Author: Sudhir Kakar
Ramin Jahanbegloo/
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2009
Language: English
Pages: 90
ISBN/UPC (if available): 9780195698930
Description
Prominent psychoanalyst and eminent author Sudhir Kakar is considered one of India’s leading intellectuals. A mechanical engineer, Kakar did his doctorate in economics before beginning his training in psychoanalysis at the Sigmund-Freud institute in Frankfurt, Germany in 1971. For someone trained as an engineer and later as an economist, he continues to cross disciplinary boundaries and capture the imagination of readers and everyone interested in the world of ideas.
Based on interviews of Sudhir Kakar by lranian philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo, India Analysed is a journey into Kakar’s mind-his fertile and unpredictable ways of thinking, and the essential humanism which all his writings signify recounting the life and ideas of Kakar in his own words. In the process, the book affords readers rare insights into the psychological make-up of the modern Indian.
Flowing effortlessly from Kakar’s descriptions of his early life in undivided India to discussions on the Indian psyche and sexuality the book also dwells on his views on secularism and modern Indian leaders like Gandhi and Nehru. Kakar brings to bear his intellect in a wide range of issues like philosophy, democracy, Indian culture and tradition, and the Partition, and the conversational style of the interviews help demystify many of his complex ideas.
The third in the series of Ramin Jahanbegloo’s interviews of prominent intellectuals who have influenced modern Indian thought thus challenging and engaging volume will interest both a scholarly and an informed lay audience who want to understand India as seen through the eyes of one of the country’s leading contemporary thinkers.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Capturing of India Psyche by Ramin Jahanbegloo
From Uttarakhand to Harvard
An Innocent World
Violence From Afar
The Partition Trauma
Imagining Gandhi
Encounters with Spirituality
An Idea of Germany
The beautiful Mind of Erik Erikson
Between Gandhi and Freund
II/ The making of An Indian Analyst
Common shared values
Reading Freud in India
Jung in The mirror of Indians
The Art of being an Analyst in Indian Culture
The Role of the Sacred
A Guru Culture
Living with Cultural Schizophrenia
III/ Between Private and Public
Modern India and Traditional Morality
The fear of Sexuality
The Genesha Complex
Hindu Myths and Sexuality
The world of the Kamasutra
IV/ The Message of India
A Loving Critical Eye
A New Indian Struggle
India and its Discontents
The art of Indianness
A Dialogue between Religion and Secularism
V/ Serenity Under Fire
The Mechanisms of Enemy Creating
The Pure and the Impure
Suffering and Cure
A Fragile World
The Erotics of Non-Violence
Towards a Spiritual Century
A Peaceful Eye