ABSTRACT
In The Meaning of India, Raja Rao says, ‘There can be no world without duality, yet there can be no peace in duality’ (85). Can duality, a metaphysical category, be applied to the aesthetics of modernity? Further, can duality be historicized, or is it present in all periods of human development, somewhat like the quintessential human problem of dukkha that the Buddha identified? Does duality, agonizing at all times, acquire a special poignancy when it becomes institutionalized and bureaucratized as modernity? Two evocative and memorable announcements of such institutionalization are Weber’s idea of modernity as the progressive disenchantment of the world and Walter Benjamin’s bemoaning of the loss of the aura of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. From such a perspective, the great Indian thinkers of the past 200 years may be considered anew not as embodying colonized consciousness, but as responding to the modern from an alternate centre. This led to the articulation of what we might term the ‘alter-modern India’ in a critical dialogue with ourselves and with the West. When it comes to the ugliness of Indian modernity, however, it can be attributed only partially to the pains of modernity. Its real sources are bad governance, moral and material corruption, environmental and ecological pollution and large-scale disaffection.
