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Review of Social Scientists in the Civic Space Shami Ulla Independent Scholar (PhD from University of Delhi) Mar 24, 2025 Book review of the volume Social Scientists in the Civic Space: Ethical Perspectives on Democratic Involvement, edited by Arundhati Virmani, Jean Boutier, and Manohar Kumar (Routledge 2024). Have you ever wondered how social scientists address the practical and ethical challenges of civic space? This excellent edited book will answer your questions and ignite your passion for understanding the role and challenges of social scientists in the civic space. Compiling 15 chapters, this scholarly work motivates us to understand how the complexities of civic space challenge social scientists and how their involvement and detachment shape ethical and political decision-making in various ways. The book holds great academic significance for those who wish to understand the role, challenges, various kinds of pressure (such as political and cultural, etc.), and the relationship between their academic integrity and public responsibility. The book talks about defining ground for civic space, interventions, and involvement of social scientists in civic space for public debate regarding policy-making and decision-making in five principal parts: part one deals with ‘Challenges of the Context’ and consists of chapters 1-3, the part two deals with ‘Interventions in the Civic Space’ and consists of chapters 4-7, the part three deals with ‘Involvement in Public Debates’ and consists of chapters 8-11, the part four deals with ‘Ethical Politics of Democracy’ and consists of chapters 12-14 and the last part five deals with ‘Perspectives’ which consist of chapter 15. The book explores the role of social scientists in civic space and examines four major questions. First, what is civic space, and how do social scientists face the challenges of defining their role within it? Second, should social scientists engage in the public domain, or should they maintain a distance from civic space? Third, how do social scientists balance their dual responsibilities—one as academicians tasked with producing knowledge and the other as civilians who engage in public debates or activism? fourth, in the era of digitalization, how can social scientists protect themselves from misinformation? The book deals with these core questions, contributing significantly to the ongoing debate on the roles and challenges of social scientists in the civic space. To be more specific, Part One of the book Challenges of the Context deals with the historical grounding for civic space. In chapter 1, Jean Boutier discusses the place and role of historians between the two World Wars. The chapter interrogates the historian’s responsibility in times of political instability, economic turmoil, and ideological extremism. Boutier raises the question: should historians’ work remain confined to academia, or do they have a duty to intervene in public affairs? Scholars such as Henri Pirenne, Max Weber, Marc Bloch, and Lucien Febvre provide a nuanced response to political crises ( p. 15). However, the chapter does not provide a clear framework for how modern scholars should navigate this tension in the face of misinformation, climate change, or political extremism that exists in civic space. In Chapter 2, Rouzean explores how a historian became an activist while researching the Rwandan genocide (p. 26). He candidly reflects on his personal biases, uncertainties, and ethical dilemmas, making the chapter a compelling meditation on the responsibilities of historians. As he admits, "I could not shy away from a form of civic commitment that I had so far rejected" (p. 27). However, the chapter leaves an important question unanswered: if writing history objectively is impossible, what ethical standards should historians adopt when engaging with politically charged topics? Despite being deeply reflective and intellectually courageous, the chapter does not fully resolve this issue. In Chapter 3, Virmani discusses the significance of contextual freedom and how nationalistic political pressures hinder the writing of true history. She argues that an activist or social scientist can achieve greater objectivity by maintaining distance and dislocation when researching the history of other countries. According to Virmani, historians from foreign countries may be better positioned to produce unbiased historical narratives, as they are less susceptible to domestic political pressures (p. 55). This perspective suggests that geographical and cultural detachment could help scholars maintain academic objectivity more effectively. Part Two of the book Interventions in the Civic Space deals with what types of interventions are being practiced and the challenges faced by social scientists in the civic space. Intervening in public debate requires a different form of expertise. In chapter 4 , Théry redefines expertise as a balance between scientific rigor, civic engagement, and democratic participation (p. 74). He argues that expertise is not a singular, monolithic practice but rather unfolds across three distinct models—service expertise, consensus expertise, and engagement expertise, which help mediate between knowledge production and civic responsibility (p. 58). In civic responsibility, all experts carry a dual responsibility or identity. For example, economists often function as public figures, as seen in the cases of Manmohan Singh, Mario Monti, Lucas Papademos, John Maynard Keynes, Paul Krugman, and Amartya Sen. Similarly, historians such as Paxton and Ginsborg, shape and enrich public debates through their engagements. (Virmani, 2024, p. 69). In Chapter 5, Virmani explores how public writing is not merely a means of communication, but a democratic responsibility. For example, Balakrishnan’s critique of the Silver Line project in Kerala exemplifies how economists can use their expertise to question state-led development narratives (p. 73). Such interventions demonstrate that economists are not merely technocratic advisors but also active participants in ongoing democratic conversations. In Chapter 6, Ashwani Kumar examines the success and failures of the MGNREGA policy in India, highlighting the realities of six districts. It explores the role of bureaucracy, political clientelism, and local power structures in shaping welfare delivery. Kumar showed that Jalpaiguri (West Bengal) and Tiruvannamalai (Tamil Nadu) implemented innovative solutions, where political competition positively transformed the livelihoods for thousands of workers. However, in other districts like Bagalkote (Karnataka), Seoni (Madhya Pradesh), Nagaur (Rajasthan), and Gaya (Bihar) welfare programs were manipulated by local politicians for vote bank politics. Additionally, the existing upper and lower caste gap hindered equal welfare delivery (p. 86-92). In chapter 7, Trannoy discusses why economists rarely emerge as public intellectuals. Trannoy argues that professional incentives, writing styles, and the technical nature of economic research limit economists' engagement in broader public discourse (p. 100). Thus, the chapter has great virtues, but a question remains: How do digital media and its influence on the dialogue between experts and the public shape economists as public figures? Part Three of the book Involvement in Public Debates deals with how experts and the public influence policy and decision-making. In Chapter 8, Swaminathan presents a critical understanding of India’s food security policies. She evaluates the Public Distribution System (PDS), debates the merits of targeted vs. universal food security, and examines the role of activism in shaping welfare policies ( p. 118). She argues that India’s food security crisis is not caused by food shortages but rather by policy failures and exclusionary welfare mechanisms (p. 123). She makes a strong case for a universal PDS, citing its proven success in states like Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh, where it has led to higher food security and reduced corruption. She critiques neoliberal approaches that emphasize targeted welfare and fiscal restraint. In her words, “The shift from universal to targeted PDS has neither led to a reduction in budgetary subsidies nor has it benefited the large majority of food-insecure households in the desired manner” ( p. 127). The chapter could be developed by comparing India’s food security policies with global models such as Brazil’s Bolsa Família or China’s grain distribution system, providing a broader perspective. In chapter 9, Aucante offers a comparative analysis of the role of social scientists in democratic policymaking in Scandinavia and France. Aucante argues that while Scandinavian social scientists engage with the state in a structured manner, their French counterparts are more often positioned as critics, public intellectuals, or independent commentators (p. 138). In chapter 10, Bozon presents a comparative analysis of anti-gender movements in France and Brazil. He explores their emergence, evolution, and how conservative political and religious actors weaponized gender studies, feminism, and LGBTQ+ rights as threats to national identity and social stability (p. 155). In Brazil, Bolsonaro explicitly attacked gender studies and feminist movements, cutting funding for social sciences and promoting a conservative Christian identity as the foundation of national culture. Similarly, in France, mass protests erupted in 2012–2013 against the legalization of same-sex marriage ( Le Mariage pour Tous ), led by conservative Catholic organizations and right-wing intellectuals. French conservatives accused gender scholars of corrupting children, undermining family values, and promoting radical leftist ideologies (p. 159-160). While France’s anti-gender discourse was driven by intellectual and cultural arguments, Brazil’s was more populist and religious, illustrating different pathways to the same ideological goal. In Chapter 11, Rajeshwari argues that civic space is neither neutral nor universally accessible but is shaped by structural inequalities related to gender, caste, class, and religion. Rajeshwari demonstrates how feminist research both critiques and contributes to civic discourse in India. Engaging with major feminist movements, digital activism, and contested public debates, the chapter provides a nuanced exploration of how feminist engagement challenges dominant power structures and expands democratic participation ( p. 165). Part four of the book Ethical Politics of Democracy deals with the role of the knowledge of expertise in the civic space. In chapter 12, Origgi reflects on how expert knowledge interacts with democratic principles, such as equality, neutrality, and legitimacy (p. 182). She raises questions like: Can democracies maintain both respect for expertise and genuine citizen participation, or does reliance on experts inevitably create a knowledge elite that weakens democratic legitimacy? (p. 184). She argues that the legitimacy of expertise is not automatic—it must be continually negotiated through transparency, public debate, and accountability mechanisms. Thus she writes that “Social scientists play a crucial role in mediating between expert and lay knowledge... by advancing new models that give a voice to the needs and values of society” (p. 188). This raises the question of how social media, misinformation, and alternative media platforms influence public perceptions of expertise. In chapter 13, Fatimah, Khan, & Natarajan, discuss data-driven journalism and its challenges. It highlights that journalists and social scientists need data science skills (e.g., coding, statistical modeling, machine learning), yet most professionals lack formal training (p. 197). In chapter 14, Manohar examines the role of civility in democratic discourse and protest movements. Kumar critiques the positions of Rawls and Habermas, arguing that norms of civility often privilege dominant groups while excluding marginalized voices. The chapter critiques the weaponization of civility, showing how it has been used to delegitimize disruptive but necessary movements for justice. Kumar suggests that democratic movements must balance radical disruption with strategic engagement (p. 206). Kumar states, “Disobedience uncovers a dimension of civility not as opposition, but as necessary coexistence that captures the messiness of democratic politics” (p. 216). Part five of the book Perspectives consists of the last chapter, 15. Samaddar discusses the role of social sciences in contemporary governance and policymaking and gives a metaphor of Sisyphus. The chapter questions whether social sciences, in their current form, can still serve a radical, emancipatory function or whether they have become mere tools of administrative governance (p. 222). Kumar argues that due to data-driven social science and research funding influenced by government or corporate interests, social scientists have turned from being social inquirers or whistle-blowers against power to becoming skilled practitioners of a discipline. consequently, the author urges social scientists to rethink their role in civic space (p. 226). The book is significant as it expands discussions on scholars' social roles—Weber’s detachment, Gramsci’s organic intellectuals, and Bourdieu’s public intellectuals—by addressing modern issues like digital misinformation and civic engagement beyond academia. The book explores emerging engagements like data journalism, grassroots activism, and ethical challenges in digital scholarship. The book links classical theories to modern knowledge production, showing how scholars navigate ethical dilemmas in today’s public sphere. This book aligns with Medvetz’s Think Tanks in America (2012) on expert policymaking influence and Calhoun’s Social Science for Public Knowledge (2008) on broader scholarly engagement. This book takes a global, interdisciplinary approach to ethical dilemmas in digital spaces, complementing Melzer’s The Public Intellectual: Between Philosophy and Politics (2003) by examining activism versus neutrality. The book excels in presentation. Boutier’s chapter advocates balancing public engagement and neutrality, but his historical analysis lacks a modern framework for misinformation. Rajeshwari’s chapter challenges detachment in structural inequalities. Fatimah, Khan, and Natarajans’ chapter stresses data skills but overlooks AI’s driven ethical risks. The book also misses a systematic Global North-South comparison. The book lacks discussion on social scientists in authoritarian regimes and underrepresents scholars in Africa and Latin America. It also overlooks AI-driven misinformation, surveillance, and algorithmic governance. The book could improve with chapters on social scientists under authoritarian regimes, AI’s role in civic engagement, and a Global South vs. North comparison approach to civic engagement. Adding participatory action research (PAR) would highlight scholar-community collaboration for impactful social science. Addressing these gaps would have enriched its analysis and provided a more comprehensive view of public scholarship today. Overall, the book Social Scientists in the Civic Space Ethical Perspectives on Democratic Involvement provides a thoughtful and valuable resource for students, researchers, and policymakers engaged in public domain research. The book successfully achieves its objectives, offering contextually relevant examples and ethical dilemmas that social scientists encounter in the civic space. References Calhoun, Craig. "Social science for public knowledge." Academics as public intellectuals (2008): 299-318. Medvetz, Thomas. Think tanks in America . University of Chicago Press, 2012. Melzer, Arthur M., Jerry Weinberger, and M. Richard Zinman, eds. The public intellectual: between philosophy and politics . Rowman & Littlefield, 2003.

IPN Blog IPN blo g is a platform for philosophers and others to write about philosophy in India and also to express philosophically informed opinions. Given the aim of the IPN blog is to enable a dialogue between philosophers and the public, both philosophers and the public can submit articles. See the submission guidelines . Review of Social Scientists in the Civic Space Read the article Shami Ulla Mar 24, 2025 Mulla Nasrettin's Cogito Read the article Danish Hamid Jan 13, 2025 Modernity and its Futures Past Read the article Nishad Patnaik Jan 8, 2025 Review of R. Krishnaswamy's Book Read the article Adreeja Sarkar Jun 2, 2024 Review of Bhaskarjit Neog's Book Read the article Abhishek Anant Nowbagh May 16, 2024 What Responsibility? Whose Responsibility? Read the article Bhaskarjit Neog Feb 7, 2024 Review of Venusa Tinyi's book by Aribam Uttam Sharma Read the article Aribam Uttam Sharma Dec 28, 2023 Traditional vs Colonial: Navigating Dichotomies of Philosophy in India Read the article Ankita Kushwaha and Megha Kapoor Dec 14, 2023 Review of Meera Baindur's novel by Manish Sharma Read the article Manish Sharma Nov 24, 2023 Review of Muzaffar Ali's book by Richa Shukla Read the article Richa Shukla Nov 13, 2023 Review of Muzaffar Ali's book by Satya Javvaji Read the article Satya Javvaji Oct 26, 2023 Philosophy Education and Job Competencies Read the article Nishant Kumar Nov 6, 2022 Translating philosophy: DR Nagaraj's Allamaprabhu Read the article N S Gundur Jul 3, 2022 A Word of Caution to 'the Uniformist' and 'the Reformist' Read the article Ariba Zaidi Feb 22, 2022 The Karnataka Hijab row is about Right to Education, not Freedom of Religion Read the article Sania Ismailee Feb 22, 2022 Back to Liberal Basics Read the article Danish Hamid Feb 22, 2022 Can women decide for themselves? Read the article Hina Mushtaq Feb 22, 2022

Srajana Kaikini In conversation with Sahana Rajan (Lecturer, Jindal Global Business School) February 2022 Dr Srajana Kaikini's work spans across curatorial, artistic and philosophical domains. She received her PhD in Philosophy from Manipal Centre for Humanities, and has a Masters in Arts and Aesthetic from JNU. She was at de Appel Art Centre’s Curatorial Programme in 2012-13, is the recipient of 2013 FICA Research Fellowship and was Curator at KK Hebbar Gallery and Arts Centre (2015-2019) at Manipal. Some of her recent curatorial projects include Searching for the Present, Where? Being-Becoming in Akbar Padamsee’s Figurations (1995 – 2006) at the Guild, Mumbai (2021), Backstage of Biology (2019), at Archives at the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, Mukhaputa (2017) at the KK Hebbar Gallery and Arts Centre and Vectors of Kinship (2016) at the 11th Shanghai Biennale. She has been resident artist-curator at the Delfina Foundation, London and the International Studio and Curatorial Program, New York and is a regular contributor to writing platforms on philosophy, arts and aesthetics. Her academic writing has been published in journals such as Ethical Perspectives, Voices in Bioethics, Deleuze and Guattari Studies, Kunstlicht, Journal for Cancer Research and Therapeutics amidst others. She is on the Editorial Boards of SciPhiWeb Repository of Reflections on Science, Philosophy and Gaming and Barefoot Philosophers and member of the Bioethics Forum - Collaborative for Palliative Care at Columbia University. She is currently working on her forthcoming book Philosophy of Curation (Routledge) and teaches as Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the School of Interwoven Arts and Sciences at Krea University, India. Sahana: Lets start this conversation by knowing your research interests Srajana : I am interested in philosophy as a creative practice. As an artist-philosopher, it is extremely exciting to dive into the work of philosophy through practice, be it in my curatorial work, in my studio practice or by way of writing and teaching. This also means having a keen commitment to being inconspicuously soaked in philosophy while engaging with the world. Implicit and the ineffable registers of experience haunt my philosophical enquiry. I am curious about the ways in which relationalities emerge. The disciplinary probes then develop in service of this keenness. Aesthetics and Metaphysics are my core areas if one looks for #keywords . Philosophy for me is my practice. For more details on my work, one may find sufficient information on internet repositories. Please provide a brief biography of yourself I grew up in Bombay, a city that shapes my childhood and later in Bangalore. For the past decade, I have been mostly nomadic - from New Delhi to Amsterdam to London to Manipal to Bangalore and now to Pulicat - each place has given me so much. Two places that hold a special place for me are Suriname and Japan. A moment I recall in recent past, is when I touched a viking rune etched on a parapet of Hagia Sophia. For this context, I’d like to stick to this sparsed out geo-biography. What has been your experience of studying and being part of academic philosophy in India? I came to philosophy out of a personal necessity - to engage with certain concepts that haunted me - these were questions about my practice that I wanted to think through and wanted to learn from my teacher. The term academia does not hold much of an importance to me in qualifying my philosophical belonging. I was first introduced to philosophy during my Masters in JNU through my teachers who were scholars as well as artists. Art has always been part of the lived atmosphere at home. The experience of studying philosophy is mostly one of auto-didactism - even when one is taught by a teacher, the teacher’s success is in teaching the student how to teach herself. I was grateful for all my teachers who have made philosophy meaningful and lovable for me. I am grateful to continue learning from my teachers and peers, the barefoot philosophers. I consider this an ongoing process. I prefer not to dwell too much on what I am part of and what I am not. Could you share your reflections on philosophy as a discipline in India? How do you foresee the development of the discipline? The discipline of philosophy in India needs more affirmative attention - keeping in mind the place of philosophy for its people. There is a necessity for a way of engaging with concepts, contexts and their ideas, and to have meaningful dialogues, discussions and debates addressing questions that matter to you, me, the various kinds of ‘us’ that we inhabit or long for. As with any other discipline, when philosophers concern themselves with the work that can be done by philosophy, the discipline becomes self-sustainable. What kind of career path in philosophy are you interested in, or you think are available in philosophy in India? As an artist-philosopher I consider myself as a creative practitioner of philosophy. I curate, I sing, I make art, I write, I teach, I walk by way of doing philosophy. Philosophers are potentially everywhere around us. They are the policy-makers, the advisors, the mediators, the listeners, the poets, the storytellers, the caregivers, the gardeners, the carpenters, the bus drivers. I resist becoming a salesperson for the discipline, precisely because it does not need selling.

Muzaffar Ali In conversation with Varun S Bhatta (Assistant Professor, HSS, IISER Bhopal) July - August 2021 Muzaffar Ali (mamalla[AT]unipune.ac.in | younusmalla[AT]gmail.com) is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Philosophy, Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune, India. He received M.Phil and PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Prior to joining Savitribai Phule Pune University, he taught philosophy at Hindu College, University of Delhi. He specializes in social and political philosophy and contemporary Indian philosophy with an emphasis on the idea of the public sphere and its normative implications in the Indian context. He is a DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst) scholar and has published in prestigious journals such as JICPR, Sophia, Culture and Dialogue, and Journal of World Philosophies. A co-edited volume, The Imbecile's Guide to Public Philosophy (2021) is published by Routledge. Varun : Muzaffar, let us start this interview by knowing a bit about your personal history. Can you please tell us where are you from? What about your earlier education and interests? Muzaffar : I am from Kashmir and studied there till my Bachelors in 2008. While my education (up to HSC) took place around my village, I moved to Srinagar city for Bachelors in 2006. My primary education took place at a school next door of which ours was the first batch. I need to mention that we were lucky to get quality education at our primary stage in education and much of the credit goes to the then collective of teachers at this school. Quite interestingly, it was my failure to secure a seat in the State MBBS entrance examination which marked my shift to Social Sciences for my Bachelors; more specifically to Psychology! The shift was initiated through advice from some close friends who were of the view that I can do better with human psychology than human physiology! Interesting to hear about the rural educational experiment. Probably, if we have time, would like to know more about this initiative and how it is doing at present. Also, fascinated to know about the twist of fate: from physiology to psychology! How was your Bachelors’? Curious to know how and why you transited from psychology to philosophy. The school was a community initiative within our village to provide quality education as an alternative to the State-run schools. However, within a matter of two decades, the shift in primary education was more towards a neo-liberal one, one where paradoxically entrepreneurship and education are supposed to share the plate! Gradually my school had a strange death as it could not withstand the shift. At the college, the social science stream (as it was then called) was offered in clubbed subjects and one had to choose one such club. With an eye on psychology, I happened to choose a club that had philosophy in it. And you won’t believe within the first year itself when I studied Greek Philosophy, I was fascinated to the core. I straight away decided that philosophy is what I am going to pursue. At the college, we hardly had teachers who could teach philosophy and I struggled to finish my undergraduate studies. I got help from a few friends who had either studied philosophy or were interested in it. A gentleman who had retired as a Govt officer but had done post-graduation in philosophy in the 70s helped a lot. The boat somehow sailed through. Once my undergraduation was over, I did not apply to any other subject as I knew philosophy awaits me somewhere. Can you tell us what aspects of philosophy caught your attention during the first encounter? In my first encounter with philosophy at college, I was handed W T Stace’s introductory book on Greek Philosophy. The moment I started going through it, the metaphysical questions raised by the early Greek philosophers captivated me. It was as if these philosophers (Thales, Pythagoras, Anaximenes, Heraclitus etc) were eager at capturing the ‘ultimate reality’ at a conceptual level. The evolution of Greek philosophy with Plato and Aristotle talking about a kind of moral nature of politics was not only interesting but refreshing as well. Unfortunately, the syllabus during those days was based on the Indian-Western binary (and it still carries much of that baggage). The binary-based curriculum did not allow us to move to the specifics of any particular tradition at the college level. Before we move on, do you remember the name of this retired government officer and any information about him? Want to imagine this person...who does post-graduation in philosophy (in the 1970s), joins a government job and at the same time assists students! As far as I remember, he was a retired horticulture officer who had done his MA at Aligarh Muslim University during the early 1970s. After his MA, he had even got an opportunity to move abroad for further studies in philosophy after securing a fellowship. However, he decided to move back to Kashmir and do a government job instead. Actually, since there were few or no teachers of philosophy available, colleges used to hire him after his retirement to teach and assist students. At times, he would not even be paid, but he would still continue to assist students like me at an informal level. I can’t remember his exact name as of now, though we fondly called him Malik Sahab. Wonder why the person did not pursue higher studies. Coming back to you, what happened after your undergraduate degree? Looks like you were clear about pursuing a Master's in philosophy. How did that go? I applied to two universities for my Master’s: Panjab University Chandigarh (PU) and Hyderabad Central University (HCU). However, as fate would have it I had to join Panjab University as the selection letter from HCU wouldn’t reach me on time due to the 2009 agitation in Kashmir following the Asia-Neelofar rape case. Interestingly the Dept at PU was imbibed with a sense of openness and seriousness for philosophy. It had a charged and vibrant atmosphere with weekly seminars, discussion groups and Professors took a keen interest in offering pedagogical clarity during and after lectures. That training gradually played its part in shaping my research interests. Dr Lallan Baghel who currently heads the Dept prodded us to submit abstracts to attend seminars and conferences at the national level. Informal discussions on concepts related to classical Indian philosophy and other subjects were a routine exercise. I fondly call the Dept as being my stepping stone as it became a platform for me to have a glimpse of global philosophy. From Habermas to Daya Krishna, Dharmakirti to Jayanta Bhatta, Husserl to Deleuze, Foucault to Chantal Mouffe, I got acquainted with a diverse range of philosophers and concepts. In essence, the groundwork for my research interests was done and the imperative need was to shape and cultivate it further. With this ground set, how did you proceed further? I secured admission to the integrated M.Phil-Ph.D programme at the Centre for Philosophy, Jawaharlal Nehru University. The Centre was small at that time and I completed my M.Phil in 2013 with my focus on the concept of sovereignty within the “Deterritorial Empire”; a concept put forward by the Political Philosophers Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt. It was during my M.Phil that I figured out that not much work is being done in the realm of political philosophy from the perspective of the Indian context. The trigger was an essay by Bhiku Parekh, “The Poverty of Indian Political Theory.” It occurred to me that the philosophical domain is overwhelmed by a kind of Western captivity which if I borrow from K. C. Bhattacharya can be considered as a part of ‘cultural subjugation.’ I was not thinking of closing myself to the West and becoming a nativist. Rather I seriously started to interrogate into the blind deployment of notions and theories that have origins in the West. The lament was that even Indian political theory is not able to offer anything beyond a certain point. After a lot of reading and discussions with faculty at JNU and outside, I was sure that my PhD research topic has to focus on this often neglected problem. Muzaffar (far left) along with his friends in Mumbai University, attending the Afro-Asian Philosophy conference (2010). I can relate to the tension between the west and Indian that one encounters while practising philosophy in India. I want to delve more into the points you mention and hear in detail. Before that, let us complete the current strand of conversation. Please tell us about your PhD research. Since I had a bit of clarity about the wider context of my research problem, I chose to understand the imagined Indian public sphere in normative terms by evaluating the Habermasian conceptualization(s) of the public sphere. The title is, “Understanding Indian Public Sphere through a Critique of Jurgen Habermas.” In my research, I didn’t evaluate or inquire into the Indian situation from the vantage point of Habermas’s normative idealization of the public sphere. Rather I employed the contemporary Indian situation as my standard measure of evaluation and inquiry into Habermas. The methodological insight for this inquiry is based on Samvada as propounded by two contemporary Indian philosophers, Daya Krishna and M. P. Rege. Among other issues, a major issue that I argue about is that the concept of rationality -- be it the enlightenment one or the communicative rationality, which shoulder the shifts and evolution of the Habermasian public sphere -- is inherently insufficient to be deployed for the understanding of Indian public sphere. As an alternative, I propose the concept of contextual rationality, as propounded by B. K. Matilal and others can be ‘finetuned’ and used for understanding and envisioning the normative conceptualization of the Indian public sphere. The fine-tuning involves the possibility of replacing the ‘illustrational’ component in the classical model of contextual rationality with the notion of ‘lived experience’ as a viable vector of meaning for a shared discourse within the public sphere. I may add that the project is still a work in progress even after I have completed my PhD and I look forward to putting it in the public domain soon. I can see how you in the PhD research successfully attempted to come up with a novel Indian political theory by making the existing concepts/theories have a conversation with the Western ones. As a person who has not delved into political philosophy, I want some clarification about your research domain and the project. (i) In what ways do you think the Indian public sphere differs from the Harbemasian one? (ii) And, even though you have clarified that you are not a nativist, but do you think concepts developed in the Indian context (like Matilal’s contextual rationality) have better conceptual compatibility to explain Indian phenomena (like the Indian public sphere)? To put it briefly, I can say that a public sphere’s publicness is to be theoretically gauged by the in-principle access it offers to individuals who intend to participate in it. The overemphasis on the concept of rationality by Habermas, (as I M Young, Nancy Fraser, and others charge) becomes an obstacle for that in-principle accessibility itself. The reason being that Habermas creates a procedural format to conduct the critical-rational debates within the public sphere. A simple way of putting this point is this. Think of a situation where matters of caste discrimination are to be discussed by everyone apart from the one’s who suffer it, primarily because they are not able to speak in the language and format as demanded by the Habermasian public sphere. The Indian public sphere, if we can imagine and theorize one, cannot simply rely on or overemphasize procedural rationality alone. While on one hand, the Indian public sphere needs to resolve the problem of accessibility and operationalize it through an alternative format and procedure for debate within it. On the other hand, such operationalization should not dilute its normative potential which may otherwise end up making it redundant. Coming to your second question, the notion of contextual rationality looks promising on these fronts if reworked and employed in an appropriate way. Matilal himself draws on the Nyaya conception of debate and makes sure that contextual rationality as an operative within debates satisfies the needs and demands of participants. While doing that, the in-principle accessibility option for the general public who can become participants is kept intact by making illustrations and examples a necessary ingredient of contextual rationality. So while the arguments cater to the debaters’ demands, the parallel woven examples and illustrations cater to the general public who are potential (not actual) participants in the debate. I play with this illustrational component to make it more tenable for an imagined Indian public sphere so that contestations present within our society can be properly responded to, at least at a theoretical level. I do not strictly adhere to the compatibility issue in my research. But at the same time, I am of the opinion that concepts developed within a certain context do share a kind of fetal relation with the context itself. And it is necessary that we as doers of philosophy underline the existence of such relation. I like the way you put it - “fetal relation”. Are there any works (published, forthcoming, work-in-progress) on the above topic that one can read? Please do also introduce us to your other research works. Yes, there are a few. Up to now, I have been more concerned about the Contemporary Indian philosophical strand of my research. In 2017, as part of a collaboration, “Rethinking Classical Dialectical Traditions: Daya Krishna on Counterposition and Dialogue ” was published in the journal Culture and Dialogue. I took it a bit further in 2018 with “ Indian Philosophy and Ethics: Dialogical Method as a Fresh Possibility” published in Sophia. The first treatment of the Social and political arena within my research is part of an upcoming co-edited volume, The Imbecile’s Guide to Public Philosophy published by Routledge. The volume is going to be out by September 2021. Apart from this, I have written a few articles on Contemporary Indian philosophers such as Margaret Chatterjee and Feminist Philosophy. Apart from the publications, I have been occupied with the malestream nature of philosophy as a discipline. I did a project under the UGC’s University with Potential for Excellence grant at my university so that the relationship between patriarchy and philosophy can be studied. The findings of the study are available as an occasional paper published by the University. Taking the focus on this question forward, I and a few colleagues from Universities in India founded the Collective for Women Philosophers in India last year. The CWPI is a voluntary effort to study the gender gap within Indian philosophical academia from multiple methodological perspectives. To begin with, we have started interviewing Women philosophers based in India to understand their perspectives on the nature and extent of the gender gap in Philosophy. We look forward to taking it further with collaborations and projects on national as well as international levels. Given that you have been through the various stages of academic philosophy, and have dabbled not only with regular academic activities (like teaching and research) but also proactively attempting to address some of the problems of the discipline, what has been your experience of doing philosophy in India? Let us (for the moment) separate doing philosophy in India into two categories; studying philosophy and practising philosophy. As far as studying philosophy is concerned, we get exposed to a lot of non-Indian philosophies, thanks to the evolution of Indian academics post-colonial influence. Unfortunately, this exposure is not symmetry-based and deep down the Indian-Western binary is inherent to it. In other words, it seems that colonial authority has paved the way to a kind of epistemic authority within philosophical discourses. If this exposure was founded on a principle of epistemic symmetry then the condition of philosophy as a discipline may have been altogether different. The asymmetry is bound to shape the practice of philosophy as well. It leaves the practitioners of philosophy with a conundrum of being faithful to both traditions simultaneously. Most of us, I think, remain entangled with solving this conundrum throughout our careers, and my experience is of similar nature. I find it difficult to strike a balance between the two traditions given the fact that the Indian-Western binary has been foundational to my career as well. J. L. Mehta, Daya Krishna, J. N. Mohanty, Ramchandra Gandhi, Margaret Chatterjee are examples of India based philosophers who have suffered this conundrum and attempted to find a way (whether successfully or unsuccessfully is a different question altogether) out of it. Honestly speaking, I am inquisitively searching this forest to look for a way out of it. Another characteristic problem within our philosophical circles is the lack of dialogue within. Much of the communication is limited to friendly circles and senior fellows. Young scholars and researchers hardly get opportunities to interact with each other. With regard to the last point you mentioned, what are the critical difficulties and concerns you think that the community of young philosophy scholars in India encounters? And what initiatives and steps we can proactively take to tackle these? One of the major predicaments that we face is to prove that philosophy is (still) relevant. I think a young philosophy professional is used to facing questions and doubts regarding the relevance and use of philosophy every now and then. The doubts do not emerge from a vacuum. Rather the general atmosphere, academic as well as non-academic, is bulldozed by a technocratic and positivist invasion which leaves very little scope for a sustained train of thought. Further, the instrumental nature of education plays a role in sidelining criticality and inquisitiveness. It falls on us to either submit to the onslaught or to keep up the ante. Our predecessors have not witnessed a difficulty of such magnitude, I believe. There are a few administrative and academic hardships as well. Administratively, there is hardly any scope for a young professional to receive focused impetus from the national councils such as the ICPR or ICSSR to sponsor research stays in acclaimed institutions. ICPR has senior fellowships among others, but I hardly find it offering a special young faculty program. Academically, it becomes difficult for any young scholar in India to share and have a conversation on his/her work. The reason is the attitude that “senior is better” which I think needs to be revisited. It is quite easy for anyone to get a senior professor’s inputs on research and teaching, but very hard (almost impossible) to get a shared or even contested view from peers. We have to figure out alternatives, such as having platforms and collectives like IPN, CWPI, etc., to communicate with each other and share works of interest. While the academic part of this difficulty has to be resolved by us and the senior colleagues in philosophy academia, the administrative one has to be sorted elsewhere. One of the challenges that I constantly encounter as an academic philosopher is the guilt of doing philosophy only in English and not doing enough of it in my mother tongue (Kannada). Even though this question resonates with the India-vs-West problem that we discussed above, they are different. Working in one’s provincial language is a way the philosopher connects to his/her immediate locale. Thought of asking your thoughts on this as I want to know what does asking this question in the context of Kashmir entail? The question is both important and interesting. The vernacular medium definitely offers a lived way of doing philosophy (or for that matter any discipline which is articulation and argumentation centric). I would have preferred to get schooled in the Kashmiri language. But alas, English as a “language of power” has so permeated our being that during my schooling Kashmiri was not even a subject in the curriculum. Even now, after being introduced, it is taken quite casually. The result of sheer neglect towards the vernacular languages has been quite drastic. We are more like hybrids. Now that I am based in Pune, a cursory comparison makes me feel that English is more commonly deployed in the northern states. States like Maharashtra, Bengal have (to a good extent) managed to preserve their vernacular languages. On a different note, while English distances me from my immediate locale, it simultaneously brings the outer world closer to me. It (as if through its sheer power) throws the world open to me, and that needs to be underlined. Somehow, we forgot to strike a balance between the openness that English offers and the belongingness that the vernacular bestows. Thanks for pointing out how vernacular and cosmopolitan languages can complement each other. Having discussed the various hurdles and characteristics of Indian academics, I want to know how all of these have come to shape your pedagogy. How do you think philosophy should be taught in India? My pedagogy has indeed been shaped by this tumultuous-yet-interesting experience. I have made it a point to rid the courses (that I teach) from the sweeping Indian-Western binaries. The courses now have a mix of Indian and non-Indian philosophers without any underlined segregation. I hope that helps free the caged bird. Second, since philosophy is a vast discipline and in India, it has been more involved with the history of philosophy, I make sure that contemporary scholars across the wider social sciences get their place (at least) in my teaching. Coming to your second question, I am of the view that we need to teach ‘philosophy as philosophy’ without reducing it to spiritual enterprise, religious conservatism or other comprehensive doctrines. The argumentative value inherent to philosophy, its inquisitiveness to interrogate, its inclination to offer and sustain critique need to be the vectors of teaching and doing philosophy.

What Responsibility? Whose Responsibility? Bhaskarjit Neog Associate Professor, Centre for Philosophy, JNU Feb 7, 2024 An excerpt from Bhaskarjit Neog's book What Responsibility? Whose Responsibility: Intention, Agency and Emotions of Collective Entities (2024, Routledge, India). Published with permission from Routledge (India). Examples of collective wrongdoings abound across societies. The moral history of human society is full of such cases – the bloody wars, mob violence, racism, communal and ethnic riots, oppression by colonial powers, exploitation in the name of caste and class, and numerous incidents of coups, gang wars, corporate frauds, and terrorist activities. Their impacts on the moral community are so startling that we do not know how to reconcile ourselves to any punitive measures offered by any existing arrangements of a society. We go out in public and argue why the activities of such groups or collectives are reprehensible, and why we must excoriate them. In most cases, however, public rage dies down over a period of time without receiving much moral attention or condemnation. One of the reasons behind the disappearance of moral resentment from public memory is the fact that we do not always have a clear understanding of the simple question – who is responsible when a group or collective is held responsible? We do not seem to know much about the idea of moral responsibility for collective wrongdoings as much as we know about moral responsibility of individual wrongdoings. Although collective wrongdoings of this kind are ultimately carried out by individuals, it seems quite appropriate to first talk about the moral culpability of the whole organization or entity of which they are part. On the face of it, this idea of attributing moral properties to groups or collectives is uncomplicated and a matter of our everyday moral vocabulary. We can easily comprehend why a group or community deserves to be condemned for any action or omission, just the way any individual does. Non-philosophically speaking, the fact that, say, Nazi Germans are collectively blamed for their cruelty against the Jews is no more complex a matter to understand than it is to understand why Hitler is blamed for the same cruelty. As far as the normal comprehension of the meaning of blame is concerned, it hardly makes any difference whether the concept of blame is used in a collective or an individual context. The collective/individual contrast seems immaterial to the semantics of "blame" or other responsibility-bearing moral notions. But, to view it more analytically, there appears a serious conceptual problem. The idea of collective responsibility tends to become somewhat slippery and eludes our understanding when we try to understand it by following our easy grasp of the concept of individual moral responsibility. That Hitler is blamed for inhuman actions is easy enough to understand, because there is, or was, an individual human person in space and time that constituted the determinate target of our attitude of blame. In other words, there is a clear answer to the question: “Who is to be blamed?” or “Who experiences the feeling of guilt?” In contrast, there is no distinct identifiable target through which the idea of collective responsibility can be made sense of. Thus, when we talk about collective responsibility, one might bluntly respond with questions: What responsibility? And whose responsibility are you talking about? A collective – whether with a structure or without it – unlike its constituent individuals, does not seem to have any clear responsibility-bearing make-up. For it is not an embodied entity with its own consciousness and rationality required for being a moral agent. To track down its blameworthy character we need to know how and in what sense their actions and inactions are intentional or purposeful. Given that intentions and other responsibility-making psychological states are paradigmatically understood as a matter of minded entities, groups and collectives being non-minded, cannot be said to have such conscious states. Similarly, unlike their individual members, they cannot have or experience any moral emotions when they are made aware of their reprehensilizable behaviours. Neither can they sympathize or empathize with the victims of their actions in the way required of them. Nevertheless, it is a hard normative fact that we do talk about the moral responsibility of collectives, and we do hold them seriously morally accountable for many things. Many a time our responsibility statements about individuals are in fact grounded in a language of the responsibility of groups or collectives to which they belong. So, the questions that linger in our deliberative mind are: Is the phenomenon of collective responsibility really real, or is it metaphorical – a mere façon de parler , as many would like to call it? If it is real, is it a summation or incorporation of the moral responsibility of individuals, or is it something different from them – both in terms of its contents and meaning? And what gets added or obliterated in our standard understanding of responsibility when we see it through the prism of a collective framework? Besides, normatively speaking, how do we evaluate the moral status of individuals who stand up and raise their voice against the things that are done in the name of their group? For instance, how do we make sense of the moral status of those protestors who hit the streets with slogans such as NotInOurName or NotInMyName? This book offers a modest ground for judiciously responding to some of these questions. It aims to redeem collective responsibility by defending the consistency and legitimacy of collective intentions, collective agency, and collective emotions. It talks of collective moral responsibility as the responsibility of collectives without either reducing it to the moral responsibility of the collective members or making it a case where their exact moral positions are effectively made blurred. The ground for defending this account is thus a non-individualist or quasi-collectivist ground – a ground located in the contested space between two prominent approaches – collectivism and individualism. Three components may be considered for a standard justification of moral responsibility – intention, agency, and affective or reactive attitudes of the subject concerned. These components show why, how, and on what ground a subject may be taken to be an appropriate candidate of our moral evaluations. Intentions refer to the psychological state of a subject with which the action concerned is performed. Agency is the capacity that the subject has for being able perform a morally considerable action or omission. And affective or reactive attitudes are humane reactions of the relevant subject’s putative moral agency that is amenable for the attribution of moral responsibility. These components are important not just for the justification of moral responsibility of structured collectives but also for the less-structured collectives. To proceed on this path, I draw on the latest resources of two theoretically interconnected areas of analytic philosophy – first, collective intentionality, a newly developed area in the intersection of philosophy of action and mind, and the second, somewhat old but now a freshly rejuvenated field called social ontology with perspectives from psychology, sociology, cognitive sciences and other disciplines. Both these areas investigate the nature and functions of variety of cognitive and non-cognitive properties such as beliefs, desires, intentions, guilt, remorse, and others that underly the constitutions of collective affairs. While the justification of a substantive account of collective responsibility along this line has been in the know for quite some time, there has not been a systematic effort of bringing together two equally compelling approaches, namely the cognitivist and emotivist ways. I explore the possibility of combining them in a way that would elevate the debate of collective responsibility from the narrow confines of both individualism and collectivism. This is a book on morality of groups with a special focus on the concept of collective responsibility. So, naturally it is a book that can be catalogued under moral philosophy. But since it is a product of weaving and stitching resources of multiple areas of philosophy and other allied disciplines, its significance may also be seen in other fields of humanities and social sciences where the issue of collectivity is discussed and debated. The prospective audience of the book thus includes, but not restricted to, moral philosophers, political theorists, legal theorists, just war theorists, business ethicists, policy makers, and others who take interest in the general question of moral responsibility in collective contexts.

Review of Muzaffar Ali's book by Richa Shukla Richa Shukla Assistant Professor, IIT Bhubhaneswar Nov 13, 2023 Book review of Muzaffar Ali's India, Habermas and the Normative Structure of Public Sphere (Routledge, 2023) This text called India, Habermas and The Normative Structure of Public Sphere is an attempt by Muzaffar Ali, a contemporary Indian political philosopher, to make us revisit the hidden ambiguity behind Indian Public Sphere in reference to Habermas’s idea. He points to this ambiguity by making us think the public sphere is a space that makes us think and question. The book submits a proposition that public spheres and its institutions go hand in hand. He also mentions three criteria for calling a public space. I couldn’t help but notice a tension that Ali wants to point out between his method on how he would do Philosophy vs how ideally Indian philosophy has been done so far. The larger arguments reminded me of Hannah Arendt’s proposition while she discusses the nature of Philosophy, i.e., it's important to think about what we are doing in Philosophy.[1] The book consists of 5 chapters, excluding a preface and acknowledgements. It begins by pointing out a reflection as well as a theoretical concern on how the contemporary Indian situation is a possible glitch in the theorization of Habermas’s public sphere. Rather, it proposes ‘Samvada’, (संवाद) as a method of further analysis. The philosopher here submits that there is a coherence between contemporary Indian philosophy and Indian political theory which can very well be used to theorise the native idea of the Indian Public Sphere. It not only presents a picture of Habermas’s Public Sphere but also, brings in Indian philosophers, political theorists, and a few feminist scholars as well. The first part of the book dwells on a reflective theoretical need: Can we ever think of a native theory of the Indian Public Sphere? The book attempts to not only answer this theoretical concern but also create a 'theoretical toolbox' [2] for the same. Additionally, it revisits and re-reads old debates in Indian political theory and Indian philosophy. This, Ali suggests, can help us in rebounding the normative foundations of the Indian Public Sphere. I couldn’t help but notice that the book takes a good philosophical lurk from the past, present and future of the Indian public sphere in terms of establishing theoretical discourses. It makes an attempt to understand the timeline behind these discourses. The book concerns how one can do Indian political theory considering we no longer can use Western frameworks as it's incapable of capturing Indian reality. He has referred to political thinkers like, Aakash Singh Rathore, Gopal Guru, Sundar Sarukkai, Aditya Nigam and many others to set the theoretical tone of Indian political theory. For instance, along the lines of these thinkers, he argues that we need to understand the audience, the Indian audience horizontally as well, as so far, we have been burdened by the Western way of doing Indian Philosophy. We have been colonised in our approach to Indian Philosophy at times. While he re-visits the concept of ‘Samvada’ in this manner, I couldn’t help but draw a parallel between this and Upanishad saying: वादे वादे जायते तत्त्वबोधः which implies that it's through diverse opinions that we get to know the truth. The book while, analysing Habermas’s concept of the public sphere, critically analyses key elements from the Indian domain as well whether it's the Indian debates on religion, caste, lived experience or the corporeal body. He writes, "The conceptualized Indian situation throws up two essential markers regarding the inadequacy of the Habermasian public sphere. At the social level, the hyper-presence of religion within Indian society needs a multi-pronged instrument of public debate rather than a unilateral notion of rationality to shoulder real and true public opinion."[3] At a time when globally, the phenomenology of the public sphere is altering, this text makes a few pertinent interventions while keeping in mind Indian lived realities. While trying to establish caste as a ‘unique public lived reality’, one can look at movies like Article 15, Mulk, Sairaat, Masaan and shows like Made in Heaven , Kota factory , and Class which capture the Indian essence and the complicated relationship which we share between religion, caste and Indian public sphere. Ali looks at religion as an important aspect of India’s social context. He establishes that the role of religion cannot be underestimated in evaluating the political and social contexts of Indian societies. This has been established by drawing from political thinkers like B.R. Ambedkar, and Valerian Rodrigues. In the Indian domain, while deconstructing caste and religion, Gopal Guru argues the same.[4] He writes caste has wings, it can fly, and that’s why it reaches a place before we reach it. These aspects have lived experience to their credit too. I could think of Feminist Philosopher, Simone de Beauvoir’s description of lived experience, in her book, The Ethics of Ambiguity . She takes the example of glue and paper. The way we put paper on glue and it becomes impossible to separate them, in a similar manner, it's impossible to detach 'lived experience', from human existence and our social reality. The book walks on a thin rope of some pertinent theoretical concerns, visible criticism of Habermas’s concept and an alternative that Ali is trying to provide for the same. [1] Dolan, M. Frederick. "Arendt on Philosophy and Politics". https://philarchive.org/archive/DOLAOP [2] Term used by Ali for the same. [3] Ali, India, Habermas And The Normative Structure of Public Sphere , page no. 111. [4] Guru, Gopal. "Dalits from Margin to Margin." India International Centre Quarterly , 27: 111-116.

Review of Muzaffar Ali's book by Satya Javvaji Satya Javvaji MA student, KU Luven Oct 26, 2023 Book review of Muzaffar Ali's India, Habermas and the Normative Structure of Public Sphere (Routledge, 2023) In India, Habermas and the Normative Structure of Public Sphere , Muzaffar Ali sketches the theory and procedures of an adequate public sphere in India arguing that it has to focus on accessibility and acceptability of the individual participants. In a book that is comprehensive and accessible to a wide audience, Ali gracefully tackles the question of how to think through a native context while being aware of the overbearing Western hegemony on the one hand, and of the risk of delving into nativism or nationalism on the other. The context of the book’s conception starts with Ali’s personal discomfort with the rigid Western-Indian divide in his curriculum growing up. While authors from both geographies were being taught separately, there was a dearth of how to conduct native Indian political philosophy that neither preaches a pre-modern excavation of Indian values nor blindly adopts Western concepts and categories and applies them directly to the Indian context, which oftentimes much different. The book’s first chapter deals with precisely this question - “to figure out a way to deal with the West without a complete withdrawal and yet keep the elan vital of the decolonization project intact” (p. 13). Ali responds to it by arguing for a double native approach. Firstly, since a Western theory purports a universalism in its concepts, it remains essential for a non-western theory to engage with it and critically examine its shortcomings and exclusions. Secondly, these critical engagements have to form the basis of a native and decolonised Indian political theory that adequately captures the context of the society it is speaking with. An adequate theory does not stop at pointing out a historical or contextual exception to a Western theory, thereby proving it inapplicable. Rather, it captures the relevant conditions of possibility, that are socio-historically situated, to initiate a holistic theoretical basis that can, as is successfully carried out in this book, support an Indian public sphere. With this methodology in hand, in the second chapter, Ali discusses the notion of the public sphere in Habermas, whose contribution to its theory is considered field-defining in Western literature. The public sphere is the conceptual stage upon which members of a society exchange views of social and political significance that pertain to their collective life. In the Habermasian public sphere, citizens form a rational public opinion through the medium of linguistic communication which is seen as a reservoir of meaning. While everyone is theoretically invited to the public sphere, Ali points out that the notion relies on a singular universalizing idea and emphasizes the role of rationality disproportionately, thereby striving to keep the project of modernity alive. In doing this, it ignores that firstly, there might be multiple public spheres with diametrically opposed common concerns, and secondly, that since dialogue always already takes place within certain power structures, the marginal and historically excluded voices are either not heard or, to borrow Gayatri Spivak’s famous declaration, that the subaltern simply cannot speak. With these problems in mind and the direct non-applicability of this notion of the public sphere to India (that, according to Ali, is in part due to its heavy religious context), he discusses in the third chapter, that current Indian engagements with Habermas are either comparative or evaluative. Both these engagements pose challenges to the theory and provide critical ways of engaging with it, but either lose sight of the overall conceptual structure by focusing on particular historical examples/contexts or fail to offer a way forward in terms of moving out of the Western hegemonic shadow. Instead, what Ali aims for is a thick concept of the Indian situation that can, as a full concept, interact with the Habermasian theory of the public sphere. In the fourth and fifth chapters, Ali begins with the major chunk of his creative contributions to the idea of an Indian public sphere. He starts with the observation that existing critiques are mainly concerned about the lack of accessibility and acceptability of all to the public sphere. This leads him to frame these as the twin normative principles based on which he theorizes an imagined Indian public sphere. This is so that the public sphere is “gauged by the ease of access it offers to the communities and individuals of whom it claims to be on” and it accepts “the perspectives and viewpoints of all individuals sans any ifs and buts” (p. P. 117-18). He cautions again that he is not interested in a “nativist approach to portray the Indianness” but is instead aiming for a “native approach to conceptualize Indianness” (p. 84). For theoretical and socio-historical reasons, Ali chooses to focus on religion as the social entity that informs the Indian context, the historical idea of rationality in Indian literature and the burden of colonialism with respect to how it colours the reading of texts and consequently of understanding society. With respect to religion, Ali discusses the complicated nature of secularism in India, the socialized role of caste and the deeply political nature of these issues. Through the perspective of religion, it becomes clear that in the European context, the immigration of other religions forms a new conceptual problem while dealing with a universal and apparently secular public sphere. But when it comes to the Indian context, religion has always been part of the notion of secularism and is a “perennial entity within Indian societies” (p. 97). According to Ali, “majority-minority, upper caste-lower caste, powerful-powerless, man-woman binaries within the Indian situation are often anchored in religion” (p. 111). Additionally, he argues that the procedural communicative rationality advocated by Habermas does not apply to the Indian context if acceptability and accessibility are to be taken seriously in the public sphere, and that a combination of abstract rationality and contextual rationality has to be present. This takes seriously the notion that contextual examples cannot always be universalized and translated into abstract concepts and language. At the same time, it does not mean that context-based examples are simply supporting or adding legitimacy to a universalised social procedural reason. Ali proposes the term deuniversal rationality to understand the dual nature of rationality in the Indian context. He reformulates the two aspects of deuniversal rationality as abstract rationality and experiential rationality. With the help of Merleau Ponty’s theory of the embodied self, in combination with Gopal Guru and Sundar Sarukkai’s theory of how the social sphere translates into embodied experiences, Ali argues that not only critical reflection and consequent articulation but also other aspects of the individual’s public identity namely their embodied experience, cultural conditioning and their emotional aspects of existence must have unrestricted access to the public sphere since these are not subordinated to reason but are fundamental aspects of the individual’s self-identity and hence self-expression in the social sphere. Ali writes that the aim is “to grant an epistemic passage to the lived body to enter as a medium of communication within the public sphere. The lived experience emerges as … a parallel and meaningful category for conducting the debates within the public sphere” (p. 128). Ali argues for the co-originality, to borrow Habermas’ term, of both the abstract component and the lived experience component in making up deuniversal rationality. He hopes this not only allows more people, previously excluded, into the contextual Indian public sphere but also, in recognising that the public sphere is carried as part of the individual’s lived experience, and that these very experiences are accepted as contributions to interactions in the Indian public sphere. While Ali is successful at conceptualizing a thick notion of the Indian public sphere based on deuniversal rationality that equi-prioritizes abstract rationality and lived experience, questions follow about how issues are resolved at the theoretical level when these two components contradict or disagree with each other. This sits in the wider debate about the post-structural turn in philosophy emphasizing that discourse always already happens within certain power relations that not only oppress but also produce individuals. Since Ali’s focus was on expanding who is included in the public sphere, what could possibly be clarified further is how disagreements are to be resolved once everyone is in the public sphere. This is keeping in mind the hyper-mediatized society we live in and the possibility of a fragmented and polarized public sphere that is sometimes clearly visible during discussions pertaining to national identity. Additionally, some readers could argue that according to lived experience unqualified epistemic privilege of expressing the truth complicates matters of intra-group justice and brings up the issue of intersectionality. This is because individuals, while referring to their lived experience hardly ever refer to only themselves as isolated individuals but to the group they see themselves as belonging to and speaking as part of. However, since they are simultaneously part of multiple groups and identities, it becomes important to keep in mind that all these identities affect the articulation of their lived experience and cannot be neatly separated into compartments. These are additional remarks since the intellectual involvement and theoretical rigour with which Ali takes on the ambitious project of theorizing a native Indian public sphere is commendable making the book essential reading for political philosophers, political and social scientists, theorists from the global South and everyone who wishes to understand the complexities involved in thinking about the native. Image-credit: © Yann Forget / Wikimedia Commons

Mulla Nasrettin's Cogito Danish Hamid Independent Scholar Jan 13, 2025 One day, while wandering through the Old Venetian bazār, I, Mulla Nasrettin, stumbled upon a rather attractive looking leather bound book, titled Meditations written by a certain Descartes. Now, you know me—I’m a man of reflection, and the word "meditations" has always had a certain allure. “Perhaps,” I thought, “this book might guide me to some inner peace or reveal hidden truths of the soul that this French philosopher has discovered.” So I bought it, tucked it under my arm, and made my way home, thinking I’d sit down with it after Isha. The night was quiet, perfect for a bit of soul-searching. I lit a small lamp, sat comfortably by the fire, and picked up the book. Meditations by Monsieur Descartes. “Let’s see what wisdom your little book has for me,” I muttered to myself. I opened the book with great anticipation. But alas! The first few pages were filled with long-winded ramblings about method, and oh! How this Descartes fellow loved to talk about himself! His achievements, his credentials, his method—Method this, method that! I sighed. “Where is the meditation, the wisdom, the Lubbu'l-Lubâb of the matter?” I asked aloud. “Am I reading about the vanity of an old man or a guide to truth?” But then—finally!—I came across something more practical. This Descartes began doubting things. Ah! Now we’re getting somewhere, I thought. Doubting existence, doubting knowledge—this was something I could work with. Nasrettin Hoca likes a good doubt as much as anyone, especially when it comes to doubting about dreams, even in one's dreams. And so, I followed Descartes’s reasoning. I, too, would doubt the world around me, doubt my senses, doubt everything until only one thing remained. “I think, therefore I am,” Descartes concluded, and there it was—the grand revelation! I jumped from my seat. “Aha! I exist! I think, therefore I am!” But wait. This didn’t feel right. A different doubt now gnawed at me. Could it be that this Monsieur hadn’t doubted hard enough? He stopped too soon. He was content to rest at thinking. How could he be sure thinking was enough, enough to show I exist? I sat back down and rubbed my chin. “This Descartes fellow... He doubts, yes, but not quite as far as one must go. He should have doubted his own doubting! After all, if I’m to doubt everything, then why not doubt the very fact that I am doubting? Could it be that even my doubts are the product of someone—or something—else? I mean, who is to say these thoughts are mine at all?” With that thought, I stood again, pacing. “What if I am simply imagining my doubts? What if, in truth, I am a figment of someone else’s imagination?” And just then, my donkey, who had been lazily resting outside, brayed loudly. I turned to the door and squinted. “Ah, yes. The donkey. Could it be...?” My heart raced with this impossible thought. “What if it is not me imagining these doubts, but my donkey?” I strode outside to face the old beast. The donkey stared back at me, chewing slowly on his grass, completely indifferent to my hypothesis. “Tell me, old friend,” I said, crouching down to eye level with the creature. “Are you the one thinking me into existence? Is it you who doubts for me, making me question whether or not I exist?” The donkey blinked lazily. For a moment, the thought made me dizzy, but… I couldn’t dismiss it so easily. After all, if Descartes could doubt the existence of everything but his own thoughts, why couldn’t I go a step further? If I was to doubt everything, I must doubt that I am the one doing the doubting. Maybe the donkey—silent, patient, always observing—was the true thinker here, and I was merely his daydream. I stood, perplexed. “I doubt, therefore I am? No. Perhaps it is: The donkey doubts, therefore we are!” I walked back to my bed, shaking my head. This Descartes is too dubious a fellow, apart from being totally full of himself. The West must have come to really bad times when this guy is their star new philosopher. Oh to the good old days of Aristu, and Eflatun the Divine! But as I lay down to sleep that night, I couldn't help but worry. “Whether it’s my doubt or the donkey’s that gives me existence, one thing’s for sure—I can never look at the beast the same way again.” And with that, I drifted off, my mind slowly going into a haze….am I dreaming of the donkey, or does the donkey still dream of me?

Translating philosophy: DR Nagaraj's Allamaprabhu N S Gundur Professor, Department of Studies and Research in English, Tumkur University (Karnataka, India) Jul 3, 2022 The New India Foundation’s idea of translating the scholarship in bhashas into English fascinated me. Because translating creative literature, especially poetry and fiction, has been favourite in the republic of translation, particularly in the Kannada context; it rarely pays attention to the translation of discursive prose—philosophy, criticism etc. As a teacher who offers a translation course to my postgraduate students, I have found that I am quite at home translating non-fiction, mostly from English to Kannada. As a result, I tried translating some European thinkers including Martin Heidegger and Michel Foucault into Kannada. The NIF inspired me to try translating the Kannada scholarship into English. While I was pursuing my PhD at Karnatak University, Dharwad, I was drawn toward G S Amur ’s conviction that translation should happen from other languages to our own language. This, according to Amur, is primarily for two reasons: one, translation is a cultural need and it should be useful for us. Therefore, borrowing from other cultures would be a wise act. If, for example, a Kannadiga translates from the English language, the Kannada culture will be enriched. Secondly, translation is also a matter of linguistic competence. We are better at translating from our second or third languages to our own language, rather than doing it the other way round. After examining some bad translations of Kannada texts into English, I followed this conviction religiously and never tried my hand at translating Kannada texts into English. But the success story of Vanamala Viswanatha’s translation of a Kannada classic The Life of Harishchandra (Harvard University Press, 2017) changed my perception, and I began to realise the importance of translating our texts into English. Moreover, as someone doing academics in the English language, I now see my English writings as translations, because I think foremostly in Kannada. Among several factors, I must mention two that made me apply for the fellowship. First, the pride of joining the NIF community and learning from its stakeholders, if selected; second, the NIF understands translating scholarship as more than an act of translation; it is clearly mentioned in the programme description that it is a fellowship for research and translation. The seriousness with which the fellowship looked upon translation as research made me curious. Finally, translating the thought excited me, not to mention the huge amount of translation, which I came across for the first time. I, indeed, took more time to select the text than to write a proposal for it. Initially, I made a list of 5 to 6 works and took almost two months to decide on it. Thanks to friends and Kannada scholars who tolerated my endless discussions with them, and during one such conversation, my mentor Professor Prithvi Datta Chandra Shobhi, a D. R. Nagaraj's collaborator and translator too, categorically suggested Allamprabhu mattu Shaiva Pratibhe (1999). But my strategic thinking did not allow me to finalize it; I ruminated on which texts would get me the chances of obtaining the coveted fellowship. At times, I found DR’s work difficult to translate, and thought of some easily translatable texts. But my inner voice kept on reminding me of Professor Prithvi’s advice, and finally, I followed it. D. R. Nagaraj's (henceforth DR) work is an important contribution to the domain of Indian intellectual traditions. His two major books, The Flaming Feet and Other Essays: the Dalit Movement in India (2010) and Listening to the Loom: Essays on Literature, Politics and Violence (2012) are quite known to the non-Kannada reader. Allamaprabhu mattu Shaiva Pratibhe , which belongs to the mature period of his intellectual career, was published posthumously. It is the only monograph of DR that is not available in English. In fact, he wanted to write it in English or he himself could have translated it later, but he seems to have left it for my fortune. DR Nagaraj's book Allamma Prabhu Mathu Shaiva Prathibe In this book, DR was up to undertaking several intellectual ambitions, including decolonizing his own modes of inquiry and critiquing the historiography of Indian philosophy. Here, DR enters into a dialogue with contemporary historians of Indian philosophy by showing how Allama Prabhu , a 12th century Shaiva mystic, had conversations with Abhinavagupta, the Kashmiri Shaiva philosopher and Gorakhnatha, the mystic, and also with his contemporaries like Basavanna. While drawing our attention to the intellectual dimensions of the Veerashaiva movement, his close reading of Allama’s vachanas reconstructs the intellectual portrait of Allama as an argumentative Indian. Amartya Sen would have devoted a chapter on this theme in his The Argumentative Indian (2005) if this book were available to him in English. Further, the translation of this book, I am sure, would fulfill the NIF’s vision of ‘fostering comparative literature about different states and streams of progress’, besides creating ‘an expansive cultural reach for works which have thus far been confined to those who understand the original language of their composition’. As U R Ananthamurthy puts it ‘the classic work of DR has got the capacity to transform us, and DR tries to understand Allama not only in the context of medieval India but also from the viewpoint of our times; it addresses our cultural crisis.’ Those interested in the intellectual history of medieval India and understanding our dialogic traditions would be benefited from DR’s deep reflections and scholarship. If it is useful to maintain a conversation between the modern and the pre-modern, across languages and cultures, we need to engage with this kind of work. And this is how we achieve our country, by translating our thoughts for fellow Indians.

Modernity and its Futures Past Nishad Patnaik Faculty, IIIT Delhi Jan 8, 2025 An excerpt from Nishad Patnaik's book Modernity and its Futures Past: Recovering Unalienated Life (2023, Palgrave Macmillan, India). The basic claim of the book is that the contemporary figuration of modernity, in the positivistic understanding of nature, and capitalist form of society (as two sides of the same coin), constitutes the reification of the original universal, critical-rational impulse of the Enlightenment. Such reification sets up a tension between the universalizing and particularizing tendencies of reason, reflected, for instance, in the current dominance of the de-territorializing forces of globalized capitalism, on the one hand, and the simultaneous reemergence of xenophobic forms of nationalism, based on narrow, territorially bounded identifications along religious, ethnic or linguistic lines on the other. The tension between the universal and the particular, symptomatic of this deeper structural tendency towards reification, leads to a series of impasses in the interconnected theoretical, ethical, political and economic spheres, which come to constitute our sense of alienation. The book responds to this problematic by attempting to reconcile this tension in dialectical fashion, and thereby articulate an ‘alternative’, non-reified conception of modernity, from within the modernist tradition . Thus, instead of understanding the tension between the universal and the particular, the one and the many, the same and the other etc., as representing a mutually exclusive either-or choice, the book approaches these issues by elaborating their mutually constitutive co-dependence. As a corollary, it shows that the series of impasses to which modernity succumbs in the interconnected theoretical, ethical, political and economic spheres, stem from the attempt to reduce the ‘universal’ to the ‘particular’ or vice versa. The work argues that if we resist this tendency towards reduction, we can still renew the emancipatory promise that Enlightenment modernity once held, for providing a rational-universal self-foundation for humanity, while simultaneously avoiding the pitfalls of a reified form of universality. As we know, (and as Husserl elaborates with his evocation of the sense of ‘crisis’ in what he calls the ‘European Sciences’) the early optimism and ‘naïve faith’ in ‘universal reason’ has long since given way to skeptical resignation in the face of the positivistic form of reason that comes to dominate. The ‘positivistic reduction’ of reason has resulted in a morass of ‘posts’—'post-modernism’, ‘post-truth’, post-structuralism, post-Marxism etc., at the level of theory, which indicate a tendency towards the ‘empiricization’ of reason. The effects of such empiricization are felt in the intertwined ethical, political, and economic domains. And yet, at the level of socio-political and economic history, as the long, sordid past of the contemporary capitalist figuration of modernity, marked by the violence of colonialism, slavery etc., shows, any straightforward positing of the universal dimension of reason, in the face of such skepticism and resulting empiricization, is no longer possible. For, it is precisely in the name of ‘universal reason’, mediated through the inherent expansionary economic logic of capitalism, that colonial subjugation and exploitation (primary/‘primitive accumulation of capital’ in Marx’s terminology) unfolded (and I argue, continues to unfold in a transformed modality under the current neoliberal regime, which imposes its own neo-imperialist tendencies). Indeed, the skeptical reaction to the universal claims of ‘enlightened’ reason, leading to their empiricization (positivistic reduction), stems, in large measure, from these effects of an uncritical, reified universalism, which (qua concrete or determinate universal’ in the Hegelian sense) tend to exclude certain cultures, peoples (and their interests), and modes of thought. This is because, as many thinkers such as Charles Taylor, Judith Butler etc. have pointed out, any determinate universal, qua determinate, must necessarily be limited in its scope. The scope of the universal has historically determined, and continues to determine, the constitution of identity and difference, the ‘same’ and the ‘other’, that is, those that are included in, and excluded from, its scope. In modernity, as the scope of the universal is extended, at least in principle, to include all human beings (and now increasingly non-human species), it can set up a movement where the excluded can come to ‘haunt’ the universal, forcing its expansion (but also possible contraction). This also indicates the possibility of modernist ethics as an ethics without specific content, or a negative ethics, that is committed only to the ‘gap’ between any concretization of the universal—the ethically invested content/normative order of any political discourse, and the empty universal it represents—its indeterminate ‘horizonal beyond’ by which it is necessarily oriented, such that the former is always subject to critique and revision in light of the latter. Explicating this movement (‘hauntology’) Butler, for instance, writes, modern “democratic polities are constituted through exclusions that return to haunt the polities predicated upon their absence. That haunting becomes politically effective precisely in so far as the return of the excluded forces an expansion and re-articulation of the basic premise of democracy itself” (Butler, 2000, 11) . These considerations make visible, the basic dialectic between the ‘universal’ and the ‘particular’, in its enmeshed ‘theoretical’ and ‘material’ aspects. That is, they make visible both the constitutive interrelation and dependence between the universal and the particular, as well as the tendency towards reduction/reification of this interrelation to one of its poles (dialectical ‘one-sidedness’) that gives rise to the tensions or impasses inherent in our contemporary (alienated) modernity. It follows that the ultimately ethical task of renewing the emancipatory potential inherent in the critical-rational and universal dimension of reason that constituted the original impetus of Enlightenment modernity, in the face of its contemporary reified ‘theoretical’ and ‘material’ configuration, calls for a revised, non-reified conception of universality. The latter, I argue, can be nothing but a negative universality—a universality in constant ‘becoming’, (therefore, in its processive movement, nothing but a negative dialectic). Further, as I noted, the rearticulation of universality in this transformed, negative sense, in the face of reified (positivist and capitalist) modernity, amounts to the (re)articulation of an ‘alternative’, non-reified conception of modernity, from within the modernist tradition . For, as we know, the critical thrust of enlightened reason lies in the disenchantment of the world—stripping it of ‘meaning’ and ‘purposiveness’, which come to be seen as merely anthropomorphic projections. The disenchanted world, particularly in its capitalistic figuration, alienates human beings from nature and from each other. Thus, to rearticulate human emancipatory possibilities calls for the rearticulation of a non-alienated conception of both nature and society. However, the disenchantment wrought by the critical-reflective rationality of the Enlightenment cannot simply be undone in a return to pre-modern ‘enchantment’ —to a sacralised conception of the world, and to some posited ‘original’ unity with it in unalienated ‘immediacy’. For, on the one hand, the historically emergent critical-reflective experience of disenchantment (as an expression of reflective distance, transcendence vis-a-vis ‘immediacy’, inescapable mediation, or universality in a negative sense etc.), constitutive of our modernist form of consciousness and society, cannot simply be obliterated, in what would amount to ‘collective amnesia’ (although the dangers of such amnesia are always present, and become exacerbated in times of socio-economic and political crises). On the other, the earlier ‘enchanted’ conceptions of the world, with their naturalized/sacralised order and hierarchy, where the source of power and legitimacy lay in a transcendent ‘beyond’, were subject to their own modes of (unthematized) reification, and therefore, (implicit forms of) alienation. Thus, the rearticulation of human emancipatory possibilities, which can accommodate irreversible disenchantment, (or the negativity inherent in critical-reflective distance), must take the form of the recovery/renewal of an unalienated mode of existence, from within a non-reified modernity. The study begins by posing a question regarding our contemporary situation—why are we witnessing the resurgence of various forms of xenophobic nationalism, and the re-emergence of narrow, pre-modern solidarities along religious or ethnic lines, precisely when globalized, finance-driven capital is purportedly breaking down the traditional territorial and cultural boundaries of the nation-state? It elaborates this tension inherent in the present, by taking into consideration aspects of the arguments presented by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri in Empire (2000), as well as by Benedict Anderson in Imagined Communities (1983), while critiquing both. Whereas Hardt and Negri emphasize the supra-national tendencies of capital (captured in the de-territorialized sovereignty of ‘empire’), Anderson emphasizes the continued existence of nations and territorial boundaries. Yet, the present juncture is marked by both these tendencies, that is, both universalism (in the economic and juridical-normative domains) and particularism (nationalist parochialism). I argue that thinking of these tendencies as mutually opposed and exclusive, leads to an impasse both on the economic and political front, constitutive of contemporary capitalist modernity. More broadly, it results in a reified conception of modernity, which is the source of contemporary alienation. The latter then manifests itself in the regression to various pre-modern, parochial forms of identification and identity. This calls for a revised understanding of the present—one which does not merely emphasize one set of processes (universalistic tendencies), to the exclusion of the other (particularistic tendencies), but can account for their simultaneous co-existence. I account for this co-existence by arguing for their mutually constitutive co-dependence. By showing how the nation-state is essential to the wide-spread implementation of neo-liberal economic policies, I introduce the notion of hegemony (of the latter), as a possible, initial explication of this co-dependence. I take up this problematic in a concrete sense, through an analysis of the historical emergence of nationalist consciousness, and the ‘nation’, as a new, specifically modernist form of identity and political formation. It seems obvious that the modalities of nationalist consciousness and the conception of the nation itself, must differ depending on the historical and geographical contexts of their birth. That is, the birth of the nation state in the West, usually traced to the Westphalian peace treaties (1648) in Europe, and its emergence through the colonial encounter and anti-colonial struggle in Asia and Africa, in the 19th and 20th centuries, cannot be exactly the ‘same’ in their form, and certainly not, in their ‘content’. Yet, they do share certain continuities of form, arising from the universalizing tendencies inherent in capitalism, that give rise to colonial expansion, anti-colonial struggles, and the affirmation of nationalist consciousness/identities, on the part of the colonized. I elaborate these claims through an examination of Ernest Gellner’s Nations and Nationalism (1983) and Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities (1983), to compare and critique their analyses concerning the emergence of the ‘nation’. I show that Gellner does not take the ‘universal’ (both in its ‘structural’ and ‘normative’) dimension, inherent in capitalism too seriously. Thus, he does not see the close interconnection between the emergence of capitalist modernity, the rise of modern ‘nation-state’ (in Europe) and colonialism, preferring instead to restrict his analysis to an empirical level. Anderson in contrast, does take the normative dimension of ‘universality’ into account in his idea of the nation as an ‘imagined community’, only to rigidly fix its structural aspect in a ‘modular’ form that first arises in Europe, and is then transplanted to other parts of the world, through the colonial encounter. I discuss Partha Chatterjee’s critique of Anderson’s ‘modularity thesis’, in relation to the emergence of nationalist consciousness in post-colonial ‘imaginations’, in his The Nation and its Fragments (1993). I argue that the colonial encounter cannot be understood either on the ‘modular’ conception, or on Chatterjee’s ‘inner-spiritual’ and ‘outer-material scientific’ divide and the communitarian alternative that, he thinks, flows from it. Rather, its processive movement (which Chatterjee captures, but interprets differently) reveals the ‘inner dialectic’ (where Chatterjee’s conception of the inner-outer can be accommodated terms of the ‘unhappy consciousness’ phase that emergent self-consciousness goes through) constitutive of the nationalist consciousness that emerges in colonized subjects, in and through the struggle for independence. This incremental critique of Gellner’s, Anderson’s, and Chatterjee’s positions clears the decks for rethinking the possibility of unalienated forms of co-existence under conditions of modernity. That is, without taking recourse to various, ultimately pre-modern, sacralized conceptions of ‘community’, understood as modernity’s suppressed ‘other’. One such articulation of the ‘conditions of possibility’ of an unalienated form of life, which attempts to accommodate modernist disenchantment, is represented by Akeel Bilgrami’s work. Bilgrami shows how the tension between ‘liberty’ and ‘equality’, running through the Enlightenment, becomes the defining feature of modern liberal-democratic (and capitalistic) societies and cannot be resolved within it. This sets up the basic coordinates within which an unalienated form of society, in a modern, desacralized sense, must be thought. For, such a society must be able to reconcile the tension between ‘liberty’ and equality, which hitherto have always been thought in an oppositional sense, that is, as an opposition between individual liberty and collective equality. In his essay, Gandhi (and Marx) (2014), Bilgrami, in a two-step argument, first prepares the ground for an alternative, modernist form of unalienated life by bringing to light the contingent ‘hegemony’ of late capitalism. By tracing the historical and intellectual genealogy of capitalist modernity, and how it impinged on emergent nationalist consciousness in India under colonial rule, Bilgrami underscores both the historically, and rationally contingent character of the capitalist form that modernity takes. Yet, its contingency is not seen as such. That is, capitalism appears not as one possible configuration of modernity (that was ‘in fact’ realized) among other, equally historically and rationally viable possibilities (that, it so happened, were not realized), but as ‘objective’ (universal, rational) ‘reality’. Yet, I argue that on the one hand, the historically extant alternative visions that Bilgrami invokes (Levelers and Diggers, Gandhi), involve a sacralized conception of nature and of the human (and are therefore, not really ‘modernist’, but invoke a certain nostalgia for the pre-modern past). On the other, insofar as his rational, counterfactual argument, based on ‘opportunity costs’ remains a primarily negative critique of the rational argument (based on social contract) for capitalism (the rational justification of the privatization of the commons), it does not sufficiently account for the skeptical consequences inherent in the notion of ‘contingent hegemony’. In other words, it does not address the possibility that these skeptical consequences end up undercutting not only the claim to the (rational) universality of capitalist social organization, but also that of any alternative conception of modernity based on universal reason, understood in its positive institutional-social configuration. Bilgrami’s argument ends up affecting a split between reason and history that is in keeping with the tendency towards empiricization, where the movement of history, and specifically the socio-political domain, becomes nothing but an endless series of contestations and provisional victories (in the form of a temporary hegemonic consensus). To mitigate these skeptical effects of empiricization/particularism, I turn to the dialectical model of thought which emphasizes the movement of history through the movement of determinate negation, which is itself based on the processive character of reification. Through the latter, the universal dimension of rationality inherent in the historical emergence of modernity comes to be ‘reduced’ to the capitalist form of society on the one hand, and inseparable from it, the techno-scientific understanding of nature on the other. Such reduction, constitutes the source of our alienation in relation to others, and to ‘nature’. I trace this sense of alienation and its basis in reified modernity, via the ‘disenchantment’ of nature and of human relations, brought about through the historical trajectory and shape that modernity comes to take in the Enlightenment. I elaborate the imbricated historicities of the techno-scientifically mediated conception of ‘nature’ (as disenchanted), and the capitalist form of social organization (which permits the fullest manipulation and exploitation of ‘disenchanted’, quantified nature), through a discussion of Hegel’s Husserl’s, Heidegger’s, and Adorno’s and Horkheimer’s writings. Once this idea of a reified modernity determined by the capitalistic and techno-scientific framework, is established, it brings to the fore the question of the possibility of an ‘alternative unalienated form of modernity’. Yet, on the one hand, as I noted, such a recovery cannot mean a return to a pre-modern, sacralized conception of community and nature, since these forms of existence involve their own unreflective modes of reification, (in terms of deified, hence, ‘naturalized’ social hierarchies etc.), and therefore, unthematized modes of alienated existence. On the other, it cannot entail an orientation which, either in the present or in the future, attempts to restore or realize the immediacy of the ‘real’ (a ‘metaphysics of presence’) in the objective-universal sense (conceived either as ‘material’ or ideal-rational reality), specific to reified modernity. From an epistemological perspective, such immediacy (presence) is ruled out in principle—as varied philosophical traditions, from transcendental idealism, phenomenology, hermeneutics, deconstruction etc. have argued. But, in a related sense, it is also critiqued from a political-normative perspective, insofar as the attempt to realize the impossible ideal/telos of a ‘society without antagonisms’, leads to a totalizing conception, which can have totalitarian consequences—a charge often brought against communist societies, which are said to exemplify a reified, distinctly modernist form of totalitarianism. Thus, the task of articulating an ‘alternative conception of modernity’, in and through the articulation of unalienated existence, calls for a ‘non-reified’ account of modernity. More precisely, as I elaborate in my reading of Marx, since the process of reification is inevitable (due to our spatio-temporal finitude, as Kant had already shown) it calls for an account where this process is reflectively and institutionally acknowledged, and thus rendered ‘harmless’ (echoing the Kantian sense of the term in the Transcendental Dialectic ) that is, where the institutionalized modes of such reflective acknowledgment circumvent the deleterious consequences of reification. Insofar as this task is explicitly political, it gives rise to further issues concerning the very possibility and scope of political-emancipatory projects. I trace these issues to universalistic and particularistic tendencies in the political domain. I noted how, when seen merely as contradictory, or mutually exclusive, the universalistic and particularistic orientations result in the reification of modernity, and in the economic and political impasses that flow from such reification. On the political front, the impasse manifests itself in the perpetual back and forth movement between politics conceived as merely empirical, that is, as an endless game of conflicts and provisional hegemonic formations in the name of the universal; and as making genuinely universal claims based on ‘justice’, or as the historical struggle/‘progress’ towards the realization of a ‘universally’ just, non-hierarchical, equal society. In contrast, I show that these particularistic and universalistic tendencies are mutually constitutive in a dialectical sense. How the mutual dependence and interconnection between the ‘particular’ and the universal in the political sphere, and therefore, the notion of dialectics itself, is to be understood, is the subject of debate between Judith Butler, Ernesto Laclau and Slavoj Žižek in their book— Contingency, Hegemony, Universality (2000). I analyze this debate, and focus on Butler’s notion of a ‘universal in becoming’, as an elaboration of the constitutive relation between the particular and universal within the political, and thus, of the recovery and articulation of a non-reified modernity. The notion of a ‘universal in becoming’ raises further conceptual and ‘practical’ issues. Are appeals to ‘universality’ (the appeals to justice, rights etc.) that articulate contemporary politics, appeals to a ‘ contingent universality’ (as Laclau contends), constituted by projecting particular claims as apparently universal, but which come to acquire legitimacy only by acquiring hegemony ? Or can political claims and struggles be articulated by a universality that remains explicitly empty—devoid of determinate content, hence a processive universal always in becoming, and it is this very emptiness that constitutes its normative legitimacy, as both Butler and Žižek argue, although in different ways? I address this problem through a return to the writings of Marx and Hegel, which form the background of this debate. In returning to Marx and Hegel, I underscore the centrality of the dialectic for explicating how the notion of a ‘universal in becoming’, plays out in the in the domain of political economy. However, with this return, the dialectic is no longer restricted to the present—to the oscillation between the particular and the universal constitutive of the impasse of the political in contemporary, reified modernity. Rather, I take up the notion of the dialectic in its historical movement, in order to provide a revised interpretation of both Marx’s (and Hegel’s) positions. This revision shows how Hegel’s theoretical conception of ‘absolute knowing’, and Marx’s political-normative project of overcoming (capitalist) alienation (and the realization of unalienated existence), does not culminate in the dead-end of absolute self-presence. That is, it does not entail the ‘end of history’, where the ‘subject’ and ‘object’ of history finally come together in reflective self-coincidence, in a society fully transparent to itself—without antagonisms, difference etc. Instead, I argue that since reification is inevitable, (Hegel’s and) Marx’s position cannot amount to the overcoming of reification (in reflective self-coincidence or transparency) but to its reflective acknowledgement, an acknowledgement that is institutionally realized in post-capitalist, unalienated society. In other words, I show how the post-Marxist, post-modern critique of Marx, based on the claim that he succumbs to a ‘metaphysics of presence’ conflates the processes of reification and alienation. Marx’s aim is to overcome capitalist alienation, but this does not entail overcoming (structural) reification. This interpretation provides fresh impetus to the ‘universalistic’ dimension of the political, thus, to the possibility of universal political-emancipatory projects, in the face of the hegemony of the capitalist form of reified modernity. In the final part of the study, I further explicate this universalist dimension, qua ‘universal in becoming’, by turning to Adorno’s notion of ‘ negative dialectics ’. Through a discussion of this idea, against the background of the Hegelian (and Marxian) conception of dialectics in our revised sense (not merely as ‘determinate negation’, as Adorno insists), I bring to light points of continuity (despite Adorno’s critique of Hegelian dialectics), between the two conceptions. The negative element of the dialectic (movement of thought), that is, a dialectic that does not culminate, each time, in a determinate negation, or assert ‘the identity of identity and non-identity’, but stays in the moment of negativity, that is ‘points beyond its own identifying movement’, amounts to a reflective awareness of our own finitude. It indicates the ‘non-closure’ of the social, from within the social, and not as (empirical) contingency etc. In other words, as Adorno, explicating the ‘double bind’ in relation to social, argues, Marx’s critique of ‘identity’ qua equivalent exchange under capitalism, does not aim at abolishing that equivalence as a ‘matter of fact’. For, not only is form/identity inescapable in principle, but a return to earlier ‘forms’ of non-equivalence/non-identity would reinstate the injustice inherent in those earlier societies. Rather, as Adorno asserts, it aims at making the “inequality within equality” visible, and thus, “aims at equality too”. When we criticize the barter principle as the identifying principle of thought, we want to realize the ideal of free and just barter. To date, this ideal is only a pretext. Its realization alone would transcend barter. Once critical theory has shown it up for what it is—an exchange of things that are equal yet unequal—our critique of inequality within equality aims at equality too […]. If no man had part of his labour withheld from him anymore rational identity would be a fact, and society would have transcended the identifying mode of thinking. (Adorno, 2003, 147) Therefore, the basic principle of negative dialectics, including the “double bind” inherent in it, that Adorno indicates, also holds for post-capitalist society. The difference, in relation to capitalism, as I have underscored, lies in reflective thematization of this necessary intertwinement and movement between identity and non-identity. In other words, ‘inequality’/non-identity becomes discernible only from within the seeming ‘totality’/’closure’ of ‘equality’, of equivalent exchange; and yet, the critique that uncovers ‘inequality within equality’ also ‘aims at equality’—in the sense that the recognition of inequality cannot remain in the negative moment of critique, but must take the ‘positive form’ of the realization of equality as a “matter of fact”. Therefore, the basic principle of negative dialectics, including the “double bind” inherent in it, that Adorno indicates, also holds for post-capitalist society. The difference, in relation to capitalism, as I have underscored, lies in reflective thematization of this necessary intertwinement and movement between identity and non-identity. In other words, ‘inequality’/non-identity becomes discernible only from within the seeming ‘totality’/’closure’ of ‘equality’, of equivalent exchange; and yet, the critique that uncovers ‘inequality within equality’ also ‘aims at equality’—in the sense that the recognition of inequality cannot remain in the negative moment of critique, but must take the ‘positive form’ of the realization of equality as a “matter of fact”. This, Adorno writes, “comes close enough to Hegel”. The difference with respect to Hegel lies in the direction of ‘intent’ of negative dialectics. The latter does not, theoretically or in practice, maintain the primacy of identity—claim that identity is ‘ultimate’ or ‘absolute’ in a final reconciliation (of identity and difference, universality and particularity etc.) that constitutes the telos of the dialectical unfolding of reason. Rather, for negative dialectics, “[…] identity is the universal coercive mechanism, which we, too, finally need , to free ourselves from universal coercion, just as freedom can come to be real only through coercive civilization, not by way of any “Back to nature””. (Adorno 2003, 147) In the book my endeavor also has been to open up the space of non-identity within identity, in order to (re)imagine a different world, a world where freedom (in noncoercive identity/equality) becomes a “matter of fact”. By reaffirming the possibility of the political in this specific sense of a ‘universal in becoming’ that is, one which involves neither a return to some pre-modern sacralized conception, nor to a reified modernist conception of universality qua ‘presence’, I bring to light the possibility and scope of an unalienated mode of existence from within the modernist tradition. The central claim that I make is that the recovery of unalienated existence in this modernist sense, implies an acknowledgement of our finitude and dependence, with respect to nature and to each other. This reflective realization of our finitude is nothing but the acknowledgement of the ‘double bind’ (oscillation between relative and absolute difference, negativity etc.) in which we are always caught. I attempt to show, how Marx’s vision of a post-capitalist society amounts to an institutional acknowledgement our finitude in this specific sense of the ‘double bind’, to which the movement of thought/reason is subject. It is in this sense therefore, that the recovery of an alternative, non-reified conception of modernity, covered over in the course of the historical emergence of contemporary modernity and the reified form it takes, must be understood. References Adorno, T. W. (2003). Negative Dialectics . New York, London: Continuum. Anderson, B. (2006). Imagined Communities . New York, London: Verso. Bilgrami, A. (2014). Secularism, Identity and Enchantment . Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Butler, J. (2000) “Restaging the Universal: Hegemony and the Limits of Formalism”. In, Butler, J., Laclau, E., Zižek, S., Contingency, Hegemony, Universality: Contemporary Dialogues on the Left . New York, London: Verso Chatterjee, P. (1993). The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Post-colonial Histories . New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Gellner, E. (1983). Nations and Nationalism . Ithaca: Cornell University Press Hardt, M., and Negri, A. (2000). Empire. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Husserl, E. (1970). The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Philosophy . Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

Reading groups in IPN Reading Groups IPN enables focused philosophy reading and research groups. The details of currently active groups are given below. Please get in touch with the respective moderators to join a specific group. Metaethics Reading Group Themes : moral epistemology, moral motivation, moral reasoning, moral judgement, moral normativity, moral realism/irrealism and history of metaethics Moderators : Sushruth Ravish (PhD Student, IIT-Bombay) and Vivek Kumar Radhakrishnan (PhD Student, Manipal Academy of Higher Education) Contacts: sushruth.ravish[AT]gmail.com or vivek.logos[AT]gmail.com Realism/Anti-realism and Philosophy of Mind Reading Group Themes : epistemological and metaphysical realism/anti-realism; scientific realism/anti-realism; Kantian transcendental idealism; epistemic humility; mind-body problem; mental causation; self-awareness. Moderators: Siddharth S (Sai University, Chennai) and Nishant Kumar (PhD Scholar, IIT Madras) Contacts: siddharth.nias[AT]g mail.com or nishant.iitmadras[AT]g mail.com

The Karnataka Hijab row is about Right to Education, not Freedom of Religion Sania Ismailee PhD Scholar, Department of HSS, IIT Delhi Feb 22, 2022 This article is part of the series of responses from philosophers on the hijab row . The Karnataka case is not a hijab ban case per se. It is the case of imposing a uniform which happens to impose a disadvantage over religious people who display religious symbols like hijab, turban, kirpan, etc. Note a rosary under my collar or a religious bangle/thread hidden under my sleeve will not be incompatible with a prescribed dress code. The central question is then whether the burden imposed by the uniform on religious students constitutes unfairness that must be accommodated for ensuring justice (here, equal opportunity for education). In this specific case, we know that forcing the uniform without accommodating the demands of hijabi Muslim women will hinder their access to education which will be detrimental to their development. It will curtail their opportunities, mainly because we know the economic backwardness of the Muslim community in general and how it may affect Muslim women's opportunities to access education and employment. Religious women will not take off their hijab to go to school but prefer sitting at home. This happened in France and reduced the integration of Muslim women into French society . Therefore, it is incumbent upon the state to accommodate their demands rather than marginalizing an already marginalized group. The uniform rule does not stop anyone from being a Muslim with a hijab but hinders her access to education by disallowing wearing hijab on school premises. This is a subtle but pertinent distinction. I don't think an essential practice test is required to arrive at a solution. The essential practice test is used by Indian courts to scrutinize a controversial religious practice. For instance, whether Hinduism stops women of menstruating age from entering the Sabarimala temple. In the Karnataka case, the central concern is not whether the religious practice is contentious given the specificities of the case. The centrality of the hijab to the integrity and identity of these women is sufficient to accommodate their demands without curtailing their access to education. The centrality of hijab to their "ethical integrity" and identity offers valid grounds for distinguishing the hijab from other clothes like shorts or clown caps. The burden of making education accessible is on the state, not on the religious student. Therefore, the salience of these issues renders insufficient the "I want to distance myself from the BJP to support the Muslim woman" argument. Sundar Sarukkai's argument on the relationship between uniform and equality doesn't address the central issue by eliminating the Muslim figure. Besides, uniforms do play a role in ensuring equality, other things remaining equal. A cursory theme of the Karnataka row is whether the hijab is a patriarchal and forced practice or a case of false choice. Or whether the Quran prescribes hijab as a specific dress code or whether "it is high time for Muslims to accept social reform and move on." We often conflate what is practiced in Muslim societies as Islamic. This is an unconscious jump because oppressive practices by patriarchs (men and women) are justified in the name of Islam. But that doesn't necessarily mean it is indeed an Islamic practice. Here, I disagree with the claim that the hijab is a forced practice "always" (see Nilüfer Göle's study on the different reasons women do hijab--not always religious but not always forced as well). I am not saying hijab is "never" forced. I agree with the argument from control over women's bodies: imposing upon the woman to cover or not to cover is exercising control over their bodies. Take the case of triple talaq or nikaah halala. Powerful Muslim women's movements have used the Quran and sharia to fight patriarchy. So, claims that the Quran is an archaic text are false. Because if it was an archaic seventh-century text with no relevance, how do these religious women use it to secure their rights? (See the brilliant work by MUSAWAH on Muslim family law reform around the world). I am not suggesting that religion is never a tool for oppression. Over here, it is crucial to realize that religion can be a powerful source for reform. Liberal scholars like Martha Nussbaum and Ayelet Shachar have explained how the liberal dismissal of religion as patriarchal leaves the religious woman in a dilemma where either you can be religious or be liberated; there is no middle ground. This is a false dilemma. You can be religious and liberated. Powerful Muslim women's movements around the world are challenging this dilemma rooted in the Western liberal feminist framework along with fighting against orthodox religious interpretations and state repression of minority voices (see Amina Wadud's and Asma Barlas' works). The liberal feminist framework projects itself as a false universal such that if you fall short of its standards, you are branded as illiberal. Discourses on decolonizing theory have pointed this out. So the Muslim woman does not "need saving" from Islam by liberals ( Lila Abu Lughod ). Most people don't know anything about Islam's position on women and mistakenly conflate oppressive practices of Muslim societies with Islam. Of course, it is never enough to say this is not Islamic, even if it is justified in the name of Islam (similar arguments made in the context of violence in Islam and terrorism). But one must acknowledge religion as a powerful tool for reform. For instance, Raja Rammohan Roy used Hindu scriptures, not secular reasons, to argue against sati. For a philosophical piece defending the hijab in the French ban context, see Cecile Laborde . ___________________________________________________________________________________________ Read other articles in this series: Ariba Zaidi -- A Word of Caution to 'the Uniformist' and 'the Reformist’ Danish Hamid -- Back to Liberal Basics Hina Mushtaq -- Can women decide for themselves? Sania Ismailee -- The Karnataka Hijab row is about Right to Education...