What is Sociology and why it is important
- Part 2 -

Rajendra Kshetri *

Sociology Department : DM College of Arts, Imphal :: Pix - Deepak Oinam

(The following is the full text of the Key-Note Address delivered at the Inaugural Function of Manipur Sociological society held on 17th July, 2013 at G.P. Women's College, Imphal, jointly organized by Department of Sociology, G.P. Women's College and Manipur Sociological Society)

Sociology in India:

In India, the teaching of sociology as an academic discipline started at the University of Bombay in 1919 (from where I did my masters) with Patrick Geddes as Professor of Civics and Sociology. He was succeeded by G.S. Ghurye (whom I have had the fortune and privilege of meeting a couple of times in 1981. He was retired but still active as Professor Emeritus when I met him), who came back from Cambridge after obtaining his doctorate under W.H.R. River. Sociology in Bombay, for that matter in India, developed under the leadership of Ghurye.

The range and sweep of Ghurye's scholarly interests and works has a profound influence on the development of sociology in India. Ghurye's contribution to Indian sociology is legendary. Many of the pioneering and eminent sociologists of India such as M.N. Srinivas, I.P. Desai, A.R. Desai, Irawati Karve are, at one time or the other, all his colleagues and students.

Lucknow University was another major centre of sociology (and social anthropology). Under the leadership of the triumvirate – Radhakamal Mukherjee, D.P. Mukerji and D.N. Majumdar – Lucknow soon emerged as a leading centre for social science studies in the early 1930s. That was how 2 (two) schools of sociology emerged in India – Bombay school and Lucknow school. Development of sociology in India may be classified into two phases, pre 1950 and post 1950. Pre 1950 – Bombay, Calcutta, Lucknow and Pune (in 1939 at Deccan college, Post graduate and Research Institute under Irawati Karve, Ghurye's student).

The real phase of expansion of sociology (and social anthropology) in India began in the post 1952 period. A full-fledged department of sociology was established at Delhi University in the late 1950s (it was located at Delhi School of Economics). The establishment of Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) in 1969 contributed considerably to the growth of sociology (and social anthropology) in India. Many central universities notably Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi, Hyderabad and North-East Hill University (NEHU), Shillong began contributing by establishing separate department of sociology.

In the north-east, Dibrugarh University (a state university has the distinction of establishing the first full-fledged department of sociology in 1967. Today there is hardly any college, university and institute where sociology is not taught. Over the last fifty years or so, we have seen a growing number of departments of sociology in the Indian Universities.

Significance:

Sociology is the study of social interaction, social relations and social actions. Sociology can explain, interpret different types of actions performed by individual members of the society. (For instance, emotional actions, rational/irrational actions, traditional actions, religious actions, social and economic actions, political actions and behaviour). Sociology studies these aspects of different actions, establishes certain patterns, conjectures or conclusions. In social interactions, actions relations, many issues, problems, developments, conflicts will emerge and they can be explained/interpreted by sociology.

Applied sociology can help in different fields of government and governance. For instance, in the field of planning and execution (planning is too important a policy to be left at the custody of economists only), government can take help of sociologists. Sociologists can suggest measures for good/proper implementation of policies. Sociologist can also monitor implementation/execution of plan schemes. All policies are not bad but they often failed because social aspects of social problems are not taken into account.

Sociology can help in identifying the social problems, their root cause and give/offer remedies, solutions. Sociology can also help in the field of economic and political development by studying the political and economic behaviour of people, leadership, consumer behaviour, problems, governance, social advancement etc. All policies and schemes of government have impact on population and help its progress and development. Sociology can help policy makers, administrators in making people-friendly policies and implementations.

The first quarter of the new millennium have thrown up some new concepts and terminologies like 'Social Business', 'Social Capital', 'Social Auditing', (not to forget 'Social Engineering' and 'Social Planning') 'Public-Private Partnership (PPP)', which other social science disciplines are ill-equipped to handle. It is sociology which can adequately handle these concepts and make full use for the betterment of the society.

Sociology in Manipur:

I shall ask a question here which I want you not to answer but think, ponder and reflect. Is there sociology in Manipur? The question sounds so simple and yet no less difficult to provide an answer. If you permit me to have certain degree of audacity, I shall say the answer is both Yes (in the non-technical sense) and No (in the technical sense of the term). It is yes because the 1960s have witnessed many students from Manipur pursuing their studies in sociology in several Indian universities. Some of them even went on to do their Ph.Ds in sociology ( I would like to mention here, and I don't think it will be out of turn/place, that the first Manipuri to obtain a Ph.D. in sociology was way back in the year 1966 from the University of Bombay under the supervision of no less a person than Professor G.S. Ghurye, the father of Indian sociology. I wish Tamo K.B. Singh, as he is popularly known in select circles of Manipur, is here today and share with us his experiences of associationship with Professor Ghurye. The second doctorate in sociology is Dilli Devi in the late eighties. The third Manipuri to obtain a Ph.D. in sociology (1988), and I must crave your indulgence here for sounding a tad personal, is the very person who is standing here right in front of you. I am conscious of the probability of some factual error in my statement and I shall stand corrected if and when anyone points it out).

What I have been trying to say all along is that Manipur have had a sizable number of sociology students right from the sixties. Unfortunately, most of them, for want of proper and ideal platform, had to look for their placement in government service and other NGOs. So they could not contribute in the manner they would have loved to, not that they do not want to, to the growth of sociology in the state.

The answer is technically no as until 1980 sociology was not taught, introduced in any of the colleges of the state, let alone the university. It was only in the late eighties that sociology was first introduced as an academic discipline in 3 /4 government colleges (D.M. college of Arts, G.P. Women's college, Imphal college). It can therefore be said that the beginning of 1990s marked the emergence of sociology as an academic discipline in the undergraduate level. Over the last two decades or so, we have seen growing number of students offering/choosing sociology as their field of study in Manipur, other parts of India and even abroad.

Today we have hundreds of masters and tens of Ph. Ds in sociology in the state. This indeed is a very healthy sign for the growth of sociology in Manipur. To this must be added what I would like to term as the most significant contributing factor for the emergence, growth, development and advancement of sociology – the establishment of a full-fledged faculty department of sociology in Manipur University this year. By establishing this long-awaited department, Manipur University, now a central university, under the present Vice-Chancellor has indeed fulfilled a long felt need and demand of not only the students of sociology but more importantly the contemporary Manipuri society.

Just a while ago I have asked: Is there sociology in Manipur? and came up with an ambiguous yes and no answer. Now the verdict is finally out. It is official now. The answer is an absolute yes with a capital Y. Sociology, in Manipur, is now an idea whose time has come.

When it emerged in Europe, sociology was called a 'child of the Enlightenment', baby of all social sciences.

What Sociology can, must and should do in Manipur:

The contemporary Manipur society is passing through a transitional phase of its development. The society is caught in the vortex of multiple conflicts and crises which are dialectically opposite to one another. Whether it is a conflict between tradition and modernity, socio-religious conflict between Pre-Hindu and Hindu identity, the civilizational clash between Indo-Aryan civilization and Mongoloid Meetei civilization, the conflict between ethnic groups, between militarization and de-militarization, the one undeniable fact that threatens the very fabric of our civilization – 'this single oasis of comparative civilization' – is that the society is deep in crisis.

The crisis of Manipur ranging from HIV/AIDS, drug and human trafficking, rape and violence (not excluding domestic) against woman, AFSPA, alcoholism, governance (read lack of), failed state, power (read electricity) supply, acute scarcity of potable water, (mis)uses of mobile phones – the list can go on and on – all these plunge the individual member of the society into a condition of what Durkheim called anomie – that is, a condition of rootlessness, lawlessness, orderlessness, disorientation, of no longer feeling at home in the society. All these conflicts and crises have made everyone of us feel that we are in the society but not of the society.

Given the magnitude and gravity of the crises mentioned above, certain crucial questions crop up. Is development possible? Is progress feasible? Is integration of contemporary Manipuri society not impossible? If the history of relevance of sociology in the contemporary world is any indication and/or anything to go by, then the answer is in the affirmative mode. Sociology with its time-tested, tried and ever-evolving methodologies can study and address these issues/social problems and come up with sociological interpretation, remedies and suggestion for better understanding and appreciation. If sociology can do it elsewhere, I see no reason why it cannot do the same here in Manipur. What we need to develop is a sociological mind, a sociological perspective and yes, what C. Wright Mills termed as 'Sociological Imagination'.

I come to the terminal point of my address, let me share with you those memorable and moving lines of Robert Frost which inspired Jawaharlal Nehru to no end.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep

Thank you, thank you all for so patiently bearing with me. And thank you, my fellow sociologists for having given me the privilege of delivering the key note address.

Concluded...