School
of Social Sciences
MAHATMA GANDHI UNIVERSITY
Kottayam Kerala 686 041
India
ICSSR National Conference on
Postcolonialism: Theories and Dilemmas
26-28
February 2003
Registration: 9.30 am
Inaugural
Session 10.30
am – 12.30 pm
Inaugural Lecture : Dr. U.R.
Ananthamurthy
Felicitation:
Mr. C.C. Jacob (Member, Syndicate)
Dr. P.P. Raveendran (Member,
Syndicate)
Release of Puliyur Granthavari
Presentation Session I: Theories and Epistemology 2 pm – 3.30 pm & 3.45 – 5 pm
Chair: T.K. Ramachandran
Papers:
Nisar Ahammed (Sanskrit University, Kalady), “Theorising Modernity”
Franson Manjali, (JNU, New Delhi) “Postcolonialism and
Postmodernism: Dilemmas”
Murali Atruli, (Central University, Hyderabad) “Marxist Critique of
Classical Colonialism and Postcolonialism”
Thursday
27 February
Presentation
Session II: Nation Theories
10 am – 11.30 am &
11.45 am – 1 pm
Chair: Nisar Ahammed
Papers:
Phillippo
Osella & Caroline Osella, (Sussex) “Once Upon a Time in the
West ? : Narrating Modernity in Kerala”
Vinod Chandran (Kerala Varma College, Trissur), “Towards a Political
Aesthetics of ‘Sublime’ : Re-thinking the Historical Romance of
Rajyam”
Raghava Varier (Calicut), “Critiquing Nation Theories”
C.B. Mohandas, (Kerala Varma College, Trissur) “Exiled into the Native
Realm: Hybridity in Present Day Kerala”
M.T. Ansari, (M.S. University, Baroda) "Living With(out) Modernity: A
Minor Response"
Presentation
Session III: Concepts and Perspectives 2
pm – 3.30 pm & 3.45 pm – 5 pm
Chair: Raju, S
Papers:
G.P. Ramachandra (M.G. University), “Postcolonialism: An Era ?”
P.P. Raveendran, (M.G. University) “Myth, History and Fiction”
M.S. John, (M.G. University) “Postcolonialism and the Discourse on
Development”
E.M.
Thomas, (Christ College, Irinjalakuda) “Aspects of Postmodern
Political Economy”
Friday, 28 February
Session
IV: Politics of Theories
10 am – 11.30 & 11.45 – 1 pm
Panel Discussion:
A. K. Ramakrishnan (M.G. University)
K.N. Ganesh (Calicut University)
Venkitesh (Thiruvananthapuram)
Rajan Gurukkal (M.G. University)
Valedictory
Session : 2 pm
– 3.45 pm
Chair:
Dr. Raveendranath (Pro Vice Chancellor)
Lecture: Dr. Geevarghese Joseph (Manchester University)
Concluding Remarks: Rajan Gurukkal
***
Franson Manjali (JNU, New Delhi)
Colonialism and modernity can easily be seen to be co-emergent and
codependent, be it for the colonizers or the colonized. Is there a similar and
corresponding intertwining between post-coloniality and post-modernity? As far
as post-colonialism is concerned, the perspectives of a dialectical opposition
or hybridity predominate in our current discussions. If we take the former, is
the post-colonial a matter of ‘sublating’ either the colonial or the
‘native’? Or, with hybridity, is it a matter of an essence
ensuing from a relation of mutuality and / or reciprocity? Taking an alternative
trajectory, can we view both the post-colonial and the post-modern as the
transgressive / deconstructive movement towards and the welcoming of the space
of a radical exteriority of the
‘being’ of our given cultures? And thus, reversing Kwame Appiah’s
question, shall we ask, “is the post- in post-colonialism the same as the
post- in post-modernism?”
Phillippo
Osella & Caroline Osella (Sussex University)
In this paper we use narrative theory to engage with ethnographic
life histories of two successful members of an ex-untouchable, backward Kerala
community (Izhavas). This enables
us to interrogate both classical sociological ‘modernity’ and recent
postcolonial trends in analysis.
Mainstream
debates on Indian modernity have been informed by classic sociological writings,
assuming a unilineal and universal process of modernisation. It is commonly assumed that modernity - thus potential for
progress and development - are not merely external to Indian tradition, but will
eventually follow a unilinear path, in line with its unfolding in the ‘old
world’. The Indian experience of
modernity thereby appears incomplete and defective: blocked or still in
transition - clinging to the remnants of a feudal past; or somehow fundamentally
‘other’ and beyond the scope of modernisation theory; or schizoid, split
between different arenas of experience - modern at work and pre-modern at home.
Recent moves away from analyses pathologising Indian modernity take us
towards two, related, bodies of work: the first problematises western modernity
itself; the second relativises ‘Modernity’ at large.
Firstly, radical contemporary social theorists alert us to modernity’s
self-contradictions and to the uneven-ness and imperfection of modernity as a
project even in its so-called centres. Secondly,
postcolonial trends replace the singular classical master narrative with a
plurality of narratives, re-locating modernity into specific historical-cultural
nexuses. But these two strategies
still pose problems. While critical
social theorists bring to our attention the tension that exists between
self-representations of modernity in public discourses and its actual practices,
modernity remains a specifically western, or European, affair.
That modernity’s project might unfold by continually producing
otherness and ambivalence not just within the confines of Europe, but in
relation to societies brought within the fold of European colonialism, remains
significantly unexplored. Postcolonial
critiques, meanwhile, continue to deny the coevalness of Indian modernity:
modernity remains an external, substantially western phenomenon, albeit
eventually adapted, transformed and made ‘Indian’.
Either path will lead us to
a similar place: a pluralisation of modernity.
In identifying contradictions and fragmentations within modernity, Indian
modernity ceases to be a pathology; relativising and identifying local
trajectories makes Indian modernity simply one of many possible modernities.
But how many modernities might we recognise?
Are there to be limits on the characteristics we can now accept as
reasonably ‘modern’? By
pluralising modernity are we not falling into the modernist trap and fulfilling
the modernist project of helping to theorise and create more otherness?
Narrative
analysis of ethnographic life histories suggest other possibilities.
Life-histories offer modernity not as an external force brought by
engagement with colonial or post-colonial state, disrupting ‘traditional’
relations and identities but – with a generalised commitment to progress
- integral to actors’ self-defined identities and life stories, embedded in
community identity, forged and articulated through a long process of internal
reforms and mobilisation, in dialogues
between local ideas of justice and equality and European-derived notions of
modernity and reform. Firstly, we
must insist upon a singular modernity and upon the co-creation of one global
modern world by European and non-European communities.
Despite modernity’s claims to universalism, the construction of
‘others’ - so apparent in plantations and Gulf boom-towns - has been
recently identified by analysts as central to the development of modernity - and
not merely an epiphenomenon. A
problem then is how to analyse difference within modernity without turning it
into otherness. This brings us to our second
step: we must acknowledge that modernity is local in its globality (or plural in
its singularity) in that it is elaborated, made sense of and experienced
everywhere in a continual dialogue with local ideas and practices.
Finally, ethnography suggests that we must not privilege the agency of
the ‘hybridised’ elites who come into direct contact with European ideas and
practices. If we move away from
intellectualism and bring practice and embodiment to the centre of our analyses,
then the labourer, factory worker, migrant,
‘untouchable’ devotee or consumer of popular film are far more important
players, struggling with modernity and in the process forging it.
Ethnography also cautions us to remember that while ‘modernity’
corresponding perfectly to classical theory might never exist anywhere, ideas
(concepts and ideals) of something called ‘modernity’ certainly do exist and
are continually appealed to in people’s economic endeavours, political
projects and identity crafting. While
we are doubtful about the future value of ‘Modernity’ as a meta-category of
analysis, we also believe that ‘modernity’, as a historically and
ethnographically specific body of ideals and practices, must remain central to
our understanding of contemporary societies.
People’s lives are lived and life stories are told oriented towards
narratives of progress and modernity.