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.