SITUATING SARKAR: Tantra, Macrohistory and Alternative Futures BY Sohail Inayatullah www.metafuture.org Published by Gurukul Publications P. O. Box 879, Maleny, Queensland 4552, Australia [email protected] ebook edition distributed by http://www.metafuture.org Copyright © Sohail Inayatullah 1999 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data: Inayatullah, Sohail , 1958 – Situating Sarkar: Historical, Comparative and Poststructural Inquiries ISBN 0 958 5866 1 6 FOR SAIM DUSAN AND MARIYAM LENA In the hope that they grow up in a world surrounded by divinity and social justice. Foreword You have in your hand a book by a South Asian intellectual on another South Asian intellectual – a giant of our times, the late Indian philosopher, P.R. Sarkar. Inayatullah will introduce you to the fascinating world--in time, in space, and in social space – of Shrii Sarkar. My task is to introduce you to Inayatullah. We are fortunate to have him as our guide to the reading of Sarkar. Inayatullah brings to the task not only his background as a Pakistani but also the cosmopolitanism of the child of an international UN development expert. Sarkar's philosophy was the topic of his brilliant PhD thesis at the University of Hawaii, based on many years of in-depth study of the person, his writings and the PROUT movements. Himself a participant, not only a celebrated and much sought-after commentator, Inayatullah analyzes Sarkar's theories of macro-history, of the future, of culture, alternative economics and alternative approaches to power. He also helps the reader by comparing Sarkar with others among the great, such as Ibn Khaldun. I have had the pleasure of reading the essays and found them provocative and deeply inspiring. The Sarkar-Inayatullah combination makes very good reading indeed. Two doctrines have failed miserably in this century: free market capitalism and state socialism. The latter is counted out as dead; the former covers itself better by concealing the negative effects better, but the victims are even more numerous. The search is on for something better than these two 19th century europeanisms. That search will soon lead us, among others, to Sarkar. Inayatullah makes the job easier for us all. Johan Galtung Professor of Peace Studies Acknowledgements I would like to thank Ananda Marga Publications for putting this project together, in particular, Acarya Maheshananda, who has been a dear friend and teacher for many years and painstakingly edited this book. The book could not have been possible without his considerable help. From the University of Hawaii, James Dator, Johan Galtung, Peter Manicas and Michael Shapiro provided intellectual inspiration and commented on various earlier drafts. Marcus Bussey, Phil McNally, James Monma and Anna Yue read earlier drafts of many of these articles and provided useful editorial comments. Craig Runde, Acarya Brahmananda, and Charles Paprocki provided encouragement. Acarya Devatmananda was the voice that forced this project from being one of the many I must complete to a finished book. The Communication Centre, Queensland University of Technology graciously provided research time to complete this book. Jo Previte masterfully provided the finishing touches. It would be silly to thank Shrii Sarkar as his presence in this collection is ubiquituous. While this project is intended to put words around Sarkar, it is crucial to point that as Sarkar has said, ‘it (referring to the spiritual0 cannot be expressed in words.’ Some of these essays are revisions of articles that appeared in various journals and books. I would like to thank the publishers for having given permission to reprint these articles. ‘Sarkar's Theory of Social Change’ is a version of a chapter in Johan Galtung and Sohail Inayatullah, Macrohistory and Macrohistorians, Westport, Ct., Praeger, 1997. ‘Sarkar's Vision of the Future’ is based on two essays, ‘Sarkar's Spiritual Dialectics: An Unconventional View of the Future,’ and ‘PROUT in the Context of Alternative Futures.’ ‘Sarkar's Spiritual Dialectics’ originally appeared in Futures (Vol. 20, No. 1, 1988) and was reprinted in New Renaissance (Vol. 3, No. 1, 1992) and in PROUT Journal (Summer 1992). ‘PROUT in the Context of Alternative Futures’ appeared in Cosmic Society (Vol. 11, No. 17, 1988). ‘Beyond Development and Towards Prama,’ appeared in Develoment: the Journal of the Society for International Development (Vol. 4, 1994). An earlier version appeared as ‘Progressive Development,’ in Global Times ( June 4, 1994). The concluding section of this essay is from, ‘Towards a Post-Development Vision of the Future,’ which is in Rick Slaughter, ed., The Knowledge Base of Futures Studies. Melbourne, DDM Publishers and Futures Study Centre, 1996. A much earlier version appeared as ‘From Whom am I to When am I: Framing the Time and Shape of the Future,’ in Futures (Vol. 25, No. 3, 1993). Situating Sarkar ‘Governance, Power and Structure,’ was a conference paper presented to the X11 World Futures Studies Federation Conference in Barcelona, 1991 and published in Steenbergen, Dator, Nakarada and Marti, eds., Advancing Democracy and Participation. Barcelona, Centre UNESCO de Catalunya, 1992. ‘Locating Sarkar in Indian Political Philosophy’ has appeared as ‘Indian Philosophy,’ in Routledge Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophy. London, Routledge, 1997. ‘Cycles of Power,’ is based on a keynote address to the Pacific Telecommunications Council summer in 1989. It appeared as ‘Technology, Culture and is the Real Still Real’ in Proceedings of the Pacific Telecommunications Council (Honolulu, PTC, 1989) and was reprinted in Edges (March 1990). ‘Rethinking Science’ is based on an article of the same title which appeared in International Foundation of Development Alternatives Dossier (No. 81, April/June 1991) and reprinted in New Renaissance (Vol. 3, No. 2, 1992). ‘Beyond the Postmodern: Any Futures Possible?’ appeared in Pranam – Australia (July 1995). A related version appeared in Islamica Periodica (Vol. 5, No. 1, 1995). ‘Further and Closer than Ever Before: The Futures of Religions’ appeared in Felix Marti, ed., The Contribution of Religion to the Culture of Peace. Barcelona, Centre UNESCO to Catalunya, 1995. ‘Conclusion: The Lamp that Illuminates Countless Other Lamps,’ is drawn from ‘The Future of Renaissance Movement’ which appeared in The Renaissance Universal Register (Vol. 1, No. 1, 1987) and in Cosmic Society (Vol. 10, No. 6-7, 1987). SITUATING SARKAR: Tantra, Macrohistory and Alternative Futures Foreward Acknowledgements Introduction 1 1 Sarkar's Theory of Social Change: Structure and Transcendence 5 2 Locating Sarkar: Economy, Epistemology, and Social Theory 15 3 Sarkar's Vision of the Future: Forecasts and Alternative Futures 27 4 Beyond Development and Towards Prama 45 5 Comparing Ibn Khaldun and P.R. Sarkar: Macrohistory and the Transcendent 51 6 Governance, Representation and Types of Power: From Montesquieu to P.R. Sarkar 65 7 Locating Sarkar in Indian Political Philosophy 85 8 Cycles of Power: Technology, Culture and is the Real Still Real 91 9 Rethinking Science and Culture: P.R. Sarkar's Reconstruction of Science and Society 103 10 Beyond the Postmodern: Any Futures Possible? 111 11 Further and Closer than Ever Before: Religion, Peace and the Future 117 12 Reading Sarkar’s Social Movements: A Socio-historical Account 131 13 Conclusion: The Lamp that Illumuninates Countless Other Lamps 143 Appendix Understanding Understandings: Epistemological Approaches to Social Analysis 149 About the Author 159////Index Introduction The essays that follow have come about through more than a twenty years of research into P.R. Sarkar's writings. My effort has been to place Shrii Sarkar in the larger context of academic thinking. As this book is a collection of essays, there is some repetition especially when explaining some of the basic concepts of Sarkar's cosmology – his stage theory of societal development and microvita, in particular. While I have tried to reduce this as much as possible, to keep the integrity of the essays, some repetition remains. The essays ‘Sarkar's Theory of Social Change’ examines Sarkar's theory of history in the context of macrosociology. It overviews Sarkar's theories of social transformation and leadership. ‘Locating Sarkar’ attempts to place Sarkar within a variety of comparative frameworks: economic, social and epistemological. It was presented as a keynote address at the first Annual Symposium on Sarkarian Thought, ‘The Emerging New World Order’ at March 13, 1992 New Delhi, India and at Jawaharlal Nehru University, March 16, 1992, Delhi, India. ‘Sarkar's Vision of the Future’ examines Sarkar's social theory in the context of forecasts of the future. It attempts to locate Shrii Sarkar's work in the nascent field of futures studies. Originally published in the journal Futures, it was my first published article on Sarkar in a refereed journal. I am told that Sarkar commented positively on that article. ‘Beyond Development and Towards Prama’ asserts that the development paradigm in itself is part of the cause of global poverty. What is needed are dramatically new concepts which do not resuscitate developmentalism, but transform it. Sarkar's notion of prama as a guiding social and economic