Debate over Science: Moving Past Politics of Nostalgia

Author(s): Meera Nanda

Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 34, No. 18 (May 1-7, 1999), pp. 1065-1068
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4407908
Accessed: 07-04-2020 08:41 UTC

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

Economic and Political Weekly is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend
access to Economic and Political Weekly

This content downloaded from 112.196.145.71 on Tue, 07 Apr 2020 08:41:46 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 DISCUSSION

has had on the ecofeminists, farmers, and

Debate over Science: Moving Past Politics
swadeshi movements at home, and because

of Nostalgia of the iconic stature she still has, despite

some rumblings of discontent, in women's
studies and science studies in the west.
Meera Nanda
Yes, I single out Nandy because of the
leading role he played in the scientific-
IN a number of interventions spreadIndia. out Given the fact that Chadha, followingtemper debate. But I hasten to assure - or
over the last two years, Geeta Chadha Helen
has Longino and other feminists she discomfit? - Geeta Chadha that I have
taken issue both with Alan Sokal and far bigger fish to catch, so to speak, than
cites so approvingly, insists that the content
myself over our opposition to post- of scientific knowledge is co-constructed the tired old romantics like Nandy and
modernist and post-colonial critiques withof the political context and cultural Shiva.
moder science.1 She has followed the values, it is hard to see how she can salvageIn my forthcoming book, provisionally
debate with a great deal of perseveranceany content or rationality of science that titled Prophets Facing Backwards: Post-
and passion. She has raised serious is not forever tainted by the memorymodernist of Critiques of Science and New
questions, which deserve a serious Auschwitz and other crimes against Social Movements in the Post-Colonial
response. In what follows, I will try tohumanity. How can this kind of over- World, I challenge the performative
respond to her most recent criticism (EPW,wrought, diabolical framing ever admit or contradiction that underlies all genre of
November 21, 1998) of my most recenteven imagine a clean chit for science? immanent critique, be it deployed by
essay inEPW(April 18, 1998). Alan SokalDoesn't the frame foreclose anything but romantic or critical neo-Gandhians (the
will separately address the issues Chadha a most fervent condemnation of science "new communitarians", as Sarah Joseph
h.ss raised regarding his well known parodyand technology? Is it any surprise at allhas called them recently in the page of
of post-modernist science critics. that Chadha should find my plea forEPW), Foucaultian post-colonialists and/
First, relatively minor points about a continued relevance of modern science or Foucaultian post-developmentalists,
my alleged tone and intent. As for thein the cultural transformation of the post-colonial discourse analysts, feminist
tcne, Chadha charges me with "over- brahmanical cosmopolis as "over- standpoint epistemologists and all other
enthusiasm" in support of science. And asenthusiastic"? derivatives discourses of post-modernist
for my intent, she reduces my position I could, at this point, go on and ferret social theory in the west. My target, in
merely to a backlash against the purveyorsout passages from my essay in question other words, is the entire genre of immanent
of the "politics of nostalgia", namely,that I am by no means arguing for a view social criticism that rejects the historic
Nandy, Shiva, Alvares and other assortedof science as some kind of a new-left break in human knowledge heralded by
romantic traditionalists. religion, nor I am beating the drum the for scientific revolution as a western/
If I appear "over-enthusiastic" about progress-forever. Who in the right mind, eurocentric/colonial and patriarchal
science the problem, I contend, lies not at the end of this long and bloody 20th "metanarrative", and turns to "local
with the content of what I am saying, but century, would want to cheerlead the troops
narratives" for legitimating an "alternative
with the context in which this debate is onwards and upwards? Who can, after the modernity" grounded in "our own" con-
Gulags, dream utopian dreams? What
taking place. Given the total, hyperbolic I
ceptual categories and ways of knowing.
have been arguing against is the philo-
and near-hysterical attacks on science and I argue that all prophets of alternative
modernity that have come to form the sophical logic and the political fall-outmodernity,
of as long as they reject as
common sense of a large and influential the genre of total critique of scientificnormative the progressive and secularising
section of India's "progressive" intel-reason that has brought us to the pointdifferentiation
in of fact-value, nature-
India where all we are left with are our
lectuals and social movements, any defence culture, positive/analytical- mythopoetic/
of science, howeverqualified and nuancedvaunted traditions, an injunction from associative knowledge introduced by the
it may be, runs the risk of appearing the high priests of Indian social sciences
institutionalised scepticism of modem
not to cross the Lakshman rekha of "our
uncritically celebratory. Indeed, Geeta science, end up facing backwards. Or as
Chadha herself provides a good exampleown" ways of knowing, and a far-from- Habermas put it, "post-modernity defi-
of the kind of inflamed rhetoric that convincing defence of new traditional- nitely presents itself as anti-modernity".2
ism from Chadha and her feminist-
provides the backdrop of my intervention Yes, I agree with Chadha, all critiques
epistemologist allies that "epistemic
in the science debate. Take, for instance, of science are not anti-science. To attack
her very reasonable question: given therelativism ...need not be ...as damaging any as
criticism of science as an institution,
fact that science and technology have made out to be...". a way of knowing or a body of knowledge
become a reason of the modernising state,Before I move on to more substantive as rejectionist or anti-science will indeed
should the left-progressives continueissues,
to let me briefly set the record straightamount to a conservative backlash against
give science a clean chit? But in a move
on the scope and intent of my critique of feminists and all other critics who have
characteristic of the genre of science the critics of science. For no fault of her asked some extremely pertinent questions
critique that Sokal and myself are own - for she has not read my entire about the role of science in perpetuating
concerned with, she frames the scienceoeuvre
in - Chadha patronises me by sexist and orientalist ideologies. Censoring
question as a "package deal" of the kind
assuming that I am only reacting to the all criticism of science will amount,
between "electricity and Auschwitz", likes
and of Shiva and Nandy. True, I have had moreover, to a dangerous deification of
to spend more time and energy demysti- science which will be counter to the spirit
follows it up with references to "genocide"
and "totalitarianism" of developmentfyingin Shiva because of the influence she of scientific inquiry which grants nothing,

Economic and Political Weekly May 1, 1999 1065

This content downloaded from 112.196.145.71 on Tue, 07 Apr 2020 08:41:46 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
not even itself, an immunity from further politics that follows from it. But theirI criticise the critics of science, I am most
testing. deference to tradition as the only legitimateemphatically not challenging their unease
But those critiques of science that deny source of knowledge keeps these criticsand disenchantment with what has passed
the legitimacy of the very ideals and goals tethered to the same ideological grazingas development and modernisation,
of scientific knowledge, as we know it, grounds as the herd of hindutvawadis. although I do sometimes challenge their
cannot but be anti-scientific. Unfortu- But enough about my larger project. Let evidence and their analytical acumen. But
nately, even though some may want to me return to my main purpose, that is, to what I insist upon challenging is the
back-pedal and deny it, feminist episte- answer the specific issues Chadha has widespread tendency among Indian
mologists, postcolonial intellectuals and raised. Her critique follows a double track.science critics to read maldevelopment
other assorted critics of "colonialism of First, shejuxtaposes my "over-enthusiasm"into the very rationality of science itself,
the mind", have for too long led this kind for science with Shiv Visvanathan's hyper- to make the often highly exaggerated,
critical reading of the dismal role of scienceunsupported and ideologically biased
of an attack on the very logic and rationality
of science as being inseparable from the and technology in our more than 50 yearsclaims of failure' of development as
culturally derived conceptual grids,
of maldevelopment in India. Havingsomehow inherent in the reductionist/
civilisational assumptions, gender and/or disposed of these two positions as twoinstrumentalist, western and masculinist
national identities of the knowers. It is extremes, she proceeds to present her own rationality of science itself.
this, supposedly "radical" denial of the qualified defence of anti-enlightenment That is why I find it highly ironic that
very possibility of a self-reflexive and ideas and epistemic relativism as theChadha would think that Shiv Visva-
middle-of-the-road solution for science
progressively less value-laden science that nathan's critique of development will
I. Alan Sokal, and other critics of post- studies and social movements in India. I provide "sociological evidence" that I
modernist/social constructivist trends are have serious misgivings about both these demand for the local roots of disenchant-
concerned with. At the same time, we tracks. ment with science. On the contrary, Visva-
remain committed to holding scientific Let me begin with her "simple juxta- nathan's compendium of the ills of
ideas, institutions and scientists themselves position". My problem with it is that it is,
development that Chadha cites is very
to most exacting but reasoned critique for well, too simplistic. By holding my defence good example of what I think is wrong
their role in institutions and agencies that of science as a mirror image to Shiv with the left's critiques of science and
promote exploitation of nature and people, Visvanathan's radical rejection of it, development. Highly complex, multi-
militarism, racism. To reduce our critique Chadha simply assumes that I am unwilling faceted developments, from the Emer-
of the critics of science to a conservative gency, to the Delhi riots to the Narmada
to entertain any critique of science or that
"backlash", as Geeta Chadha and other dam- and yes, both Visvanath and Chadha
I am unwilling to see that there are genuine
partisans of science studies both in Indiaproblems with the way science and techno- forgot to add the green revolution! - are
and elsewhere have done, is to mis- logy have been deployed in development read as an unfolding of the "genocidal",
understand our intent and to wilfully turnprojects. According to Chadha, I see Indian "totalitarian" telos of scientific reason in
a blind eye to the substance of our critique.science critics either as mimicking western
Very briefly, what is this performativeacademic fashions or as indulging in
contradiction that turns the dreams of nostalgia. But she claims that I fail to seeTHE TATA IRON AND STEEL
alternative/post-modernity into anti- that the sources of disenchantment of the COMPANY LIMITED
Indian critics lie in the "history of the
modernity? It is simply this (to take the
challenge Jurgen Habermas posed to Indian nation-state" and its failed develop- NOTICE
critical theory): how can there be a criticalment policies. She then offers Shiv
theory of society when reason itself isVisvanathan account of his own dis- NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN pur
identified with the urge to dominate? Or Section 154 of the Companies Act, 1
enchantment with "science, secularism,
the Register of Members will rem
as Ambedkar put it far more simply
development, reason and progress", as
from Friday, 28th May 1999 to Fr
and long before Habermas: "Reason and
"sociological evidence" to show thatJune
I do 1999 (both days inclusive)forth
not
morality are the two most powerful understand the local sources of science of payment of dividend for the year
weapons in the armoury of a reformer. Tocritique in India. March 1999, when sanctioned.
deprive him of the use of these weapons This caricature of my position is doubly The Transfer Books of the Compan
is to disable him for action."3 It is myunjustified. First, I clearly and repeatedly remain closed during the aforesai
applaud and support the anti-scientistic,
contention that post-modernist and social Notice is also hereby given that the
constructivist theories of knowledge anti-technocratic and humanistic impulse for the year ended 31st March 19
of the critics of science. I credit the critics
reduce rationality and truth to a matter of sanctioned, will be made payable
shareholders whose names stand on the
local knowledge, consensus and cultural for "insisting that the voice of the displaced
forms of life and thus, in effect deprive be heard, that culture not always give way Register of Members of the Company on
Friday, 18th June 1999.
the subaltern the means to question these to technocratic reason..." (p 918). I
very local knowledges and forms of life repeatedly insist that "science must be Dated, this 15th day of April 1999.
scrutinised for i(s ideological biases"
that are a source of their oppression. It is THE TATA IRON AND STEEL COMPANY LIMITED

this deeply flawed underlying logic of

(p 915). It is by no means the case that Sd/-
situated criticism, and not the progressiveI am blind to, or I minimise, the dangers (Mrs. S.S. Kudtarkar)
intentions of the culturalist left, that makesof letting science become the reason of the COMPANY SECRETARY

the latter an unwitting bedfellow of thestate. Indeed, as a one-time journalist-

religious right. I do not doubt for a momentactivist, I have myself produced a sizeable Registered Office:
that the critical traditionalist left is in fact Bombay House
volume of critiques of top-heavy develop- 24, Homi Mody Street
strenuously opposed to the cultural ment initiatives, and have actively sup- Fort, Mumbai 400 001
chauvinism of hindutva and the murderous ported development alternatives.4 When

1066 Economic and Political Weekly May 1, 1999

This content downloaded from 112.196.145.71 on Tue, 07 Apr 2020 08:41:46 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
the service of a murderous, modernising of the dam.7 But the radical critics foreclose criterion for judging and discarding the
state. I have examined in details the any reasoned discussion of why even the transition from a private to a public patri-
theoretical bankruptcy and empirical affected
blind people may find the dam attractive, archy that is going on in the Indian country-
provided they are ensured a fair part ofside as a result of the green revolution.11
spots of this style of development critique,
the benefits that can accrue from it. Instead, It should matterto anyone who calls herself/
as it relates to the green revolution.
The philosophical problem I haveVisvanath
with trivialises the very rationale for himself a feminist that the so-called moral
the kind of critique Chadha holdsthe as by reducing it to "progress and economy, and the place it assigns to
up dam
electricity" and gives it a sinister turn bywomen, has been a major contributory
a "corrective" to my work is as follows.
with it an "evil". Such a framing impedesfactor to nearly all the indices of female
This genre of criticism, in keeping calling
the broadly post-modernist, anti- an even-handed, dispassionate - dare I neglect and subservience in our society.
enlightenment trends, allows no relative
say, scientific - investigation of the meritsIt should matter to anyone who calls herself/
and
autonomy to the content of scientific demerits of the dam. It also, inci-
ideas himself a secularist that Shiva and others
and technological innovations anddentally,
the hides from view the undemo- associated with the ecofeminist movement
cratic, strong-arm tactics of the "Gandhian"are well regarded by, and willing and active
political context of their use: the political
consequences of displacement and oppres- opponents of the dam.8 participants in neo-Hindu organisations
sion are seen as built into the content and The relevance of the debate over the closely linked with the hindutva parivar.12
logic of science or modernity itself. dam It should matter to all those who call
to the issue at hand is this: where does
themselves progressive that highly
Furthermore, these critics see the historic this framing device of the Narmada-dam-
rift in the traditional, largely Hindu, as-an-evil derive from? If you care patriarchal,
to largely upper-caste, land-
cosmopolis introduced by forces of deconstruct the arguments of the opponents owning farmers' movements can so easily
modernity, however uneven they are, as of the dam, they rest on a philosophical co-opt ecofeminist and anti-imperialist
a narrative of loss and fall from an original assumption that an alien and unhealthy
rhetoric, while retaining women within
state of whole and healthy communities. notions of 'progress' is being imposed the traditional family structure and
While some among this genre of critics upon the indigenous people, whose cultural while (at least one of them) voting for
may be explicitly romantic about the past, rights to their the BJP.13
own traditions and
nostalgia is neither necessary nor sufficient knowledges are being destroyed. I'llThe underlying problem is that the genre
for this position. What is fundamental to repeat, this kind of critique need not of bescience-critique that we are examining
has decided - based upon highly
this position is a belief - deeply resonant explicitly nostalgic - the critics can admit
with post-modernist theories in the west, that the past was far from perfect. What ideological and untested assumptions -
that it is the dislocations of the traditional
if not explicitly derived from them - that they deny, however, is that a confrontation
the very criteria of rationality, progress, of local knowledges and mores with communities, their social mores and their
and indeed, well-being are relative to the modern ideas, techniques and lifestyles ways of knowing that is the real source
social context and cultural assumptions. has anything positive to contribute to of themisery, poverty and oppression of Indian
Because the critics attempt to measure life-opportunities of those affected. That masses. The "epistemological anti-
development against the criteria of well- confrontation is seen only as a loss and imperialists", all those who agitate for and
write learned discourses for "decolonis-
being, sociability derived from the moral as a disaster. This assumption is not allowed
economy of traditional "communities" - to be put to a serious sociological investi- ation of the mind", have been struggling
whose integrity and continued survival gation by the critics, or more accurately, .over the right to define the criteria for a
they are committed to - they tend to entirely this presumption against change is heldgood society: they believe that the post-
overlook, or at least seriously minimise, despite sufficient evidence to the contrary,
colonial project of modernity has been a
both the constraints these communities some coming from the supposed 'victims'"derivative discourse" (to use Partha
of the dam itself.9 It is this kind of uncritical
imposed on its members, as well as the Chatterjee's phrase) of colonial masters.
real openings for improvement of welfare a priori preference for local knowledges
They want to let the "real India" - the one
and traditions as'adequate criteria for
and personal freedoms that is a possibility supposedly "othered" and silenced by the
of modernisation. In the process, not onlydevelopment that I question. west - to set the criteria not just for itself,
do they not feel any need to put their Take Vandana Shiva's critique of the but for a more civilised, ecologically con-
ideological assumptions regarding the scious, more holistic alternative west as
green revolution as a source of violence
against women (and men, too, if you
purported "crisis of modernity" to the test well. (This explains the recent alliance
between the leading theorist of feminist
include her critique of the GR as a source
of evidence form the ground, they seriously
misread the aspirations and demands standpoint epistemology, Sandra Harding
of the ethnic separatism in Punjab).10 Shiva
forthe fruits of modernity by ordinary opposes the GR and the increase in the and the post-colonial critics of science: the
people.6 participation of rural women in the wage third world "others" are to be allied with
Take for instance, the last item on economy on the grounds that it breaks thewomen in the west in order to force modern
Visvanathan's list of the sins of modern-supposedly harmonious, co-operative and science to the criteria of justification
isation, namely, the Narmada dam, whichnurturing relationship rural women have derived from their own life experiences,
he equates in his book with the "banalitywith nature and with their communities. cultural assumptions, ways of knowing,
of evil". Narmada dam is undoubtedly aThe moral economy of the peasant, Shivaetc. Here we have a complete reversal of
complex issue and equally honest and insists, values women's unpaid work inthe enlightenment: rather than let develop-
well-meaning people can take oppositethe 'arm economy, preparing manure,ments in scientific knowledge critically
stand on its desirability: concerned andfeeding the cattle, weeding and the like. illuminate discourses sanctioned by
devoted activists like those associated with Again, it is only when you hold the moraltraditions, religion and patriarchy, we have
ARCH-Vahini and indeed a significant economy of the peasantry as truly moraltraditions sitting on judgment on modern
number of the affected tribal groups - that is, capable of fairness, justice andscience.)14 In this search for alternative,
themselves have taken a stand in favourautonomy - that you can hold it as the locally grounded criteria, the left critics

Economic and Political Weekly May 1, 1999 1067

This content downloaded from 112.196.145.71 on Tue, 07 Apr 2020 08:41:46 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
of science differ from hindutva ideologues these anti-enlightenment ideas, for it is also contain evidence that can justify the dam
only in their secularist intentions and not obvious to me at all. not just in terms of 'progress and electricity'
rhetoric, not in their defence of a cultural but in terms of justice and well-being.
As for Chadha's promised arguments10 While there is no doubt the GR contributed
essentialist view of difference.15 To these for "epistemic relativism" as the most to deepening the communal divide between
critics, as also for the hindutva troops, it appropriate strategy for liberatory Sikhs and Hindus. But to single out GR as
is modernity, including above all "western" movements, they are simply too weak and the main, if not the sole as in Shiva's highly
science, and not our peculiarly inegali- underdeveloped to merit any discussion. reductionist reading, would hardly do justice
tarian Hindu inheritance that is primarily Yes, we should see all truth as fallible and to situation on the ground.
"implicated in oppressive social struc- provisional - but that is no critique of 11 For more details, see my 'History Is What
Hurts', op cit.
tures", to quote from Chadha.16 science. Indeed, fallibilist and scepticism
12 Shiva holds regular seminars at neo-Hindu
The critics have failed to convince me are prime scientific virtues. The real crunch outfits associated with the ShivanandaAshram
that we live in a society, which is suffering for all relativists is how to decide between
in Canada. The other leading light of environ-
from excesses of science and reason. On competing versions of truth. No self- mentalism, Sunderlal Bahuguna, appeared at
the contrary, I believe that scientific temperdescribed relativist has been able to offer the centenary celebrations of Shivananda at
never has a chance in India to loosen up an adequate solution to this problem. Geeta the Divine Life Society. See Lise McKean,
Chadha is no exception. Divine Enterprise: Gurus and the Hindu
the Hindu cosmopolis, nor has it ever
Nationalist Movement, University of Chicago
received a full play to create a new public Press, Chicago, 1996.
Notes
sphere where better argument could trump 13 See my 'Who Needs Post-Development?',
inherited status of caste, gender and class. 1 See her earlier critiques of my work, EPW, op cit.
Let us not forget that post-colonial India April, 1996, and Sokal's hoax, EPW, August14 See Sandra Harding, Is Science Multicultural ?
chose to idolise the conservative Gandhi 30, 1997. Post-Colonialisms, Feminisms and Sciences
2 Jurgen Habermas, 'Modernity-An Incomplete and Epistemologies (Bloomington: Indiana
as its voice of conscience, as its mahatma,
Project' in Paul Rabinow and William Sullivan University). See also my forthcoming paper,
over that grievously neglected and much (eds), Interpretive Social Science: A Second
'From Standpoint Epistemology to Scientific
maligned man of reason, Babasaheb Look, University of California Press, 1987. Temper: Towards a Theory of Non-Ethno-
Ambedkar. Reason in public life was too3 See Ambedkar's little masterpiece, The centric Universalism of Modem Science' in
dangerous for the brahmanical elites who Annihilation of Caste. Feminist Theory.
4 For the alternatives, see my Planting the
came to rule post-colonial India. Our 15 See, for example, the classic texts of hindutva
Future: Resource Guide to Sustainable
country's tragedy is that the votaries of by Deendayal Uppadhyay, Integral Human-
Agriculture in the Third World, International
ism, orD B Thengadi's Modernisation without
scientific temper were - and are - without Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture,
Westernisation. Both are available on line at
political power. And this tragedy is Minneapolis, MN, 1990. As for development http://www.hvk.org/.
compounded by the fact that the left, which critique, my journalistic writings, mostly in 16 Chadha's exact words are: "the role model
is the natural ally of the powerless, has The Indian Express but also in the alternative provided by scientific rationality for liberatory
been too wedded to the high culture of and mainstream press in the US span a period movements needs to be critically examined
Indian traditions. How else to explain the of nearly 10 years. in view of the results produced by science
5 See my 'Who Needs Post-Development? studies that implicate science in oppressive
alacrity with which influential segments Discourses of Difference, Green Revolution
social structures". The interesting question,
of left intellectuals have taken the post- and Agrarian Populism in India', forthcoming
which of course Chadha does not explore, is
moder bait to defend the "non-western in Journal ofDeveloping Societies, June 1999. whether these 'findings' of science studies -
difference", regardless of how this Also see 'History Is What Hurts: A Materialist which by her own admission is a western
difference actually plays out locally? Feminist Perspective on the Green Revolution academic discipline and has not yet come to
The second track of Chadha's critique and Its Ecofeminist Critics' in Rosemary India - can be directly applied to India. Do
Hennessy and Chrys Ingraham (eds), we in India really live in a society where
of my position is that I am too dismissive
Materialist Feminism: A Reader in Class, science has fulfilled its cultural transformative
of the progressive potential of anti- Difference and Women's Lives, Routledge, potential and where it has become a hand-
enlightenment critiques. She writes, "it New York, 1997. maiden of power? I contend that this dismal
is not impossible to combine anti- 6 Indeed, less ideologically biased studies have reading of science-society relationship is far
enlightenment ideas with critical shown that many of the allegedly 'post- from justified for India, if it is justified even
thinking...". The only example she gives development' movements like the Chipko for the west.
actually contain within them apopular demand 17 For similar concerns, see critique of Mani by
of how this may happen is Lata Mani's
for a more, not less, access to the fruits of Sheldon Pollock, 'Deep Orientalism? Notes
analysis of the colonial construction of the
modernity. See for example Emma Mawdsley, on Sanskrit and Power Beyond the Raj' in
tradition of sati. This is no place to launch 'After Chipko: From Environment to Region Carol Breckenbridge and Peter Van der Veer
into a full-fledged critique of Mani's in Uttarkhand', Journal of Peasant Studies, (eds), Orientalism and the Post-Colonial
position. But the fact remains that Mani vol 25, July 4, 1998. See also Greenberg et al, Predicament, University of Pennsylvania
can make the colonial construction look 'The New Traditionalist Discourse of Indian Press, 1993.
like a distortion and an imposition only Environmentalism', Journal of Peasant
Studies, vol 24, 1997.
by maintaining a deafening silence on the
7 See Jean Dreze et al, The Dam and the Nation,
legitimations of sati and ascetic widow-Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1997,
hood, both customary and scriptural, in and William FFisher (ed), TowardSustainable Economic and Political Weekly
pre-colonial society India.17 The cumu- Development: Struggling over India's
lative effect of these kinds of colonial Narmada River, M E Sharpe, New York, available at
discourse analyses is to avoid a critical1995.
assessment of the role of Hindu cosmo- 8 See the most disturbingaccount of the activities A K Nayak
of Narmada Bachao Andolan by M S Gill in Bus Stand Book Stall
logy in pre-colonial society, elements ofFisher, 1995.
which are very much in place in con- 9 See Amita Baviskar's In the Belly ofthe River, Bhubaneswar - 751 009
temporary society. Chadha will have to Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1997, Orissa
spell out the alleged critical potential offor instance. The above mentioned volumes I~~~~~.

1068 Economic and Political Weekly May 1, 1999

This content downloaded from 112.196.145.71 on Tue, 07 Apr 2020 08:41:46 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms