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'''Ashis Nandy''' (born 1937) is an [[India]]n [[Political psychology|political psychologist]], a [[critical theory]] based [[social theorist]], and a leading social, cultural and political critics in contemporary times. A trained sociologist and [[clinical psychologist]], his field covers a vast area of thinking such as public conscience, political psychology, mass violence, nationalism and culture.
'''Ashis Nandy''' ({{lang-bn|আশীষ নন্দী}})(born 1937) is an [[India]]n [[Political psychology|political psychologist]], a [[critical theory]] based [[social theorist]], and a leading social, cultural and political critics in contemporary times. A trained sociologist and [[clinical psychologist]], his field covers a vast area of thinking such as public conscience, political psychology, mass violence, nationalism and culture.


He has worked on cultures of knowledge, visions, and dialogues of civilizations. He was Senior Fellow and Director of the [[Centre for the Study of Developing Societies]] (CSDS) for several years before his retirement in 2004, today he is a Senior Honorary Fellow at the institute and apart from being the Chairperson of the Committee for Cultural Choices and Global Futures, also in [[New Delhi]].<ref>[http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/NANDY.HTM Ashis Nandy] [[Emory University]].</ref><ref>[http://www.csds.in/faculty_ashis_nandy.htm Ashis Nandy - Senior Honorary Fellow] [[Centre for the Study of Developing Societies]] (CSDS) website.</ref>
He has worked on cultures of knowledge, visions, and dialogues of civilizations. He was Senior Fellow and Director of the [[Centre for the Study of Developing Societies]] (CSDS) for several years before his retirement in 2004, today he is a Senior Honorary Fellow at the institute and apart from being the Chairperson of the Committee for Cultural Choices and Global Futures, also in [[New Delhi]].<ref>[http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/NANDY.HTM Ashis Nandy] [[Emory University]].</ref><ref>[http://www.csds.in/faculty_ashis_nandy.htm Ashis Nandy - Senior Honorary Fellow] [[Centre for the Study of Developing Societies]] (CSDS) website.</ref>

Revision as of 08:54, 12 January 2010

Ashis Nandy
Prof. Nandy receiving Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize in 2007, Japan
Prof. Nandy receiving Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize in 2007, Japan
Occupationpolitical psychologist,social theorist
NationalityIndian
CitizenshipIndian
EducationPh.D.
SpouseUma Nandy
ChildrenAditi (daughter)
RelativesPritish Nandy, (Brother)

Ashis Nandy (Template:Lang-bn)(born 1937) is an Indian political psychologist, a critical theory based social theorist, and a leading social, cultural and political critics in contemporary times. A trained sociologist and clinical psychologist, his field covers a vast area of thinking such as public conscience, political psychology, mass violence, nationalism and culture.

He has worked on cultures of knowledge, visions, and dialogues of civilizations. He was Senior Fellow and Director of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) for several years before his retirement in 2004, today he is a Senior Honorary Fellow at the institute and apart from being the Chairperson of the Committee for Cultural Choices and Global Futures, also in New Delhi.[1][2]

Part of the 2008 list of the Top 100 Public Intellectuals Poll, Nandy had received the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize in 2007.[3] In 2008 he was listed as one of the top 100 public intellectuals of the world by the magazine, Foreign Policy, published by The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.[4]

Early life and education

Nandy was born in a Bengali family at Bhagalpur, Bihar, in 1937. He is the eldest of three sons of Satish Chandra Nandy and Prafulla Nalini Nandy, and brother of Pritish Nandy. His parents were devout Christians. Later his family moved to Calcutta. Nandy's mother was a teacher at La Martiniere School, Calcutta and subsequently became the school's first Indian vice principal. When he was 10, British India was partitioned into the nations of India and Pakistan. He witnessed the conflicts and atrocities that followed.

Nandy quit medical college before joining Hislop College, Nagpur to study social sciences. Later he took a Master's degree in sociology. However, his academic interest tended increasingly towards clinical psychology and he did his Ph.D. in psychology at Gujarat University, Ahmedabad.

Academic career

Nandy joined the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi, as a young faculty member. While working there, he developed his own methodology by integrating clinical psychology and sociology. Meanwhile, he was invited by a number of universities and research institutions abroad to carry out research and to give them lectures. He served as the Director of CSDS between 1992 and 1997. He also serves on the Editorial Collective of Public Culture, a reviewed journal published by Duke University Press.

Nandy has coauthored a number of human rights reports and is active in movements for peace, alternative sciences and technologies, and cultural survival. He is a member of the Executive Councils of the World Futures Studies Federation, the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, the International Network for Cultural Alternatives to Development, and the People's Union for Civil Liberties. Nandy has been a Woodrow Wilson Fellow at the Wilson Center, Washington, D.C., a Charles Wallace Fellow at the University of Hull, and a Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities, University of Edinburgh. He held the first UNESCO Chair at the Center for European Studies, University of Trier, in 1994. In 2006 he became the National Fellow of the Indian Council of Social Science Research.

Professor Nandy is an intellectual who identifies and explores numerous and diverse problems. He has written extensively in last two decades. His much discussed book titled ‘The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self Under Colonialism’, which was published in 1983 by the Oxford University Press, India talked about the psychological problems posed at a personal level by colonialism, for both colonizer and colonized. Nandy argues that the understanding of self is intertwined with those of race, class, and religion under colonialism, and that the Gandhian movement can be understood in part as an attempt to transcend a strong tendency of educated Indians to articulate political striving for independence in European terms. Through his prolific writing and other activities supported by his belief in non-violence, Professor Nandy has offered penetrating analysis from different angles of a wide range of problems such as political disputes and racial conflicts, and has made suggestions about how human beings can exist together, and together globally, irrespective of national boundaries.

Publications

  • 1978 - The New Vaisyas: Entrepreneurial Opportunity and Response in an Indian City. Raymond Lee Owens and Ashis Nandy. Bombay: Allied, 1977. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic P, 1978.
  • 1980 - At the Edge of Psychology: Essays in Politics and Culture. Delhi: Oxford UP, 1980. Delhi; Oxford: Oxford UP, 1990.
  • 1980 - Alternative Sciences: Creativity and Authenticity in Two Indian Scientists. New Delhi: Allied, 1980. Delhi: Oxford UP, 1995.
  • 1983 - The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self Under Colonialism. Delhi: Oxford UP, 1983. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1988.
  • 1983 - Science, Hegemony and Violence: A Requiem for Modernity. Ed. Ashis Nandy. Tokyo, Japan: United Nations University, 1988. Delhi: Oxford UP, 1990.
  • 1987 - Traditions, Tyranny, and Utopias: Essays in the Politics of Awareness. Delhi; New York: Oxford UP, 1987. New York: Oxford UP, 1992.
  • 1987 - Science, Hegemony and Violence: A Requiem for Modernity. Ed. Ashis Nandy. Tokyo, Japan: United Nations University, 1988. Delhi: Oxford UP, 1990.Traditions, Tyranny, and Utopias: Essays in the Politics of Awareness. Delhi; New York: Oxford UP, 1987. New York: Oxford UP, 1992.
  • 1988 - Science, Hegemony and Violence: A Requiem for Modernity. Ed. Ashis Nandy. Tokyo, Japan: United Nations University, 1988. Delhi: Oxford UP, 1990.
  • 1989 - The Tao of Cricket: On Games of Destiny and the Destiny of Games. New Delhi; New York: Viking, 1989. New Delhi; New York: Penguin, 1989.
  • 1993 - Barbaric Others: A Manifesto on Western Racism. Merryl Wyn Davies, Ashis Nandy, and Ziauddin Sardar. London; Boulder, CO: Pluto Press, 1993.
  • 1994 - The Illegitimacy of Nationalism: Rabindranath Tagore and the Politics of Self. Delhi; Oxford: Oxford UP, 1994.
  • 1994 - The Blinded Eye: Five Hundred Years of Christopher Columbus. Claude Alvares, Ziauddin Sardar, and Ashis Nandy. New York: Apex, 1994.
  • 1995 - The Savage Freud and Other Essays on Possible and Retrievable Selves. Delhi; London: Oxford UP, 1995. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1995.
  • 1995 - Creating a Nationality: the Ramjanmabhumi Movement and Fear of the Self. Eds. Ashis Nandy, Shikha Trivedy, and Achyut Yagnick. Delhi; Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. New York: Oxford UP, 1996.
  • 1996 - The Multiverse of Democracy: Essays in Honour of Rajni Kothari. Eds. D.L. Sheth and Ashis Nandy. New Delhi; London: Sage, 1996.
  • 1999 - Editor, The Secret Politics of Our Desires: Innocence, Culpability and Indian Popular Cinema Zed: 1999. (also wrote introduction)
  • 2006 - Talking India: Ashis Nandy in conversation with Ramin Jahanbegloo. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006.
  • 2007 - TIME TREKS: The Uncertain Future of Old and New Despotisms. New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2007.
  • 2007 - A Very Popular Exile. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Essays

Awards

Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize in 2007

Quotations

  • Anxieties plaguing us since mid-1980s:".. the diminishing role of the sacred in everyday life, even though India continues to be seen as a country surfeit with religions and rituals.[5]
  • "Distinctions between westernisation and modernisation have not touched the bulk of western educated modern Indians, who are convinced that their future lies in being exactly like Europe and North America." [5]
  • "You cannot pay Rs 12,000 for a meal for two people in a five-star hotel and come out and throw Rs 10 to a boy competing with a dog for the garbage and think you have done your duty" [6]
  • "In India, we live in a country where the gods are imperfect and the demons are never fully demonic. I call this an ‘epic culture’ because an epic is not complete without either the gods or the demons. They make the story together." [6]

Further reading

Sources

  • Sardar, Ziauddin and Loon, Borin Van. 2001. Introducing Science. USA: Totem Books (UK: Icon Books).

References

  1. ^ Ashis Nandy Emory University.
  2. ^ Ashis Nandy - Senior Honorary Fellow Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) website.
  3. ^ "Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize - Laureates for 2007". The Fukuoka Asian Culture Prizes. Retrieved 2008-11-19.
  4. ^ "Top 100 Public Intellectuals". Foreign Policy. May 2008. Retrieved 2008-11-19.
  5. ^ a b What fuels Indian Nationalism? - A deep sense of inferiority and fear, says Ashis Nandy Tehelka, 2007.
  6. ^ a b The Hour Of The Untamed Cosmopolitan Tehelka, Issue May 30, 2009. p .9.
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