Modernity In Indian Social Theory

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.

Analytically Examines The Emergence And Development Of Modernity And Postmodernity In West And India And Argues That The Classical And Modern Sociological Theories Have Become Irrevalent To Study The Present Capitalism Society. A Pioneer Effort To Introduce The Relevant Theories To Indian Students, Teachers And Policy Makers.

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.

This volume is primarily a self-presentation of Indian sociologists and their recent theoretical and empirical research endeavors. It provides an opportunity for diagnosing what Indian sociologists have identified as the most important issues for various social communities. The book also helps reproduce the idiomatic interpretation of modernization in the colonial and postcolonial contexts. And, last but not least, it offers a convenient point of departure for reflection on Western Europe and its international role-modeling function. The book offers an excellent review of universality, rationality, and diversity in post-colonial India, demonstrating that it makes sense to translate the Western world of modernization into the categories and images of Indian capitalist modernization. By approaching the determinants, mechanisms, and consequences of this translation so comprehensively and insightfully, it directs attention towards European modernization rationale and helps take stock of European sociological achievements.

This Is A Collection Of Essays Which Offers Insight Into The Normative And Ideological Underpinnings Of Indian Sociology In The Context Of Its Growth And The Challenges That It Has Encountered In The Realms Of Theory And Methodology. These Issues Have Been Analyzed In The Perspective Of Western Sociology And Its Own Theoretical And Methodological Evolution.

One of the country’s most eminent sociologists, J.P.S. Uberoi inaugurated a unique approach in the study of Indian sociology and social anthropology. He makes a case for a form of independent Indian sociology in relation to the principal philosophies and sociological theories of the Western world, by adopting Gandhi’s plea for swaraj in thought. This volume brings together eighteen papers by Uberoi which highlight his pioneering thought. Originally written between 1968 and 2013, these papers are divided thematically into three groups. The first examines the eternal political war of imperialism versus nationalism as it related to the academic pursuit of knowledge in the university. The second group begins with questions of social science and philosophy and concludes by discussing the working lives of the industrial worker (in the West) and the household farmer (in the East). The third group explores the project of finding grounds for a concept of a plural vernacular Indian modernity. The volume represents an emphatic statement by the author that the time has come for India to bid for its place in the universal free world of the intellect.

How may we characterize contemporary society in a world so complex? Can looking at the diverse paths followed by various cultures in the modern world generate useful new social scientific typologies, or must a different set of questions be posed in this era of globalization? What, in short, is the nature of modernity? These are some of the questions addressed by the contributors to Multiple Modernities.Following the theme in an earlier work edited by Shmuel Eisenstadt, Public Spheres and Collective Identities, this book challenges conventional notions of how the world has changed politically, socially, and economically. The authors consider the meaning of modernity in contexts as different as communist Russia, modern India, the Muslim world, Latin America, China and East Asia, and the United States. Miscegenation, transnational migration, technological developments, and changing communications have shifted the ground on which theories of society were once built; political system, diaspora groups, religion, and ""classical"" theories of modernity have to be reconsidered in a new context.Authors and chapters include: S.N. Eisenstadt, ""Multiple Modernities""; Bjrn Wittrock, ""Modernity: One, None, or Many? European Origins and Modernity as a Global Condition""; Johann P. Arnason, ""Communism and Modernity""; Nilfer Gle, ""Snapshots of Islamic Modernities""; Dale F. Eickelman, ""Island and the Languages of Modernity""; Sudipta Kaviraj, ""Modernity and Politics in India""; Stanley J. Tambiah, ""Transnational Movements, Diaspora, and Multiple Modernities""; Tu Weiming, ""Implications of the Jrise of 'Confucian' East Asia""; Jrgen Heideking, ""The Pattern of American Modernity from the Revolution to the Civil War""; and Renato Ortiz, ""From Incomplete Modernity to World Modernity.""Written in clear and non-technical language for both a scholarly and general audience, this volume confronts the problem of just what constitutes the common core of modernit