundaries. It is now time for these echoes to become a clarion call for a transformation of knowledge (and its production). Rethinking the relationship between colonialism and modernity through the expanded archives discussed in this article requires us to call into question the legitimacy and validity of the previously accepted parameters of knowledge. It is not sufficient simply to add this new knowledge to standard interpretations, stir, and continue as normal, as Trouillot (1995) warns; rather, the new knowledge should provoke us to rethink and transform our existing understandings to make better sense of this new data. Mohanty’s work, broadly, and specifically in the edited volume discussed here, is particularly pertinent in this aspect of knowing the world and, in knowing the world, seeking to reshape our understandings of it. The intent of his realist and cognitivist project within literature is profound and in its interdisciplinary ambition has the potential for transforming standard sociological understandings of the modern and the relationship of colonialism to the same. Pages: 1 2 3 4 |
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Essays in this Forum
Rethinking the Global South
by Mukoma Wa Ngugi From Indian Literature to World Literature: A Conversation with Satya P. Mohanty by Rashmi Dube Bhatnagar and Rajender Kaur Asia in My Life by Ngugi wa Thiong'o The Global South and Cultural Struggles: On the Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Organization by Duncan Mceachern Yoon The Fault Lines of Hindi and Urdu by Sanjay Kumar Reframing Colonialism and Modernity: An Endeavour through Sociology and Literature by Gurminder K. Bhambra Varieties of Cultural Chauvinism and the Relevance of Comparative Studies by Tilottoma Misra Literature to Combat Cultural Chauvinism: A Response by Shivani Jha Is There an Indian Way of Thinking about Comparative Literature? by E. V. Ramakrishnan Modernity and Public Sphere in Vernacular by Purushottam Agrawal West Indian Writers and Cultural Chauvinism by Jerome Teelucksingh Oral Knowledge in Berber Women’s Expressions of the Sacred by Fatima Sadiki |