Culture Ideology Hegemony Intellectuals And Social Consciousness In Colonial India

Culture, Ideology, Hegemony

Culture, Ideology, Hegemony

This volume explores the interconnections between culture, ideology and hegemony in an effort to understand and explain how Indians came to terms with colonial subjection and envisioned a future for the society in which they lived. The process of exploring the indigenous epistemological tradition and assessing it in the context of advances made by the west was not unilinear and undifferentiated; it was driven with contradictions, contentions and ruptures. Locating intellectual history at the intersection of social and cultural history, the eight essays in this book cover a wide range of issues, moving from an overview of religious and social ideas in colonial India to empirical studies of themes such as indigenous medicine, the family and literary fiction. Professor Panikkar contests both the imperialist and nationalist paradigms of intellectual history. Meticulously researched and lucidly argued, his analysis is illuminated by a rare sensitivity to the nature of class formation and class values, as well as to the material conditions of human existence.

CULTURAL ASPIRATIONS Essays on the Intellectual History of the Colonial Tamil Nadu

The construction of the past, as a historical agenda, figured prominently in the attempt of intellectuals to modernize society. They realized the importance of being sensitive to their past, which had been misrepresented by colonial rule. The investigation of the past to perceive the present and to conceive a future became integral to their intellectual endeavour. To use K.N. Panikkhar's words, "the intellectual quest in colonial India, engaged in an enquiry into the meaning of the past and thus in an assessment of its relevance to contemporary society, was an outcome of this awareness''. The construction of the past, was initially viewed as pre-requisite to reform. It subsequently turned out to be part of an ant-colonial agenda to retrieve a lost identity. This agenda become very vocal as the national movement reached its mass phase.