Chronicles of Our Time

Though-provoking and insightful essays on the state of the nation focusing on social and political realities which will provoke debate for years to come. This book begins with the subject of the individual’s quest for identity. In articles that describe the ways in which intellectuals relate to ideologies within the framework of academia. The focus then shifts to social justice, and Beteille outlines the contradictions inherent in the Indian context between the ideal of equality and the practice of inequality. A subsequent section is devoted to caste, tribe and religion, three aspects that continue to constitute the morphology of Indian society inspite of legal, political and secularist interventions. In the sections that follow, Beteille examines contentious issues like reservations and affirmative action; political, economic and legal empowerment; the destabilization of institutions in contemporary India; and the question of modernization with its perceived threat to traditional values. Over the past thirty years, Andre Beteille, one of India’s most eminent sociologists, has written a series of articles for the editorial pages of the Times of India. Encapsulating the complexities of academic discourse within the concise framework of a newspaper articles, these writings provide a telling on the social, political and economic life of India in the eventful decades of the later twentieth century. Collected and published in book form for the first time, Beteille’s view on post-Nehruvian India will be of interest to general readers and social scientists alike.