Liberalism

Liberal Education and Its Discontents: The Crisis in the Indian University by Shashikala Srinivasan, New Delhi: Routledge, 2019; pp 246, `995.

Indian academic scholarship and politics have remained caught between the triangulate frames of Brahmanism, liberalism and postcolonial theory, papering over the commonalities between the three in their "politics of accommodation," and the fact that they cumulatively privilege similar bhadralok scholarship. Indian politics today is witnessing an implosion of intra-subaltern conflicts which cannot be captured either through East versus West or subaltern versus elite kind of frames.

Whether it is dalit politics or feminist struggles, more and more analysts are focusing on the realm of embodied experience involving groups rather than on abstract rationalist theory involving individuals. The obvious question is: can communities, like caste groups, be viewed as legitimate categories within the framework of liberal modernity? This essay explores the idea that group-centred 'embodied experience' may be no more than a phantom category. The emergence of this third category in order to bypass the tradition-modernity or communalism-secularism dyad, may turn out to be without much substance.

Examination of the contemporary discourse about civil society, the non-party political process and political society in India and the political agendas which they support, with regard to their importance for identifying and articulating important political problems of our society.