Full Description
Talking Sociology is the ninth title in the OUP series of Ramin Jahanbegloo's conversations with prominent intellectuals who have made significant contribution in shaping the modern Indian thought. The present volume covers the life and works of the influential Indian sociologist and public intellectual, Dipankar Gupta. As a social scientist, Gupta has made remarkable contribution to contemporary social theory by redefining and reconstructing the central concepts of the past masters and taking sociology beyond its disciplinary boundaries by helping several generations of Indians understand contemporary social change and transformation of institutions. He is considered the most insightful analyst of modernity and modernization in India. The conversation in this volume revolves around Gupta's career and contribution to the field, and discusses the key areas of sociology such as the problem of social stratification, citizenship and democracy, and the caste system and ethnic groups in India.
Contents
Introduction: Dipankar Gupta-Making Sense of India and Modernity
Part I: From Bihar to Delhi
A Bengali Household
Growing Up in an Apolitical Family
Nehruvian Times and the Partition Effect
An Agnostic Indian
The Art of Being a Bengali
An Unhappy School boy
A Mumbai Man
Entering Academics and the Delhi School of Economics
Appreciating Philosophy
The Joshi Influence
The JNU Years
Politics at JNU
Part II: Thinking Sociology
The Shiv Sena in Bombay
The Emergency Years
Learning Experiences in the West
Becoming a Regular Teacher
Ethics and Business
Reading Levinas
Contributions to Indian Sociology
Thinking with the French Culture
The Impact of Levi-Strauss
Part III: Citizenship and Democracy
Revolution from Above
The Bilbao Experience
The Comparative Mood and the Indian Laboratory
The Role of the Citizen Elite
Gandhi and the West
Gandhi and the Political Grammar of Democracy
Exoticising Gandhi
Thinking Nonviolence Today
Gandhi, Nehru and the Constitution
Ram Mohan Roy and Saint Simon
Fraternity and Empathy
Citizenship and Indianess
Part IV: Caste, Village, and Modernity
How to Judge Rural India
Are We Moderns?
Orientalism and Caste
The End of Caste?
Caste and Elections in India
Part V: Communalism and Ethnicity
Sikh Identity Politics
The Sikh Identity
Nation-States and Their Enemies
The Sacralization of India
Nationalism and Grievances
The Role of Sociologists in Democracies
Part VI: Modern Institutions and Cultural Spaces
Space, Non-Space and Secularization
The Sacred in Indian Politics
Religion and the State
Reason and Progress
Index
About the Authors
