RAL STUDIES IN INDIA and a History" hava Prasad as written when Cultural Studies in India was attempting its place and role in academia. The frst part explores the context of cultural studies practice, and the institutional set- it had to find a space for itself. Methodological it attempts Of institutions following the loss of prestige of the English withthe decline ofthe colonial aura and the opening up of tohitherto excluded sections ofthe population. The essay toa historical survey ofthe concept of cultureas itemerged. ‘and deployed—an exercise in discourse analysis to draw influential uses ofthe term inthe Indian context, the changes it fe with time, and its appropriation across several disciplines fof inguiry Re-examining past usage isan important step towards that any discipline must acquire and constantly renew to to its social context, ical events provide the framework for the emergence of new subjectvities in India, Together, these two events cleared the forthe constitution of modern nation state But the meanings and they represent in tele separate occurrence have not harmonised to ender the formation ofthe Indian polity asadone deal. Rather Note The essay is being published forthe fst time in this anthology posing the question of what our time constituted by, Prasad pre loose hat the colonial ea has on ou conscourness asthe sole ste of eboration ‘when the edifices bull on the assumption of and desire fo sl(Curunat Srv Tek 155, 14 M. Manis Passio sol nh very pan ia ithe vey programme fon o which ther sctorsand dcipline were dated pon the humans te need to dsavow that poet. The treba dda mai her epinet ntai the synchronic epace inaugurated by the Of Revelation in sucha way ao render store, to return ace stout nanisiog us rlci eterning our presen the coloilera hich thers dominates our conciousness eof laborntion of our modernity. than a thoroughly and irreversibly reconstituted socal space, we tolive with struggles over the state form and, what is more relevant immediate purpose, a void in the place that is conventionally assgh such formations to @ national-culture. A distinctive property of cil studies has been its groundingin national-cultural spaces, its consi felation to the changing demographics of intellectual culture. Hen importance of dealing withthe basic question of the nature o the nal culture (or in this instance the difficulties attending its descrip before we can discuss what kind of cultural studies might concciva practised init ‘The two events in question are: the achievement of independence British rule in 1947, and the adoption ofa republican Constitution in ‘which regardless of whatone might think ofits actual success, is the ina ‘moment ofthe Indian Revolution. Inthe national imaginary, however ‘or Independence has always occupied the place of honour while 19 Revolution has remained inthe background until recently, celebrated 4 display of military power in Dethi but otherwise symbolically inet late the revival of interest inthe legacy of B. R. Ambedkar among factors has made some dilference o this state of affairs but by no 1 amounts toa thorough reorganisation ofthe symbolic. “This scenario of symbolic iresolution has had its reflection in the the horizon of cultural practices and cultural studies has been domin by a sort of intr-civilistional agonistic [Le disputes or confit}, confinement of all questions of cultural significance toa rigid Eas. axis and a consequent neglect of the cultural existence ofthe nations Interior. The question of the present, the hereand nov, of what const “our time’ (Dhareshwar 1995) and place, has tended tothe deferred Indefinite future while the ‘postcolonial’ questions and all the labo postcolonial critique are pu atthe service ofthe spiritual rebebilita the departed colonial master. This perhaps no accident that this question of what constitutes our is only beginning to be rigorously posed now, ata time when the ef builton the assumption of and desire for self-identity are being dismal all around us, For an Indian programme of cultural studies worthy of name, a thorough reconsideration of the question of tr contempor nay notion thatthe colonial er, strated sa despots, cand becuraitit weologe of boty sd paver fofcoloial ference a Partha Chatterjee as terme) should appear iosasthe era ofour modernity The diferenceat sie moun to no more than ashi of perspective that would the adoption faficion fe nsttted modem Aslongast fre wes rc separtd from ourpatry analen ter eing of reunion contin to ssa en the other and we the icon mpied inthe inauguration ofthe Repub thts fiction ofa radical opr that placesa dance between sand Bb cree wi theta thinking te pesca inal x without wishing way te colonial eras dering factor Stu, ar has emerged in acide fdas unhinkable shift of perspective tthe peat oth contemporary, otto sy that history isrlevan toi On somewhat simpli, fring lr a wut yah al aspetialycaptalit clo asogpsed to non-/pre-apalit Jor ronal ors of cult This ormsation however. ony re sine educes the objecof clara sas to seme speci ontet and encourages sot of erea-wise dvs ated on the Beton tat thre re npr vones felt is wel kaon rts ntinvente by cura stad, and that before advent teas dpe of formidable strength, ameoplogy, which ores primary objec It hus becomes imperative sat What the eject of cultural stds diferent frm the one proposed by logy aswel athe one asumed by Hera etiam to be irda, However to snower by invoking the important dates of modern history begins to emerge, Fr the human a disengagement from the trauma of separation and abandonment i the signifier 1947 can be said to represent has been dificult. Even repudiation of the colonial pas, nits insistent repetition, has proved a156 M, Muni Passa ‘emergence of different and separate zone of culture that fll o purview of anthropology. ‘An improved definition would be that cultural studies emerges ‘culture in the sense in which it is conceived traditionally, whether discipline of anthropology or in the realm of common senses 0 recoverable in a pute state. Inthe Indian context, two spheres of were conventionally recognised, the key factor of identification their non-modern character. The frst of these is what is calle "rad cluding the Sanskritic textual tradition and contemporary pra thought to be deriving from them. The other could be placed under ‘ubric of ral tradition and includes folk, tribal and other practices hl ‘outside the purview of both the modern and the Sanskritic traditions {two-fold division of culture roughly coincided with the division of between the two great, related disciplines of Indology and anthropol ‘Theself-ritique undertaken by anthropology in recent decades be {nwo crisis some of its basic assumptions such asthe distance, espe temporal, that was assumed to separate the world of the ethno {rom his/her object of study. While the ethnographic method cont tobe employed in cultural studies, it can no longer be un-problemat supported by the ‘allochronic’ relation. Besides, the political dimensia cultural practice also came into view andit became retrospectively clea the evacuation of politics from the objects of ethnogeaphic study faci by the political subjugation ofthe world by European imperialism ca not be sustained in the context of new political formations that emer from the struggles against European domination. For all that, the rse of cultural studies cannot be explained by the cl inanthropology alone. For that to happen, the culture that disappeared the sites of anthropological research had to reappear in locations that never suspected to havea cultural dimension, This where the history the emergence of cultural studies in Britain acquires is significance Anthropology and Sociology Stuart Hall has writen a historical account (1990) of the emergence Cultural Studies as a discipline at Birmingham. The founding text the discipline idemied there are Richard Hoggarts The Uses of Liter Raymond Williams’ Culture and Society and The Long Revolution, a E. P. Thompsons The Making ofthe English Working Class Halls acc lays much emphasis on the break with older definitions of culture Carona Sons 018 187 (Leavisian, based on notions of literary excellence) the With an Americanised, ‘scientific’ sociology and later, the fof sociology from within’ (23); the move from a literary Jan anthropological definition of culture, the stress on the jon the ‘lived culture’ of the working classes; and the fof the theoretical dimension to defining cultural studies as definition based on the objects of study. Gramscian notions ny, the national-popular, and the specificity ofthe political with the Althusserian theory of ideology, provide the With its theoretical base. Historically the rise ofthe ‘male possible by a break located in the 1960s but traced back the previous decade, that is, in the immediate aftermath of ML. tly treats the particularities ofthe British historical situation ihe discipline emerged as a contingent conjuncture which {repeat itself in every place where itis practised. Thus when ses cultural studies’ adoption of an anthropological rather ianities-inspired definition of culture, he is also pointing tant role ethnography would play in the new discipline. Indian context where unlike in Britain the anthropological has shared the space with other definitions and hasindeed been for notions of an unchanging cultural substance, a stress on rary, on the political dimension of cultural practices and res a break with the ‘eternalising’ habits of anthropology. In Hal is describing, the existence ofthe contemporary was not its worthiness tobe called culture. In our context, efforts to “contemporary face a formidable opposition from entrenched taken up By hn, of elevanc tos swe ry to think YisGacpine Ind. We cn tack hs y begining is The Ue of Literary, ackaowleged as one ofthe founding i dine and his imag tare Scoals of English and vary Society the lecture, 2 described by Hall Hoggat Catura tis asbeng concerned wih neglected materials orular clare andthe mass medi’ (Hall 1990, 2). He them of nach study asthe identification of qualitativeculurl in hxc mater y sing Ierrycrcl methods As Hall fs conservatism ay hve refed tht stork compromise toetthes it questions posed tall (bi). However that id