SCHOLARS AND PROPHETS: Sociology of India from France 19th – 20thcenturies Roland Lardinois

SCHOLARS AND PROPHETS

Sociology of India from France 19^th – 20^thcenturies

Roland Lardinois

"… Scholars and Prophets is a work of immense erudition guided by a strong sense of purpose (...) The study is a targeted attempt to uncover the origins of Dumont's analysis of the caste system in his Homo hierarchicus."

Rosane Rocher,

University of Pennsylvania,

Philadelphia,

Journal of the American Oriental Society

“This book, which deals with the representations of India in France, serves as a landmark model of historical sociology of human and social sciences"

Gisèle Sapiro,

Centre national de la recherche scientifique,

Paris,

Transeo Review

French Writings on India and South Asia

This Series brings together a body of work from France on India and South Asia. Books which appear in this series will cover the social sciences and literature, made available to the English speaking world often for the first time.

   This is the first book in the Series.

Scholars and Prophets: Sociology of India from France 19^th – 20^th centuries is being translated from L’invention de I’ Inde. Entre ésotérisme et science, and deals with the historical genesis of the long and rich scholarship on India in France since the beginning of 19^thcentury, with particular reference to the work of Louis Dumont. It considers the works of scholars and the essayists, poets, or esotericists who published on India and shows that Dumont has been influenced by both groups. This understanding illuminates the main criticism that is still addressed to Homo hierarchicus, that in this book Dumont mistook the internal Brahminical view point on the caste system for a sociological view.

In the last chapter, the book contrasts Dumont’s work with issues raised by McKim Marriott’s project and the Subaltern Studies from India. It defends that the core issue dealt with by all scholars is the epistemic status given to scientific knowledge of Indian society.

In the course of explaining the French intellectual tradition, the author relates many fascinating interactions and little known anecdotes of famous men and women which capture the intellectually vibrant climate of the time. Both scholars and students of the social sciences will find this book very useful.

CONTENTS

Introduction: Genesis of the sociology of India

Prologue: René Daumal and the autofiction of the cultural field

Part One

The Genesis of a Savant Milieu (1795-1927)

Chapter 1. The struggle for academic legitimacy

Chapter 2. Orientalist knowledge and prophetic discourses

Chapter 3. The Struggle for institutional autonomy

Part Two

Scholars and Prophets (The interwar period)

Chapter 4. The field of scholarship on India in the 1930s

Chapter 5. Scholarly practices

Chapter 6. Prophetic strategies

Chapter 7. Hinduism as a disciplinary issue

Part Three

Social Science and Indigenous Science

(Second half of the 20^th century)

Chapter 8. Louis Dumont and the indigenous science

Chapter 9. Louis Dumont and the cunning of reason

Chapter 10. The Avatara of scholarship on India

Conclusion. Sociology put to the test of India

Postscript. Note on the construction of a research subject

Appendix: Multi Correspondence Analysis

Postface to the English-language edition

List of documents, tables, figures

Sources and bibliography

Index

Acknowledgments

 Roland Lardinois is a sociologist, Director of Research at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Paris (France). He is Fellow at the Centre d’études de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud at the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris.He has published works on the history of family in India, historical demography of South India, history of French scholarship on India, and edited a volume of correspondence exchanged between Sylvain Lévi and Russian Orientalist scholars.

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564 pp | 215x140 mm | Hardback

THE POLITICS OF THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY AND ACCESS TO MEDICINES

World Pharmacy and India

Edited by Hans Löfgren

The pharmaceutical industry presents one of India’s most successful stories of economic expansion and improvements in public health. Indian firms have made access to quality medicines possible and affordable in many developing countries.  Indian pharmaceuticals are also exported on a large scale to the United States and other highly regulated markets. A wave of mergers, acquisitions and tie-ups point to growing integration between Indian firms and global pharma multinationals.

The Politics of the Pharmaceutical Industry and Access to Medicines: World Pharmacy and India examines this important industry from different economic, social and political perspectives. Topics covered include the implications of TRIPS-compliant intellectual property rights, the role of flexibilities under TRIPS, the market regulation system, the role of Indian firms in exporting HIV/AIDS medications to Africa, the issue of free trade agreements, the power and reach of foreign pharmaceutical multinationals in India’s domestic market, and the sustainability of India as a major generics supplier.

Hans Lofgren is Associate Professor in Politics and Policy Studies, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. His publications include,  with  P. Sarangi (eds) The Politics and Culture of Globalisation: India and Australia (Social Science Press, New Delhi, 2009); with M. Leahy & E. de Leeuw (eds) Democratising Health: Consumer Groups in the Policy Process (Edward Elgar, 2011).

CONTENTS:

1.     The Pharmaceutical Industry and Access to Medicines in India: An Introduction

- Hans Lofgren

2.      Challenges of Regulation of Medicines in India -  Chinu Srinivasan & Anant Phadke

3.      CIPLA : Patients over Patents -  Neelam Raaj

4.       Systemic Failure of Regulation: The Political Economy of Pharmaceutical and Bulk Drug Manufacturing - G. Vijay

5.      TRIPS Flexibilities and Access to Patented Medicines in India -  Narayanan Lalitha

6.      India’s Free Trade Agreements : Implications for Access to Medicines in India and the Global South - Kajal Bhardwaj

7.       At any price? Boehringer Ingelheim, Bayer HealthCare and Baxter in India -  Christiane Fischer and Claudia Jenkes

8.       Trends and Prospects for India as a Global Generic Player -  Deepak Kumar Jena & Poduri Balaram

9.      The Indian Patent Law and Access to Antiretroviral Drugs in Sub-Saharan Africa -  Christiane Fischer

10.   Accessing Medicines in Developing Economies through Competition Law -  Tu Thanh Nguyen

11.   The Politics of AIDS Treatment in Brazil: Patents and Access to Medicines -  André de Mello e Souza

12.    Financing Pharmaceutical Research and Development: Alternatives to the Patent System - Philip Soos and Hans Lofgren 

13.  Post-script - Hans Lofgren

364pp | 215x140 mm | Hardback

ISBN 978-81-87358-66-4

Pub date: Oct  2012

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ECONOMICS AND ITS STORIES

Amal Sanyal

The narrative of the book starts with the birth of economics from a confused pool of societal anxieties of pre-industrial Europe. It then follows up its growth into a self-conscious and assertive discipline.

Along the account appear the colourful eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries gurus – Smith, Ricardo, Marx, Walras, Keynes and many others. The narrative strings together the events and traditions of the era of these mentors with the economics they developed and controversies around them. In the process it explains the concepts that are indispensable for understanding our economic world today. It has chapters on the theory of markets; market failure and the role of the government; the labour market and unemployment; money and finance; international economics and globalisation; and economic development. The book’s lucid style demystifies technical terminology and goes to the heart of the matter.

It should appeal to the interested general reader as well as specialists and students.

Amal Sanyal teaches economics at Lincoln University, New Zealand. He has taught and interacted with many other universities, including Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, where he has worked for many years. He held the State Bank of India Chair on public policy for some time and was an economic advisor to the Government of Mauritius for a number of years. He has wide research interests and has published a large number of research articles and a few books. His current research includes issues of governance, corruption and public policy.

Contents

1. Introduction   

2. Scarcity, Opportunity Cost and Efficiency 

3. Imperfect Markets, Monopoly and all that

4. Market Failure and Government Failure

5. Labour Market, Unemployment and Keynes

6. After Keynes       

7. Money, Banks and Finance

8. International Issues

9. Economic Growth and Development

10. Conclusion

SAVAGE ATTACK

Tribal Insurgency in South Asia

Edited by Crispin Bates and Alpa Shah

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280pp 215x140 mm Hardback

ISBN 978-81-87358-69-5

SOCIOLOGY, ANTHROPOLOGY, POLITICS, HISTORY

Pub date July 2012

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Indigenous resistance is getting redefined in the global context; in India, the Scheduled Tribes, or more popularly called adivasi people, have gained prominence in the armed left-wing Maoist insurgency. They have been used as the front for social movements protesting against the neoliberal developmental policies of the state and the large-scale displacements that have resulted. They have also ignited special interest as both victims and agents in the communal violence emerging from the expansionist activities of militant right-wing Hindu Nationalist parties.

In Savage Attack: Tribal Insurgency in South Asia the authors ask whether there is anything particularly adivasi about the forms of resistance that have been labelled as adivasi movements. What does it mean to speak about adivasi as opposed to peasant resistance? Can one differentiate adivasi resistance from that of other lower castes such as the dalits? In this volume the authors argue that there is nothing particularly 'adivasi' or 'tribal' about forms of resistance that are labelled as such. Rather, the crucial question is how and why particular forms of resistance are depicted as adivasi issues at particular points in time. One interpretation has depicted adivasis as a united and highly politicised group of people, and has romanticised tribal society and history, thus denying the individuals and communities involved any real agency. Both the interpretations of the state and of left-wing supporters of tribal insurgencies have continued to ignore the complex realities of tribal life, the exercise of 'practical reason' by tribal peoples in dealing with the many challenges facing their communities, and the true diversity in the expressions of political activism that have resulted across the length and breadth of the Indian subcontinent.

Contents

Introduction : Alpa Shah, Crispin Bates

1. We Shall Fight Them on the Beach: Counterinsurgency, Colonisation and the Andaman Islanders, 1771-1863: Satadru Sen

2. 'Natural Boundaries': Negotiating Land Rights and Establishing Rule in Northern East-Bengal, 1790s-1820s: Gunnel Cederlöf

3. From 'Natural Philosophy' to 'Political Ritual': An Ethno-historical Reading of the Colonial Sources on the Konds' Religion (Orissa): Raphaël Rousseleau

4. Locating Adivasi Identity in Colonial India: The Oraons and the Tana Bhagats in Chotanagpur, 1914-1919: Sangeeta Dasgupta

5. Tribal Armed Rebellion of 1922-1924 in the Madras Presidency: A Study of Causation as Colonial Legitimation: Atlury Murali

6. Events, Incidents and Accidents: Re-thinking Indigenous Resistance in the Andaman Islands: Vishvajit Pandya

7. The Making and Unmaking of an Adivasi Working Class in Western Orissa: Christian Strümpell

8. Adivasis and Communists in Post-Reform Kerala: Neoliberalism, Political Disillusionment, and the Indigenist Challenge: Luisa Steur

9. Thoughts on Religious Experience and 'Politics' in Adivasi India: An Anthropologist Attempts a Rereading of History: Amit Desai

10. Alcoholics Anonymous: The Maoist movement in Jharkhand, India: Alpa Shah