De-structuring Political Science
| Date | 01 December 2013 |
| Author | Ajay Gudavarthy |
| DOI | 10.1177/2321023013509152 |
| Published date | 01 December 2013 |
| Subject Matter | Teaching-Learning Politics in India |
Military-Madrasa-Mullah Complex 231
India Quarterly, 66, 2 (2010): 133–149
A Global Threat 231
Teaching-Learning Politics in India1
De-structuring Political Science
Ajay Gudavarthy
The teaching and research in political science has over the last few decades grown exponentially and
greatly broadened its areas of study. However, this expansion has continued to be plagued by certain
stubborn intellectual and epistemic problems that seem to be specific to the discipline of political sci-
ence, even as they are not completely absent from other disciplines. One of the core problems that the
discipline has failed to overcome in all these years has been one of what the Rudolphs have ‘deplored
(as) the deep and enduring split between theory and empirical research in political science’ (Rudolph and
Rudoplh, 2009, p. 139). I have elsewhere argued that
Both ‘theoretical imperialism’ and the massive confusion between empiricism (including source fetishism of
some disciplines) and the ‘empirical mode of intellectual practice’ has pushed political scientists to draw articial
self-referential boundaries and give up the study of societies in their manifold interconnections for ‘specialised’
and ‘regionally enclosed’ studies. (Gudavarthy, 2011, p. 120)
This, in other words, is what the Rudolphs refer to as a ‘problem-driven’ mode of approaching the sub-
ject-matter, rather than artificially slicing up the subject into very narrow areas of specialization. Much
of what is pursued as political theory or philosophy in India has very scant reference to concrete histori-
cal and sociological references; in fact, most scholars who work in this area assume that many empirical
details are taken care of by rich theoretical frames. This assumption has reflection not merely in their
research but in fact influences much of the teaching programmes across universities. Students trained in
abstract philosophical systems rarely get tested in their ability to understand the nuances of social and
political history of India. Theory is pursued as a self-enclosed specialization, almost resonating what
almost resonating what Kosambi (2002, p. 59) had observed with regard to Marxism, that it is a mode of
thinking and ‘not a substitute to thinking’. The assumption that pursuit of theory is of a higher order, as
against empirical research, also resonates almost a caste/varna-system type of hierarchization.2
The problem, however, is not one-sided; much of scholarship in the area of what is often referred to
as ‘Indian Politics’ is bereft of rich theoretical categories. It has been mostly descriptive. As philosophers
take pride in their lack of depth in empirical details, those belonging to the domain of ‘Indian Politics’
keep respectable distance from theory. Theoreticism and empiricism are then close ‘colonial cousins’
that continue to plague the discipline of political science in India.3 Further, within the pursuit of ‘Indian
Politics’, it is structured along the lines of specialization in the study of institutions, processes and policy.
Even here, those studying institutions rarely evince interest in political process; they assume institutions
are best studied for what they are—being insular. Institutions are taught and researched along the line
Ajay Gudavarthy, Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
E-mail: gudavarthiajay@yahoo.com
Studies in Indian Politics
1(2) 231–234
© 2013 Lokniti, Centre for the
Study of Developing Societies
SAGE Publications
Los Angeles, London,
New Delhi, Singapore,
Washington DC
DOI: 10.1177/2321023013509152
http://inp.sagepub.com
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