HEGEMONY AND SHADES OF ACTUALISM IN RAYMOND WILLIAMS

Actualism is a philosophical way of understanding and conceiving existence beyond binaries of origin and end. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines it as “the philosophical position that everything there is — everything that can in any sense be said to be — exists, or is actual. Put another way, actualism denies that there is any kind of being beyond actual existence; to be is to exist, and to exist is to be actual.” In his essay on the conceptual underpinnings on hegemony, Williams attempts to transcend the views on the topic by Gramsci and others. He addresses the ideas proposed by Gramsci and delineates that in effect “hegemony goes beyond 'ideology'” (109). In other words, the parameters of subordination and mastery can exist beyond the realm of pre-existing notions of its existence.

The formal pattern available for ideology negates the consciousness of hegemony. “Hegemony is then not only the articulate upper level of 'ideology', nor are its forms of control only those ordinarily seen as 'manipulation' or 'Indoctrination '. It is a whole body of practices and expectations, over the whole of living...” (110). In other words, Williams suggest a myriad of actualist ways through which the discourse of hegemony could be imposed upon the subordinate classes. Williams provides clues to where and how one may experience the hegemonic authority of the dominant classes. He mentions that even in the way one spends energy and conceives notions of identity and self, hegemonic undercurrents exists.

Historic ways of control already exist in popular imagination. However, the new form of control that infiltrate in the abstract and shadow domains of electoral landscape must be evaluated with clarity. This clarity involves cognition and labelling from the part of the subject. In other words, clarity on the premises of reality is crucial in the contextualization of hegemony. According to Williams, domination and subordination exists as taken for granted in the modern landscapes such as “modern areas of 'leisure' and 'private life'. More specifically and more actively than older ideas of domination, with their trivializing explanations of simple 'manipulation', 'corruption', and 'betrayal'”(110). The spectrum of visibility has changed and has impacted in an intense experience of this binary. This intensification and shifting of focus in domination and subordination may even alter permanently the “the whole question of class rul e, and of opposition to it”(110).   

An actualism of political philosophy is in action here. Within this context the pattern of existence of hegemonic systems can take any variant format. However, “[t]he major theoretical problem, with immediate effect on methods of analysis, is to distinguish between alternative and oppositional initiatives and contributions which are made within or against a specific hegemony (which then sets certain Units to them or which can succeed in neutralizing, changing or actually incorporating them) and other kinds of initiative and contribution which are irreducible to the terms of the original or the adaptive hegemony, and are in that sense independent”(114). In other words, when contributions against hegemony are initiated the process of undermining “original or adaptive hegemony” is underway.

Responses and the proliferation in modes of opposition may hinder the hegemonic systems. The proliferation of counter narratives is perhaps what Williams suggests in order to undo the impacts of dominator-subordinate binary.    

WORKS CITED

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: Penguin Books, 1991. Print.

Menzel, Christopher, "Actualism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2015 Edition),

Edward N. Zalta (ed.). web . 29 Jul 2015.  <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2015/entries/actualism/>

A Revaluation of the Totalitarian Scheme of the Gramscian concept of ‘Hegemony

It was Marx who, by his reductionist interpretation of the relationship between base and superstructure as constituting a one-way process, provided succour for Antonio Gramsci to develop the idea of ‘hegemony’ as an active social process articulating the forces of domination and subordination. If ‘hegemony’, in its traditional sense, meant a form of political domination, with Marx, a social dimension got attached to it. However, it was Gramsci who extended its theoretical potentiality so as to mean the social practice of consensus-seeking through veiled forms of coercion. Raymond Williams, in his phenomenal work Marxism and Literature, argues that although Marxist philosophy is largely indebted to Gramsci for the reassessment of a concept which was labouring in epistemological nebulousness, Gramsci overshot the mark by saturating the concept with a totalitarian perspective that made it a blanket term for concepts like ideology, consciousness and superstructure. Williams not only disentangles the concept of hegemony from homologous ones but also rearticulates a whole discourse of social processes that embed hegemonic practices.

Williams states that hegemony is characterized by a mutual osmosis between social, political and cultural forces. Gramsci’s translated writings contain no definite accounts of hegemony. It is more or less clear that he means by it a social process in which a set of people give the tacit consent to the dominant class to rule over them. Though this definition appears too theatrical at first, it will start making sense when we consider the manner in which such consent was extracted. Rather than through the use of direct force which would characterize Gramsci’s conception of political society, hegemony exerts its manipulative potential through ensuring conformity of thought, values, perceptions and judgements to the existing social order. It should necessarily be differentiated from ideology which is more abstract and theoretical. If ideology subsumes only a particular class outlook or world-view, hegemony incorporates the complex ensemble of lived experiences, relationships and activities existing in varying forms of power relations and fluid limits. Ideology is an articulate and systematically expressed system of recognizable beliefs and values that naturalize the existing social order as culturally preeminent and desirable. The multitude of connotations that ideology has engendered is a result of its having been used with undifferentiated reciprocity with the Marxist notions of superstructure. There is a need to distinguish between ideologies that are ineluctable to a certain social structure and those that are arbitrary or willed. Ideology deserves to be recognized as a psycho-sociological force that structures human masses, becoming the terrain on which they move and acquire consciousness of their relative positions. It is interesting to note that Marx obviates the distinction between a particularly puissant political conviction and a material force in his A Contribution to the Critique of Economy in a way analogous to what Louis Althusser does in Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses. Following the Marxian revitalization of ideology, Althusser says:

            I shall therefore say that, where only a single subject is concerned, the existence of the ideas of his belief is material in that his ideas are his material actions inserted into his material practices governed by material rituals which are themselves defined by the material ideological apparatus from which we derive the ideas of that subject...Ideas have disappeared as such (insofar as they are endowed with an ideal or spiritual existence), to the precise extent that it has emerged that their existence is inscribed in the actions of practices governed by rituals defined in the last instance by an ideological apparatus.(158-59)

 Gramsci’s concept of hegemony is an interplay between domination and subversion on an ‘epochal’ scale. It needs to be readjusted to the ‘historical’ scale for it to disengage itself from the blemish of essentialism. While Marx believed that changes in base caused the radical reorganization of the superstructure, Gramsci contends that changing socio-economic circumstances do not of themselves ‘produce’ political changes; they only set the conditions of making such changes possible. Instead, what is crucial in realizing those changes are the degree of consciousness of political radicalism and the mutual combativeness of opposing forces involved. In fact, it is from the point of view of the oscillating tensions of an ideological struggle that the concept of ‘hegemony’ developed.

According to Raymond Williams, Gramsci’s concept of hegemony is too simplistic for the following reasons:

1. It has a totalizing reach which obfuscates the inevitable demarcations between related Marxist terminologies.

2. It fails to take stock of on-going processes of socio-political interplay and risks becoming homeostatic.

3. It conceives of only the set forms of domination exercised by the ruling class in place of its modern equivalents of complex social reorganizations.

Williams argues that any static definition of hegemony fails irredeemably to acknowledge it as an on-going social process.It not only a dynamic relation between domination and subordination, but also an interstitial zone that constantly remodifies and reconstitutes itself. Williams argues that the Gramscian model of counter-hegemony and alternative hegemony constitute a contradiction as they work contrapuntally to his totalizing definition of 'hegenony.' Williams concludes that there is a risk involved in reducing all political and cultural initiatives to hegemonic practices. Rather what is required is a dissociation of hegemony from an a priori totalitarian perspective. Such a move can validate hegemony as a clearly-defined cultural construct at the same time owning its allegiances to concepts like ideology and superstructure.

Works Cited

Montag, Warren. Louis Althusser. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan,                               2003. Print.

The Marked territories of ‘Theory’ and ‘empiricism’ in Social Sciences: A study of Dalit Participation in Social Sciences

A recent statistical data shared in social networking sites as a part of the campaign against the ban of Ambedkar study Circle group in IIT Madras showed that 98.59% of the Professors in IIT Madras belonged to the Forward Caste which also marked a total of 96.5% faculty members belonging to the forward castes. This includes the post of Assistant Professors as well (entry level post) which has got the specifications of caste reservation. The data is quite shocking as it counters the brahmanical ‘Anti-Reservation’ notions. This also brings in the picture of the apolitical group in Delhi including AIIMS and IIT Delhi students who rallied in the name of ‘Youth for Equality’ against reservation. This scenario in India is cross-examined by Gopal Guru in his article“How Egalitarian are the Social Sciences in India?” considering the case of Social Science discipline in India. Gopal Guru points out that there is a hierarchical divide between the so called theoreticians and the empiricists in the discipline of Social Sciences in India. He also critiques the intellectual representation of Dalit issues by the non-dalits.

            It can be seen that the discussions and conferences held within the Indian academic circles in the name of Dalit Studies are everything within the paper. The conferences present the Dalit historiography from a non Dalit point of view; read out the paper prepared within a cubicle referring to certain articles from the West and pass judgments. This situation highlights the minuscule representation of the Dalit community in the social science academic groups where the number of ‘TTB’ is very high in number. Social Science discourses in India is decided and disciplined by a certain sect of people according to the canons. Gopal Guru argues that social science practice in India “is terribly exclusive, brahmanical and undemocratic in character.” He puts forth the need of an Egalitarian principle in the discipline in India. Guru points that such a principle can reject the belief that theory is a part of the natural order. It will also counter the conventional notion of considering theory as something which is possessed by a certain sect of people clearly marking territories. When a Dalit chooses theory, there he is mocked by the defenders of Dalit theory in the public sphere. How can the discipline be marked as a democratic and justified one there? This exclusionary, brahmanical mode Guru believes can be stopped by the principle of Egalitarianism. Egalitarian principle can help to reject the brahmanical notion of presenting dalit or bahujans as epistemologically dumb. It offers a promise.

             Guru also conducts a perusal of the divide between the empiricists and theorists. The former category participates in the discipline through their empirical data and the latter is considered as a category born with a theoretical spoon. Egalitarian principle can offer a promise to such empiricists who are denied entry in the academic field. The poverty of political theory is because of the absence of a strong social base of it. The entry of Dalits in the academia is hindered because of their labour process where they can’t possess a definite reflective capacity. Dalits who may have had reflective capacities could not develop them either because of these circumstances. They were pushed across generations into occupations where the possibility of imagination and innovation is zeroed. This created a lack of confidence and a “ceaseless struggle for survival” for them. Guru also cites instances of people leaving jobs and fellowships for temporal reasons. Meanwhile the Brahmins were modern education recipients and were able to migrate to foreign nations to pursue higher education. Only the group with a firm economic security can pursue philosophy and theory which does not guarantee a temporal surety either. Dalits should definitely undo their history of such ceaseless struggles and understand theory as an inner necessity. Making the discipline more inclusive will help Dalit scholars come forward with real life experiences rather than the supposed theoretical intelligence monopolized by a certain class. Guru opines that they must make a conscious moral choice to use their sense of freedom.

            There is a need of restructure in the discipline which should reject the conventional mode of considering the empiricist as a mere data collector. Dalits choose empiricism over theory is because they think their real life experiences will enrich the activity and that doing theory can lead to arrogance. The discipline should be more open and should reduce the gap between the theory and reality. The absence of Dalits in the Dalit studies academia will create a discipline which has no social ground. The reverse orientalism and the colonialist practices happening in the country can only be countered through the compulsory move of selecting theory as a social necessity by Dalits. Academia must go beyond the exhibitionist practices of solidarity and extend the campaign for a ‘real’ solidarity. This can bring in more real life theories and a firmly ‘rooted’ discipline. This can also help to rule out their justifications of not entering into academia including the one that Theory leads to arrogance. The essay by Gopal Guru brings in a strong and reflective critique of the exclusive and biased nature of the Social Science.

            But what resonates throughout the essay is the superiority given to the field of theory over empiricism. This notion can again be seen as brahmanical. How can one consider ‘empirical data’ or experience below ‘theory? When Guru calls out Dalits to come out of their empirical data collection to academic seats, he is again trying to normalize Dalits within the traditional construct. Dalits have to develop a theory in their own language rather than sticking to the Eurocentric notions of ‘Cambridge’ and ‘Oxford’.  Guru underlines ‘Oxford’ and ‘Cambridge’ as privileged institutions’. Over emphasis to ‘theory’ makes it limited to the academic creamy layer and makes it inaccessible to the general public. Empirical data and fieldwork within the society can make the discipline a more democratic one. What theorists should also focus is to encourage ‘empirical data’. Alice Walker points so in her “In Search of our Mother’s Gardens”, “They waited for a day when the unknown thing that was in them would be made known; but guessed, somehow in their darkness, that on the day of their revelation they would be long dead” (402). She reminds how western feminist theories intentionally talked about the problems white women faced in their Victorian dressing rooms and left out black women who were not included in the category of “being creative”. Walker cites the example of her mother who nurtured a big flower garden and kept her spirits alive. The garden was a record of her creativity which was confined to the space of her house and children. Here Gopal Guru’s reflections need a similar critique as he draws a definite territory for ‘theory’ and intelligence considering ‘empiricism’ to be inferior. It was experiences beyond theory which documented theories like Queer Theory. Theories become inclusive of all experiences only when there is strong empirical foundation, the same social base which Gopal Guru termed as ‘absent’.

            

Can the Dalits Think?

Gopal Guru’s seminal essay “How Egalitarian are the Social Sciences in India?” is a serious introspection on the discipline of social science in India. The agrahara nature of the discipline and the binary divide between the theoretical Brahmins and the empirical shudras highlight the academic reality of the present society. The implementation of egalitarian principles as the solution for this “varna” system itself is a theoretical hypothesis, which has to be proven in the course of time. Since the political structure of the academics is still under the spell of brahmanical canons, the implementation of egalitarian principle is a myth.

Though the implementations of egalitarian principles in the discipline might provide normative direction, the question of the acceptability of this equalitarianism is still doubtful. Since the academic canon of the nation is still under the theoretical “thantras” of the TTB, effect and efficient implementation of egalitarianism is doubtful. The question who can implement this egalitarianism is relevant here. Since, the politics of academic structure is still against the dalits, the implementation of egalitarianism is not a cakewalk.

In the words of Gopal Guru, there is anger and annoyance. He likes to ascribe the right to theory exclusively to the dalits since they are the direct experiencers. According to him the non-dalit “messiahs” who claim to be concerned and supportive about the dalit miseries do actually initiate the reverse orientalism in the background. A historical scrutinization of the past reveals many such “muknayaks” who claimed to be the representatives of the dalit experience. The revolutionary writers in the Telungu in the 1970s tried to the representatives of the poor and dalits, but in reality, they were highlighting and protecting the elitist cultural practices. Their masquerades of concern and support were disclosed only when the dalit writers and activists came to the front. In this regard Gopal Guru’s argument is serous and has broader political dimension. The petty politics of the country and the emergence of various NGOs really seem to have an enlightened interest in the dalit experience. The dalit experiences and the social life becomes the political weapon in the nation. The political condition of the present India is the most apt example. The illicit interest of the NGOs in the dalit experience also must be seen with skeptical eyes.

However, a blind rejection of non-dalit theorization of dalit experience is also childlike. The observations of Sundar Sarukkai in his essay “Dalit Experience and Theory” are very important in this respect. Since one cannot author one’s experiences, one cannot claim it also. “The experience comes to the experience not as a subject who has some control over that experience but as one who will have to live with that experience” (Sarukkai 4045). Therefore, the person who experiences can neither direct his experience nor reject it unless it is vicarious experience. Sarukkai Further observes, “One’s experience may not be enough to validate our right to have a say about the conceptual world which describes that experience” (4046). The theorization of dalit experience by the non-dalits can also be from the humanitarian considerations.

The obstinate stand that only “lived experience” has the moral right to theorize about dalit experiences is a parochial vision. Both the Habermasean distance from the real experience and the Levinasian embrace for the lived experience are different ways of doing theory. The German Holocaust is theorized with an attached and detached self in both Levinas and Habermas.

Gopal Guru’s observation of the social and material conditions necessary for the development of reflective ability is marginal. The question, who is the authority that decide the benchmark for the reflective capacity is relevant. The reflective capacity and the intellectual ability of dalits are still measured by the elitist TTB and their benchmarks and touchstones are often far removed from the ground reality. The language code, body language, protocols, etc. becomes the benchmarks of intellect for the dalits. The most important support the dalits needed is not the social conditions for reflective capacity but the social conditions for the acceptance. There must be a social and material condition where the reflections of dalit intellect is equally accepted and recognized. Without acceptance, every intellectual activity is numb. The observation that “dalits . . . ultimately failed to develop an intellectual capacity to reflect” (Guru 5004) must be restructured as dalit’s intellectual capacity was undermined.

Guru’s cajoling of the theory itself brahmanical. For him, theory demands enduring moral stamina for successfully resisting the temptation for the temporal gains. In highlighting the enduring capacity of the Brahmins and the moral power to renounce the temporal gains, Guru’s argument is similar to Louis Dumont. His statement “most dalits are vulnerable to the attraction of temporal power that does not flow form theoretical practice but from what are considered to be the more glamourous and easy spheres of mobility” (5006) is obviously elitist.

The typical dalit experience in the post-independence India is still as brash as the pre-independent India. In the abstractness of the constitutional provisions and the penal code acts, the ground really of dalit experience still struggles with the untouchability and other marginalization. Even within the safe zone of reservations and constitutional provisions the dalit life undergo serious dialectic with the society. So, the empirical reality of typical dalit experience is really important for the dalits. With this empirical reality only dalits can attain this “divine” theoretical position. If theory for the TTB is something that is attained through the abstract “thapasya”, the theory of the dalits is rooted with their everyday life and experience. The empirical documents of the ground realities of dalit life and experience are  a constant reminder of the dalit social life.

The colonial experience led to postcolonial theory, the gender experience is the beginning of feminist and queer theory, the black experience led to black aesthetics, the diaspora led to diasporic theories. However, coming to dalit experience, the day-to-day reality is something meagre and mean. Their empirical knowledge is something that is impure. Therefore, the distinction, the theory and empirical knowledge itself is a “varna” divide. For the  dalits there cannot be any distinction between theory and empirical knowledge. They are the two sides of the same coin. The quest of dalits for the glamorous and easy spheres of temporal power must be seen with this ground reality of Indian social life. Coming to the society around them and the unique experience they have to confront, the empirical knowledge is more appropriate than the theoretical abstractness. So, the empirical knowledge is the initial step for the formulation of theory.

LOOKING AT DALITS: THEORY AND PRACTICE.

Gopal Guru’s essay titled How Egalitarian Are The Social Sciences in India? traces the privileged nature of social sciences in India and critiques its egalitarian practice. The point where he starts is the divide between the Dalits and Brahmins, former being the inferior mass and the latter theoretical pundits with high reflexive capacity. Egalitarianism, here, is important as it provides the moral opportunity and capacity to interrogate the exclusionary nature of the social sciences and may disturb the epistemological imperialism. The question of the exclusion of dalits from the practice of social sciences is all the more important and the hope he has is that somehow egalitarianism may help the cultural groups whose entry into the cultural fields was prohibited by social forces in India. The politics of making boundaries and the use/misuse of the social/caste origin in the practice of the social sciences may be questioned by the egalitarian practices, he says.

The lack of egalitarianism may lead to the demolition of confidence in people from marginalized groups who are practising social sciences and humiliate them through epistemological patronages. Guru says that practise of social sciences in India is still hegemonic/brahminical and undemocratic in nature; still dalits have not been able to develop theory/ambition because of certain structural and socio-historical reasons and the main reason as he says is that, dalits were excluded from the organic labour and such a social context. Even modernity too excluded dalits from the spaces of imagination and political independence gave never spheres of job but not the conditions of reflexivity.

The myth that shudras were born from the legs and hence are deficient in thinking is the basic reason why Manu denied them right to education and another reason is the idea that Brahmins created Indian philosophy. Gopal Guru traces how this hegemonic Hinduism is still continuing in modern educational practises and says that Dalits are excluded from all these spheres in the western and eastern worlds. He points that modern institutions like, UGC and ICSSR are more bureaucratic and discouraging for Dalits, hence denied access to knowledge and its articulation.

The major site of dalit resistance is poetry and to this essay poetry has no capacity to universalize the particular and particularise the universal. The solution to get out of this hegemonic sphere is doing serious theory and the dalit claims of authentic experience and denial of theory in terms of this may not lead them further. They need theory as a social necessity to rearticulate the knowledge systems which treats them as empirical. The scholars who are doing theory are from outside dalit experience and this creates the inability to transgress the hegemonic symbols. To the last what he emphasises is that dalits must make a moral choice to use their sense of freedom for understanding and reflecting on the dalit experience and should test the tenacity of the theory on the basis of how much influence these theoretical formulations enjoy in the popular mentality.

The reading that Guru did is true but many of these ideas are abstract and contradictory. The major problem comes when you start theorizing the term Dalit; it is not in the same way as Gramscian Subaltern. Dalit is derived from Marathi language connoting the state of ground down or depressed and it is in 1970’s the term was defined in a constitutional way, where it denoted the peasants, workers, women, tribal and ex-untouchable castes who together are seen to challenge the upper-class Hindu Brahminical hegemony in national political scene after independence.  It was in 1972; The Dalit Panther Manifesto included the members of scheduled castes and tribes, neo-Buddhists, the working people, the landless and poor peasants, women and all those are being exploited politically, economically, and in the name of religion, to the Dalit grouping. This is the first problem in doing theory, which group is to be addressed and how? The problem is more of the political freedom and not its advocations.

When Jyotiba Bhule flagged off the anti-caste movement in Maharashtra the efforts were to uproot the caste-system, the modern dalit movements also should do the same. The psyche of modern India has that feudal residues which is to be erased first and it is to be done by more political activists and not by being part any modern institutional practises. Ambedkar says:

There are in my view two enemies which the workers of this country have to deal with. The two enemies are Brahmanism and Capitalism.... by Brahmanism I mean the negation of the spirit of liberty, equality and fraternity. In that sense, it is rampant in all classes and is not confined to the Brahmins alone though they have been the originators of it.

            Ambedkar also wanted the people to reject the system that dominates them; it can be seen in his choosing of Buddhism, where he wanted to make a new identity and wanted people to do the same. Buddhism with its rejection of god, soul, ritualism and casteism fitted to the political and secular aspirations of Dalits. Again the construction of Knowledge itself was critiqued by him when talking about the three stages of Indian History. The first refers to the Vedic age which represents a barbaric age, the second is the Age of Buddhism spanning the Mauryan and Magadha empires- which marks the golden phase of civilisation; and the third is the India of Hindu counter revolution associated with Manu. Ambedkar’s critique gives much importance to the middle age, where there was high development and perfection. The embrace of Buddhism by the Dalits will be a symbolic re-enactment of the historical break and reclaiming the past and finding a lofty level of culture. Buddhism was one of the instruments of social and political revolution that Ambedkar had in mind.

            On the other hand dalit literature is not a homogenous one, embracing all the problems and groups; these are only subjective portrayals of struggle for survival. The readers are made to admit the veracity of these experiences and the works produced becomes authentic portrayal of their life/struggle and it represents the community destroyed by several hegemonic structures. More than doing theory it is easy to embrace literature and activism. As drawing margins becomes more and more conscious dalits have to embrace more activism than doing academics, here I am not denying the sphere of education but importance must be given to more political freedom. More than these knowledge systems it is the public psyche which haunts the dalit experience. The development of DHRM in Southern Kerala can be read in this background.

            The writings/readings of dalit life and experience become problematic when it is rearticulated by someone else, like C.K Janu’s Mother Forest. The authenticity is lost when it is retold and read outside the dalit experience. To the last the sphere of knowledge itself is problematic, like in Mother Forest Janu talks about a lady who knows each and every plant and herb in the forest and its use. The perception/use of knowledge becomes different in this context, then how can the social sciences negate empiricism?  Emancipation should remove the classifications of the hegemonic and the affairs of the social systems and it can be attained by serious interventions in the spheres of the public and knowledge.

      

Assignment 1 Vanisree V R

A Brief Note on “How Egalitarian Are the Social Sciences in India?”

                        In his essay “How Egalitarian Are the Social Sciences in India?” Gopal Guru examines the functioning of egalitarian principle in the practice of Social Science in India . Mr. Guru argues that the practice does not seem to be on the ground of egalitarian principle since it exhibits difference as inferiorised empirical social science and the privileged abstract social sciences. Or in other words, Mr. Guru perceives that the practice in Social Sciences as divided into emperical shudras and the theoretical Brahmins.

                        The first section of the essay deals with the justification of importing egalitarian principle for critiquing the practice of social science in India. The cultural hierarchies which play a major role in the academic field are discussed in the section. The second section discusses the condition that seems to adversely affect the growth of reflective capacity within the intellectually deprived group; Dalits and OBCs. The third section is an argument around the moral stamina as the necessary condition for doing theory.  The fourth section is the criticism of the theoretical claims that have been made on behalf of Dalit by Non – Dalit.

Egalitarian Principle and Social Science Practice

                        Gopal Guru makes a close observation of Egalitarian principle, which in its primary stage of importation and practice, was absolutely necessary and democratic. He provides several reasons for its importation in the academic circle and thereby justifying its inevitability. It brings out a sense of moral responsibility of the practitioner of Social Science to claim her/his authenticity. But, at the same time, it interrogates epistemological imperialism and hierarchical division of theoretical and empirical approach to Social Science. The absence of egalitarian principle would create negative effect on Dalits and adivasis since the hegemonic practice in Social Science would lead to caricature of these communities as epistemologically dumb and push them into empirical ghettoes. The absence would also crush the confidence of the margianlised. Hereby Mr. Guru questions whether the egalitarian principle have been used in  Sociasl Science practice in India. He states that there have been lamentations over the standards of Social Science practice, especially of theory, not over its authoritative and intimidating character.

            Mr. Guru argues that a canonical practice mode is being followed in the circles by the self appointed juries who would decide what correct practice is but however they lack the authenticity since it is borrowed from the west unreservedly.

            Social Context of Intellectual Hierarchies

                        Here the material context that seems to adversely affect the growth of reflective capacity being shared.  Though knowledge is generated via labour process, reflective ability is developed only in certain kinds of labour process.  The labour process involving imagination and innovation will develop the reflective ability of the agent.  Innovative knowledge system, but, cannot be created by the Dalits in their pertaining social set up; thus resulting in the failure of intellectual capacity to reflect. Dalits were forced to avoid any kind of intellectual reflective ability in their field of occupation. Ghettoization laid to the loss of confidence in developing theoretical potential. For reflective capacity Dalits in needed freedom; from immediate context which was constraining an also from the trap of struggle for survival. Financial security was not there.  There was a lack of intellectual and cultural resources in the community of Dalits. 

            Hierarchical Past Survives in the Cultural Present

                        According to Mr. Guru, it is epistemological closure - due to historically yielded cultural inequalities - which prevented Dalits from speaking in an abstract universal language.  The writings of Indian and Foreign Scholars well located TTB were fortunate receivers of modern education from the imperialists. They travelled abroad for empirical research.  Canonization of discourse with the help of well – defined ground rules, procedures and protocols stopped Dalits/Bahujan from entering theoretical ‘agrahara’. This further did not elevate to higher levels of complexity and formulation and approximation of experience. The creation of language became an effective mean to restrict the entry of Dalits into academic circles.  Mr. Guru puts forward certain examples of public harassment that Dalits had to face in public seminars. 

Moral Conditions of Reflective Capacities

                        There requires, what Mr. Guru calls ‘moral stamina’ to resist temptations for temporal gains. Moral stamina includes discipline, patience and endurance for not becoming vulnerable to temporal gains. Study and mastering of theory requires all these qualities. But, he observes that Dalits have tendency to get attracted to studies with glamorous and easy spheres of mobility. Anyhow, Mr. Guru does not have any intention to prevent choice of Dalits to do empirical research. However, he finds that Dalits feel no need of theorizing their experiences since they claim full length knowledge of what ‘reality’ is.  They also feel that theory makes one arrogant and egoistic. The claim is that their lived experience is rich enough.  In this context of approach to studies, Mr. Guru proposes that there is a need to reflect organically on their own experience from going back  and lost in their unique experience.

            Dalits Need Theory as a Social Necessity

                        Mr. Guru argues that in order to confront reverse orientalism,  Dalits need theory.  This is to alter and subvert the usual hierarchal order of inferior empirical self and superior theoretical self.  This also leads Dalit to become subject of their own thinking rather than becoming the object of somebody else’s thinking.  The Non- Dalit intellectual representation anyways leads to Jajmani relationship.  Theoretical elevation of Dalits seems to stand through what he terms as ‘Muknayaks’ or the Non-Dalit representators of Dalits. Mr. Guru suggests an advance in theoretical approach which is necessary for Dalits to have a revolutionary understanding and politics. He opines that Dalit theory must be critical of the limitations of Marxist and liberal method. 

Dalits Need Theory as Inner Necessity

                        Mr. Guru proposes several reasons for why Dalits need theory as inner necessity. First of all it is required in order to reflect on the Dalit experience and to reach theoretical heights from walking out from Dalit experience, which is a practice usually seen in the academic circles.  He states that it is helpful for gaining scholarship and social cause. Also he observes that there is a necessity of translating of technical content which would prevent the orientation – empirical inferiority and theoretical superiority. He feels that this would also helps to expand  social base of Social Science’s conceptual landscape.

                        The role of egalitarian principle in the practice of social sciences does favour equal opportunity for all to grab their choice of study even if it is empirical or theoretical. However, Dalits/Adivasis/OBCs do not seem to get elevated in the theoretical arena which is capable of expressing their subjective position as well as experience in the society in an effective way. Mr. Guru feels the need of becoming the ‘subject’ rather than the object of their experiences for which the Dalits, with ‘moral stamina’, have to get engaged in theory. He advocates the need of subverting the ‘orientalism’ of theoretical and empirical stands in the social science practice.

assignment 1 veena s

Pariahs of Academic Research: Double rejection of Dalits within Social Sciences

Does the capacity for abstraction supersede the realm of experience in Dalit practise of social sciences? If not, is the Dalit/bahujan intervention in empiricist study deterring of their formal ingress into cognitive sciences? These are some of the questions that arise from a meticulous reading of Gopal Guru’s article “How Egalitarian Are the Social Sciences in India?” In the Indian context, the title itself is a rhetoric one as the plummeting number of Dalit students entering research academics indicate. Guru himself enumerates the reasons for the slump all the while advocating injection of egalitarian principle into the social science practise in India. Further, reservations for theoretical knowledge above empiricist study depict a double rejection of the Dalit researchers within academic field of social sciences in India.

The Constitution was adopted by India on 26^th January 1950 with a view to eliminate the wide gulf of inequality that existed between the forward and the backward castes in the country. 65 years later, the lacuna is still unfilled. Gopal Guru, professor of Political Science at the Jawaharlal Nehru University is talking about this division in the academic field of Social Science. Caste discrimination had proliferated into the academic world dividing the practitioners to theoretical Brahmins and empirical shudras. The cultural hierarchies relegate the Dalit/bahujan researchers to the lowest and most overlooked field in practise of social science in India. To counter this, Guru calls for a fundamental revolutionary change in ideology/perspective founded on egalitarian principle.

Guru feels that the social sciences practise in India is exclusionary in nature leaving behind the Dalit masses engaged in empirical studies. The theoretical aspect of the subject is monopolised by the brahminical theoreticians. Thus he feels that the egalitarian principle provides opportunities for interrogation of caste exclusionary propaganda followed in the field. Lack of reflective capacity has forced the dalits to confine to empirical research. In social science, theoreticians are considered academically superior while empiricists as inferior. Gopal Guru describes practices, prejudices and exclusionary politics at play in social science practise in India by the high caste to forbid the low caste masses from pursuing career in theoretical field. Even those who play a messianic role for the dalits betray a patronising attitude towards the unprivileged. This leads to nothing but a condition similar to ‘epistemic violence,’ to quote Spivak’s term. Hence the writer demands a total revamp in the academic attitude of the Dalits and ask them to initiate a more intensive involvement in doing theory. This theory should be based on invaluable ethnic, socio-historic resources that the community possesses. The author has rightly and most judiciously pointed out the need for an egalitarian principle in the field of social sciences and the challenges faced by dalit/bahujan researchers from caste Hindus.

However, a close perusal highlights several contradictions of ideas within the essay. Gopal Guru points out the scope of reflectivity after studies when he says “scholarships do not guarantee the jobs are so crucial for any reflectivity” (5005). But he seems to be overlooking the opportunity or need to grow epistemic capacity from the educational level. Colleges and universities rarely admit dalits for serious academic pursuits in research fields and most of the time, professors in the universities do not find them suitable research material. Hence their cognitive capacities do not find a proper outlet or favourable conditions of development. Without tackling such negative tendencies in the research level, it becomes difficult or even preposterous to ask them to turn to theoretical fields to claim themselves. Discounting on cognitive development at educational level would result in lesser competence among Dalit students.

While explaining moral conditions of reflective capacities Gopal Guru makes a rather controversial statement that the dalits lack moral stamina for “successfully resisting the temptation of temporal gains that have the capacity to de-motivate a person from pursuing the spiritual” (5006). He finds fault with the underprivileged for attempting to pursue a career or academics in the empirical field. To counter these, he exhorts the Dalits to go to established institutions like Oxford and Cambridge but not end with them. Dalit theorisation should go beyond University frameworks and trace out new arenas of academic research.

The author also finds fault with the dalit involvement in aesthetic subjects for cognitive advancements or assertion of their ethnic integrity. He feels that only utilitarian subjects like social sciences or general science could rescue them. He finds theory as the appropriate tool to present, validate and reinforce their experiences. This argument seems rather aggressive for he does not give adequate credits to works like Bama’s Karukku and the like. By discounting aesthetic writings Guru is in a way refuting prospects of body politics which essentially form part of Dalit/tribal experience. This can pose challenges of ghettoisation or even identity politics within Dalit academic approach. It would be like providing the attackers of Dalit minorities with a stick to beat them with.

Gopal Guru throughout his observation seems to be dissecting and understanding conditions and concepts in binaries and privileging one over another (much like Derrida’s theory of logo-centrism). Instead of privileging theoretical studies over empirical studies, Dalit researchers could generate a new academic culture which is a conglomeration of both. One can never say empirical study is irrelevant in the field of social sciences. What is required is a plane for dialogism between the two fields of research. Using the invaluable resources of their specific ethnic, socio-historic tradition, the academicians belonging to Dalit/bahujan communities should cult a new path which is based on integration and assimilation, sustainable development and genuine academic fervour.

Comments on How Egalitarian Are the Social Sciences

Comments on “How Egalitarian Are the Social Sciences in India”

                                                             Antony George K.

Gopal Guru’s essay titled “How Egalitarian Are the Social Sciences in India” discusses the privileged status of theory in the field of social sciences. It is a critique of hegemonic and elitist practice of abstracting for the sake of erasing the everyday reality of the oppressed in the social science discourses. As a functioning democracy India has to overcome the exclusionary discourse of theory as merit and experience as empirical. In one way, Guru’s essay reflects the modern European philosophical contention between the empiricists and idealists that still continues without much change on both sides.

            Guru’s argument for “moral opportunity” is a call for ethical redistribution of cultural capital. His concern over “the shrinking social base” of political theory points out the widening gap between the think tanks and the commoners. The underlying historical context of belittling productive labour as sinful operates in a nuanced fashion in the academic world. The varna system in the academies tag some as empirical shudras and brand others as theoretical Brahmins. As Kancha Ilayya put it in his Turning the Pot, Tilling the Land the role of physical labour in the construction of all sorts of knowledge must be recognised by all. The impurity imposed on manual labour and the taboo over progress cannot be overcome without modernity. Yet entering into modernity is so painful, and not an easy task for the dalits.

            Unlike Ilayya’s plea for the recognition of manual/physical/ unskilled labour Guru stands for “freedom from immediate context” or the bare life of the toiling masses. (Does it sound somewhat apologetic and self devaluating?). Similarly Guru’s plan of subverting the existing academic varna system by joining the field of theory by the way of “walk out from the dalit experience” may not be affordable for the majority of dalits. How many dalits could go to Cambridge or Oxford after Ambedhkar?

            Ground rules, procedures, protocols that are restrictive in nature affect the underprivileged in the academies and sometimes drive them away from the world of education. As Guru observes the bridgehead methodology that silences the alternative ideas always severs the inseparable connection between theory and practice. The exclusionary nature of social science theories is the result of the financial exclusion also. However, finding new community resources, for instance the financial assistance from abroad can help the dalits move forward in the casteist academic world. Yet a critical approach to education itself is the need of the hour. Marx’s words: the educator himself should be educated make sense in the field of social sciences also.

            Guru’s description about “feeling nervous” in the intimidating face of theory reminds one of Toni Morrison’s account of sitting in an American classroom where the word nigger is pronounced quite often making her terrified and ashamed of herself. The very word theory may detach the dalit scholar from the field of research and make her afraid of her lack of theory. Is theory high? Can theory survive itself? Is there a theory of everything and where do the theories come from are a few questions arise here.

            Guru’s central argument that dalits need theory as a social necessity overlooks the possibility of alternative social sciences that can counter what he termed “reverse Orientalism”. Spiritual practises of dalits and the teachings of great dalit leaders of renaissance like Tukaram, Poykayil Appachan, Iyothee Thass and others can be termed theory that doesn’t look like theory. Were they less important than the theories of TTB? Dalit intellectuals can develop theory, but the issue is whether they will get recognised?

            The difference between a theoretical Brahmin and empirical shudra is the difference between riding a horse and describing a horse. As Charles Dickens illustrated in Hard Times, the bare back rider fails to give a definition of a horse while the rote learner gives it instantly and becomes a brilliant student. That is the limitation of classrooms in the Victorian England, but it is valid in social sciences in India. The parallel is not unexpected or farfetched. It is the outcome of colonialism both internal and external. The role of dalit intellectuals is to sabotage the privileged status of theory and make a theory of social inclusion. In spite of the mediated speeches and sanctioned ignorance the voice of the dalits is audible to all. And that voice needs no patron, neither rhetorical appreciation.

            The premise of egalitarianism that made this essay possible is contentious in recent sociological theory. As an enlightenment value of Europe and its modernity, the idea of equality underwent a lot of changes recently. The fall of regimes that promised equality and the rise of unequal societies undermined the principle of equality. Yet the struggle for human dignity continues. Guru’s essay is more connected to that.