Raghuramaraju - Calibrating Western philosophy for India : Rousseau, Derrida, Deleuze, Guattari, Bergson and Vaddera Chandidas

This book proposes a new way of reading modern Western philosophers in the Indian context. It questions the colonial methodology, or the practice of importing theories of Western philosophy, and shows how its unmediated application is often incongruent, irrelevant, and unproductive in local frameworks.

The author shows an alternative route to approaching philosophers from the West Rousseau, Derrida, Deleuze, Guattari, and Bergson by bending and reassembling aspects of their ideas and theories to relate with the diversity and complexity of Indian society. He also offers insights on the politics of non-being and negation from a neglected modern Indian philosopher, Vaddera Chandidas, as a step forward from the Western philosophers presented here.

An intervention in philosophical research methodology, this volume will interest scholars and researchers of philosophy, Western philosophy, Indian philosophy, comparative studies, postcolonial studies, literature, cultural studies, and political philosophy.

A. Raghuramaraju is Professor at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, India. His books include Debates in Indian Philosophy: Classical, Colonial and Contemporary (2006), Enduring Colonialism: Classical Presences and Modern Absences in Indian Philosophy (2009), Modernity in Indian Social Theory (2011), Philosophy and India: Ancestors, Outsiders and Predecessor (2013), and Modern Frames and Premodern Themes in Indian Philosophy: Border, Self and the Other (2017). He has edited Debating Gandhi: A Reader (2006), Debating Vivekananda: A Reader (2014), Ramchandra Gandhi: The Man and his Philosophy (2013), The Seven Sages: Selected Essays by Ramchandra Gandhi (2015), and Desire and Liberation by Vaddera Chandidas: Biography of a Text (2018). He also co-edited Grounding Morality: Freedom, Knowledge and Plurality of Cultures (2010).

First published 2019
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2019 A. Raghuramaraju

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Raghuramaraju, A., 1957 author.

Title: Calibrating Western philosophy for India : Rousseau, Derrida, Deleuze, Guattari, Bergson and Vaddera Chandidas / A. Raghuramaraju.

Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018058192 | ISBN 9781138607101 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780429020698 (ebk.)

Subjects: LCSH: Philosophy, Comparative. | PhilosophyIndiaHistory20th century. | East and West.

Classification: LCC B799 .R29 2019 | DDC 109dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018058192

ISBN: 978-1-138-60710-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-02069-8 (ebk)

Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC

To

Kalidindi N. Satyanarayana

and

Kalidindi Girija Kumari

In gratitude and admiration

Once a passer-by found Mulla Nasrudin searching for something under a light. Upon his return, he still found the Mulla continuing his search. When asked what he is searching for, Mulla replied that he is looking for the key that he had lost. The passer-by joined him in the search to help him, but in vain. He asked Mulla whether he knew where he lost the key. Mulla replied that he had lost it somewhere else. When asked, why then he is searching here, he replied, because there is light here.

The scene in Indian academic humanities and social sciences is similar to that of Mulla. This asks a further question: what if Mulla continues to search even after this, either along with the passer-by or without? Is it possible to search where he lost the key, given the fact that there is no light there? An attempt is made here to move some part of the light to the place where the key was lost.

Philosophy may or not be related to reality. However, it is largely related to the immediate or distant context of earlier philosophies. Modern Indian philosophy has been confronted with a unique situation such that it has to relate both to its immediate inside that is, modern India and to the distant outside that is, colonialism and modernity, or colonial modernity. In undertaking this enormous task, it faced several problems and regularly failed in accomplishing the work it intended to accomplish. At times, modern Indian philosophy leaned too much towards the West and neglected its Indian roots. Those who chose to focus on Indian texts from the past found themselves isolated and risked being considered outdated.

One way to understand this complexity surrounding modern Indian philosophy is to contrast it with modern Western philosophy. Modern Western philosophy rejected classical Western philosophy and sought to start afresh with new foundations and axioms. This is clearly available in Descartes and Locke, particularly in Lockes idea of tabula rasa. This is also evident in Macaulay who in his Minutes on education for India clearly rejected not only Sanskrit and Arabic, but also Greek philosophy and Christian theology. The main argument of his Minutes is to implement in India what was implemented in the West. That is, he was recommending modern education based on modern science and rationality in India. Unlike many who paid attention to what he said about knowledge systems in India, as available in Sanskrit and Arabic, there is a need to pay equal attention to his emphasis on promoting modern education in India. Therefore, I find it difficult to criticise him from the point of view of the West vs. India. Thus, instead of looking at the Minutes through the binary of the West vs. India, recognising his emphasis on modern education, I see that the binary that is operating in the Minutes is modern vs. pre-modern, or classical. Alternatively, instead of reading these Minutes as advocating eurocentrism that gives rise to different kind of emotions, I see them as advocating modern centrism that rejected not only knowledge systems in Sanskrit and Arabic, but also Greek and Latin, the latter preceding the former. This thus dissociates Macaulay from both the classical West and India, and placed him against both the classical West that was rejected by modernity and classical India consisting of both Sanskrit and Arabic. What is problematic for me in the Minutes is not so much eurocentrism, but totalism. That is, in the entire Minutes, he finds nothing that is valuable in Indian knowledge systems, and he concedes nothing that is wrong in modern knowledge systems. This totalism is not only factually wrong, but can give rise to a methodology that is closed in nature.