Explaining Indian Democracy: A 50-Year Perspective (3 volumes)
Lloyd I. Rudolph, Susanne Hoeber Rudolph,
OUP, Rs 695 each

The academic study of contemporary India took root in the early 1950s and came of age by the end of the decade. Earlier, only the study of Indian history and religion had any standing or interest, with Indian reality being equated with snake charmers and fakirs. But slowly, during the first decade of independence, new, rigorous and enduring frameworks of enquiry emerged from within India, through the works of scholars such as A.R. Desai; and foreign scholars, such as the tireless duo of Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph.

The Rudolphs’ engagement with India began in 1956 and still continues. Apart from the many books that they have written or edited, the Rudolphs have authored a huge number of essays that have been collected in these three volumes. It is, of course, impossible to do full justice here to the range of essays, but one point has to be made about them. Read after 50 years, most works can seem either dated, in terms of data or analysis, or even in tone. The Rudolphs’ essays, however, have a contemporary air to them, displaying their writing and analytical skills at their best. They provide an intellectual history of the Rudolphs and a 50-year perspective on how events and society were seen at different periods.

What has been the main contribution of the Rudolphs to India studies? Unquestionably, it is their contention that modernity in India has built itself on tradition, at times, merging the two, as in the case of Gandhi. Once contested, this is seen as almost axiomatic now. Was there something about their methodology that led them to arrive at this conclusion? Certainly, and the methodological aspect is probably their main contribution to India studies. For one, when the Rudolphs set out on their intellectual voyage, it was at a time when Nehruvian progressivism tried to overshadow the reality of institutions such as caste and their impact. While the Nehruvian consensus looked at caste as obsolete and ignored its role in Indian society, the Rudolphs went against the tide and studied it, noting how caste and caste associations actually influenced social, political and economic lives, leading at times to their being labelled reactionary.

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