Abstract
There has been a thickly documented complaint about the lack of theorisation in social science in India. At a more mundane level, one hears liturgy of lament about the absence of play with theories in the scholarship in South Asia. Among other reasons, this has been due to the formulaic reliance on the given theoretical-conceptual frameworks as well as academic training that disables the ability to undertake intellectual risk. Arnab Chatterjee’s book is a timely intervention with the theoretical ambitions, presenting a sophisticated engagement with a vast body of theories, philosophy and attention to a novel issue. The novelty of issue pertains to the interrogation of private, presence or absence of relation with personal, and a revisiting of the idea of public. A nuanced understanding of the divide between private and public, with an inclination to personalism, a relatively under-theorised issue of enquiry is an abiding feature of the book. Taking a refreshingly phenomenological tour, Chatterjee ferrets out personal from the pre-modern (the classical Greek) as well as modern (inclusive of colonial intellectual endeavours) in the midst of the predominant binaries of private and public. It amounts to an argumentative construction of ‘the pure politics of dirty hands’, which may be familiar to the philosophers, but mostly ignored by the political scientists and sociologists. In fact, the book on the whole is a good pretext to show the slavishness of the political sociologists insofar as understanding of the personal is concerned. This leads to a realisation, to be put simply, that personal is maintained in emotional reactions, malice, treachery, invectives, inter alia. A fairly large trope of oral tradition, selectively touched upon with reference to the Bengali tradition of kabirladai in this book, finds a resonance in the exchange of letters between Mahatma Gandhi and Motilal Nehru on the issue of alcohol consumption. The personal vis-à-vis dirty hands at work in the public realm gains in legitimation in the modern political liberalism too. As a brute force in Peircean sense, it is a pure politics of dirty hands, which enables expression of power in the acts of judgement. It is indeed an efficient sleight of hand that Chaterjee uses to execute his theoretical imagination. This may however annoy many of the votaries of theorising without confiscating, arguing without deceiving. This is most acutely felt in an apparent defence of Machiavelli, idea of pure politics, usages of a De Sade, inspiration of a Nietzsche. This is also vivid in a linear understanding of a complicated neo-Kantian theorist, Max Weber. But this certainly paves the way for an unearthing pure politics qua the dirty hands in various spheres, including academia.
In order to indulge in an act of wondering, this is legitimate to think whether sophistication of theorising essentially comes from the discursive detour, unlimited parentheses and cramming of ideational threads. However, one does not want to hold the author responsible for everything. At times it seems the copy editor of the book failed to fulfil the requisite, or the publisher induced a hasty delivery due to the interventions of the marketing team. Though too superficial, the jacket image of the book too reeks of poverty of aesthetics, an aspect unfortunately associated with the ways of doing theories. Even though it is an act of theorising in a somewhat theoretically parched landscape that is social sciences in South Asia, does it have to be in the framework similar to that of celebrated predecessors elsewhere? Should the phrase ‘new perspectives’, aptly adoring the title of the book, not enable the act of theorising to explore alternative ways, creatively deviant style and winsome simplicity of an intellectually decolonised theorist? These are some of the questions that may haunt a reader of this fairly exciting work. As a sort of defence, the author does not seem to be convinced of the ‘alternatives’ in another regards. While reading the contributions of the Hegelians in Calcutta, such as Brajendranath Seal and Hiralal Haldar, in face to face with Hegel along with Bankimchandra Chatterjee, Rammohun Roy, and even Keshabchandra Sen, the author arrives at a conclusion. Ominous enough, as it says, ‘the story of secular modernist-objective-intelligent helping that is symptomatic of Hegelian civil society then fails in the colony…the impossibility of a theory of an alternative modernity, I think, lies here. It can be shown, therefore, why self-conscious attempts to find an alternative modernity are perhaps bereft of such a possibility, partly because there the unconscious narrative—against all the intentions of its agents—will tell a different story’ (p. 143). There is an intellectually defeatist tenor in which a seemingly half-truth unfolds, since the meaning of modernity (and its later cognate in plural) is hitherto an unsettled issue in South Asia. Despite academic humbug, there is also a realisation that the Enlightenment is not the only force, there are various enlightenments, mostly in the form of ‘awakenings’ that are integral to modernity’s of South Asia. And they need not fit, yet another quest of modernity called alternatives. The lore of the folk articulate reflexivity of a kind without seeking to posit any alternative. Like in history and philosophy, theories too have suffered from a negligence of the unsung, anonymous and mundane. It is in that neglected domain where Chatterjee’s theorising ought to be making an inroad so as to accomplish a possible conclusion.
As of now, it basks in the glory of established, safe and sophisticated, loaded with finesse and eloquence, and making it difficult for an adequate review. Even though the story is incomplete, it is inviting for a prolonged deliberation and exciting for the future projects. The book serves well many of the truly curious students of sociology, political science, history and so on. But, would the acts of dirty hands in academia allow the curiosity to take a lead? Only time can vend an answer.