Indian Anxieties about the American Academy and Humanities Scholarship

It has always surprised me why Indians (in both India and the US) are among the most virulent critics of pro-diversity, egalitarian, and affirmative action initatives in the American academy. I suspect it has something to do with the caste privilege of many of these Indians, which they refuse to see as privilege. That guilt and anxiety is possibly projected on to the American academic system. The egalitarian initiatives of the American academy also call into question the idea of 'meritocracy' held dear by many privileged Indians. It is a deeply cherished myth among these Indians that their achievements are a reflection of their ability to best others in a competitive environment where all participate on equal ground. This is based on a wilful ignorance of the massive inequalities of Indian life, and differential levels of opportunity and access among caste, religious, and economic groups.

No wonder, then, that the meritocrats advocate a radical neoliberal reform of the educational sector, seeking to reduce it to a marketplace of products and services. The Indian system of reservations, which is often cynically manipulated by politicians, is surely worthy of critique, as Pratap Bhanu Mehta and others have noted. But the claim of meritocracy which is marshalled by privileged Indians and the neoliberals is patently spurious, no more than a self-congratulatory article of faith.

A similar animosity is often found in Indian public discourse--- for instance, on blogs-- against scholarship in the humanities and social sciences. In particular, theoretical work and certain disciplinary and interdisciplinary areas like cultural studies, film studies, postcolonial theory, and postmodernism are singled out for censure. An informed critique of specific works in these areas, reflecting some level of serious engagement, would be worth reading. But the critique-- if it can even be called that-- usually consists of no more than some sneering remarks about the irrelevance of work in these fields, or that it does not conform to that most charming of criteria, 'common sense'.

In effect, such an invocation of common sense amounts to no more than a vapid populism. It is a more sophisticated populism compared to the crude populism that informs, say, the Shiv Sena's attack on Indian artists or Islamic fundamentalist threats against Taslima Nasrin. But it is a populism nevertheless, one that masquerades as erudition accompanied by the pretence of wit. A difference in degree, in this case, does not necessarily imply a difference in kind.

It may be worth examining in detail what deep-seated anxieties such work provokes. If the humanities, in the American academy or otherwise, are so irrelevant to the 'real' world, the weighty matters that 'real' intellects concern themselves with, why bother commenting on them? Why do they provoke such ire, such anger? What gives?

It is also worth noting that the same criteria of 'common sense' are stretched in peculiar ways when it comes to the realms of realpolitik, the hard matters of national security and interest, the obfuscations of development, and the quantification of aspects of human existence. Witness the sweeping generalizations and assumptions about human nature that increasingly inform thinking about society, culture, and art in the Indian media. All humans act in self-interest! Greed is good! The national interest is the interest of the majority! Marx was right about the Asiatic Mode of Production- India has always been a society in stasis! Human history progresses on a simple linear path with India scrambling to catch up with the West!