Based on their understanding of the past, and the experiences of the present, human histories develop a vision of their future. In its most amorphous form, these visions are just a set of values and guidelines which we could call a worldview; but they could also crystallize and morph into ideologies, where the picture for the future is sharp and the road map projected in detail. We gain in clarity when ideas turn into ideologies, but when ideologies begin to establish themselves as certitudes, the excitement and flexibility of the idea is lost. We live in times when ideologies -- left, centre and right -- have become inflexible to the extent that they do not even wish to listen to or converse with each other, and therefore, violence in its varied forms and degrees has become an inevitable outcome. It is perhaps helpful to revisit the foundations of the ideas that have made us, and thinkers such as a Michael Foucault, who traced the genealogies of our times, and mapped the archaeology of our past.
An introductory book, recently published in Kannada, helps us do exactly this. It is a thin volume of 150 pages, brought out by Kuvempu Bhasha Bharati Pradhikara in their special series. The stated purpose of this series is limited: it proposes to introduce readers, especially college students who often get intimidated by theory, to understand a thinker and the accompanying complex set of ideas. The book on Foucalt, written by N.S. Gundur, serves this limited purpose extremely well; but unlike many such books published earlier in Kannada, which did not serve any larger purpose than that of a ‘guide’, this book attempts a deeper intellectual engagement with a thinker who is not easy to digest. This monograph-sort-of book is extremely readable, lucid and provoking.
The early pages are dedicated to the details of Foucault’s life and works, while placing him in his historical and intellectual context. He was neither a historian, nor a critical theorist, but what he attempts is something more fundamental, which he has termed as ‘writing a history of the present’. The tools that he employs to do this are archeaology of knowledge, genealogy of ideas and an inquiry into the notion of truth and the relationship forged in knowledge/power. Each of the following chapters are dedicated to these topics. The chapter on archeaology takes examples from Foucault’s writing on madness, and how a mental state called madness (as opposed to normalcy) evolved in the early years of modern Europe into a huge industry with therapies, treatments, and the institutions… The other example that this book discusses is the development of medical science -- and as Foucault demonstrates with detailed archival research, this time period invented not only medical care, but also more fundamentally defined what illness is, and what constitutes a clinic. The notion of education, Foucault says is inextricably linked to the concept of punishment. He further feels that jails and universities, not only share a common epistemic ground, but also share the notion of what constitutes ‘discipline’ . This also leads to major ideas that Foucault propounded in his latter phase -- the ideas on governmentality, surveillance, and the notion of freedom of expression. The book also provides a summary of Foucault’s research into the notions of sexuality.
In a later chapter, Gundur presents some of the ‘literary critical’ writings of Foucault, which do not belong to his main body of work. Of these vignettes, especially illuminating is the analysis that Foucault has made on the classic Greek play Oedipus , placing it in the context of the frictions between the ‘natural’ and ‘civilized’ concepts of justice, prevalent at that time. This is a fresh new perspective, opened up for the first time as far as I know to a Kannada reader, for whom a text like Oedipus has been part of one’s inheritance in literary and theatrical studies.
The most exciting part of the book for me is the last chapter, where Gundur has made a somewhat tentative, but firm attempt to understand how, being in Karnataka in 2017, we could fruitfully engage with Foucault. Foucault is so culture specific as his writing is immersed and embedded in his context, and therefore, he cannot be ‘applied’ to our context easily. Gundur seems to suggest that as India has gone far into the path of accepting ideas from the West, it can neither close its eyes and follow the same path, nor make a comeback. In this context, Foucault’s ambivalent probe into its foundation will give us a better grasp on how we assimilate and indigenise the west.
However, this will also mean that we need to keep the same attitude towards Foucault himself, as he is also part of the west, and hence, Gundur seems to suggest that we need to learn and unlearn Foucault simultaneously, if we have to make our engagement with him profitable for us. The last compliment that I wish to give to this book is that it almost reads like a Kannada work, which is not a small achievement in itself.
