Author: Upendra Baxi
Bhikhu Parekh/
Editor(s): Upendra Baxi / Bhikhu Parekh
Publisher: Sage Publications
Year: 1998
Language: English
Pages: 453
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8170364108
Description
India is passing through anxious times. The current policy of economic liberalization, notwithstanding its obvious advantages, has the potential to unleash social tensions. This volume of original essays addresses this and related issues.
While the recent challenges to secularism have given rise to grave political problems. These developments underscore the need for a critical look at the constitutive principles and the current predicament of Indian polity and society.
The first four essays critically analyses the contributions of Gandhi, Nehru and Ambedkar, the founding fathers of modern India, to Indian political, and social transformation. The evolution of India’s post-Independence polity, the formation of civic loyalty, the primordial politics of language and the crisis of governability in contemporary India form the second thematic cluster. The third group of contributors deal with communal riots and the problem of religious and secular identities in the framework of the construction of modernity. Issues relating to community and public health, the need for developing a new paradigm of critical psychology, a psychological under-standing of the practice of power in contemporary India and the eco-politics of development activities are dealt with by the last set of essays.
Bringing together internationally distinguished observers of India-who express a variety of viewpoints, cover a fascinating range of themes, and raise issues of both academic and practical importance-this book will be of considerable interest to students of politics, sociology, history, psychology, health, environment, development and south Asian Studies. It will be indispensable for anyone concerned about contemporary India.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Jawaharlal Nehru and the Crisis of Modernisation
The Doctrine of Swaraj in Gandhi’s Philosophy
Gandhi: Guru for the 1990s?
Gandhi, Nehru, and Modernity
Emancipation as Justice: Babasaheb Ambedkar’s Legacy and Vision
Interpreting Indian Politics: A Personal Statement
Civil Loyalty and the New India
The Great Language Debate: Politics of Metropolitan
Crowds and Power: Democracy and the Crisis of Governability in India
Personality Politics: A Psychoanalytic Perspective
The Politics of Application and Social Relevance in Contemporary Psychology
The Health Scenario in India
Religion, Scenario in India
Religion, Politics and Modernity
Religious and Secular Identities
Cultural Embodiment and Histories: Towards Construction of Self
Communal Riots in Contemporary India: Towards a Sociological Explanation
The Sardar Sarovar Project: Ecopolitics of Development
Raojibhai Patel (Mota): an Appreciation
Notes on Contributors
Index