Indian intellectuals
Peter Ronald De Souza writes in the Indian Express on the challenges of the Indian intellectual, and how they deal with the issues confronting them and the nation.
The first is the ‘if you are not with us then you are against us’, or what can be provocatively called the ‘camp follower’ syndrome, which divides the world of ideas into distinct camps — black and white, good and evil, right and wrong. Each side is infused with missionary zeal and its sole purpose is to vanquish the other, the enemy. All means are legitimate in this battle. There is no place for ambiguity here, no space for tentativeness, or the possibility of error, or even worse, the heretical thought that the other may actually have a point. This is the defining practice of the Left intellectuals in India and so, while it may have opened up many and valuable new vistas of understanding, it has no patience with dissent or intellectual openness. These are the enemies of an open society. It is indeed ironic that the religious and extremist Right adopts the same scornful attitude. Truth here is the big casualty. Truth is not important. Politics is.
At this juncture, I want to open a new front. While the intellectual exchanges between the communists and the Hindu nationalists have received some attention, little academic scrutiny has been given to the disjunction between precept and practice of the Lohiaite socialists. Adorning themselves with the language of samajwad and secularism, the Lohiaites have given us a socialist government (sic) in UP that has sanctioned even bigger SEZs than West Bengal, that has promoted family rule in UP from which the Congress can learn a thing or two, that has privatised the state in a manner akin to the Soviet oligarchs, and all in the name of socialism. It would be nice to have a critical commentary on the link between Lohiaite ideology and its political practice by a socialist intellectual. But perhaps that is asking for too much.
The second is what can be referred to as ‘the moment is not opportune’ syndrome where critical comment, asking inconvenient questions, and challenging established orthodoxies, are to be avoided since it will aid the enemy. Let me call this the ‘strategist syndrome’, where truth is trumped by a strategic calculus. The truth can be dangerous. It can be misused. Timing, here, is important. The inconvenient data, the necessary product of any intellectual enquiry, must be kept out of the public domain lest it strengthen the campaign of the other side. So while US imperialism in Iraq must be rightfully condemned, one must be silent about Baathist tyranny, and while Hindu majoritarianism in India must be rightfully opposed one must say little about Muslim fundamentalism. Let’s ask ourselves the question: why was there not a significant campaign on the Imrana case where the woman was raped by her father-in-law, as a result of which some local cleric declared her not ‘pure’ for her husband, a judgment that was supported by the well-known seminary, Darul Uloom at Deoband, by Mulayam Yadav and the All India Muslim Law Board? Here was a case that could have been a Rosa Parks case for us in India. Rosa Parks changed the history of civil rights in the US. Imrana could have done that for women’s rights in India, for building a more decent society. But we pulled our punches, lest our outrage be used by the Sangh Parivar. What is sauce for the goose, obviously, is not sauce for the gander. On this issue, of not compromising with the truth, Khushwant Singh stands out as exemplary, unbowed by the death threats of the militants during the years of turmoil in Punjab.
The third is what can be called the ‘comprador syndrome’ according to which Indian intellectuals adopt a different disposition when dealing with overseas academic institutions than they do in India. They make time, write papers on short notice, mentor young scholars, adjust curiosities to suit the projects of these institutions. This is particularly galling since the same intellectuals will not devote time to their own students, will decline seminar invitations from Indian institutions, will be more harsh and critical in their response to papers of local scholars than they are with overseas scholars, and will join research projects with overseas institutions on terms which are blatantly asymmetrical. Here truth is trumped by glamour. C’est la vie, monsieur.
The fourth is the ‘poverty of imagination’ syndrome where intellectuals adopt an idiom and participate in a discourse which is fashionable in the West ignoring all the while the local and the vernacular. That it is imitative has been said before. It is charged with having no engagement with the social and cultural imaginary of India. This is indeed a pity because India is perhaps one of the most fertile fields for social science scholarship. You can work on local level issues that are multi-dimensional and you can be absorbed in issues that have civilisational scope. For example, it is unfortunate that we have not done to our epics what the West has done to theirs. If Ulysses Unbound can be the title of a book by Jon Elster, which can look philosophically at the issue of rationality, pre-commitment and constraints, would it not be fascinating to have a book titled Yudhisthir’s little lie: Why the chariot dropped only by six inches to look at the issue of political truth. But unfortunately we still do not have the intellectual culture to support such scholarship. We do not have miles to go before we sleep, but miles to go before we wake.
The first is the ‘if you are not with us then you are against us’, or what can be provocatively called the ‘camp follower’ syndrome, which divides the world of ideas into distinct camps — black and white, good and evil, right and wrong. Each side is infused with missionary zeal and its sole purpose is to vanquish the other, the enemy. All means are legitimate in this battle. There is no place for ambiguity here, no space for tentativeness, or the possibility of error, or even worse, the heretical thought that the other may actually have a point. This is the defining practice of the Left intellectuals in India and so, while it may have opened up many and valuable new vistas of understanding, it has no patience with dissent or intellectual openness. These are the enemies of an open society. It is indeed ironic that the religious and extremist Right adopts the same scornful attitude. Truth here is the big casualty. Truth is not important. Politics is.
At this juncture, I want to open a new front. While the intellectual exchanges between the communists and the Hindu nationalists have received some attention, little academic scrutiny has been given to the disjunction between precept and practice of the Lohiaite socialists. Adorning themselves with the language of samajwad and secularism, the Lohiaites have given us a socialist government (sic) in UP that has sanctioned even bigger SEZs than West Bengal, that has promoted family rule in UP from which the Congress can learn a thing or two, that has privatised the state in a manner akin to the Soviet oligarchs, and all in the name of socialism. It would be nice to have a critical commentary on the link between Lohiaite ideology and its political practice by a socialist intellectual. But perhaps that is asking for too much.
The second is what can be referred to as ‘the moment is not opportune’ syndrome where critical comment, asking inconvenient questions, and challenging established orthodoxies, are to be avoided since it will aid the enemy. Let me call this the ‘strategist syndrome’, where truth is trumped by a strategic calculus. The truth can be dangerous. It can be misused. Timing, here, is important. The inconvenient data, the necessary product of any intellectual enquiry, must be kept out of the public domain lest it strengthen the campaign of the other side. So while US imperialism in Iraq must be rightfully condemned, one must be silent about Baathist tyranny, and while Hindu majoritarianism in India must be rightfully opposed one must say little about Muslim fundamentalism. Let’s ask ourselves the question: why was there not a significant campaign on the Imrana case where the woman was raped by her father-in-law, as a result of which some local cleric declared her not ‘pure’ for her husband, a judgment that was supported by the well-known seminary, Darul Uloom at Deoband, by Mulayam Yadav and the All India Muslim Law Board? Here was a case that could have been a Rosa Parks case for us in India. Rosa Parks changed the history of civil rights in the US. Imrana could have done that for women’s rights in India, for building a more decent society. But we pulled our punches, lest our outrage be used by the Sangh Parivar. What is sauce for the goose, obviously, is not sauce for the gander. On this issue, of not compromising with the truth, Khushwant Singh stands out as exemplary, unbowed by the death threats of the militants during the years of turmoil in Punjab.
The third is what can be called the ‘comprador syndrome’ according to which Indian intellectuals adopt a different disposition when dealing with overseas academic institutions than they do in India. They make time, write papers on short notice, mentor young scholars, adjust curiosities to suit the projects of these institutions. This is particularly galling since the same intellectuals will not devote time to their own students, will decline seminar invitations from Indian institutions, will be more harsh and critical in their response to papers of local scholars than they are with overseas scholars, and will join research projects with overseas institutions on terms which are blatantly asymmetrical. Here truth is trumped by glamour. C’est la vie, monsieur.
The fourth is the ‘poverty of imagination’ syndrome where intellectuals adopt an idiom and participate in a discourse which is fashionable in the West ignoring all the while the local and the vernacular. That it is imitative has been said before. It is charged with having no engagement with the social and cultural imaginary of India. This is indeed a pity because India is perhaps one of the most fertile fields for social science scholarship. You can work on local level issues that are multi-dimensional and you can be absorbed in issues that have civilisational scope. For example, it is unfortunate that we have not done to our epics what the West has done to theirs. If Ulysses Unbound can be the title of a book by Jon Elster, which can look philosophically at the issue of rationality, pre-commitment and constraints, would it not be fascinating to have a book titled Yudhisthir’s little lie: Why the chariot dropped only by six inches to look at the issue of political truth. But unfortunately we still do not have the intellectual culture to support such scholarship. We do not have miles to go before we sleep, but miles to go before we wake.
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