Social sciences

In times like these, when social structures are changing rapidly, a need to study the social sciences arises (“ >A return to social sciences ,” Oct.1). As a student of sociology I can say that most of the studies we refer to are that of Rajni Kothari, Guha, etc. There seems to be a paucity of new thinkers and new studies in the Indian context (especially field studies). It should be done not with an eye on influencing policy, but with an interest about what has changed in society. Are the current political changes symbolic of demographic changes or a result of economic stagnation or something else? I did not agree with the writer’s way of calling the ideas of diasporic intellectuals as “embarrassing.” What is embarrassing for one may be deep for someone else. Isn’t that the beauty of the social sciences? To say that a new “heuristics can reinvent democracy into a new sense of community” seems far-fetched.

Sweety Gupta,

New Delhi

Being an academician and an institution-builder, Rajni Kothari laid the foundation of the Centre of Study of Developing Societies which then introduced methodologies that helped in evolving political science as a discipline of social science in India. Universities the world over use his seminal text,

The Congress System , as a bible for studying India’s party system.

However, as the writer points out, the present generation appears to be continuously engaged in erasing his memory. In some cases, in universities in north India, Rajni Kothari is often introduced to students as a lady intellectual!

Arvind Kumar,

New Delhi