Abstract
‘Indeed, my efforts express the search for freedom of the seeker after truth, individual, and collective’ (Uberoi 2019: xv).
My brief note engages with the importance of JPS Uberoi’s writings on the concept of swaraj, a term that holds a significant position in the Indian social science domain, denoting a philosophical, majoritarian 1 and anticolonial 2 perspective. The concept of swaraj in Uberoi’s texts recasts anthropology 3 beyond the claims of decoloniality. Swarajist anthropology aspires to achieve freedom in its purest form, transcending the dichotomy between nature and culture, or science and society.
In JPS Uberoi’s works, swaraj is a program, which could mean a ‘course to pursue’ or a wilful and independent itinerary undertaken by the anthropological mind in search of Truth. For Uberoi, swaraj can only be accomplished by scrutinising the foundations of thinking, which includes fundamental principles of science, art, culture, politics and their interconnectedness with philosophy. Further, through swarajist anthropology, Uberoi seeks to recast anthropology as an expression of the sovereignty of non-violence.
The question one may ask is, how should we pursue this? For Uberoi, the answer lay in nirdvandva or non-dualism. Non-dualism, as a stance, transcends the dichotomies of self/other, subject/object, science/arts, empiricism/rationalism and diachrony/synchrony. Thus, it diverges from modern European thought, qua Cartesian cogito. Uberoi does not think against Europe by the act of ‘provincializing’ (Chakrabarty 2000) it, but does so to expose the spaces of the Other 4 in Europe and equally elsewhere (Uberoi 2019). Thereby, it denies any nativism! Such endeavours liberate the inquiry, humanistic or anthropological, from possessing a ‘fixed nativist quota 5 ’ (ibid.: xv).
Uberoi’s swaraj is more than a rhetorical tool to decolonise the social sciences. Otherwise, ‘we will continue to be both colonial and unoriginal’ (Uberoi 2019: 7) in our pursuit of the Truth. In the postcolonial period, anthropology runs the risk of ushering in new, potentially nationalistic custodians who perpetuate the vestiges of colonial anthropology and empty the radicality that swaraj and swadharm (individual conscience; Uberoi 2019) could offer. Swaraj is an unwavering, timeless and nonviolent administration for freedom, of which decolonisation could be an outpost. Swarajist anthropology is a knowledge movement aimed at enacting non-sovereign anthropology; it outlines the program for practicing anthropology after decolonisation.
Uberoi’s aim of swarajist anthropology from India not only nationalises the Indian problem but also subverts the orders of Western thinking. That anthropology, perhaps, ceases to be a mere cultural description of Indian society. In an age of democratic oligarchs, returning to Uberoi’s thought reinstates the principle of swaraj. Anthropologists as swarajists stand by the non-elites, people and their systems of thinking.
In a time when academic freedom and intellectual pursuits are hindered by those in positions of power, the adoption of swarajist anthropology could offer us a way out of this predicament.