LUCKNOW SCHOOL OF AND AND ITS RELEVANCE TO-DAY : SOME REFLECTIONS. * P. C. JOSHI

I am very grateful to Dr. A. R. Sayid, Head, Department of Sociology, Jamia Millia Islamia, for inviting me to deliver this year's Junaid Ansari Memorial Lecture. I am happy to be associated with this lecture series in memory of Junaid Ansari who, apart from being an earnest scholar and a teacher, was also a very fine person. He combined old-world manners and charm with a modern outlook.

Though younger by a few years, Junaid Ansari was my contemporary in the Lucknow University. We shared many common interests and concerns — deep interest in Marxism, and involvement in the student's movement. Common to both of us was also an immense pride in being the students of the Lucknow School of Economics and Sociology and in having personally known its great founders, Professor Radhakamal Mukerjee and Professor Dhurjati Prasad Mukerji who were our teachers. Much later when we had ourselves joined the academic profession we often discussed what values we .had imbibed from the Lucknow School, and what we had learnt from our teachers not only in terms of narrow professional competence, but in terms of critical consciousness and breadth of social outlook and vision.

Junaid invited me to visit his Department and to deliver some lectures to his students on the Lucknow School and its contributions to the understanding of Indian society and its transition processes. I regret very deeply that I was not able to fulfil Junaid Ansari's wish during his lifetime. You can now perhaps appreciate how much I value this opportunity offered to me by this Department to speak on the theme "Lucknow School of Economics and Sociology And Its Relevance Today : Some Reflections".

At the very outset I would like to draw your attention to a contradictory trend which has puzzled me a great deal. 1 find

SOCIOLOGICAL BULLETIN Vol. 35, No. ]; March 1986 Published in July 1986 2 SOCIOLOGICAL BULLETIN a sharp contrast between the trends in the post-Second World War period in the West on the one hand and in on the other. In the Western world eminent social scientists studying both industrially underdeveloped and indus- trially developed societies began questioning seriously the conventional approach to development; they started exploring a broader perspective on development. For this purpose the economists started bridge-building with the other academic disciplines including sociology. In other words, economists and sociologists began expressing not only concerns and interests but also a methodological orientation very much closer to those of the founders of the Lucknow School.

This can be seen in the work, for instance, of Gunnar Myrdal beginning with his Cairo Lectures, Economic Theory and underdeveloped Regions (1956) and culminating in his three volume magnum opus, Asian Drama (1968), affirming an inter- disciplinary orientation and an institutional approach to develop- ment problems. This can also be seen in the approach of Jan Tinbergen, Arthur Lewis, Albert O. Hirschman and many others who broadened the scope of development studies by adopting a broader sociological rather than a narrow techno-economic approach to development problems. This can also be seen in the approach of many distinguished sociologists who were the pioneers of new fields like Sociology of Development and Sociology of Industrialisation. Contributors to these fields involving bridge-building between Economics and Sociology, included : Bert F. Hoselitz, C. Wright Mills. Wilbert Moore, I. L. Horowitz, T. W. Bottomore, Raymond Aron, R. Dahrendorf, F. Cardoso, A. L. Stavenhagen, A. G. Frank, Manning Nash, T. W. Marshall and many others. These pioneers of bridge-building between develop- ment economics and sociology go beyond the conventional boundaries of these disciplines. They have jointly explored the much-neglected issues relating to qualitative dimensions including ecology and environment; population, health and family welfare; food and nutrition; land, water, credit and cooperation; town and country planning; education and culture: scientific temper and spiritual values; social equality, democratic decentralisation, and participatory development. The interface of culture, society and development, sociology of planning, technological change and science have also emerged as new areas of interest. LUCKNOW SCHOOL 3

It is important to note that these were the very problem areas identified as relevant by the founders of the Lucknow School about four to five decades back; they were also the pioneers in promoting both macro -level and micro-level studies on these problems. It is, therefore, a paradox that precisely during the fifties and sixties at one end Western social scientists were rediscovering the interdisciplinary and institutional approach and articulating fundamental concerns of reorienting the development concept and approach; at another end in India the issues pioneered by the Lucknow School suffered an eclipse in social science institutions. The craze for narrow specialisation and technical sophistication by and large replaced the concern for bridge-building between disciplines. Even when attempts were made to bring the social science disciplines together at some centres (e.g. the Indian Statistical Institute and the Delhi School of Economics) these could not be sustained and the practitioners of each discipline soon retreated within their narrow shells.

This technocratic trend turned into a cultural fashion wave and even economists of the older generation lost their claim to be called economists; their work was labelled as "poetry"or as "literature" and not as economics proper. Even sociologywhich was regarded by the founders of the Lucknow School as an (N+I)th science taking not a fragmented but a synthetic view of societal developments and processes as a whole (D. P. Mukerji 1948 : viii) was turned into a narrower discipline, studying the social system in the limited meaning of the term, including, for instance, family and kinship, caste and social stratification and religion and magic.

The new wave of delimiting the boundaries of economics, sociology and political science relegated into oblivion the rich legacy of the pioneers of the many Schools of Indian Economics, Sociology and Politics including the Lucknow School which had grown in the pre-independence period. Thus so far as the post-independence generation of economists and political scientists in the Universities and research centres from mid fifties onwards were concerned, they had perhaps not much familiarity, under- standing or sympathy with the work of the pre -independence pioneers of social science in India. The narrowing of the boun- daries of economics also resulted in narrowing the boundaries of the planning processes. 4 SOCIOLOGICAL BULLETIN

During the last phase of their life both Professor Radha-kamal Mukherjee and Professor D. P. Mukerji articulated their p rotest against the emerging trends both in Indian economics and in Indian planning. In a seminar on '"Social Sciences and Planning in India" sponsored by him in 1965 at Lucknow, Professor Radhakamal Mukerjee drew pointed attention to "the grave crisis in Indian planning" and related it to the neglect of socio - logy, political science, psychology etc. by the planners. To quote : "The essential problem in all planning societies is to so devise the institutional structure and particularly choice mechanisms as to bring the instrumental or operational values into coincidence with the intrinsic or essential values i.e. to bring the technical and the programatic imperatives into coincidence with the moral imperatives" (1970 : 15).

From this basic premise Professor Mukerjee argued that "it is the various other social sciences such as sociology, psychology, pedagogy, social anthropology and political science which can focus the all— important view-point that planners and economists cannot build up a new social and economic order by mere economic techniques, and organisations, and ordinance''. Further :

"The greatest drawback of the present system of planning is that we have not given serious attention to institutional planning. We need to-day an institutional theory of Indian socialist planning which should explore what type of institutions are favourable to the growth and development of the socialist pattern and which are blocking change, innovation and invest- ment and preventing the more dynamic, socialistic forces of the new age from asserting themselves. This means that we must move into the realm of social traditions, beliefs, valuations and ideals . . . Only the proper type of institution in particular sectors of the economy can condition people to new egalitarian values and virtues and not a pious appeal to generosity and nobility of character" (1970 : 4-5).

Similarly, Professor D.P. Mukerji expressed his views very sharply in an article entitled "Lament For Economics : Old And New" published in The Economic Weekly on November 14. 1959. LUCKNOW SCHOOL 5

To quote : "Our brilliant economists of the present generation are mostly busy spinning cocoons of model-building with formulating static or comparative static models of a national system that is neither here nor there, or with description of things as they were a few years ago ... By and large our brilliant Indian economists are becoming indifferent economists. I for one would want to make a choice. That choice is that Economics is just a human science. It is not economic science distinct from politics, sociology psychology and . It is one social science distinguishable from natural science" (1959 : 154-42).

Professor D. P. Mukerji further explains what kind of economics is relevant for India. His conception of economies requires bridge-building with other social sciences. To quote : "SO the best thing to do is to take Economics as an interim object of study with two sets of workmanship, one for that of human affairs as Economists and another as economic engineers or backroom-boys. Economists as such will thus be political economists to begin with. That means Economics turns towards Marxism because Marxism does not separate economics from politics, sociology, history etc. Otherwise our brilliant men will become dehumanized scholars. Marxism is a whole human science. In that sense Nehru is wrong when he condemns Marxism as backdatish. To recollect the umpteen human or social disciplines into a human science is a worthy human effort" (1959 : 1541-42).

We can appreciate the fuller and deeper implications of the observations relating to bridge-building between economics and sociology by R.K. and DP. reproduced above in the light of their entire life's work, their philosophy and their commitments. It is, I think, very appropriate, therefore, that I provide some basic information about the Lucknow School, about its broad philosophy and approach and the questions raised by this School and the perspectives and insights by it in response to these questions.

Let me first introduce the founders and the builders of this School, their common concerns and outlook and their individual life and personality as persons, social scientists and intellectuals Who had versatile interests and deep involvement in the social issues of their times. It is not perhaps unfair to suggest that 6 SOCIOLOGICAL BULLETIN generations of social science students in the post-independence period are by and large unaware of this grand tradition. The first point to note is that the roots of the Lucknow School lie deep in the anti-colonial national awakening which expressed itself not only in the political sphere but also in the intellectual and cultural spheres: they lie specifically in the Bengal renais - sance. Bengal had already become the leading centre of the intellectual awakening and political resurgence during the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. We get an insight into the social and intellectual forces which moulded his character and outlook from R. K., the principal founder and builder of the Lucknow School. To quote :

"1905 saw a big intellectual and political ferment in every city in Bengal that was partitioned by Lord Curzon. Public meet- ings, street processions and singing parties, boycott of British goods, Swadeshi and prohibition first acquainted me, with a mass upheaval. The contact with the common man in the course of pick- eting in cloth and liquor shops was both new and invigorating. Next year found me with an academic scholarship in the leading educational institution in India, the Presidency College in Calcutta . . .

''But the influences outside the college were more significant, even over-powering. The country was passing through a political and cultural upheaval that completely changed the scale of values, The revaluation took the form of a literacy and artistic renais - sance that gradually expanded into a mass movement. In the slums of Mechuabazar in Calcutta an adult school was startedby me in 1906 . . . Our programme for the country at that time was entirely educational, for we understood from the experience of political repression and persecution that were going on that only educational and social work among the masses could be silently and unostentatiously pursued without being nipped in the bud by political oppression. In fact, the surrounding atmosphere of suspicion and surveillance drove some of us to an extreme step. We called ourselves "Ministers of the Poor" and dressed poorly, giving up shirts, coats and shoes" (R. K. Mukerjee 1955 : 4-5).

Later as the Editor of the renowned Bengali monthly, Upasana, R. K., "pleaded for a new mass consciousness in Bengali LUCKNOW SCHOOL 7 literature that might abandon the sophistication and drawing room atmosphere of the artificial urban product but extend its broad understanding and sympathy to the proletarian mass". He wrote a Bengali novel at this time "Eternal Beggar" (Sasvata Bhikhari) which echoed Tolstoy's advice to Russia : "Back To The People Go and Live as Peasants with Peasants". Again, "God Asleep" (Nidrita Narayan) was a short Bengali play written by R. K. in which the theme of the children of the slums was first introduced into Bengali literature. "The Temple Girl of Kanya Kumari" (Manimekhala) was the Bengali restoration of a South Indian legend about the goddess Parvati personating a temple girl and accepting her misery, agony and disease. In R.K.'s own words "the seriousness of purpose, that was sought to be introduced into provincial literature through its assimilation of the joys and sorrows, hopes and fears of the common man was underlined in an interesting controversy in which Rabindranath Tagore, Dwi-jendralal Roy, Pramatha Nath Ghaudhury and others joined with me for a reexamination of artforms and ideals'' (R K Mukerjec 1955 : 7-8).

In the preface to his Bengali book' ''Modern Bengali Lite- rature", R. K. expressed the view that "literature will have to solve the social and ethical problems and conflicts of the age". Further, "the sturdy peasant who tills the field under scorching sun . . ., who toils and moils from morn till eve, day after day and year after year is he alone in his stupendous back-breaking labour on the earth? . . . Literature must reveal the joys and sorrows of the eternal man on the perennial earth'' (1955 : 8).

This was perhaps written much before Gandhi appeared on the Indian scene and shifted the arena of the national movement from the drawing rooms of the upper middle classes to the mud-huts and hovels of the toiling peasants and labourers. The founders of the Lucknow School were thus creative both in the field of literature and social science, imparting as we shall see later, social vision and sense of social reality to literature and imp arting literary sensibility and imagination to social science enquiry. It would be more appropriate to call it the Luck-now School of Economics, Sociology And Culture ! Let us also try to follow in R.K.'s own words how he was led towards orienting the concept of social science to the needs and require- 8 SOCIOLOGICAL BULLETIN ments of a country struggling for national emancipation and against pervasive economic backwardness and mass poverty. The vision of an Indian School of Economics and Sociology had its first beginnings in the form not only of a critique of colonial approaches to the Indian problem; it crystallised into a concrete project through ceaseless gropings and strivings for a new under- standing of the Indian economy and society and new perceptions of its problems of growth and transformation. To quote R K :

''Although I paid attention to social sciences as a student my main interest was in History at this time . . - History was prized by me at the beginning of my educational career as a systematic study, for the recovery of "the glory that was Ind", but the face to face contact with misery, squalor and degradation in the slums of Calcutta decided my future interest in Economics and Sociology. There was no vacillation about the choice of my subject at all. Ricardo, Mill, Marshall, Walker, Carver and Flux were not concerned with the problems of poverty at all, but did not these current text books of economics formulate certain basic problems that required understanding and interpretation in order to analyse and alleviate Indian poverty? The broad march of social evolution that I came across in the writing of Giddings, Lester Ward, Hobhouse and Ross was invaluable in understanding the development of Indian institutions. But these were at that time mere glimpses and intimations. There was a definite call in the country for the tasks and responsibilities of education of the masses and that call could be answered by an Indianstude nt best through the knowledge of the social sciences then taught together at the M.A. stage in the Calcutta University viz. Economics, Politics and Sociology. For a thorough equipment for the task of mass education and propaganda, I began to read books not only in social sciences but also in Physics, Chemistry Geology, Botany and Zoology and write articles in Bengali in such sciences" (1955 : 5-6).

In 1910 R.K. joined as teacher of Economics in the same college where he had his early education namely Kashinath College, Behrampur and worked there for five years. This was, in his own words, one of the busiest and the most fruitful periods of his life.

"The studying and teaching of economics were from the LUCKNOW SCHOOL 9 very beginning enlivened and stimulated by field researches into the standard of living and creditworthiness of a large number of farmers, members of Cooperative Credit Societies in the dis trict whose supervision I undertook. I had to scrutinise regularly the conditions of the harvests, the causes of accumulation of arrears, the economic and social incidence of indebtedness, the position of small tenants and agricultural workers who could not be given any loans or the decline of village and cottage industries. Such was the routine of investigations which provided the materials for my first book, The Foundations of Indian Economics

"But I also kept myself busy in different kinds of activity, mostly social, educational and humanitarian, for the small town and the many villages where cooperative societies multiplied. I established a network of Adult Evening Schools for mass educa- tion and spent considerable time and money for this work . . . I became the Honorary Organiser of Cooperative Societies for the District and started a network of village Banks with an agricultural demonstrations plot and evening school at the headquarters of the Cooperative Union. I made certain experiments with cooperatives for village rehabilitation starting agricultural supply and Cattle Improvement Societies for which new byelaws were drafted for approval and sanction by government" (1955 : 6; 7).

It is in this background of close contact with India's social realities in the rural and urban setting and its basic problems that R. K. realised ''the danger of blind adoption of Western industrial methods". Further "the reaction against the doctrinnaire economic teaching then current in the colleges also came from constant contact with the realities of poverty and low morale associated with the breakdown of the existing economic system".

Later in his preface to Fields And Farmers of Oudh. (1929), a collection edited by R.K. bringing together empirical studies by his students and colleagues on Indian villages, he comments on ''the divorce between the academy and the market place and the importance of correcting this divorce by promoting an Indian School of Economics and Sociology". To quote :

"Nowhere has there been a greater neglect of the realities of the economic life than in the curriculum of economics in Indian Universities. The Indian student can hardly find in the 10 SOCIOLOGICAL BULLETIN text book a description of the economic environment in which he lives. The systems which are built up for him are 'castles in the air'. When he comes out of the University, his theories instead of helping him towards interpretation and concrete achievement are a handicap to him. I believe that this to a large extent is responsible for the fact that we have many social visions and Utopias in India and few constructive programmes which the masses can understand and work out for immediate benefit.

"We look upon an Indian School of Economics and Sociology to correct this divorce between the academy and the marketplace to relate the social sciences to the needs and ideals of Indian life and labour . . . We have also to train our students in the technique and method of economic and social investigation of problems which press us from day-to-day and the country expects the departments of economies at different Universities to give a lead in this matter" (1929 : V).

R.K., however, was not allowed to continue this work in his own college. Political circumstances resulted in his uprooting from Bengal. To quote :

"The smooth tenor of teaching and silent social work in the fields of cooperation and adult education were disturbed by poli- tical tension and turmoil. 1915 saw a marked increase of which even social work was suppressed in as much as it bridged the gulf between the classes and the masses and could be utilised for strengthening the widespread resistance movement. All my adult schools were liquidated, a few of my pupils and workers were interned or sent to jail. I was myself detained for a day in the house of the District Superintendent of Police on the ground that I was a ''terrorist" or had sympathy with "terrorism" and that the adult education movement in the District then covered with a network of schools was a mere cloak of dangerous activity.

"... But I was freed. Within a week I obtained the offer of Principalship of a Lahore college and went to the Punjab. It was just an accident that I did not find myself in politics after a detention or internment and found my life's work in the academy" (1955 : 8).

R. K. utilised his assignment at Lahore for fact-finding in LUCKNOW SCHOOL 11

Punjab countryside and for investigation of village communities and customs in that state. In November 1917 he delivered a course of ten lectures at the University of Punjab in which he stressed that "the postulates of Western economics were entirely different from those that could be deduced from a realistic study of the Indian economic pattern". He characterised this Indian pattern as Rural Communalism. His lectures also dealt with "the misapplication of English ideas to the landed property and village community in India and its effect upon the rural unsettlement and decline of agriculture" (1955 : 9).

At one of his lectures on "Agriculture And Industrialism'' delivered at the St. Stephens College, Delhi on November 27, 1917, Mahatma Gandhi presided. In his concluding remarks on R K 's address, Mahatma Gandhi upheld Mukherjee's institutional ap- proach and observed that "the principles of Western economics could not be applied to Indian conditions in the same way as the rules of grammar and syntax of one language would not be applicable to another language. Gandhi eloquently appealed to students to read Economics out of doors, in the fields, cottages and workshops in relation to actual facts and conditions instead of cramming Western economics heedless and forgetful of the phenomena around them'1 (Baljit Singh 1955 : 436-7).

R. K. returned to Calcutta and from 1917 to 1921 he again worked at Calcutta University. In 1918 he went out for three months on a tour of South Indian cities and villages. He visited Tanjore, Trichinapoly, Madura. Ramnand. Cochin and Travan-core. In the course of these lectures, as he put it, ''the conceptions of regionalism in sociology and the distinctive pattern of Rural Communalism in Economics were clearly defined in my mind" (1955 : 9).

At Madura speaking on the "Foundations of Indian Socio- logy" in 1919, R K summed up the nature of the Indian pro- blems under colonial rule and indicated the broad approach to Indian development as follows :

"The twin products of Western industrialism in India are the disintegrated village and sordid overcrowded city. The un- settlement of our villages, and the congestion, intemperance and 12 SOCIOLOGICAL BULLETIN vice of many of our towns demand a line of economic reform which will build the future economic superstructure on the bed- rock of our characteristic economic habits and institutions, our village system and our agrarian economy and the means and methods of our traditional city planning and organisation" (1955 : 9).

In a lecture on ''First Principles In Economies'' presided over by Ashutosh Mukherjee in 1918. R.K. called for connecting the three-fold disparity and divorce : between theory and practice, between one region and type of culture and another and between biology and the humanistic and sociological sciences (1955 : 10). In April 1918 under R.K.'s leadership a Social Service Exhibition was organised in Calcutta focussing public attention on aspects of far-reaching economic and social disintegration. The Exhibition was inaugurated by Mahatma Gandhi and Sarojini Naidu (1955 : 10).

Thus in 1921 when R.K. joined the Lucknow University as the founder-Head of the Department of Economics and Sociology, he was already set on the path of evolving a new orientation for an Indian School of economics and sociology on the basis of a conception of bridge-building between natural science like biology and social sciences; between economics, sociology and other human sciences; between theory -— building and fact — finding; between social thought and social work. At Lucknow under R.K.'s leadership the contact of teachers and students with the common people was maintained through adult education, famine relief and social welfare as well as through systemic rural and urban surveys. R.K. has often wondered "Whether the social scientistor the social worker is more effective in bringing about the rapport between the intellect and the dynamic social material that is the basis of understanding and interpretation. Perhaps the interiorisation of the social-scientist-cum-worker in every teacher and student is indispensable" (1955 : 11).

R.K.'s major contributions to the sociological approach to economics include Principle of Comparative Economics Vol. I & II (1921), The Borderland of Economics (1925), Groundwork Economics and The Institutional Theory of Economics (1941). Mukherjee also initiated field -work based empirical enquiries on India's socio-economic problems and some of these outstanding LUCKNOW SCHOOL 13 studies include "The Rural Economy of India (1926), Fields And farmers of Oudh (1929), Land Problems of India (1933). He opened up new problem areas of enquiry -which resulted in path —breaking works including The Regional Balance of Man (1983). Man and His Habitation (1940), Food Planning For Four Hundred Millions (1939), The Political Economy of Population (1943). and The Indian Working Class (1951).

In 1937 R. K. went out on a six months tour of European and American Universities which he utilised for delivering lectures and for studying economic experiments of divergent types in countries like England. Germany. Italy, U. S. A. and Soviet Russia.

R. K. was closely connected with a large number of Com- mittees and Commissions in the pre-independence and the post-independence periods including The National Planning Committee under the Chairmanship of Jawaharlal Nehru. Of lasting interest are the Note of Dissent And The Memorandum On Land Policy submitted by R. K. to the Sub-Committee on Land Policy. (1948 : 52: 100-131).

R. K. showed an amazing capacity to make a transition from the plane of philosophical and theoretical contemplation to that of operationalising his philosophical approach in relation to concrete economic and social problems. Important among his operational ideas and proposals were the following :

(I) the idea of imposing ceiling on land holdings;

(II) the conception of family planning and for linking action programmes to influence fertility behaviour with social development and welfare programme to improve food, nutrition, health and literacy for mor- tality reduction and for improving quality of life;

(III) an integrated approach to land reform and land development, water resource conservation and provi- sion of production as well as consumption credit for working peasant-oriented development: 14 SOCIOLOGICAL BULLETIN

(IV) integrated rural and urban planning as embodied inthe concept of ''rurbanisation" and

(V) a forest policy oriented to mass consumption needs and to preserve the eco-environmental balance.

These concepts and specific recommendations form part of R. K.'s vision of an Indian (Asian) alternative to the Western model of progress.

If one has to highlight the most important contribution of R. K. in the field of social science as a whole, it lay in stressing "the need for an unbiased study of the basic factors in Eastern rural communalism as greater now than ever'' (1925 : 88). R. K.'s contribution lay in posing the question whether modern progress can be pursued only along the path of Westernisation or "substitution" of Eastern by Western institutions. R. K. asks whether Asian countries like India can fruitfully preserve and tap the potential of their "communalistic'' or community-oriented institutions for evolving a path of "progress" more suited to Asian conditions?

R. K. was perhaps the first among the social scientists to question the Eurocentric approach to development and to pose the question of an alternative to the European path which corresponds to Asian conditions as well as traditions. As early as in 1925 R. K. observed as follows :

"In India the shibboleth that individualism is efficiency and communalism is stagnation is to be discarded for ever. The new school of Indian economics seeks, from the historical standpoint, to point out the contribution of Indian civilisation and its characteristic organisation of voluntary cooperation of communal groups, as the lever of social groups to the history of universal culture. This work, if successfully done, will forever render im- possible the narrow sectional view of human history which ignores the lives and life-values, the experience of more than half of the human race, the Asiatic peoples and their social cons- tructions and organisations which are in essence not less real and significant than the Graeco—Romano—Gothic consciousness with its works and experiences. This new school will point out LUCKNOW SCHOOL, 15 the genius for social constructions based on communal and synthetic instinct of the Indo-Sino-Japanese civilisations, .and will thus make it possible to utilise in the coming era the rich and complex data for human and social experiments which these Eastern forms and creations have furnished, and will continue to furnish in the history of man and his making" (1922 : 87-88).

Asian communalism was presented by R. K. as a blendingof "value" and '"fact'', as both normative and empirical phenomena. In R. K.'s view Western economists and sociologists under the influence of Darwinian biology "have insisted 'too much on the importance of the struggle for existence" (1921 ; 39). In his view under the influence of a New Biology, "the classical hypothesis of individuals working out the progress of species by mutual struggle at the margin of subsistence yields place to the concept of mutual cooperation of large groups in the creation of bio-economic utilities" (1925 : 231).

It is in this background of rediscovery of the principle of cooperation and interdependence by new biology that R. K. affirmed that ''the great task of social reconstruction in the East is to renew and adapt the old and essential impulses and habits to the complex and enlarged needs of today" (1925 : 85).

R. K. drew attention to the instit utional framework of the Indian villages relating to property structure in land and other assets, to the water system, grazing grounds, to mutual aid and communitarian forms of labour organisation and community maintenance or artisans, labourers and servic ing castes. These, according to R. K., arose in response to economic necessity under specific Asian geographical and ecological conditions and were also re inforced by moral and ethical compulsions. The disruption of this comprehensive framework or rural communalism is no' an inevitable price to be paid for development. Such disruption has also occurred as a result of the tendency to understand Indian institutions through Western concepts and as a sequel to thought-less attempts to alter and replace them. A fresh look on the entire institutional framework inherited from tradition had become indispensable, keeping in view the needs of Asian Societies as well as the lessons from the West (1921 and 1922).

In R. K.'s view, "it is the prerogative of man to understand 16 SOCIOLOGICAL, BULLETIN and then consciously control his evolution according to ideal'' (1925 : 252). The basic issue, therefore, is not only operational viz. that of formulating a new model of progress and development. It is also cognitive, philosophical and conceptual relating to formulating concepts which at one end are consistent with reality and at the other are in harmony with the values and ideals. In R. K.'s view, concepts have so far determined the selection of facts and not facts the re -formulation of concepts. In his own words, "economic laws are to fit themselves to facts, not facts to fit the values to theories. We can no more alter economic institution of a country than language and thoughts" (1921 : 271). One must concede that the attempt to view Asian social reality and the problem of Asian development through Euro — centric concepts has produced disastrous results. Here lies the contemporary relevance of the questions posed by R. K. regarding both an adequate conceptual framework and an appropriate operational strategy.

From where R. K. left the treatment of this question of an Asian alternative to Eurocentrist approaches and models, two divergent interpretations of alternatives arc possible : one that leans towards a perspective of "Asian Exceptionalism" and the other which leads towards a perspective of socialist transformation oriented to Asian conditions. R. K. himself could not resolve this contradiction. It is D. P. who explicitly linked the conception of rootedness in Indian tradition with the socialist perspective of development.

R. K. lived, mentally alert and physically active to the last moment of his life. He passed away while chairing a meeting of the U. P. Lalit Kate Academy. He was then 79 years.

III Let me now tell you something about D. P., R. K.'s senior-most colleague and co-builder of the Lucknow School of Economics and Sociology. If R. K.'s contribution to social science was more substantial and enduring through his teaching, D. P. is also remembered as a promoter of discussion and dialogue among his students and colleagues and as a contributor to public debate on important social issues.

This is not to suggest that D. P.'s writing output was negli- LUCKNOW SCHOOL 17

gible. In fact; it was quite substantial. In D. P.'s own words, nineteen books by him had been published, ten in Bengali and nine in English. And yet it is generally agreed that D. P. was outstanding not so much as a researcher but as a teacher. In Bengal, however, he was well-known as a creative writer and literary critic. D. P. himself wrote that "he paid the penalty of double allegiance. In Bengali he is treated as one interested in literature and music. In other parts of India, he is treated as a teacher of sociology and economics" (1958 : VII-VIII).

The contrast between the personalities of R. K. and D. P. was obvious. But not so obvious was the fundamental affinity and complementarity between the social and intellectual concerns of R. K. and D. P. Let us first draw attention to the contrast in in the intellectual personality of these two great social scientists. If the blending of contemplation with fact-finding and of social thought with social work was a distinguishing feature of the life and work of R. K., D. P.'s sources of strength lay elsewhere. He lived immersed in books, reflection and discussion as an intellec- tual. In sharp contrast to R. K.'s simple and austere way of life. D. P. lived the highly cultured and refined life of an intellectual aristocrat. He loved good food, dressed very elegantly, smoked the most expensive cigarettes, spent a large part of his income in purchase of books and acquired over a life time perhaps the best personal collection of books among intellectuals of his generation. He visited the Lucknow coffee house for an intellectual adda (rendezvous) in the Bengali style almost every evening as against R. K. who lived the life of a hermit. R. K. commanded respect and veneration from his students while D. P. received from students deep love along with respect.

From the vantage point of to-day one can say that R- K. Was more original and creative as a thinker. Gifted with powerful 'intuition and imagination, he was also extraordinarily productive. His powers of synthesis were great, though not always sustained by high quality of analysis. D. P. had sharp analytical faculty, though he excelled as a systemiser of relevant ideas from all Purees than as an originator of new ideas. He was also a scintillating teacher and an excellent communicator in the class- room through his lectures. His lectures held his students com- pletely spell-bound. Inside the classroom and the lecture hall, his 18 SOCIOLOGICAL BULLETIN ral and intellectual authority was unsurpassed. He also influ enced generations of students whom he regarded as gifted and promising through intimate personal contact. He gave them opportunit ies of interacting with him by inviting them for dis -cusssions at his residence. Unlike R. K. who based his lectures largely on his own works and contributions. D. P. introduced students to the best works on the subject and specially to classics of economics and sociology. In his view a student's education was incomplete without deep interest in and study of classics. While R. K. gave primacy to field work and fact-finding as the most essential part of research apprenticeship. D. P. gave primacy to reading of classics (1958 : 26).

D. P. was also distinguished by his unique interpretation of the role of a teacher in a University. In his view the most im- portant function of a University teacher was to stimulate his students to think for themselves and to promote critical conscious- ness. Preparing the student to be a good professional or a specialistin a specific field was important. But equally important was to create an intellectual atmosphere conducive to thinking and to cultivating a critical attitude to one's social environment. Perhaps no other Indian intellectual of that generation performed so excellently this function of promoting a questioning attitude among his students. D. P. paid a heavy price for this in narrow professional terms, as some of D. P.'s best students turned into social rebels and political activists instead of becoming good, ivory -tower scholars and professionals. When Professor Amarnath Jha, the then Vice-Chancellor of Allahabad University told D. P. that students of Lucknow University were indifferent to studies. D. P. retorted : "Yes, Professor Jha, your University produces the ICS and PCS and we produce their victims."'

D. P.'s intellectual influence was not confined only the class- room and the academic campus. His conception of the functions of a social scientist involved the obligation to strengthen the 'intellectual basis of social and political activism. In his view anti-intellectualism of Indian politics and social movements posed a great danger to society and it was the duty of social scientists to promote awareness of this danger. If left uncorrected, it may ultimately result in Fascism. One of his favourite observations was : "Our politics does not have adequate, intellectual support. While our intellectuals are apolitical, our politicians are anti- LUCKNOW SCHOOL 19 intellectual with few exceptions. As a result the intellectual pro - blems of the national movement are taken care of by Gandhi's "inner voice" and of the Left movement by the Party line. This holiday from reason is bound to have disastrous results in the era of mass politics".

In ,D. P 's view the existence of an intellectual elite was essential for civilization; it was much more crucial and urgent for a country faced with the challenge of self-government and problems of economic and social transition. This view is best summed up in D. P's own words as follows :

"History tells us that self-government is a challenge before which many peoples have succumbed, either because the strength of their response was inadequate or their wealth was insufficient. The latter possibility may be excluded. Our material resources are enormous. The problem is also not of human material. We have an initial advantage in numbers. There is a wealth of intelligence in the country. What is more, there is a reserve of disinterested contemplative attitude which is likely to help us through the contemplative attitude which is likely to help us through the period of preparation.. . What is, therefore, primarily needed for a collective vigilant response to the challenge of self-government is consciousness. And consciousness, in the psychological sense, is born of predicament and roused by crisis. I submit that it is the primary function of the intelligentsia to see that the general awareness is not dissipated in any manner, and positively that it spreads and enhances its quality, in intensity, form and content'" (1958 : 182-183).

It is in this context that D. P. stressed the role of a class of Mandarins or Brahmins constituting "a body of men devoted to the enrichment of popular consciousness through the prestige of their own disinterested, detached, scientific analysis who would be very useful in saving our culture from the degradation of Partisanship"' and also from widely pervading ''sense of bitterness or defeatism" (1958 : 190).

D P thus viewed self—government as a creative challenge for intellectuals in general and social scientists in particular. In "is view, "an underdeveloped country thrown into the vortex of world events often a long course of arrested growth and hiber- 20 SOCIOLOGICAL BULLETIN nation is an interesting field of intellectual adventure". (1958 : 236).

And finally he defined the nature of the challenge for the Indian intellectual in historical terms as follows : "The French dared in 1789, the English in 1688, the Germans in 1848 and the Russians in 1917. For the first time in several centuries India has a chance to dare !'" (1958 : 177).

And for D. P. daring on the political plane was always prepared and precipitated by daring on the intellectual plane. And this conception of intellectual daring in the context of political daring, or a conscious social push to the historical process, or a creative social response to the historical crisis situation, provides the key to D. P.'s intellectual sweep. Even though not a social and political activist himself, D P was all the time grappling with the intellectual theoretical problems of social practice or of political action of a colonial country, struggling for national identity and freedom and later an independent country facing the challenge of self-government.

U. P.'s attempt to blend Marxism (or the theory of social transformation) with Indian tradition (i.e. with specificities of the Indian society) has to be understood in this light. We also find meaning in his treatment of economics as a cultural subject and of culture as both a means and an end of socio-economic transformation. And his trying to think of "a new type of socio - logy which is an (n+l)th science drawing upon the findings and insigsts of 'n' sciences'" (1948 : VIII) assumes meaning also in the context of his mental and spiritual involvement in India in the making — an India which has a chance to shape a new future after shaking off' its sense of ''Great Denial"' for two centuries (1948 : 206). D. P.'s sociology of tradition is not a sociology of rivivalism. With its deep connection with Marxism, it is a sociology of conscious and planned transformation. That any other interpretation of D. P.'s sociological interest in traditionhas no basis is clear from his observations quoted below :

''Need I to point out to you again that the remedy for frustration I have suggested is essentially anticipatory, for- ward looking and end-seeking? The type of historical analysis I have in view is not digging into the past, however. LUCKNOW SCHOOL 21

valuable that may be ... The sole purpose of historical analysis is to know the fundamental nature of historical processes. The nature is change, the change that is involved in invasion of the past into the living, throbbling and contemporary present. This too is not enough, because history is not exhausted in our activities. It moves on into the future ... In short , no manner of revivalism is a cure for frustration. It is an offence against the laws of change. The withdrawal into inner resources is permissible only when it is a preparation for a rally for the step ahead . . . The general direction must always be forward. Our heritage, if one understands it properly, does not allow us to bury the talents but to invest them in risks and uncertainties. As the Upanishad says : 'Charaibeti" (1958 : 196-197).

D. P. viewed this forward movement not as a spontaneous process but as a process pushed forward by conscious human agents. Such a propelling forward of social processes was not possible without the movement building up as much its intellectual resources as its moral resources. He found Gandhism inadequate in so far as it was not an intellectual movement and not sufficiently responsive to the intellectual challenge. D. P. criticised the Indian National Congress for not pursuing the logic of its commitment to social change in a socialistic direction on the intellectual plane. D. P. was convinced that a serious pursuit of this commitment was incompatible with indifference to Marxism. In the last years of his life D. P. even criticised Jawaharlal Nehru for his view that "Marxism was backdatish" (1959).

At the same time he was critical of Indian Marxists — socialists and communists — for their indifference to Indian Tradition. "I have seen", D. P. asserted, "how our progressive groups have failed in the field of intellect and hence also in economic and political action, chiefly on account of their ignor-ance of and unrootedness in India's social reality" (1958 : 240). last his support for the study of traditions was misunderstood as a pica for traditionalism, D. P. quoted Marxism in his support : The deeper down you go to the roots, the more radical you become" (1958 : 241). D. P. further clarified that "the ultimate goal of socialism is the association of persons, that is of free individuals functioning collectively in society and coming Out of 22 SOCIOLOGICAL, BULLETIN it as persons. My emphasis on traditions has to be taken in that context" (1958 : VII- VIII).

In his path-breaking paper "Man And Plan In India" D. P. further stressed the dialectic between forward movement and rootedness in tradition. To reproduce the very perceptive wordsof the concluding part of this paper :

'"Thus it is that two systems of data arc to be worked out. One is the plan with its basic Western values in experimentation, rationalism, social accounting and in further Western values centering in or emerging out, of bureaucratisation. industrialization, technology and increasing urbanisation. The other is not so much the Indian traditions as India's forces of conservation and powers of assimilation. At present they are not sharply posed. If anything the first datum is gradually becoming ascendant. This is a bare historical fact. Totransmute the fact into a value the first requisite 'is to have faith in the historicity of that fact .'. The second requisite is social action to push on with the plan and to push it. consciously, deliberately, collectively into the next historical phase. The value of Indian traditions lies in the ability of their conserving forces to put a brake on hasty passage. Adjustment is the end of product of the dialectical connection between the two. Meanwhile there is tension. If it leads up to a higher stage it is also desirable. That higher stage is where personality is integrated through a planned, a socially directed, and collective endeavour for historically understood ends, which means, as the author understands it, a socialist order" (1958 : 76).

D. P. was perhaps the only social scientist who was alive to the dangers of planning by technocrats and bureaucrats alone. In his own words, "planning is too serious a business to be left to planners. . . having warped, disrupted or fragmented personalities" (1958 : 67). D. P. saw the inadequacy in social terms even in the earlier Plans prepared under Nehru which he criticised as "being distant both psychologically and sociologically from the mightly rush of reality that is India's history to-day" (1958 : 53). He thought that those who composed the Plan "do not seem to be of their Indian earth and earthy; nor do they create the LUCKNOW SCHOOL 23 impression of being the agents of mighty social forces" (1958 : 53-54).

As a sociologist he viewed a Plan in the following terms : "Bigger things than knowledge are involved in the Plan viz. the life and death of a whole people who have plunged or been dragged into the maelstrom of World forces. For that a bolder analysis is necessary which does not mean reckless generalization. It signifies an umbilical contact with the life of the people, the resultant appreciation of the forces that move them, and the analysis of these forces both endogenous and exogenous, in the light of local actualities, including traditions, institutions, myths, beliefs, ideas and symbols. Only the people can offer the springs of courage, and only the rational understanding of social forces can furnish the impulse and the certainty of the analysis. People's will, desires, hopes and aspirations do not seem to well up through these pages; no analysis merges its cautions subt- leties in the depths of historical understanding; no ideas soars up with facts in its talons" (1958 : 53).

On the contrary he found a new "character-type taking over the planning process—the warped personality—types of this age of Euro -America—which the next national technological, urbanized, bureaucratized social order is going to throw up in large numbers" (1958 : 68 : 71).

The acceleration of the pace of technological change and India's entry into the modern communication and information age make D. P.'s insights presented in his "Man and Plan In India" far more and not less relevant to-day. In his own life-time D. P. noted "the spiritual nervousness before the possibilities of dehumanisation" (1958 : 41). He noted "the vague fear of being caught in one mighty embrace of Hercules' . He thought 'this fear was deeper than the fear of the unknown and more uncomfortable than the loss of the habitual'".

The new technological system has vastly expanded than ever before and "the fear of being caught in the embrace of Hercules" is enveloping much larger proportions of society including specially common people who so far were more '"socially integrated, less fragmentised and could live as persons in face-to-face communi- 24 SOCIOLOGICAL BULLETIN cation within the framework of community living". Earlier the internal class divisions within the community did not destroy community bounds, group interdependence and cooperation. The break-up of community life had been vastly acce- lerated now 'via 'penetration of modern technology resulting in structural dualism, marginalisation of basic masses and the consequent dehumanisation and alienation. In this background re - building the social framework of collective living cannot be a spontaneous process: it has to be planned. A lag between technocratic planning and planning of the social order serves only to accentuate alienation, dehumanisation and uprooting on a vast scale. And here lies the relevance of planning interpreted by D P as rebuilding of the social and cultural order. The task is far more challenging to-day than it was in D. P.'s lifetime.

Moreover, modern technology including communication technology has made India far more culturally responsive, and indeed vulnerable, to the Western impact than it was during the days of colonialism As D P put it, India's cultural identity was saved by the very fact of her techno-economic backwardness- But the much greater opening up of India as a sequel to technological change has made very relevant what D P. wrote more than three decades back. To quote :

"Another aspect of the problem is that of squaring the principles of change by which India has lived and movedso far with those by which India is going to keep step with the world. At long last, the windows of a closed, rusty room seem to have been thrown open to all the winds of heaven. No more does the atmosphere generate claustrophobia. At the same time it appears that the airing is to blow away the furniture. Proper attention is not being paid to those of India's traditions that have enabled her to survive the political vicissitudes and the stealthy corrosions of her history Every culture has its own principles and mechanisms of effecting change in its traditions These mechanisms or traditions are going by default and those that are adopted are supposed to belong to history without specificity And this despite the belief that no assimilation of modern culture is possible without being rooted" (1958 : 256).

The above is the concluding part of D. P "s essay on "The .LUCKNOW SCHOOL 25

Intellectuals in India" which embodies his view of the intellectual not only as an interpreter of the processes of social transition. The intellectual's function in shaping the positive response of his people to the demands of social transition is also implied in this statement.

In this era when the ideology of a conscious push to India's modernisation and her entry into the twenty-first century is on the ascendancy, D. P.'s concept of planning including economic and cultural planning provides both tools of analysis as well as a value-frame for moulding critical consciousness. This concept which integrates economics, sociology and culture aims at synthesising of interpretations of cultural processes in political economic terms and an understanding of Indian political-economy in broad cultural terms. It is an attempt to synthesise the cultural vision of Tagore and Gandhi with the concepts and insights of radical liberal and Marxian thought.

In short, if one takes a synoptic view of D. P.'s entire life and work, he occupies an enduring place as a conscious interpreter of Indian nationalism in much richer and broader terms than was available from the work of his intellectual predecessors and contemporaries and also of his successors. One can discern the richness and sweep of D.P.'s view of Indian nationalism by juxtaposition of his work with that of, say Shelvankar's Problem of India, R. P. Dutt's India To-day, A R. Desai's Social Background of India's Nationalism and B. B. Misra's India's Middle-Class. D P.'s Modern Indian Culture and his essays in Diversities still remain sources of inspiration for Indian historians, social scientists and political and cultural workers for further thinking, analysis and social action. Having served the University of Lucknow for thirty five years D. P. joined the Aligarh Muslim University as the Chairman of the Department of Economics for a period of five years. Two notable events of his life also deserve to be mentioned. In 1938 when a Congress Ministry was formed in United Provinces, D P. was persuaded by Pt. Govind Ballabh Pant and Shri Raji Ahmad Kidwai to join the Government as Director of Information, an office which D. P. filled with rare ability and distinction. It is to D. P. that we owe the founding of the Bureau of Economics and Statistics, which is to-day rendering excellent service to the 26 SOCIOLOGICAL BULLETIN

State He also served as a member of the U. P Labour Enquiry Committee (19-17) and his impact was not only felt in introducing rigour in thinking on labour problems but also imparting to labour economics a developmental and a welfare orientation

In 1956 D P. was struck by throat cancer which left him shattered and weak in body; but his will to live enabled him to carry on till December 5, 1961 when he breathed his last. D P.'s passing away was noted as the loss of an intellectual colossus, the like of which we may never see again.

V Let me conclude with certain broad comments and observa- tions on the legacy of the Lucknow School and its relevance today. In my view the Lucknow School represents a highly creative phase in the evolution of modem social and economic thought in India or, more appropriately, in the evolution of social sciences in modern India This School represented an intellectual response to the major issues thrown up by the Western impact on India which assumed the form of India's colonial subjection including her mental and spiritual subjection. This impact raised the life and death question of India's national id entity and her cultural personality (A. K. Saran 1958 : 1013-1034).

Such fundamental concerns relating to the very conditions of social existence of a whole people and to the quality of their social consciousness under colonial rule threw up the conception of a social scientist who was not just a narrow professional but was organically connected with his people in sharing their agony and suffering. He was invoked not only in identifying and inter-preting their problems and predicaments but also in formulating categories of understanding and in shaping the content and form1: of their national consciousness in relation to their historical traditions and their sub-continental size and economic and cultural diversity. The intellectual enquiry by the Lucknow School into the nature of the Indian problem which resolves itself into an enquiry into the nature of Indian society and culture, its retrospect and prospect, is coloured by this overwhelming concern for national root", and identity in a changing world

The basic perceptions of the dichotomy between the West LUCKNOW SCHOOL 27 and the East, between the coloniser and the colonised, seem to overshadow all probings into inner structural cleavages and con- flicts within the colonial society and culture. This primary concern results even in some romanticising and idealising of the past which is more pronounced in R. K. than in D P. In D. P 's case his Marxist leanings did not permit unrestrained romanticsing and idealising. It must be noted, however, that both in D P. and R. K., there is all along a distinction between the progressive and the retrogressive elements of the social heritage, betweentraditions and institutions which affirm the values of equality and justice, community good and national solidarity and those which negate them.

Has the legacy of the Lucknow School no relevance to Indian society which is now invaded by contradictory drives for coping with inner cleavages on the one hand and for technological modernization on the other? Has it no relevance to Indian social science which has also entered the new era of value-neutrality on the one hand and compartmentalisation of knowledge on the other?

I conclude by making an earnest plea to the younger gene- ration of social scientists to address themselves to these questions and to find their own answers. But in my judgement the under- standing of the new problems and processes of social transfor- mation in the contemporary phase of Indian nationalism will be enormously facilitated by rootedness in the value-oriented and non-compartmentalised social science vision of the Lucknow School and the analytical approach and tools and the intuitive and grassroots insights contributed by it.

NOT E

*This is the text of the Sixth Junaid Ansari Memorial Lecture delivered at the Jaraial Millia Islamia on February 28, 1986.

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Mukerjee, 1921 Principles of Comparative Economics, Radhakamal Vol. 1, London, P. S. King and Son Ltd. 1922 Principles of Comparative Economics, Vol. 2. London, P. S. King and Son Ltd. 1925 Borderland of Economics, London, George Allen and Unwin Ltd. 1948 "Note of Dissent and Memorandum on Land Policy", Report of Sub- Committee on Land Policy, Agricultural Labour and Insurance, National Planning Committee, Bombay, Vora and Co. 1955 "Faiths and Influence-.", in Baljit Singh (Ed.), The Frontiers of Social Science in Honour of Radhakamal Mukerjee, London, Mac- millan and Co. Ltd. Mukerji, D. P. 1948 Modern Indian Culture, Bombay, Hind Kitab L(d. 1958 Diversities, New Delhi, People's Publishing House. 1959 "Lament for Economics ; Old and New", The Economic Weekly, Vol. 2, No. 46. Saran, A. K. 1953 "India", in Joseph S. Roucek, Contemporary Sociology, New York, Philosophical Library. Singh, Baljit 1955 "Mukerjee as a Pioneer in Indian Econo mics" in Baljit Singh (ed.), The Frontiers of Social Science, London, Macmillan and Co. Ltd. Singh, Baljit and 1967 Social and Economic Change, New Delhi, V. B. Singh Allied Publishers.