Towards a Composite Political Theory of India:
Against Supra-historical tendencies

Arun K Patnaik

Usually Indian intellectuals doing a western political theory are caught with two extreme kinds of discourses. One the one hand, our finest minds are lost in the amazing world of derivative discourses. Theoreticians here believe in crystallizing India’s experiences with a western theory. S A Dange, Partha Chatterjee and Gurpreet Mahajan are exemplars of this tradition. On the other hand, weak minds are lost in reacting against the sophistication of derivative discourses and harp back on our traditions and discard western discourses altogether. I call this reactive discourse as autarkic theory. This theory claims that our thoughts are self-sufficient. In case, when the west theorises itself, they do not think of us or our contributions. Why should we worry about their theories, while we attempt to understand our experiences? Savarkar’s formulation of Hindutva belongs to this tradition. Every thing of the world of nations is purged from his theory of Indian nation. Also, the idea of one India one people is an echo of this tradition. And so on, so forth. Historically, autarkic theories gain wide acceptance only when derivative discourses dominate our horizons. That is what is happening right now in India. These two extreme forms of theory feed into each other. They mirror each other.

I reject both these discourses and propose a middle path theory which is alert to the fact that India’s history is essentially the history of Sangam humanities which is different from the Western history in its pathways, historical processes and historical outcomes. We must look for a theory which will be able to capture this unity-in-diversity story (in space) and continuity-in-change story (in time) in India’s history. This history of India is distinctive from European or American history. Therefore, any attempt to borrow any model – leftwing or liberal- from the west and apply it lock stock barrel in Indian history is self-defeating and will adversely affect our resources of history by purging such resources out of our historical narratives as Kosambi reminded us long back. While criticizing Dange’s efforts in writing our history, Kosambi argues that a derivative discourse like Dange’s proposes a blind imitation of Engels’s model of class analysis and paints our resources of caste as resources of slavery. As a result, Indian Maxism discovered slavery, instead of discovering caste system in India. Borrowing models/theories blindly displaces our resources, abstractions and so on. Thus, the story of Sangam humanities is better captured by a new theory which, following Nehru’s plea for composite dialogue, may be characterized as a composite theory of India which is neither derivative nor autarkic.