Mamta Kalia

theories, it has encouraged identity
politics based on ethnicity, gender, caste,
religion, region and language- and this
has resulted into several divisive and
fissiperous tendencies leading to sociocultural
fission in most of the developing
societies that have been struggling for
social cohesion and national integration
over a long period of ‘divide and rule’
policy of colonial powers there. Actually
the failure of modernity project in most
of the developing countries should not
be misunderstood as post-modern
situation- this misunderstanding is
leading to political demobilisation and
neo-conservatism. But it is also true that
modernisation is not westernization,
hence developing countries should opt
for culture-specific routes for
modernisation. As Anthony Giddens
rightly says: “No knowledge under
conditions of modernity is knowledge
in the ‘ old’ sense, where to know is
to be ‘ certain’ “. He observes that there
is nothing like post-modernity because
critique of certainity is inherent in
modernity itself. So we are experiencing
‘radicalised modernity’, not postmodernity.
Actually scientific temper is
to be preferred to scientism and
technologism. For instance, many human
traditions and customs in developing
countries like India (Sati system, child
marriage, preventing widow-remarriage,
polygamy, purdah, untouchability, etc)
need to be seen from a rational –scientific
angle and ultimately to be questioned
for human liberation.
Third, post-modernists are often neopopulists,
who romanticise tribal culture,
peasant culture, locality, ethnicity and
feminism, forgetting that class analysis
may be an additional useful mode of
understanding social reality that is
complex and sometimes goes beyond
the purview of gender, ethnicity,
language, region/locality and culture.
Actually post-modernists often forget
their own preference for ‘and –both’,
in lieu of ‘either-or’. Thus multidimensionality
of social reality needs
to be perceived critically. In 2009 general
elections of Lok Sabha the Indian voters,
by and large, rejected the identity politics
and voted for development.
Fourth, post-modernists lack depth
of understanding and focus on
superficiality, appearance or virtual
reality created by media. No doubt, media
often blur truth and falsity but a conscious
and critical thinking may differentiate
between content and form, message and
medium. Actually as a ‘mantra’ of Rigveda
rightly says: ‘ Ekam Sat Vipra Bahudha
Vadanti’- truth is one but the scholars
interpret it differently. A mythical story
of seven blind men unfolds that they
touched one part of an elephant each
and described differently as per their
sense but were unable to recognise the
whole (elephant), because of lack of
knowledge as whole is always greater
than the sum total of its parts.
Unfortunately, most of these postmodernists
are unable to see the social
reality as a whole.
April-June 2010 :: 81