"Alternative modernity, alternatives to modernity, multiple modernities – what else?" lecture by Prof. Harbans Mukhia at Teen Murti House, Teen Murti Marg > 3pm on 30th April 2012

Time : 3:00 pm

Entry : Free (Seating on First-Come First-Served basis)

Place : Seminar Room, Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (NMML), Teen Murti House, Teen Murti Marg, New Delhi
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Event Details : The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library cordially invites you to a Public Lecture on 'Alternative modernity, alternatives to modernity, multiple modernities – what else?' by Prof. Harbans Mukhia, Emeritus Professor, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

Abstract : The problematic of Alternative Modernities necessary leads us back to the vision of historical time divided into Antiquity, Medieval and Modern, originating and evolving in western Europe and universalised in the 19th and 20th centuries through an unequal power relation. To begin with “modern” was used as a descriptive term to demarcate the present from the past. Post-Enlightenment, it acquired a value load of reason in opposition to religion or religiosity of any sort which came to be derisively designated as superstition which had characterised the "dark ages". With Positivism’s privileging of science and technology, Modernity was invested with the character of an Abstraction, the approximation to which attested the degree of modernity of every society, every institution, even every individual. Its paradigm was one of capitalist economy.  In one very powerful version, the approximation to this Abstraction in Asia, Africa and Latin America was mediated through colonialism and its discourses; in another, even as colonialism was contested, the approximation to Modernity was mediated through demonstration of parallel and comparable indigenous developments even prior to the colonial intervention. A Marxist version of this discourse was to demonstrate signs of the development of capitalism in India (like commercial capital) which was disrupted by colonial intervention. The acceptance of the Abstraction of Modernity, however, remained intact. The movement of our ideas thus remains encircled by it. One severe effect of it all is the suppression of any expression of plurality of discourses. Of late the received wisdom on modernity is being opened up to almost feverish disputation.
It is to this plurality that I would like to draw attention.

Speaker : Prof. Harbans Mukhia, was formerly Professor of Medieval History and Rector, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. In early years, his interest focused on medieval Indian historiography, leading to Doctoral thesis, later published, Historians and Historiography during the Reign of Akbar, (1976).  Teaching a course on Feudalism at JNU in the 70s and 80s led to research on its theoretical and empirical premises in a comparative perspective. ‘Was there Feudalism in Indian History?’ originally Presidential Address, Medieval Section, Indian History Congress, 1979, also published in The Journal of Peasant Studies, 1981, became the centre of an international debate from 1985 to 93, published as the journal’s special issue and then as a book, Feudalism and Non-European Societies, (1985) (co-edited with T J Byres). It was once again revised, edited by him and published as The Feudalism Debate, (2000). A strongly assertive Marxist historian until about the mid-80s, moved towards a nuanced vision. In 1988-90, co-edited with Maurice Aymard translations of some 35 articles of the best French historians and published in India in two volumes: French Studies in History, (1993), a collection of his essays, Perspectives on Medieval History was published.  In 1996 Religion, Religiosity and Communalism, co-edited with Praful Bidwai and Achin Vanaik was published.
A select collection of his newspaper articles and some book reviews has appeared in a volume: Issues in Indian History, Politics and Society, (2009); Exploring India’s Medieval Centuries: Essays in History, Society, Culture and Technology, (2010). His latest edited publications are History of Technology, vol. II, Medieval India, (2012) and Understanding India: Indology and Beyond, co-edited with Jaroslav Vacek, (2012). 
Some Fellowships received by him are : Fellow, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Simla, 1971; Homi Bhabha Fellow, 1979-80; Directeur d’Étude Associé, EHESS, Paris, 1980-2003 (a month every year); UGC National Lecturer, 1988; Visiting Professor, The British Academy, London, February-March, 1993; UGC National Fellow, 1995-96; Sr. Fellow, International Instt. of Asian Studies, Leiden, 1997; Fellow, IDPAD, University of Amsterdam, October 2004.
He is the founder-editor, The Medieval History Journal, published by SAGE from New Delhi, London, Los Angeles, Washington DC, and Singapore.
The Paris Museum, Musée du quai Branly, runs an annual programme, The Grand Witnesses, in which it invites a person for a 2-hour public interview about  her/his life, work and the times she/he has lived through. Harbans Mukhia was the Grand Witness in June, 2011.

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