Constructing Post-Colonial India: National Character and the Doon School

ISBN-13: 9780415178556 / Angielski / Twarda / 1998 / 272 str.

Sanjay Srivastava

Opis

The Doon School, a famous boarding school for boys in India, inculcates in its students the notion that to be post-colonial is to be rational, secular and metropolitan. The school numbers many of India's political, social and intellectual elite among its former students; its code of conduct for the modern Indian citizen has been extremely influential. In this detailed study, Sanjay Srivastava digs deep to find the roots of the ideological construction of post-coloniality in India. The Doon School is the site of his analysis but his work ranges far beyond the school itself. He uses historical sources, ethnographic fieldwork and perspectives from cultural theory to question the prevailing theoretical positions of post-colonial studies, arguing that post-coloniality is meaningless unless it is located in historical, social and cultural space.

An interdisciplinary and engaging book which looks at the nature of Indian society since Independence and unpacks what post-colonialism means to Indian citizens. Using the case study of the Doon School, a famous boarding school for boys, and one of the leading educational institutions in India, the author argues that to be post-colonial in India is to be modern, rational, secular and urban. In placing post-colonialism in this concrete social context, and analysing how it is constructed, the author renders a complex and often rather abstract subject accessible.

Recenzje

'Going far beyond the "sociology of education" framework, the study marks a noteworthy intervention in the academic debate on India's tryst with modernity ... an important contribution.' - The Australian Journal of Anthropology

Spis treści

Introduction: the seductions of capital 1 Practical minds, solid builders, and sane opinions 2 The marble mirage: constructing the Orient 3 The garden of rational delights 4 Secularism, the citizen, and Hindu contextualism 5 The management of water: capitalism, class, and science 6 The order of men: sentiments of the metropolis, settlements of civil society 7 Conclusion: ‘post-coloniality’, national identity, globalisation, and the simulacra of the real

O autorze

Sanjay Srivastava trained as a social anthropologist and is presently senior lecturer in the School of Literary and Communication Studies at Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia.