Modernity in Indian Social Theory
Modernity in Indian Social Theory

Author: A. Raghuramaraju

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2010-12-06

Total Pages: 221

ISBN-13: 0199088365

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Unlike the West, India presents a fascinating example of a society where the pre-modern continues to co-exist with the modern. Modernity in Indian Social Theory explores the social variance between India and the West to show how it impacted their respective trajectories of modernity. A. Raghuramaraju argues that modernity in the West involved disinheriting the pre-modern, and temporal ordering of the traditional and modern. It was ruthlessly implemented through programmes of industrialization, nationalism, and secularism. This book underscores that India did not merely the Western model of modernity or experience a temporal ordering of society. It situates this sociological complexity in the context of the debates on social theory. The author critically examines various discourses on modernity in India, including Partha Chatterjee’s account of Indian nationalism; Javeed Alam’s reading of Indian secularism; the use of the term pluralism by some Indian social scientists; and Gopal Guru’s emphasis on the lived Dalit experience. He also engages with the readings on key thinkers including Vivekananda, Aurobindo, Gandhi, and Ambedkar.

Understanding Indian Society
Understanding Indian Society

Author: Samarth Modku Dahiwale

Publisher:

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13:

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Despite A Distinctive History Of Conflict From The Times Of Buddha To The Contemporary Ambedkar, Social Scientists Have Made Non-Brahman Traditions A Part Of Broader Hinduism. In British India, Although A Number Of Social Reformers Had Launched Anti-Systemic Movements To Challenge The Hegemony Of Upper0Caste Hindus But There Are Several Issues Of Identity, Power, Conversion, Gender Inequality And Social Justice Which Have Not Been Addressed Properly. And, Since The Last Decade, The Militant Hindus With Their Extent Of Aggression To Implement The Agenda Of Pan-Hinduism. It Is In This Backdrop, An Attempt Is Made In This Book To Reveal The Other Side Of The Story. The Non-Brahmanic Perspective Perceives The Practices Which Are Non-Vedic, Non-Shastric, Non-Castiest, Non-Patriachal Or Having Equalitarian Character, And A Number Of Attempts Made To Bring About Change/Transformation Towards The Egalitarian Order Through Protest/Resist/Action Movements Against The Brahmanic Hegemony. Accordingly, The Attention Is Focused In This Book On The Concepts Of Nation And Village, The Roots Of Untouchability, Anti-Caste Movements, Conversion Movements, And Caste Inequality In Relation To Educational And Social Policies. The Book Will Prove Useful For The Students, Teachers And Scholars In The Disciplines Of Sociology, Politics, Social Anthropology And History. Contents: Introduction- S.M. Dahiwale; Understanding Indian Society: The Relevance Of The Perspective From Below- T.K. Oommen; Nation, Anthropology And The Village- Surinder S. Jodhka; The Broken Men Theory Of Untouchability- S.M. Dahiwale; Perspectives Of The Anti-Caste Movements: Subaltern Sociological Visions- Gail Omvedt; Decoding Dalitism: Reflections On Dalit Literature In Maharashtra- S.P. Punalekar; Conversion As Subversion Of Hierarchy- Ambrose Pinto S.J.; Conversion, Empowerment And Social Transformation- S.M. Michael; Brahmanical Social Order And Christianity In India- Lancy Lobo; Educational Stratification, Dominant Ideology And The Reproduction Of Disadvantage In India- Padma Velaskar; Confronting Caste Inequality: What Sociologists Must Do To Reorient Social Policy- Satish Deshpande.

Perspectives on Indian Society and History
Perspectives on Indian Society and History

Author: Hetukar Jha

Publisher: Manohar Publishers and Distributors

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 136

ISBN-13:

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The Essays In This Volume Present The Contributions Of Distinguished Social Scientist And Historians With Insightful Discussions And Analysis Of Caste, Class, Tribe, Their Inter-Relationship And Of Region As Well As The Approach Of Regional History. Topics Include Caste In Itself, Society And Culture Of The Tribal World In Colonial Eastern India, Varna Ratnakara And Its Ethnography.

Historical Sociology in India
Historical Sociology in India

Author: Hetukar Jha

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-05

Total Pages: 145

ISBN-13: 1351563688

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This book is a comprehensive study of historical sociology and its development, especially in the Indian context. It looks at the works of Indian sociologists and analyses their approaches in terms of book-view (normative) and field-view (descriptive) history. The volume: critically appraises reports of empirical surveys conducted during early colonial rule including those by H. T. Colebrooke, Francis Buchanan, William Adam; engages with the works of sociologists such as M. N. Srinivas, Ramkrishna Mukherjee, Louis Dumont, Nicholas Dirks, Bernard Cohn, Yogendra Singh, D. N. Dhanagare, A. M Shah, T. K. Oommen, among others; and shows how historical perspective has been adopted in understanding aspects of Indian society villages, castes, traditions, socio-cultural change, education, peasants and their movements, etc.Presenting an alternative idea of social reality, this book will deeply interest students and scholars of sociology, social theory, and social history.

Postmodern Perspectives on Indian Society
Postmodern Perspectives on Indian Society

Author: Shambhu Lal Doshi

Publisher:

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13:

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Postmodernity proposes the idea that society is no longer governed by history or progress. A postmodern society is highly pluralistic, differentiated, and diverse. It rejects all grand narratives such as Marxism, Gandhism, and rationalism, which are propagated as universal explanations of society. Postmodernity meets the challenges given by modernity. In India, modernity's benefits are cornered by high caste Hindus, elites, political leaders, and higher classes. The subalterns, the marginals, and the disadvantaged masses have been left high and dry. It is the modernity which has created religious, academic, and market fundamentalism and an age of dark dogma. In Indian society, modernity has brought damage to various ethnicities. In this book, the author applies the perspective of postmodernity to the interpretation of increasingly changing contemporary Indian society. With this, he looks afresh at family, caste, village, culture, and religion. From a sociological perspective, fundamentalism is given a thorough examination. The author courageously establishes that Indian society is a postmodern society.

Rethinking the Local in Indian History
Rethinking the Local in Indian History

Author: Kaustubh Mani Sengupta

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2021-08-12

Total Pages: 178

ISBN-13: 1000425525

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This volume looks at the concept of the ‘local’ in Indian history. Through a case study of Bengal, it studies how worldwide currents—be it colonial governance, pedagogic practices or intellectual rhythms—simultaneously inform and interact with particular local idioms to produce variegated histories of a region. It examines the processes through which the idea of the ‘local’ gets constituted in different spatial entities such as the frontier province of the Jangal Mahal, the Sundarbans, the dry terrain of Birbhum-Bankura-Purulia and the urban spaces of Calcutta and other small towns. The volume further discusses the various administrative as well as amateur representations of these settings to chart out the ways through which certain spaces get associated with a particular image or history. The chapters in the volume explore a variety of themes—textual representations of the region, epistemic practices and educational policies, as well as administrative manoeuvres and governmental practices which helped the state in mapping its people. An important contribution in the study of Indian history, this interdisciplinary work will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of science and technology studies, history, sociology and social anthropology and South Asian studies.

Contemporary India
Contemporary India

Author: Satish Deshpande

Publisher:

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13:

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Globalisation, Hindutva and Mandal agitation have transformed India's social landscape over the past few years. Re-examining the country in the light of these effects, the author questions why, in some respects, the country is so keen to modernise, yet remain in the past on other issues.

New Perspectives in Indian Science and Civilization
New Perspectives in Indian Science and Civilization

Author: Makarand R. Paranjape

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2019-08-12

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 0429534353

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This book examines key aspects of the history, philosophy, and culture of science in India, especially as they may be comprehended in the larger idea of an Indian civilization. The authors, drawn from a range of disciplines, discuss a wide array of issues — scientism and religious dogma, dialectics of faith and knowledge, science under colonial conditions, science and study of grammar, western science and classical systems of logic, metaphysics and methodology, and science and spirituality in the Mahabharata. This collection of essays aims to evolve a framework in which science, culture, and society in India may be studied fruitfully across disciplines and historical periods. With its diverse themes and original approaches, the book will be of interest to scholars and researchers in the fields of the history and philosophy of science, science and religion, cultural studies and colonial studies, philosophy and history, as well as India studies and South Asian studies.

Dalit Studies
Dalit Studies

Author: Ramnarayan S. Rawat

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2016-04-07

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 0822374315

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The contributors to this major intervention into Indian historiography trace the strategies through which Dalits have been marginalized as well as the ways Dalit intellectuals and leaders have shaped emancipatory politics in modern India. Moving beyond the anticolonialism/nationalism binary that dominates the study of India, the contributors assess the benefits of colonial modernity and place humiliation, dignity, and spatial exclusion at the center of Indian historiography. Several essays discuss the ways Dalits used the colonial courts and legislature to gain minority rights in the early twentieth century, while others highlight Dalit activism in social and religious spheres. The contributors also examine the struggle of contemporary middle-class Dalits to reconcile their caste and class, intercaste tensions among Sikhs, and the efforts by Dalit writers to challenge dominant constructions of secular and class-based citizenship while emphasizing the ongoing destructiveness of caste identity. In recovering the long history of Dalit struggles against caste violence, exclusion, and discrimination, Dalit Studies outlines a new agenda for the study of India, enabling a significant reconsideration of many of the Indian academy's core assumptions. Contributors: D. Shyam Babu, Laura Brueck, Sambaiah Gundimeda, Gopal Guru, Rajkumar Hans, Chinnaiah Jangam, Surinder Jodhka, P. Sanal Mohan, Ramnarayan Rawat, K. Satyanarayana

Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age
Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age

Author: Susan Bayly

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2001-02-22

Total Pages: 448

ISBN-13: 9780521798426

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The phenomenon of caste has probably aroused more controversy than any other aspect of Indian life and thought. Susan Bayly's cogent and sophisticated analysis explores the emergence of the ideas, experiences and practices which gave rise to the so-called 'caste society' from the pre-colonial period to the end of the twentieth century. Using an historical and anthropological approach, she frames her analysis within the context of India's dynamic economic and social order, interpreting caste not as an essence of Indian culture and civilization, but rather as a contingent and variable response to the changes that occurred in the subcontinent's political landscape through the colonial conquest. The idea of caste in relation to Western and Indian 'orientalist' thought is also explored.