Talking Sociology Dipankar Gupta In Conversation With Ramin Jahanbegloo Ramin Jahanbegloo full chapter pdf docx

Talking Sociology: Dipankar Gupta in
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Ramin Jahanbegloo
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TA LKIN G SOC IOLO G Y
Also by Ramin Jahanbegloo
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Participation of Neeladri Bhattacharya
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Talking Architecture: Raj Rewal in Conversation with Ramin Jahanbegloo
India Analysed: Sudhir Kakar in Conversation with Ramin Jahanbegloo
India Revisited: Conversation on Contemporary India
Talking India: Ashis Nandy in Conversation with Ramin Jahanbegloo
TALKI N G SO CI OLO G Y
D IPA N K A R G U PTA
in convers ation with
RAM I N JA H A N BEG LO O
1
1
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To Professor Yogendra Singh, erudite teacher, gentle guide
Dipankar Gupta: Making Sense of
India and Modernity
I first met Dipankar Gupta at the Reset Dialogues on Civilization

conference in Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India. We were
on the same panel, which was presided by my friend, Harsh
Sethi. In his introduction of Gupta, Harsh reminded the audience
that the man who was going to take the floor was justly known
as a ‘blunt intellectual’. In the past ten years, I have experienced
Gupta’s ‘bluntness’ on many occasions, including in the making
of this book. In the case of public intellectuals like Dipankar
Gupta, bluntness is a virtue and a true test of integrity. There is
nothing more pure and beautiful than an intellectual who always
speaks truthfully and sincerely. When I suggested Gupta to
participate in this book of conversations with me for my series
with Oxford University Press, I knew well that he would be at
his best as a knowledgeable scholar and a brilliant mind.
Dipankar Gupta, as everybody should know, is a well-
known name in Indian sociology. He is also one of India’s most
authoritative public intellectuals. As we can see from these
conversations, Gupta’s interests vary from the problem of social
stratification and corporate ethics to that of citizenship and
xii Talking Sociology
democracy, passing through studies on caste system and ethnic

groups in India. However, Gupta is also considered as one of the
most acute and insightful theorists of modernity and analysts of
modernization in India. His extraordinary array of texts on this
subject has helped several generations of Indians to understand
the transformation of institutions in India and to perceive the
significance of a global world where often the past loses its hold
in order to leave the door open to contemporary social changes.
In part, this is what Gupta points to when he writes in his book
Learning to Forget: The Anti-memoirs of Modernity (2005):
Once we centre our understanding of modernity around the quality
of social relations, and not on technological growth, we are better
equipped to intervene in social policy such that intersubjectivity can
be taken to higher levels . The realization of intersubjectivity can be
threatened at every turn by majoritarian rule, despotism, market
fundamentalism, and selfish individualism. These are all products of
the post-feudal age.
As a social scientist, Gupta believes that modernity is a dynamic

phenomenon that creates its own special type of institutions and
world views, which are transparent in the works of Karl Marx
on the centrality of capitalism in modern times, and that of Max
Weber, when he describes modernity as the disenchantment of the
world and the end of traditional forms of authority and rationality.
As such, it would be quite right to see Gupta as a scholar who
tries to redefine and reconstruct the central concepts of past
masters of sociology and philosophy in the Indian context. One
could argue that one of the central features of modernity for him
is a leap forward to the making of modern citizens. ‘Modernity’,
affirms Gupta in Learning to Forget, ‘is not about technology and
machines, but, principally, about equality between citizens’.
Interestingly, more than ten years later, in his book entitled
Dipankar Gupta: Making Sense of India and Modernity xiii
From People to Citizen: Democracy’s Must Take Road, Dipankar

Gupta adds:
As citizenship grows and develops, so does its cohort, modernity.
The greatest damage done to the understanding of modernity is
when it is equated with all that is ‘contemporary’. Hence, if there is
the Taliban, or ISIS, out there using highly technical instruments of
warfare, then that becomes modern; if a dictator encourages science
in the direction of mass destruction, then that too is seen as modern.
When rich, spoilt people misbehave in public there is a fair amount
of tut-tut about how modernity breeds bad manners. All of these are
so untrue. If we free modernity from contemporaneity, and see it
instead in terms of social relations whose conditions are underwritten
by citizenship, then we get a completely different result.
This has all to do with the very notion of ‘iso-ontology’, which

Gupta introduces in many of his works, including the very recent
one titled Q.E.D.: India Tests Social Theory, where he not only
develops once again notions such as modernity, intersubjectivity,
and citizenship, but he also defines iso-ontology as what brings
‘an awareness of others’. For Gupta:
A modern society is characterized by intersubjectivity as an
ontological condition. This intersubjectivity is not theorized as an
intellectual disposition, but emerges from societal compulsions which
favour ontological sameness. This ontological isomorphism does not
preclude differences, but in all differences there is a presumption of
similarity of being. I would like to call this phenomenon iso-ontology
and contrast it immediately against poly-ontologies of non-modern
societies where status markers were immobile and non-negotiable.
In the former case, ontology is the singular, in the latter it is in the
plural, and that should tell the whole story.
This transformation that Gupta is referring to is unique to the

history of modernity. It is central to the distinction between
modern and premodern societies. All his effort, through
xiv Talking Sociology
his books and research, is to make the distinction between

traditional norms and modern values in India clearly visible.
This sociological methodology is quite apparent even in some
of Gupta’s works that go back to two decades. As a matter of
example, we can quote the last page of Mistaken Modernity:
To thrust ourselves out of the thralldom of tradition, we are left with
no alternative but to resolutely press on with the modernist agenda.
Is it at all possible to realistically wprogramme a return to Arcadia, or
to willfully reject the many advances of modernity? No matter how
often many of us may nostalgically want to return to our ancient and
medieval past, we have travelled too far down history and lost too
much of our naiveté to actually let that happen. Tradition is no escape
route, nor is it wise to fool ourselves into believing that what we are
going through today is yet another version of modernity.
Gupta is also very attentive to the philosophical discourse of

modernity and he makes the Kantian motto ‘dare to know’
his. In some ways, as a thinker of modernity and public
intellectual, he is committed to the watchword of the European
Enlightenment, that is, ‘the exit of human beings from their self-
incurred immaturity’. This coming out of darkness means, for
Gupta, taking responsibility for our understanding, judging, and
acting in the public space. Without going into too much detail
on this subject, it is indubitable that for Gupta democracy and
maturity are both parts of the same reality and, therefore, we
cannot have one without the other. Consequently, people who
remain in the context of traditional hierarchy and authority are
not considered by Gupta as having attained the modern level of
mature relations. As he underlines, ‘Once we enter the modern
age, these relations between people are universalized such that
rules of interaction envelop all social actors…. In a modern
society then, one will always trust institutions more than
people, for the former embodies relations on a societal scale.’
Dipankar Gupta: Making Sense of India and Modernity xv
As such, the immediate impetus for Gupta’s sociology

of modernity is the inviolable equality of status as an initial
condition for intersubjective relations in the modern society.
Furthermore, this equality of status can be granted without
prejudice to a public space only if there is emphasis on the
making of a democratic culture with the citizens as the main
sociological actors. Hence, the context of discussion is very
clear for Gupta. For him, both modernity and democracy need
to be directed by self-conscious and far-sighted animators
of ideas. ‘It is an act of leadership’, he writes, ‘of assiduous
application, done with the full knowledge that something new
is being crafted. It is dedication of this kind that has brought
a “majority”, as we know it, in all established democracies.
The direction of democracy, needless to say, should pull
us inexorably towards dissolving majority and minority
consciousness and proclaiming a simple citizenship instead.’
Gupta, therefore, reminds us repeatedly that ‘democracy is
the most demanding and unnatural of all social arrangements’.
Naturally, India, as the largest democracy in the world, is well
placed to show us that many narratives on tradition and religion
have the capacity to endanger the soul and body of democracy.
Interestingly, Gupta sees in M.K. Gandhi an integral democrat
who developed the culture of citizenship and ethics of democracy
in India. ‘Gandhi’, writes Gupta, ‘was, in the ultimate analysis,
a democrat and not just an eccentric devoted to mudpacks,
pacifism, vegetarianism and celibacy. It is the legacy of citizenship
that the Father of the Nation bequeathed to us and for which he
paid for with his life.’
Gupta is well conscious of the fact that the importance of
Gandhi and his relevance to the present moment of rising
religious fanaticism in India and the world could not be
greater. Following Gandhi’s spirit of democracy, Gupta hopes
xvi Talking Sociology
to encourage through his sociology of modernity the process

of democratization of Indian democracy, while making no
concession to illiberal prejudices and populist passions. As he
underlines: ‘When we see ourselves in India today, it is not so
much as people but as citizens. From now on, any application
of the Constitution makes sense because it addresses all of us as
“we, the citizens.”’
I
From Bihar to Delhi
A Bengali Household
RAMIN JAHANBEGLOO (RJ): In your writings you have
often emphasized the relation between tradition and modernity.
Could we start these conversations by applying this approach
to your own life? You were born in October 1949 in Patna,
Bihar. How would you describe your family background? Was
it traditional or modern?
DIPANKAR GUPTA (DG): Well my background was, I think,
a mix of both. I come from a Bengali family, and Bengalis, as
you know, are often accused of being cultural patriots. True to
type, my father was very keen that we not only speak Bengali
at home, but also read and write it. So we were brought up in
the traditions prevalent in most Bengali households at that time,
except we were rarely in Bengal. But my father’s background
was solidly in Bengal, where he was educated and he earned his
Masters degree from Calcutta University.
RJ: Were you always out of Bengal?
DG: We were exposed to places outside of Bengal much more.
Though I was born in Patna, we never really lived there. My
Talking Sociology. Dipankar Gupta and Ramin Jahanbegloo, Oxford University Press
(2019). © Dipankar Gupta and Ramin Jahanbegloo.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199489374.003.0001
2 Talking Sociology
father worked for the Reserve Bank of India and I spent my

entire pre-adult life travelling around the country to wherever
my father was posted. We were always in big cities such as
Madras (Chennai), Bombay (Mumbai), Calcutta (Kolkata),
Delhi, Kanpur, and so forth, which probably explains why I like
metropolises and feel at home in them. So, while I was never
steeped in tradition, I was familiar with it from very early in
my life.
RJ: Did all this travelling have an impact on you?
DG: Yes, it did. I had to make a new set of school friends
every so many years. I also got to know people of different
backgrounds. At that time only regional and linguistic markers
were significant; not religion, not caste. Sometimes, I do feel
that little bit odd when I am with Bengali purists, for I see a lot
of good and bad in all cultures, including my own. Yes, there is
a lot of Bengali in me, but I am not quite strapped down by it.
RJ: Is that why you were attracted to study more profoundly the
two concepts of tradition and modernity?
DG: Well, yes, that could be one part of my answer, but there
is a more intellectually grounded awareness of the tradition–
modernity relationship, which goes well beyond my family
background. Sometime around 1967–8, when I was in my late
teens, I was drawn to Marxism, like most young people were
those days, and I am happy for that. What impressed me the most
in Marx, it may seem quite commonplace now, was his assertion
that culture is malleable and contextualized by circumstances
outside it. This just blew me away; it was as if a new world had
opened up before me. Today this view is so metabolized in our
intellectual stream that even an avowed non-Marxist advocates
this position, as a matter of course, without knowing its origins.
Someone had to make the point, and it was Marx who did it
From Bihar to Delhi 3
first. In a way, this was the beginning of sociology, like it or

not. Over time, the truth became so obvious and in persistent
use that the original proponent was forgotten. This is truly
the richest tribute one can pay a scholar. Marxian economics
may seem outdated today, primarily because of the way it was
practiced and theorized upon after the Soviet Union came into
being. Even so, Marx’s writings contain nuggets that still engage
even non-Marxists to this day.
Growing Up in an Apolitical Family

RJ: We shall get to that but let us go back for a minute to your
life in Patna.
DG: I did not spend much time in Bihar, I was born there because
that is where my mother’s family lived. You know how it is
when a woman is expecting—she goes to her parents’ home.
I think within a few months after I was born, my father set out
to Chennai in what was his first posting for the Reserve Bank of
India. From there we went to Mumbai, Delhi, and Kanpur. But
we would go to Patna for vacations because my mother’s parents
and brothers lived there and their household was a very lively
one. My father had no siblings; in fact, he was a posthumous
child and then there was the Partition, which meant that his
relations were scattered everywhere. So our family home, if
one can call it that, was in Patna.
RJ: You were born in post-Independent India. Were your
parents active in any way in the Independence movement?
DG: No, no, no such involvement. In fact, my parents were
very apolitical. My father began his career in a family bank
that wound up soon after Partition, which is when he began
looking for a regular job and that is how his engagement with
the Reserve Bank began. He came from a landed background in
4 Talking Sociology
East Bengal, today’s Bangladesh, but all that meant little after
the Partition in 1947. Fortunately, unlike many other such
families of his kind in those days, my father had a regular degree
in economics and banking, so we survived and kept our heads
above water. At any rate, before Partition the bank I mentioned
sent him to Patna to open its first branch outside Bengal. He was
chosen probably because he was near at hand and had the right
kind of qualifications for the job. Soon after he came to Patna
he got married and within a year or so my older brother was
born. To return to your question, no there was no real political
engagement in my family, which is just as well.
RJ: Do you find that strange?
DG: Not that strange really. I realize, from my own biography,
that most people do not reason out political issues the way
members of the active intelligentsia do. Hence, when comments
are made along lines of ‘how and what people think’ about
politics, or on larger social issues, I am always a bit suspicious.
In my view, most people do not have sustained views, or, at
least, properly reasoned out one’s on these matters. If I had
come from a politically active background, I might have not
been as sensitive to the general ideological apathy that exists
everywhere. There are mood swings, even periodic flare-ups
of passion. Even those views that are of fairly long-standing
nature are rarely ever put to critical scrutiny or examined in
terms of simple logic. My father’s side of the family leaned
heavily towards the judicial service and from my mother’s side
they were mostly in the police. So you might say that was quite
a mix—judiciary and the arm of the law. So, if anything, my
background was more bureaucratic and administrative than
anything else; pretty conventional, I should think. My father’s
pre-Partition life was neither recalled actively, nor did I see any
traces of it while growing up.
RJ: But did they ever talk about Gandhi and Nehru or politics
at home?
DG: Very little, very little discussion on politics. In fact, politics
was probably first discussed in my family when I was around 19
at the time of Naxalbari and the counterculture movement in
Europe. That too would not have happened had I not introduced
these topics at home. The Vietnam War, of course, made all of
this more immediate. I think that generation suddenly came into
politics, even world politics, and mine was not an atypical case.
But till that stage, till my undergraduate years, I would listen
to political discussions with a certain disdain and particularly
resented the raised voices in which they were conducted. I
found that both abhorrent and mindless. Little did I know then
that very soon I too would be behaving in a similar fashion.
Fortunately, I worked my way out of that mode of political
participation, but some of that still lingers.
Nehruvian Times and the Partition Effect

RJ: Given that you are a son of the Nehruvian times, how did this
factor reflect in your school years or education? Were Gandhi
and Nehru your national heroes?
DG: When I was a teenager my parents used to talk about
Nehru in fairly laudatory terms. The horrors of the Partition
notwithstanding, I did not detect any animosity in my family
against the political establishment of the day. Fortunately,
no Partition fixation; that can be irritating and repetitive.
While Nehru was a hero, no doubt, there were ambiguities
and contradictions in the way my parents looked at him and
I became conscious of those much later. On occasions, in
spite of the adulation that Nehru and Gandhi received in my
home, my parents also saw them as usurpers of sorts. Deep
6 Talking Sociology
down they felt that Subhas Chandra Bose deserved to be the

leader of the Congress. Then there would be occasional, very
occasional, ruminations of what Subhas would have done had
he been given the chance. There was no mention of Bose
mingling with fascists in Germany and Japan. So, the memory
was very selective—good ones, yes, uncomfortable ones, out;
very little was based on history, but more on nostalgia and
wishful thinking.
RJ: Where did Nehru stand in your childhood days?
DG: Nehru was admired for his education, his presence, his
vision, and, most of all, because he had a well worked-out plan to
take India forward. My parents felt that there would be a future
for us white-collared class for Nehru would rapidly change India
into a land of doctors and engineers. Nehru’s autobiography,
Towards Freedom, was something my father admired a lot,
especially its literary style. I also learnt a few difficult English
words, such as ‘valetudinarian’, from that book.
RJ: As a family which suffered during the Partition, were there
any effects of that violence in your home?
DG: Discussions on Hindu-Muslim relations did not figure
very much in my home. Partition had happened, but now it
is over. Perhaps because my grandparents, both maternal and
paternal, were quite successful in their respective professions,
and hence not that unsettled by the Partition, that political
discussions were quite rare in my family. Nor did the Muslims
we knew, and there were several, seen as very different from
the rest in the social circle. In my grandparents’ home in Patna, I
remember the admiration with which my maternal family held a
very senior Muslim police officer. Their ways, their tastes, their
looks were often discussed in a near-envious fashion. At that
time, none of this seemed unusual or self consciously secular.
It is not as if we were more enlightened then but perhaps

because Nehru’s Congress had the most workable dream and
agenda for the future that the Partition did not matter that
much. For a family that saw its future as officers in the Indian
Administrative Services (IAS) or the police, or as doctors and
engineers, Nehru’s appeal was compelling and it is this promise
that spoke directly to our ambitions.
RJ: Did it stay that way for long?
DG: My own sense is that around the time I was about 19
or 20 years old we could tell that this dream was not quite
happening. Which is probably why, during the late 1960s,
Maoism gripped a number of young people from professional
and bureaucratic backgrounds. Nehru’s charisma was by then
on the wane and this was directly on account of the way he
conducted the India–China war. After all these years of being
held up in the highest esteem to be remembered by the China
fiasco, in the declining years of one’s life, was quite tragic.
Those who had not known Nehru earlier but had met him for
the first time post the China war were not impressed by him.
He was not the attractive, charismatic man they had imagined
him to be. But, even so, we still believed that it was Nehru’s
India that governed us and only a few made out the difference
between him and his daughter, Indira. Now all this is very
clear, but not so then.
RJ: Were your parents religious?
DG: They were religious, in a manner of speaking. My
father used to chant a few slokas to Shiva every morning,
and my mother and grandmother had a puja room in the
house where every Tuesday and Thursday they spent about
half an hour praying with incense burning and freshly made
sweet prasad—offerings to the Gods. It was this prasad
8 Talking Sociology
that attracted us the most and we all got generous helpings

of it—including our friends and our dog—who probably
demanded and received the most. After my father retired,
this puja room disappeared in his new home, and so did the
prasad. Temple visits were rare other than when on a sight-
seeing tour and I never quite enjoyed this part for reasons I
cannot explain. In my view, my family was culturally Hindu,
but not very ritualistic. Durga Puja, however, was a major
event, from buying new clothes to going to the marquee
where Durga was worshipped, to the food that was served,
and the theatre and entertainment that followed. It was a lot
of fun. I do not think that the attraction of Durga Puja can
be understood in pure religious terms—these other cultural
factors must be worked in as well.
An Agnostic Indian
RJ: Did you have any contact with religions of India as a child?
DG: Not really. As I said, our religious observances were not
of the temple-visiting variety. They were limited principally to
Durga Puja or Kali Puja. Of the two, Durga Puja generated the
most enthusiasm. The main reason for this was that it lasted
for ten fun-filled days where we could all preen ourselves in
our brand new outfits and in our new shoes that still pinched.
Once, when I was probably eight years old, or about that age,
my parents took us to Mathura and Vrindavan. All I recall is a
feeling of discomfort as I could not relate to those places, as one
should, or was expected to.
RJ: Do you consider yourself an atheist?
DG: I do not think I am an atheist.
RJ: How about being an agnostic?
DG: I am more of an agnostic. I think an atheist would have to

be kind of blind and dogmatic. Who can ever be certain about
the beginning of the beginning or of the end of the end?
RJ: Later, you came back to religion, not in a spiritual way, but
let us say, from a sociological point of view.
DG: Yes, I did but that was because of Marxism and also on
account Emile Durkheim, who, incidentally, was no Marxist
at all. It is their sociology that attracted me and while people
saw differences between the two, which were real, I was drawn
by the similarities between them. In both cases, religion was
not examined in theological terms but within the framework
of society and of forces that moulded it, even made it. For
Durkheim, religion captures a euphoria that emerges from
participating as a member of a collective and hence had very
mundane reasons for its origins. It was in this sense that I found
a similarity between Durkheim and Marx. Marx’s famous line
which said ‘religion is the opium of the people’ is quite similar
to Durkheim’s view in that religion keeps our spirits up because
the coming together as a collective makes us feel larger than
what our puny selves are in everyday life. The reason why we
tend to see Durkheim in anti-Marxian terms is because the
phrase ‘religion is the opium of the people’ is read divorced
from the sentence of which it is a fragment. That same sentence
says that religion is also the ‘sigh of the oppressed people’ and
‘soul of a soulless condition’. It is ‘opium’ only in so much as
it helps to take the pain away from our insecurities. It’s not an
‘opium’ as if it puts us to sleep and, perhaps, to dream.
RJ: How else did the views of Marx and Durkheim on religion
impact you?
DG: Once I was convinced that religion was not a free-floating
phenomenon that had an independent existence in our mental
10 Talking Sociology
space, I was keen to expose the hollowness of the view that

Indians were innately religious and driven primarily by the
grammar of Hinduism. I found many sociological texts that kept
suggesting that we Indians are determinedly ‘other-worldly’
and ‘hierarchical’ and ‘fatalistic’, often at the same time. I
believe this point of view to be plain ridiculous. Marxism
showed me a way out of this, which when coupled with the
anti-establishmentarianism spirit of the 1960s and 1970s was
hard to beat. In addition, there was also the ugliness of poverty
the moment you stepped outdoors. Marxism was also a reaction
to this ugliness. In this context, I need also add, that it was the
ugliness of communism in practice that drove many people to
anti-Marxism in East Europe and the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics (USSR). In other words, context is of the essence.
The Art of Being a Bengali

RJ: Back to your family life: how important was the cultivation
of ‘culture’ in your home?
DG: As you can imagine in a Bengali household there was a
self-conscious assertion of Rabindranath Tagore at practically
every step. There was always something out of Tagore that
explained, or gave meaning to, almost every event that
happened around us. It is somewhat like the way a British
person might quote Shakespeare or the Bible. The quote from
Tagore that I like best is: ‘Satan enters your home only when
there is a flaw within it.’ Bankim Chandra was not quite at the
same level as Tagore, though I was introduced to his Krishna
Kanta’s Will in my early teens by my father. Yes, we grew
up with sayings of Tagore and Vivekananda. This often led
to some disagreements between my mother and I because I
kept telling her that both her heroes were very experimental
with God and, indeed, with the idea of Hinduism itself. But
that happened after I joined college, not before that. Till I was
about 16 or so, I was innocent about these issues. Doubtless,
you know many people who were much more intellectually
alert than I was at that age.
RJ: How deeply immersed are you in Bengali tradition? Were
there other influences?
DG: My Bengaliness is neither fully rounded nor profound,
as I mentioned earlier. It was largely family influence, though
a very powerful one. A close friend of mine once said that I
‘feel’ like a Bengali but think like a non-Bengali. I am not sure
what that means, but I can sense there is some truth lurking in
that observation. As we entered our teens, western pop took
over our aesthetic sense of music and my father, in particular,
despaired at that. Not that he stopped us from listening to Bill
Haley, Elvis Presley, or The Beatles, but often enquired, with
true puzzlement, as to how we could take all that noise to be
music? Even so, Tagore songs and poems did the rounds in our
home, and even now I can recite a few lines, hum a few songs
by the great poet, and pass off as a reasonably cultivated Bengali.
When I put on that garb, I think I try to be like my father, but
of course, my appreciation of this aspect of culture is quite
shallow, though not completely untutored. I can spot a Bengali
charlatan when I see one.
RJ: The atmosphere in your home was very Bengali, even though
you lived mostly out of Bengal.
DG: Yes, you could say that. I do not know how people from
other regions who live outside their original home state cope
with their cultural baggage, but I grew up in a fairly Bengali
atmosphere. A lot of Tagore was always swirling around us and
we almost worshipped him. There was just nothing lacking in
that man, and that is indeed how most Bengalis viewed him; he
was a ‘nikhut’ (blemish-free) individual. There was also a fair

amount of adoration for Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, but here
there was also something that was somewhat instrumental. The
message between the lines was that if Vidyasagar could rise to
such eminence in spite of being so poor, we should not fiddle
with the advantages we were born with. This was meant to
exhort us to be more diligent with our studies and not slag off,
as we tended to do from time to time. I am sure this is the way
it was in most Bengali families, so obsessed were we with school
results and rank.
RJ: Were there any other figures from Bengal who figured
prominently in your childhood? What about religious leaders
like Vivekananda?
DG: Vivekananda was also a fairly constant reminder of our
Bengaliness. Even though he was much larger than just Bengal,
Bengalis appropriated him as their own. Almost every Bengali,
me included, know several passages from his 1893 speech to
the Parliament of World Religions in Chicago. On the political
plane, as I mentioned, there was the romance of Subhas Bose,
though he was way behind in importance after Tagore and
Vivekananda. My grandmother was deep into Radha–Krishna
stories, and I wonder if she got them from Chandidas. Her
recalling of tales of Ram, Sita, and the rest of the cast were
pretty standard. Did she read all that in Krittibasi Ramayan, as
most did in Bengal or not, I do not really know. At that point
in my life I had no idea about these things or the fact that every
myth had so many renditions.
RJ: But isn’t there a very strong religious element in Vivekananda?
DG: Yes, yes, his Hinduism was very pronounced, but there was
a modern side to him too. For example, I remember my mother
telling me very often that Vivekananda questioned Ramakrishna
very closely, and for long, before he finally accepted Goddess

Kali. I suspect that this story did more to still the budding
atheistic sentiments in me, rather than encourage radical thinking.
I suppose her logic was that I should not question these issues
because all of that had already been done for us by Vivekananda
and religion had passed the test. This is where faith steps in and
reasoning takes the back seat. There are parts of Vivekananda that
I find very religious, in a worshipful kind of way, and that didn’t
move me. He is probably one of the first men who said Hinduism
was intrinsically tolerant which is now a very commonly used
phrase in all kinds of popular and intellectual discourses. At the
same time, he believed that Vedanta needed Islam for its practical
demonstration. He prized the principle of equality in Islam a
great deal. He found much to be admired in Christianity too, but
I remember he was rather harsh on missionaries who believed
that the only true God was the Christian one. Nor can I deny the
impact he made on me when he denounced the caste system in a
language that would make any modern iconoclast proud.
RJ: Do you see Tagore in a similar way?
DG: Tagore is another matter. His sophistication is at a different
level, on a very elevated plane. He is dear to most Bengalis, and
I too am a great admirer of his works, particularly his views on
humanism, aesthetics, religion, and politics; though much of this
is not equally known to many of his Bengali followers. I became
aware of them later in my twenties and was tremendously
overwhelmed by the perspicacity and insight with which he
propounded these issues. For example, Tagore’s Ghare-Baire (The
Home and the World) can be read as a work in which an ambitious
wife, bored by a very regular life and husband, seeks out a new
diversion with a wandering politician. But it could be read in
terms of a great debate between nationalism and humanism.
Charulata, a film made by Satyajit Ray based on Tagore’s novel
Nastanirh (broken nest) too brings to the fore the issue of marital
fidelity and exposes the pretensions of our everyday lives. At
a time when nationalism circled in swift currents in India,
for someone like Tagore to oppose nationalism, four square,
was an intellectual tour de force. This is a lesson that should
resonate with us even today. This is because nationalism can be
a destructive force too. Likewise, in Gora Tagore encourages
us to ask whether or not our epistemological understanding of
the ‘self’ and the world is pure intellect, or culture at work, or
governed by circumstances and context. If we opt for the latter
then we would quickly realize how our religious, or cultural
identity is not hallowed by tradition but hollowed by time, and
only the here and the now of the context breathes fire into it.
Tagore, for me, is very relevant in contemporary India and I do
not say this as a Bengali but as someone who is persuaded by the
sociological imagination.
An Unhappy School Boy

RJ: Let’s go back to your schooling, which you were saying was
partly in Chennai and partly in Mumbai.
DG: Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, and Kanpur. In the first 16 years
of my life, I spent a considerable number of years in all these
places. All the schools I went to were run by one Christian
denomination or the other. We never paid any attention to
that for my father was only interested in the school’s academic
reputation when he sought admissions for us. Yet, in those
schools, we were never herded into Christianity–never went to
Mass, never went to Church–as part of the school curriculum.
No doubt, our school teachers wanted to make us gentlemen,
not ‘chokra boys’, but were quite content to leave us as Hindus.
I later learnt from my Christian friends that there was much
greater pressure on them to conform by the school authorities,
but I cannot testify to this for I did not see any of that happening,
and if it did, it took place outside my range of vision.
RJ: How was life for you in school?
DG: I was never a happy school boy, especially before the age of
ten. I felt I was bullied by my teachers and by class mates, and my
older brother would often come to my rescue. My discomfort in
school was quite in contrast to the way I felt at home where there
was a lot of tenderness and love, my mother demonstrably, like
most mothers, my father less so, like most fathers. My brother
too was always on my side. All of this made the contrast with
the school atmosphere scary for me. After I entered my teens
that nervousness left me and I became much bolder, but I always
had rather strained relations with all the schools I attended,
barring one. My favourite school years were in Mumbai, in
Cathedral and John Connon School. Sadly, I did not spend
too much time there because my father was soon transferred
from Mumbai to Kanpur. My first brush with Kanpur was as
if I had entered another world. I had to face the horror, pure
horror, of interacting with people who spoke Hindi perfectly
and showed no hesitation in picking faults with my command
of that language. When I read later of how strongly Tamil Nadu
opposed the imposition of Hindi, I could sympathize with that
sentiment. Over time, things began to improve and I gradually
became more confident in my surroundings and more adept in
my social relations with kids of my age.
RJ: What about your post-school years in college and university?
DG: Post school, my undergraduate years were both bitter
and sweet, some memories cling nicely, some I wish would
go away. My student days became exciting only after I joined
the Department of Sociology at the Delhi School of Economics
(DSE). I was 19 years old then and the magic of that place was so
captivating. I wish I could have gone on forever being a student

there. We had great professors and a fantastic coffee house.
RJ: Were you a shy boy?
DG: Yes, I was, though some might say today that I could never
have been one. I think everybody goes through a shy, awkward,
and uncertain period in one’s life. These traits diminish over
time, but never quite leave you. People hide it or dress it up in
different ways, but it is always there. At least, that is how I look
at it.
RJ: Were there tough disciplinarians in your school? Did you
ever get slapped by teachers?
DG: No, I don’t think I ever faced a clear case of being slapped,
but caned, yes, ruler-scale on my palms too. But in Cathedral
School in Mumbai, there was none of that, which is another reason
I liked it so much. I think those years in Cathedral were the best
years of my school boy life. There was no corporal punishment,
no bullying, and what is more, there were specialist teachers from
the junior classes upwards. This was heaven after Delhi.
A Mumbai Man
RJ: Does that mean you are a Mumbai person now?
DG: Because I had such a good time in Mumbai in those days,
it is a place that always calls out to me. I have spent almost
my entire life in Delhi, but I think I know Mumbai better. My
friends tell me that there is a lot of romanticizing in my feelings
about Mumbai, and they are probably right. After all, I have
not lived there for a long time now, and going somewhere as a
tourist and traveller is not the same things as earning a living,
going to work, finding an apartment, and facing the rains—the
‘real’ Mumbai demands all that.
RJ: So when you go back to Mumbai, do you feel happy?

DG: Indeed, I do and in spite of the caveats I just mentioned,
I am impressed by its cosmopolitan character, which is clearly
visible even today. But it is not just this, there is so much more
and I just cannot explain my partiality towards Mumbai in a
reasonably rational way. I’ve spent most of my life in Delhi, and
that amounts to many years, but those happy days in Mumbai as
a school boy, and later as a teenager, certainly made for good
memories. Even now, when I think back, south Mumbai, in
the early 1970s, was one of the best places to be in. Backbay
Reclamation, Cuffe Parade, Colaba Causeway, the Strand,
stand out limpidly in my memory. Those were really happening
places, but most of all, there was so much freedom there and so
little fear.
RJ: Let us talk about the Mumbai of those days. How do you
differentiate it from Delhi?
DG: First of all, when I look back, the school I was in, as I
told you, was very different. Teachers were subject specialists
and not as in most schools then when a junior class instructor
taught a number of courses and was a specialist in none of
them. Our French teacher in Cathedral was an Englishman,
but with perfect French, and I wish I had paid more attention
to him. Our geography teacher was a Peruvian who loved the
subject and the mountains too, where he came from. He was
a trekker and an adventurer of sorts, or so I imagined him
to be. Our boxing coaches were skilled in their craft and I
learnt to appreciate that sport only because we were taught to
look out for the intricacies that it involved. Also, when I look
back I am quite impressed by the fact that some of the richest
kids in India were in my school and I had no idea that they
were any different from the rest of us. Even when I went to
their homes, there was no ostentatious display of grandeur, in
fact, I remember the graciousness with which their very busy

and successful parents would greet us kids, friends of their
children.
RJ: Why should that impress you so much?
DG: It did not then, but it did later, and I will tell you why.
What I am talking about is probably a Mumbai state of mind.
In 1975, when I was offered a position in the Tata Institute of
Social Sciences (TISS) in Mumbai I went across to meet the then
director of the institution, Professor M.S. Gore. I wanted to
seek his advice before taking a final decision about accepting
the job offer. Professor Gore was a highly respected intellectual
and also a dignified and recognized figure in Mumbai society.
What took me aback when I entered his office was his courtesy.
He got up from his chair, came round the table to greet me,
and then made it a point to step out again to see me off. I had
never encountered graciousness of this kind in Delhi, especially
from superiors, and in those years I only had superiors. I have
seen good manners of this kind in Mumbai on other occasions
too—from parents of my school friends and later in life in my
rare interactions with Mumbai people of eminence. This starkly
contrasts with the way people behave in Delhi.
RJ: I don’t understand. What do you mean?
DG: At the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), for example,
where most faculty, including deans and vice-chancellors, are
supposed to be intellectually egalitarian, rarely does one find
a senior professor treat a newcomer with the kind of courtesy
with which Professor Gore met me. I also found many vice-
chancellors of JNU behave with a kind of superciliousness that
is hardly edifying. Very often, they refused to recognize your
presence in their office even after you had sought and received
an official appointment. I have no idea where they picked up
this mannerism from, but I have known at least three vice-

chancellors who would not raise their eyes to meet yours, or
even say a word of welcome, but would keep signing papers
for a good five minutes or so before deigning to recognize
your presence.
RJ: That was certainly very rude. Did you ever protest when
you met with such behaviour?
DG: On one occasion it was so revolting that I excused myself and
left the room because the Vice-Chancellor took so much time over
his papers and did not even ask me to sit down. When I contrast this
kind of haughty rudeness with the decency of Mumbai notables,
one cannot but be repulsed by the ‘burra-sahib’ (important person)
mentality in Delhi. Somebody who knew Indira Gandhi well said
that this was exactly how she greeted subordinates. I suppose the
Delhi big bosses may have picked this trait up from her. Really, I
have no idea where this has originated from. Mumbai nurtures a
different state of mind—this is probably true for the entire region
south of the Vindhyas.
Entering Academics and the Delhi School

of Economics
RJ: What interested you the most when you were a teenager?
Was it reading books, playing cricket, or…?
DG: All of the above, most of all sports—cricket and running
middle distance, in particular. I don’t think I was a bookworm,
though I fared well in school. For me homework and exams were a
routine that had to be performed so that one could play outdoors.
Knowledge did not drive me; I was not a nerd, not anywhere
near that. In my teens I discovered I liked novels and became a
member of both the American Centre and the British Council in
Delhi. During those years, I read some of the best classics in the
English language, and a few European works in translation.
RJ: Did reading literature leave an impact on you?
DG: Most of all it stoked my imagination and I would try and
picture what I had read and that was really engrossing, more
like daydreaming. Sometimes a book or a poem left such a
strong impression on me that I would fancy myself growing up
to be a novelist, or even a lyricist. My closest friend in those
days had a houseful of quirky relatives and they were often the
subject of my short stories, none of which ever got published.
What pleases me, however, is that my friend, after all these
years, still remembers my many attempts to immortalize his
family. It is often remarked, in a light-hearted, though not
entirely unwarranted, way that every Bengali boy must, at
some stage, write poetry or short stories. I guess I fell into
that category rather neatly. Quite independent of me, my son
Dipayan is an avid reader and this pleases me no end. I must,
however, confess that his aesthetic sensitivities are far more
developed than mine.
RJ: What about reading political or philosophical books?
DG: As I said earlier, I was not an intellectual type from the
start, nor did I have any ambitions towards that end. Till I came
to the DSE any thought of reading books, unless part of the
course requirement, was an imposition. Good, classic novels
and plays were the exception. After university, what I really
wanted to be was a police officer. After all, my mother’s side
of the family, my uncles and my grandfather, were policemen
and I admired them. Till then, education was a ticket to a job
and not a life-long quest that it later became. I often feel that
some of my colleagues in academia had a head-start over me
as they had intellectual heroes and prized an intellectual life
when they were in their early undergraduate years, if not when

in school. Only after I joined the DSE, and that too when I
was in the second semester and came face-to-face with brilliant
professors, the glamour quotient of intellectual life took a huge
leap for me. From then on I wanted to be an academic—out of
the window went my earlier ambitions to be a policeman. May
be for that reason I find those intellectuals amongst us who take
themselves very seriously, a bit comical.
RJ: What were your days like at the DSE?
DG: I suppose it began in 1969 when I joined the Department
of Sociology at the DSE for my MA degree. In sociology, the
academic preference at the time, with notable exceptions,
was to analyse social action through the cultural perspective
and not emphasize, in the same way, material and political
considerations. Orthopraxy and orthodoxy framed most
discussions such as those related to caste, family, and village.
For example, that jajman–kamin relations (or patron–client
economic exchanges in kind) have been seriously eroded in
the countryside was never fully insisted upon. Marx, on the
other hand, was a master context-seeker. Nothing remained
in its pure form in his hands, even the most hallowed cultural
precept could not stand alone and remain outside the welter of
human interests and conflict. Consequently, so many questions
rose in my mind and I felt as if Marx, Weber, and Durkheim
were carrying on a lively debate between themselves in my
head—a long distance conference call, as it were.
RJ: What about the atmosphere at the DSE?
DG: The atmosphere at the DSE obviously contributed towards
this engagement and how could a young man have asked for
anything more? Anyhow, given my intellectual bent at that time,
I felt I had to demonstrate how culture and tradition always
adjust to serve political and economic drives and are never really
expressed in their pure form. For this purpose, I thought it best
to study a popular movement for that would sharply bring out
how tradition is a malleable phenomenon amenable to specific
worldly interests. That is how I came to do my PhD on the Shiv
Sena.
RJ: Would you call that a turning point?
DG: This was an important turning point for me. From then on
I began to see the tie between traditional and cultural relations
in a more academic and disciplined fashion. I had to modify,
en route, some of my ideas about Marx too. I don’t think my
upbringing itself played too big a role but I must also say it did
not inhibit me in any way in my approach towards tradition and
modernity. The truth is I was not grounded in any one culture
and yet at the same time not quite deracinated either. At least
that is how I saw myself. I never felt that I was an outsider and
indeed believe, even today, regardless of one’s upbringing, my
India is as good as anybody else’s. Nobody has a monopoly on
this matter. My India is as good as that of any other, sometimes
better, simply because I have studied it. It all began at the DSE.
RJ: On a number of occasions you mentioned that you were
swayed towards academics because of the brilliance of the
professors at the DSE. Who were they?
DG: Everybody who was anybody in the intellectual firmament
was there.
RJ: Big names?
DG: Yes, of course. In sociology we had M.N. Srinivas, who
you might say invented modern sociology in India. Then
there was the star of them all—Professor Andre Beteille.
His presence was uplifting for he brought western and Indian
sociology together and showed us the relevance of universal

theories. Without Professor Beteille’s dedicated scholarship
and his refined academic temper, I do not think Indian
sociology would have progressed very far. As somebody once
said, Professor Beteille was the Vivekananda to Professor
Srinivas, the Ramakrishna. Beteille’s grasp of theory and his
knowledge of the history of thought are exemplary. In my
view, Beteille brought Max Weber to India. Then there was
the charismatic J.P.S. Uberoi. He was my tutor for three
terms out of four and though I squirmed in his presence during
those years, I am happy I went through that grind. When he
was my tutor, in the years 1969–71, I thought he had taken
an instant dislike to me.
RJ: Have those early impressions stayed on?
DG: Not really. When I returned to the DSE twenty years later
as a professor, Professor Uberoi became one of my buddies. He
is such a mixture of mischief and intellect and this combination
can, and does, produces startling results. I have often wondered
whether Professor Uberoi was aware of the brilliance of the many
statements he casually tossed out. The biggest gift I received
when I came back as faculty to the DSE was to get to know
Professor Beteille. Earlier, when I was a student we did not
really meet, but now we were drinking tea and chatting several
times a day and I always came away from these interactions
full of admiration for him. I have no hesitation in saying that
Professor Beteille was, and is, one of the strongest intellectual
figures I have encountered. In the Economics Department there
was, of course, Amartya Sen, Jagdish Bhagwati, Mrinal Dutta
Chaudhury, and many others. We did not interact with them
on a regular basis, but did periodically, especially at seminars.
Together, their presence made that institution quite unbeatable
by any standard.
Appreciating Philosophy
RJ: But were you acquainted with Indian philosophy?
DG: I came to appreciate Indian philosophy much later when I
was in my early thirties. My interest in epistemology, causation,
inference, and on the various theories of ‘Being’ was certainly
initiated by European thinkers. Later, when I read Mimamsa
and Nyaya, I found so many parallels, not similarities, let us
be clear, with Western thought that it left me puzzled. Why
is it that Hume, Kant, right down to thinkers like Heidegger
left such an impact on science but not our philosophers who
were also circling over roughly the same intellectual territory?
Is it because all of this happened in India way back in the first
millennium AD, perhaps even before that, and we were,
consequently, victims of the early starter disadvantage? Perhaps
the world and society of the times were just not ready for these
ideas and, therefore, they sank into variants of theology, which
they were not meant to be.
RJ: Have you found a satisfactory answer for yourself to this
riddle?
DG: This is a question to which I have not yet found a
reasonable answer. I wonder if this is why later generations
of Indian thinkers were not able to make that breakthrough
into the secular world of science. Is this why they eventually
rested their oars, instead, by leaving matters to Brahma? Is this
how ‘routinization’ of philosophy takes place? There could be
something in this line of reasoning, for in the Mimamsa too, a
text which is all about performing ritual correctly, there is no
God. Nor is there the necessity of God in almost every branch
of Indian philosophy, inclusive of Vaisheshika and Sankhya.
Patanjali’s texts too can be read in their entirety without the
insertion of Brahma. Why then did God enter the picture in
such a big way when such a presence was not really called
for at the start? Here I am not talking about the Vedas or the
Upanishads which are, by comparison, nowhere as profound
as the schools of Indian, note not Hindu, philosophy that I just
referred to.
RJ: Do you remember the books you read on western thought
and philosophy?
DG: Well, I’ll quickly tell you the philosophers that impressed
me apart from Marx and Hegel. I was very struck by what Fichte,
and later, by what Kant had to say. Fichte provided me with a
strong foundational conception of ontology in that the dialectic
of thesis—antithesis and synthesis proceeds irrespective of
volition, or deliberate effort; it is in the nature of our being
that this should be so. I encountered this idea, once again, but
much later when I was introduced to the notion of ‘prakrit’
in Sankhya.
RJ: Before we get into Sankhya and so on, let me ask you: why
Fichte?
DG: Good question. It is like this: both Hegel and Marx went
wrong with the dialectic because they brought the synthesis to
an end. Whereas for Fichte, the original dialectician, nothing
could stop this process not even the most advanced historical
stage. It is only after we grasp the profundity of this position
that it is possible to begin one’s studies on the subject of social
development and change and realize the unfinished character of
all so-called finished projects of modernity.
RJ: Anything else about Fichte?
DG: Fichte impressed me in yet another way, and I ran into this
point of view later in Nietzsche. Fichte believed that if one was
truly convinced about a point of view, deep from the inside, and
not because it was au courant, or the rage of the day, or an easy

option, then that position has to be an essentially correct one.
Modifications may be needed to make it stand tall, but stand it will.
RJ: And how did Kant come in?
DG: Incidentally, the late P.C. Joshi, the first General
Secretary of the Communist Party of India (CPI),
recommended I read Kant and not be totally besotted by
Engels’s interpretation in Anti-Dühring. I was surprised
at this for I never thought I would get such advice from a
dyed-in-the-wool Marxist as Joshi was—even in his later
years. I cannot imagine any party worker today advising a
young chap not to be overly impressed by Engels’s rendition
of Kant, but to go to the original instead. I am glad for
that advice for when I read Kant, I understood Claude
Lévi-Strauss better. In addition, I had a different take on
Kant’s aesthetics from the usual, professional reading on
the subject. Besides, The Critique of Pure Reason, essential
for getting to the heart of Lévi-Strauss, I also felt inspired
by Kant’s work on aesthetics. I felt Kant was allowing for
individual freedom in the appreciation of aesthetics, of being
‘purposive without purpose’. Oddly, and idiosyncratically,
this influenced my later thinking on scientific production
and the extent to which purposeful purposelessness propels
scientists to their most sublime acts. This also stirred an early
consciousness in me that modernity’s breakthrough happened
because we now demand from knowledge producers that
they convince us of their arguments. ‘Prove it to me’ thus
became the order of epistemology and it no longer depended
on pure authority from above, which Mannheim called
‘objective epistemology’. Perhaps, the reverence given to
sabda (speech sound) in Indian philosophy is another version
of objective epistemology.
RJ: What is so startling about this?

DG: Among other things, I spotted a big chasm here. Not just
with the way we conduct our everyday, normal science of the
Kuhnian sort, but also with Indian philosophy. This is because
in many of its branches except, of course, the nastika (atheist)
materialist, deference to authority is quite pronounced. For
most of the other schools, from Mimamsa to Sankhya, the word of
authority, or sabda, is a guarantor of a fact. However, I continued
to find the Sankhya philosophy particularly attractive because it
believed that understanding a phenomenon must depend more
on its effects rather than on factors that caused it. It should then
be possible to begin from what we perceive, the effects, to the
deep enquiry of cause. In my view, this is what social scientists
do, though often they are not always aware of this.
RJ: Could you perhaps illustrate this?
DG: For example, we tend to search for the cause of nationalism
in some ideal expression and do not proceed from the observable
fact of what a nation state does when it becomes a nation state.
Only then can we possibly realize the many causes behind its
formation and are also dissuaded from believing there is one true
path to nation statehood. I found this position useful particularly
in my studies on ethnicity, which began with my doctoral thesis
on the Shiv Sena.
The Joshi Influence

RJ: So why didn’t you study philosophy?
DG: When it comes to philosophy proper, I am a purposeful
outsider. Like Ludwig Wittgenstein, I believe philosophy
should help us philosophize and not become exegetes and
interpreters, which is the lot of most professional philosophers.
Second, as philosophy and social science are very different

intellectual pursuits, I do not think one should use philosophy
directly because that is fraught with methodological dangers.
Philosophy, however, is a source of inspiration and can
open one’s mind to various possibilities that one may not
have earlier imagined. It is a treasure house of foundational
knowledge that needs methodological tuning before it can be
used directly in the social sciences. For instance, you cannot
argue along the lines of: ‘As Hegel or Schopenhauer or Kapila,
or Jaimini said….’
RJ: What about sociological texts that you were introduced to
in your masters’ programme?
DG: Some of the readings in the MA course left a lasting
impression on me. I am now thinking of scholars as diverse as
Claude Lévi-Strauss, Emile Durkheim, and Talcott Parsons. I
was most struck by the fact that almost everything that we think
is personal, is actually immensely sociological as well. Also,
what we have often believed to be the creation of our intellect
has humbler roots in everyday life. From then on I became
increasingly conscious of the ‘context’ within which things
occur, and as I grew older, this conviction grew. I was never
very happy with empirical studies on kinship and village life, but
I found E.E. Evans-Pritchard’s book The Nuer fascinating. This
is because of his treatment of how politics can be embedded in
society without being an institution by itself. That the ‘leopard-
skin chief’ embodied this aspect made the text quite fantastic
too. Yes, an odd bunch of texts kept me very involved and I
went on in this vein and eclectically kept Kant next to Engels as
Joshi had later advised.
RJ: Was there anything else about work and life where P.C.
Joshi may have influenced you?
DG: I must, indeed, return to P.C. Joshi once more. He also

told me that if I had to be a good radical, I must come first
in class. I don’t know if being a good radical was ever my
ambition, but I read in his advice something more general.
What I think Joshi was saying is that there is no shortcut
to excelling in one’s chosen profession and this should not
be muffed by resorting to political conviction. The tendency
to explain away one’s professional shortcomings by claiming
political commitment as a substitute was not good enough.
He also reminded me that it is not that difficult to do well
in any one field, but to be socially committed to a cause and
then be good at one’s line of work is a true sign of excellence.
I have heard it being said about him that during his days
when he led the Communist Party of India, he insisted that
all office bearers of the student front of the party be among
those who excelled in their academic performance. A subtle
re-statement of Fichte’s position, don’t you think?
RJ: How did you come in touch with P.C. Joshi? You were
never a card-carrying party worker or fellow traveller.
DG: Yes, that is what makes it interesting for me. I saw the
man from a completely different perspective than did most
others. I was, at best, a student partisan who enjoyed the
intellectual challenge that Marx had introduced rather than
being a complete devotee of Marxism. I would never have
met P.C. Joshi had he not been a part of JNU. Joshi was an
incurable collector of documents and had built an impressive
archive. JNU was interested in acquiring this archive and made
an offer to Joshi. In return for letting him house the documents
in JNU, Joshi was supported by the University for undertaking
a research project on the history of the Communist Party of
India. That is how we first ran into each other.
The JNU Years

RJ: What were your days in JNU like?
DG: JNU was liberating. Much as I enjoyed DSE, I felt constrained
by some of the faculty members there. There is no doubt that
M.N. Srinivas was a great scholar. But I was never quite attracted
to his kind of sociology for it did not seem to portray tensions in
stark terms. In many ways, that was the way I wanted to see things
in those years. We were all drawn to conflict and Marxist theories
and did not find much of that in DSE. I could sense there was a
controlled resistance to giving into the latest trends in sociology,
though undoubtedly, they were very competent in the way they
practised it. Beteille was a distant figure to me at that time because
he was a Nehru Fellow in 1969 when I joined the DSE. As for
Uberoi, though he turned out to be a good friend in the end, his
attitude towards me in the early days was far from encouraging.
He quickly sized me up and found me wanting in several respects.
Once he thought he had the measure of me, he made no attempt
to sugarcoat it and make it easy for me. Later, I remember going
to a senior professor, who shall remain unnamed, after my MA
programme was over to seek his views about doing a PhD. He
had no hesitation in voicing his views and bluntly told me that I
did not have the intellectual equipment for such an undertaking.
He warned me about the rigours of academia, over and above the
high quality of brain power required and, in his considered view,
I would be better off elsewhere. He may have been right, but by
then I was determined and wanted to do a PhD and become a
certified academic.
RJ: Did you then go to JNU on the rebound?
DG: Not really. Word had gone around about JNU and
the importance that the department of sociology there was
giving to the study of social mobilization. This area was not a
privileged one at the DSE. As I wanted to study the Shiv Sena,

I was naturally attracted to an institution that gave priority
to movement studies. Therefore, when I joined JNU, I did
not hesitate one bit and soon realized that there were wide
open spaces there where one could intellectually roam. To
a large extent, my supervisor, Professor Yogendra Singh,
epitomized this spirit. He never opposed, only advised; he
was open to different ideas and made us counter many of
his own. His wisdom and patience were quite exemplary.
My life would not have been so exciting, or so pleasant, in
JNU if I had a different supervisor. Only once he was openly
upset with me and that was when he found I was making little
progress with writing up my PhD thesis. In this he was not
alone, so was P.C. Joshi, and to tell the truth, so was I with
myself. But after being upbraided, politely though, I decided
to drop everything and get on with my thesis. At the end of
the day, my draft was ready by the time I turned 25, and my
wife, Harmala, helped me immensely in this. I also had to
learn to focus hard in order to write cogently. Even today,
I am quite proud of the fact that I had completed my thesis
when I did.
RJ: Was the JNU faculty strongly ideological?
DG: No faculty member I formally interacted with at JNU
had a defined political position. Whether you wanted to do a
Marxist study or a functionalist one, they were both equal in
their eyes. At least, in my perception of things then, JNU was
a better place to be. It turned out to be a great decision. I was
vacationing with my family in Mumbai when I decided to join
JNU. My father was rather concerned because he felt that this
was a new and untested institution and that nobody had ever
heard of. But being a resident student in JNU was, by itself, a
heady experience.
RJ: You just said that in JNU all points of view were allowed
and that the JNU professors did not have a pronounced political
position. But the general view is that JNU was very left wing
from the start?
DG: That is incorrect. It is not as if JNU was leftist through and
through. The student body certainly was and the leaders of the
left among them were extremely good speakers and debaters—
part of the reason why many found them attractive, if not their
ideology. The majority of professors were not left, but they were
not right-wing fundamentalists either. That breed was difficult
to spot, an extinct species in those days. However, there was
a pronounced bias towards the Congress and this was evident
from the fact that some of the most important decision makers
and administrators in JNU of the 1970s were Congress in their
politics and temperament. Of course, this was clothed in leftist
fabric, but in their view Mrs Indira Gandhi represented a healthy
status quo. When the Emergency came, that unsettled things
significantly, but that was later. The intellectual tenor of JNU
remained left of centre during this period, but in a somewhat
battered condition. It re-established itself soon after the
Emergency was lifted. Indira Gandhi did not repeat her mistakes
when she came back in 1980, so JNU remained peaceful, vibrant,
and non-conformist in a happy, conformist way.
RJ: But JNU was always politically active and to the left, at least
on the student front?
DG: At JNU, political discussions and heated arguments were the
order of the day. Yet, I don’t recall a single instance of physical
violence even when we were in the thick of student union
elections. What is also interesting is that election manifestos and
speeches in JNU had no time for issues like hostel conditions,
mess bills, or even unfair grading. In fact, in one exceptionally
heated, pre-student union election meeting, the Trotskyists and
members of the Student Federation of India (SFI) had a long

slinging match on whether or not the World Bank’s presence
in India was damaging to the prospects of west Uttar Pradesh
farmers. I remember Lenin’s Development of Capitalism in Russia
was quoted a number of times and, I must confess, I too read it
then, somewhat like a compulsory text in order to participate
in that discussion. Student politics in the JNU of those days
was just remarkable. People, journalists in particular, came
from around the world to soak in the atmosphere of JNU of the
1970s. It was a place like no other and I am so fortunate that
I was there during those times, and as a young man too. We all
wanted a revolution in those days and I looked up to many who
seemed to have leadership potential in them. At the same time,
I was never a dedicated activist, for I could never agree wholly
with any mass organisation, though, for a short while, I was also
the General Secretary of the students’ union, which at that time
was not that formally structured.
Politics at JNU
RJ: Were there Maoists and Congress student activists in JNU
those days?
DG: Indeed there were many Maoists students in our midst.
They were all very fiery and terribly well-read. I have kept up
with some of them and they have generally mellowed quite a bit,
like the rest of us. But they were an intellectual force to reckon
with in those years. Remember, we knew very little at that time
of the repression that Mao had let loose in China. What we
hailed about Mao was his rallying exhortation to ‘Bombard the
Headquarters’. For young blood of those days, this was like a
clarion call. Today, we might smile at this silliness, but today is
not what yesterday was. In general the faculty in JNU, barring a
few, were Centrists, but there was nobody that I knew of at that
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
Kiitos huolenpidostasi, arvoisa juutalainen. Takaisin — tahdon
nähdä kansalaiset vielä kerran illan hämärässä.
ÄÄNI PUIDEN VÄLISTÄ.
Hamin poika toivottaa hyvää yötä vanhalle auringolle.
ÄÄNI OIKEALTA.
Maljasi, sinä vanha vihollisemme, joka olet ajanut meidät työhön ja

helteeseen. Kun huomenna nouset, tapaat orjasi lihapatojen ja
kannujen ääressä — ja nyt, lasini, joudat helvettiin.
KASTETTU JUUTALAINEN.
Joukko talonpoikia tulee tänne päin.
MIES.
Et saa hievahtaa. Seiso tuon puun takana ja ole vaiti.
TALONPOIKIEN KUORO.
Menkäämme, menkäämme telttojen suojaan, veljiemme luo —

menkäämme, menkäämme vaahterain varjoon, uinumaan,
hupaisasti tarinoimaan illalla — siellä tytöt odottavat meitä — siellä
ovat tapetut härät, entiset auranvetäjät odottavat meitä.
ERÄS ÄÄNI.
Minä vedän häntä ja laahaan, se kyyristelee ja vastustelee —

mars rekryytiksi, mars!
HERRAN ÄÄNI.
Hyvät lapsukaiseni, armoa, armoa.
TOINEN ÄÄNI.
Anna minulle takaisin kaikki verotyöhön menneet päiväni.
KOLMAS ÄÄNI.
Herätäppäs eloon, herra, kasakkaruoskan iskuihin nääntynyt

poikani.
NELJÄS ÄÄNI.
Moukat juovat sinun maljasi, herra, pyytävät sinulta anteeksi,

herra.
TALONPOIKIEN KUORO (ohikulkien).
Vampyyri on imenyt veremme ja hikemme. Nyt se on

vankinamme, emme päästä vampyyriä. Hitto vieköön, hitto vieköön,
sinä saat korkean lopun, — herra kun olet ja suuri herra, niin sinut
vedetään meitä kaikkia korkeammalle. Surma tyranniherroille. Meille
köyhille, meille nälkäisille ja uupuneille, syömistä, lepoa ja juomaa
meille. — Heidän ruumiitaan on oleva kuin lyhteitä pelloilla. Kuin
akanoita puimakoneesta, jää tuhkaa heidän linnoistaan.
Viikatteittemme, kirveittemme ja puintivarstaimme nimessä,
eteenpäin, veljet.
MIES.
En voinut eroittaa hänen kasvojaan joukon keskeltä.
Kenties on siellä joku jalosukuisen herran tuttava tai sukulainen.
MIES.
Häntä minä halveksin ja teitä minä vihaan — runous kultaa vielä

joskus sen kaiken. — Menkäämme, juutalainen, menkäämme.
(Laskeutuu pensaikkoon.)
*****
Toinen kohta havumetsää. Kunnaita, joilla leimuaa nuotioita.

Kansaa koolla tulisoihtujen valossa.
MIES (sukeltaen esiin alhaalta puiden takaa kastetun juutalaisen

kanssa).
Oksat ovat repineet riekaleiksi vapaudenlakkini. — Mikä

punertavain loimujen helvetti nousee tuolta kahden metsänseinämän
keskeltä, kahden pimeysröykkiön lomasta.
Olemme eksyneet etsiessämme pyhän Ignatiuksen rotkoa.

Takaisin pensaikkoon, sillä täällä toimittaa Leonard uuden uskon
juhlamenoja.
MIES (tullen esiin).

Jumalan nimessä, menkäämme — sitä juuri olen halunnut. Älä
pelkää, ei kukaan tunne meitä.
Varovasti, hitaasti!
MIES.
Kaikkialla jonkin suurrakennuksen raunioita, joka on saanut kestää

vuosisatoja ennenkuin on kukistunut, pylväitä, jalustoja, otsikkoja,
kappaleiksi lyötyjä kuvapatsaita, sikin sokin piirtokoristeita, joita
kierrettiin muinaisten kaariholvien ympärille. Jaloissani välähti juuri
survottu lasilevy — on kuin Pyhän Neitsyen kasvot olisivat hetkeksi
tulleet näkyviin varjosta ja taas häipyneet — tuossa, katso, on
kokonainen kaariholvi — tuossa on soraan uponnut rautaristikko —
ylhäältä välähti tulisoihdun valo — näen puolet ritarista, joka nukkuu
keskellä hautaa — opas, missä olen?
Väkemme teki veristä työtään neljäkymmentä päivää ja yötä. Nyt

he vihdoinkin ovat saaneet hävitetyksi viimeisen kirkon näiltä
tasangoilta. — Nyt juuri kuljemme hautausmaan ohi.
MIES.
Teidän laulunne, uudet ihmiset, kaikuvat katkerilta korvissani —

tummia ihmishaamuja tunkeilee takaa, edestä ja sivuilta, loimut ja
varjot kulkevat tuulen ajamina joukkojen yli kuin elävät henget.
OHIKULKIJA.
Vapauden nimessä onnittelen teitä molempia.
TOINEN.
Herrojen surman nimessä tervehdin teitä kumpaakin.
KOLMAS.
Miksi ette kiiruhda, tuolla laulavat vapauden papit.
On mahdotonta panna vastaan. Kaikkialta sysivät meitä.
MIES.
Kuka on tuo nuori mies, joka seisoo rakennuksen raunioilla?

Kolme roviota palaa hänen allaan, keskellä savua ja hiillosta hän
seisoo, kasvot hehkuvat ja äänessä on mielettömyyden kaiku.
Se on Leonard, vapauden intomielinen profetta. Ympärillä seisovat

meidän uhripappimme, filosofimme, runoilijamme, taiteilijamme,
heidän tyttärensä ja lemmittynsä.
MIES.
Haa! teidän ylimystönne. Näytä minulle hänet, joka sinut lähetti.
En näe häntä täällä.
LEONARD.
Antakaa hänet minun suudeltavakseni, rintaani vasten

puristaakseni, syleilykseni häntä kaunokaistani, riippumatonta,
vapautunutta, verhoista ja ennakkoluuloista paljastunutta vapauden
valittua tytärtä, kihlattuani.
NEIDON ÄÄNI.
Minä riennän sinun luoksesi, rakkaani!
TOINEN NAIS-ÄÄNI.
Katso, minä ojennan sinulle käteni — olen vaipunut maahan

uupumuksesta — olen tahrautunut kulkiessani pitkin suitsuavia
raunioita, armaani.
KOLMAS NAIS-ÄÄNI.
Olen päässyt heidän edelleen. Läpi tuhkan ja helteen, läpi tulen ja

sauhun tulen luoksesi, armaani.
MIES.
Hiukset hajallaan, läähättävin rinnoin kapuaa hän raunioille

intohimoisin liikkein.
Tällaista on joka yö.

LEONARD.
Tule luokseni, tule, oi hekumani, vapauden tytär. Sinä vapiset

jumalaisessa tulessa — pyhä innostus, ota valtaasi minun sieluni.
Kuulkaa kaikki, nyt minä ennustan teille.
MIES.
Naisen pää vaipui, hän menee tainnoksiin.
LEONARD.
Katsokaa, me seisomme molemmat vapautetun, ylösnousseen

ihmissuvun kuvana vanhojen muotojen, vanhan Jumalan raunioilla.
Kunnia meille että olemme Hänen jäsenensä repineet, nyt ovat ne
tomuna ja tuhkana. Ja Hänen henkensä me olemme voittaneet
omalla hengellämme, hänen henkensä on suistunut tyhjyyteen.
NAISTEN KUORO.
Onnellinen, onnellinen on profetan kihlattu. Me seisomme alhaalla

ja kadehdimme hänen kunniaansa.
LEONARD.
Minä julistan uuden maailman, uudelle jumalalle luovutan taivaat.

Vapauden ja hekuman Herra, rahvaan Jumala, jokainen koston uhri,
jokainen tyrannin ruumis olkoon sinun alttarinasi. Verimeriin
hukkukoot ihmissuvun vanhat kyyneleet ja kärsimykset — sen
elämänä olkoon tästä lähtien onni — sen oikeutena tasa-arvoisuus
— ja joka muuta luo, sille hirttonuora ja kirous.
MIESTEN KUORO.
Romahtanut on sorron ja ylpeyden rakennus. Ken siitä yhden

kivenkään korjaa, sille kuolema ja kirous.
KASTETTU JUUTALAINEN (syrjään).
Jehovan häpäisijät, kolmasti syljen teidän perikadoksenne.
MIES.
Kotka, pidä lupauksesi, niin minä nostatan tähän heidän

niskoilleen uuden kirkon Kristukselle.
ÄÄNIÄ SEKAISIN.
Vapaus — onni — hurraa — hei — hellerei — hurraa — hurraa.
PAPPIEN KUORO.
Missä ovat herrat, missä kuninkaat, jotka vielä äsken kuljeskelivat

maan päällä valtikkoineen ja kruunuineen, korskeina ja tuikeina.
MURHAMIES.
Minä olen tappanut kuningas Aleksanterin.
TOINEN.
Minä kuningas Henrikin.
KOLMAS.
Minä kuningas Emanuelin.
LEONARD.
Kulkekaa pelottomina ja murhatkaa ilman tunnonvaivaa, sillä te

olette valituista valitut, pyhistä pyhimmät, sillä te olette vapauden
marttyrejä, vapauden sankareja.
MURHAMIESTEN KUORO.
Lähtekäämme yön pimeyteen pusertaen tikareja kourissamme,

lähtekäämme, lähtekäämme.
LEONARD.
Herää, sulottareni.
(Kuuluu ukkonen.)
No, antakaa vastaus elävälle Jumalalle. Kohottakaa laulunne,

tulkaa jälestäni kaikki, kaikki. Vielä kerran kierrämme ja tallaamme
maahan kuolleen Jumalan temppelin.
Ja sinä, nosta pääsi, nouse ja herää.
NEITO.
Palan rakkautta sinuun ja Jumalaasi, koko maailmalle jaan

rakkauteni — palan — palan.
MIES.
Joku on juossut hänen luokseen, vaipunut polvilleen, ponnistaa
voimiaan, sopertaa jotain ja voihkii.
Minä näen, minä näen, se on kuuluisan filosofin poika.
LEONARD.
Mitä tahdot, Herman?
HERMAN.
Ylipappi, anna minulle pyhä voitelu murhatöihin.
LEONARD (uhripapeille).
Antakaa minulle öljy, tikari ja myrkky.
(Hermanille.)
Öljyllä, jolla ennen on voideltu kuninkaita, voitelen nyt sinut

kuninkaita surmaamaan — entisten ritarien ja herrojen aseet panen
herrojen hävittämiseksi sinun käsiisi — rintaasi ripustan medaljongin,
myrkkyä täyden — minne ei rautasi ylety, siellä jäytäköön ja
polttakoon myrkky tyrannien sisuksia. — Mene ja hävitä vanhat
sukupolvet kaikista maan ääristä.
MIES.
Hän läksi liikkeelle ja nousee joukon etunenässä mäelle.
Väistykäämme tieltä.
MIES.
Ei, minä tahdon nähdä loppuun tämän unen.
Kolmasti sylkäisen sinua.
(Miehelle.)
Leonard saattaa tuntea minut, jalosukuinen herra. Katso miten

suuri puukko riippuu hänen ryntäisillään.
MIES.
Peitä itsesi minun vaipallani — Mitä naisia ne ovat, jotka tanssivat

edessämme.
Kreivittäriä ja ruhtinattaria, jotka ovat jättäneet miehensä ja

siirtyneet meidän uskoomme.
MIES.
Muinoin ne olivat enkeleitäni. — Joukko on tulvinut kaikkialta

hänen ympärilleen — hän on nyt hävinnyt näkyvistäni tungokseen,
vain soitosta arvaan, että hän etenee meistä. Tule jälestäni, tuolta on
meidän helpompi nähdä.
(Vetäytyy muurin jätteelle.)

Voi, voi, voi, kuka hyvänsä voi huomata meidät täältä.
MIES.
Minä näen hänet taas. Toiset naiset tunkeilevat hänen jälestään

kalpeina, mielettöminä, kouristuksissaan. Filosofin poika suu
vaahdossa pudistelee tikaria. — He tulevat nyt pohjoisen tornin
raunioille.
He pysähtyivät — tanssivat soraläjässä — repivät maahan

pystyynjääneitä holvikaaria — heittävät kipunoita kaatuneille
alttareille ja risteille. Liekit nousevat ja ajavat savupatsaita edellään.
Voi teitä, voi teitä.
LEONARD.
Voi ihmisiä, jotka vielä kumartavat kuollutta Jumalaa.
MIES.
Mustat peikot kääntyvät tänne ja tulevat kiireesti meitä kohti.
Voi Abraham!
MIES.
Kotka, eihän toki hetkeni liene vielä tullut?
Me olemme hukassa.
LEONARD (pysähtyy kulkiessaan ohi).
Mikä mies sinä olet, veli, jolla on kasvot noin korskeina? Miksi et
liity seuraamme?
MIES.
Olen kiiruhtanut kaukaa kuultuani teidän kumousliikkeenne

herätyshuudon. Olen espanjalaisen klubin murhaaja ja vastikään
saapunut.
LEONARD.
Entä tuo toinen, miksi hän on piilottanut päänsä viittasi poimuihin?
MIES.
Hän on nuorempi veljeni. Hän on antanut sanan, ettei näytä

kasvojaan ihmisille ennenkuin on surmannut vähintään jonkin
paronin.
LEONARD.
Kenen kuolemasta voit sinä itse ylpeillä?
MIES.
Vasta kaksi päivää ennen matkalle lähtöä antoivat vanhemmat

veljeni minulle pyhän voitelun.
LEONARD.
Kuka sinulla sitten on mielessä?
MIES.
Sinä ensimäisenä, jos olet meille uskoton.
LEONARD.
Veli, sitä varten saat tästä tikarini.
(Vetää tikarin vyönsä alta.)
MIES (ottaa esiin oman tikarinsa).
Veli, siihen työhön omanikin riittää.
VÄKIJOUKON ÄÄNI.
Eläköön Leonard. Eläköön espanjalainen murhamies.
LEONARD.
Saavu huomenna johtaja-kansalaisen teltan luo.
PAPPIEN KUORO.
Tervehdimme sinua, vieraamme, vapauden hengen nimessä —

sinun kädessäsi on osa pelastuksestamme. Ken taistelee
taukoamatta, ken murhaa arkailematta, ken uskoo voittoon päivin ja
öin, se vihdoin voittaa.
(Menevät ohi.)
FILOSOFIEN KUORO.
Me olemme kohottaneet ihmissuvun lapsuudestaan. Me olemme

temmanneet totuuden pimeyden povesta kirkkauteen. Taistele sen
puolesta, murhaa ja kaadu.
(Menevät ohi.)
FILOSOFIN POIKA.
Toveri ja veli, muinaisen pyhimyksen vadista juon sinun maljasi.

Näkemiin.
(Heittää vadin menemään.)
TYTTÖ (tanssien).
Murhaa minulle ruhtinas Juhana.
TOINEN.
Minulle kreivi Henrik.
LAPSET.
Me pyydämme kiltisti ylimyksen päätä.
TOISET.
Onnea ja menestystä tikarillesi.
TAITEILIJAIN KUORO.
Tähän goottilaisen temppelin raunioille me rakennamme uuden
temppelin. Siinä ei saa olla kuvia eikä kuvapatsaita — holvit pitkistä
tikareista, pylväät kahdeksasta ihmisen päästä, ja kunkin pylvään
huippu kuin hiukset, joista veri tihkuu. Alttari yksin olkoon valkea ja
vain yksi merkki sen päällä: vapauden lakki — hurraa!
TOISET.
Eteenpäin, eteenpäin, aamu jo sarastaa.
Hirttävät meidät heti. Missä on hirsipuu?
MIES.
Vaiti, juutalainen. He lentävät jo Leonardin jälestä eivätkä enää

katsele meitä. — Luon viimeisen silmäyksen, kokoan vielä kerran
ajatuksiini tuon kaaoksen, joka nousee ajan syvyyksistä, pimeyden
helmasta minua ja kaikkia veljiäni tuhoamaan. Mielettömyyden
ajamat, epätoivon repimät ajatukseni kiertävät koko voimallaan.
Jumalani, anna minulle voimaa, jota et ole koskaan minulta

kieltänyt, ja minä suljen yhteen sanaan tämän uuden, äärettömän
maailman, joka ei itse ymmärrä itseään. Mutta se sanani on tuleva
koko tulevaisuuden runoudeksi.
ÄÄNI ILMASTA.
Sinä sepität draamaa.
MIES.
Kiitos neuvostasi. — Kostoa isieni häväistystä tomusta, kirous
uusille
sukupolville. Niiden pyörre ympäröi minut, vaan ei vie mukaansa. —
Kotka, kotka, pidä lupauksesi. — Mutta nyt seuraa minua laaksoon
pyhän
Ignatiuksen linnahautaan.
Päivä on jo lähellä. En lähde enää kauemmas.
MIES.
Näytä minulle tie, minä päästän sinut sitten.
Minne kuletat minua keskellä sumua ja raunioita, ohdakkeita ja

tuhkaa?
Armahda minua, armahda.
MIES.
Eteenpäin, eteenpäin ja alas minun kanssani. Joukkojen viimeiset

laulut vaikenevat takanamme. Siellä täällä enää liekehtii tulisoihtu.
Näetkö noiden kalpeiden usvahöyryjen, noiden kosteiden puiden
välissä menneisyyden varjoja, kuuletko noita valittavia ääniä?
Usva peittää kaikki. Me kiidämme yhä alemmas.

HENKIEN KUORO METSÄSTÄ.
Itkekäämme Kristuksen tähden, poisajetun ja piinatun Kristuksen

tähden.
Missä on jumalamme, missä on hänen kirkkonsa?
MIES.
Pian, pian miekan kahvaan ja taisteluun. Minä annan Hänet teille

takaisin. Tuhansiin risteihin ristiinnaulitsen Hänen vihollisensa.
HENKIEN KUORO.
Me vartioitsimme alttareja ja pyhiä muistomerkkejä, kellojen kaiun

kannoimme siivillämme uskoville, urkujen sävelissä soivat meidän
äänemme, tuomiokirkon ikkunalasien väikkeessä, sen pilarien
varjoissa, pyhän pikarin loisteessa, Herran Ruumiin siunaamisessa
oli elämämme. Minne me nyt painamme päämme.
MIES.
Päivä kirkastuu kirkastumistaan. Heidän haamunsa haihtuvat

aamuruskon säteissä.
Tuonne menee tiesi, siellä alkaa linnahauta.
MIES.
Hoi! — Jesus ja sapelini.

(Ottaen lakkinsa ja pistäen rahaa siihen.)
Ota muistoksi tämä ja tunnussana samalla kertaa.
Olethan, jalosukuinen herra, sanallasi taannut turvallisuuden sille,

joka tänään puoliyön aikaan…
MIES.
Vanha aatelismies ei toista sanaansa kahta kertaa. — Jesus ja

sapelini.
ÄÄNI PENSAIKOSTA.
Maria ja sapelimme. — Eläköön herramme.
MIES.
Usko, tule minuun! — Hyvästi, kansalainen.
Usko, tule minuun! —Jesus ja Maria.
*****
Yö. Pensaikko. Puita.
PANKRATIUS (väelleen).
Asettukaa kasvot nurmea vasten, maatkaa ääneti, tulta ei saa

raapaista, ei edes piippuun. Ja heti ensimäisestä laukauksesta
rientäkää minulle avuksi. Jollei laukausta kuulu, älkää liikahtako
ennen selvää päivää.
LEONARD.
Kansalainen, vannotan sinua vielä kerran.
PANKRATIUS.
Pysy tuossa petäjässä kiinni ja ajattele siinä.
LEONARD.
Ota ainakin minut mukaasi. Hän on herra, hän on aristokratti ja

petturi.
PANKRATIUS (käskien kädellään hänen jäämään).
Vanhat aatelismiehet pitävät joskus sanansa.
*****
Pitkähkö huone. Vallasnaisten ja ritarien kuvia siellä täällä seinillä.

Perällä pilari, jolla riippuu vaakuna kilpi. Mies istuu pienen
marmoripöydän ääressä, jolla on lamppu, pari pistolia, ratsusapeli ja
kello. Vastapäätä toinen pieni pöytä, hopeisia kannuja ja pikareja.
MIES.
Muinoin tähän samaan vuorokauden aikaan keskellä uhkaavia

vaaroja ja samallaisia ajatuksia ilmestyi Brutukselle Cesarin henki.

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Talking Sociology: Dipankar Gupta in

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© Oxford University Press 2019

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First Edition published in 2019

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

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ISBN-13 (print edition): 978-0-19-948937-4

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Typeset in Perpetua Std 12.5/15

I first met Dipankar Gupta at the Reset Dialogues on Civilization

democracy, passing through studies on caste system and ethnic

As a social scientist, Gupta believes that modernity is a dynamic

From People to Citizen: Democracy’s Must Take Road, Dipankar

This has all to do with the very notion of ‘iso-ontology’, which

This transformation that Gupta is referring to is unique to the

his books and research, is to make the distinction between

Gupta is also very attentive to the philosophical discourse of

As such, the immediate impetus for Gupta’s sociology

to encourage through his sociology of modernity the process

father worked for the Reserve Bank of India and I spent my

first. In a way, this was the beginning of sociology, like it or

Growing Up in an Apolitical Family

Nehruvian Times and the Partition Effect

down they felt that Subhas Chandra Bose deserved to be the

It is not as if we were more enlightened then but perhaps

that attracted us the most and we all got generous helpings

DG: I am more of an agnostic. I think an atheist would have to

space, I was keen to expose the hollowness of the view that

The Art of Being a Bengali

was a ‘nikhut’ (blemish-free) individual. There was also a fair

very closely, and for long, before he finally accepted Goddess

An Unhappy School Boy

captivating. I wish I could have gone on forever being a student

RJ: So when you go back to Mumbai, do you feel happy?

fact, I remember the graciousness with which their very busy

this mannerism from, but I have known at least three vice-

Entering Academics and the Delhi School

when they were in their early undergraduate years, if not when

sociology together and showed us the relevance of universal

not because it was au courant, or the rage of the day, or an easy

RJ: What is so startling about this?

The Joshi Influence

Second, as philosophy and social science are very different

DG: I must, indeed, return to P.C. Joshi once more. He also

The JNU Years

privileged one at the DSE. As I wanted to study the Shiv Sena,

members of the Student Federation of India (SFI) had a long

ÄÄNI PUIDEN VÄLISTÄ.

Hamin poika toivottaa hyvää yötä vanhalle auringolle.

Maljasi, sinä vanha vihollisemme, joka olet ajanut meidät työhön ja

Joukko talonpoikia tulee tänne päin.

Et saa hievahtaa. Seiso tuon puun takana ja ole vaiti.

Menkäämme, menkäämme telttojen suojaan, veljiemme luo —

Minä vedän häntä ja laahaan, se kyyristelee ja vastustelee —

Hyvät lapsukaiseni, armoa, armoa.