30 D. P. Mukerji and Indigenous Sociology

Ektaa Jain

Introduction

Sociology was set up at the University of Lucknow in 1921. The founding father of sociology at Lucknow, Radhakamal Mukerjee was known for the interdisciplinarity in his teaching of social sciences. In the journey to implement his ideas, he was supported by stalwarts like Dhurjati Prasad Mukerji, Dhirendra Nath Majumdar and others. With this often called ‘trinity’, Lucknow school emerged as a major critique towards western modernity and the ideas of tradition and modernity were central over here. It is in this broader concept that it is significant to engage with D.P. Mukerji and his contributions to sociological understanding.

D.P. Dhurjati Prasad Mukerji (1894-1961), popularly called as DP, has been a prominent thinker who can be also deemed as one of the founding fathers of sociology in India. D.P. Mukerji was born on October 5th in the year of 1894 in West Bengal in a middle class Brahmin Bengali family. This particular era was marked with major influences of figures like Tagore, Bankim Chandra, Sarat Chandra etc.Like Satyen Bose, the famous physicist, Mukerji wanted to study science after passing the entrance examination of Calcutta University but instead took over to the disciplines of Mukerji: A Man of Varied Talents: economics and history. He also went to England for further studies. His career began at Calcutta’s Bangabasi College. Mukerji joined the newly founded Lucknow University in the year 1992 as a lecturer in both economics and sociology where he stayed over a period of thirty-two years. The first professor of the department, Dr. Radha kamal Mukerjee had a major role in bringing D.P. Mukerji to this place. The year of 1954 saw the retirement of Mukerji as a Professor and the Head of the Department. Mukerji acted as a Visiting Professor of Sociology at the International Institute of Social Studies, The Hague for the year of 1953.

Mukerji, during the last five years of his active academic life, also acquired the Chair of Economics at the University of Aligarh, after his retirement. He was the first President of the Indian Sociological Conference. He also remained the Vice-President of the International Sociological Association. Along with being a renowned academician and thinker, Mukerji had immense love for music and drama. His aesthetic sensibility walked hand in hand with his intellect. It is no coincidence that he was very particular of his style. He rarely gave away his emotions and was generally in control of situations. His encouragement for dialogue and exchange of ideas made him popular among his students too. D.P. Mukerji became the Director of Information when the Congress party won the mandate to form the governmentin Uttar Pradesh in 1938. His influence brought the spirit of an intellectual approach to public relations. He was also part of the foundation of the Bureau of Economics and Statistics.

Mukerji had always been a man of varied talents. This is evident from the wide range of topics that he discussed and wrote about. It was perhaps the varied nature of his thought that attracted him to Sociology. He wrote, ”Sociology has a floor and a ceiling, like any other science; but its speciality consists in its floor being the ground floor of all types of social disciplines, and in its ceiling remaining open to the sky” (Mukerji 1958: 229).

Needless to say, Mukerji like his other compatriots at Lucknow University maintained interdisciplinary interest, philosophical and theoretical attitude, and nationally committed inclination toward sociology.

Major works: 

Like any popular thinker, Mukerji too was against the idea of dividing categories of knowledge or compartmentalising knowledge. Being a versatile scholar, he dealt with an extremely wide range of issues including personality understanding, modern indian culture, issues in tradition- modernity, role of middle-classes, nature of sociology and so on. He wrote nineteen books, including Diversities (1958); ten in Bengali and nine in English. His early publications include: Basic Concepts in Sociology (1932) and Personality and the Social Sciences (1924). Some of the other publications are: Modern Indian Culture (1942), Problems of Indian Youth (1942), Tagore: A Study (1943), On Indian History: A Study in Method (1943), Introduction to Music (1945), and Views and Counterviews (1946).

Mukerji as a Marxiologist: 

Indian history, according to Mukerji can be analysed in terms of dialectical processes. They are namely: Tradition and modernity, colonialism and nationalism, individualism and collectivism. All these could be seen as dialectically interacting with each other.However, his adoption of dialectic was not same as a Marxist scholar’s usage of the term. Marxian ideas seemed relevant and important to Mukerji if adapted to Indian history and context. The study of social processes and social movements was thus important to him. Marxism, according to D.P. Mukerji, though helped one to understand the historical developments of a society, it could not provide for a suitableexplanation to human problems. This explanation had its roots in interpreting India’s national culture in its own vocabulary. This has been seen as a method to understand history. Mukerji preferred to call himself a ‘Marxiologist’ as mentioned earlier rather than a ‘Marxist’ and attempted a dialectical interpretation of the encounter between the Indian tradition and modernity which unleashed many forces of cultural contradictions during the colonial era (Singh, 1973: 18-20). Despite his idea of Marxist philosophy, he was uncertain about its use in Indian society due to the following reasons mainly:

• The Marxists would analyse everything in terms of class conflict. However, in Indian society, class conflicts have been overshadowed by caste conflicts.
• Most of the Marxists were not very well aware of the socio-economic history of India.
• The way economic pressures work is not similar to any mechanical force. They may change and act differently.

According to Mukerji’s sociological understanding of Indian society, even though the society is changing, the changes have not led to much disintegration. He proposed a unique way of doing sociology to understand society due to the presence of its own traditions, its unique set of symbols as well as special patterns of economic and technological changes.This was different from the Eurocentric understanding of society i.e. to understand one’s own society also only from the European perspective and overlooking the particularities of one’s own culture. Mukerji observes: “In my view, the thing changing is more real and objective than change per se.” he further adds that “it is not enough for the Indian sociologist to be sociologist. He must be an Indian, that is, he is to share in the folkways, mores, customs and traditions for the purpose of understanding this social system and what lies beneath it and beyond it” (Mukerji 1958: 232-33)

Understanding Personality: 

Mukerji himself was not a well-wisher of positivistic construction of personality. The notion of ‘Achievement’ was a sort of obsession in the western personality. The living conditions of the masses improved due to developments in science and technology. Thus, the ability of human beings to dominate over nature for their own advantages were crucial achievements of the so- called modern age. Despite all this, this western approach could not really lead to an integrated development. This integrated development involved a right balance of Indian tradition or sociality on the one hand and western modernity or individualism on the other. This integrated development was absent due to the lack of balance between the technological advances and human freedom. D.P. Mukerji’s dialecticism was rooted in humanism which cut across narrow ethnic or national consideration. In the West, the individuals had become either destructive or passive. There was lack of any kind of humanism, so as to say. Though Renaissance and Industrial Revolution had set free individuals from the existing redundant medieval tradition, the humanist idea of progress was allegedly reduced to a parochial notion of achievement. This positivist idea of the West could not be appropriate for the Indian society.

Mukerji acknowledges that the Indian social life is like the life of bees and beavers and the Indians are almost a regimented people. But “the beauty of it” is that the majority of us do not feel restricted. This is in contradiction with the western individual who according to Mukerji was trapped. This individual is influenced by manipulative advertisements, press-chains, chain stores and his purse is continuously emptied. The individual’s right to choice and the ideas of sovereignty are thus, somewhere lost. Interestingly, moderate and low level of aspirations in the Indian minds mediated by group and community norms results into greater self-assurance. For the Indian sociologist, group becomes a key unit of analysis and not individual. This is the specificity of the tradition.

Despite understanding and studying tradition, Mukerji did not ’worship’ it blindly. For him, a well-balancedpersonality was a combination of ethics and morality with rationality and a thinking mind. The latter are more like hallmarks of themodern age and not of tradition per se. Such a personality can be created only with a sufficient understanding of tradition. DP observes that “the knowledge of traditions shows the way to break them with the least social cost” (Mukerji 1958: 231). The understanding of tradition was thus important to understand the society itself, how things work, how systems change etc. This knowledge of tradition then helps in modifying them and changing them, hence, it is to be remembered that traditions are not static.

According to Mukerji, an individual, intentionally or unintentionally knows that group tyranny is problematic to individual in terms of creation of personality. The individual gets subdued by group choices. The purpose of group  life often overshadows the individual and cannot  let him/her bloom into a person. All individuals have a distinct personality and at times the group behaviour or group expectations hinder this personality growth. For instance, a student from a small town becomes a part of a peer group which goes for parties very often. This new student, despite the fact that he/she wishes to use the free time for reading or some other purpose might just join the friends because that is what is expected from him/her1. The distinction between the notions of ‘individual’ and ‘person’, purusha and vyakti, acquired greater salience in Mukerji’s later writings.

Hindu-Muslim relations- Synthesis or Conflict: 

In post-independent India, under the larger background of nation building, it was a common practice to engage with the issues of inter-community relations. D.P. Mukerji had a unique view in understanding Hindu-Muslim relations. In his search for truth, he could find and explore humanistic and spiritual unity in the very diverse cultures of India. He examined many domains in the purview of Hindu-Muslim relations. Among these, three domains really stand out that include:

• There had been a sense of partnership and agreement among the Muslim rulers and Hindu rajas. From the eleventh to seventeenth centuries A.D. it was the Muslim rulers who ruled over the Hindu majority and yet alliances were forged between the rulers of the two communities.
• The two groups formed alliances on the basis of common shared economic interest. For instance, while the military chiefs were Muslims, the zamindars were mainly Hindus; there interest was common.
• Both cultures had influences over each other. Mutualinteraction was encouraged by both Sufi and Bhakti movements. This influencecan be seen in terms of literature, costumes, music and fine arts too.

In terms of worldview, differences were visible among the two communities. Hindus, according to Mukerji, carried a fatalistic view as they saw world in terms of cycle of good and bad. It was a worldview developed from a singular territory. On the other hand, Islam was multi-ethnic and

1http://study.com/academy/lesson/internal-conflict-definition-types-example.html (The video may help you to understand the individual and group dynamics.) could be seen as a multi-national religion. While the Hindu approach towards nationhood was more idealists, Islamic approach was more practical. The Muslim view was non-cyclic. It looked forward to direct action to deal with any opportunity or crisis.

For Mukerji, partition of the sub-continent was no more than a geopolitical event happening at a particular time of history. The cultural synthesis of Hindu-Muslim categories can be seen in terms of economic interests or aesthetic influences through things like architecture etc. Culture was thus, not something to be politicised according to him.

‘Tradition’ and ‘Modernity’: 

As seen above too, for Mukerji, tradition was the base of culture. It was something that helped individual to know his/her purpose and not to get lost. However, with an extravagant emphasis, this tradition may sometime become a stagnating point in the culture. Idealising or worshipping tradition or in a way fetishizing it was considered totally unnecessary. Such fetish creation out of tradition would lead to backwardness of the culture2. It is for this reason that individuation for the growth of individual autonomy was also to be encouraged. Culture could be recreated by infusing it with a fresh vigour. A balance was thus thought to be maintained even between the freedom and surveillance of the individual thought. This would be necessary for a healthy personality. Individuation and Sociation thus have to go hand-in-hand. Sociation is what links individual to the entire society. Individual freedom can thus be seen as not as a chaotic condition but it is a creative and free expression of the tradition.

For Mukerji, tradition was the aspect in which the nature and meaning of Indian social reality was rooted. This was one of the key intellectual interests of Mukerji. However, he was interested in not simply studying and glorifying it but in seeing how these traditions can be bent or re- articulated in manner which could be helpful in promoting common people’s welfare. This led to a proposition of inserting modernity in the Indian tradition.

2The scenario of looking down on someone for not wearing new clothes on a festival like Deepawali is creating a fetish out of the tradition for wearing new clothes on festival.

Mukerji concentrated on the historical specificity of India’s cultural and social transformation, which was marked less by ‘class struggle’ and more by value assimilation and cultural synthesis (Madan, 1977: 167-68). What is the actual meaning of tradition then? Mukerji points out that tradition come from the root ‘tradere’, which means “to transmit”. The Sanskrit word corresponding to tradition is either parampara, that is, succession or aitihya, which has the same root as itihasa, or history.

Tradition, thus according to its etymological roots, performs the act of conserving. However, this cannot be equated with understanding tradition; one need not be a conservative to comprehend tradition. For tradition, like  everything else, does change. Three principles of change  are recognized in Indian tradition: Sruti, Smriti, Anubhava. It is anubhava or personal experience, which is the revolutionary principle. Certain Upanishads are entirely based on it. But it did not end there. Personal experience of the saint-founders of different sects or panths soon blossomed forth into collective experience producing change in the prevailing socio-religious order. The experience of prem or love and sahaj or spontaneity of these saints and their followers was noticeable also in the Sufis among the Muslims.

Mukerji in his attempt to understand tradition divided it into three categories namely: primary, secondary and tertiary. While it is the primary traditions which are most authentic and close to the Indian society, it is the secondary tradition which is seen as an influence of the Muslim rule. Even at the arrival of the British, the Hindus and Muslims had not attained synthesis of their respective traditions entirely. Though a lot of adjustment could be seen in terms of usage of natural resources and religious and aesthetic traditions. Such synthesis was still in a very nascent stage. Also in the tertiary traditions of conceptual thought differences survived evidently.

The task of the sociologist then becomes the task of understanding the traditions in which one is born. This includes studying the changes that all traditions undergo due to pressure; both internal and external. The internal pressure can be attributed mainly to the economic domain. If the forces here remain very strong and the mode of production does not alter, traditions may survive as they did earlier.

Tradition and Modernity- The Dialectics: 

Indian tradition has always stood as a representative of all the values that have emerged due to its past events in the lives of its people. Consequentially, values have been conserved in India which includes both good and bad. However, the important point is to understand how tradition has utilised forces that were external to it including ideas, such as urbanisation, technology, bureaucracy etc. The concept of tradition came forward in Mukerji’s writings for the very first time in 1942 with his book ‘Modern Indian Culture: A Sociological Study’. His characterization of tradition in the context of Indian culture runs as below:

“As a social and historical process…. Indian culture represents certain common traditions that have given rise to a number of general attitudes. The major influences in their shaping have been Buddhism, Islam, and  western commerce and culture. It was through the assimilation and conflict of such varying forces that Indian culture became what it is today, neither Hindu nor Islamic, neither a replica of the western mode of living and thought nor a purely Asiatic product” (1948: 1).

Mukerji was optimistic about the fact that adjustments shall always happen. Like certain primitive tribes, Indians shall not completely vanish on being touched by the western influence. Indian culture has shown its flexibility of assimilating several tribal cultures as well as dissenting voices. The modern Indian culture thenemerges as a blend towards which one may be inquisitive and intrigued. It is the varansankara. “Traditionally, therefore, living in adjustment is in India’s blood, so to speak” (Mukerji 1953: 1152).

The understanding of such diverse concepts, infact, of these bipolar opposites of ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’ comes across quite significantly through Mukerji’s writings on ‘tradition and modernity’. These two concepts can be then seen in dialectical opposition to each other just like British colonialism and Indian nationalism etc.

The roots of Mukerji’s idea of dialectics can be seen in liberal humanism. Time and again, through all his works, he has emphasised the fact that tradition is essential for the development of Indian society and any kind of knowledge of Indian society should be engaging with tradition. Tradition for him is then defined through the perspective of dialectics.

Like any two bipolar opposites, the encounter of both tradition and modernisation resulted into cultural ambiguities, adjustment problems, as well as in some cases, it led to conflicts too. Yogendra Singh elaborates the consequences of this encounter by elaborating that in D.P. Mukerji’s writing in which according to Singh, we find some systematic concern with analysis of Indian social processes from a dialectical frame of reference. He mainly focuses upon the encounter of the tradition with that of the west which, on the one hand, unleashed many factors of cultural contradictions and, on the other, gave rise to a new middle class. The rise of these forces, according to him, generates a dialectical process of conflict and synthesis which must be given a push by bringing into play the conserved energies of the class structure of Indian society.

Hence, one may conclude that the interaction of tradition with modernity results into i.) conflict or ii.) synthesis particularly in aspect of cultural values which in turn makes the Indian society. This dialectics of tradition and modernity and conflict and synthesis arethus essential to understand our society.

Tradition and Modernity along with Tagore and Gandhi: 

It is interesting to note that the dialectics of tradition and modernity was not a new idea for Mukerji. This was present in the haydays of struggle forindependence and nationalistic thoughts in colonial India. Mukerji had explicitly this in his study of Tagore which was published in 1943. In this work, Mukerji analyses both the nature as well as the dynamics of modernisation. He perceived modernisation as a long historical process which expands and elevates with time. It seemed like a large investment into the existing traditions of a given culture. This did not mean a departure from the existing traditions. There, thus, existed a continuous interplay of the traditional and the modern.

Comparing Tagore with Bankim chandra Chatterji for instance, he writes: “His [Tagore’s] saturation with Indian traditions was deeper; hence he could more easily assimilate a bigger dose of western thought.” And again: “The influence of the West upon Tagore was great… but it should not be exaggerated…. At each stage in the evolution of his prose, poetry, drama, music and of his personality we find Tagore drawing upon some basic reservoir of the soil, of the people, of the spirit, and emerging with the capacity for larger investment” (Mukerji, 1972: 50).

Tradition thus cannot be seen as a hindrance in the way of modernisation. Infact, there existed an opportunity to develop a synthesis of old along with the new, and emergence of newer alternatives. New institutions cannot develop without strong roots. This can come from traditions only. Interestingly, modernity should be defined in relation to and not in denial of tradition. Conflict is only the intermediate stage in the dialectical triad: the movement is toward coincidentia oppositorum, a Latin phrase meaning coincidence of opposites.

With such an understanding of tradition, it is no surprise that Mukerji concentrated on Gandhi’s understanding of machines and technology, before going ahead with ‘a large scale technological development’ (Mukerji 1958: 225). For him it was no small matter that economic development and its accompanying problems could be questioned through the Gandhian perspective that stood for the values including wantlessness, non-exploitation and absolute non-possession. The difference of thought between Gandhi and Mukerji stems from the fact that Gandhi never gave enough explanation regarding how to use the newer social forces that had resulted from the existing British rule. The so-called ‘Ramrajya’ society idea according to Mukerji was quite non- historical as well as non-existent. However, he was with Gandhi on his idea that traditional values may actually emerge as true saviours from foreign evils of consumerism etc. which could harm the society away.

Through his ideas of both Tagore and Gandhi, Mukerji makes it clear that what he means about understanding tradition should not be seen in contradiction to embracing rationality. He seeks for a balanced growth of modernity keeping in mind the traditional values.

Emerging Intellectuals and Surging Ambiguity: 

Despite the moral fervour that the national movement had created, according to Mukerji, the movement remained anti-intellectual. He felt that the movement had borrowed a lot from the west without due thinking and understanding. This had in turn made one’s thought useless and actions became futile. Mukerji had always strived for intellectual and aesthetic growth and thus with the national movement he concluded, “politics ruined our culture” (1958: 190).

According to Mukerji, middle class can also be seen as a product of the colonial economy as well as the British pattern of education. (Mukerji, 2002). Mukerji argues that this class did not play an integral role in bridging the gap among the population; it infact created barriers among them. He felt that the emergence of this class can be seen as a concrete evidence of the British influence. The class of ‘bhadraloks’, the intellectual elites in Bengal was of no good, it remained distant from the common public, was quite invisible in the national struggle as well as was blinded towards the socio-economic realities of the Indian culture. The middleclass played the contradictory role of defending and consolidating the colonial rule within their own country. They were away from the masses. The re-establishment of this link was necessary if India was supposed to become a modern nation. Growth otherwise ceased to exist only as an empirical number according to Mukerji while development was a more qualitative term relying heavily on value-based progress. Even though initially the middle class played an important role in strengthening the British rule, they later challenged the authority too.

The failure of the middle-class to get linked with the masses was due to their inability to construct an integrated personality which spelt of tradition as well as modernity. They could not explore the vitality of the indigenous culture and thus remained away from the masses.However, if the middle class develops this integrated personality, several changes in lives of people may follow. There is a gradual possibility of wide rural middle class may emerge.

Mukerji- the lacking: 

A lot of work has been done around the concept of tradition in Indian context. However, most sociologists have overlooked the actual contents and roots of such traditions. D.P. Mukerji too faces a similar problem. Though Mukerji has emphasized over the importance of tradition in analyzing anything including modernization, he has not given the content of these traditions. This has been pointed out by T.N. Madan too. Though Mukerji points out towards a possibility of a synthesis of Vedanta, western liberation and Marxism as the constituents of tradition; he overlooks the possibility of synthesis of for instance, Islam and Buddhism. An empirical content is missing form Mukerji’s works as opposed to the common anthropological way of working through fieldwork.

And the Quest Continues:

History and the value of the Marxist approach were abiding concernsfor Mukerji. The contents of modernisation according to Mukerji, includes nationalism, democracy, the utilization of science and technology for harnessing nature, planning for social and economic development, and the cultivation of rationality. The typical modern man is the engineer, social and technical (Mukerji 1958: 39-40). This typical modern man would have told Indian sociologists that their ‘first task’ was the study of ‘social traditions’ (ibid. 232).Mukerji was thus of the opinion to never delink history and sociology. According to him, “History rings the changes and Sociology offers the unity and the continuity. They are the Purusha and Prakriti of the social sciences.” (1945:87). One needs to remember that all changes on Indian traditions shall follow.

Despite being an economist by training, Mukerjis’s way of analysing was different from other economists. He did not see the economic development of the country in vacuum. For him the social and cultural specificities were equally important. Social values played an important role in influencing the economic forces. For Mukerji, the diverse elements of our culture are important to provide for a peaceful and progressive journey of the country.

According to Mukerji, the very first task of the sociologist is to seek and understand the specific nature of a particular society and the traditions within it. The sociologists of India should thus concentrate on tradition which has been a part of the cultural fabric since a very long time. The researcher is a part of the social processes. The distinction between the research area and the research thus keeps getting blurred. This is a continuous process. In his words, “the process of… ‘making’ is never ending” (1945: 33). For Mukerji, the thing changing is more real (in this case, tradition) than change per se. The Eurocentric understanding of society was thus faulty. Like all other histories, Indian history too was marked by its own and unique set of continuities and discontinuities which a sociologist should aim to seek, analyse and understand.

Bibliography

• Madan, T.N. Sociology at the University of Lucknow: The First Half Century (1921-1975). New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2013.
• Mukerji, D.P. Diversities: Essays in Economics, Sociology and other Social Problems. New Delhi: Peoples Publishing House, 1958.
• “Man and Plan in India”. Economic and Political weekl. Oct. 1953. pp. 1147-52.
• Modern Indian Culture: A Sociological Study. Mumbai: Hind Kitabs, 1948.
• On Indian History: A Study in Method. Mumbai: Hind Kitabs, 1945.
• Singh, Y. Modernization of Indian tradition: a systemic study of social change. India: Thomson Press, 1973.