ABSTRACT
Chapter 5, ‘Sampling India: Close-up’, is based on an inwardly critical analysis of the state and fate of social sciences in India. It starts off with the note that despite having a reasonably long tradition of cultivation of social sciences and having produced a number of eminent social scientists, there are certain fault lines that get in the way of India becoming a frontrunner in the domain of social science research and pedagogy. The chapter focuses on the institutional template of social sciences in post-independence India, with the colonial era in the background, to come up with a narrative on the political maneuvering and the techno-managerial strategies of controlling higher academic institutions – leading to an erosion of institutional credibility and imaginative scholarship – especially in social sciences. The chapter scrutinises six reports of the most important commissions and committees on education in post-independence India – from the late 1940s to the present – to identify the core areas of change in perception and strategy vis-à-vis social sciences, which is undergoing a declining status, agency and image. The introspective mode is further intensified with a specific focus on the academic culture, especially with regard to social science research in India. Analysing documents of the Indian Council of Social Science Research and the contentions of eminent social scientists in this section has a specific goal: to discern the challenges and predicaments of social science research in post-liberalisation India, in which the idea of knowledge is being reframed with immense political, economic, social and cultural implications.
