Chapter 32 : Use of Native Categories in the Analysis of Indian Society

Social Conditioning of Indian Sociology

The categories of knowledge, their meanings, and the methodology of their construction are deeply imprinted by the social and historical forces of their time. Just as the western pioneers of sociology (Karl Marx, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim) were challenged by the emerging industrial society and its cultural/epistemological tensions, Indian pioneers (Mukherjee, 1979; Singh, 1984) were shaped by their own historical context.

According to Yogendra Singh (1986), the major cognitive and moral concerns shaping Indian sociology were:

• The colonial experience.
• The memory of past glory.
• The project for future political and cultural emancipation.

The Colonial Experience and Eurocentric Bias

During the colonial period, British and European writings applied Eurocentric cognitive and value categories to Indian society. This approach distorted history and imputed abstract, ahistorical meanings to Indian reality to perpetuate colonialism.

• Segmentary View of Institutions: Concepts such as 'caste', 'tribe', 'village', 'community', 'family', and 'kinship' were defined as segmentary, autonomous entities, analogous to European socio-historical equivalents.
• Neglect of Organic Linkages: Colonial ethnographers overemphasized discreteness and autonomy, ignoring the social and cultural linkages that bound these entities into an organic system of social structure and civilization.
• Ahistorical Tribal Studies: Colonial administrators-turned-ethnographers "took a placid, even a synchronic view of the tribal society. The conceptual framework developed by the British administrators-turned-ethnographers and by anthropologists was inspired by the then prevailing model in anthropology. Tribal communities were treated as isolates, tribals as Noble Savages, and the primitive condition was described as a state of Arcadian simplicity" (Singh, 1985).
• Ahistorical Village Studies: Sir Henry S. Maine and Charles Metcalffe treated the village community as an autonomous sociological isolate. Louis Dumont (1957) criticized Maine for never looking at the Indian village in itself, but only as a counterpart to Teutonic, Slavonic or other institutions, treating India merely as "the historical repository of veritable phenomena of ancient usage and ancient judicial thought."
• Misinterpretation of 'Community': The British formulated the concept of 'community' in jural administrative terms based on Teutonic-Slavonic experiences (communal expression of individual rights/obligations). This contrasted sharply with the Indian notion…