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CELEBRATING 'SEMINAR'
CELEBRATING 'SEMINAR' (October
23-25, 2009)
In the life of a democratic nation a robust public sphere
is very important. It serves as a check on the excesses of
the state. It serves as a repository of new ideas and practices,
of experiments in community living, forms of dissent and explorations
into the future. It is a resource for forging new imaginations
of the nation. Expanding the public sphere is hence very important
since it results in the consolidation of democracy. A lively
and robust public sphere is an investment in a better democracy.
In the last 50 years of the maturing of Indian democracy
SEMINAR has, in the public sphere, occupied a unique place.
It has offered itself as a platform where ideas and issues
concerning the making of India, from policy concerns on environment
and energy to investigations on the city, craft traditions,
food and culture have been debated. In these decades SEMINAR
has emerged as a public institution of international standing,
one that took the symbolic stand of suspending publication
during the dark period of the Emergency, one that offered
its pages for developing a diverse 'Agenda for India'. As
a platform for debate it deliberately stayed away from partisan
posturing and encouraged a plurality of views to be presented
and in doing so established firmly the norm of allowing a
diversity of voices to be heard in public debate.
SEMINAR is an important public institution in the public
sphere. We wish to acknowledge that it is more than a journal
of ideas, more than a reference archive for intelligent commentary
on issues of concern. As an institution SEMINAR enjoys rare
legitimacy. Its invitation to scholars from across the country,
and from the South Asian region, to contribute essays is considered
an honour and most of us feel privileged to be so invited.
It is our good fortune the SEMINAR as a public institution
has existed for 50 long years as we have debated the many
options available to us to build our future. Few democracies
have been so fortunate to have such a public institutions
of ideas. Certainly few from the global south have been so
endowed.
But SEMINAR also has another special identity. It serves
as an archive of our intellectual history. In chronicling
our changing perception on issues, SEMINAR allows us to map
the changes in the frames within which we voiced our concern,
from the early years of nation building, to the middle period
of concern about the limits to the authority of the state,
to the continuing concern with delivery of services and public
goods, to now, when, with greater confidence, we see ourselves
as contributing significantly to the global debate on democracy.
From its archives if we were to subject an issue such as 'democracy'
to content analysis we would be able to track these changes
in perception in the last half century.
To celebrate 50 years of SEMINAR the Indian Institute of
Advanced Study (IIAS) is planning a one day meeting (24 October)
where intellectuals from across India can reflect on some
aspect of SEMINAR. Perhaps we can have two sessions: one,
on SEMINAR as a public institution in a democracy of the global
south where themes of public concern are flagged, and two,
on SEMINAR as the intellectual archive. The presentations
would be published as either a special issue of seminar or
as a small book.
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