Why Unitary Social Science? [1 ed.] 9781443803076, 9781443802123

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Why Unitary Social Science?

Why Unitary Social Science?

by

Ramkrishna Mukherjee

Why Unitary Social Science?, by Ramkrishna Mukherjee This book first published 2009 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2009 by Ramkrishna Mukherjee All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-0212-3, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-0212-3

For Rudrajit Banerjee

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One................................................................................................. 1 Scientia and Discrete Human (Social) Sciences Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 15 Whither Anthropology? Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 37 Unified Social Sciences Chapter Four.............................................................................................. 67 Unitary Social Science References Cited...................................................................................... 107 Name Index ............................................................................................. 125 Subject Index ........................................................................................... 129

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

While writing this book I received assistance from many but to acknowledge them at my age of 89 would be invidious; for I may unpardonably fail to thank a few of them. Therefore I crave indulgence from all who have helped me but remain unacknowledged. Ramkrishna Mukherjee Kolkata, December 2008.

CHAPTER ONE SCIENTIA AND DISCRETE HUMAN (SOCIAL) SCIENCES

In course of evolution of living organisms, humans have been endowed with several distinguishing features: the best development of brains, binocular vision, prehensile thumbs, erect posture, organs of speech, etc. As a result, humans can not only use objects from nature like some other creatures but also produce them for optimally moulding nature with a view to benefit humankind. Furthermore, they can then most efficiently transmit the learned process and product across space (e.g., from society to society) as well as over time (i.e., from generation to generation in the secular perspective). Consequently technology developed and was disseminated over place, time, and people; and it preceded the same process of humans with respect to science. For example, humans made fire before they systematised their knowledge on manifestation of energy through the media of heat and light. However, soon in course of time, science overstepped technology and generated the latter more and more proficiently in order to attain four primary valuations for humankind. (1) ever expanding span of survival of the species, (2) better and better security in life, (3) evermore material prosperity for ensuring the above two valuations while enjoying further wholesome life, and (4) deeper and deeper mental peregrination for systemising the above three valuations as well as for continually unfolding the potentialities of the species. In order to achieve these valuations – which would never be realised fully and finally so long as the life process is immanent – the inquirers among humans would conceive the universe as representing an information space composed of value-free, infinite but enumerable, and indivisible items of information. Simultaneously, the inquirers conceive of variable configurations of a primary value space, in the context of aforesaid primary valuations and in accordance with the value systems they respectively adhere to. On these dual bases they differentially select some of the information-items by attributing datum to them. This means

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that some subjectively selected information-items by an inquirer would be regarded as landmarks on the way to comprehend the contextual reality. Data are thus generated (and, ipso facto, in varied manner) by the confounded variables (e.g., ijvk) for denoting the fused and inseparable unity of certain information items (viz., ij) with their variable valuations like vk). The concept of “confounding” it should be noted, was propounded by Fisher (1949: 107-66) in another context. However, this formulation of sequential relation drawn between data and information may contradict the conventional understanding of precedence of data to information in the case of Information Technology (IT). The riddle could have been resolved if it were subsumed that IT accommodates all variable value-loads of inquirers and, thus, operationally reduces the value-impregnated data-items into value-free informationitems. But, whether or not such a value accommodation device is built into IT, or whether eventually IT embraces all value-loads, is moot. Alternatively, the IT experts may consider the issue discussed is out of bounds to their specialisation as technologists. Either way, as the initial step toward appraising reality – in view of attaining the aforementioned valuations for humankind – one cannot but proceed from value free information items to the construction of valueladen data items. Otherwise the appraisal of reality would be equivocal, motivatedly precise (of which instances are not wanting), and consequently distorted and false. Therefore, in light of his/her specific value preference, an inquirer first selects a set of data as valid for appraising the contextual reality. Next, as his/her explorations proceed, the inquirer collates – again in a specific manner vis-à-vis his/her colleagues – some of the validated data as relevant to the context. Following the same manner of selection, the inquirer forms, in sequences, a precisely defined cluster of valid and relevant data as necessary for the appraisal of contextual reality; and, ultimately, arrives at structuring the smallest bunch of data regarded to be efficient for meeting the objective. Sufficiency of data in this context would remain an open question so long as the scientifically established knowledge is not complete – which it would never be vis-à-vis reality. However, conceived in this manner, the appraisal of reality would appear to be a bedlam of subjectivity in inquirers and, consequently, for inducing the primary valuations for humankind. But, if this apparent situation were real, a random display of subjectivity would have governed humankind and the concept of universe. The consequence would have been human society ceasing to exist because of the pernicious internal strife of its constituents, while the universe would have disappeared

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beyond their cognition. Neither has happened. Instead, probabilitydensities of singularly uniform but particularly different structures of reality have been posited in conformity with the appreciation of aforementioned valuations. Envisaged in variable mass and magnitude of potential and kinetic forces, these structures are then employed for providing the backdrop for the appraisal of social reality. Thus, from theoretically conceived (or enforced) null point of subjectivity, objectivity rules the world of knowledge. This transformation is a matter of mundane observation, deduction, and inference with respect to the appraisal of any phenomenon; i.e., a thing of which the form and/or content are, as yet, rudimentarily or fragmentally known and not precisely, unequivocally and comprehensively recognised but which are amenable to a very high probability of the same appreciation by the multitude of individuals. This point on objectivity may be illustrated by a few examples. A microscopic minority of humans respond to what the overwhelming majority sees as red to be green (and, vice versa, green to be red). This condition is interpreted as contra-colour perception; the cause of which is not within the terms of reference to the present discussion. However, this condition illustrates different subjective valuations of the same thing by means of the confounded iv variables. Yet red and green colours are universally employed as traffic signals because of their very high probability density to be perceived as of the same distinctive colours. Consumer goods are produced in different admixtures of colours in the vibgyor spectrum, varied combinations of geometric designs, etc., in order to meet the consumers’ choice. The designers’ inspiration to produce “class” goods, the sales workers’ dexterity to “market” them, and the buyers’ intention to make “unique” choices from the articles displayed, are all, in the ultimate analysis, subjective. But, if subjectivity governed the consumer society, that society would not have come to fruition because market cannot operate in a random situation. There must be commonality in the productive, distributive, and purchasing processes. In other words, the consumer society must transcend subjectivity and, more and more, enter into the field of objectivity. Viewed from this perspective, one finds that the production of consumer goods in “medieval” times was the resultant of meticulously garnered experience of artisans of what would sell; of traders of where to sell: beyond the home and neighbouring markets, by means of land routes, or coastal navigation, and later by establishing merchant companies like the East India trading companies and, thus, entering into the “modern” world society – always the goal being the commonality of buyers of the

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same consumer goods. In the “modern” and presently globalised world society, “consumer research”, “sales workers training”, etc., are in vogue to augment and perpetuate consumer choice. The consumer in his/her turn, “unique” in intention for making purchases, is governed: firstly, by the “exclusive” mass-production of consumer goods in the national and international establishments; secondly, by propagation of these goods by corresponding media; and, thirdly, by their availability in affiliated sales stores. Where, then, is subjectivity left for the consumers’ world? In fact, commonality in valuation – leading from absolute (if ever possible) subjectivity toward more and more objectivity (of which the endpoint may never be reached) is the essence of life. The course includes also the commonly considered esoteric evaluation of what are known as the objects of fine arts. Otherwise the appreciation of these objects would have been restricted to their creators and the latter ones’ few initiates. It would not have generated enthusiasm among throngs of people (irrespective of place-time variations) for rushing to art galleries, museums, sites of architectural monuments, etc., and to “consume” these objects in pursuance of the fourth sequential primary valuation of mental peregrination of humans – mentioned at the beginning of this essay. Evidently, thus, in respect of all aspects of life, humans are more and more commonly bounded by a scale of valuation of the items of information according as these are treated to be desirable (i.e., the traits are positive as plus +) or the items are detested (i.e., the traits are negative as minus - ). And, in between these two extreme value points, the scale passes through the null point of neither desirability nor detestability of the trait(s) under reference (i.e., the traits are at the 0- point) in the valuescale. The scale may be more and more finely graduated by expanding the two nominal points of plus and minus to gradation of pluses and minuses, provided the values can realistically register the graded distinction of more and more intensive desire and detest, respectively. This is not a matter of artificially enforcing an increasingly graded 5-7-9-11 point value-scale, as is often found in attitude and opinion studies. It must belong to the natural course among humans to proceed along successive stages of registering the mental and physical process of (a) awareness of a thing to (b) aspiration for wanting to possess or reject it and, finally, to (c) achieving the desired and rejecting the detested thing in the perspective of enhancing the quality of life (vide, Mukherjee 1989). This is the mot juste of the evolutionary process; namely to release the encapsulated energy in a living organism up to its inherent potential and, then, proceed beyond that organism but continue with the evolution of life.

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In conformity with this process it should ultimately be possible to transform the ever-extended nominal scale into an ordinal scale of equidistant points representing the degrees of desire and detest, in order that the exhibition of the range of “want” and “do not want” of the items of information for turning them into data becomes more and more precise, unequivocal, and comprehensive. This may be one of the ways by which Lord Kelvin’s provocative statement can become usefully meaningful in the context of processually maximising knowledge from the miasma of subjectivity to transparent objectivity. “When you can measure what you are speaking about and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind” (Kelvin’s quote in Mahalanobis 1950:7). Thus, by traversing the path from a subjective to an objective appraisal of the primary value space for the constitution of the data space, and the consequent construction of facts from the information space, the objective evaluation of reality always tends to became more and more complete while holding an asymptotic relation with reality per se: namely, the gap between the constructed and the real becomes less and less but never disappears. However, this path of limitless advance of scientific knowledge by removing the quandaries it meets on the way may be nullified by avoiding the trajectory altogether and holding the theoretically envisaged terminal point of progression constant. Such an attempt in the quest of humans for realising reality has led humankind to perennially access the spiritual idealist view of life, irrespective of place-time-people variations. In the Hindu version of this viewpoint in India, this is emblazoned in the agonizing cry of Maitreyi: jé nƗhom amritƗ syam tenƗhom kimƗ kuriyƗm (brhadƗranyakopanishad. II, 4.3), which is translated into English as “What should I do with that by which I do not become immortal” (Max Müller 1884). In this perspective the sensory materialist appreciation of knowledge is regarded to be unreal; at any rate, as the appreciation of para- knowledge. For, that is knowledge (=gyƗnam), according to Hindu spiritual-idealist philosophy, which relates to salvation (=moksa) and the rest is false or para-knowledge (=vigyƗnam) – the last sanskrit term commonly translated as science: mokse dhirgyƗnamanytra vigyƗnam silpasƗstryoh. Most of the spiritual idealist philosophers, however, did not (and do not) eschew the material comforts of life while preaching salvation. For example, the Hindu sage YƗgnavalkya lived a prosperous material life with two wives while preaching the “other worldly” outlook in the court of

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kings. However, at the time of dividing his wealth between the two wives, he expanded on the idealist view of knowledgeable reality by employing inductive logic (brhadƗrankyopanishad. sloka 2.3.6, 3.9.27, 4.2.4, 4.4.42, 4.5.15); namely, all sensory assertions of reality are false, viz., neither this (néti) nor thus (néti) – because iti (which is real) is in the realisation of the supreme being (Hume (tr.) 1958:97, 125, 132, 143, 147). Likewise, Shankara – a famous Hindu philosopher – who is given the epithet of prachahannaboudhya (masked Buddhist), and acclaimed for reviving aryadharma (=Hinduism) by demolishing Buddhism - preached that the world is maya (illusion). But he established monasteries at four corners of his world, which was Bharat (i.e. undivided India), in order to propagate the spiritual-idealist viewpoint of knowledge resting with the realisation of social reality enshrined in the Supreme Being. Similar examples are not wanting in other oriental philosophies (e. g., the Chinese) and the European philosophies (e.g., the German) of the spiritual-idealist viewpoint. All of them forfeit the never-reaching endterminal of appraising reality and, consequently, abjure the relevance of the initial point in the path of procuring scientific knowledge. The upshot is that the subjective-objective controversy of antinomy or complementarily in the pursuit of knowledge also vanishes. Contrariwise, from the same time as the emergence of idealist philosophers, materialist philosophers appeared on the social scene irrespective of place-time variations. For, the inquiring mind of humans raised the point of perceived, perceptible, and perceivable phenomena concerned with defining and encompassing the scope of scientific explorations for apprehending the immanent reality. One such trend in Hindu philosophy, designated as the SƗnkhya School, pointed that “germinating, decaying, and again germinating denotes the course of scientific knowledge of what is reality – only which is true and everlasting”. For, “sarvamgyanam sabisyam”, is to be established by sensory proof: and, on that count, it can be asserted that iswarasiddha – God is non-existent (sankhyadarshanam. Chapter 1, sutra 92). This assertion rings a topical note in the more recent reply of Marquis de Laplace to Napoleon’s query about the absence of mention of God in the former’s treatise on celestial mechanics: “Sire, je n’avais pas besoin de cette hypothese”, which in English translation (quoted by Wallerstein 2004:70) reads as : “Sire, I have not found any need for that hypothesis”. Likewise, whether or not an individual is personally a theist, an agnostic, or an atheist, the eclectic energy of humans has kept the field of scientific enquiry ever open. This is illustrated by the translation of Article

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10 of Kenopanishad by the theist physicist-statistician P.C. Mahalanobis (1972: unpublished) as: “I do not think that I Know very well, nor that I do not Know. He Knows who knows this that I do not Know and I Know”. Thus, Mahalanobis is seen to refer to “knowledge” per se by capitalising its apposite letter “k” in Know, in order to convey the meaning of ever seeking explorations in the field of knowledge – which is the motto of science and not of any religious dogma. Obversely, Rammohun Roy – who was a religious reformer and social activist of the nineteenth century, and is acclaimed as the father of Indian renaissance - translated the same article 10 of Kenopanishad as: “Not that I suppose that I know God thoroughly, nor do I suppose that I do not know Him at all; as, among us, he who knows the meaning of the above-stated assertion, is possessed of the knowledge respecting God, viz. ‘that I neither know Him thoroughly, nor am I entirely ignorant of Him’”. (Nag and Burman 1945-58, II: 19). However, in the pursuit of scientific exploration, the apparently opposite personal viewpoints may not be a hindrance. This point seems to be underscored when Albert Einstein is purported to have written to Max Born in 1944 (Quoted in Born 1956: 90): “In our scientific expectation we have grown antipodes. You believe in God playing dice and I in perfect laws in the world of living existence as real objects, which I try to grasp in a widely speculative way.” Finally, in the ultimate analysis, one underlines the pithy statement made by the poet-philosopher Rabindranath Tagore (whose attribute as a theist, an agnostic, or even an atheist has been hotly debated) in the first line of a song he composed: shes nahi jey, shes katha ke bolbe – which in English would pose the question: “As there is no end, who will say the last word?”. In sum, skirmishes of objective (scientific) appraisal of reality continued with the spiritual ideologues. These were succinctly summed up by Bertrand Russell in the light of contrasting the Roman Catholic Inquisition of Galileo Galilei with the persistent scientific exploration of reality (Russell 1931: 33 ff). However, beyond or along with this debate, the term scientia was introduced in Europe in the sixteenth century, in order to denote empirically validated secular knowledge on reality. But, after crossing the first hurdle, the inexorable endeavor of scientific inquiry faced a formidable opposition from secular ideographers vis-à-vis the nomothetic ambition of science in the form of the NewtonianCartesian dichotomy. Newtonian science was characterised as indicating exactitude; namely, enactment of laws for appreciating symmetry among the past, present and future operations of a phenomenon. Contrariwise,

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Cartesian dualism contested for a fundamental distinction between Nature and Human. The Cartesian viewpoint followed from the impression that the relation between a researcher (the subject) and what is being researched (the object), in order to acquire knowledge on phenomena, is discrete and relatively constant in the case of natural things as objects. However, the relation between researcher and researchee as subject and object in the case of human beings at both ends is conditioned severally (or compoundedly) by their distinctive – although variable – culture, economy, and polity. Therefore, the Cartesian viewpoint would hold that Natural Science (as also Biological and Earth Sciences) should not be equated with Humanities Studies. Thus, a seemingly inevitable barrier in the quest for knowledge to appraise reality was planted under the labels Science and Humanities (Arts) in Europe from the seventeenth-eighteenth centuries. Nevertheless, subject to the construed distinction drawn between Newtonian versus Cartesian viewpoints, Faculties of Sciences and Arts (Humanities) flourished in European Universities and both became active media for the cultivation of objective (scientific) knowledge from late eighteenth century. In this context it may be of significance to record that henceforth Divinity or Theology became a departmental concern of university for the dissemination of spiritual knowledge, in place of the latter being the ruling concern for securing knowledge, unless the university or the equivalent institution itself was meant for Theology. Also, a Divinity/Theology Department may be absent from a university. Either way, however, and under both categories of Science and Humanities, disciplines emerged for demarcating skilled concentration on separate spheres of reality – including the disciplines of medicine, law, etc. It is also worthy of record that at this juncture of the onward march in Europe for an objective (scientific) exploration of reality, the upheaval created by the French Revolution (1789-99) is commonly acknowledged for planting the idea of Social Science in respect of some disciplines so long ensconced in the Humanities; and, concurrently, new disciplines emerged or profound changes took place in the content of a discipline (vide, The Report of the Gulbenkian Commission on Reconstructioning of the Social Sciences – Chair: I. Wallerstein, 1995:8-9; Braudel 1980: 2564, 205-7). For instance, history tended to shred off its character of hagiography as merely narrating the exploits of the ruling powers in succession, and began to orient itself to what in Germany was characterised as Geschichte, i.e.,

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the perspective of chronicling what happened with the people and their societies from the hoary past to present times. To be sure, the pursuit has not yet met with total success; but the attempt is on to elevate History as Geschichte to the status of a social science discipline in place of remaining relegated to the amorphous category of Humanities. That the attempt is meeting with success is attested by history being recognised as one of the subjects for study at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, by the Centre for Historical Studies in the School of Social Science, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and by similar appellations in several other institutions and universities in Europe, America, Asia and elsewhere. Also for many other disciplines concerned with the operation of human society, minting the label “social science” was not immediately universal, although some disciplines within the orbit of Humanities asserted to be nomothetic like Newtonian natural science. Such as, Auguste Comte (1798-1857) declared Sociology to be “social physics”, and economics and politics (also nomenclatured Government) were sometimes declared to be nomothetic disciplines. However, these assertions for Sociology, Economics, and Politics were not widely acknowledged. On the other hand, psychology became a borderline case with “Social Psychology” pertaining to Humanities, and its other aspects moving toward Science with a capital S – via media Physiology and Medicine – in view of analytical (or applied) Psychology sliding along the incline of Psychoanalysis, Psychopathology, and Psychiatry. The same was the situation with Geography which fell under Humanities and/or Earth Science (like Psychology under Humanities and/or Biological Science). Correspondingly, Geology was regarded akin to Physics, and placed under the category of Earth Science. Botany, Anatomy-Physiology, and Medicine were affiliated to the category of Biological Science – which was considered nomothetic like Physics and Chemistry. Kaleidoscopic changes were thus taking place in the allocation of disciplines – fragmented or not – under one or other category of Science and Humanities at their frontiers. Briefly, the categorization of natural, biological, and earth sciences was more or less clearly acknowledged. But, barring the amphibian designation of some disciplines as belonging to the University Faculty of Humanities or Science (e.g., anthropology), the recognition of what are presently designated as social sciences under the “science categories” was rudimentary in the nineteenth century and sparse even up to the first half of the twentieth. The spectre of nomothetic versus ideography controversy

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generated by the Newtonian–Cartesian dichotomy operated openly or insidiously. Even so, an impetus to proliferation of disciplines was accorded by the sea-change in world affairs in conformity with a qualitative alteration in the release of energy in society because of a drastic change in its structure, function and process. Immanuel Wallerstein calls and describes the new as The Modern World System (1974); Rila Mukherjee entitles it Europe Transformed (2003) in view of other less successful attempts from beyond Europe at that period [vide, Frank 2005: 73-114; 135-192; Mukherjee (Rila) 2006; etc]. Nevertheless, Wallerstein’s label was appropriate for denoting the contemporaneous springboard of world capitalism under the guise of the “modern world system”. Anyhow, given the scenario, West Europe – led by Britain – pursued ruling the waves of the globe; and this drastically new social process necessitated an expansion of “human (social) sciences” for unfolding, crystallising and systematically ordering the intricacies of empirically ascertained knowledge. Such as, the scope of geography was extended. Its curriculum included information on newly considered or freshly stressed matters (see, for example, Braudel 1980:17-8, 56-8, 105-119). As a result, the newly opened vista of “human geography” was located in the orbit of Humanities, while physical geography, cartography, etc., fell within the ambit of Science. Similarly, Ethnology cum Anthropology emerged on the horizon of knowledge from the last quarter of the eighteenth century and flourished until the first half of the twentieth. But while anthropology as a whole claimed to present a holistic view of life, from the beginning of the twentieth century, at any rate, “physical anthropology” clearly veered toward anatomy, physiology, and biology (via anthropometry, biometry, and human genetics); “prehistory” to earth science (via stratigraphy and archaeology) as well as to history for the pre-writing stage of humanity (see, for example, V. Gordon Childe’s What Happened in History, 1946); and “Social anthropology” on which fell the White Man’s burden to civilise the Natives. Accordingly, this last fragment of erstwhile anthropology clung to its holistic moorings (vide, Notes and Queries in Anthropology, published by the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland) while pursuing, in its own way, the appraisal of social reality of the colonial “natives” and of those recently emancipated – in the context of their culture, economy and polity. Sociology, with its antecedents in “moral philosophy” developed in West Europe and while owing allegiance to the British precursors John Locke (1632-1704) and David Hume (1711-1776), hovered between

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Nomothetic Science and Humanity studies. It emerged first in France and Britain mainly, at about the same time as (or a little earlier than) anthropology. It was led by Saint-Simon and Auguste Comte in France, and by J.S. Mill and H. Spencer in Britain. The discipline was preoccupied with “civilised” society, complementary to anthropology’s concern with the “primitive” society, while the distinguished presence of “oriental” society was in incubation – to emerge later along the forward march of the “modern world system” under labels like Sinology and Indology. In these and similar ways, the division of labour in the pursuit of knowledge on human society went on unabated – with each discipline asserting its prerogative to rule exclusively its demarcated territory which might fall under the umbrella of Science or Humanities (Arts) as Human (Social) Sciences. However, this state of affairs faced another qualitatively different situation after the end of World War II. In 1945 the United States of America dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. It was a momentous, not a momentary, decision on the part of the US war machine; but it is not directly concerned with the present discussion. Nor is the discussion involved with the issue whether the dastardly act was a geopolitical matter because the Soviet Red Army was reported to have had reached the northern threshold of Japan and, therefore, there was the apprehension of a repeat performance of the Fall of Berlin in 1944 to be witnessed by the U.S.A. Basically, the incident signaled, in the context of the present discussion, the triumph of science on one side and on the other an unfathomable disgrace in its pathological manhandling by a coterie of humans for furthering its vested interests. This signifies that one is concerned with two successive value spaces for the appraisal of reality, of which the primary value space has already been discussed for yielding the primary data space from the infinite but enumerable information space. That was required for producing data to answer the first three sequential questions regarding the phenomena under examination: (1) what are they (as perceived), i.e., their specificity in structural form; (2) how are they ordered and how do they operate (as perceived), i.e., their functional instrumentality; and (3) why do they operate in specific manner, i.e., their causality (as the question is deductively answered). Now, in order to proceed logically, one should pose two more sequential questions: (4) What will be of the phenomena – probabilistically, no doubt – in the near future perspective, as inferred from the available information and data spaces (for details, see Mukherjee 1979); and (5) what should be of the phenomena—prescriptively (and, therefore, essentially subjective in content) – for evermore fulfillment of

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the existence of humankind. Subsequently, therefore, one should construct a secondary value space for structuring apposite data space for appropriately answering the last two sequential questions or await the destruction of humankind and beyond (for details, see Mukherjee 1989). However, with respect to these perennially prolonged and painstaking pursuits, science in itself is innocent of the use made of its path breaking outcomes. For, that is the prerogative of society: its culture, economy and polity. Possibly bearing in mind these complements and antinomies of science and society – the dialectic of which was not lost to him, as substantiated by some of his “non-scientific” writings (e.g., Einstein 1949:4-12) – the revolutionary stage attained by science at the time of the atomic explosions in Japan led Albert Einstein to declare that the world would not be the same again. The transformation affected the human (= social) sciences in as much as the wide world of Science. It was in sync with what, after proposing his general theory of relativity in 1915, Einstein wrote in 1916 (17:101): Concepts which have been proved to be useful in ordering things easily acquire such an authority over us that we forget their human origin and accept them as invariable. Then they become “necessities of thought”, “given a priori”, etc. The path of scientific progress is, then, by such errors, barred for a long time. It is therefore no useless game if we are insisting on analyzing current notions and pointing out on what conditions their justification and usefulness depends, especially how they have grown from the data of experience. In this way their exaggerated authority is broken. They are removed if they cannot properly legitimate themselves; corrected, if their correspondence to the given things was too negligently established; replaced by others, if a new system can be developed that we prefer for good reasons.

J.R. Hicks had voiced a similar opinion in 1942 while introducing his widely read Economics Primer entitled The Social Framework (1972:1): Economics (is) one of the branches of that great systemic study of the world we live in which we call Science with a capital S. The division of Science into sciences – is largely a matter of convenience; …. This means that we cannot tell where the frontiers of a particular science will prove to be until we have developed that science; and we need not expect that these frontiers will always be found in the same place.

P.C. Mahalanobis, founder director of the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, India, from the 1930s, designated all the research channels of ISI in the 1950s as “units” in place of the usually adopted designation of “departments”; such as, units of statistics, mathematics, physics,

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chemistry, biology, genetics, economics, sociology, history, demography, computer technology, etc., The idea behind forming such a wide and ever-expanding network of diverse “unities” was that more of them may be formed, homologous ones may coalesce, analogous ones may confederate, and the course may go on: the notion being the formation of bigger and bigger mass and ever greater magnitude of forces reflecting the many facets of reality. Thus, all activities of ISI were geared to convey and establish the point that the unit is science (not sciences) and the cementing bond among the “science unities” is the probability–principles of “Statistics as a Key Technology” (Mahalanobis 1965: 43-46): We may look upon science education and scientific research as the effort to know nature more adequately. We may also consider technology and technological research as the effort to use scientific knowledge for the fulfillment of specific purposes either of a practical or a theoretical nature. This perspective had also been clearly recorded by Max Born who in 1926 had established the statistical probabilistic interpretation of Erwin Schrödinger’s wave functions – pertaining to quantum mechanics, and in 1956 (pp. vi-vii) candidly stated: In 1921 I believed and I shared that belief with most of my contemporary physicists – that science produced an objective knowledge of the world, which is governed by deterministic laws. …In 1951 I believed in none of these things. The border between object and subject had been blurred; deterministic laws had been replaced by statistical ones (emphasis added RM). ….. In this way the classical philosophy of science was transformed into the modern one, which culminates in Niels Bohr’s Principle of Complementarity.

Years later, referring to Werner Heisenberg’s “principle of uncertainty” (1927) and later to the works of other scientists, Stephen W. Hawking summed up the ongoing progression of scientific outlook (Hawking 1988: 59-60): The uncertainty principle had profound implications for the way in which we view the world … In general; quantum mechanics does not predict a single definite result for an observation. Instead, it predicts a number of different possible outcomes and tells us how likely each of these are. (emphasis added – RM).

In sum, from the second half of the twentieth century the gamut of science unities is viewed as composed of “probability sciences”, and not “exact” with respect to some and “subjectified” for others. The upshot is that the nomothetic-ideography dispute in science was turned into a mirage

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while the Newtonian—Cartesian dichotomy on subjectification of the object disappeared into oblivion. The hurdle in the path of pursuing scientific knowledge on reality was removed. Yet, to date, some social scientists – usually labeled social anthropologists or sociologists – indulge in the mystic specificity of “human” sciences (e.g., Winch 1958); a few have thrived on its esoteric explanations (e.g., Saran 1996). On the other side, the idea of unitary social science was mooted (e.g., Mukherji 1955 in his Presidential Address to the First Indian Sociological Conference – published in 1958 and 1961), but it hardly even generated a debate among the social scientists. Possibly the persevering resilience of the discrete disciplinary unities for holding on to their exclusivity was not lost. Even so, in order to muster their strength in case of exigencies, they unified as a conglomerate of social science unities which are commonly denoted as social sciences: a nomenclature in vogue in the U.S.A from earlier times which was universally accepted from the second half of the twentieth century (along with the shift in the centre of gravity of international economy and polity from the U.K. to the U.S.) The agendum of unification of a chosen assortment of social science unities would be to conduct interdisciplinary explorations of reality by means of collateral transactions of information and data among them, without disturbing their separation at the grassroots level of society. The designing and operation of the agendum were dictated by what was evaluated as a crisis situation in the local, regional, or world society – in the context of its culture, economy or polity. Accordingly, one of the social science unities assumes the leading role to dictate over the other unities in the assortment. Anthropology, perhaps because of its professed holism in its salad days and even the curbed holism asserted by social anthropology alone, has been rather hesitant to subscribe to inter-disciplinary explorations and thus, to the concept and operation of unified social science unities: its confederates have not been that adamant. Bearing this distinction in view, chapter 2 of this book will examine the question: Whither Anthropology? After that, chapter 3 will be devoted to Unified Social Sciences: the rise of and the contemporary debacle of the attempt in advancing and applying social science knowledge for the benefit of humankind. Finally, the last chapter, chapter 4 will deal with the need for a precise formulation and apposite application of the concept of Unitary Social Science at the crossroads of the contemporary global social landscape. ***

CHAPTER TWO WHITHER ANTHROPOLOGY?

In the second half of 2006, at my request, Dr. Saran Ghatak of Keene College, New Hampshire, U.S.A., collected information from publications on degree-awarding universities and allied institutions concerning how many of them awarded the degree in Anthropology as a separate discipline, or in combination with some other discipline(s) in the UK (once the bastion of anthropology), the U.S.A (the new centre of the subject from the second half of the twentieth century), and Canada (placed inbetween these two points). From the raw data and their primary analysis sent me and their subsequent treatment, it has been found that out of all anthropology teaching educational establishments in the U.K., the U.S.A., and Canada, respectively, 63, 63, and 77 percents teach and confer degrees in the discipline separately; 14, 29, and 18 percents do it in combination with sociology; and 23, 8, and 5 percents in combination with other subject(s). This is an indicator of the way the once flourishing discipline of anthropology is heading now-a-days. The specter prompts questions on the future viability of anthropology – in form and content as well as in its scope and limits. In order to reflect on these issues, one should recapitulate, however briefly, the genesis and travails of the subject matter of anthropology to date. In so far as is presently known, profound changes were taking place in the social organisms identified as the Orient and the Occident from the middle of the fifteenth century. In both, primary production of crops and cattle, handicraft production and internal trade had almost reached saturation point and external trade by land routes and coastal navigation was also reaching its limits. The social need was for long-distance trade by the sea-route, in order to amass wealth by buying goods as cheap as possible from remote countries – to the point of looting and plundering them, and selling them at home and neighbouring countries as dear as possible. On this point of trading across oceans (viz., the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Indian Ocean in the main), changes were faster from the threshold of the fifteenth-sixteenth centuries in the Occident than in the Orient: in

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fact, the Occident was represented by the north-Atlantic seaboard of Europe – extending eastwards to northern Italy; and the Orient came up to the eastern Mediterranean and was represented by Rome, Venice and Aleppo-the old Levant-reached from the east and chiefly represented by merchants and navigators of the Arab world, India, and China. The rest of the globe – represented by the New Continent, Africa, beyond the southern coastal fringe of the Mediterranean and the hinterland of Asia and the Pacific – was still a mystery. The Americas were not yet known. Australia had not entered European geographical knowledge. The desire for unfolding this mystery as well as to penetrate into the Orient was heightened by tales of adventurers and explorers traveling hazardously by land and undertaking the occasional coastal navigation. The need of the hour, therefore, was for building such sea-worthy vessels as could undertake voyages for months across the Indian, Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, improve the nautical compass and other such accessories for undertaking long distance voyage, continually advance upon cartography, acquire essential astronomical knowledge for voyaging days and nights, and so on. Conjointly, these varieties of needs were met faster in the Occident (viz., the Atlantic seaboard of Europe) than in the Orient (viz., China and India in the main). As a result, Columbus discovered America in 1492, Vasco da Gama reached India by the ocean-route in 1498, the first British expedition to China via Cape of Good Hope took place in 1582 and the second expedition – carrying Queen Elizabeth I’s letter to the Emperor of China – in 1596, the English East India Company was formed with a Royal Charter in 1600, and a Royal order was received from the Indian Emperor to open trade in Surat in 1613. The Dutch East India Company was also formed at about this time, in 1602, and concentrated its “trade” in Southeast Asia. In 1664, after several earlier attempts, the French East India Company appeared on the Asian scene; as did in a minor key the Danish and the Ostend companies, and the more ephemeral Prussian and Swedish East India Companies. Revealingly, the Directors of the English East India Company wrote to its agents in India in 1680 (vide, Mill 1858:I.87-88): The increase of our revenue is the subject of our care, as much as our trade – ’tis that must maintain our force… ’tis that must make us a nation in India; and upon this account it is that the wise Dutch, in all their general advices which we have seen, write ten paragraphs concerning their government, their civil and military policy, warfare, and the increase of their revenue, for one paragraph they write concerning their trade.

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Mere trade to securing “concessions” and, then to conquering the vulnerable territories went in succeeding steps and, by the 1780s, Asia came under the control of West Europe – mainly, the English, French, and Dutch – as colonies or “spheres of influence” (i.e., semi-colonies like China, Siam, and Afghanistan). Meanwhile, Britain, Spain, Portugal and France, in the main, had conquered the New Continent and Australasia, exterminated or driven the original inhabitants to inhospitable regions of their territories, and “peopled” the habitable regions of these territories by sending pioneers and undesirables (e.g., the convicts) from their motherland as well as by forcibly importing Africans as slaves from, mainly, the West Coast of Africa. Thus, the motto of “Gold God Glory” of the sixteenth century Occident could garner huge wealth from beyond Europe, which was transformed into a primary accumulation of capital in West Europe. This happening, transfused with the intellectual transition of the Renaissance and the consequent advances in scientific knowledge and methodology, led to the industrial revolution in Britain and West Europe in the second half of the eighteenth century. Industries produced goods faster and in much greater bulk and varieties than could be consumed in their places of manufacture and neighbouring countries at the highest possible prices desired by the manufacturers – the owners of capital. Colonies and semi-colonies became, in this context, the ideal places for (a) extracting raw materials for these industries at the cheapest prices and (b) providing a market for the finished goods at the highest prices. These territories and their inhabitants, therefore, were studied extensively and in depth, in order to adjudge the potentialities of new market conditions. Consequently the indigenous peoples of these countries were meticulously examined from the second half of the nineteenth century, and those in as yet unexplored areas were also singled out and identified for future study. Such as, in Africa, in 1876, only 11 per cent of the territory was ruled by the West European colonial powers; in 1900, only 10 per cent of the territory was not so held (Mukherjee 1985:116). Coincidentally, ethnology and anthropology emerged as a distinctive body of knowledge. It may not be fortuitous that the Ethnological Society of London was established in 1843, transformed itself into the Ethnological and Anthropological Society in 1863, and was again retransformed as the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland in 1871, and this last received the Royal Charter in 1907. Similar bodies for institutionalising

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studies and research in anthropology and ethnology emerged in France and the other nation-states of West Europe as well as in the U.S.A., etc. Also, in order to pinpoint the subjects for these studies, tribes were identified, especially in the Asian, African, and American continents: to the point of “retribalising” some of the ethnic identities which had passed beyond the tribal state of undifferentiated or rudimentarily differentiated state of social formations. This is ascertained from such studies as Leo Frobenius’s Das Unbekannte Afrika (1923) and his Kulturgeschichte Afrikas (Zurich 1933). J. Roscoe’s monographs on the Baganda (1911), Banyankole (1923) and Banyoro (1923), and K. Oberg’s paper on the Banyankole (1948) in Uganda; and so on – as against later studies of these “tribes”, such as those recorded by reputable anthropologists like R.H. Lowie in his Social Organisation (1950). One should bear in mind, in this context, the profound distinction drawn between societus and civitus as indicators of the tribal-metatribal dichotomy. Enunciated by L.H. Morgan, the distinction was readily accepted by anthropologists like L.A. White, A.L. Kroeber, etc. Even A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, who was anti-evolutionary by stance and otherwise also virulently against Morgan’s standpoint on anthropology, agreed to the dichotomy (vide, Mukherjee 1985:48-54). The study of human society was, in consequence, distinguished under three categories: sociology for the civilised West, oriental studies for the grudgingly accepted “civilised segment” of the East, and anthropology for the “tribal world”. This is the first moment of the colonial heritage of anthropology as a body of knowledge. The upshot was that monographs like Division of Labour in Society by Emile Durkheim (in French, Division du travail sociale, 1893) falls by common understanding under the jurisdiction of sociology; but the same author’s Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (in French, Les Formes Elementaires de la vie Religieuse, 1912) under anthropology; while such efforts as editing or organising the series under the steermanship of F. Max Mueller, entitled Sacred Books of the East (in the late nineteenth-early twentieth centuries), were relegated to the jurisdiction of oriental studies. However, the point may not be missed that Durkheim’s Elementary Forms of the Religious Life brought religion down from the realm of metaphysics to the mundane sphere of culture: culture was defined as valorisation of capital in human achievement and perception. Following the “we-they” distinction drawn between the civilised and the tribals, the device of field work was devised, like Mozart’s creation of Zauber Flötte, so as to rouse resonance in the minds of the tribals and open-up their hearts for the purpose of expounding on their past and the

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present to the enlightened ethnologists and anthropologists. This was the second moment in the emergence of anthropology as a distinct body of knowledge. Accordingly, the anthropologists’ task began with conducting fieldwork. For this purpose, the experts prepared directives like Notes and Queries on Anthropology (published by the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland) which underwent several revised and enlarged editions. Also, similar “guide books” were published in the U.S.A. and other dominant nation-states of the West. The third moment in the heritage of anthropology was concerned with an ensemble of the past and the present of the communities which were actually living at the tribal stage of social formation or were impressed upon as so living. Therefore, anthropological studies were segmented into three components: 1) prehistory, 2) physical anthropology, and 3) social anthropology. At the then state of accumulation of societal knowledge on archaeology, early human proto-history, genotypical and phenotypical variations in human beings, and their symbiotic manifestations of culture, economy and polity, this kind of holistic approach to these little known communities – inhabiting mostly well-demarcated territories up to the second-third decades of the twentieth century – was valid, largely relevant, and more or less necessary. But the situation altered with the beginning of the commodification of the land and crops in their midst, the dwindling away of subsistence living, the penetration of a labour market into their society – these bursting asunder the compact frontiers of their life course. All such fruits of capitalist exploitation began to penetrate and transform the tribal societies and to bring them into the mainstream of life of the relevant nation-states. The world-renowned anthropologist B. Malinowski’s advocacy of colonial rule in East Africa by providing extra incentives to the loyal native chiefs proved pernicious and futile (vide, Malinowski 1945; Mukherjee 1985: 267-269). By the time of the Second World War, the tribal world was on the verge of extinction and anthropology as a distinctive body of knowledge began to lose its usefulness. As a North African told me in Paris in 1948: “Today we are ‘tribals’ and the ‘anthropologists’ study us, but tomorrow we shall attain independence and, then, we shall be ‘people’ and the ‘sociologists’ and ‘political scientists’ will come to study us”. Indeed, by the end of the twentieth century there has hardly been any “tribe” left even in remote corners of the world. In 1950, I could discern a few ethnic communities in the Uganda Protectorate (e.g., Karamajong) in a disintegrating tribal state. Later, Idi Amin, reportedly, emerged from this

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community and, in the 1970s, led the nation-state of Uganda into severe political turmoil. In the 1980s I could not identify “tribe” as a distinctive social category anywhere in Uganda. Such examples of the disappearance of “tribals” as a distinctive social category are not lacking in the historical perspective in the Indian Republic from the 1950s; in the Asian and African hinterlands; in the Pacific and the New Continent – in fact, the differences have disappeared from all over. Such as, in 1956, I failed to discern a Lapp (who call themselves Sames) from a “civilised” Swede even in the most remote town of Sweden that was served by the railways – named Fathmemarke – and beyond in the Arctic. Evidently, the Sames, who occupied the arctic land of Scandinavia, had become citizens (of first or second order) of Norway, Sweden, and Finland. Briefly, in present times, a few so-called “tribes” may have remained as isolated cultural identities – bereft of their previous symbiotically intertwined culture, economy, and polity. But mostly they have acquired new political identities – which have given a microscopic few of them considerable economic power – in the nation -states formed from 1947 onwards. One finds this from the 1950s: for example, from the deposing of Cheddi Jagan from the topmost position in the political hierarchy of erstwhile British Guyana (Jagan 1950); the happenings in Fiji and several other nation-states in the Pacific and South America in the last quarter of the twentieth century; the emergence from about the same time of socalled “tribal” leaders – along with many such “civilised” unscrupulous “leaders of the people” in the Republic of India and several other nationstates in Asia. Evidently, the we-they dichotomy as tribal-metatribal is lost forever and replaced by the enlarging sphere of major-minor, have – have not groupings in the cultural – economic – political landscapes of the world. And, with this profound change in the social world, the first moment of anthropology as a distinct body of knowledge was lost forever. The second moment of this so sanctified “fieldwork” has also lost the power of its mantra: for one does not enter into virgin fields anymore when presently studying any ethnic community. Some a priori knowledge, which may not always be adequate, is available on them. The call of the hour, therefore, is to undertake rigorously designed, scrupulously executed, and meticulously analysed statistical survey data on these communities; bearing in mind that sometimes, and as a prelude to macrostudies, micro-studies – with which the “anthropological” fieldwork would be concerned – may be useful as pre-pilot studies. Otherwise, the much

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propagandised “anthropological” fieldwork is hardly of any relevance today. The failure to appreciate this point of ancillary utility, in place of harping on undertaking miniscule “anthropological” fieldwork with the view to magnifying it for representing the totality of the real state of affairs, may lead to inconsequential, ludicrous, or even a harmful portrayal of human life by distorting reality. For, one then indulges in (1) futile, (2) fallacious, or (3) dangerous diagnoses concerning the life of a people. The first possibility is illustrated, for instance, by quasi-pornographic anthropological tales like Philippine Pagans (R. F. Barton, 1938) or the seriously composed Patterns of Culture by R. Benedict (1935) – a synoptic but timeless evaluation of humans aseptic to the social processes although all people are always subjected to them. The second possibility is illustrated, for instance, by R. Redfield’s (1941) and O. Lewis’s (1951) fieldwork in the same Mexican village Tepoztlan, from which the former savant drew the picture of a conflict less and idyllic society (reiterated in Redfield’s Peasant View of Life, 1956) while the latter scholar identified a faction-ridden society in the same field, ten years later. The third possibility is registered, for instance, by M. Mead’s portrayal of a free society in her monographs entitled Coming of Age in Samoa (1923) and Growing Up in New Guinea (1930); P. Smith’s account of Coming of Age in Samoa (1971) as revealing a neurotic society; and Tuiteleleapaga’s insider view (Samoa, yesterday, today and tomorrow, 1980) with the plea to leave the Samoans alone as they were like all other human beings who neither suffered from “infantile freedom” nor from “neurotic” disorders en masse. Evidently, as the second moment for upholding the discipline of anthropology, “field work” has lost its pristine relevance. The third moment in the emergence of anthropology, viz. holism, is also decadent and proving a hindrance to the advance of scientific knowledge on humans since World War II. As noted earlier, moving beyond the perimeter of anthropology since World War I, prehistory and physical anthropology have become (or are becoming) auxiliary specialisations of disciplines beyond the ambit of social science. However, as also noted, social anthropology was equated (or is equating itself) to anthropology per se. Correspondingly, the mantle of holism was usurped by it in light of Malinowski’s Functionalism and Radcliffe-Brown’s Structural-Functionalism. But the brave efforts of the last-ditch fighters for colonial anthropology did not proceed smoothly despite Britain being the seat of imperialism –

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and on whose empire the sun never set - and the two fighters received unstinted support from some of their devoted disciples like Raymond Firth (to Malinowski) and E.E. Evans-Pritchard (to Radcliffe-Brown). Rebels emerged from among their students, questioning the utility of this brand of holism, viz. of colonial anthropology. Malinowski had discarded the causality question “why” of a phenomenon by describing pre-colonial history as “history dead and buried” (Malinowski 1945:152). Instead Malinowski adopted the quasiexplanatory mode of answering “why” by resorting to the elaboration of instrumentality (viz. “how is it?”) of the phenomenon in terms of his brand of functionalism. Subsequently, he left answering the two aforementioned secondary value questions (viz., “what will it be?” and “what should it be?”) of the phenomenon of the British colonial system by declaring, after his sojourn in British East Africa (ibid.:161): As a Pole born and bred, I may be allowed to say here that in my opinion the British colonial system is second to none in its capacity to learn from experience; its adaptability and tolerance, and above all, in its genuine interest in the welfare of the natives.

Jomo Kenyatta was a student of Malinowski and Kenyatta believed in independent thinking. Malinowski failed to indoctrinate Kenyatta who wrote a lucid monograph on his “tribe” – the Kikuya. Entitled Facing Mount Kenya (1962), the study is garnished with pre-colonial history. More importantly, Kenyatta rejected outright Malinowski’s views on the instrumentality of Kenya as a colony. Kenyatta also reframed the two value questions of ‘what will it be” and “what should it be” by leading the banned mau mau movement against British imperialism in the 1950-60s. The outcome was that the Republic of Kenya was announced on December 12, 1963, with a renegade student of Malinowski becoming her First President. However, Kenyatta’s appearance on the post-colonial arena of anthropology and global affairs after World War II – remarkable as it was – was neither accidental nor exclusive to Africa. However, at the beginning of this changing trend from colonial pseudo-holistic social anthropology to a more meticulous social appraisal, instances such as Kenyatta’s were few and far between and mostly confined to the realm of theory rather than that of praxis. A comprehensive critique of colonial visions of social reality had not germinated, which could subsequently become a formidable social force. Great Masters such as Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown still held sway in

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the imperial centres, and their confrère from the ex-colonies deferred to them. A shining example of this imperial hangover in India was seen in the works of M.N. Srinivas – a student of the independently-minded G.S. Ghurye whom Srinivas later denounced. Tutored afresh by RadcliffeBrown and Evans Pritchard, he followed his masters’ directive that the past was “conjectural history” and not Geshichte as mentioned in chapter 1 of this volume. Logically, he recorded Social Change in Modern India (1966) in terms of mobility across the caste structure of Hindu society after the advent of the British, under the labels of sanskritisation and westernisation which effected upward mobility. He, thus, totally ignored the historical fact that changes within, across and beyond the caste structure of Hindu society were taking place from the time of the inception of the caste system by means of varnadharma and jatidharma (vide, Jolly 1896, Oldenberg 1897, Senart 1927, Mukherjee, P. 2002, etc.). Commensurate with his colonial conditioning, Srinivas totally ignored the political economy of India which was the backdrop against which sanskritisation and westernisation occurred, and he ignored as well her pre-British history. He found sanskritisation and westernisation to be the indicators of “social change” – which he designated as “culture change”; as if, culture denoted more than the gravitational inertia to hold society (a community of people) in being (and not becoming) at a point in time. Obviously, culture cannot change by itself. Moreover, Srinivas recommended previously discussed and discounted or even discarded “anthropological” fieldwork – of the structuralfunctional vintage of Radcliffe-Brown, to wit – even for the sociologists at the World Congress of Sociology in 1986; but more about this later. The point to underline now is that the doctrine preached by Srinivas has spread into post colonial India by way of his disciples who are in responsible academic positions in India and abroad. Then, there is the example of the Chinese anthropology student of Malinowski, Fei Hsiao-Tung. Insightful and diligent like Srinivas, he was obviously influenced strongly by Malinowski who wrote a preface to his monograph entitled Peasant Life in China (1939, 1943). He lived an uneventful life under both the Kuomintang and Mao’s regimes (including the phase of the Cultural Revolution) and outshone himself later. His popularity spread among like-minded emancipated ex-colonised anthropologists and those in age-old metropolitan nation-states, until his recent death. Regrettably, it did not so happen with Chen Han Seng, a profound Chinese scholar, who refused the kind of patronage enjoyed by Srinivas,

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Fei Hsiao-tung, and their like in the U.K., U.S.A, and elsewhere. He made a comparative study of the Chinese and the Indian peasantry by undertaking fieldwork in both countries during World War II; rose to the pinnacle of the Planning Commission of the People’s Republic of China; enjoyed a spell in a concentration camp during the Cultural Revolution; was rehabilitated in Beijing University as its Rector; but, by then, he was a “broken” man – as was obvious from his handwritten letter to the present writer. He died shortly afterwards. The anthropological careers of Isabel and David Crook – students of Raymond Firth who was the successor to Malinowski at the London School of Economics – were not as tragic as that of Chen Han Seng but were also not a bed of roses. They were eager to conduct “genuine” fieldwork like Chen. Accordingly, from London they went to Kuomintang China but surreptitiously crossed over to Mao’s China, and went along with the Red Army while studying the peasantry. Some of their studies were published in their Ten Mile Inn (1966), which had a lukewarm reception in David’s homeland, the U.K., and virtually none elsewhere. The Crook family went on working in China – even through the harrowing days of the Cultural Revolution – with little reward or redress from China as well as their homelands of Canada and Britain, or elsewhere. David died of old age in China, and Isabel left the country with their children. Such vignettes of triumph and tribulation of colonial “holistic” social anthropology in the early days after World War II portend that while it was still thriving, anti-colonial anthropology was brewing and spilling over in course of time. Talal Asad has succinctly summarised the prelude to this transition (Asad 1979: 85-86): In 1961 Leach claimed that ‘functionalist doctrine (has) ceased to carry conviction’ (1961:1). Five years later Worsley wrote his trenchant critique under the significant title ‘The end of anthropology?’ By 1970 Needham was arguing that social anthropology ‘has no unitary and continuous past, so far as ideas are concerned…. Nor is there such thing as a rigorous and coherent body of theory proper to social anthropology’ (1970:36-37). A year later Ardener observed that ‘something has already happened to British anthropology (and to international anthropology in related ways) such that for practical purposes text-books which looked useful, no longer are; monographs which used to appear exhaustive now seen selective, interpretations which once looked full of insight now seem mechanical and lifeless (1971:449)’.

Pursuant to the earlier stated cases of rebel and loyal anthropologists and the above-mentioned statements of reflective anthropologists recorded by Asad, it may be relevant to consider the following three points:

Whither Anthropology?

1.

2.

3.

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Britain was the bastion for the advancement of anthropology until World War II. Contextually, as long as the “jewel” of the British Crown had not dropped from it, the Chair for Anthropology in the most reputed Oxbridge universities went, conventionally, to an Indianist; it went next to an Africanist as long as the African “tribes” had not freed themselves; and, then on, it became a matter of laissez-faire laisse-aller. But, by then, the centre for anthropology had also shifted to the U.S.A. Given this background, the students of anthropology (basically, social anthropology) from the colonial world (and particularly, the British colonies and semi-colonies), or the newly emancipated nation-states, were heavily influenced by the ideology of British anthropology – to the point of being duly brainwashed. As a result, wittingly or not, they upheld the “culture” of what has been described here as the colonial pseudo-holistic social anthropology, and imported that legacy to their native lands. There, they passed it on to their acolytes, many of whom including the Masters themselves – have invaginated into the discipline of sociology. Their influence in the arena of social science is still being strongly felt. It seems, therefore, that any concerted lead from the ex-colonial world to free social anthropology from its possibly unaware intellectual bondage of colonial strategy and tactics is remote. It is also not so well expected from the ex-imperial countries (and particularly from Britain), although (as from the former ones) the latter ones may provide isolated leadership. The result is that the perspective of leadership to free social anthropology from colonial shackles may emerge from other nation-states: of course, bearing in mind that the stimuli for revolt would be subject to aggravating world situation and/or specific instances.

Some examples with reference to all these three points – severally or conjointly – may be useful. “Fieldwork” was like biblical dogma to the Malinowski – RadcliffeBrown consortium. In that contest, Strathern, who spent many years in the 1960s and 1970s in Papua New Guinea – the holy site of Malinowski’s pilgrimage – as a researcher and later Professor of Anthropology, found (1979:270): Students of the University of Papua New Guinea have voiced strong dislike of research …….Malinowski’s views, innovative in their time, tend to stick in the popular consciousness and to irritate or indeed infuriate

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Chapter Two some of the educated people from the societies in Papua New Guinea which he studied.

This innocuous statement, made in 1973 at the IXth International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, held in Chicago, by a British anthropologist of later vintage, may be juxtaposed to the following excerpts from the inaugural speech delivered by the doyen of Indian anthropology cum sociology in 1986 in New Delhi at the XIth World Congress of Sociology (Srinivas 1986:7-20): It is relevant to point out here that the character of Indian society and culture is such that it does not encourage the erection of barriers between sociology and social anthropology (p.10)… The policy of the government to promote development (led) hordes of investigators …sent to the country-side armed with questionnaires… the very sight of this questionnaire was enough to induce peasants to take to their heels (p.13)…….. It was during the post-independent period that certain theoretical stances emerged clearly in Indian sociology and social anthropology. The first to appear on the scene was structural-functionalism derived from British social anthropology. It arrived not as a body of clearly formulated and closely-knit theoretical principles but indirectly, through the kind of field-work it gave rise to, intensive, with ‘thick’ description, and analysis derived from that description, dealing with one or another aspect of a local community, but viewed against the total social structure…This resulted in a deeper understanding of the microcosm studied and gave insights into the nature of the macrocosm…..They also enhanced our understanding of historical processes (p.14).

In addition to overgeneralisations from anthropological fieldwork, some instances of which have been mentioned earlier (and from which the structural-functional mode of fieldwork is not exempted – despite the eulogy we just read), one may point to the deliberate suppression of facts by the structural functionalists as well. Such as, Evans-Pritchard’s studies on the Nuer are usually regarded by his devotees as of classic importance for providing a meticulous account of the life and living of a people. But, are the innocent devotees aware that “he [Evans-Pritchard] must have known about the terror bombings of villages the British authorities in the Sudan used to pacify the Nuer, but he has never mentioned them in his publications” (Concolato 1974). Likewise, how many scholars in France and elsewhere in Europe are aware of the role of the French colonial anthropologists during the imperial onslaughts of France in North Africa — Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco? Or, how many Sri Lankan anthropologists in particular and of Asia in general know of the activities of the reputed anthropologist

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Margaret Mead who was, reportedly, the OSS (precursor to CIA) Section Chief stationed in Colombo during World War II? Or, how many scholars of the U.S.A and Japan are aware of the fact that the services of R. Benedict were requisitioned by the U.S. government after World War II, and that produced The Chrysanthemum and the Sword [Benedict 1946] determining the “Japanese national character” – highlighted by the need to retain monarchy, which would suit the Japanese vested interests with a symbol of “national integration” (and thus benefit the corresponding U.S. interests in relay?). These specialists and their like have led, or are leading through their successors, the teaching institutions for anthropology in the world. Verily, the imperial domination in the subject, translated into colonial social anthropology, has not terminated even though colonialism is dead. The system of indoctrination continues – especially among erstwhile Third World scholars. Retaliations are also in the offing against neo-imperialist manoeuvres to make use of social anthropologists and their techniques in subtle ways. And, it may not be coincidental that such anti-systemic moves are set forth by social scientists (including anthropologists) from non-imperial countries chiefly, although not invariably. Two examples are cited which are not exhaustive but indicative: one referring to South America; the other in connection with the US aggression in Vietnam. Johann Galtung, working for the UNESCO in Chile – along with several Chilean and other Latin American scholars, recorded the sinister design of the Camelot project planned by the Defense Department of the US Government. The project was devised for utilising the “tribes” and other down-trodden people of South America for the benefit of the United States of America’s economic and political interests. The agitation, which followed, led to the still-birth of the project (vide, Horowitz 1967). Gerrit Huizer (1979:4-5) records for Vietnam: To understand and cope with armed peasant resistance in Vietnam anthropological studies were used as part of the psychological warfare. A number of anthropologists discovered that their own or their colleagues work was (mis) used for such purposes and some denounced this openly (Wolf and Jorgensen 1970).

However, along with antisystemic skirmishes, the contemporarily prevalent neocolonial anthropology –which is not that different from its older vintage – rules the discipline. Andre Gunder Frank has interpreted its de novo design while responding to the special invitation of Sol Tax for commenting on the paper regarding the present and the future of social

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anthropology which Maurice Freedman had prepared for UNESCO (Freedman 1973), at the IXth International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences held in Chicago in 1973. Freedman (Chair, Anthropology Department, Oxford) had made his study a corporate enterprise with “associate rapporteurs” and prepublication “reviewers” across the globe – Fred Eggan of the U.S.A., Mayer Fortes of Cambridge, experts from France, USSR, and Africa, M.N. Srinivas of India, and Chie Nakane of Japan, etc. (ibid: 3-4). A.G. Frank could not personally submit his comments on Freedman’s paper at the Chicago Congress because disregarding personal representations of Sol Tax and several other eminent anthropologists, the US government refused to give him an entry visa to the U.S.A. Nevertheless, Frank’s comments were presented at the Congress, entitled “Anthropology= Ideology, Applied Anthropology= Politics” (Frank 1979: 201-210). The vitriolic title of Frank’s comments is not vituperative. Moreover, the cue to it is provided by Freedman while marshalling his arguments in the proposal (Freedman 1973:155, 111): Above all, there is a danger in those reduced and impoverished schemes of research which, for example, operate with simple notions of social class and class exploitation or, as in some forms of neo-Marxism with equally rudimentary concepts of power and dominance. (p.155) All anthropological theory changes with the world in which it is practiced, but the response of applied anthropology in particular is more noticeable… There is one point upon which nearly all anthropologists are agreed: applied anthropology is more like politics than engineering. It does not rest upon a secure and precise theory. (p. 111).

Frank made many comments on Freedman’s proposal, of which the following excerpt may be of particular relevance to the present discussion (Frank 1979:203): It is only Freedman’s total theoretical obfuscation and ideological negation of history and evolution that permits him to counter pose history to structure and the latter to evolution(ism) and function(alism) (Freedman 1973:27-31), or to pose such absurd disjunction as “in the long view (of the evolutionist vision) there is beautiful order; in the short, a recalcitrant variety” (ibid:88), while identifying contemporary evolutionalism and functionalism (that is seeking to attach some of the merited prestige of the former to the also merited growing disrepute of the latter) through indications of their common heritage” (ibid:30), as though common origins could not lead to a diverse and even opposing present and future, as they have through all natural evolution and social history. Thus Freedman falls prey to and perpetuates the antiscientific ideology of a

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“Radcliffe-Brown, the arch-priest of anthropological structuralfunctionalism” (ibid:30), who persuaded generations that history is irrelevant to his reactionary pseudostructure, and pseudofunction, and that of “the ‘structure’ of structuralism, a doctrine [sic] which, ramifying in the kingdom of knowledge, has a branch in anthropology to which the name of Levi-Strauss is attached” (ibid:28) “ in such a manner that time becomes irrelevant because, in fact, as Levi-Strauss himself emphasises but Freedman and others like to forget, structuralism only deals with the structure of models and never of concrete – that is, historical – reality. No wonder that time is irrelevant and that Freedman wonders if history is relevant if by act of ideological definition “history” is vacated of all real content and reality is left out of account!

But, despite such critiques as above and those previously cited, almost perennial – although sporadic – antisystemic moves of nonconformist anthropologists since World War II, it is doubtful whether any mass erosion from the present generation of indoctrinated social anthropologists will take place with respect to the internationally sponsored corporate ideology of pseudoholistic structural-functionalism. At the same time, there is no doubt that the base of anthropology – virtually that of social anthropology – as an autonomous discipline is eroding. This is indicated by the figures for the U.K., U.S.A., and Canada placed at the onset of this chapter. One is thus confronted with the quandary which has provoked the title question of this chapter: Whither Anthropology. The quandary is due to two conditions which operate simultaneously and lead anthropology – equated to social anthropology – toward becoming dysfunctional as an independent specialisation for teaching and research. One of them is the contemporary obfuscation and distortion of reality in teaching and research in social anthropology since World War II, which the above-mentioned scholars terminating in A.G. Frank castigate. The points they and their like make discourage the enlightened public, interested in studying social science, to undertake studying anthropology as an independent specialisation. The other condition is the inevitable advance of the body of knowledge which was once the prerogative of anthropology as a truly holistic discipline until World War I, as noted before, and which now - shaking off its pseudoholism – is driving this leftover social anthropology to being an auxiliary utility to some other social science specialisation(s) or indeed beyond the perimeter of present-day social science. In the early days, when anthropology was truly a holistic discipline with no (or very limited) knowledge on the tribal communities, social anthropology accounted for all aspects of their social organisation, including their notion of the “other world” and the corresponding rites and

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rituals: such as, beginning with the socialisation of biological union (= marriage) to family and kinship, rites of passage through life, material culture, associations including economic and political, government and law, performing and visual art, religion and rituals, etc. But, as more and more knowledge accumulated on the tribal folk and such knowledge was shifted with that on meta-tribal communities – that is, knowledge on societus and civitus was collated in reference to all their ramifications--the resultants would, first, be systematised and, then, systemised along with the tribals being detribalised, the aforesaid three moments of classical anthropology would lose their relevance. The outcome has been far reaching, despite the hindrance imposed by the aforesaid colonial anthropological view against the inexorable advance of knowledge. For, holism is now to be effective at a higher plane of accumulated knowledge. In this context, the specialisation of sociology is operating as the nearest kin to anthropology and taking over many of the previously scheduled topics of anthropology for teaching and research. History, extending its specialisation to proto-history and even prehistory, is also in line to share the task; such as, by applying the once-monopolised “genealogical method” of anthropology to prod the memory of pre-literate peoples. Social psychology, commonly designated now as psychology, is also joining the venture; such as, with respect to changes in family patterns, societal mores, etc. And, there are other social science specialisations for this collective enterprise. In fact, from marriage, family and kinship, onwards –all topics previously scheduled for social anthropology have become the common ground of social science per se. Theoretically, this is attested to by several studies from the last quarter of the twentieth century. To cite one scholar in this context, who had his degree in political science, to wit, C. Meillassoux, his study on kinship (1981) is based on a conglomeration of culture, economy, and polity as against “structuralism” of the same theme by C. Levi-Strauss (1969). Similar departures from the “golden rule” of even “historical” anthropology is seen in Meillassoux’s Anthropology of Slavery (1991) which, in place of slavery being treated only historically as a transitory phenomenon in social evolution, is treated as being succoured later by American capitalism in light of all social science specialisations. And, there are several such scholars all over the world from other specialisations–particularly noticeable from the beginning of the twenty first century such as, the studies of North American scholars like Frederick Cooper, Arif Dirlik, Peter Gran, Florence C. Mallon, Thomas C. Patterson and Roxana Prazniak who research in South America and elsewhere in Africa, Australia, etc.

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In practice too social anthropology is more and more treated as auxiliary to one or another specialisation. It is so treated with respect to government and law, in reference to Human Rights; and there are similar conjugations in the context of other topics of classical anthropology – some of which have already been noted. However, perhaps the most important to this commentary is the previously described second moment of classical anthropology, viz. fieldwork, which is recast and made particularly useful to social science in the form of “microstudies” so long as it is not treated by subscribing to M.N. Srinivas’s aforementioned eulogy of assuming the role of the “pied piper of Hamelin”. This aspect of social anthropology in the contemporary scenario deserves special attention, and is best treated by concrete examples; such as from personal experiences in West Bengal and India in particular and South Asia in general. As a prelude to citing these examples, one should bear in mind that if a behavioral or perceptual property of individuals belonging to a social space is known to exist at a point in time but the extent of variation of that property by the structural alignments of the social space is not known, and one wishes to measure the probable occurrence of that property by the classificatory structural categories, then a macro survey is indispensable; micro studies cannot meet this demand. But, in the case of a behavioral property such as the consumer behaviour of the household of an individual over a time period, the investigator will have to depend upon the interview method of survey, in order to ascertain the consumption of different articles by the sampled households over a specified time-period; say, one year. In that case, the memory-span of the informant comes into effect, which is known to vary by consuming objects and the space-time-people variations of informants. And, this can be ascertained only by micro studies of the nature of fieldwork of classical anthropology. For example, in 1951, a committee of experts sponsored by the National Income Committee of Government of India, headed by Professor Simon Kuznets of U.S.A. with Professors Richard Stone (Great Britain) and Dirksen (Netherlands) as members, came to the Indian Statistical Institute in Kolkata, and in its first meeting asked the ISI experts gathered by Professor P.C. Mahalanobis as to how the consumption data should be collected. The “Survey Master” of ISI (i.e., Mahalanobis) promptly answered that the investigator would sit with an informant and sequentially elicit from him (no “her” in West Bengal as informant in those days!) his household’s consumption of all different articles “yesterday”, the “day before yesterday”, and so on backwards in memory

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until the end of the accounting period of the survey. After patiently hearing this tale, Professor Kuznets remarked: “I think I shall have to revise my knowledge on human intelligence”. The “Survey Master” was jubilant and announced to his cronies that “Sahib has appreciated my technique”, but some lesser mortals in ISI undertook micro studies (like “anthropological” fieldwork) of some village households strewn over West Bengal and found that in the 1950s the memory-span varied with different articles: such as, the consumption of rice (the only cereal available in village in those days) and the purchase of clothes (purchased once a year like at the time of Durga Puja for Hindus and Id for Muslims) could be recollected only on a yearly basis in rural areas; the consumption of grocery items was by the week (as these were purchased at the weekly market); only a few articles were consumed on the “yesterday or the day before” basis. In the urban areas of West Bengal, where the statutory rationing system was in vogue, the memory–span was largely restricted to a week and not stretched to a year. Obviously, in present times, the situation has changed, and not exclusively in West Bengal. Evidently, where little is known of the behaviour pattern of the property to be studied and/or where knowledge on a behavioral or perceptual property is rudimentary, a micro study (involving intensive fieldwork) is indispensable as a prerequisite to a macro study. Otherwise, in the untutored mind, as cited earlier, the macro study will substantiate the saying: “there are three kinds of lie – lies, white lies and statistics”. The immanent germination and the rudimentary growth of social properties and their imminent micro study can be of great import by itself, because a macro study is likely to overlook such properties. For example, a micro study of six villages in undivided Bengal during 1941-45 (which would fall under the label of anthropological fieldwork) could discern that a home market had developed in crops among the large bulk of the nonself sufficient peasantry. The market had begun to thrive from the 1930s, with crops turning into commodities. Land had also turned into a commodity by this time owing to the mounting alienation of this principal means of production from the impoverished peasantry. In earlier times, such alienated land purchased by a few emerging rich peasants would have been settled on a permanent basis to some self sufficient peasants able to pay their dues as tenants to the newly emerged Zemindars – the social status gained by the rich peasants under the prevailing subsistence economy. Subinfeudation had thus operated in Bengal, to begin with from 1793, and spread all over India (= present day, South Asia in effect). But a new factor was now introduced in rural society (vide, Mukherjee 1957) by

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the penetration of a commodity economy which yielded larger profits than the subsistence economy. The result was that the rich peasants turned into landlords did not operate as subinfeudatory zemindars: instead, the newly emerged and emerging landed gentry turned into jotedars (powerful landholders in Bengal from the 1930s) and leased the surplus land to the landless and semi landless peasantry on a yearly basis for a half and half crop sharing. This social property, noticed by a micro study could have immediately been taken up for a macro study so as to ascertain its spatial extent and social structural variations. But the “dominant caste” of academics – who adhered to the principle of complementary growth of societal components, and not to social growth by the resolution of contradictions among societal components – did not allow the micro-study to be published for 20 years, characterising it as politically coloured and not being academically aseptic. (Sordid details of this resistance to revealing reality will be found in Introduction to Mukherjee 1971a). However, irrespective of any benefit accruing to the people’s movement from the micro study and the systemically related macro study which was to follow, the ever impoverished peasantry of Bengal launched a mass movement for a one-third share of crops from jotedars (viz. The Tebhaga Andolan) in the late 1940s; and this led the West Bengal Government (after the partition of India in 1947) to sponsor Operation Barga which transformed the rural scenario. Meanwhile, the National Sample Survey of India undertook collecting data on the concentration of land in rural areas from the 1950s; and its acuteness has now been found so pervasive that further micro/macro-studies on this account have become redundant. But in course of time a new horizon opened up for undertaking micro studies and consequently macro studies in the light of the confluence of structural, behavioral and perceptual variables in West Bengal and the rest of India. The rural-urban dichotomy, centered on agriculture in the rural and machine cum electronic industries in the urban, has given or is giving way to a rural-urban continuum with the fruits of urbanisation introduced in erstwhile “rural” areas. Concurrently on the world scale, the scare of “limits to growth” raised by the Club of Rome (vide, Meadows et al (1972) has been countered by Leontief and his colleagues (1977) and others; so that, any pronouncement like “first food, then industry” has become dated in the perspective of “industry for food”. Even so, while the issue that looms large before West Bengal and the rest of India is to accelerate industrialisation for the sake of survival, security, material prosperity, and mental progress of the present and future generations in the

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“rural” areas, in that perspective transformation has occurred in the structural and behavioral variables over nearly two generations. An examination of perceptual variables – of “land consciousness” in particular, which is traditionally rooted for centuries – attains crucial importance in the light of associated behaviour patterns. Otherwise, without ingesting the mores of this “traditional” outlook and intervening accordingly, the symbiotic relationship of culture with economy and polity will be in disarray. Possibilities of explorations of such perceptual variables by means of micro studies (and thus denoting the contextual relevance of “anthropological” fieldwork) have been demonstrated with reference to behaviour–pattern and perception of women in remote areas of West Bengal – many of whom were found to have had already discarded Manu’s dictum: grihini griham ucchaté (Woman at home equals Home) along with the change in the structural variable of rural-urban dichotomy to rural-urban continuum. I found this in the 1990s when I was guiding some micro studies (of the genre of social anthropology) on women’s empowerment in the south and west of West Bengal villages: here empowerment was defined as the generation of consciousness of deprivation of a material and/or mental property and the motivation to achieve it. There were several findings of interest from these studies: one from South Bengal was (a) women living in Sagar Island and beyond, who could not then avail themselves of daily transport to urban centers, worked in the villages and were all virtually illiterate, and aspired for better work and education; (b) those living nearer to urban centers, and notably Kolkata, preferred to come there in order to be engaged in manual or nonmanual jobs according to their educational standards; (c) virtually all the working women under (b) wished their daughters to be educated and become economically viable; and (d) the characteristic noted under (c) was particularly marked for educated women engaged in non-manual jobs. Similarly it was found for women in villages in west Medinipur and Bankura that those living in households at or above the subsistence level wished their daughters to be educated and to be economically viable as much as their sons while their husbands would like their sons to read up to the secondary standard and, if found suitable, take up technical education – but the daughters would read up to the primary level and then be married off to suitable bridegrooms. Such more than rudimentarily exposed social property in the 1990s may now be taken up after more than a decade for a macro study, in order to reveal (a) whether the perceptual data have been translated into

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behavioral data or, the other way round, they have withered away; and (b) what is the nature and extent of spatial and social structural variations of these characteristics. Many such examples as above may be cited. However, the point is that, left to itself, micro studies like macro studies can also overreach their limits and falsify reality with dangerous consequences, as illustrated earlier. Its utility is to be underscored as a prelude to macro studies in any social science specialisation, and not as a monopoly of functional, structural-functional, or of any earlier edition of social anthropology. All told, therefore, the first moment of classical social anthropology is still in the throes of Darwinian natural selection. The “intra-specific” struggle is not sweeping it out from its foundations because the change of guard from the old to new leaders – along with the decay and eventual demise of colonialism in the world – has not qualitatively changed the strategy and tactic of colonial anthropology despite changes in form (viz. from “tribe” to “peasant”, “preliterate people”, etc.) and in seemingly different contents of functionalism, structural-functionalism, acculturation, etc. Neocolonialism is only “old wine in a new bottle”. But “inter-specific” struggle has recorded a momentous momentum of change, along with the inexorable advance and accumulation of knowledge. Namely, the topics previously guarded as exclusive to social anthropology have cut across “disciplinary” boundaries – especially with reference to sociology and, then, history, psychology, etc. In consequence, social anthropology has lost its monopoly, and is on the verge of losing its autonomy. Lastly, the Darwinian tenet of the “struggle for existence” appears from the latest available figures to adversely affect the “disciplinary” identity of anthropology (meaning, in most cases, social anthropology). The percentages placed at the beginning of this section of the essay suggest that this social science specialisation is transforming itself into an auxiliary to other social science specialisations, mainly sociology. The second moment of classical social anthropology can no more be assumed to respond rapturously to circumscribed “fieldwork” nor is it restricted to social anthropology as a “discipline” (paralleled by Bertold Brecht’s Kreide Kreise – The Chalk Circle). Denouncing its adequacy to comprehend reality totally, it is now regarded as an important component of micro studies, which is to be followed by macro studies undertaken by any one or a combination of social science specialisations, in order to appraise reality unequivocally and comprehensively. The third moment of classical anthropology, viz. holism, disappeared (or is disappearing) with the separation of prehistory and physical

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anthropology from the parent body since World War I. Also, holism can no more be retained of its false assumption by the neocolonial anthropology of functionalism and structural-functionalism, because their machinations – bereft of true history and the ground concepts of social evolution – have now been exposed by several concerned critics since the last quarter of the twentieth century. In sum, then, the course of events enumerated in this chapter underline the inescapable fact that the emerging “new anthropology” – holding on to a dwindling autonomy but dispersing, more and more, and operating as auxiliary to other social science specialisations – will be a part and parcel of the holism to be, or already being, established in view of an unitary social science – an unidisciplinary concept—which is to unite all relevant specialisations from their ground-level existence as homologous entities of common origin. That operation and outcome are neither possible for unified social sciences to achieve nor would they be desirable to discrete social sciences which insist on upholding their analogous (i.e., parallel in origin) existence and agree to unify only under dire circumstances such as a catastrophe or a crisis. Logically, therefore, the formation and operation of the unified social sciences tends to exclude social anthropology unless insisted upon by some over enthusiasts from that “discipline”. Bearing this in mind, chapter 3 of this volume will examine the emanation and debacle of unified social sciences. Meanwhile, the title question of chapter 2 -Whither Anthropology? may be answered as: the old and conventional anthropology is dead, long live the new anthropology in the form and content that is diffused over social science per se. ***

CHAPTER THREE UNIFIED SOCIAL SCIENCES

The world after World War II encountered two apparently irreconcilable but actually a unity of opposite situations, balanced at a particular point in time. On the one side, within a few years after 1944-45, socialism in the state-form had spread from one-sixth to one-third of the globe, and it was claimed to be spreading further. On the other, the “free” world was scared; on her way to loosing her empire where the sun had never set, Britain raised the specter of the Iron Curtain; and her emerging replacement—the U.S.A.—announced the oncoming struggle which would be “momentous, involving the fulfillment or destruction not only of the Republic but of civilization itself” (vide, NSC – 68 document of Paul Nitze 1950). In retaliation, multinational/transnational (MNC/TNC) monopoly capital centred in the U.S.A., transforming it into the bastion of capitalism, (vide, Palme Dutt 1953: 149-84). Those at the helm of U.S. social science did not lag behind although this was not immediately noticeable. Germinating in A General Theory of Action (eds.) Parsons and Shils 1951) which dichotomised the “primitive” and “advanced” societies by means of “pattern variables”, and blossoming through studies like “Comparative Politics of Non-western Countries” (Kahin, Pauker, Pye 1955), the endeavour flowered into The Stages of Economic Growth: A NonCommunist Manifesto (Rostow 1960). Invoking across disciplines, the concerted attempts envisioned a kind of “unified field theory” for social science. Encouraged by the apex of academic bodies like the Social Science Research Council of the U.S.A. and philanthropic bodies like the Carnegie Corporation, a Unified Social Science was coming into view. From among the insular anthropologists engrossed in the “primordial sentiments” of kinship, race, language, region, religion, etc., in Asia, Africa, Pacific, and America of the “American Indians”, Clifford Geertz announced “The Integrative Revolution: Primordial Sentiments and Civil Politics in the New States” (Geertz 1963: 105-57). The all inclusive endeavours of the social scientists from the U.S. gave birth to an unified social sciences. The academic stimulus to this labour came from the life mission of Max Weber which had remained

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unrealised. In 1904, he had published Die Protestantische Ethik and der Geist der Kapitalismus (“The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism”) and Die ‘Objektivität’ sozialwissenscaflicher und sozialpolitischer Erkenntnis (“The ‘objectivity’ of social-scientific and socio-political teaching”). The two treatises dealt with his life-long concern with the way sociology was heading those days and concentrated upon his perennial polemic with the proponents of Marxism on the subject matter and on social science en bloc. Weber wrote extensively in his life-time; some of his writings were posthumously published after his death in 1920. His viewpoint, later designated as “cultural sociology”, centred upon: “Rationality, the ‘intention’ against which social behaviour is judged, is ‘attributed’ to the subjects, and is no longer interpreted from the objective constellation of the historical social processes” (Maus 1971:74). However, Weber did not make much of an impact on the academia in his life-time: the social situation in Europe (West Europe, in particular) was not conducive to his viewpoint. On the contrary, within West Europe at that time, social reality was appraised more in terms of economy (and polity), and not so much in terms of culture. For instance, R.H. Tawney gave a series of lectures in the London School of Economics in 1922 and, on that basis, published his well-known book entitled Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (1926). In this publication he posited himself against Weber’s viewpoint on the subject of capitalism, namely, of the crucial role played by religion and ethics (as basically depicting culture); but without naming Weber or mentioning his publication under reference. Contrariwise, Tawney stressed the role of economy (and polity) in order to account for the rise of capitalism in Europe. His book received immense acclaim. Even so, Talcott Parsons translated Weber’s magnum opus into English and published it in 1930 under the well-known title The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. The publication does not record to have had cut much ice at that time. But the situation changed drastically in the second half of the twentieth century. In 1958, Parsons republished his translation of Weber’s Protestant Ethic with a Preface to the New Edition in which he introduced Weber to the academia as (1958:XV): He has been one main architect of what is perhaps the most important alternative to the strict or loose Marxist type of emphasis.

Now, Weber was resurrected and his book was well received. Also, his other books were translated and published in the U.S.A. rapidly by many

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other stalwarts propagating the “new” vision of sociology in particular and social science in general. Like-minded scholars in Europe joined the pursuit. The vision of “Cultural Sociology” radiated to the erstwhile Third World and, in essence, dazzled the entire “free” world. The essential fact of this great transformation was that weberianism became the totem-pole for all anti-Marxists to assemble under, whether or not they were strictly Weberian; that is, true disciples of Max Weber and of no other anti-Marxist authority. For instance, the Indians were divested of their historical, economic and political contexts in order to be baptised as Homo Hierarchicus (1966) by one of the high-priests of weberianism-Louis Dumont (as against the Homo Equalis of Europe?) – by contrasting Weber’s interpretation of The Religion of India (1958) against his Protestant Ethic. Significantly, Dumont had left his homeland earlier when France was passing through a Marxist upheaval in the late 1940searly 1950s. Dumont was then duly conditioned by the structuralfunctionalist (not weberian) Evans-Pritchard while occupying the position vacated by M.N. Srinivas who had returned to India. The weberianism of Srinivas himself, although a structuralfunctionalist by self-assessment (as noted in chapter 2 of this volume), was portrayed by one of his universally acclaimed non-partisan colleagues from student to university teaching days (Desai 1996:192): Srinivas’ main target of attack was all such understanding that smacked of evolutionary change and Marxism. He and the American and British scholars who came to India in the 1950s accused Marxists as being dogmatic. Indeed, they were no less dogmatic in their anti-Marxism.

In short, weberianism flourished in the “free” world from the 1950s onwards, with or without the adherents being strictly Weberian. The situation can be illustrated from around the globe: in the remaining nationstates of South Asia, in Southeast Asia, Japan (vide, Bellah 1957), South America, and even Europe (vide, Banfield 1958). Meanwhile, Tawney had subdued his tone in the Preface to the 1937 edition of his Religion and the Rise of Capitalism. He stated that Weber’s and his approach to the rise of capitalism in Europe were complementary, not contradictory: both were dealing with the same topic, namely, the influence of religious thought on “social” issues; but they were approaching it from “two different sides”. Perhaps more significantly, in his complimentary Foreword to the 1958 edition of Weber’s Protestant Ethic, Tawney did not mention his Religion and the Rise of Capitalism. The point that emerges from this comedy of confrontation and conciliation is: can reality be appraised, precisely and comprehensively, by

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exploring it from one or another perspective in a discrete manner or complementarily from any formal unification of its multifaceted peregrinations? This is the question faced by the unified social sciences in order to prove its necessity and efficiency. One of the reasons for it is that weberianism is not restricted contemporarily to sociology and social anthropology; its essence has now permeated into the ensemble of social sciences. Operatively, therefore, the question and the issue which have emerged from the Weber-Tawney tango are germane to the second indicator mentioned earlier in the context of the tremors felt by the “free” world from the cataclysmic changes in world society after World War II. Accordingly, it is discussed next. Intrinsically related to the thema under reference, W.W. Rostow in The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto (1960) divided the world into three strata: the bottom layer comprising the vegetative reproductive “traditional society” of the Third World; the top stratum – reserved for the pinnacle of “modernity” viz. the U.S.A. – representing the First World; and the Second World, sandwiched between the above two, being fuzzily indicated as “free Europe” or also the U.S.S.R. and its “satellites”. Anyhow, by ignoring the indeterminacy of the intermediate second stage of economic growth, the notion of societies moving from “Tradition to Modernity” emerged as the motif of the stalwarts of all social science disciplines in the “free” world. Significantly, the symphony was orchestrated chiefly by the U.S. social scientists. Besides Rostow, an economist, there were political scientists like Weiner (1966), psychologists like McClelland (1961), sociologists like Shils (1961), historians like Black (1966), and also anthropologists like Moore (1967). Unification of the social sciences, from incubation in the Post-World War II emanation of weberianism, now became effective through interdisciplinary teaching and research on the panacea of the transition from tradition to modernity. The United States Educational Foundation and the United States Information Service broadcast this message over the “free” world; the Ford Foundation, the Asia Foundation, etc., backed the play more tangibly; and its players joined in increasing numbers from the rest of the New Continent, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and New Zealand. The message was evermore widely and loudly proclaimed during the 1960s and the early 1970s. Soon, however, chinks developed in this message, and variations were proclaimed to dispel the illusion of a monolithic composition of the underside of the “stages of growth”. For example, Singh from India

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conveyed the message of the “modernisation of tradition” (1973), and Rudolph and Rudolph from the U.S.A. already harped on the “modernity of tradition” (1967). The Juggernaut of weberianism, however, rolled on – anti-Marxist in form and in content – chorusing “tradition to modernity”. But the message was also subject to disharmonic notes at the very top of the “stages of growth”. Such as, the term “postmodern” was mooted in the light of vitriolic comments like that of Nettl and Robertson (1968:4243): Certainly, it provides the final confirmation that many discussions on modernity have not been genuinely conceptual or theoretical, but mere word juggling.

It should be noted in this context that the concept of postmodernism emerged on a trajectory for the appraisal of social reality which is omnibus in content (vide, Mukherjee 1991:60-74) and is not confined to the theme under reference. Nevertheless, it would outright reject the designedly distorted device of Rostow’s “stage theory” and the deformed birth it gave to in the mechanics of “tradition to modernity”. As Jean Francois Lyotard – one of the acknowledged pioneers of Postmodernism – pointed out (Lyotard 1984:82): Postmodern would have to be understood according to the paradox of the future (post) anterior (mode).

Anyway, by the 1970s the tradition—modernity symphony had outplayed itself and was replaced by the equally fragile composition of the “underdeveloped – developed” nation-states in the world. The label was soon changed because the policy of the “developers” was made apparent by the overzealous but unsophisticated operatives, leading to scathing comments like A.G. Frank’s “development of underdevelopment” (vide, Frank 1970). The reincarnated label of “developing to developed” had the same content as the previous one but its strategy was more carefully planned and the operatives were properly trained to implement its tactics. This proclamation, therefore, could engineer the “developing” nation-states to glide smoothly toward the hopeful future of being fully “developed”. With this change in scenario, the social sciences of various denominations were exhorted, again, to share their task relating to the development process. But, as previously during the warming-up period depicted by the call to march from “tradition to modernity”, the disciplines declined to relinquish their exclusivity and be united. However, in a more concerted manner than before, they consented to laterally relaxing their

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“disciplinary” isolation – but not from the grassroots level. That is, they permitted “interdisciplinary exploration”, as and when necessary, in order to “develop” the nation states according to the afore-described perspective of weberianism. The label of unified social sciences thus came into circulation; the success or failure of which for appraising social reality – precisely, unequivocally, and comprehensively— should now be examined. To begin with, the task involves regarding the respective social science disciplines as mutually exclusive bodies of knowledge and not as interrelated components of the same body of knowledge for imparting instruction on and understanding society. Consequently, the distinctions among the social science subjects would be of greater importance for the appraisal of social reality than the interrelations among them in the same context. This means that the latter would attain an auxiliary status for elucidating, as and when required, the statics and dynamics of society as a whole. The above formulations seem tautological but they should clarify the point that to regard the social science subjects as analogous (i.e., parallel in their origin and proliferation) in the context of society as a whole and to consider their unification as a matter of exigency would restrict the field of the appraisal of social reality and this restriction may thus distort the field by fragmentary focus. The point may be elucidated by examining a living organism (for example, a human being) at the level of analysis of its components and at the level of comprehension of totality of these components, in order that the organism is presented as a living and moving entity. For, in light of its mechanics, a configuration of human society is not different from a human being as an entity. Thus, for human beings, more and more precise knowledge on the circulation of blood, the respiratory mechanism, the excretory and reproductive arrangements, the intricacies of the nerves, muscles, etc., is a necessity which can be executed in a systematically analogous manner at the level of analysis. But none of these disparately examined mechanisms of human beings will be useful in isolation (or in their operational compounding in one or another manner) for presenting the organism in being at a time point and becoming over a time-period. For this purpose, confounded interrelations among the components (in the manner postulated by Fisher as mentioned at the beginning of this volume) are a necessity for deciphering the inseparable unity of the components from their foundations. Reality would, then, be revealed by a systemic (and not systematic) appreciation of the mechanics of structure, function, and process of the living entity at the level of comprehension. .

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In this respect, a configuration of human society is not different from any biological entity. Like a human, it is always in a state of dynamic (and not static) equilibrium. As in being and becoming, it is necessary to investigate, at the level of analysis, its specificity in diverse manifestations and, at the level of comprehension, synthesise the analysed properties by a symbiosis of these specificities. This course of analysis and synthesis would be best appreciated in terms of culture, economy, and polity – the three fundamental dimensions of reality which depict the mechanics of society. The point made may require brief elucidations, as done below. Culture, as valorisation of capital in human achievement and perception, presents what has been selectively inherited from the past as well as selectively acquired in life-time. It thus depicts the gravitational energy to hold society stationary at a time-point. At the same moment, economy – depicting the relations among humans with respect to material goods and services – denotes the kinetic energy to move (change) society over time. Concurrently, polity – as the edifice of power distribution between the rulers and the ruled, the elite and the masses – holds the potential energy to facilitate the movement (change) of society in a forward direction, thwart the movement (change), or turn it correspondingly backwards. Thus, the conjugation of statics of society (denoted by culture) and its dynamics (denoted by economy, politics) presents society in the state of dynamic (not static) equilibrium – as in being and becoming at the same moment in time; with polity moulding and controlling both the manifestations of society, for a time at any rate. Only this way social reality may be portrayed with reference to a place, time, and people; and not disparately by any one of the three aforesaid fundamental dimensions of society or by an assortment of any two of them. For, society is the resultant of perpetual interactions of the three. However, this necessity and efficiency for the appraisal of social reality would be forfeited under two contingencies: (1) in case the constituent individuals of a society decide to live an asocial life by denouncing or drastically uprooting their cultural moorings, economic upbringing, and political perspective; or (2) in case culture, economy, or polity is unilaterally stressed at the expense of disrupting the systemic relation among them. The instances of former happening in the world scene are rare and short-lived, as can be illustrated by three examples cited below. 1. As a backlash to the Vietnam debacle of the U.S.A., some young angry Americans evolved the hippie-cult which flared up in the 1960s with some spread-effect beyond the United

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2.

3.

States. The cult rejected the contemporaneous course of life – cultural, economic, and political—but lost its virulence by 1970s and eventually faded away. By that time, the hippies were either dead from an excessive intake of drugs and intemperate living or had returned to the mainstream of society. An observer could not help noticing that communes were set up by the revolting youth in the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1960-70s as a protest against what they declared was a staid way of life encouraged even by the university academics that they qualified as fach idiot (pedantic fool). In these communes sets of young men and women lived together in the most intimate meaning of being together –declaring that they emulated the “free” primordial way of life. But cracks developed in such an idyllic life course when children began to be born in the commune. Then, the respective mothers with the real or alleged putative fathers of the children set up respective family-units and, thus, the erstwhile commune members merged into the ongoing stream of life. By the 1980s, communes in West Germany were hardly noticeable. In the newly independent colonies and semi-colonies (which formed the Third World in the second half of the twentieth century) the exuberance of what was termed the New Middle Class was palpable. The members of this category tended to bypass their cultural moorings, economic upbringing, and an independent political perspective. Instead, they blindly imitated the achievements of either of the two contemporaneous Great Powers, viz., the U.S.A or the U.S.S.R. The economist D.P. Mukherji of India, the politician J. Nyerere of Tanzania, the sociologist S.H. Alatas of Malaysia, etc., strongly commented against such a pathological emergence in society. Alatas characterised them as being of a “captive mind” (1972). Mukherji remarked (1961:25):

They are vocally important, but if you watch their behaviour closely, you will find that their anti-traditional individualism is also developing a tradition of its own, a tradition of revolt which tends to become a little boring.

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Soon, however, this “new middle class” forsook its arid ideology and its erstwhile adherents assumed distinguished places in their respective societies, particularly from the 1970-80s.

But the aforementioned second contingency of deviating from the efficient course of appraising social reality is neither rare nor short-lived. It has permeated into world society because of unilaterally stressing one or another of the three parameters of culture, economy and polity; and, this course of social dynamism has been the progenitor of – as well as the driving force behind – the concept of unified social sciences. Therefore, the issues involved should be examined in some detail, beginning with the parameter of culture. Culture, defined succinctly as the valorisation of capital in human achievement and perception, as elaborated by Tylor (1898: .I.1), has two sequentially related components: 1. What is handed down from earlier times by the media of tradition, and 2. What is acquired in one’s life-time. The two components complement each other because (a) one cannot accumulate all that would be transmitted from the past, and (b) nor can one acquire all that are potentially (may not be actually) available in one’s lifetime. Selection is indispensable for rejecting some amenities available under (a) and for acquiring some from all feasible under (b). Otherwise, the living social organism would have been decimated by an abnormally inflated growth at either or both ends of the spectrum of culture. Even so, attempts are noticeable both ways, in which the unified social sciences have a role to play – passively or forcefully. The result, in the context of the appraisal of social reality, may be (a) inaccurate and futile, (b) dated and ludicrous, (c) obscure despite good intentions, (d) inconsequential to being divisive, (e) destructive for distortion, or (f) endemically pernicious. A case may be cited for each of these chronologically ordered possibilities. In “Management Studies”, called earlier managerial studies, the students are sometimes found to be taught that the masses (comprising workers, peasants, etc) are in the infantile stage of “development” – as being guided by instinct, sentiments, etc., and they are to be raised to the status of adulthood by guidance for reasoning (viva Pareto 1968:1915-81). Such trivial renderings of rationality – because the masses are no less rational in their specific environments than are their elite managers in their environments – uproot culture (in contextual reference to psychology) from its intimate and foundational relation with economy and polity.

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Instead, inaccurate teaching makes its use futile for appraising the techniques of “management” in the contemporary world scenario. The “Consultative Managerial Leadership Style in India: A Viable Alternative” (Kalra 2004: 315-30) may be an apt example of how dated and ludicrous can be a overgeneralisation of culture monopolised by the component of tradition. Kalra wishes to indigenise the universalisation of management by coining the term kartaisation as a derivative of the ruling male (not a female!) head of an Indian family which is traditionally conceived to be a joint family. There the man designated as karta represents familial authority which may be dictatorial (=authoritative) or democratic (=benevolent). But a joint family in India is virtually a lost phenomenon since the third quarter of the twentieth century, except in the joint-property owned segments of the upper middle class and the similarly endowed over-rich (vide, Mukherjee 1971b). On the other hand, a “benevolent” or an “authoritarian” leadership for management in various spheres of life are not wanting in all parts of the world (including India, of course) – with their native nomenclatures like karta. Nonetheless, terms like kartaisation may be found amusing, even though dated. A concerned scholar, worried about Nepal’s passage from indigeneity to universality, points out (Mathur 2004:171-81): a) Nepal’s insularity until 1950 to suit the exigencies of imperial Britain and the autarchic rule of the Ranas (ministers who ruled as monarchs). b) Her consequent poverty and lack of education en masse barring the microscopic minority of the ruling elite. c) Some amelioration afterwards to this miserable existence owing to a form of democratic government and the intervention of several international economic and political organisations sponsoring INGOs (=international nongovernmental organisations). d) The resultant of all these manipulations and manifestations of traditional and life-time acquired aspects of culture being the emergence of an imitative mind imprisoned in the noninquiring frame espoused by the dominant interest groups in the West. As a remedy to this contemporary state of affairs, Mathur suggests: (1) “to review the points of contact of latent unemerged tacit local knowledge in Nepal” – such as, in “traditional agriculture”, the age-old system of childrearing and medical herbs, the “guru-chela [preceptor-

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disciple] tradition” of “learning transmission and knowledge creation” of the gurukul system, “reinforcing oral traditions if these be the only vehicles of knowledge” as these have enabled “the Vedas to be chanted today just as they were thousand of years ago”. (ibid: 182-3) (2) “to create new knowledge originating from different knowledge traditions in many different parts of the world” (ibid: 185) But, science and technology have proceeded way beyond “traditional agriculture”, customs and practices of traditional child-rearing and administration of medicinal herbs; and neither the gurukul nor the modern form of education automatically generate an inquiring mind for evolving an inquiring frame. Furthermore, oral history is just an useful tool in the absence of written documents on the past life of a people, the Vedas remained unwritten for serving by sruti (hearing) the monopolised interest of a coterie of brahmanas, and so on. Therefore, merely upholding tradition and enlarging its sphere by accumulating different kinds of “traditional knowledge” would not ipso facto create inquiring minds and design inquiring frames. Instead, this prescription of the well-meaning scholar would push the mass of the Nepalese people toward traditionalism as the sign post of indigeneity petrified, while indirectly facilitating their elite to emulate the so-called Western way of Life as the indicator of universality. Here, thus, is a case for the consideration of the totality of culture (viz. its traditionally inherited and life-time acquired components) in order to select from both the compartments – by means of inquiring minds operating through inquiring frames – those attributes only which would facilitate a symbiotic relation among culture, economy and polity for an onward march of the society. The case is substantiated by what happened in Nepal’s contiguous territory of Bengal in the nineteenth century, in the context of germination of what is commonly acclaimed as the Bengal Renaissance. There, epitomised by Rammohun Roy and Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar, Swami Vivekananda and Rabindranath Tagore, personalities emerged in the face of confrontation between the indigenous but vegetative cultural tradition and the forcefully endorsed rulers’ view of culture, economy, and polity. These pathfinders were not necessarily of the same (or even similar) inquiring minds, and they did not adopt the same or similar inquiring frames to operate. Nonetheless, all of them emulated the saying: SƗ vidyƗ yƗ bimuktaye/ (that is learning which frees oneself); and in

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various ways by adopting different means, they implemented this message for integrating culture, economy, and polity from the grassroots level of the society under reference. They were neither blindly enmeshed in socalled “tradition” nor uncritically engrossed in what was presented as “modern” culture. An example of the overgeneralisation of culture for appraising social reality may be the efforts of the Subaltern School to write “history from below”, beginning with its progenitor Ranajit Guha’s treatise on “peasant insurgency” (Guha 1983). The school has failed to draw a systemic relation of culture with economy and polity; instead, by placing all its emphasis on culture, it has failed to attain its objective (vide, Guha and collective (eds.) 1982-97; Mukherjee 1988; Guha, Ramchandra 1995; Mallon 2000; Bahl 2000; etc.) A more pointed example of the inconsequential and the divisive consequences of the overgeneralisation of culture (with particular reference to psychology) is given by the application of “Happiness” as a social indicator – evolved from R. Veenhoven’s formulation of Conditions of Happiness (1984). The indicator was widely propagated by the reputable journal Social Indicators Research during the 1980-90s, but fizzled out of the world scenario because of lacking in tangible substance. Even so, it survived in the remote and poor nation-state of Bhutan where, coincidentally or not with Veenhoven’s formulation and its circulation by the aforementioned international journal, the King of Bhutan introduced “the catch phrase ‘Gross National Happiness’ in the late 1980s” (Priesner 2004: 215), and this epitaph became the “non-quantifiable development objective in Bhutan” (Thinley 2004:203). Elucidating further, this indicator or objective was claimed to have “organically evolved from the constituent features of Bhutanese society before 1959, a socio-economic system based on a Buddhist and feudal set of values” (Priesner 2004:215). The concept is in operation for the mass of Bhutanese despite their later shift from economic and political isolation because “the society at its base, used to an economy of scarcity and to a paternalistic political system without any grassroots participation, has very few demands beyond their subsistence needs” (ibid: 225). Thus, retaining these miserable people steeped in traditionalism – a backward extension of the tradition component of culture, the situation reminds one of the story of kupamanduka (a frog living in a dark, deep well being jubilant of how peaceful and happy his world is): a story which the Hindu monk Swami Vivekananda often mentioned in castigating the obscurantist. Correspondingly, in the context of Bhutan’s inevitable passage from being maintained as a museum–piece – along with the disintegration of its

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subsistence economy, the change-over from an absolutist polity, and the expansion of the “acquired” component of its cultural boundary beyond the perimeter of “the Buddhist ethics and moral cosmology” before the end of the twentieth century – can the concept of Gross National Happiness survive even as a hyperbole for denoting Bhutan’s life (for the masses) as against her path toward universality (for the small coterie of elite) or can it not but “degenerate to mere magniloquence” (ibid: 222-31)? This is the question arising from another example of the failure to symbiotically unite from the grassroots level the culture, economy, and polity of Bhutanese society to date. Tradition to traditionalism, perhaps unintentionally sponsored for Nepal but apparently engineered for Bhutan in a similar context, may lean further backwards for terminating in what is labeled Fundamentalism. At that end stage of aberration, culture emanates a force dispelling its display of gravitational energy for holding a human society in being at a time point. Instead, society now cuts off its place-time coordinates for elevating culture to the status of “civilisation” by asserting its real or imaginary mores in the assumed “golden age” and by moulding economy and polity accordingly for conforming them to that imagery, but these are set in contemporary times. Thus, in place of seeing society change in future perspectives, the vision for society is turned back to the status quo ante. The result is destructive owing to the wilful distortion of reality, as is attested to in history by yielding inert societies which logically perish thereafter. Presently, in view of true or illusory perceptions of deprivation, fundamentalism has virulently reared up in local, regional, and world contexts. For example: 1. Hindu (equated to Indian) fundamentalism, resting upon the illusory vision of hindutva (enforced Hinduism), is supported by a vocal segment of social science scholars and political leaders. Their ideology, in action, has already demolished ancient monuments and has committed localised genocide. Now, it threatens to demolish more monuments. 2. Jewish fundamentalism (= Zionism) was brewed by the genuine deprivation of the Jewish people over centuries in Europe and climaxed by the Nazi perpetrated Holocaust. Zionism, however, received tangible and decisive support from Jewish capital that had, and still has, a strong base in the U.S. capital market. Through that channel it could muster support for domination in West Asia through a disregard of

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any semblance of international rules and obligations – especially over Palestine and the Lebanon – from the mightiest power in the world while the Arabs in West Asia were not free from blame vis-à-vis Israel either. Zionistminded social scientists and their allies unilaterally stressed their position and suppressed alternate viewpoints, as did the fanatic Arab jingoists, both sides steeped in the unified social science perspective. Islamic fundamentalism, brewed over centuries along with Islamic liberalism, occasionally raised its head in place-time moments in history but was soon contained (vide, Hourani 1991). At first, in the same manner, it was nurtured by the U.S.A. for playing a “useful” role against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan; but, afterwards, it was left in the lurch when internal and international exigencies against the U.S.S.R compelled it to withdraw from Afghanistan. And, now, Islamic fundamentalism has retaliated against the U.S.A. and, later, flared-up on a world-scale especially since the U.S.—Britain aggression of Iraq. However, for the scholars indulging in the unified social science perspective, the situation has promoted the spectre of The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (Huntington 1996) which a vociferous segment of “Western” scholars are now loudly proclaiming.

These aberrations should not be attributed to culture per se but to overgeneralised manipulations of culture by apposite political-economic interest-groups at local, regional, or world levels. Otherwise, one could be hood-winked by all such exercises as are pursued at the level of explorations in unified social sciences. It may be contemporarily useful to underscore this point because “culture studies” are presently seen to be a major axis for appraising social reality. In that context as well as in the context of the ongoing discussion, it should be underlined that more sinister than catastrophic ravages of fundamentalism is the pernicious unilateral emphasis laid on culture in a manner which makes its effect endemic to a nation-state. A case in point is the active acceptance by the Indian ruling elite of diverse denominations of the recommendations made by the Mandal Commission – comprising the doyens of the disciplines falling under the headings of social sciences (including social welfare, public administration, etc.) for recognising caste as the criterion of backwardness in Indian society.

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The issue refers to the heritage of the viewpoint posited by the “dominant caste” of “modernisers” in independent India (vide, Mukherjee 1979: 50ff). In place of treating “caste in itself” as being progressively relegated to the status of cultural unities in contemporary India – because of its historical transformation from a systemic entity for encapsulating cultural, economic and political energy (vide, Mukherjee 1957), the savants forming this category first formulated a diarchy of “caste and class” because they could no longer ignore the formidable role of the latter in society. But, failing to obviate this way the fact of class-antagonism cutting across their “selling issue” of caste in India from the days of the Raj, the concept of “dominant caste” was mooted by the doyen of Indian anthropology cum sociology from the second half of the twentieth century (vide, Srinivas 1966: 10-11). Notably, the six attributes of “dominant caste” denoted the essential properties of the topmost class in social formation with respect to the concentration of wealth and economic cum political power (vide, Mukherjee 1979:49-54). This way the formulation of “caste and class” – changed from “caste in itself” – was further changed to “class in caste” (vide, Mukherjee 1999), but never to depict the real situation of “caste in class”. The revised formulation was welcomed by the leaders of all brands of social science. They employed it in the context of their respective disciplines as well as for interdisciplinary explorations of social reality. This is a clear case of the dismal role of the unified social sciences perspective for distorting and obfuscating the appraisal of social reality; namely, by treating caste and class as analogous and not homologous in view of searching for their common root. The latter contingency was proposed by Marx (1953: 399-400) but need not be accepted provided a better one is found appropriate for drawing the basic relationship between class and caste in place of Weber’s dictum to place them poles apart (Weber 1958:131) which, in reality, has proved false and has been pernicious to the growth of contemporary Indian society. Similarly false and harmful is the unified social sciences perspective in reference to the examples cited from individual social scientists’ attempts to appraise the contextual reality to the more and more concerted attempts of the Hindu, Zionist, and Islamic social science-fundamentalists. They generate the basic questions such as: Why are analogous and imprecise attempts made by the unified social sciences perspective in place of searching for the roots of the controversy? Why are there sterile debates on Hindutva, pan-Indianism, or Zionism, on a state with a majority of a Jewish population such as Israel, or on Islam as a religious (an aspect of

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the traditional component of cultural) identity and not an entity invaginating into the world economy and polity? Thus, in the context of the viewpoint “class in caste” posited by the Mandal Commission and its tacit acceptance by successive political powers in situ in India, the lone protest came from the sociologist I.P. Desai (1984: 1106-16). He pointed out that the caste-criterion for recognising India’s backwardness confused the very issue of backwardness; for the phenomenon was the expression of a chronic deprivation of the masses, resulting in the failure of those in the lowest rung of the social ladder to even reproduce themselves economically. The rejection of this “revolutionary” viewpoint and the suppression of its logical formulation “caste in class” by the unified social sciences academia and the allied administration have thwarted the normative growth process of Indian society. Instead, it has given “caste” a new political identity and, as is presently obvious, has fed the stream of favouritism, nepotism, and corruption in the Indian economy and polity. The late I.P. Desai is presently a non-person in Indian academia. The result is that the left-out castes are trying to become “backward”, resulting in the evolution of the amorphous category of OBC (Other Backward Castes) besides the original categories of the British nomenclatured Scheduled Castes (SC) and the corresponding Indian manufactured Scheduled Tribes (ST). Moreover, the demand has been mooted (originating in Rajasthan) from the onset of the twenty first century for recognising another category, viz. “Economically Backward Forward Castes”. From 2006 there is also a clamour for recognising the “creamy layer” within the ST, SC, and OBC, as this layer monopolises virtually all educational opportunities and available jobs. This task of isolating the “creamy layer” was, however, given to the community leaders at the top of the political ladder who themselves, mostly, belonged to it. These leaders are now supposedly searching for a “non-creamy layer” within their caste-categories; this search, needless to say, is hardly genuine. What was mooted by I.P. Desai and like-minded social science scholars is now vindicated; namely, the need to remove the root cause of backwardness in India’s social structure, of which the caste-hierarchy is a “lateral” manifestation in the sense posited at the beginning of this discourse on unified social sciences. Moreover, what was thus a tragedy for Indian society in the 1980s has not merely turned into a farce, like a parody of Bernard Shaw’s Black Girl in Search of God. Instead, the tragedy has been compounded manifold.

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On one side, the commonly designated Naxalite Movement has spread across India – from Andhra Pradesh to West Bengal; on the other, erudite social science scholars continue harping on caste-unities or the castesystem and the role of the Dominant Caste in the context of “caste alliance and caste animosity” – in place of searching for the causality of confrontations between the ever flourishing landlords and the increasing immiseration of the masses. And, betwixt the two facets in practice and theory, successive governments proclaim evermore loudly their impotent programmes for euphemistic “social” development – as if, economy and polity are asocial (beyond society): namely, garibi hatao (drive out poverty) to “development with justice” and then, to various yojanas, vikas, etc., in order to declare that under their respective “just” governance “India is shining”. The unified social sciences perspective thus contributes to the distortion of social reality on the “culture” front and affects the normative flow of the stream of human life. To consider, next the unilateral stress laid upon the economy – which is commonly labelled economic determinism, the blame is usually laid at the door of Marxism both in theory and practice. But K. Marx and F. Engels were aware of the need for laying equal emphasis on culture, economy and polity for the appraisal of social reality although they posited that in the long-range perspective economy denoted the basic structure of society; polity and culture were located in its superstructure (vide, Marx 1951: I. 328-9; Engels 1951: II.457-9). Nevertheless, this perspective does not nullify the symbiosis of economy, polity and culture – especially pronounced in the context of “single epochs and events” as pointed out by Engels in Ludwig Feuerbach and the end of Classical German Philosophy and with which this discussion is particularly concerned for the contextual appraisal of social reality (vide, Engels 1886, 1894; Marx 1888, 1942; etc). Characteristically, the anti-Marxists (presently assembled under the flag of weberianism) do not mention this aspect of the Marxist appraisal of social reality which has been advocated and put into practice from Marx and Engels onwards by the followers of Marxism, such as, Lenin, Gramsci, and Mao Zse Dong. For instance, the views of Marx and Engels on the “Irish Question” have been mentioned in chapter 2 of this volume. Besides, in The Eighteenth Brümaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852) Marx specifically examined the symbiosis of culture, economy, and polity in respect of the class content of extant society and, in that context, made the oft quoted statement on the as yet lack of emergence of systemic intra distinctions among culture, economy, and polity within the community of peasantry;

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called “potatoes in a sack form a sack of potatoes”. That statement was valid for the place-time-object in view; nonetheless, it was equally valid – and relevant, necessary, and efficient (in that order) – to the Marxists to assert in praxis the shifting symbiosis of culture, economy, and polity in the historical perspective of changes in the social process. Subsequently, in consonance with bipolar undergrowth and overgrowth (as deviating from the normative growth process) within the social organism under reference and with respect to corresponding social entities, the peasantry changed its contour and content. En masse it did not always represent “potatoes in a …..sack of potatoes”. Instead, Lenin portrayed in The Development of Capitalism in Russia (1899) how contending classes had emerged among the Russian peasantry and criticised that and allied contexts in What the “Friends of the People” Are and How They Fight Social Democrats (1894). Gramsci, at the beginning of the twentieth century, described the same phenomenon but in the different place-timepeople context of Italy: from which one learns how and why the peculiarity of the culture – economy – polity of the industrialisedcommercialised north and the peasantised south led eventually to the emergence of the Red Brigade from the region of Calabria in the second half of the same century. And, Mao Zse Dong underscored this dynamic viewpoint in his pithy essay On Contradiction (1952), detected the revolutionary potential of the peasantry in China, and successfully geared it for the establishment of the Peoples Republic in China. This line of theorising and putting it into practice continues with the Marxists, in reference to all aspects of social reality. Marx had posited a composite understanding of class – the bedrock of Marxist appraisal of social reality – in terms of economy, polity, and culture (with particular emphasis on its perceptual component) by the formulation of “class in itself” and “class for itself”. Arising therefrom, terms and concepts like declassé, lumpen proletariat, A.G. Frank’s “lumpen bourgeoisie” (1972), embourgeoisment, have emerged; and, at one time, the Marxists hotly debated on absolute versus relative pauperisation of the working class, leading to the viewpoints that “absolute pauperisation” is outmoded from the second half of the twentieth century or that it persists on a world-scale while “relative pauperisation” is the characteristic of the nation-states (vide, Wallerstein 1979:66-84). Presently, Marxist scholars are situating themselves beyond the image of the working class according to its nineteenth century stereotype, introducing the non-manual intelligentsia into the concept, and proceeding further beyond in social space (e.g., Marcuse 1969: 52-4; Mandel 1975: 190-1; Jameson 1984).

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Briefly, from its inception to date, the attribution of “economic determinism” to the Marxist appraisal of reality is motivatedly false. Taking up cudgels from earlier times, this – among other aspects of the Marxist appraisal of social reality – became the life-long mission of Weber (vide, Weber 1917, 1922 [in Runciman 1978: 33-42, 48, 60-1, 69-98], 1947:80, 107; 1949;1958: 113-4, 123, 131; 1965:42-3; 1968: 184 [in Girth and Mills 1970: 71-2, 152]; 1975: 75-6, 124-8, 184, 279-80; etc). Although not taken seriously in his life-time, with the resurrection of Weber in the second half of the twentieth century as narrated at the beginning of this section of the essay, Weber’s allegation of Marxist economic determinism of social reality was widely and forcefully propagated by the weberians. Presently, it has become the shibboleth of weberianism (vide, Bendix et al 1965: 7-70) Paradoxically, it is from the quarter of some non-Marxists and, pronouncedly, from that of the anti-Marxists that “economic determinism” has emerged in theory and practice. To illustrate with reference to India – the largest democracy in the world – to begin with, five years before her independence India’s anticipated first Prime Minister, who was ambivalent to Marxism, had declared under the caption What India Wants (Nehru 1942:10): Our principal problem is after all not the Hindu-Muslim problem, but the planned growth of industry, greater production, more just distribution, higher standard of living, and thus the elimination of the appalling poverty that crushes our people.

Commensurate with this largely appropriate declaration of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s mantra after her independence in 1947 was economic planning from 1950 – regarding which Nehru was reportedly of the “mind” (as quoted by Karanjia 1960:50) that: Planning for industrial development is generally accepted as a matter of mathematical formula.

Persuaded by Nehru, the reputed statistician P.C. Mahalanobis prepared the Second Five Year Plan Frame (1955) on these lines. G. Myrdal of The American Dilemma fame had announced at about the same time (1956:3): The major task is first to force economic development in the underdeveloped countries to the point where a more unified world system can be solidly built.

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In that respect, he exhorted the social scientists of diverse persuasions for undertaking inter-disciplinary research with (a) the economists forsaking “their old theoretical tradition of ignoring the non-economic facts, on grounds that they fall outside economic analysis”, and (b) the other social scientists developing “their science into a social technology” (ibid. 171). Correspondingly, he appreciated the “scientific” spirit of India’s second five-year Plan (Myrdal 1968: III.1906). Nonetheless, he castigated the implementation of the same plan (ibid I. 276): The postponement of the promised social and economic revolution, which was to follow India’s political revolution, is thus in danger to becoming permanent.

The mouthpiece of the Planning Commission of India attempted to belittle Myrdal’s vitriolic comment by posing a futile and debatable point: “Poverty of Nations or Notions” (Thapar 1968); but reputed economist– planners (e.g., Sen 1962; Gadgil 1966; Panel of Economists 1955) had already admitted the failure to consider the “non-economic factors”. Consequently, the logical outcome of unilateral economic planning was underscored by Mahalanobis himself – the architect but not one of the executors of the Second Five Year Plan (1956-60) — as: the rich had become richer, the poor poorer (vide, Planning Commission 1964). In order to explicate this quandary, it is necessary to point out that, anchored on a course of socially rootless economic development, the planners had failed to treat the economy symbiotically with culture and polity. Such as, the planners had appositely envisaged a time-span for heavy industries to take off and, therefore, made provisions for the intervening period by depending on handicraft industries to be encouraged for the time-being for producing at a rate assessed to be higher than normal. But the traditional interest in handicraft production and marketing turned the strategy into a mantra by invoking Gandhiji’s dichotomy of world resources into the sectors of scarcity and abundance (vide, Kumarappa 1948, 1951). The dichotomy is presently manifested as fallacious; nevertheless, the coterie of vested interests steeped in a decadent culture and polity made the most of this fallacious doctrine and applied it during the Second Plan Period in India. Simultaneously, the acquired aspect of culture, in unison with the polity of “free enterprise” bearing industrial and allied commercial interests, endeavored to scuttle planning by means of several designs and devices such as making a mockery of the Licensing Policy of the Government as enacted in 1951 (vide, Hazari 1967; Dutt 1969) while, at the same time, loudly denouncing the License Raj!

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Evidently, deep-rooted “antiplanning” social interests of cultureeconomy-polity could outmanoeuvre the desire and design of the motivated planners to uplift the life and living of the people at large because their planning was unilaterally economic in substance and this was the Achilles’ heel in disregarding the inseparable unity of cultureeconomy-polity from the grassroots level of the social processes. As a result, in revanche, this period of planning helped those occupying, traditionally and contemporaneously the top echelons of Indian society, to appropriate India’s wealth. This was done by a microscopic minority in the society. The phenomenon of concentration of income and wealth at the top of society, with the rest being steadily impoverished, was particularly noticeable all over the Third World where, according to Myrdal (1971: 42-3): The modernising ideals have been used as instrumental value premises [because] they are pronounced to be the goal determining policy by the governments of practically all these countries and, indeed, generally by the articulate members of their people.

But, despite the proclaimed “ideals” of modernisation, the catastrophic outcome of the move from tradition to modernity led ECAFE (The Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East) to launch a Mass Poverty Study because (ECAFE 1973:1): One of the main conclusions of the assessment of the First United Nations Development Decade was that …. the current planning systems and developing policies aimed at increasing GNP benefited the top echelons whereas the rest of the population has remained largely unaffected and its situation may even have deteriorated.

In this context it may be of interest to notice that a genuine liberal like Myrdal was veering away from interdisciplinary explorations of unified social sciences and moving toward the approach of a unitary social science. To quote Myrdal (1971:32): The non-economic factors cannot simply be added to a supposedly pure economic theory. The true institutional approach must work with concepts that are adequate to reality from the beginning, i.e., in the very approach to the problem.

However, the later crop of mainline economists pursued the unilateral path, despite the caution sounded by their other notable predecessors like J. Tinbergen (1965: 277-81) and J.A. Schumpeter (1954: 152-72). They, of course, bypassed the holistic view of social growth proposed from earlier

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times (e.g., Spencer 1967:12-3) – not to mention Marx and other pioneers engaged in a scientific appraisal of social reality. Moreover, they ignored Schumpeter’s pointer (1954:9-23) to the same base of differential but interrelated conceptualisation of growth and development of society, and his later statement (1969: 58,63, 64) which may be successively categorised and quoted as follows: a) Economic development is the object of economic history, which in turn is merely a part of universal history. b) The economic state of a people does not emerge simply from the preceding economic conditions, but only from the preceding total situation. c) By ‘development’, therefore, we shall understand only such changes in economic life as are not forced upon it from without but arise by its own initiative from within. d) By this we should mean that economic development is not a phenomenon to be explained economically … Nor will the mere growth of the economy, as shown by the growth of population and wealth, be designated as a process of development. e) For it calls forth no qualitative new phenomena, but only a process of adaptation of the same kind of change in the natural data. Since we wish to direct our attention to other phenomena, we shall regard such increases as changes in data. f) Every concrete process of development finally rests upon preceding development…..Every process of development creates the prerequisites for the following. Thereby the form of the latter is altered and things will turn out differently from what they would have been if every concrete phase of development had been compelled to create its own conditions. g) However, if we wish to get at the root of the matter, we may not include in the data of our explanation elements of what is to be explained. Contrariwise, a relatively contemporaneous economist of notable repute like S. Chakravarty asserted (1982: 20, 41): Development consists in a rupture of the circular flow. There are three reasons for such a rupture: a) exogenous causes, b) quantitative growth in population, accretion in the stock of capital; and c) innovation. Clearly the first, exogenous causes are a catch-all for things which have originated in

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the non-economic sphere. The second set of factors which played such a fundamental role in the Mill-Marshall paradigm was for Schumpeter the basis of a theory of ‘growth’ as distinct from the theory of ‘development’… This terminological difference does not by itself connote very much. We may as well ignore it and replace it by the terms ‘growth simplicitor’ and ‘growth proper’ [emphasis added].

In sum, thus, an equation has been drawn between growth and development as: Growth = Economic Growth = Economic Development = Development per se. Economism has been clearly founded by the non- and anti-Marxists. The simplified equation between growth and development forcefully stated by many present-day social scientists in and beyond India, and from the era of propagating the passage of humanity from tradition to modernity, it is steadily steered by the mainline economists. It glosses over four crucial points of distinction and interrelation between growth and development: 1. Growth is a truth-asserting normative social process in the life course. 2. Development is a truth-seeking instrumental social process, which is to be applied in case of complementary overgrowth and undergrowth in the life course. 3. The role of development is to reduce to zero both overgrowth and undergrowth. 4. The two distinctive but interrelated concepts of growth and development are concerned with the symbiotic operation of culture, economy, and polity. It should be mentioned, parenthetically, that at the apex of the growth curve for human society (as for the human and other live species) the concepts of growth and development are equated to instill prolonged growth and record a continuous history (for society) or more durable life for the living (by means of geriatrics, etc.). However, this fifth contingency between growth and development (vide, Mukherjee 1991: 88101) is not within the purview of the present discussion. Instead, one is concerned with the above-mentioned four points for finding any unilateral stress on economic determinism which would disturb the texture of society and lead it toward disruption and decay. But such a focus of attention is discarded by the mainline economists on the grounds that undergrowth and overgrowth – within and across different configurations of world society – are in the same dimension of reality (e.g., Chakravarty 1986: 2262-72). They assume, instead, that these incongruities would be removed by economic development (equated to

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economic growth) as the great leveler (e.g.,) Chakravarty, 1987: 12, 18, 24, 41-3, 57ff), with a rather recently introduced “social sector” for removing the residual incongruities. Quashing such pipe-dreams, the Planning Commission of India admitted in 1980 (p.71): The past rate of growth has been attained at the cost of increasing unemployment, a widening of fiscal and balance of payment deficit (both of which are unsustainable), an acceleration of economic inequalities which is not acceptable, and increasing distortions in the regional pattern of growth.

However, overriding such pious – albeit a belated and merely formal— realisations of the formulation and implementation of the policy of economic determinism (even with devising the safety valve of the “social sector” of planning), the disease has not been cured. Instead, it is spreading more and more into a decaying social organism. Doubtless, increasing economic growth is necessary for the sound health of society. But, by itself and in spite of its assumed “spread-effect” – buttressed by the announced “social sector” of planning, this indicator does not become efficient for denoting social growth. In order to attain that efficiency, the people en masse must have ever-reaching scope for material prosperity and mental peregrination: the last two points of cardinal valuation for human kind, as mentioned at the beginning of chapter 1 of this volume. Contrariwise, and significantly, while since the beginning of the twenty first century the rulers frequently announce that the “growth rate” is rising or will rise more, they are reticent about displaying data on inescapably evident more and more concentration of income and wealth at the top of Indian society and the consequently graded impoverishment of the people at large – even though India possesses one of the best statistical organisations in the world and a scientifically designed network spread over its entire territory for collecting precise, valid, and relevant data for the purpose by means of an apparatus like the National Sample Survey. Interestingly, India also possesses several non-governmental organisations which are similarly equipped; but, curiously enough, to the common human being all of them seem to be deaf, dumb, and blind to this point at stake. Is it because that would embarrass a coterie of interests irrespective of the different affiliations of its members to even seemingly rival political bodies? The answer to the question suggests the bitter truth that across apparent political dissensions in the largest democracy in the world (vide, Mukherjee 1989:71) the top echelon of society is usurping as

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before (and now more ruthlessly) the augmented income and wealth; the middle layer is steadily devitalised; and the bottom layer is at the peril of mere survival. The available comprehensive data on the concentration of income in India are so scarce that, until 2006, the latest figures were available for only 1997. Yet they show that 46 per cent of the national income was shared by the top 20 per cent households, the bottom 20 per cent had to eke out a living with only 8 per cent of the national income, and the middle layer of 60 per cent of the households accessed the remaining 46 per cent of the national income (Bose 2006: 11-2). Obviously, the percentages within each level are graded; so that, while a few of the top echelon are reaching the peak and many at the bottom are decimated, more and more of the middle layer are gliding toward the bottom – with a fortunate few ascending towards the top. This is the situation experienced by most Indians; and that is corroborated by the media which announced at the onset of the year 2006 that India possesses more multi-billionaires than the newly-modelled China. The media did not announce whether India also holds the first position in the race for possessing a more deprived middle class and decimated lower class. Anyhow, the aforementioned viewpoint on economic determinism and its disastrous application are neither exclusive to Chakravarty and like minded colleagues nor their successors in India, nor are these two sequential phenomena restricted to India in theory and practice. The epicentres of both are located in the U.S.A., wherefrom they are radiating all over the world among upcoming economists and planners. The consequence is the devitalisation of the erstwhile Third World in particular. One may recall in this context that, for example, P.A. Samuelson’s observation on “balanced growth” was aseptic (vide, Stiglitz (ed.) 1970: I.248); but in the Samuelson edited Readings in Economics, which has moulded the minds of a large number of contemporary economists, W. Nordhaus and J. Tobbins stated [Samuleson (ed.) 1980:276]: Of course economic development has always been the grand theme of historically minded scholars of large and bold concepts, notably Marx, Schumpeter, Kuznets. But the mainstream economic analysis was not comfortable with phenomena of change and progress… To economists schooled in post-war growth theory, growth policy meant deliberate efforts to speed up the growth potential itself.

Prior to such a diplomatically guarded formulation as quoted above, C.W. Powers was more explicit on the drive to economic determinism in

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the context of an imbalance in normative social growth (vide, Powers 1976:27-8). And, the sum total of all such unilateral stress on the economy at the expense of culture and polity has been witnessed in Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, and several other nation-states by their time-bound flourishing and subsequent downgrading. The process continues, although not so spectacularly, in South Asia (vide, Kelegama and Rodrigo 2004; Hettige 2004; Zaidi 2004), virtually the whole of erstwhile Third World and beyond (vide, Gottschalk and Smeeding 1997; Wood 1997; Wade 1998; etc.). Unlike the least in the context of culture and less concerning the economy, overgeneralisation in the case of polity is rather quickly discernible and reacted upon. In recent world history the pathological Romanisation of Fascist Italy and the enforced Aryanisation of Nazi Germany could not muster support from the overwhelming majority of social scientists. A few exceptions were, for example, the notable V. Pareto who, at the invitation of Mussolini, took a seat in the Fascist Italian Senate; and the not so notable K.H. Pfeffer who spread Nazi doctrine on sociology in particular and social science in general against Western decadence, but recanted his stand after World War II. On the other side, while pursuing their usual vocations like other compatriots, many social scientists joined the phalanx of philosophers, literateurs, and other intellectuals who rose to fight the anti Fascist – anti Nazi doctrine; such as, Benedetto Croce, Romain Roland, Rabindranath Tagore, Ignazio Silone, Ernst Tollar, Thomas Mann, Bertold Brecht, and Anna Segers. Simultaneously, anti Fascist/anti Nazi movements generated in Italy and Germany (e.g., under the leadership of workers like Ernst Thälmann in Germany), gathered momentum with the formation of the International Brigade to fight Nazism by practicing war behind the façade of the Civil War in Spain in the mid-1930s, and this culminated in the World War II of 1939-45 for eradicating a wide-spread and virulent form of unilateral stress on polity which, in turn, pathologically moulded the economy and culture of the territory it reigned upon. Since then, the unilateral stress on polity, supported by discrete disciplines’ as well as unified social sciences’ appraisal of social reality, has appeared in different parts of the globe. Such as, during the period of the Emergency in India in the 1970s, an inter-disciplinary research project was proposed for a government-sponsored research organisation on “Nation-Building of Indian Muslims”. Similarly fallacious and, at the same time, equally or more ruthless was the situation in Chile after the deposition of Allende, during Marcos’ and Suharto’s autocratic regimes in the Philippines and Indonesia, etc. However, such catastrophic overstress

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on polity had limited or no spread-effect and were short-lived unlike the present unipolar globalisation engineered by the U.S.A. from the1980s. Prima facie, it appeared as a boon to the people, especially to those of the erstwhile Third World and particularly with respect to culture. Foreign goods and internationally sponsored “cultural” objects were now available at ones’ door-step – provided the “people” had the resources to indulge in them. Anyhow, the glitter dazzled the people; just as it did in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany as long as the going was good for Fascism and Nazism after the dismal situation the people (especially in Germany) had faced in post - 1919 Europe. Similarly it has taken more than ten years from the 1980s for the glitter of an unipolar globalisation to begin to tarnish, although the mainline intellectuals and social scientists – by means of discrete or the interdisciplinary mode – propagated the gift of globalisation in the immediately perceivable form of wiping out the East-West/ NorthSouth divide of the world and turn it into a “Global Village” with its advantageous “hamlets” designed by interested “groups” and groupism” in the “village”; such as, the Indian diaspora which is talked about in recent times. It may be of interest to notice that candidates for this diaspora were, at first, conventionally restricted to the West (and concentrated in the U.S.A); but perhaps because of the “failure” of the latter to meet the expectations of the “mother” country, the never-declared restriction seems to have been lifted in favour of a wider diasporic sweep –embracing particularly the petrodollar-rich West Asia and the newly enriched Southeast Asia (e.g., Singapore). However, from the last days of the twentieth century inquiring minds all over the world – and especially in the erstwhile Third World – are raising queries on the yield of unified social sciences for the appraisal of social reality. At the beginning the protest was rather elemental and emotional: such as, local versus global, indigeneity versus universality, historicity versus creativity, agency versus structure. From the beginning of the twenty first century the protest has been crystallised, particularly concerning the cultural aspect of social reality: such as, local identities complementary to global identity, indigeneity pari pasu with universality, history embellished by creativity, agencies leading the social processes toward successive structural constructs (vide, Dirlik et al 2000; Mukherji and Sen Gupta 2004; Bahl 2005; etc.). In the economy too, the jubilation of the people was noticeable from the 1980s – which was duly propagandised by the mainline social scientists and intelligentsia as the fruits of globalisation. More and more jobs were opening-up beyond national frontiers – particularly in the U.S.A. and the oil producing Gulf Countries. No doubt, a handful from

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each of the erstwhile Third World nation-states – relative to its total population — could thus be directly benefited and, in relay, benefit their families at home by sending their savings. Also, another source of income emerged under the auspices of economic globalisation for the residents of these countries by means of the manoeuvre labelled “outsourcing”. There may be a few more such micro-devices for the removal of poverty which, in return, enrich the “alms-giver” by buying skill at cheaper rates or low establishment costs, etc. But all these benefits are outweighed by polarisation within the national economies, as pointed out in the context of the unilateral stress laid on the economy and illustrated with particular reference to India. The point to make now, which has been mooted earlier by some concerned social scientists, is that from the threshold of the twenty first century it is increasingly realised that this phenomenon from the 1980s is the gift of unipolar globalisation (vide, Martin and Schuman 1997, Clark 1998, Wade 1998, Milanovic 2001, etc.). It is also realised that the binary processes of the phenomenon are cutting across nation-states and covering the entire world: As a new millennium unfolds, it is useful to recall some of the stark realities of the globalised world economy: the wealthiest fifth of nations dispose of 85 per cent of the world’s combined GNP; its citizens account for 84 per cent of world trade, and possess 85 per cent of savings in domestic accounts. (Chatterjee 2005: 177).

Moreover, that globalisation is unipolar – with the centre located in the U.S.A. – has been pithily pointed out by Chatterjee, albeit sarcastically at the end, in the light of his study of the political economy of Mexico in particular (ibid. 169): Consider, for example, the changing scenario with regard to capital flows to developing countries: between 1989 and 1993, total private capital flows to these countries nearly quadrupled from US$ 42 billion to $160 billion, the most spectacular increase being in portfolio equity investment which rose from $4 billion in 1989 to $87 billion in 1993 (World Bank, 1995:7 –World Debt Tables). The Latin American countries attracted $24 billion in 1990 which steadily increased to $69 billion in 1993. In 1994 alone, Mexico attracted $30 billion in foreign capital, much of it in shortterm financial or portfolio investment. The Mexican peso was pegged to the US dollar, there were no restrictions on capital movement and, when interest rates in the US were lower than in Mexico, short-term funds moved into Mexico. But as Mexico’s current account deficit and US interest rates started rising in late 1994, capital started to move out, at first slowly, and then in torrents, precipitating yet another major financial crisis, and requiring yet another US-supported IMF rescue mission. The

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purpose of the US support was more to restore confidence and stability to the US dollar than to assist an ailing neighbour. It was a case not so much of (the traditional) “poor Mexico, so close to the US and so far from the Pope”, it was more perhaps one of “poor U.S., so close to Mexico and so far from Iraq”!

A few vignettes of globalisation, centred in the U.S. interest, have been placed in the last few pages here to demonstrate how, as in historical incidents and so contemporarily, an overgeneralisation of the polity influences culture and drastically affect the economy. On its own, this instance of an overgeneralised polity has shown its fangs openly from the onset of the twenty first century through the U.S. aggression of Iraq on false grounds (with Britain as ally) despite U.N. admonitions. Scholars like Noam Chomsky have been perennially drawing the attention of the world public to such motivations of an overgrown polity; and, now, since the aggression in West Asia, the common people are feeling uneasy about the future of world politics with the U.N. going the same way as the League of Nations did prior to World War II. Contextually, in so far as the mainline social scientists are concerned, the role of discrete social science disciplines or of the unified social sciences in the form of interdisciplinary explorations has not been exemplary. On the other side, the remedies designed and devised by the “free” world (which became totally free from 1990!) to meet the post-war catastrophe in the second half of the twentieth century have yielded little positive result for the people at large, but has completed a full circle: from the first step of lifting the Third World from “tradition to modernity” to the next step of “developing” the “undeveloped” – later designated as “underdeveloped” – and then as “developing” societies, and finally to the step of establishing the “global village” with its capital in the US. Logically, therefore, antisystemic sentiments emerged; sequential motivations developed; and, finally, movements are now incipient or noticeable for appraising social reality comprehensively and act accordingly. But, for this purpose, the spontaneous response to “what” (descriptive) and “how” (instrumentality) of social reality is the extent to which unified social sciences can proceed, while an inadequacy remains regarding finding the answer to the question “why” which introduces the sequence to elucidating what is happening and how it is happening in respect of the contextual reality by its causality. And, without finding an answer to this third question, the appraisal of reality would be neither precise nor comprehensive, as it should be obvious from the preceding discussion in this section of the volume. Consequently, in the immediate context, the

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question will linger in an inquiring mind: why did the US – which at one time in history played a revolutionary role and, then, became conservative to the point of being “isolationist “ – emerge after World War II as the bastion of “freedom” but subsequently slip regressively into a world power that attempts to curtail that very freedom of other nation-states by means of the devices of unipolar globalisation in all spheres of life, as is particularly manifest in the aspects of culture, economy, and polity? The question reminds one of the previously quoted G. Myrdal’s exhortation to all brands of social scientists after the failure of situating his “modernising ideals” in the Third World; namely, to develop theory and practice for revealing reality from the grassroots level of the social phenomena and not to merely undertake analogous interdisciplinary explorations of the perceived phenomena. For, the answer to the “why” question is embedded in the homologous roots of all social phenomena and, therefore, the call from Myrdal has presently assumed an urgent and topical relevance. The search for commonality in the origin of all social phenomena – with their proliferation and the accretion of new phenomenon within the realm of social science remaining unfettered in consonance with the perennial advancement of knowledge – is also the basic premise for conceiving and operating the perspective of a unitary social science. Accordingly, the last chapter of this volume will place the proposal of unitary social science and explain how it is not to be operated in a lackluster way; for, if the operation of unitary social science is undertaken in a nebulous or jaundiced manner, the organic vision of society, and subsequently planning, is doomed to fail. ***

CHAPTER FOUR UNITARY SOCIAL SCIENCE

Notably after World War II, along with the unification of discrete social science disciplines for meeting the catastrophe faced by the “free” world, the concept of unitary social science – meaning a social science in place of the social sciences – attained substance. Previously some scholars notionally accepted the concept in the context of their views on the accumulation of scientific knowledge by cutting across and amalgamating the social and other facets of Science (e.g., Whethan 1911:396-404). This time the concept was proposed with substance in the formulation of its form and content, but the perspective of the proposers – few in numbers although more than before World War II – varies widely. These variations may be placed on a 3-point nominal scale in terms of the nodality of perspectives. From being deliberately circumscribed at one end of the scale, the concept is freed from such restrictions at the other but formulated rather vaguely and in a generalized manner. At the median point in the scale there are viewpoints for spelling-out the substance of the concept without any restriction imposed. Thus, as the lateral (i.e., analogous) unification of the social sciences failed to reveal unambiguously the reality, so too the inexorable accumulation of social science knowledge, urging for a precise and unequivocal formulation and comprehensive activisation of the concept of unitary social science, was hindered by the restrictive ideological orientation of the proposers at one end of the scale and the merely philosophical overview of proposers at the other. Both the perspectives fail to focus attention upon the homologous root of specializations in the realm of social science knowledge, although that may be subsumed by the philosophical speculations which rightly attend to all presently manifest as well as potentially available specialisations. Contrariwise, the ideologically-motivated and circumscribed focus on only some of these specialisations keeps the field of vision covered. However, neither of the two perspectives provides scope for formulating methodologies concerning the specialisations to proliferate on their own while holding the choice to integrate with some or all allied specialisations as and when

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considered necessary. All these limitations are overcome by the third perspective but it is usually posited too concisely for its wide dissemination in the body of social scientists. The result is that the idea of a unitary social science is, as yet, theoretically diffused and practically ineffective. Therefore, one example with respect to each of the three perspectives will be cited next and, thereafter, the last mentioned perspective will be elucidated and elaborated for revealing its usefulness. That should be effective for assessing the utility of the concept of a unitary social science in place of many bewildering scholars and thus making them futile for application. Furthermore, proceeding there from and by drawing attention to its methodology, the potentiality of the concept will be indicated for exploring the future of social science. This would be in alignment with contemporarily analogous systems of variation all of whom operate as components of the great family designated as Science for sciencing reality precisely, unequivocally, and comprehensively. Conforming to this programme, the idealist perspective of unitary social science, placed at one end of the scale of variations in formulating the concept, may be illustrated by P. Winch’s The Idea of a Social Science (1958). His treatise was founded upon Gotthold Epraim Lessing’s AntiGoeze, a portion of which Winch translates and places as Foreword to his book: It may indeed be true that moral actions are always the same in themselves, however different the societies in which they occur.

Winch, then, posits the kernel of his viewpoint (ibid: 72): I want to show that the notion of human society involves a scheme of concepts which is logically incompatible with the kinds of explanation offered in the natural sciences.

Finally, Winch concludes his treatise with the following words (ibid: 186): I have made no attempt, in this book, to consider the undoubted differences which exist between particular kinds of social studies, such as, sociology, political theory, economics, and so on. I have wanted rather to bring out certain features of the notion of a social study as such. I do not think that individual methodological differences, important as they may be within their own context, can affect the broad outlines of what I have tried to say. For this belongs to philosophy rather than to what is commonly understood by the term ‘methodology’.

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Winch is, thus, seen to be concerned with the unity of what he categorises as “social studies” and to abjure the idea of a social science, which reminds one of the Newtonian – Cartesian dichotomy leading to the outmoded division between Science and Humanities, even though the title of his book is “The Idea of a Social Science”. Radhakamal Mukherjee’s Presidential Address to the Third All-India Sociological Conference in 1958, entitled “A Philosophy of Social Science” may be situated as the perspective at the other end of the scale of variations in conceiving a unitary social science. Mukherjee declared (1961: 47-8): Obviously, our present social theories, based on an epistemological error, reflect neither the spontaneity and openness of the social reality, nor man’s perennial sense of unity and wholeness in universal nature as he moves to and fro from the conformity to the laws of nature and the social code to the freedom, triumph and transcendence of his own values, and builds up and transforms the physical and social world in the pattern of the latter.

In course of developing his view point, Mukherjee states the utility of what is labelled in this essay as the unitary social science in the following manner with reference to the contemporaneous situation he had briefly narrated in his Address (ibid.:51): The philosophy of social science, recognizing the true status of antinomic and complementary idealization in biology, psychology and all social science disciplines, has in this Age of Troubles a most significant message for the synthesis of the apparently irreconcilable beliefs, ideologies and social and economic systems among blocks of peoples and for the unity and solidarity of mankind.

Finally, Radhakamal Mukherjee concludes his Address with the words (ibid: 52): Thus the philosophy of social science can achieve an identity of the goals and values of the social sciences and of ethics and metaphysics as embodied in the symbolic syntheses of art, myth and religion through which man experiences a harmony and wholeness of being and can bridge the gulf between finite and the infinite, the fleeting and the eternal.

In sum, then, it is seen that Mukherjee does not isolate “social studies” as a category from “social sciences” by drawing a dichotomy between philosophy and science; and, in his own way, endorses the concept of unitary social science. However, he approaches the issue in an abstract and generalised manner. Moreover, in the 1958 conference as well as

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afterwards, he gives the call for the transdisciplinary approach in social science for appraising reality without defining how that approach will be activated and what should be its methodology; that is, on which base and in which manner will transdisciplinary explorations of social science for the appraisal of reality be conducted. Therefore, lacking in a precise formulation of his “philosophy of social science” and elucidation of how it would be activated by the transdisciplinary approach (i. e., positing the manner of identifying a common base for the root of the presently discrete disciplines, ensuring scope for their unlimited proliferation and for accretion of other such disciplines – all designated as specialisations within the orbit of social science), Mukherjee’s well meaning attempt at proposing the unitary perspective of social science becomes as illusive as has been the once popular “transcendental meditation” in the sphere of spiritual idealism. At the median point of the scale of variations in conceiving a unitary social science, the views of D.P. Mukherji may be considered, as contained in his Presidential Address to the First All-India Sociological Conference held in 1955. Entitled “Indian Sociology and Tradition”, the address seems to circumscribe the orbit of discussing the “social sciences” as well as to lean toward whetting the appetite of the “culturologist” and encouraging the traditionalists to move further backwards to traditionalism. But Mukherji scotched these possibilities in his address by adopting aseptic meanings of culture and tradition, as in this essay partly quoted below, and proposed the necessity of conceiving of a unitary social science at the onset of his address in the following manner (Mukherji 1961:20) Sociology has a floor and a ceiling, like any other science, but its specialty consists in its floor being the ground-floor of all types of social disciplines, and its ceiling remaining open to the sky. Neglect of the social base often leads to arid abstractions, as in recent economics. On the other hand, much of empirical research in anthropology and in psychology has been rendered futile because its fields have so far been kept covered. Yet, within this mansion of sociology the different disciplines live. In so far as they live on the same floor, they are bound to come into conflict with each other in the name of autonomy. To pursue the analogy, they seek to divide the house into flats and close the door against each other. But a stage comes when exclusiveness ceases to pay for the living. Such a stage seems to have been reached by nearly all the social sciences.

What Mukherji says above to Indian sociologists in 1955, is applicable equally today not only within India but beyond India to the entire world. Also it encompasses all discrete or unified social science “disciplines”. For

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the proposal is in conformity with the inexorable advance of knowledge for the appraisal of reality from the time of the onset of the term “scientia” to an ever-expanding division of labour in pursuing the task of sciencing: in the present context, from discrete human (social) science disciplines to their analogous and fallacious assembly under the umbrella of an unified social science, and beyond toward a unitary social science. It posits the crucial issue, namely, in order to appraise social reality unequivocally and comprehensively the proposal of a unitary social science must treat the social science subjects as homologous specializations (i. e., having a common origin and not parallel origins) while resting upon a common base with their trajectory of proliferation remaining unrestrictedly open. Now, although the need for a grassroots-level unity of social science subjects and a simultaneous provision for their unlimited specialisation and proliferation may not be questioned because that is the felt-need of the hour, the matter of which one of the specialisations should assume the role of providing a common base may appear to be a controversial issue. Contextually to consider the monarch of all “social sciences”, viz. economics, a profound economist like Hicks has been quoted earlier to state that the categorization of the world of Science (with a capital S) into its components such as the “social sciences” (with a number of small s) is a matter of convenience; but he had also stated in the same breadth (Hicks 1972:1-2): Among the social sciences are economics, politics (the science of government), and sociology, which is not the ‘science of society’, for that should properly include all the social sciences. What are studied by sociologists are those rather miscellaneous aspects of society which economics and politics have left out, or are supposed to have left out.

Sociology is thus given a residual status by Hicks in the gamut of social science specializations, in place of being the base for their integration– as proposed by D.P. Mukherji and found valid in reference to the intrinsic properties of this specialization (vide, Mukherjee 1983, 1993). Nonetheless, Hicks’ viewpoint should be examined as a formidable deviation from it. Accordingly, one notes the caution sounded by Hicks. The lines are in fact not easy to draw; the student of economics should be able to look across them, so that he needs to have some knowledge, at least, of the other social sciences.

This expression of uneasiness in the eclectic mind of a critical scholar, in place of the cock-sure approach as the dominant trend in contemporary economics (which has been discussed in the context of overgrowth of

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economy and polity in Section 3 of this volume), should prompt one to examine the etymology of definitional properties of the discrete social science “disciplines”. For they underwent a sea-change, noticeably from the middle of the twentieth century, and yet, the social science “disciplines” could retain their exclusivity for a while and unify laterally only in case of exigencies because the unity in their definitional properties – denoting their root of origin – was taking place insidiously. This was due to an osmotic process released by the perennial growth in scientific knowledge for the precise, unequivocal, and comprehensive appraisal of reality. The resultant of this process in so far as it could operate only internally, may be illustrated with reference to some noteworthy social science “disciplines”. For instance, complaints were heard on the definition of the content of “economic science” as the study of the relation of human beings with material goods and services (vide, Robbins 1932:4-6), and the demand grew louder to define the subject as the study of the relation among human beings with respect to material goods and services (vide, Sweezy 1946:38). The reformulated definition, which has found more and more adherents, openly or clandestinely, unfolds the vast prospects of the subject and portends a far reaching effect of economics on the sinews of society. This may be illustrated by two brief examples. In a tiny but weighty book entitled Gandhian Economic Thought – with a Foreword by M. K. Gandhi himself – J. C. Kumarappa (1951) pointed out that Gandhi’s concept of non-violence (which has now spread all over the world) was based on the premise of a two-sectoral division of the world economy: namely, the sector of abundance which – according to Gandhi, was depicted by agriculture, husbandry, etc.; and the sector of scarcity visible in minerals, etc., which politically motivates individuals and nations to resort to violence for the acquisition of such goods. Whether or not the theory is efficient for revealing the mechanics of society (which is not within the purview of the present discussion), the role the theory accords to the economy for rejuvenating or destroying the sinews of society cannot be overlooked – as presently it is not by economists of diverse viewpoints, not to speak of all others who are concerned with a scientific appraisal of social reality. In view of political economy – accepted as the “other name” of economics (vide, Hicks 1972:2), this social science subject is intrinsically involved with the evolution and transformation of the class structure of society. But, only one of two components of the concept of class, viz. class in itself, appears sui generis to the “discipline” of economics – because the evolution of the phenomenon depends on the mode, technique, and

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relation of production of material goods and services. The other component, viz. class for itself, is a necessity for the appraisal of the awareness, aspiration, and achievement of the people at a particular sequence in the manifestation of the phenomenon for transforming the class structure of society and, thus, releasing the potential energy of humans for a better quality of life. And, this manifestation of dynamics – complementing the statics of “class in itself” – denotes the mechanics of class as an entity, while portending the display of the kinetic energy of humans in the cauldron of economy, polity, and culture; the third principal attribute of society (noted earlier) comprising the material and mental capital of human achievement and perception to date – and in group formations within and beyond the segment of world society under reference. Briefly, the cause and consequence of economics as a specialisation in the realm of social science would be comprehensively revealed only by the systemic relation it draws with polity and culture – the latter including, among others, the specialisation (discipline?) of psychology to date. Next to examine the lesser monarch in the realm of social science, viz. politics (government): in this case the label has been changed in most instances to political science after World War II in order that the drastic alteration in the focus of attention on the subject-matter of the “discipline” was duly registered. For it concerns itself no more (either predominantly or exclusively) with rarefied Realpolitik and the maneuverings of centralized power blocs. Instead, veering away from dealing with government per se, the subject matter of political science is presently concerned with a consolidated view of a multidirectional flow of secular power – and also, pretentiously or not, secularised sacred power in society; for that power impinges on the people under reference and changes the web of their interrelationships by way of the flow of power. Processually, expected or not and wanted or not, the internal unification of apparently discrete social science disciplines takes place on the axis of culture, economy, and polity. Thus, from the second half of the twentieth century in particular, political science was concerned with increasing homogenization or with the successive separation and usurpation of power between the broadly demarcated elite and the masses in society, in the light of its (a) optimal equal distribution, (b) one-sided usurpation, or (c) leading a segment of the masses toward anarchy. In this perspective, political science in the 195060s dealt mainly with such topics as national, ethnic, and other forms of social movements with reference to the consolidation of, or their alienation

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from, a state in existence; the formation of new states, and the international situation. Sequentially in the 1960-70s, the politicization of the people, with respect to the life they wished to live and with reference to nation states and international relations, played the key-role in revealing the imminent social reality. This is indicated by the issues investigated, like, the “matter of nation-choosing by the individual” (Deutsch 1963:10), the consideration of “late peripheral nationalism against the state” (Linz 1973:32-116), and the “consociation” model of nation-building (Daalder 1973:14-31). In the late 1970s, the subject matter of political science culminated in raging discussions on dependency versus mutual aid among nation-states, the North-South dialogue, etc. From the 1980s, it led logically to the emergence of the drive toward globalisation, with the proclamation of the agenda of liberalisation-privatisation-globalisation (as a parody of the slogan of Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality of the French Revolution in the late 18th century?). One usually forgets in this context that the first call for globalisation was given jointly by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in The Communist Manifesto written a century and half ago (1848): “Workers of the World unite”. This call, evidently, sounded a diametrically different key-note to the secular scale of world polity. However, whether or not in respect of the workers’ or the MNC’s /TNC’s form of globalization (euphemistically referred to as the “peoples’ globalisation”), the point to underscore in the context of the present discussion is that “class” and “state” are two pivotal entities for an examination with respect to the structural, functional, and processual interactions of the people and their societies with reference to the relations of power. Regarding class one should not only examine the fact of “class in itself”, which (as noted) is directly a subject-matter of economics, but also the fact of “class for itself” which intertwines economics with other social science subjects encompassed by the concept of culture and polity. Correspondingly, in order to appraise the mechanics of the state, it is imperative to examine not only the operation of the state in being (viz. the nation-state as it is designated within the U.N. system) but also the state becoming (i.e., the possible and probable avenues for separating from a state power and the consolidation of other nation cum state formations). The latter component, denoting the dynamics of building the nation-state, draws one’s attention for appraising a state power precisely and comprehensively, just as “class for itself” is the key issue for appreciating the role of class in society.

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Contextually one should appreciate that the processes of alienation and consolidation of state powers are engineered by the course of unequal exchange in material and mental amenities in the life of the people. The course operates according to conjoint manoeuvers of (a) class; (b) polity as denoting the progression from ethnicity to nationality and then, to a national or multinational state affiliation; and (c) cultures as encompassing inherited or acquired psychology, language – the sign and symbol of communication, religion, ethics, and such other of its ingrained components which are relevant to the operation of the aforesaid course of inequality (vide, Mukherjee 1979:140-206). The point made here has been explored from diverse aspects. For example; A. Emmanuel (1972) examined the bourgeoisie and the working class in the United States vis-à-vis the bourgeoisie and the masses in India. S. Amin (1978) interpreted Arab nationalism with reference to its historical and material foundations. F. Froebel et al (1980) proposed a different perspective to the international division of labour. A. Arrighi (1978) examined the efficiency of V.I. Lenin’s theory on imperialism in the context of alternate viewpoints. A.G. Frank (1970, 1972, 1975) posed the nuances of bourgeoisie in the Third World as national, comprador, or lumpen in the light of their behavioural patterns concerning “development of underdevelopment” which embraces all aspects of human life. I. Wallerstein (1979:66-84) proposed a solution to the perennial debate on the absolute or relative pauperisation of the working class as relative within a nation-state but absolute in the world perspective. And, more than a century earlier, K. Marx and F. Engels discussed the Irish Question with reference to the English and the Irish working class “divided into two hostile camps” (Marx 1870:506) because of the invagination of polity and culture into the economy and, thus, turning the English working class into a “bourgeous proletariat” as against the merely proletarian Irish working class (Engels 1858:491-2). All such deliberations with nuances of meta-polity in respect of the phenomena of nation-building (or formation) and state-formation (or consolidation) indicate, in the first instance, that while a nation is obviously a supra class entity because it comprises both complementary and contradictory elements of classes, a particular class plays the role of catalyst in nation-formation by means of its hegemony over the establishment and operation of a national market and, on that basis, aspires to control or wield the immanent state-power. A state, correspondingly, may proclaim that it is there to serve the interests of all the people under its suzerainty but, basically, it serves the interest of a particular class. These two formulations may provoke a debate with those who view a

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nation and state (and, thus, nation-state) as omnipotent, but the latter viewpoint is belied by the contemporary world scenario. And, the same scenario underscores the necessity for the simultaneous consideration of the following facts and the conclusion which inevitably follows therefrom: 1. “Class in itself” is a matter of deduction from the relations of production and property, as arising out of a particular mode of production and the state of development of the productive forces. It may, therefore, be regarded as manifest. 2. “Class for itself”, on the other hand, is a matter of inference with reference to what is regarded as the expression of class consciousness. Therefore, until class struggle erupts and proceeds toward its logical conclusion, it may be regarded as latent. 3. Contrariwise, “nation in itself” (i.e., an identified or identifiable nation-state) is a matter of inference on whether anti-systemic struggle against the established power will emerge in a state with a view of leading to the formation of a new uni national state or the consolidation of a multinational state. Therefore, it is latent. 4. Correspondingly, “nation for itself” is observable because of the movements of people which express national consciousness. Therefore, it is manifest. It follows that latent class consciousness may be confounded with manifest national consciousness and create a conundrum in the appraisal of interrelations between class and state. Therefore, in order to solve this puzzle, one is required to examine world society – in any segmental or the overall configuration – in terms not only of its polity and economy but also in terms of its culture (which encompasses psychology) traditionally inherited and/or acquired during the life-time (as already noted). Furthermore, one must delve into history characterized as “an unending dialogue between the present and the past” (vide, Carr 1964:30). Thus, contemporary explorations in political science would be constrained by remaining confined to the boundary of “politics”, even though freeing itself from the shackles of Realpolitik and its maneuverings. Ever accumulating systemic knowledge on the appraisal of social reality beckons this social science “discipline” to enter into a systemic relationship with economy and culture – which, in its turn, is involved with all the extant social science “disciplines” – as well as

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beyond them, such as, history as Geschichte which records the symbiosis of culture, economy, and polity in the past. To examine, next, the “discipline” of psychology: its incorporation into the fold of culture has already been noted for a comprehensive appreciation of economy and polity. On its own, the subject-matter of psychology emerged as rooted in respective individuals, dealing with his/her mind and the mental process. These manifestations, in their turn, are crystallised into perception (i.e., the mental grasp of objects, qualities, etc.) by means of the senses confounded with image (i.e., a mental picture of a certain thing, conception, idea or impression). As a result, a segment of psychology was reckoned akin to physiology and medicine, and (as noted) went over, in due course, to the realm of the biological sciences and, presently, also geared to the scope of the neurosciences. The other segment of psychology was labelled, first, as social psychology and, eventually, assumed the “disciplinary” role of psychology itself. It focused its attention on the mind for identifying human behaviour as “normal” or “deviant” (= abnormal); and this dichotomy gave psychology access to delve into economy and polity, while being a component of culture. Otherwise, one would fail to appreciate precisely and comprehensively the works of S. Freud (Totem and Taboo, etc.), W. Stekel (Frigidity in Women, etc.), H. Elis (e.g., The Psychology of Sex), R. von Kraft-Ebbing (e.g., Psychopathia Sexualis), and so on with the works of C.G. Jung and others – who may or may not belong to the Gestalt School of psychology. Moreover, in course of the accumulation of a systematic knowledge in social science, the innate character of what is “normal” is questioned with respect to different groups of people and their societies. Accordingly, intra-and inter-society variability in the mental make-up of the people is enquired into, along with deviations from such probability determined (not imputed) behaviour patterns. Only in this way may one explain the rigid distinction drawn in Victorian England between “County” (signifying the gentry) and “Country” (signifying the commoners) and why that distinction became pointless with Britain losing her hold over world economy, polity and culture, leading to successive intra-society upheavals in the first and second halves of the twentieth century and afterwards to date. Similarly, V. Pareto’s definitions of the elite and the masses (vide, Pareto 1968: 1915-8) in “psychological” terms by imputing the attribute Mr. (reasoning) to the elite and Ms. (instincts, sentiments, etc.) to the masses, which was in tune with the innate characterization of “rationality” by one popular school of Western philosophy and which was subsequently

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entertained by the previously professed and presently sublimated Nazi/Fascist view of life and living, has proved pernicious in the national and international arena of world economy, polity, and culture – as illustrated in chapters 2 and 3 of this volume. Likewise, as also pointed out in chapters 2 and 3, several other categorizations of a social structure in a national or international perspective on any innate “normal-deviant” basis may hinder the course of appraising social reality for fulfilling the cardinal valuations (noted in chapter 1 of this volume) for humankind. Also, viewed in this manner, the contentious appreciation of several fallacious or fundamental contributions to social science may be resolved. Such as, an amalgamated economic-political cultural foundation for Max Weber’s portrayal of the societal upheaval recorded in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism would make the scenario unequivocally comprehensive, in place of its biased rendering on the basis of an unilateral view of so-called “psychologically” oriented conceptualization of rationality as an innate attribute. The point made is substantiated by Max Weber’s view on designating the Indian caste system by the “rational” elite and its persistence among the masses because of their “psychological” acceptance of the “normative” behaviour pattern ordained, in the words of Weber, by the “combination of caste legitimacy with karma doctrine, thus with the specific Brahmanical theodicy” (Weber 1958:131). This has proved to be historically fallacious and contemporaneously false, as discussed in chapters 2 and 3 of this volume. Contrariwise, even though his interpretation may be disputed, E. Durkheim’s conceptualization of anomie as a “psychological” deviance in society – leading to suicide in a rapidly urbanising situation (vide, Durkheim 1930), is developed on a mundane (and not illusory) plane of symbiotic appreciation of culture, economy, and polity. Likewise, in the time-perspective of immanent social change which involves a symbiotic but kaleidoscopic unity of the attributes of culture, economy, and polity, K. Marx’s elaboration on alienation of the working class in the nineteenth century (whether or not subsumed to be perennially applicable) in the context of the generation of surplus value from industrial production (vide, Marx 1946: 59ff, 597-8; 1951) is brought into relief by considering psychologically motivated behaviour patterns on a probability basis in the given social situation. This point is now increasingly realized in the academia, namely, that the “discipline” of psychology has forsaken its primeval “normal-deviant” dichotomy on an innate rationality base. Instead, it has moved over to a different but high to low density of probable behaviour patterns of the respectively concerned milieu of people in order to portray the structural-

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functional-processual variations in society as deduced at a time point or inferred over a time period. As an example of this kind of internalization of “psychology” in the realm of social science, one finds the analysis of Violence in America (Carstairs 1970:751-64) in the light of economy, polity and culture determining the behaviour patterns of individuals categorized into relevant social groups. One may also note (Lewin 1963:156): “Child psychology has established beyond doubt that within the first years of life social perception (emphasis added) is well under way”. And, one finds a young scholar scrutinizing “The Study and Amelioration of Social Evil” in the United States during 1900-40 (Ghatak 2005). To proceed beyond the “disciplines” which are traditionally acknowledged to be within the ambit of social science, the claim of history to belong to this fold from that of Humanities is grudgingly admitted after World War II, as mentioned in chapter 1 of this volume. At the beginning it used to be labelled as a sub-specialisation in the field of economy, polity or culture; and lately its status as a specialization on its own merit and recording a symbiotic unity of culture, economy, and polity is being increasingly admitted, even though sparsely as yet. Maurice Dobb’s Studies in the Development of Capitalism (1946) is a landmark venture of a historical account of economy, polity, and culture but it used to be categorized as a treatise in “economic history”. A. L. Morton’s A People’s History of England (1951) was regarded as a venture against hagiography and as belonging to the genre of “political history” even though he treated history to present a past account of the economy, polity, and culture of the people. Niharranjan Ray’s Bangaleer Itihas (in Bengali, 1951) was considered as an example of “social (cultural) history” even though he presented a systemic account of the peoples and their societies located in Bengal from ancient times to the reigns of Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim monarchs. Later, the claim of history as a specialisation in social science on its own ground has been accepted, hesitatingly at first and then forcefully. Such as: The Agrarian System of Mughal India: 1556-1707 by Irfan Habib (1963), The World We Have Lost by P. Laslett (1965), Roll, Jordon, Roll: The World Slaves Made by E.D. Genovese (1974), Some Central Problems Concerning the Proto-Industrial thesis and Pre-colonial South Asia by F. Perlin (1981), etc.; leading to, particularly from the beginning of the twenty-first century, an abundance of such publications in history – more insightful and in-depth studies of culture, economy and polity in the past – which should not be dubbed compartmentally as economic,

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political, or cultural history but viewed in their inseparable assemblage in society. In fact, history is one of the subjects from the fold of Humanities which, as Geschichte, assumed directly a rightful place as a subject for specialisation under the suzerainty of a unitary social science. It furnishes a systemically enjoined account of the economy, polity, and culture of the people in one or another of their societal configurations – located on a series of time-points extended as far back as for which valid informationitems are available to fathom the information-space. In this way, history unfolds the life and living of humans from the remote past to the threshold of the present. Likewise, several other subjects have entered into the arena of social science from different categories of the family of Science since the middle of the twentieth century, as mentioned in chapter 1 of this volume. Of them, demography and ecology are contemporarily two notable examples. Disregarding the perimeter set by the actuaries, as pointed out by L.T. Dublin and A.J. Lotka while presenting A Study of the Life Tables (1936:iii-iv), demography entered the arena of social science for investigating the growth, decay, and movement of population. There have been attempts to compartmentalize the content of demography under the labels of economic, political, social (meaning, cultural), and even historical demography; but the efficiency of such compartmentalisation is fallacious because of (a) presenting a fragmented instead of a comprehensive view of the substance of the subject or (b) occasionally a distorted portrayal of social reality (vide, A. Bose 2001, 2005 in both contexts). In fact, demography within the orbit of social science is basically concerned with drawing a systemic relationship among culture, economy, and polity for the appraisal of social reality, as meticulous researches in the subject brought out long ago (e.g. Glass [ed.] 1954). Ecology, which used to be defined as a “branch of biology dealing with living organisms’ habits, modes of life, and relations to their surroundings” (Oxford Concise Dictionary – earlier editions) has undergone a sea-change in its definition particularly since the second half of the twentieth country. It explicitly indicates the inclusion of the subject into the fold of social science: such as, “the study of relationship and adjustment of human groups to their geographical and social environment” (Webster’s New World Dictionary – 1988 edition). Reflecting the changed orientation and the emphasis in its meaning, ecology, which was originally considered an exclusively biological subject, came to be regarded, in the nascent stage of its entry into the arena of social science, as a subject designated Human Geography, while Human Ecology was also a term

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which came into use. Subsequently, ecology permeated systemically into social science with reference to the culture, economy, and polity of the people concerned. There are many indications of this transformation from the end of the third quarter of the twentieth century to date. To mention a few: 1. The debate on “limits to growth” posed, firstly, by the club of Rome (vide, Meadows et al 1972) and taken up by other social scientists (e.g., Messarovic and Pestel 1974, Herera et al 1976, Leontief et al 1977). 2. The contentions on the unbounded human potential for transformation into kinetic energy in order to fulfill the cardinal valuation of humankind in the perspective of contemporaneous scientific and technological developments (vide, Fedoseyev 1977: 83-108) and the rider of imperatives of endogenous development in the Third World by means of interactions of science and technology through ethno science and ethno- technology (vide, Tsurumi 1977:147-73; Singh 1977: 131-46; Mukherjee 1977:11-23). 3. The emphasis placed on ecology, presently, in consideration of social science en bloc (i.e., unitary social science de facto), which has become endemic to discussions and decisions on the present and the future of humankind as well as of the planet itself (with all its manifestations) in relevant U.N. bodies as, for instance, in the context of the Kyoto Protocol. More examples may be cited concerning the conceptual and/ or operational shift of the social science “disciplines”, including new entrants to the realm of social science. For example, after World War II the demographers prophesied a lurid future of humankind if the prevailing rate of doubling the world population in every quarter-century continued unabated – especially in the Third World. The social philosophers and social scientists steeped in an innate characterization of rationality concluded that it was due to the irrational instinct of the masses for unrestrained sexual union without any safeguard. The remedy, they declared, lay in making them rational by means of education – beginning with mass campaigns although even the aboriginal men and women in the remote regions of Australia were aware of the biological process of producing children and in their own way practiced birth-control (vide, Ploss, Bartels, and Bartels 1927). The futility of such a “rational” remedy

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was announced by devoted social workers for the New Continent in their lament: “And the Poor Get Children” (Lee 1960). Also, contrary to the above-mentioned “rational” view on the “social” problem, mundane researches in South and Southeast Asia, India in particular, elicited the fact of differential rationality of the people from meticulous researches in the milieu, as summarized below (vide, Mukherjee 1976): 1. The thin well-to-do stratum at the top of society does not usually produce more than 2 children – and, preferably, only one son or daughter – per couple, as befitting their mental satisfaction commensurate with their material prosperity; except, in the latter context, those engaged in such jointfamily business enterprises as require intimately trusted executives best provided by their own progeny assuming the role of owner-executives – male and or female. 2. Another, not very large, stratum at the bottom of society requires as many children as they can produce; for child labour is essential for their survival. 3. In-between the above two extreme strata, there are the people en masse who earn from their livelihood hardly any more than they must consume to survive. So, for survival in old age, they yarn for two sons – one, at least, to look after them in old age and the other as insurance in case the first son dies before they are old. They do not expect sustenance in old age from their daughters because under the prevailing patrilineal social system they should look after their old in-laws. The upshot is that the binomial probability of fulfilling their desire to have two sons on this very rational basis yields them 1-2 daughters as well, in general. Summarily, the fact that in Asia in particular and in the Third World in general the population tends to double itself in every 20-25 years is not due to the absence of any innate rationality of the people. It results from contextual economy, polity, and culture of the concerned people which exhibit differential rationality of apposite social strata for optimising the relation between the end and the means available. Thus it is seen from the examples cited over a wide spectrum of old and new social science subjects that, firstly, from the second half of the twentieth century there is a thread running through them of culture, economy, and polity in symbiosis; which incorporate the most essential components of the mechanics of society. The thread also indicates that

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while the inexorable process – resulting from a continuous accumulation of knowledge on society – transcends the discipline-wise boundaries, it initially operates insidiously. Thereby, it rejuvenates the “disciplines” to retain their exclusivity for a while, despite the crisis set in the “free” world after World War II. However, the safety valve devised at the same time for bypassing the crisis – namely, the unified social sciences – has failed to achieve its purpose and, in rebound, has exposed that the newly designed “disciplines” can no larger retain their exclusivity. Therefore, the time is ripe for integrating them as respective specializations in unitary social science by providing, to begin with, a base for their homologous emergence at the grassroots level as well as for ensuring their viability during the period of incubation, while leaving them to proliferate unrestrictedly afterwards. This base is provided by sociology, despite Hick’s opinion that it is a “residual” subject; for the aspects of germination and incubation of the social science specializations compose a component of its curriculum. Anthropology could also have the same claim, but that is forfeited by the decadence to decay of colonial anthropology while post-colonial anthropology’s existence as an independent specialization is in jeopardy and there is the swing toward it being auxiliary to sociology (in the main) or to other social science specializations, as examined in chapter 2 of this volume. On the other hand, like all other specializations in the field of social science, sociology proliferates freely – which is ensured by its own curriculum. Therefore, D.P. Mukherji’s aforesaid proposition is vindicated as a topical necessity for establishing the conceptual moorings of unitary social science. The point, now, is to explore the methodology of unitary social science as distinct from the technique to be employed for effecting the methodology. For, methodology may aptly be defined as the principle of reasoning for the acquisition of knowledge while technique is concerned with the procedure and skills for enacting a method and should not be equated to methodology. Therefore, the methodology for unitary social science is predicated by its theory (i. e., the conceptual proposition and its clarification) and succeeded by the kernel of the technique to be applied for activating the methodology, while the tools of the technique will be honed, refined, and devised anew for applying the latter skillfully with reference to the above context. Viewed in this manner, the methodology for unitary social science is revealed from the second lesson learnt in reference to the examples cited: namely, the fallacy of defining rationality as an innate mental

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characteristic for maximizing the contextual transactions in place of denoting the optimization of the same transactions on the probability-base of considering the exigent situation ruled by the congruence of place-timepeople coordinates. However, before proceeding to the discussion thus called for, a common place micro view of optimising the relation between the end and the means – entailing probable (and not invariable) manoeuvers with reference to different social contexts – may be instructive. Such as, in the light of a poorly developed commodity economy in a weakly governed society, it would be quite rational for a milkman to mix water in milk for sale in order to augment his meagre profit on which his family lives whereas in the larger context of the society as a whole this appraisal of reality by the milkman would be irrational because of hindering social growth in terms of a wholesome ensemble of culture, economy, and polity. The macro view on the relative efficiency of the innate or the variable perspective of rationality for an unequivocal appraisal of social reality is substantiated by the previously prevalent and the presently sponsored definitional properties of subjects like economics, political science, and psychology, as well as by the past and the contemporary orientations to explorations in subjects like history, demography, and ecology. Although the above-mentioned temporal changes have been noted in the foregoing pages, yet in the context of proposing the methodology for unitary social science their mot juste may be pointed out. Namely: 1. Robbins’ definition of ‘economic science” as the study of the relations of human beings with material goods and services rests upon an innate characterization of rationality for maximizing the contextual transactions whereas Sweezy’s definition of economics as the study of relations among human beings for the same sort of transactions rests upon the probability wise variations of rationality for optimisation in a given context of the social (i.e.cultural/economic/political) situation. 2. The shift in the nomenclature of politics (=government) to political science veers away from the aforesaid innate characterization of rationality – on which Realpolitik is founded and moves over to the optimal characterisation of rationality in consideration of the multi-directional flows of secular power in society; that is, the power which governs the role of incumbent rulers and the ruled in variable placetime-people constellations and is itself governed by people’s differential rationality.

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Regarding psychology, the issue of rationality is underscored by the shift from a maximal and rigid conceptualisation of the normal-deviant dichotomy governed by the innate character of rationality to the optimal and fluid view of the normal-deviant continuum in the light of probability-based variable characterisations of rationality in the given social situations. 4. Noticeably, similar fallacies and their resolutions are implicit to history and explicit to demography and ecology. 5. Equally, anthropology and sociology used to be guided by an innate evaluation of rationality as against those pioneers and their successors to whom the people’s differential view of rationality, impregnated with their social structural variations, was inescapable and accepted; while there are some notables whose views seem ambivalent and may be located in-between above two. As example under the first category may be mentioned Malinowski (1947), Weber (as cited earlier), Tonnies (1955:263-5), Pareto (1968:1915-8), Mumford (1944:10-1, 333-7), Hobhouse (1938-74-5, 342-3), Ginsberg (1953:239-44), etc.; under the second category, Morgan (1946:535ff), Durkheim (1949:256-62), Spencer (1967:12-6 ff), Rousseau (1912:101-25), Mauss (1954:80), Mannheim (1957:137-9), Marcuse (1969:52-6), etc; and under the queried third category, Comte (1848:117-20, 440), Simmel (vide, Wolf 1950:109-10), etc. It follows that the methodology for unitary social science does not present the innate property of rationality through various channels for elucidating the life and living of human beings. That is the kernel of spiritualist-idealist philosophy and was applied to Human Science under the label of Humanities via the Newtonian – Cartesian dichotomy narrated in chapter 1 of this volume. Subliminally or not, the “disciplines” emerging on this base clung to the pre-determined portrayal of rationality to a large measure, although ever accumulating knowledge on society compelled them to undertake empirical investigations and that helped their elevation to the status of social sciences. Contrariwise, the methodology of unitary social science is concerned with the differential understanding of rationality, as prima facie reflected by the variable behaviour patterns of humans under different social situations. Posited succinctly, this methodology does not rest upon defining rationality as ordained by determinacy but as a mental construct

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which is motivated by economy, modulated by polity, and moored in society by the culture of the people concerned. Interpreting rationality in this manner would register resonance with Karl Popper’s concept of “critical rationalism” (Popper 1968:16ff); Thomas Kuhn’s formulation of a rational (not irrational) perspective for his Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) and his statement therein that the paradigms of scientists keep changing as culture changes; Niels Bohr’s viewpoint that while “the existence of life must be considered as a starting point in biology, in a similar way as the quantum of action, which appears as an irrational element from the point of view of classical mechanical physics, taken together with the existence of the elementary particles, forms the foundation of quantum mechanics” (quoted in Stent 1969:19); Gunther Stent’s own view that “the brain may not be capable, in the last analysis, of providing an explanation of itself” (ibid.:74); and, finally, Francis Bacon’s urging “society to lay aside the idea of evolving the universe from a thought and to try evolving thought from the universe” (vide, Adams 1961:484). This shift in the methodological presentation of rationality, incipient earlier but inherent to the execution of the concept of unitary social science, totally removes the Newtonian-Cartesian dichotomy which may linger in the mental horizon of some social scientists – even though the dichotomy was dissolved long ago in favour of social science and had thereby lifted the “disciplines”, relegated to the category of Humanities under the rubric of “social studies”, to the status of social sciences. Successively this way, on the basis of tangible (not illusory) argument, social science as the unitary discipline harmonises with the other primary categorizations of Science (viz., natural, biological, and earth) made after the coinage of the term scientia. For all the categories have henceforth shed their deterministic stance and moved over to “indeterminacy”-based systematic exploration of their schematically demarcated manifestations of reality as probability sciences. Thus situated, the proposed methodology for unitary social science may be acceptable to the academia at large and not just to any coterie of initiates. Some comments in conformity with the proposal – made in a general or a specific context – are placed below: 1. Max Weber had stated: “Sciences are founded and their methods are progressively developed only when substantive problems are discovered and solved” (Weber 1968:217).

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Karl Popper applied his “falsification” tenet for denouncing the pursuit of “logical positivists” as well as for circumscribing any exclusive scope to the inductive method of observation and conclusion (Popper 1985); nevertheless, the tenet is a part and parcel of the inductive method for rejecting false notions and accumulating true knowledge by means of rigorously designed, scrupulously executed, and thus verified observations and conclusions – such as, the earth is spherical and not flat. Moreover, Popper had underscored the point “to use any method in searching for truth” (Popper 1968:15) while his World of Propensities (1990) is akin to the probability method on which rests (as noted in chapter 1 of this volume) the proliferation of post-Newtonian ventures for acquiring knowledge.

3.

Paul Feyrabend in Against Method (1975) confronted philosophy for providing a methodology or rationale for science because there is no rationale to explain; however, he was emphatic on the point that restricting science to a particular methodology would destroy it. Feyrabend, thus, endorses and asserts the cryptic message of Francis Bacon: plus ultra, viz. “more beyond” (vide, Medawer 1984). All the same, the substance of the proposed method may draw flak from two polar opposite standpoints; namely, from the positivists deriding causality at one end, and at the other, the votaries of absolute causality deriding its relative context. The two contending caucuses have penetrated deep and spread wide in the realm of science: to the point that even natural science (to wit its specialization: physics) has not been free from either of them, as Max Planck had discussed. Extracts from his writing on Where is Science Going? (1933) may be instructive on both above mentioned contexts, as placed here under points 1 and 2 with specific reference to physics but also to science in general: 1.

The beginning of every act of knowing, and therefore the starting-point of every science, must be in our own personal experience. I am using the word, experience, here in its technical philosophical connotation, namely, our direct sensory perception of outside things. …This subject-matter of our scientific

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constructions, being the immediate reactions of what we see, hear, feel, and touch, forms immediate data and indisputable reality. If physical science could discharge its function by merely concatenating these data and reporting them, then nobody could question the reliability of its foundations. But the problem is: Does this foundation fully meet the needs of physical science? …There is a certain school of philosophers and physicists who hold that this and this alone forms the scope of physical science… The school which puts forward this view is generally called the Positivist School… Now let us ask, is the foundation which Positivism offers broad enough to support the whole structure of physical science? The answer to this question is to ask where Positivism would lead if we once were to accept it as offering the sole groundwork of physical science. (pp. 67-69)… When we come from [the plant and] the animal world to the world of human beings we find the positivist scientists making a clear distinction between one’s impressions and the impressions of others. One’s own impressions are the sole reality and they are realities for oneself. The impressions of another person are only indirectly knowable to us. As objects of knowledge they signify something fundamentally different from our own impressions. …Now it is clear that on the basis of a mere individual complex of experience not even the most gifted of men could construct anything like a comprehensive scientific system…. Those who [the positivists] lean towards the discipline that I have been describing deny the idea and the necessity of an objective physical science which is independent of the actual experiencing and sense-perceiving investigator… Now I think it is obvious here that if physical science as such were to accept this position, as the exclusive basis of research, then it would find itself trying to support a huge structure on a very inadequate foundation. A science that starts off by predicating objectivity has already passed sentence on itself. …No science can rest its foundation on the dependability of single human individuals. And the moment we have made that statement we have taken a step which puts us off the logical pathway of the positivist system…. Once we take this step we lift the goal of physical science to a higher level. It is not restricted to mere description of bare facts of experimental discovery; but it aims at furnishing an ever-increasing knowledge of the real outer world around us. (pp 76-77, 81-82). …Having once assumed the existence of an independent outer world,

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science concomitantly assumes the principle of causality as a concept entirely independent of sense-perception (p.139). The Law of Causality was unanimously accepted until recent times as a fundamental principle in scientific research. But now a battle of opinion is being waged around it. Does the principle of causality, as hitherto believed, hold good in all its force for every physical happening? Or has it only a summary and statistical significance when applied to finer atoms? This question cannot be decided by referring to any epistemological theory or by putting it to the test of research measurements. (p.99)… The macroscopic investigator reckons only with mass values and knows only statistical laws. The microscopic investigator reckons with individual values and applies to them dynamical law in its full significance. [P]hysical science applies the macroscopic method to all happenings where molecules and atoms are concerned. But it naturally strives to refine its treatment towards the microscopic degree of delicacy and always seeks to reduce statistical laws to a dynamic and strictly causal system. Therefore, it may be said here that physical science, together with astronomy and chemistry and mineralogy, are all based on the strict and universal validity of the principle of causality….Of course it may be said that the law of causality is only after all an hypothesis. If it be a hypothesis it is not a hypothesis like most of the others, but it is a fundamental hypothesis because it is the postulate which is necessary to give sense and meaning to the application of all hypotheses in scientific research. This is because any hypothesis which indicates a definite rule presupposes the validity of the principle of causation. (p.150)…[S]cientific thought is identical with causal thought, so much so that the last goal of every science is the full and complete application of the causal principle to the object of research. (p.158)…..It would be quite superficial to take the relativity of time and space, and halt firmly within the confines of that concept without asking whither it leads. As a matter of fact the concept of relativity is based on a more fundamental absolute which it has supplanted. Over and over again in the history of science it has happened that concepts which at one time were looked upon as absolute were subsequently shown to be only of relative value; and this is exactly what has happened in regard to the former concept of space and time. But when an absolute concept is thus relativised, this does not mean that the quest for

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absolute becomes eliminated from scientific progress. (pp. 194195)… The absolute represents an ideal goal which is always ahead of us and which we can never reach…. To bring the approach closer and closer to truth is the aim and effort of all science. (p.199) It may be worthy of mention in the present context that two decades before Max Planck thus underscored the necessity to search for causality of phenomena and indicated sequential as well as successive appreciation of relative and absolute causality, the relevance of examining causality along with the progression of scientific knowledge was noted in the wellknown Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britanica under the caption “Science” (Whethan 1911:396): “It was only when a considerable progress has been made with ordered knowledge that men began to ask questions about the meaning and causes of the phenomena, and to discern the connections between them”. Also interestingly, six decades after Max Planck’s above-quoted statement, Hawking substantiated the efficiency of drawing the relationship between relative and absolute causality in the light of Einstein’s theories on relativity and quantum mechanics (Hawking 2001:104-9). Einstein himself once said of his own theory of relativity that it “will have to yield to another one, for reasons which at present we do not yet surmise. I believe that the process of deepening the theory has no limits.” (Quoted by Barrow 1991:88). Even so, it is noteworthy with respect to the present discussion that the above extracts from Max Planck’s Where is Science Going? of three quarters of a century ago point out that even natural science – for which the subject-object distinction was transparent as per the NewtonianCartesian controversy – had undergone a similar vicissitude as social science has later passed through: namely, the contention between empirical-positivists and ideational-absolutists, the complementarity of the micro and macro approaches to the scientific appraisal of reality, and the necessity of applying statistical principles for explicating the macro approach. The last concern was further mentioned by Plank as a sine qua non to biological science and implied its indispensability for social science. To quote Planck in the above order (Planck 1933:147-148, 122,128): [E]ven in the most obscure problems, such as the problem of heredity, biology is approaching more and more to the explicit assumption of the universal validity of causal relations……. Of course the microscopic method of research is very much more difficult to carry out in physiology

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than in physics. For this latter reason the majority of physiological laws is of a statistical character and is called a rule. When an exception occurs in the application of these empirically established rules, this is not attributed to any skip or failure in the causal relation but rather to a want of knowledge and skill in the way that the rule is applied….. Very often it happens that this further study of exceptions shows interrelations which were hitherto unheard of, and throws a new light on the rules under which the exceptions were originally found to occur. It very often happens that the causal relation is thus corroborated from a new side, and that is the way in which many significant discoveries have been made. In the light of this theory [empirical positivism as propagated by John Locke and David-Hume] the so-called outer-world resolves itself into a complex of sense-impressions and the principle of causation signifies nothing more than a certain order experienced in the sequence of one sensation after another. The idea of order is itself a sense-impression which must be taken as something immediately given and which does not permit of further analysis, for that order may come to an end at any moment. Therefore, there is no causation. One thing is observed to follow another but observation cannot assert that it is “causal” by that other thing… To sum up, empiricism is unassailable on the fundamental ground of pure logic; and its conclusions are equally impregnable. But if we look at it purely from the viewpoint of knowledge it leads to a blind alley which is called solipsism [the theory that the conscious being is I].

Solipsism in any aspect of social science is hardly worth mentioning today. Also, causality on a probability base for acquiring knowledge through social science is not as disputed now as it used to be. The transition has been traced particularly in chapters 1 and 2 of this volume. Furthermore, it may be worthy of note that Hawking, who declares himself a positivist but seems not to abjure causality, defines the “positivist approach” as the idea that a scientific theory is “a mathematical model that ascribes and codifies the observations we make” (Hawking 2001: 206). Yet a distinctive difference between the social and the other categories of Science and the resolution of this difference for a comprehensive apprehension of the methodology of unitary social science should be examined for defining the present scope of social science and its future prospect in the realm of science. This is necessary because comments like that of Gunther Stent quoted below are not infrequent in the circle of socalled “hard sciences”, namely: “[Social Sciences] may long remain the ambiguous, impressionistic disciplines that they are at present” (Stent 1969: 121). The primary valuation of the subject under reference for confounding information-items with value in order to transform them into data-items is the same for all categories of Science, as discussed in chapter 1 of this

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volume. But, as also pointed out, the scope for secondary valuation – which is commonly regarded as “value” for all sciences – emerges in the case of the non-social sciences after structuring, in Max Planck’s words, the building stones of the edifice of science; such as, the use or misuse of atomic fission; researches into germs for purposes of war or peace; investigations into genetics for the welfare or destruction of living species; and so on. On the other hand in the case of social science, the secondary valuation – denoted by the blanket term “value” – begins with the handling of data for the appraisal of reality. Value-free social science, therefore, has been a transient announcement bearing the legacy of “social studies” under Humanities. But the general run of scholars is seen to consider value as a discrete variable for the appraisal of social reality. This standpoint is founded upon the innate conception of rationality, of which the variable but discrete values (viz. secondary valuations) are different emanations. Max Weber epitomized this trend of reasoning for inculcating value in order to truly depict “scientific objectivity” in social science and not mechanistically – the implication to his perennial polemics with the views of Karl Marx, albeit seldom mentioning his name or works (vide, Weber’s writings from 1904 onwards mentioned in chapters 2 and 3 of this volume). Thus discarding value-judgment (Werturteil), valuespecific subjectivity of social action-behaviour-relationship has been the motif of Weber’s methodology of social science. This specificity of value is based upon his formulations of Wertfreiheit to Wertbeziehung with respect to Wissenscaft als beruf and announcement of his oft-mentioned call for Verstehen – all in conformity with his concept of “rationalization” ending in the pronouncement of charisma, a supernatural manifestation in a place-time-people context. As a result, while impregnating action, behaviour and relationship, value in its succeeding manifestations becomes a disparate variable for the conception of social reality by Weber and the weberians who, as already described, presently dominate the field of social science knowledge. To them, objectification of the subjectivity of succeeding manifestations in the light of high probability-densities of the same valuation, as posed at the beginning of chapter 1 of this volume, is puerile, naïve, or simplistic – and surely unreal. This view applies not only to the general run of sociologists and anthropologists but also to the bulk of political scientists and economists, as it should be obvious from their views noted in chapters 2 and 3 of this volume. Karl Popper proceeds beyond and toward a stage further by positing the value accommodation approach which derides the principle of exclusive value-acceptance. In respect of all categories of Science he

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declares that “the objectivity of scientific statements lies in the fact that they can be inter-subjectively tested” (Popper 1968:44). One may interpret Popper’s standpoint as also treating value as a synoptic and not an analytic variable, but one cannot overlook his stance that values are not disparate; instead, they are systematically ordered for testing inter-subject variations. And, once the systematic ordering of value-variables is on the agenda, it cannot but lead to their systemic exploration for elucidating, on a probability basis, the relative relevance, necessity, and efficiency of a set of value-loads for the appraisal of reality. Value is, then, transformed into a variate, as different from a variable which is “a varying quantity where the nature of the variation is unspecified” (Kendal and Buckland 1957: viii). This is what has been posited at the beginning of this volume in a preliminary form, which should be developed rigorously and surpass the preliminary attempts in order to treat the secondary valuation in an appropriate manner for resolving the apparent distinction between the social and the other categories of Science – in place of harping on the uniqueness of social science. But, unlike in the case of structural and behavioral variables, value as a variable for measurement is seldom used in social science except for opinion and attitudinal studies. It has been shown that the apparently irredeemable dichotomy between the contentions of “limits to growth” of human society and its so far limitless potentialities can be rendered into a systemic series (Mukherjee 1989:67-70, 82-88). The professed “distances” among the Indian political parties according to the overview of their election manifestos are actually quite different when these documents are systemically put to a rigorous analysis of their announced values (ibid:71-2, 90-108). The comprehensive views on the quality of life of two widely separated sets of people can be precisely comprehended by systemically measuring the inter-segmental and inter-group variations within the respective segments with respect to the concerned peoples’ valuations of a better quality of life as denoted by their awareness of it, aspirations for attaining it, and their mere expectations or actions for achieving it (ibid: 113-204). Furthermore, the need-based perspectives of the elite and the want-based perspectives of the masses on the quality of life of the people en bloc can be juxtaposed for an efficient appraisal of social reality (ibid: 202-24) Even these stray examples in the global, nation-state, and inter-regional nation-state contexts should enforce the point that the methodology of unitary social science invokes the technology of statistics for its application in the immediate perspective as well as for establishing the correspondence of social science with all other categories of Science.

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Stuart Kauffman, while spelling out the implications of his theories on biological evolution, noted that all phenomena in the universe must have testable consequences and that the test is a statistical one (Kauffman 1995). A noting from P.C. Mahalanobis, found among the manuscripts after his death, will also be of interest in this context (Japan 1956, 2nd December): Statistics is the universal tool of inductive inference, research in natural and social sciences, and technological applications. Statistics, therefore, must always have purpose, either in the pursuit of knowledge or promotion of human welfare.

It should, however, be borne in mind that the valuation of values does not and (did not) encounter a smooth passage for any category of Science. In that respect it would be relevant to the present discussion to trace the transition of biological science – the nearest kin of social science in the family of Sciences – from the determinate to a probability base by citing an example of resistance in a similar context as that for social science. In the 1890s, Karl Pearson published papers entitled Mathematical Contributions to the Theory of Stature of Prehistoric Races (Pearson 1898:169-244). Reportedly, the papers perturbed the expert biologists who met and came to the conclusion that it would be pernicious to adulterate biology with mathematics and statistics; for they relied on their “personalized” appreciation of biological specimens and phenomena and did not welcome the admixture of their “science” with mathematics and statistics. In retaliation, along with like-minded colleagues W.F.R. Weldon and C.B. Davenport, Pearson brought out the journal Biometrika in 1901 – pointedly to note the welding of biology with mathematics-statistics, which the three editors rubbed-in in the Editorial of the first issue of the journal (Weldon et al 1901:1): [It is to] serve as a means not only of collecting under one title biological data of a kind not systematically collected or published in any other periodical, but also of spreading knowledge of such statistical theory as may be requisite for their scientific treatment.

Presently no one will think of biological science bereft of (a) its methodological base structured on mathematically conceived variable probability and (b) its application by means of a statistical technique providing appropriate tools. As a consequence of the above two praxis, researchers in biological science have staged a great leap forward with reference to investigations in DNA, stem-cells, cellular organization and reorganization hypotheses, etc. The results have been two-fold: One,

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various specializations in biology have united at the base of this scientific category while proliferating on their own and, also, leading to the emergence or crystallisation of new specializations such as neurosciences. Two, the momentum gathered by unitary biological science from the induced impetus has proceeded beyond its frontier and across natural science via physics and chemistry and has also entered into the arena of social science, such as, in the form of sociobiology which is principally concerned with Social Darwinism (e.g., Wilson 1980:300-1; Wilson and Lumsden 1983:48-9; Mayr 1991:149). This upheaval in process within and beyond biological science rests upon its tenets with respect to life per se. To cite a few examples, it is reflected in the ultra reductionist version of the evolution of life (e.g., Dawkins 1986); in the post-Darwin perspective of S. Jay Gould’s and Niels Eldredge’s Punctuated Equilibria (1972); in Gould’s venture into the field of intelligence tests (Gould 1981) as well as into the concept of life as a product of contingency and not of genetic determinism (Gould 1989: Gould and Lewontin 1979:581-98); in a suggested revival of Lamarckianism by Lyn Marguilis through the Gaia hypothesis which also proposes a new look to life science in a symbiotic relationship with the environment (Marguilis 1981, 1988, and with D. Sagan 1995); in Stuart Kauffman’s concern with “order” and universality as based on antiDarwinism (Kauffman 1993, 1995); in Gunter Stent’s search for a “selfreplicating molecule that could act as its own catalyst” (Stent 1969:71; 1978); in Francis Creek’s finding a miracle in Life Itself (1981:88); in Brian Goodwin’s proposal of “rational morphology” for supplementing Darwinism (Goodwin 1994); and so on. Regarding the category of natural science, it is well known that the interrelationships of its specialisations have been forged at both horizontal and vertical levels since a long time: some penetrating deep into physical reality; others spilling over the frontiers of natural science. It is also realized that a similar dynamism has been instilled into and beyond the category of earth science despite resistance from orthodoxy. Statistically unravelled probability is presently the bed-rock of investigations within this category of Science which has united its specializations at the base and, while the specialisations proliferate on their own, the category itself has crossed the frontiers between categories – especially those with natural science. These developments have been well summarized by Feynman (1995:47-67). Passing through a similar vicissitude, social science presently is at the threshold of being conceived as unitary in form, endowed with a methodology exhibiting mathematically designed

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probable variations, and executed by statistical techniques and tools for indicating its utility. Of the three features, the last one has attained adulthood. Regarding economics, which is the most developed specialization in the category of social science, statistical techniques visibly entered into its curriculum after World War I and particularly from the 1930s (vide, Davis 1941). The specialisation labelled psychology has been a close runner in this race, with the ever increasing circulation of the journal Psychometry for instance. Political Science followed suit, noticeably from the 1950s (e.g., Russet et al 1964). Sociology and, more particularly, Anthropology lagged behind because the transition was the most virulently resisted by mandarins who broadcasted the warning: Quantify and Perish. Contextually, one need not belabour the point that quantification begins after some progress has been made in the execution of statistical technique on social information and data because the sequential application of statistical tools as well as the conceptual distinction and sequence of information and data have both been discussed in chapter 1 of this volume. The point to make, instead, is that statistical technique was introduced into anthropological and sociological research from about the 1930s. As in other social science specializations, it began with particular reference to structural data (e.g., Rice [ed.] 1931), noticeably extended to behavioral data from the 1950s (e.g. Rogoff 1951, Glass [ed.] 1954), and from about the 1960s statistics has seriously undertaken statistical treatment of perceptual data [e.g., Lazarsfeld 1963, Michalos (ed.) 1974, Mukherjee 1989]. Presently, a vast amount of literature is available on “statistical methods for social research”, which actually deal in technique and tools and not in methodology. However, most of them can be appropriately applied in the context of unitary social science, provided the technique and tools do not under- or over-ride the substance of social science. As to the first concern, most of these tools and technique treat unidimensionally the three symbiotically forged dimensions of reality for comprehending the substance of this category of Science, viz. culture, economy, and polity. Occasionally tools are available for treating two dimensions simultaneously but such tools as are necessary for a concurrent examination of all the three dimensions are very rare. Yet these are indispensable for activating the principle of unitary social science and for enforcing its methodology. Three examples may be useful: 1. Karl Pearson had devised a tool named Coefficient of Racial Likeness (CRL), which is self-explanatory as it exhibited its biological implications. These were proving to be less and less relevant. Even the

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primary categorization of races into “major stocks, grand-races, and Hauptrassen” (vide, UNESCO 1965) that were concerned in studying variations in humankind proved unreliable. P.C. Mahalanobis revised the tool CRL, finally evolved the D2 statistic (Mahalanobis 1930, 1936), and applied it for studying race-mixture (Mahalanobis 1925) thus tending to employ the tool for social science. Proceeding further, the D2-statistic has been employed for revealing “racial” discrimination of “tribal”, actually contemporary ethnic-communities (Mahalanobis et al 1949); exploding the myth of inter-caste distinctions, such as the assumed “purity” of Brahmins vis-à-vis the Namasudras – the lowest of the low in the castehierarchy (Majumdar and Rao 1960); and for shattering the illusion of an underlying White Race over the contemporary Black in pre-dynastic Egypt and Sudan, as was reportedly imputed (Mukherjee et al 1954). But racialism, prevailing in a symbiotic expression of culture, economy and polity and thus thwarting the endeavour to meet the cardinal valuations for humankind, has not been revealed by the use of this statistic so far. However, bi-dimensional exposure of social reality has been rudimentarily made use of by the application of the D2-statistic: such as, among others, for the differentiation of “neurotic” social groups (Rao and Slator 1949); for distinguishing the body growth of Bengali boys by their affiliation to economic strata (Mukherjee 1951); the nutritional development of British infants with reference to equally income-earning but culturally different traits of their white-collar or black-coated fathers (Mukherjee 1968). 2. Inter-generational social mobility has been on the agenda of social research in the light of a “social class hierarchy” constructed in accordance with Max Weber’s compounding of culture and economy (Weber 1947:107). The technique employed by Rogoff in this respect (1951) was honed on a probability base (Mukherjee 1954) and further refined later (vide, Hope [ed.] 1972, Ridge 1974, Goldthorpe and Hope 1974). But the intrinsic role of polity in constructing the “social class” hierarchy was not taken into account. A glimpse of it is seen from Jerome Davis’s study of Soviet school children in the mid-twenties: “In rating a list of occupations adopted for one of the common U.S. ‘Prestige’ scales, these children reversed the order of rank found in the use of the scale in the United States, by putting farmers first and bankers last” (Braverman 1974:436). 3. The analysis of inequality among social segments for accessing resources and services, epitomized by manifest income hierarchy and the corresponding curve of income in society, has been dealt with in economics by V. Pareto’s formula y=ax-Q, C. Gini’s Concentration Ratio’s U=1/ (2Q-1), and the construction of the inequality curve devised almost simultaneously by H.O. Lorenz and C. Gini (vide, Davis 1941a: 32-34).

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But the significance of these tools in demonstrating structural, behavioral, and perpetual imbalance in society – in the light of a symbiotic expression of economy, polity, and culture – remains unpursued. Unidimensionally, the values of Q for different societies merely record that income inequality exists in society, which is accentuated by world capitalism. Such as, within small, medium, and large ranges of income the value of Q was recorded as 1.8055 for rural areas in the British Province of Bengal in 1946 (Mukherjee 1957:3-4), 1.4077 for rural areas of Hokkaido in then industrialising Japan (Hayakawa 1951:174-183), and 1.56 ± 0.12 during 1914-19 for the highly industrialised U.S.A. (Davis 1941b:403). Correspondingly, the concentration ratio ȡ becomes more and more acute as inequality accentuates and the curve of concentration is more and more inflated. But this economic property – useful as it is and even though it examines bidimensionally the economy and polity of 1) a colonial society, 2) a freely developing society and 3) a highly developed capitalist society – does not reveal the dynamic role of economy, polity, and culture in symbiosis. Much is hidden behind a concentration curve. A preliminary attempt was made to reveal these by transforming a curve into a set of linear segments attached to one another at different angles (Mukherjee 1983:1012). This is shown in the figure reproduced below. Obviously, as the curve approaches the diagonal of equality in the percentages of income-recipients earning equal percentages of the total income in society, the angles between the segments and, therefore, the segments themselves will tend to disappear. On the contrary, as the curve inflates more and more, contradictory segments of income-recipients will be more and more delineated by the angles they form among them; and the segments allied to polar-opposite segments will also be clearly exposed – with “neutral” segment(s) rounding off the shape of the curve. In view of this mechanics of society according to its place-time people variations, it is essential for unitary social science to elucidate by means of statistical technique (e.g., of “small space analysis”) and appropriate tools the cultural, economic and political import of the contradictory, complementarily allied, and the buffer-status of the conciliatory “neutral” segments of the curve. Otherwise, this potentially powerful technique and the devised tools will merely point to the degree of unequal appropriation of resources and services in the given society or societies.

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Similar or not as the cited examples suggest, efficient statistical techniques need to be planned and the corresponding tools devised in order to operationalise the methods employing the principle of unitary social science. However, as to the second concern mentioned earlier, it is of no less importance to be on guard against overusing statistical operations at the cost of undercutting the substantive base of social science. With reference to the category of biological science, this point was made in the editorial of the first issue of the journal Biometrika, from which an extract was quoted earlier. As a sequel to the statement made by the editors in that extract, they further noted (Weldon et al 1901:5): [However], the danger will no doubt arise in this new branch of science that – exactly as in some branches of physics – mathematics may tend to diverge too widely from nature.

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The caution sounded a century ago is still of topical relevance to social science along with the move for unipolar globalization discussed in chapter 3 of this volume. For causally, coincidentally, or in other ways, social research projects are sponsored which lift the pursuit of knowledge on social reality out of its base and the contextual developments. The overenthusiastic researchers may then freely roam in an ephemeral stratosphere while these projects – transdisciplinary or interdisciplinary in form and bonded by the mathematical logic of the relevant statistical tools – enforce the strategy of promoting the perspective of “creativity” against the “historicity” of dialectical progression or, more pointedly, of a “structural” leap against the sustained struggle of “agency”. To illustrate with seemingly innocuous attempts from the 1980s, the amorphous formulation of joy was sponsored even by the reputable journal Social Indicators Research as a substantive indicator of the “quality of life”; and reportedly, it was warmly responded to by the Japanese and the Swedish whose societies, may be not fortuitously, recorded very high rates of suicide. Likewise, as discussed in chapter 3 of this volume, another obscure quality of life indicator termed Happiness was propagated at about the same time and employed for the masses (not the elite) of Bhutan. Similarly, the world over Social Network Analysis (SNA) has been promoted with the proclamation that social science knowledge will accrue from it. But the base of the “network” – which is a variant of structure – is by definition static and is also not substantive regarding the appraisal of social reality. For the network is characterized by a “social relationship” which is a matter of inference to be drawn at a point in time – that is, for society in being – from “behaviour pattern” which, in its turn, is inferred from “social actions” – the bedrock of ever-changing dynamism to present society as becoming. The last mentioned parameter is the resultant of the integrated roles of culture, economy, and polity for laying the foundation and providing building stones in order to raise the mansion of society. But it remains submerged in a sea of successive inferences drawn and exhibited on the surface by statistical tables and titillating curves. Contextually, one is reminded of Max Planck’s statement (1933:66): Logic in its purest form, which is mathematics, only co-ordinates and articulates one truth with another. It gives harmony to the superstructure of science; but it cannot provide the foundation or the building stones.

Positively, the relationship between mathematics and the substance of any aspect of reality is clearly stated by Feynman although, as was Max Planck, he was directly concerned with physics (Feynman 1992:55):

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Mathematicians are only dealing with the structure of reasoning, and they do not really care what they are talking about. They do not even need to know what they are talking about, or, as they themselves say, whether what they say is true… But the physicist has meaning to all his phrases…. Physics is not mathematics and mathematics is not physics. One helps the other. But in physics you have to have an understanding of the connection of words with the real world.

Such statements emphasize the point that while the inadequacy of the underuse of statistical technique or the possibility of its overuse must not be lost sight of, this technique activates the methodology and, pursuant to this, provide the means for explicating the concept of unitary social science. The pursuit proceeds with a systematic and systemic accrual of social science knowledge; and, in the process, social science will not only integrate all the specialisations in purview and those that are forthcoming but also proceed across the frontiers of the primary categorisations of Science which were drawn in the sixteenth century, as it has happened with the other categories. One may thus envisage that holism will be established at a higher level of the accumulation of knowledge because in its unitary form social science is rightfully in unison with the other science categories and all of them are moving toward the formation of Unitary Science. The prospect of unitary science has been on the horizon of knowledge from the beginning of the twentieth century and since then a critical stage was reached in the course of germination, incubation, and proliferation of specialisations within the primary science categories. Whethan had succinctly summarized the situation at that time (Whethan 1911:402): In early times, when the knowledge of nature was small, little attempt was made to divide science into parts, and men in science did not specialize. Aristotle was a master of all science known in his day, and wrote indifferently treatises on physics or animals. As increasing knowledge made it impossible for any one man to grasp all scientific subjects, lines of division were drawn for convenience of study and of teaching. Besides the broad distinction into physical and biological science, minute subdivisions arose, and, at a certain stage of development, much attention was given to methods of classification, and much emphasis laid on the results, which were thought to have significance beyond that of the mere convenience of mankind. But we have reached the stage when the different streams of knowledge, followed by the different sciences, are coalescing, and the artificial barriers raised by calling those sciences by different names are breaking down. Geology uses the methods and data of Physics, Chemistry and Biology; no one can say whether the science of radioactivity is to be

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Chapter Four classed as chemistry or physics, or whether sociology is properly grouped with biology or economics. Indeed, it is often just where this coalescence of two subjects occurs, when some connecting channel between them is opened suddenly, that the most striking advances in knowledge take place. The accumulated experience of one department of science, and the special methods which have been developed to deal with its problems, become suddenly available in the domain of another department, and many questions insoluble before may find answers in the new light cast upon them. Such considerations show us that science is in reality one, though we may agree to look on it now from one side and now from another as we approach it from the standpoint of physics, physiology or psychology.

Later, from the second half of the twentieth century the motivation for uniting all aspects of science was pronounced; such as, with Mahalanobis’s announcement of statistics as the key technology to unravel and unite the intricacies of Science – which has been noted in chapter 1 of this volume, as also in this chapter. And, at the beginning of the twenty first century, Hawking made the profound remark (2001:165): Humans also need to increase their complexity if biological systems are to keep ahead of electronic ones.

However, while pursuing the prospect of unitary social science toward unitary science, no scientist can over look the implications of the Buddhist adage: “ To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven; the same key opens the gates of hell”. The point may seem an irrelevant reminder of the dreadful consequences of World War II and what happened afterwards in the second half of the twentieth century to date; for they have been discussed in chapters 2 and 3 of this volume. Nonetheless it is imperative to realise, contemporarily, the imprint left on the mission of science in a restless world of unstable polity leading to unipolar globalization, to a ruthless pursuit of the economy for relentlessly impoverishing the masses in order that a minority becomes rich and over rich, and to a leveling out of the richly endowed plurality of people’s cultures so as to become the marionettes of transnational monopolies. The ever-enduring mission of science is to yield, more than any other mode of knowledge: literature, art, philosophy, and religion, a durable insight into the nature of things. In that context, Niels Bohr had once said: “It is the task of science to reduce deep truth to trivialities” (quoted in Nature 1992:464). But the quest of science is becoming trivial, and not in the positive sense meant by Bohr. There are attempts to negate the multilaterally specialised gains of science in their ongoing process toward being unitary by assimilating them through the media of “ironic” sciences.

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These “sciences” have emerged in the last few decades – perhaps not merely as coincidental to the mounting crisis in world polity, economy and culture. They eschew even the proliferation and the merging of specialisations in commensuration with the mainstream of science and, while making tall claims, trivialise science but gain in popular acclaim. Moreover, there is the trend toward the negation of negation by the poseur of anti science in a new garb of scientific religiosity which glides toward the ending of the quest of science. Doubtless, the two trends, actually implying oversimplification in the name of “advance” in science, contain grains and even strains for a true advancement of scientific knowledge. It may also be useful to be reminded that every individual possesses his/her inalienable right to believe or disbelieve spiritual gains but not to impose his/her faith on others. Nevertheless, in essence, the “ironic” sciences and their logical flow into scientific spiritualism create noise in place of scripting lasting variations in the symphony of science for ever accumulating knowledge on reality. Such as: During his presidency of the U.S.A. in the 1980s, Roland Reagan planned, provided Federal funds, and encouraged the flow of private funds for building a shield in space purportedly to protect the U.S. from the nuclear missiles of the USSR. Simulation models were created concerning Star Wars – employing “Chaotic” mathematics (vide, Mayer-Kress and Grossman 1989:701-4). Chaos emerged as a “new science” (vide, Gleick 1987), merged with complexity (vide, Waldrop 1992, Lewin 1992), engulfed biology (Levy 1992) as well as other prevailing frontiers of science (Casti 1994, Cohen and Stuart 1994, Convey and Highfield 1995), and led to the announcement made in the blurb of the paperback edition of his book (Pagel 1989): Just as the telescope opened up the universe and the microscope revealed the secrets of the microcosm, the computer is now opening an exciting new window on the nature of reality. Through its capacity to process what is too complex for the unaided mind, the computer enables us for the first time to simulate reality, to create models of complex systems like large molecules, chaotic systems, neural nets, the human body and brain, and patterns of evolution and population growth.

Claims of chaos-complexity cascaded to cover the fields of economics, ecologies, immune systems, embryos, nervous systems, etc. (vide, Holland 1995:4) and to revolutionize social science as, reportedly, J. Epstein declared in a one-day symposium at the Santa Fe Institute on March 11, 1995. However, one of the founders of the Santa Fe Institute in U.S.A., Murray Gell-Mann, had acknowledged that “any definition of complexity

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is necessarily context-dependent, even subjective” (1994:33). He also noted that although researchers debated the usefulness of continuing with researches on complexity, they were not unmindful of its “public relations value” and, then, there was the scare of discontinuance of government grants for promoting their overall studies (ibid: Chapter 3). In 1948 Norbert Wiener brought out the book entitled Cybernetics – as based on the Greek term Kubernetes (Steerman) – in respect of control and communication in the animal and the machine (Wiener 1948). The proposal met its objective within its professed field of operation; however, in 1961, it was reported that in the U.S.A. “the word cybernetics has been used extensively in the press and in popular and semi literary, if not semi literate, magazines” (Pierce 1961:210). Yet claims were made on cybernetics for resolving all ills of a “discipline” like anthropology (Escobar 1994:222). Characteristically, the title also became a theme of pop culture as cyberspace, cyberpunk, and cyborg–equally as titles of, or from, chaos and complexity. Meanwhile, the infection of ‘information theory’ had affected society in depth and extent, and produced meta theories. The reputable mathematician Rene Thom posited the Catastrophe Theory with respect to diverse phenomena including the biological and social—such as the demise of civilisations – which registered a lack of continuity and with respect to which the theory claimed to provide an insight (Thom 1972 in French, 1975 in English). “Catastrophe” received a huge welcome in the London Times Higher Education Supplement of 30th November 1973 but, by the late 1970s, also vitriolic comments in Nature that chaos theory was a futile effort to deduce world phenomena from thought alone and, even, that the attempt revealed posturing and may not be honest (vide, Casti 1990:63-64, 417). Thus traversing the limitless field of Science from many perspectives but with a jaundiced eye that results in its limitation – of which a few examples are cited above – the venture passes on to anti science and repose in spiritual idealism. The Nobel Prize winners Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers found that the probabilistic descriptions of “modern” science “leads to a kind of ‘opacity’ as compared to the transparency of classical thought” (Prigogine and Stengers 1984:299-300). When funds were flowing from the government and private sources in the U.S.A. for researches into artificial intelligence and robotics, Hans Moravec – a robotic engineer at Carnegie Mellon University, USA – prophesied that cyberspace would become larger, denser, and more intricate and interesting than the actual physical universe (Moravec 1988). Francis Fukuyama, a political theorist who had worked in the U.S. State

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Department, found in 1992 that history had come to an end with the triumph of “capitalist liberal democracy” over the demise of “Marxist socialism” embodied in erstwhile USSR (Fukuyama 1992). Freeman Dyson – a futurist physicist – exhorted humans to be transformed into one mind as “chief inlets of God” because the source of violence and misery in contemporary world lay in “maximum diversity” culminating in “maximum stress” and the future entailed the constantly expanding domain of life, consciousness, and memory” (Dyson 1988: 115, 118-9, 298). Two physicists, Frank Tippler and John Barrow, prognosticated the production of intelligent machines for converting the universe into a huge information-processing device (Tippler and Barrow 1986). In due course, Tippler lived his Physics of Immortality (1994) – exploring the yield of his theory entitled Omega Point, the term borrowed from the Jesuit mystic scientist Teilhard de Chardin who had visualized a future of all living beings (including extraterrestrials) as equated in a divine entity succoured by the spirit of Christ (Teilhard de Chardin 1969). In a logical progression, the physicist Paul Davies pondered whether humans could ever obtain “absolute knowledge” except through mystical experience (vide, Chapter 9 on “The Mystery at the End of the Universe” in Davies 1992) and thus found “The Answer” in Ludwig Wittgenstein’s declaration: “Not how the world is, is the mystical, but that it is” (Wittgenstein 1990:187). So, after all fruitless deliberations, the “scientists” end up with Yagnavalkya’s neti neti to iti, which has been narrated in chapter 1 of this volume in the course of the spiritual-idealists’ appraisal of reality. Thus anti science eschews science in lieu of the fact that the search for truth is real, earnest, and a never ending enterprise, whereas truth in itself is never realized fully and finally so long as life is immanent. At this crossroad of pursuing science in consonance with the dictum scientia est potentia (science = systemized knowledge is power), the social scientists cannot fail to move along their stream of knowledge towards the confluence of all allied streams on to the sea of knowledge; for they have the common yearning with the scientists of all categories to know all that is unknown but knowable. And, in this never to be finally realized urge for knowing, the role of the individual social scientist will be the same as envisaged by the mathematician-physicist Feynman in the last two stanzas of his poem (Feynman 1988:243): Out of the cradle onto dry land here it is standing:

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106 atoms with consciousness; matter with curiosity. Stands at the sea, wonders at wondering: I a universe of atoms an atom in the universe.

END

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NAME INDEX

Adams, H. 86, 107 Alatas, S.H. 44, 107 Alker Jr., H.R. 121 Allende, S. 62 Amin, I. 19 Amin, S. 75, 107 Ardener, E. 24, 107 Aristotle 101 Arrighi, A. 75, 107 Asad, T. 24, 107 Bahl, V. 48, 63, 107, 109, 115 Banfield, E.C. 39, 107 Barrow, J. 90, 105, 107, 122 Bartels, M. 81, 120 Barton, R.F. 21, 107 Bellah, R.N. 39, 107 Benedict, R. 21, 27, 107 Bendix, R. 55, 107 Black, C. 40, 107 Bonaparte, L. 53, 116 Bohr, N. 13, 86, 102 Born, M. 7, 13, 107 Bose, A. 80, 108 Bose, D.K. 61, 108 Braudel, F. 8, 10, 108 Braverman, H. 97, 108 Brecht, B. 35, 62 Buckland, W.R. 93, 114 Burman, D. 7, 119 Carr, E.H. 76, 108 Carstairs, G.M. 79, 108 Casti, J. 103, 104, 108 Chakravarty, S. 58, 59, 60, 61, 108 Chardin, T. de 105, 109 Chatterjee, S. 64, 108 Chen Han Seng 23, 24 Childe, V.G. 10, 108 Chomsky, N. 65 Clark, D.P. 64, 108

Cohen, J. 103, 108 Columbus, C. 16 Comte, A. 9, 11, 85, 108 Concolato, J.L. 26, 108 Cooper, F. 30 Creek, F. 95, 109 Croce, B. 62 Crook, D. 24, 109 Crook, I. 109 Daalder, H. 74, 109 Davenport, C.B. 94, 124 Davies, P.C. 105, 109 Davis, H.T. 96, 97, 98, 109 Desai, I.P. 39, 52, 109 Deutsch, K. 74, 109, 121 Dirksen, S. 31 Dirlik, A. 30, 63, 107, 109 Dobb, M. 79, 109 Dublin, L.T. 80, 109 Dumont, L. 39, 109 Durkheim, E. 18, 78, 85, 109 Dutt, S. 56, 110 Dyson, F. 105, 110 Eggan, F. 28 Einstein, A. 7, 12, 90, 110 Eldredge, N. 95 Emmanuel, A. 75, 110 Engels, F. 53, 75, 110, 116 Escobar, A. 104, 110 Evans-Pritchard, E.E. 22, 23, 26, 39, 119 Fedoseyev, P. 81, 110 Fei Hsiao-Tung 23, 24, 110 Feynman, R.P. 95, 100, 105, 110 Feyrabend, P. 87, 110 Firth, R. 22, 24 Fisher, R.A. 2, 42, 110 Fortes, M. 28, 119

126

Name Index

Frank, A.G. 10, 27, 28, 29, 41, 54, 75, 110 Freedman, M. 28, 29, 111 Freud, S. 77 Frobenius, L. 18, 111 Froebel, F. 75, 111 Fukuyama, F. 104, 105, 111 Gadgil, D.R. 56, 111 Galilei, G. 7 Galtung, J. 27 Gama, Vasco da 16 Gandhi, M.K. 56, 72, 114 Geertz, C. 37, 111 Gell-Mann, M. 103, 111 Genovese, E.D. 79, 111 Gerth, H.H. 111 Ghatak, S. 15, 79, 111 Ghurye, G.S. 23 Gini, C. 97 Ginsberg, G. 85, 111 Glass, D.V. 80, 96, 112, 117 Gleick, J. 103, 112 Goldthorpe, J.H. 97, 112 Goodwin, B. 95, 112 Gottschalk, P. 62, 112 Gould, S. J. 95, 112 Graham, H.D. 108 Gramsci, A. 53, 54 Grossman, S. 103, 116 Guha, Ramchandra 48, 112 Guha, Ranajit 48, 112, 118 Gurr, T.D. 108 Habib, I. 79, 112 Hawking, S.W. 13, 90, 91, 102, 112 Hayakawa, M. 98, 112 Hazari, R.K. 56, 112 Heisenberg, W. 13 Herrera, A. 112 Hettige, S.T. 62, 112 Hicks, J.R. 12, 71, 72, 113 Hobhouse, L.T. 85, 113 Holland, J. 103, 113 Hope, K. 97, 112, 113 Horowitz, I.L. 27, 113 Hourani, A. 50, 113 Huizer, G. 27, 107, 111, 113, 122

Hume, D. 6, 10, 91, 116 Huntington, S.P. 50, 113 Jagan, C. 20, 113 Jameson, F. 54, 113 Jolly. J. 23, 113 Jung, C.G. 77 Kahin, G. 37 Kalra, S.K. 46, 113 Kalegama, S. 113 Karanjia, R.K. 55 Kelvin, Lord 5 Kendal, M.G. 93, 114 Kenyatta, J. 22, 114 Kraft-Ebbing, R.V. 77 Kreye, O. 111 Kroeber, A.L. 18 Kuhn, T. 86, 114 Kumarappa, J.C. 56, 72, 114 Kuznets, S. 31, 32, 61 Laplace, Marquis de 6 Laslett, P. 79, 114 Lazarsfeld, P.F. 96, 114 Leach, E.R. 24, 114 Lee, R. 82, 114 Lenin, V.I. 53, 54, 75, 114 Leontief, W. 33, 81, 114 Lessing, G.E. 68 Levi-Strauss, C. 29, 30, 114 Levy, S. 103, 114 Lewin, K. 79, 114 Lewin, R. 103, 114 Lewis, O. 21, 114 Linz, J. 74, 114 Locke, J. 10, 91 Lorenz, H.O. 97 Lotka, A.J. 80, 109 Lowie, R.H. 18, 114 Lumsden, C. 95, 124 Lyotard, J-F. 41, 114 Mahalanobis, P.C. 12, 13, 31, 55, 56, 94, 97, 102, 115 Maitreyi 5 Majumdar, D.N. 97, 115 Malinowski, B. 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 85, 115 Mandel, E. 54, 115

Why Unitary Social Science? Mann, T. 62 Mannheim, K. 85, 115 Mao Zse Dong 23, 24, 53, 54, 115 Marcos, F. 62 Marcuse, H. 54, 85, 115 Martin, H.P. 64, 116 Mathur, A.N. 46, 116 Marguilis, L. 95, 115, 116 Marx, K. 51, 53, 54, 58, 61, 74, 75, 78, 92, 108, 110, 116 Maus, H. 38, 116 Mauss, M. 85, 116 Mayer-Kress, G. 103 Max Muller, F. 18 McClelland, D.C. 40 Mead, M. 21, 27, 116 Meadows, D. 33, 81, 117 Medawar, P. 117 Meillassoux, C. 30, 117 Messarovic, M. 81, 117 Michalos, A. 96, 117 Milanovic, B. 64, 117 Mill, J. 16, 117 Mills, C.W. 55, 111 Mommsen, N. 107 Moore, W. 40, 117 Moravec, H. 104, 117 Morgan, L.H. 18, 85, 117 Morton, A.L. 79, 117 Mozart, W.A. 18 Mukherjee, R. (Ramkrishna) 4, 11, 12, 17, 18, 19, 32, 33, 41, 46, 48, 51, 59, 60, 75, 81, 82, 93, 96, 97, 98, 117, 118 Mukherji, D.P. 14, 44, 70, 71, 117 Mukherjee, R.K. 69, 70, 117 Mukherjee, Rila 10, 111, 118 Mukherjee, P. 23, 117 Mukherji, P.N. 63, 112, 113, 116, 118, 120, 122, 123, 124 Mumford, L. 85, 118 Myrdal, G. 55, 56, 57, 66, 119, 122 Nag, K. 7, 119 Needham, R. 24, 119 Nehru, J.L. 55, 113, 119 Nettl, J.P. 41, 119

127

Nitze, P. 37, 119 Nordhaus, W. 61, 119 Nyerere, J. 44 Oberg, K. 18 Oldenberg, H. 119 Palme-Dutt, R. 37, 119 Pareto, V. 45, 62, 77, 85, 97, 112, 119 Parsons, T. 37, 38, 107, 119 Patterson, T.C. 30 Pearson, K. 94, 96, 119, 124 Perlin, F. 79, 120 Pestel, E. 81, 117 Pfeffer, K.H. 62 Pierce, J.R. 104, 120 Planck, M. 87, 90, 92, 100, 120 Ploss, H. 81, 120 Popper, K. 86, 87, 92, 93, 120 Powers, C.W. 61, 62, 120 Prazniak, R. 30 Priesner, S. 48, 120 Prigogine, I. 104, 120 Radcliffe-Brown, A.R. 18, 21, 22, 23, 25, 28 Rao, C.R. 97, 115, 118, 120 Ray, N. 79, 120 Reagan, R. 103 Rice, S.A. 96, 120 Ridge, J.M. 97 Robbins, L. 72, 84, 121 Rogoff, N. 96, 97, 121 Redfield, R. 21, 120 Robertson, R. 41, 119 Rodrigo, C. 62, 113 Roscoe, J. 18, 121 Rossi, P. 107 Rostow, W.W. 37, 40, 41, 121 Rousseau, J. J. 85, 121 Roy, R. 7, 47, 119 Rudolph, L.I. 41, 121 Rudolph, S.H. 41, 121 Runciman, W.G. 55, 121, 123 Russell, B. 7, 121 Russet, B.M. 96, 121 Saint-Simon, H. de 11 Sagan, D. 95, 116

128 Samuelson, P.A. 61, 119, 122 Saran, A.K. 14, 121 Schumann, H. 116 Schumpeter, J.A. 57, 58, 59, 61, 108, 121 Segers, A. 62 Sen, S.R. 56, 121 Senart, E. 23, 121 Shankara 6 Shils, E. 37, 40, 119, 121 Silone, I. 62 Singh, Y. 40, 81, 121, 122 Simmel, G. 85, 124 Smeeding, T. 62, 112 Smith, P. 21, 122 Spencer, H. 11, 58, 85, 122 Srinivas, M.N. 23, 26, 28, 31, 39, 51, 122 Stekel, W. 77 Stengers, I. 104, 120 Stent, G. 86, 91, 95, 122 Stiglitz, J.E. 61, 113, 122 Stone, R. 31 Strathern, A. 25, 122 Suharto, H.M. 62 Sweezy, P. 72, 84, 122 Tagore, R. 7, 47, 62 Tawney, R.H. 38, 39, 40, 122 Tax, Sol 27, 28 Thapar, R. 56, 122

Name Index Thinley, L.J.Y. 48, 122 Thom, R. 104, 122 Tinbergen, J. 57, 122 Tippler, F. 105, 122 Tobbins, J. 61 Tonnies, F. 85, 123 Tsurumi, K. 81, 123 Tuiteleleapaga, N.A. 21, 123 Tylor, E.B. 45, 123 Vidyasagar, I.C. 47 Vivekananda, S. 47, 48 Wade, R. 62, 64, 123 Waldrop, M.M. 103, 123 Wallerstein, I. 6, 8, 10, 54, 75, 112, 123 Weber, M. 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 51, 53, 55, 78, 85, 86, 92, 97, 107, 111, 119, 121, 123 Weiner, M. 40, 124 Weldon, W.F.R. 94, 99, 124 Whethan, W.C.D. 67, 90, 101, 124 White, L.A. 18 Wiener, N. 104, 124 Wilson, E. 95, 124 Winch, P. 14, 68, 69, 124 Wittgenstein, L. 105, 124 Wood, A. 62, 124 Worsley, P. 24 Yagnavalkya 105 Zaidi, S.A. 62, 124

SUBJECT INDEX

Anatomy 9, 10 Anthropology 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 34, 36, 40, 51, 70, 83, 85, 96, 104, 107, 110, 111, 113, 114, 117, 119, 121, 122, 124 x Colonial anthropology 21, 22, 24, 35, 83 x Neo colonial anthropology 27, 36 x Physical anthropology 19, 21 x Fieldwork 21 x Moments 30 x Social anthropology 10, 14, 21, 24, 25, 26, 29, 30, 31, 34, 35, 36, 40, 119 Anti science 103, 104, 105 Archaeology 10, 19 Arts 4, 8, 11 Bhutan 48, 49, 100, 120 Biology 10, 13, 69, 80, 86, 90, 94, 95, 101, 102, 103, 112, 114 x Biological science 9, 77, 90, 94, 95, 99, 101 x Sociobiology 95, 124 Botany 9 Cartesian 7, 8, 10, 14, 69, 85, 86, 90 Catastrophe 36, 65, 67, 104, 112 Caste 23, 33, 50, 51, 52, 53, 78, 97, 109, 118, 121 x Caste and class 51, 118 x Caste in class 51, 52, 118 x Class in caste 51, 52

Chaos 103, 104, 108, 112, 114, 116, 120, 123 Chemistry 9, 13, 89, 95, 101, 102 Class 28, 44, 45, 46, 51, 52, 53, 54, 61, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 78, 97, 107, 118 x In itself 54, 72, 73, 74, 76 x For itself 54, 73, 74, 76 x Social class 28, 97 Complementarity 13, 90 Complexity 102, 103, 104, 109, 113, 114, 123 Computer technology 13 Culture 8, 10, 12, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 25, 26, 30, 34, 38, 43, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 53, 54, 56, 57, 59, 62, 63, 65, 66, 70, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 84, 86, 96, 97, 98, 100, 102, 103, 104, 107, 115, 118, 120, 122, 123 x Cultural sociology 38, 39 x Cultural Revolution 23, 24 Cybernetics 104, 124 Data 2, 5, 11, 12, 14, 15, 20, 31, 33, 34, 35, 58, 60, 61, 88, 91, 92, 94, 96, 112, 117 x Item 2 Space 5, 11, 12 x Deduction 3, 76 x Deductive 11 Demography 13, 80, 84, 85, 108 Development 1, 26, 41, 45, 48, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 61, 75, 76, 79, 81, 95, 97, 100, 101, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 113, 114, 117, 118, 120, 121, 122

Subject Index

130 x x

Underdeveloped 41, 55, 65 Developing 41, 44, 56, 57, 64, 65, 69, 98, 108, 111, 124 Divinity 8 Earth science 8, 9, 10, 95 Ecology 80, 81, 84, 85 x Human ecology 80 Economics 9, 12, 13, 24, 38, 61, 68, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 84, 96, 97, 102, 103, 108, 119, 123 x Economism 59 Ethnology 10, 17, 18 Evolution 1, 4, 28, 29, 30, 36, 52, 72, 94, 95, 103, 109, 115, 119, 122 x Evolutionary 4, 18, 39 x Evolutionalism 28 Fieldwork 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 31, 32, 34, 35 French Revolution 8, 74 Functionalism 21, 22, 26, 28, 29, 35, 36 x Structural functionalism 21, 26, 29, 35, 36 Fundamentalism 49, 50 Geography 9, 10, 80 x Human geography 10, 80 Geology 9, 101 Genetics 10, 13, 92 Global 14, 22, 63, 65, 93, 116 x Globalization 63, 64, 65, 66, 74, 100, 102, 108, 116, 117 x Unipolar globalization 63, 64, 66, 100 Government 9, 16, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 33, 46, 53, 56, 62, 71, 73, 84, 104, 110, 112, 115, 119, 120 Growth 32, 33, 37, 40, 41, 45, 51, 52, 54, 55, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61,

62, 72, 80, 81, 84, 93, 97, 103, 108, 117, 119, 120, 121, 124 Hindutva 49, 51 History 8, 9, 10, 13, 22, 23, 28, 29, 30, 35, 36, 47, 48, 49, 50, 58, 59, 62, 63, 66, 76, 77, 79, 80, 84, 85, 89, 105, 107, 108, 109, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 122 x Hagiography 8, 79 x Geschichte 8, 9, 18, 77, 80, 111, 113, 119 Humanities 8, 9, 10, 11, 69, 79, 80, 85, 86, 92 x Humanities studies 8 x Humanity studies 11 Human science(s) 14, 85, 108, 111 Inductive 6, 87, 94, 118 Indology 11 Information 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 11, 14, 15, 40, 80, 91, 96, 104, 105, 120 x Item 1, 2, 4, 80, 91 x Space 1, 5, 11, 80 Information Technology (IT) 2 “Ironic science(s)” 102, 103 Knowledge 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 29, 30, 32, 35, 42, 46, 47, 66, 67, 71, 72, 76, 77, 83, 85, 87, 88, 90, 91, 92, 94, 100, 101, 102, 103, 105, 114 Labour 11, 18, 19, 37, 71, 75, 82, 109, 111 Logic 6, 91, 100, 113, 120 Mandal Commission 50, 52 Mathematics 12, 94, 99, 100, 101, 103 Mechanics 6, 13, 41, 42, 43, 72, 73, 74, 82, 86, 90, 98 x Quantum mechanics 13, 86, 90, 98

Why Unitary Social Science? Medicine 8, 9, 77 Method(s) 30, 31, 83, 86, 87, 89, 90, 96, 99, 101, 102, 110, 113, 120, 121, 122 x Against method 87, 110 Modernity 40, 41, 57, 59, 65, 111, 121 Moment 18, 19, 20, 21, 30, 31, 35, 43, 50, 88, 91 Nation 16, 72, 74, 75, 76, 107, 109 x In itself 76 x For itself 76 x Nation state 18, 19, 20, 23, 25, 41, 42, 48, 50, 54, 62, 64, 66, 74, 75, 76, 93 Natural Science 8, 9, 68, 87, 90, 95 Nature 1, 8, 13, 26, 31, 35, 69, 93, 99, 101, 102, 103, 104, 113, 116, 121 Nepal 46, 47, 49 Neurosciences 77, 95 Newtonian science 7, 9, 87 x Newtonian-Cartesian 7, 8, 10, 14, 69, 85, 86, 90 Objective 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 13, 38, 48, 88, 104 x Objectivity 3, 4, 5, 38, 88, 92, 93 Physical science 88, 89 Physics 9, 12, 86, 87, 91, 95, 99, 100, 101, 102, 105, 107, 122 Physiology 9, 10, 77, 90, 102 Plan 55, 56, 115, 119, 120 x Planning 24, 55, 56, 111, 118, 119, 120, 121 Politics 9, 28, 37, 43, 65, 71, 73, 76, 84, 107, 111, 113, 122 x Political science 30, 73, 74, 76, 84, 96, 113 Polity 8, 10, 12, 14, 19, 20, 30, 34, 38, 43, 45, 47, 48, 49, 52, 53, 54, 56, 57, 59, 62, 63, 65, 66, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79,

131

80, 81, 82, 84, 86, 96, 97, 98, 100, 102, 103 Positivism 88, 91, 108 Principle of complementarity 13 Proto-history 19, 30 Psychiatry 9 Psychoanalysis 9 Psychology 9, 30, 35, 45, 48, 69, 70, 73, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 84, 85, 96, 102, 120 x Social psychology 30 Psychometry 96 Psychopathology 9 Real 21, 29, 44, 51, 88, 101, 105 x Reality 10, 11, 13, 14, 21, 22, 29, 33, 35, 38, 39, 41, 42, 43, 45, 48, 49, 50, 51, 53, 54, 55, 57, 58, 59, 62, 63, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 74, 76, 78, 80, 84, 86, 88, 90, 92, 93, 95, 96, 97, 100, 102, 103, 105, 108, 118 x Ideal(istic) 56, 68, 85 x Social 3, 6, 22, 38, 41, 42, 43, 45, 50, 51, 53, 54, 55, 58, 62, 63, 65, 69, 71, 72, 74, 76, 78, 80, 84, 92, 93, 97, 100, Sankhyadarshanam 6 Sanskritisation 23 Science 1, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 25, 29, 40, 57, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 80, 81, 83, 84, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 108, 124 Sciencing a phenomenon 68, 71 x What is it? Descriptive 65 x How is it? Instrumentality 11, 22, 65 Why is it? Causality 11, x 22, 65

132

Subject Index

x What will it be? Predictability 22, 118 Sinology 11 Social science 14, 21, 25, 29, 30, 31, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 57, 62, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 107, 113, 114, 117, 118, 120, 122, 123, 124 Social sciences 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 36, 37, 40, 41, 42, 45, 50, 51, 52, 53, 57, 62, 63, 65, 67, 69, 70, 71, 85, 86, 91, 94, 108, 112 Society 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 18, 19, 21, 23, 26, 32, 40, 42, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 57, 58, 59, 60, 66, 68, 71, 72, 73, 74, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 97, 98, 100, 104, 107, 109, 112, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 123 Sociology 9, 10, 13, 15, 18, 25, 26, 30, 35, 38, 39, 40, 51, 62, 68, 70, 71, 83, 85, 96, 102 x Cultural sociology 38, 39 x Social physics 9 Statistics 12, 13, 32, 93, 94, 96, 102, 115, 120 Subjective 3, 5, 6, 11, 104 x Subjectivity 2, 3, 4, 5, 92

Tradition 40, 41, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 56, 57, 59, 65, 70, 111, 117, 121 x Traditionalism 47, 48, 49, 70 Technology 1, 13, 47, 56, 81, 93, 102, 111, 115 Theology 8 Transdisciplinary 70, 100 Unidisciplinary 36 Unified social sciences 14, 36, 37, 40, 42, 45, 50, 51, 52, 53, 57, 62, 63, 65, 83 Unitary social science 14, 36, 57, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 80, 81, 83, 84, 85, 86, 91, 93, 96, 98, 99, 101, 102 Value(s) 1, 2, 4, 5, 11, 12, 22, 48, 57, 69, 78, 89, 91, 92, 93, 94, 98, 104, 116, 120, 122, 123 x Analytic 93 x Valuation(s) 1, 2, 3, 4, 60, 78, 81, 91, 92, 93, 94, 97 x Surplus value 78, 116 x Synoptic 93 Variable(s) 1, 2, 3, 8, 33, 34, 37, 84, 85, 92, 93, 94 x Confounded 2 x Variate 93 Weberianism 39, 40, 41, 42, 53, 55 Westernisation 23