Academic literature on the topic 'Ramchandra Guha'

Social Ecology, Edited by Ramchandra Guha; Oxford in India Readings in Sociology and S ocial Anthropology. Delhi: Oxford University Press. 1994. x,398 pp. Reviewed bySatadal Dasgupta, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Prince Edward Island.

It begins with a New York Times (2006) story about critique, reason, and religion. Situating the assumptions of that story in the relevant body of works –mainly but not limited to anthropology – the Introduction lays out the four-fold argument the book enunciates. First, Western and the Enlightenment notion of critique is not critique per se but only one among several of its modalities like the Islamic one it foregrounds. The suggestion is to see Islam as critique; indeed, Islam as permanent critique. Second, in and of itself reason is neither sufficient nor autonomous in arriving at judgements. Third, the truncated reason of Cartesian cogito does not resonate well with the Islamic conception of reason that is much broader, nondualistic, and holistic. Fourth, critique ought not to be the sole preserve of salaried professional intellectuals; nonintellectuals too enact and participate in critique. The Introduction mounts a critique of Indian liberalism – exemplified, inter alia, by Amartya Sen, Partha Chatterjee and Ramchandra Guha –for its servility to nationalism and silencing of Muslim thoughts. Showing flaws in conflating political with epistemological borders, the book outlines the path to track the silenced Muslim tradition of critique across the recent, imperially planted borders of the nation-state.