On Sri Lankan anthropology and sociology

Notes from an Anthropological Wilderness:
A Critical Self-assessment of Sri Lankan ‘Anthropology’[1] 

The Approach

When one begins an essay with a string of unenviable words as ‘Notes from an Anthropological Wilderness’ to describe the anthropological enterprise in a specific country, which in this case is Sri Lanka, it immediately raises many eyebrows.  However, this is not a mere sensationalist depiction or an invitation to a spectacle. Rather, it is an indication of a specific reality based on prevailing and historically constituted ground conditions. However, I offer my reading with a great degree of responsibility and reflexivity and with the authority of one who is very clearly placed within the discipline, with a critical eye.  Mine is a reading that will both pain and embarrass the members of my tribe in Sri Lanka as has been the case whenever I have discussed this issue on earlier occasions (Perera  1996, 2005, 2006, 2010). Altered states of consciousness that many anthropologists deal with as part of their explorations into religious experience can very well be a state of mind that colleagues who cannot deal with the reality of Sri Lankan anthropology can exile themselves to. There, they would see a wonderful world, devoid of contradictions, seamlessly evolving, but delinked from ground realities and their own better judgment.    I begin with these words to make a simple observation as a point of departure for this essay. Up to the present moment since the formal teaching of sociology and social anthropology began in Sri Lankan universities in 1947, no critical assessment of the status of teaching, research and publishing of anthropology/sociology has been undertaken in Sri Lanka. Besides, many of the crucial debates in global anthropology, some of which have been outlined in seminal texts such as Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (1986) edited by George Marcus and James Clifford and Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences (1986) by George Marcus and Michael Fischer have hardly touched the Sri Lankan discourse. This kind of detachment and alienation alone might qualify the Sri Lankan anthropological enterprise to be described as an intellectual wilderness as I would document as the paper progresses. At the outset however, let me make some simple clarifications about my approach as well as terminology.

Though formally trained in cultural anthropology, or social anthropology in the European sense of reckoning, I am not a gate keeper for the discipline either in Sri Lanka or elsewhere harboring fantasies of keeping its borders and territory safe from and un-transgressed by other disciplinary competitors. I am sure by now all practitioners would recognize that anthropology’s borders in terms of both method and theory on one hand, and research focus on the other have been effectively and decidedly breached and reformed by cognate and related disciplines that includes sociology, history and cultural studies among others; the influence of these breaches have also flowed in opposite directions. For me, this is an inevitable, historically contextual and mostly an enriching experience that has allowed cultural anthropology to evolve and develop in a number of different ways, which constitutes its contemporary intellectual personality. In this context, sociology and cultural anthropology, despite their once separate moments of origin, distinct theoretical and methodological developments, different areas of research and specific historical contexts of evolution, have in many places merged. In the specific contexts of expanding disciplinary borders and the resultant ruptures in many areas of scholarship that have taken place since at least the 1960s, I think it makes little sense today to think of sociology and cultural anthropology as distinctly different in contemporary practice (Perera 2010). Despite the continued maintenance of separate academic departments and degree programs, this merging of disciplines is perhaps most obvious in South Asia, and in this context Sri Lanka is not an exception. 

In the general circumstances outlined above, I agree with Pierre Bourdieu when he noted that "for obvious sociological reasons, sociology is a very dispersed discipline" and that "the distinction between ethnology [meaning social anthropology] and sociology is a perfect example of a spurious frontier" (Bourdieu 1995: 8-10). One of India’s best known sociologists, Andre Beteille, offers similar views, particularly in the Indian context when he observes that “in my career as teacher and author, I have been continuously preoccupied with the relationship between sociology and social anthropology” and that “relationship raises questions not only about my own professional identity, but, more importantly, about the professional identity of all students of Indian society and culture (Beteille 2000).” He goes on to explain how the following question was posed to him by an interviewer from the Swedish periodical Antropologiska Studier: “You are a professor of sociology, but in Scandinavia most people would probably think of you as a social anthropologist. There seems to be some confusion here. What is the relationship between sociology and anthropology in India?” Beteille’s answer is quite interesting by its simplicity: “I answered that question with as much dignity as I could muster, but I doubt that my answer will have done much to alter the views – or the prejudices – of Scandinavian sociologists. For my part, I try to present myself as a sociologist wherever I am, for I feel that since I am a sociologist at home, I should also be one abroad” (Beteille 2000). Beteille has explained this merging of borders more clearly and abstractly in his collection, Six Essays in Comparative Sociology[2]: “So much diversity in the conception of what is sociology and what is social anthropology may be a sign of vitality, but it can also become a source of confusion. If one wishes to assert the fundamental unity of the two subjects, a particular conception of sociology can be chosen and it can be shown to be the same as the prevailing conception of social anthropology. But by choosing another conception of sociology, someone else can highlight not the similarities between the two subjects, but their differences” (Beteille 1982:4). Beteille has further elaborated these ideas elsewhere (2002: 28-54).

As is quite evident, the differences between the two disciplines, if we want to see them, are in the contextual, historical and theoretical developments of these disciplines rather than in their contemporary practice (Perera 2010). Of course, one can still hear the fervent appeals for difference from various quarters articulating such things as ‘anthropologists study tribes and villages’ while ‘sociologists focus on urban space’ and that ‘anthropologists are interested in ethnography’ while ‘sociologists rely on numbers’, and so on. All of us know quite well that these are inconsequential arguments that can be easily unraveled by offering contrary arguments at will, and as such do not warrant any serious scholarly attention. Nevertheless, as I already noted, such blurring and its resultant intellectual, methodological and theoretical consequences have hardly generated any serious reflection in the Sri Lankan academic context despite its grave relevance to local academia. In practical terms and in day to day academic practice, the distinction between anthropology and sociology is not maintained in Sri Lanka, and it cannot be sustained in any case. Nissan rightly notes in this context that “an institutional division between anthropology and sociology is not generally maintained in Sri Lankan universities, and people trained at home or overseas in anthropological or sociological traditions often work in departments of sociology. If no clear division between sociology and anthropology can be drawn, so too is the line between history and anthropology hazy” (Nissan 1987: 1). She further notes that its serves no particular purpose to resolve the issue of demarcation (Nissan 1987: 1). It is in the same context that I have suggested elsewhere that an anthropologist in Sri Lanka is simply a person who claims as such irrespective of his training just the same way an indigenous Vedda[3] person is simply someone who claims to be one for whatever reason, irrespective of his actual ethnic origins (Perera 1996).

In the context of the preceding discussion, let me make a brief detour to make two simple conceptual clarifications about some of the terminology I will employ in this paper. First, in the Sri Lankan context, when I use the word anthropology, I refer to cultural or social anthropology, and in the same sense, it is also a reference to sociology. That is, except in specific historical contexts, I will not make a distinction between anthropology and sociology in cotemporary Sri Lanka. However, I do not include archeology, linguistics and physical anthropology within the disciplinary borders of anthropology in general as in the North American case, simply because it makes no sense in the local context. In Sri Lanka, archeology has evolved as a distinctly separate academic enterprise with a fairly established track record and public personality while linguistics have remained the somewhat backward preserve of language scholars while physical anthropology has not taken root in any degree of seriousness. Second, what do I mean by ‘anthropology of Sri Lanka’? At one end of the spectrum within this broad terminology, I will include the work of armchair anthropologists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which has made an enduring impact on Sri Lankan writing and thinking both in academic and popular domains which I will make a few more observations later. Within it, I will also include two other important categories, which are the work of anthropologists/sociologists based in and working in Sri Lanka and the work of anthropologists/sociologists based overseas but working in and on Sri Lanka. This categorization becomes crucial when one reads the anthropology of Sri Lanka with a critical eye. As such, the anthropology of Sri Lanka is also the sociology of Sri Lanka. I will revisit these issues at a latter point. For the moment, let me first briefly outline the main points I wish to make in this essay, before any further elaboration.

My intention in this paper is to briefly outline the history of anthropology/sociology in Sri Lanka and discuss its current status by focusing on a number of post-Independence developments that have impacted this specific disciplinary history as well as other branches of Sri Lankan higher education.[4] Focusing on the university system where the major anthropological/sociological presence in the country is located, the conditions that have impacted sociology and anthropology that I will address include diminishing of standards in higher education in social sciences and humanities that has also impacted sociology and social anthropology, lapses in training at undergraduate and post-graduate levels, and problems in academic recruitment and retention and the brain drain (Perera 2010). In addition, I will also focus on the dynamics of intellectual exchange in the country as reflected in conferences and the local academic publishing ‘industry.’

Roots of Anthropology and Sociology in Sri Lanka: Institutional History

When discussing the early formal disciplinary borders between sociology and social anthropology, it is clear that it was anthropology which made the first and long-term connection with Sri Lanka. As we know, until the mid 20th century, these disciplines globally maintained strict borders in the context of which sociology was more focused on Europe and both American and European anthropology were focused on mapping and categorizing ‘vanishing’ tribes, peoples and their cultures in the colonies of Europe including North America and Australia, by becoming “the hand-maiden of colonialism,” a description often credited to Claude Levi Strauss. In Sri Lanka, the initial inroads made by what we might call anthropology today however were via an informal detour from the mid 1800s onwards through the writings of a consistent group of armchair ‘anthropologists’ who had no formal training in the craft of anthropology. In fact, until the first decade of the 20th century anthropology had not formally been introduced as a university subject anywhere. But these were the pioneers who were colonial civil servants, medical officers, military men, missionaries and a handful of scholars in the formal sense. But their writings, many of which are published in the journal of the Royal Asiatic Society - Ceylon and other similar colonial forums of discourse have become a crucial foundation and long-term source of influence for the anthropology of Sri Lanka. Compared to this, the first formal demarcation of Sri Lanka within the global map of anthropology came with the publication of George Seligman’s and Brenda Seligman’s celebrated ethnography on the Veddas in 1912 in London. Since that time, the quantity of the ethnographic record on Sri Lanka has expanded, often thematically, following the debates on kinship, caste, land tenure etc that were emerging in centers of anthropological knowledge production in Europe and North America. In that sense, until the 1960s and to a significant extent even now, Sri Lanka was not a center for innovation in knowledge production and generation in anthropology; it was merely an experimental ground, to which people often came to undertake fieldwork. The significance of the Seligmans’ book referred to above also lies in the fact that it was the first anthropological study in the formal sense that was based on carefully planed long-term field work.

From the perspective of long-term institutionalization of the discipline and its expansion, the establishment of the Department of Sociology at the University of Peradeniya in 1947[5] marks a significant milestone. Interestingly however, despite the informal long-term association as well as the formal association since 1912 through the production of texts that anthropology had with Sri Lanka, this department was formally called Department of Sociology. While no formal history of the department exists, the explanations for some of the events and processes that took place can only be educated conjecture. The responsibility for establishing the department was given to American rural sociologist Bryce Ryan who set about the task with two other Americans, Murray A. Straus and Jacqueline H. Straus who were social psychologists. These then were the first generation of pioneers, setting up a quintessentially American intellectual enterprise in the highlands of Sri Lanka. Though no historical evidence exists, perhaps it was Ryan’s decision to call his creation, ‘Department of Sociology.’[6] Given the dynamism of American empirical research of the time, it is not surprising that this pioneering venture in setting up a program of academic sociology in Sri Lanka inherited a strong empirical focus (Silva 2001: 48-49; Perera 2005: 329).

This tendency also lead to the institutionalization of the famed ‘Village Studies Program’ under the leadership of Ryan (Silva 2001: 49). It proceeded to document the status and changes of numerous villages scattered around the Kandyan countryside, which remains to date some of the best descriptions of village life of the time. “Although this established a strong tradition of field research with an emphasis on the thickness of ethnography, it was marked by an obvious lack of theoretical engagement and analytical rigor” (Perera 2005: 329). This is a long-term legacy as in many ways it identifies even today some of the clearest features of anthropological/sociological research undertaken by local researchers, most clearly manifest in the focus of dissertation research in almost all sociology/anthropology departments in the country. Writing in 1960, Ralph Peiris, the first Sri Lankan Professor of Sociology dismissed the village studies program as a mere data collection exercise with no sociological validity (Silva 2001: 51). Peiris’ criticism was not simply based on the orientation of the Village Studies Program but also on similar descriptive tendencies evident in Ryan’s well-known and influential books, Caste in Modern Ceylon (1953) and Sinhalese Village (1958). More importantly, this criticism was also a critique of the in-depth field work method preferred by social anthropology by a scholar who was formally trained in sociology (Perera 2005: 329). For Peiris, “anthropological fieldwork was suitable merely for the study of ‘tribal societies’, and when studying complex societies such as Sri Lanka that did have historical records, a wider socio-historical approach needed to be employed” (Perera 2005: 329; Silva 2001: 51-52). Despite the serious limitations in Peiris’ position, this is one of the earliest and certainly one of very few internal critiques of Sri Lankan sociology/anthropology to emerge from within local academia (Perera 2005: 329).[7] Peiris’ well-known book, Sinhalese Social Organization was in effect a textual exemplification of his criticism of fieldwork; however, rather than a theoretically engaged analysis, this book was a description of Sinhala social organization in the past which paid serious and careful attention to historical records in keeping with his own methodological interests (Silva 2001: 52; Perera 2005: 329).

In any event, the first Sri Lankan academic to come to the Department of Sociology at University of Peradeniya in the early period of the Ryan Phase was Ralph Peiris who was formally trained in sociology at the London School of Economics. S.J. Tambiah was also in the Department at the early stage; he moved from an initial training in sociology with anthropology and social psychology as secondary subjects at Cornel University to fulltime anthropology after he took up teaching at Peradeniya in 1955. In an interview with Alan Macfarlane in 1983, he outlines his ‘transformation’ in the following words: “Became an anthropologist because a sociologist, Bryce Ryan, set up first department of sociology and anthropology at University of Ceylon, enthusiast who introduced students to fieldwork at weekends.”[8] He credits Bryce Ryan with introducing him and fellow students at the time to their “own villages and culture through field trips.”[9] He further notes that his interest in anthropology came with the belief that the fieldwork method offered greater options “for gaining deep understanding of village people.”[10] Jayasuriya notes that Tambiah was “more the orthodox American Anthropologist” in outlook “who had a broad based grounding in social sciences.”[11]

Once Peiris assumed the leadership of the Department in the mid-1950s, he recruited Laksiri Jayasuriya (1955) primarily as a psychologist who was later formally trained in social psychology at LSE.[12] According to Jayasuriya, “early days the Sociology Dept were very much modeled on the lines of the 1960’s Harvard Sociology as ‘social relations’ straddling the disciplines of sociology, social anthropology and psychology,” in the context of which his own teaching included criminology, social psychology, and Social Administration[13]. H.L. Seneviratne describes the same scenario with reference to the sociology-anthropology division in Sri Lanka in the initial period of teaching these disciplines at University of Peradeniya somewhat differently: “what we call ‘Sociology’ in our (British Empire) system is far closer to Anthropology in the US system than to Sociology in the same system”.[14] With reference to India, he further notes that “this is amply seen in Indian examples like M.N. Srinivas whose work is pretty straight anthropology, although he was a ‘sociologist’ and trained generations of young Indians in this combination of Sociology/Anthropology. And at Oxford, Srinivas worked with Radcliffe-Brown, the leading anthropologist of the time.”[15] In this scenario one feature stands out very clearly. That is, from the very beginning, in the context of formal university based teaching, both anthropology and sociology were inexorably combined in the Sri Lankan context making their disciplinary borders invisible and largely irrelevant in the process.

Though the Department was established in 1947 and commenced teaching sociology subjects from that time onwards and research[16] was also conducted by faculty members with the involvement of their students, specialized sociology degree programs were offered only in 1956. H.L. Seneviratne who belonged to the first batch of students presents his recollections of the times in the following words: 

As I was getting ready to do my second year work when, as you know, we choose to either do a section A degree (that is, a general degree) or a Section B degree (a special degree), I saw a notice on the main notice board in the pillared area that announced a new course of specialized study, Sociology. The nine courses that constituted the program were listed. I was attracted to it. The qualification for admission was a B or better grade in economics at the GAQ, which I had. Only one other candidate (Sid Perimbanayagam who is now Chairman of Sociology at Hunter College, New York City) had this qualification, but Ralph Pieris, Head of the Department of Sociology, allowed practically all candidates to get in, and the first Sociology class had 12 students --- My teachers of sociology in my first year (that is, second year as an undergraduate), were Ralph Pieris (who was then head of the department and not yet Professor) who taught the introductory course and Lecturer Laksiri Jayasuriya (who taught Social Administration which included criminology). These two were properly trained sociologists --- The department consisted of only three regular faculty, the above two and Lecturer S.J. Tambiah --- So it was significantly understaffed, and courses in some other departments were integrated to the sociology curriculum. Thus in my second year in the Sociology Department if I remember right, I read Political and Social Theory taught by I.D.S. Weerawardena and Statistics by the Indian statistician N.K. Sarkar (Sarkar left Ceylon and the course was continued by an American professor Dinman Smith, and later by S. B. de Silva, an economist borrowed from the Central Bank). Both these courses were in the Economics Department. I sat in the same Political and Social Theory course the next year as well, taught by A.J. Wilson --- My class also read Social Psychology in a course taught by J.E. Jayasuriya, Professor of Education ---[17]

Seneviratne’s lucid description very clearly contextualizes the dynamics, innovations, anxieties, difficulties and limitations of this pioneering department at its inception. The next group of academics who joined the department as teachers since the mid-1960s were mostly ‘anthropologists.’ These include Gananath Obesyesekere (who drifted from English to anthropology) as well as H.L. Seneviratne (1968-1970) and Kitisiri Malalgoda.[18] Jayasuriya further notes that Gananath Obeyesekere’s assumption of the leadership of the department marked a shift in its direction towards a distinctly ‘cultural anthropology’ identity in the American sense of the terminology.[19] With particular reference to the late 1950s and 1960s, Seneviratne notes that the sociology program at “Peradeniya is typical of the "British Empire" departments of sociology, which in American usage could be best described as "combined departments" of anthropology and sociology.”[20] He further notes that the disciplinary division as it existed in this pioneer department did not create the kind of tensions that would have impacted teaching; importantly however, he also notes that the personality differences which manifested between some academics later “happen to coincide with the sociology anthropology division.”[21] He also correctly makes the following observation about the department’s intellectual status at the end of 1960s: “I think it was a good program, and it influenced all subsequent programs that were to arise with the multiplication of the universities.”[22]

The admixture and coexistence of anthropology and sociology in this first department continues to date not only at University of Peradeniya but elsewhere in the country also. This is not simply a matter of what one is formally trained in, but is also reflected in the course structure and reading materials assigned for both undergraduate and post graduate teaching programs. 

When it comes the institutionalization of anthropology in the country, the establishment of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Sri Jayawardenapura in 1960 marks a significant moment. It was initiated by P.E.P. Dearaniyagala who was an archeologist aided by Austin de Silva who functioned as a visiting lecturer; de Silva was a fulltime curator at the National Museum in Colombo.[23] Tennyson Perera, who retired in 2011 as Professor of Sociology had worked in this department since 1972; he recalls that in this formative period, under the influence of these two individuals, the department had a very pronounced ‘ethnographic’ orientation in the conventional sense as evidenced by the significant emphasis on issues such as human evolution and tribes. In 1964, Alex Gunasekara, with a background in Pali and Sanskrit was recruited to the Department who later studied anthropology at the Oxford Institute of Anthropology and St. Catherine’s College, Oxford. Sociology as a subject was introduced to the Department by Gunasekara in 1967. By 1968, when Tennyson Perera entered the Department as an undergraduate in the first batch that formally studied sociology, I.V. Edirisinghe and Newton Gunasinghe were among his teachers who later became key academics in the Department of Sociology at University of Colombo. At present, the Department is formally known as the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, which is the only Department in the country that contains the word ‘anthropology’ in its formal demarcation. In its own self perception, in a period of five decades “the Department has undergone progressive change from a modest Department of Anthropology to the largest Department of Sociology and Anthropology.”[24] It is the only department in the country which offers an independent bachelors degree in anthropology[25] with a heavy emphasis on physical anthropology, which in itself is one of the remnants of its historical legacy, along with two other separate degree programs in sociology and criminology and social justice. 

The department’s current public personality however emanates from the close association and popular fame generated on its behalf by Nandasena Ratnapala who joined the department in 1973 with a background in Sinhala and Folklore. Interestingly, Ratnapala’s association and contribution to the Department is reverentially noted in the brief history of the department in its webpage though marked by an obvious absence of its own early history: “The Department of Sociology and Anthropology is well-known for social research studies pioneered by the late Professor Nandasena Ratnapala. Prof. Nandasena Ratnapala dedicated his whole academic life to developing the three degree programs and research studies in different social settings. He endeavored to teach Sociology, Anthropology and Criminology in the Sinhala medium with the special objective of institutionalizing these three subjects and related research studies in Sri Lankan Society.”[26] Unfortunately however, what Ratnapala pioneered was a highly problematic, a-theoretical, descriptive, methodologically dubious, populist and ‘anything goes’ kind of sociology/anthropology (Perera 1996, 2005). Crucially however, many of his writings were presented in Sinhala as popular narratives. As a result, they acquired a large following, offering Ratnapala a kind of cult status in Sri Lanka which transgressed way beyond the borders of academia. In another context, this is the kind of situation that Beteille had called as being ‘footloose’ (Beteille 2000). As a result, the more dominant understanding and appreciation of sociology/anthropology in the country today is based on what Ratnapala helped evolve. 

The Sociology Department at Colombo University was established in 1969 which was formally known as the Department of Sociology and Social Welfare.[27] It was initiated with Laksiri Jayasuriya’s move to Colombo from Peradeniya, and the reasons for framing and naming the new department within a paradigm of sociology and social welfare with a conscious shifting away from anthropology is based on Jayasuriya’s own training in social psychology and his research interests and pubic engagements as well as to “distinguish it from the Peradeniya model.”[28] This interest is further indicated by the fact that Malsiri Dias, a member of the first group of teachers in the young department was dispatched to the University of York to specialize in Social Administration (later referred to as Social Policy).[29] More importantly, he notes that his “intention was to focus on the social dynamics of contemporary Sri Lanka which was becoming increasingly urbanized and socially fragmented.”[30] Through this process he was also “hoping to create better market opportunities for the products of Colombo Sociology and also explore new areas of research by focusing on applied sociology.”[31] This particular orientation of the Department however, did not last beyond the mid-1970s consequent to Jayasuriya’s departure to Australia in 1971 when it was formally identified as the Department of Sociology; in its entire history since its inception, only four individuals have been formally trained in anthropology beyond the Masters level, and the kind of big names that were associated with Peradeniya at its inception never graced Colombo; it neither produced big names such as Tambiah and Obeyesekere nor attracted any. Nevertheless, like in Peradeniya its course structure both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels represented what one might call an anthropological orientation in terms of reading material and approach while at other levels, its typical association with early ideas of sociology remained, particularly visible in the naming of core courses such as ‘Sociology of the City’, ‘Urban Sociology’ etc and an enduring interest in statistics evidenced by the compulsory course ‘Social Statistics’ in its undergraduate syllabus. At the same time, in its undergraduate program, the Department has maintained an almost chronic indulgence in the idea of fieldwork based research to the detriment of theory as well as an uncanny focus on the ‘village’, very similar to the early ‘village studies’ made famous by Bryce Ryan and his students in Peradeniya; unfortunately, in this process urban space and urbanity among many other important research themes are by and large intellectually neglected.[32]

The following universities at present have sociology teaching programs under departments known formally as ‘Sociology’: University of Kelaniya, University Jaffna, University of Ruhuna. At the Open University of Sri Lanka, sociology is taught as part of the Department of Social Studies while at the Eastern University and Sabaragamuwa University it is taught within the Department of Social Sciences. In other newer universities often a subject called sociology is taught, under entities such as departments of social sciences often by young teachers with minimum academic qualifications. 

The Anthropology and Sociology on Sri Lanka: Present Situation

Nissan[33] has thematically organized the terrain of Sri Lankan anthropological discourse in terms of the following vistas of research: kinship; land tenure and elite formation; caste; rural change; religion; the person; nationalism, violence and communalism (Nissan 19877: 3-17). Her survey spans the time period from about the late 1950s to the mid 1980s and includes the work of Sri Lankan anthropologists both working in Sri Lanka as well as those who left the country but maintained a research interest on the country. Similarly, Silva suggests that from its inception, it is possible to identify two distinct phases of sociological (anthropological) research in Sri Lanka in terms of focus of research: the period from 1949 to 1983 can be identified on the basis of a preoccupation and focus on themes such as kinship, caste, religion and ritual, land tenure and village studies. The post 1983 period is identified by a thematic concentration that includes issues such as nationalism, ethnicity, violence, gender and social change (Silva 2001: 50). While the first phase articulated by Silva is essentially a rehashing of Nissan’s thematization, the post 1983 phase offers a glimpse of more recent research orientations. While not airtight categorizations or periodizations, both of these schemes offer a reasonably accurate general description of anthropological (sociological) research in Sri Lanka over time. However, while Nissan focuses on Sri Lankan anthropologists both resident in Sri Lanka and overseas, Silva’s categorization (particularly of the post 1983 period) is not based on such a restriction. In fact, his categorization more completely captures what might be called the entire spectrum of the anthropology on Sri Lanka irrespective of the national origins of these discourses and the nationalities of their authors. It is this relatively large discourse that I have called elsewhere the “Sri Lanka-centric sociological research” (Perera 2005: 328). If one were to remove this wider category of significant research undertaken by scholars based overseas, one would have to radically refashion Silva’s periodization and thematic categorization “mostly due to a lack of seminal work that could indicate such clear orientations” (Perera 2005: 328-129) in the local context.

When it comes to the anthropology and the sociology of Sri Lanka, there are affectively two very distinct discourses which have remained historically consistent and quite separate over time in terms of their intellectual focus as well as quality. The first of these is a global discourse in the sense that the scholarship produced by it caters to a wider global readership; this scholarship is included in Silva’s categorization above. Unfortunately however, despite its global reach and recognition, its influence within the county is marginal at best given the fact that much of this is written in English and published mostly in Euro-American centers making access to them limited both in terms of language and financial affordability in the local contexts. Most of these are written by scholars based overseas some of whom originated from Sri Lanka and had their initial training in the country. Individual anthropologists such as Gananath Obeyesekere, S.J. Tambiah, H.L. Seneviratne, Dennis Magilvry, R.L. Stirrat, Bob Simpson and many more younger scholars belong to this larger category of scholars who have undertaken significant research and produced important texts. But very few of these have opted to ensure that their work is locally accessible by organizing South Asian reprints of their work or attempting to fund translations. A much smaller group of relatively younger scholars based in the country but not directly associated with the formal university system have also produced a corpus of significant work, again mostly in English and published overseas; these include anthropologists such as Pradeep Jeganathan, Malathi de Alwis and Jani de Silva. As in the case of the earlier group of scholars, this group is also relatively unknown in the country among generations of university students and teachers simply because their scholarship is also mostly inaccessible due to issues of language and reach, and therefore impacts the local discourses only marginally. 

What makes a significant local impact is the work produced in Sinhala and to a lesser extent in Tamil that is produced locally and is easily accessible to local readerships in terms of both language and affordability. When discussing Sri Lankan anthropology and its current status and quality, what is more important is this locally produced corpus of work even though they are marked by consistent lapses in ethnographic practice as well as an almost complete absence of theoretical engagement; by and large, many of these ‘studies’ are simple and linear descriptions of social phenomena which often includes prostitution, beggars, ‘coolies’ in Colombo and simple ‘village studies’ not that dissimilar to the early ethnographic enterprise established by the Department of Sociology at University of Peradeniya.[34] These include numerous dissertations at undergraduate and post graduate (particularly MA) levels produced by many Departments. A more recent phenomenon is the ad hoc publication of many of these dissertations with minimum editing that often fail to transform them from a basic dissertation to a book that is worth publishing. I will revisit this issue of publications in more detail later in this discussion. 

This brings us to one final point about anthropological research on Sri Lanka which both Nissan and Silva do not address directly in their important texts but is evident between the lines. This has to do with the agenda of anthropological research in Sri Lanka. The question here is who sets the agenda of this research? When one looks at the themes of research from the early period up to more recent times as well as the nature of significant anthropological research on Sri Lanka that has reached global discourses, it is clear that the agendas for research in Sri Lanka has been set and preempted by intellectual debates in Western Europe and North America. This includes the work of anthropologists such as Gananath Obeyesekere who were based in Sri Lanka at the time some of the research concerned was carried out. So when it comes to globally significant anthropological research on Sri Lanka, the agenda has never really been a local one. Instead, it has been mandated by theoretical and conceptual interests in key centers for research and the availability of funding for such work in the context of which, Sri Lanka was merely a site of experimentation. This is another reason why no significant and robust roots of the discipline could ever be successfully established in Sri Lanka. 

In the context of local realities, the post 1970s and 1980s period marks the more sustained beginning of the dismantling of Sri Lankan sociology and anthropology in terms of research, teaching, publication and related activities. As I have documented elsewhere, these interrelated conditions include the following:

i. The migration of pioneer Sri Lankan scholars to European and American universities. 

ii. The relative lack of success in training others to take up their intellectual roles. 

iii. Restriction of state funding and the non availability of private funding which negatively impacts the regular publishing of scholarly journals for knowledge exchange and the resultant dismantling of the tradition of critical debate. 

iv. The change in the medium of instruction in universities from English to Sinhala and Tamil in the 1960s, and the inability to set up a program to publish serious sociological knowledge in Sinhala and Tamil to augment this transformation. 

v. The non-emergence of a local academic publishing industry. 

vi. The non-emergence of a serious and viable local institutional system to undertake funding for research (Perera 2005: 231-232).

As a result, Sri Lankan “universities are no longer in the forefront of initiating or publishing cutting-edge, path-breaking or creative research; neither is this the preserve of the civil society sector” (Perera 2005: 232). In this situation, “serious research on contemporary Sri Lanka is the activity of individuals, be they based in the country or beyond” (Perera 2005: 232). In this context, despite the existence of a large institutional structure within the university system and an extensive network of students and teachers, “research and teaching in sociology [and anthropology] in the universities is at best unimaginative, uncreative, predictable, theoretically regressive, and mostly dated” (Perera 2005: 333). In this extended context, the current situation of Sri Lanka-based social anthropology/sociology can be best described as follows:

---the terrain of dominant sociological [anthropological] knowledge production in Sri Lanka offers a surreal experience, much like a walk through Jurassic Park of Steven Spielberg’s imagination where a domain of prehistoric proportions exists, particularly in academic sociology relatively untouched by the advances made in international sociology in the midst of contemporary times. In this scenario, the mere technical innovations that have impacted Sri Lankan sociology exist out of context: that is, out of engaged theoretical context and out of serious intellectual context. So, when I refer to dinosaurs as a metaphorical devise, I mean by that individuals, attitudes, archaic means of text production and discourse generation, particular ways of doing things and ways of not doing things (Perera 2005: 326).

This is where the institutional and disciplinary history described earlier has effectively lead these associated disciplines today. Though the members of my tribe camped out in various universities and elsewhere in the country would violently disagree with my description above, this “scary, colorful, complex and surreal” (Perera 2005: 326) state of affairs remains a reality and would continue to exist; their inability to come to terms with this state of affairs fundamentally stems from the fact that a “critical self-evaluation of sociological and social anthropological knowledge production has not yet been attempted” (Perera 2005: 326). In this context, this kind of self-imposed amnesia is not only convenient and inevitable, but is also a self-fulfilling prophecy. Let me now briefly contextualize some of the specific conditions that have contributed to the prevailing situation.

Larger Issues Impacting Anthropology/Sociology in Sri Lanka[35]

Since about the 1970s, Sri Lanka’s supply of intellectual capital and input into global social sciences and humanities as well as in the local context diminished considerably. This is not a simple reference to the production of individuals with a training of a particular kind, but to individuals with caliber whose contributions have made a difference in their respective fields in social sciences, including sociology and anthropology. My apprehension in this context is that the lack of collective reflexivity on the part of Sri Lankan academics regarding this situation will further entrench the downward spiral that has been set for the disciplines such as sociology, anthropology and others in the coming years. The writing that is literally and metaphorically on the wall is also reflected in the vision of the Ministry of Higher Education in Sri Lanka, prominently displayed on its website, which is to “contribute towards achieving excellence in Higher Education and Higher Technological Education for the development of high quality market oriented and knowledge based society."[36] Its mission is "to provide Higher Educational and Higher Technological opportunities to those who are qualified for Higher Education to produce a higher quality market oriented education system for a knowledge based society through policy formulation, facilitation and regulation of education, training and assessment ensuring social equity in order to achieve sustainable economic development."[37] So neither the mission nor the vision of the Ministry that oversees the development of universities has an interest in intellectual development. Its interest is in training workers for the market; to put it quite bluntly, Sri Lankan higher education seem to be in the business of providing various kinds of servants to the local and global industries but not thinkers, innovators, writers or philosophers in the context of which the training of anthropologists/sociologists worth their salt surely is a low priority. These then are the general standards set by the very institution that determine the path for universities in Sri Lanka to follow. Naturally, what this state of official affairs signals for disciplines such as anthropology would be very much less than salutary. It is probably due to these reasons that the former Minister of Higher Education and former university academic Vishwa Warnapala, claimed in a public address at the National Centre for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences in 2008, that all social science research should be of ‘social and developmental relevance’ (Perera 2010). His grouse with researchers and scholars was that they engaged only in pure and applied research; what he called for was ‘action-oriented research’ which he stated would lead to the ‘science of political behavior’[38] (Perera 2010). When taken as it is, the former minister’s ideas present a very confusing picture. However, when taken in the context of the overall speech and the guiding principles of the Ministry of Higher Education, he was clearly advocating a research culture that could cater directly to development initiatives mandated by the state, where intellectual rigor does not necessarily have a place of significance. In this scheme of thinking, one of the first victims would be the social sciences, including naturally sociology and anthropology.

It is little wonder then that the crucial blurring of identity between sociology and social anthropology as disciplines mentioned before, that is very evident in the Sri Lanakn institutional setup, has hardly generated any serious debate. Such debates simply cannot emerge in a wider context that is both anti-intellectual and mediocre. I suggest this is symptomatic of the loss of the intellectual edge of these disciplines locally. As I noted at the very outset of this discussion, the numerous debates on the contemporary relevance of sociology and anthropology, the arguments for experimental anthropology, debates over ethnography verses theory, issues of subjectivity and objectivity in social research that have been raging for over four decades in the global context, have not permeated the local intellectual engagement. Surely, it is self-evident that debates, regular exchange of views and a healthy tolerance of the plurality of ideas constitute the most crucial preconditions for the robust intellectual development of any discipline. Unfortunately, these conditions are absent in the domain of local sociology and anthropology in particular, and social sciences and humanities in general.

Problems in Academic Recruitment and Retention and the Brain Drain

Today, it is not an exaggeration to suggest that in Sri Lankan anthropology/sociology, we have more academics by virtue of working in academic institutions, rather than by being scholars of any significant worth or international repute. Increasingly since the 1970s, the university system has not been able to attract and retain the most innovative minds to domains of knowledge production in anthropology/sociology. The recruitment of individuals carrying a bachelor’s degree with a first class (or less), which is still the dominant practice clearly is not the solution though often there is hardly any choice. One must also keep in mind that there is a great difference in the quality of these first classes from one department of sociology to another.

Not only with regard to sociology and anthropology, but also in social sciences in general, there is a very clear need to rigorously scrutinize the quality of these individuals’ secondary education, higher education and publications and the capacity for serious scholarship prior to recruitment. Of course, in most parts of the world this constitutes common sense as well as basic good practice when it comes to academic recruitment. Not so, it appears in Sri Lanka. This needs to be followed up with a suitably developed tenure system such as systems in operation elsewhere, through which permanency is made dependent on a track record of significant publications and other forms of knowledge production. It is manifestly apparent that in the Sri Lankan system, such rigorous scrutiny at the entry level, and in retention procedures, does not exist. Even today, recruitment to the permanent cadre is often done with a simple BA degree in sociology/anthropology with no serious emphasis on publications and mere two years of teaching experience; in the case of assistant lecturers only the basic degree is taken into account (Perera 1996; Perera 2005). The resultant state of affairs is most clearly reflected in the devastatingly low quality of publications credited to local academics representing anthropology/sociology as well as social sciences more generally, when compared to global standards, a point I will revisit when I discuss the status of publications later in this discussion. Over time, this institutionalized mediocrity has been legitimized and has become the norm rather than the exception. This is even more clearly reflected in the abuse of the university system’s promotion scheme where academics diligently publish the most obtuse texts for the sole purpose of climbing the academic ladder, rather than in the interest of knowledge or scholarship. 

Speaking of retention, the brain drain to the so called ‘west’ that occurred initially in the early 1960s, has left Sri Lankan anthropology and sociology crippled enough to never really have recovered from. The country lost the entire first generation of Sri Lankan sociologists located at University of Peradeniya as a result of this phenomenon including Gananath Obeyesekere, Stanley J. Tambiah, H.L. Seneviratne to name a few. They left in search of both greener pastures as well as more stimulating intellectual environments. While they were here, very interesting research – particularly centered around the University of Peradeniya – was in place, as were internationally comparable teaching programs. Comparatively, Colombo and all other sociology programs currently in operation in the country didn’t even have a robust enough foundation to begin with. As a result of this wide-spread malaise, a deeply nuanced locally based intellectual foundation as was established in India, facilitated by different generations of senior scholars who continued to work and teach for a long time in the country, did not occur locally. M.N. Srinivas, Andre Betteille, Veena Das and many others can be included in this group, from the very beginning of teaching anthropology/sociology in India right up the present. The Indian scholars’ commitment to knowledge production locally is made manifest through the local standards they have set, the number of locally published texts attributable to them and the robust intellectual traditions they established at least in a handful of universities. Only a few individuals who fit this description come to mind in the extended context of Sri Lankan social sciences, and none of them represent sociology or anthropology. Historian Kumari Jayawardena however, who remained in Sri Lanka after leaving the university system in the 1980s continued to work and publish important texts locally, and went to the extent of translating some of them into Sinhala. Nevertheless, in general, the country received no such commitment from those who left, nor from the ones who remained. To use a farming metaphor, Sri Lankan sociology/anthropology simply had part of the earth prepared; then the farmers left, leaving the farmland to young and untrained farmers and the wilderness to creep in. And creep in, it did. To put it quite simply, the basic foundation laid for sociology and social anthropology in the country was a very inauspicious one, ruptured and flawed almost from the beginning. Unfortunately, this predicament has not been openly discussed by the community of sociologists and anthropologists currently working in the country, partly stemming from the aforementioned lack of an enabling intellectual environment as well as the unwillingness of the community in general to accept its own culpability for the prevailing situation. 

Lapses in Training at Undergraduate and Post-graduate Levels

Since the late 1950s, higher education in social sciences and humanities[39] have been increasingly offered in the two local languages, Sinhala and Tamil. This is particularly so in undergraduate courses with large student enrolments as well as most MA and PhD programs. Only a handful of university departments offer post graduate training in English even though most students who enroll in these classes also have serious problems in working in English. While the expansion of university education in the local languages was a politically and socially popular move, it was not accompanied by essential logistical prerequisites, which also impacted the teaching of anthropology/sociology in the long run. For instance, the sociology/anthropology glossaries that were initially published in the 1960s were not regularly updated or expanded. Similarly, the initial attempts at translating crucial texts from English to local languages ceased almost at the inception. The only attempt on record is the somewhat tedious translation of an introductory text in sociology by T.B. Bottomore’s originally published in the 1950s of which the Sinhala translation was published in the 1960s. In this situation a permeating practice of monolingualism spread within social sciences which ensured a long-term process of parochialization of knowledge. Increasingly, generation after generation of both students and teachers became more distanced from global developments in most disciplinary domains in social sciences and humanities as a result of their non proficiency in English as well as due to the lack of translations of globally circulating texts and the local publication of texts of comparable value. 

Sri Lankan anthropology and sociology is an area where the repercussions of this situation is most clearly reflected; as a result of being cut off from global developments in the discipline, a steady parochialization of the education that is offered within departments that teach anthropology/sociology became part of the overall reality. A practice of citing the readings or the handwritten notes that they had formulated which constituted their own undergraduate education 20 or more years ago has become a norm for many teachers within these departments. This is a practice that I have labeled ‘parrotification’ (Perera 1996) elsewhere, which literally means to ‘repeat like parrot.’ This is not said to undermine in any way the seminal texts and works of great thinkers that remain relevant and insightful to any discipline through the ages; but to say that very few undergraduate and post graduate level teachers see the need and demand to renew their own knowledge, both to impart to students as well as to set an example of a good academic practice. A form of rote learning is now taking over education at the undergraduate level due partly to this reason. Its entrenchment is facilitated by the fact that many teachers and most students are very comfortable with such a practice. On the part of both these groups, the relative inability to access material published in English functions as another reason (Perera 1996; Perera 2007: 128-132). The teacher who cannot access material written in English (or any other world language where adequate literature is available) will invariably refer mostly to the material available in the local languages or even more commonly, to their own classroom notes, leaving it up only to the most enterprising students to seek anything beyond that. The added gravity in this situation has to do with the questionable quality and extent of the information available in material published in the Sinhala and Tamil languages in these disciplines. This state of affairs, particularly with regard to teaching and learning is distinctly different in neighboring India where only a few universities teach anthropology at the Masters' level in local languages while Ph. D. dissertations in anthropology, by and large, are written in English.[40] So in the Indian context, individuals need to have more than a functional knowledge in English to undertake advanced training in anthropology even if they might have undertaken their undergraduate studies in a local language. So despite variations in actual situations, at least in theory, their ability to access globally available and constantly changing knowledge in anthropology as well as related disciplines in English remains in place in the Indian context.

Let me make one final clarification in this regard. In real terms, the issue here was not the decision to offer young people primary, secondary and university education in the local languages. The problem was not following up that political decision with pragmatic follow-up steps to ensure that essential material in the form of textbooks and regular Sinhala and Tamil translations of globally significant texts were made available. Japan is a reasonably good example of this practice even though closer scrutiny will show the serious lapses in what actually is translated into Japanese and what is not. Both Tamil and Sinhala are perfectly capable of offering serious instructions on sociology and anthropology. So the issue is not a structural limitation in language. However, it was simply not enough to set in motion an emotional nationalist agenda without a rational follow-up plan at the ground level. As a result, as we can see very well now, “the decision to teach in the local languages, rather than empowering the people as was anticipated, worked more like curtain coming down that blocked and diminished knowledge horizons” (Perera 2007: 130). 

The Diminishing of Available Resources for Knowledge Production and Avenues for Dissemination

The dwindling of forums for serious production and dissemination of knowledge constitutes another crucial factor that has negatively impacted the status of sociology/anthropology in particular and social sciences more generally in Sri Lanka. Compared to the numerous seminars, conferences and other such academic events organized regularly by entities such as Indian Anthropological Society and Indian Sociological Society as well as individual sociology and anthropology departments or universities in India, there is no regular conference circuit in Sri Lanka to talk of which caters to sociology and anthropology in particular or even social sciences more generally. Annual university based research sessions where sociologists and anthropologists also present papers have become mere calendar rituals of no significant intellectual consequence where the focus is simply to get an abstract published as a criterion for promotions within the university system rather than the production and dissemination of knowledge. On the other hand, many conferences that are held in the country outside the university system which may be vaguely considered as in the domain of ‘social sciences’ are organized within a distinctly developmentalist orientation. As such, they are much more interested in clinical and statistical understandings of poverty, well-being, development and so on rather than more nuanced research with a focus on thickness of ethnography as well as theory. Such a situation anywhere would indicate the poverty of knowledge due to the relative inability to exchange and cross fertilize ideas. 

There is a related issue that needs some comment. Like university based conferences where disciplines are carelessly grouped together, some universities also publish journals which are essentially non-specialized which are nevertheless supposed to be peer-reviewed. The issue here is not merely with the regularity of these events or publications, but with the quality of the knowledge produced, disseminated and legitimized. As a person who has to regularly peer-review abstracts for such conferences and essays for local journals, I feel extremely sad to admit that what gets presented and subsequently published in these academic rituals should not have even been considered in the first place. However, given the inherent lapses in the local systems of evaluation at such forums, more often than not, submissions which lack ethnographic depth, conceptual clarity, theoretical sophistication and informed secondary knowledge are often presented and sometimes also published carrying even easily avoidable spelling and grammar errors. 

The conceptualization of many well-known university journals defies all logic. Take for instance, the Sabaragamwua University Journal and the University of Colombo Review. Neither of these journals, in their present form, can cater to serious knowledge production. They are open to any discipline, which makes a reasoned editorial policy a near impossibility. If the idea is for interdisciplinary production of knowledge, then such an idea needs to be reflected in the editorial policy of these journals, and should be expressed in an informed introduction to each volume contextualizing its content. Internationally reputable journals like Modern Ceylon Studies and the Ceylon Journal of Historical and Social Studies that existed in the University of Peradeniya during the sixties are unlikely to be surpassed in quality by any of the attempts of producing journals today. Even though the Modern Ceylon Studies continues today as Modern Sri Lanka Studies, it does not match up to its predecessor in terms of the quality of the works contained. The Department of Sociology at University of Colombo, despite having functioned for 41 years as a department of sociology, is yet to produce a journal of its own or host a conference with a sociology/anthropology focus despite being one of the most established departments in the country. My attempt at initialing a journal specifically for sociology/anthropology in 2009/2010 could not be realized due to the lackluster attitude of senior colleagues. At the moment, there is no serious internationally comparable journal in Sri Lanka catering to the production of knowledge in sociology or anthropology.

Unlike India and to a lesser extent even Pakistan and Bangladesh, Sri Lanka also does not have an academic publishing industry or an academic publishing culture. It is not an accident that there are no local operations of international academic publishers such Sage, Cambridge University Press or Oxford University Press or India-based publishers such as Orient Black-swan, Permanent Black, Navrang and Vikas which also publish academic texts. Similarly, Sri Lanka also does not have a system of university presses as in India, UK, USA and many other countries. The University of Colombo Press which was established on the lines of The Cambridge and Oxford University Presses was shut down in the 1960s after a period of steady decline. Academic texts are now published without adequate peer review mostly by commercial publishers who also publish everything from novels and children’s books to political posters and even obituary notices. Some university-based entities in the social sciences publish their own texts which also indicate serious lapses in the quality of content and judgment. For example, the two large Sinhala language volumes published by the Center for Indigenous Community Studies at Sabaragamuwa University, ‘Indigenous People of Sri Lanka’ ‘Sri Lankan Islanders and Indigenous People’ betray a significant lack of editorial rigor ranging from the selection of essays for publication, quality of research, language, style and technical details. If an internationally accepted editorial policy and at least a minimum sense of academic professionalism were in place, neither of these texts would have been published as they stand today. The cumulative effect of this state of affairs is that the currently existing seminar circuit and the publishing network in social sciences in the country are not positioned to promote serious scholarship. In general, many of the Sinhala language publications (and some in English) that are currently published in the country and heavily used by undergraduates and postgraduates share the following features:

i. The works are mostly produced in the Sinhala language,[41] and they usually lack basic technical standards of academic writing such as footnoting, bibliographic presentations, rigor in editing and so on. 

ii. There is a serious and consistent attention to local published sources as opposed to an almost total absence of non-Sri Lankan scholarly sources. Much of the local sources tend to be popular material such as newspapers and magazines. 

iii. Their emphasis is on simple ethnographic descriptions marked by a general absence of analysis and interpretation.

iv. There is a clear absence of engagement with (western-derived) current social theory and an absence of alternate local theoretical formulations (Perera 2005: 340).

Needless to say, this state of affairs perpetuates an unfortunate environment of intellectual mediocrity. Let me emphasize a final point in the area of publishing. As I briefly noted earlier, the first full-length ethnography based on research in Sri Lanka was Charles and Brenda Seligman’s Veddas published in 1911. Since that time, and more clearly since the 1960s, Sri Lanka has become one of the most researched places in the domain of global social anthropology. Though significant knowledge has been produced in this manner, it hardly contributes to the qualitative expansion of the local discourse for a number of reasons. One is that many of these texts are published in English or other European languages and cannot be accessed by many anthropologists/sociologists due to lapses in their language skills and training. This is a failure on the part of Sri Lankan education system. Second, most academics or students simply cannot afford to buy these texts even if they could read them due to their exorbitant prices as a result of being published in Euro-American centers. Very few scholars over the years have made the conscious decision to make sure that at least a South Asian edition is available that would allow local readers to buy these texts without much difficulty. The end result of this state of affairs is that the knowledge produced in this manner does not regularly impact the local discourse as it would in an ideal situation. As such, many globally-known scholars whose main claim to fame might be their work in Sri Lanka are not known to local students and many teachers. It is unfortunate that many of these global stars have not found it ethically important to find some means of ensuring that the knowledge they have produced is of some use in the place where the research was carried out at least in English if not in translation.

The Assault of the Consultants: Colonization of Anthropology/Sociology by Development Practice

With particular reference to India, Mukherji has noted that “much of the academic time of many social scientists in universities and research institutes is being diverted to evaluation/consultancy researches very much demanded by NGOs” (Mukherji: 2004: 29). In this general scenario where the dominant research agenda for sociologists and anthropologists (among other social scientists) is defined, implemented and dominated by development actors, Mukherji also makes the following observations: “---scholars are distracted into evaluations and consultancies to the detriment of problem oriented, empirically based, theoretical and basic research and high quality teaching” (Mukherji: 2004: 29-30). These observations are equally valid for the Sri Lankan situation where much of the social research scenario is the preserve of NGOs, multilateral and bilateral development agencies as well as state entities. This has become such a pervasive situation that academia and academic research in sociology, anthropology and other socials sciences are effectively assaulted, colonized and redefined by this increasing army of consultants and development agencies. More disturbingly, many senior colleagues are better seen and known today as development consultants rather than scholars in the context of which their academic writing has steadily declined in preference to evaluation reports. Unfortunately, many young researchers trained at universities increasingly perceive this to be the ‘ideal’ of research very clearly manifested in their own work, dissertations and the rapid and simplistic expansion of statistical methods in preference for ethnography or sustained fieldwork more generally. 

In the Sri Lankan context this is no longer a marginal or occulted practice but very much a mainstream activity (Perera 205: 334). Moreover, many of its practitioners argue that this work has much academic merit by virtue of presenting some of the findings in developmentalist conferences and publishing them in various forums; this argument has also been accepted by the university system as indicated in the acceptance of this kind of work for the internal promotion system of university academics (Perera 205: 334). The issue here is not that anthropologists and sociologists, particularly those based in universities should not engage in consultancy work. Given the very real economic conditions in the country and the low salaries academics receive, this would indeed be a rational economic decision. The issue is that this kind of work has become mainstream to the extent of diminishing more intellectually interesting and theoretically engaged research, and the inability of many of these practitioners to use the data and information collected for developmental research for producing more nuanced and sophisticated analyses and writings in the long run. This situation is further entrenched by the relative unavailability of local funding for academic research (Perera 1996; Perera 2005: 333).

Concluding Comments

In the context of the preceding discussion, one can now pose the rhetorical question, ‘so what does all this mean’? For sure, whatever the community of anthropologists and sociologists in Sri Lanka might say, it ought to be self-evident that the discourse, structures and practices of their disciplines as they exist in the country today is clearly not indicative of excellence. I suggest that  the present status of anthropology/sociology in Sri Lanka, which is an enterprise that is clearly imprisoned by its recent history and delinked from a self-reflective understanding of its ruptures, deviations and sense of direction. It is a simplistic enterprise not based on a robust tradition of teaching, training and research but on a superficial platform of introductory information. In that context, if it is merely producing people who write and engage in discourse without reflection and vision, if it trains people in these disciplines only in the very basics, and not with wisdom, maybe it is time that Sri Lankan anthropologists and sociologists asked some hard questions of themselves. Rather than labeling such training ‘wisdom’ in the diminished intellectual and political climates of present day Sri Lanka, and contributing further to the already burdened society, the community of Sri Lankan scholars should ask themselves if they are prepared to find and put in the resources, both human and material, to ensure necessary standards of education that are associated with universities in their ideal sense in any civilized place. Or, are we more comfortable transitioning into technical colleges, polytechnics and other types of higher education institutions that are mass producing marginally trained workers for the market as has happened in many other countries? Sri Lankan politicians have already made the decision as indicative of the paths towards ‘development’ and technical training they have pushed local higher education; what is unfortunate is the deafening silence of many academics while this unavailable transformation is taking place. 

References 

Beteille, Andre . 1982. Six Essays in Comparative Sociology. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Beteille, Andre. 2000. ‘Teaching and Research.’ In, Situating Sociology: A Symposium on Knowledge, Institutions and Practices in a Discipline (http://www.india seminar.com/2000/495/495%20andre%20beteille.htm / Last visited on 5th September 2011).

Beteille, Andre. 2002. ‘Chapter 2: Sociology and Social Anthropology’ In, Sociology: Essays on Approach and Method. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. 

Bourdieu, Pierre. 1995. 'A Science that Makes Trouble.' In, P. Bourdieu. Sociology in Question. London: Sage Publications.

Clifford, James E and George Marcus (Eds.,). 1986. Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (1986). Berkeley: University of California Press.

Marcus, George and Michael M.J. Fischer. 1986. Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 

Mukherji, Partha N. 2004. ‘Introduction: Indigeneity and Universality in Social Science.’ In, Partha N. Mukherji and Chandan Sengupta eds., Indigeneity and Universality in Social Sciences: A South Asian Response. New Delhi: Sage Publications.

Nissan, Elizabeth. 1987. ‘The Work of Sri Lankan Anthropologists: A Bibliographic Survey.’ In, Contributions to Indian Sociology, 21; 1 (http://cis.sagegpub.com).

Perera, Sasanka. 2010. Contemporary Social Sciences and Humanities in Sri Lanka: Towards a Reflexive Understanding through a Critical Reading of Sociology/Anthropology.’ Paper presented at the Third International Symposium, Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka, 26 – 28 August 2010.

Perera, Sasanka. 2007. ‘Sinhala Only: Consequences for Social Sciences and Humanities Education at University Level.’ In, Dialogue, Vol. XXXIV.

Perera, Sasanka. 2006. ‘’Karadarakara Vidyawak’ Pilibanda Adahas Dekveemak: Samaja Vidyawa, Samaja Vivechanaya saha Janasanniwedana Madya’ (Comments on a ‘Science that Makes Trouble’: Sociology, Social Criticism and Mass Media). In, Samaja Vimasuma, Issue No: 12, Department of Sociology, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, pp. 76-86.

Perera, Sasanka. 2005. ‘Dealing with Dinosaurs and Reclaiming Sociology: A Personal narrative on the (non) Existence of Critical Sociological Knowledge Production in Sri Lanka. In, Sociological Bulletin: Journal of the Indian Sociological Society, Vol. 54, Number 3, (Sept-Dec).

Perera, Sasanka. 1996. ‘In Search of a Sri Lankan Sociological and Anthropological Tradition’. In Lanka Guardian, Vol. 19, # 2 (May 15, 1996) and Vol. 19 # 3 (June 1, 1996). Colombo: Guardian Publications.

Postman, Neil. 1993. Technopology: The Surrender of Culture to Technology. New York: Vintage Books.

Silva, Kalinga Tudor. 2001. ‘Samaja Vidya Nyaya Saha Lankika Smaja Vidyawe Pravanatha’ (in Sinhala). In, Pravada, 19-20 (July-December 2001); pp, 47-73. Colombo: Social Scientists Association.

End Notes

[1] Paper presented at the conference ‘Locating Alternate Voices of Anthropology’ in celebration of the Golden Jubilee of the Indian Anthological Society, Kolkata, 19-23 November 2011. 

[2] Beteille has also discussed this issue in his 1993 essay, ‘Sociology and Anthropology: Their Relationship in One Person’s Career’, Contributions to Indian Sociology, n.s. 27 (2): 291-304. 

[3] Veddas are the indigenous (adivasi) ethnic community in Sri Lanka whose numbers have steadily declined since the last century. 

[4] I have outlined many of these issues in a series of essays and lectures earlier. These include the following: ‘In Search of a Sri Lankan Sociological and Anthropological Tradition’. In, Lanka Guardian, Vol. 19, # 2 (May 15, 1996) and Vol. 19 # 3 (June 1, 1996). Colombo: Guardian Publications (1996); ‘Dealing with Dinosaurs and Reclaiming Sociology: A Personal Narrative on the (non) Existence of Critical Sociological Knowledge Production in Sri Lanka. In, Sociological Bulletin: Journal of the Indian Sociological Society, Vol. 54, Number 3, (Sept-Dec 2005); ‘’Karadarakara Vidyawak’ Pilibanda Adahas Dekveemak: Samaja Vidyawa, Samaja Vivechanaya Saha Janasanniwedana Madya’ (Comments on a ‘Science that Makes Trouble’: Sociology, Social Criticism and Mass Media). In, Samaja Vimasuma, Issue No: 12, Department of Sociology, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, pp. 76-86 (2006); ‘Contemporary Social Sciences and Humanities in Sri Lanka: Towards a Reflexive Understanding through a Critical Reading of Sociology/Anthropology.’ Paper presented at the Third International Symposium, Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka (26 – 28 August 2010). The present discussion is essentially a summary and reworking of the historical contexts outlined in these previous discussions. 

[5] See the details on the webpage of the Department of Sociology, University of Peradeniya (http://www.arts.pdn.ac.lk/socio/ ). Last accessed on 6th September 2011. 

[6] Unless specifically noted, much of the information here is from a personal email message (6th September 2011) from Tudor Siva, Professor of Sociology and former Head, Department of Sociology, University of Peradeniya; additional information has been received via a personal email from H.L. Seneviratne, Professor of Anthropology Emeritus, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, 18th September 2011. 

[7] For more detailed descriptions of research orientations in this period, please refer to the following essays: ‘Samaja Vidya Nyaya Saha Lankika Smaja Vidyawe Pravanatha’ (in Sinhala) by Kalinga Tudor Silva. In, Pravada, 19-20 (July-December 2001); pp, 47-73. Colombo: Social Scientists Association; ‘The Work of Sri Lankan Anthropologists: A Bibliographic Survey’ by Elizabeth Nissan. In, Contributions to Indian Sociology, 21; 1 (1987) [http://cis.sagegpub.com]. 

[8] From interview with S.J. Tambiah by Alan Macfarlane on 8th July 1983; available at DSpace@ University of Cambridge (http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/433). Accessed on 7th September 2011. 

[9] From interview with S.J Tambiah by Alan Macfarlane on 8th July 1983; available at DSpace@ University of Cambridge (http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/433). Accessed on 7th September 2011. 

[10] From interview with S.J Tambiah by Alan Macfarlane on 8th July 1983; available at DSpace@ University of Cambridge (http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/433). Accessed on 7th September 2011. 

[11] This information is from Laksiri Jayasuriya, Emeritus Professor and Hon Senior Research Fellow, School of Social Work and Social Policy University of Western Australia via email (6th September 2011). 

[12] This information is from Professor Laksiri Jayasuriya via email (6th September 2011). 

[13] This information is from Professor Laksiri Jayasuriya via email (6th September 2011). 

[14] Email communication from H.L. Seneviratne, Professor of Anthropology Emeritus, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, 18th September 2011. 

[15] Email communication from H.L. Seneviratne, Professor of Anthropology Emeritus, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, 18th September 2011. 

[16] Early writings of the pioneers of the department such as Bryce Ryan as well as Murray and Jacqueline Straus are available on the internet which gives a partial image of the research orientations of the department at the time. These include the following essays: Murray Straus, ‘Subcultural Variation In Ceylonese Mental Ability: A Study of National Character;’ in, The Journal of Social Psychology; Vol. 39; Issue 1, 1954 (http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00224545.1954.9919108 - last accessed on 24th September 2011); Murray Straus and Jacqueline Straus, ‘Suicide, Homicide and Social Structure in Ceylon’; in, American Journal of Sociology; Vol. 58; Number 5, March 19523 (http://www.jstor.org/pss/2772507 - last accessed on 24th September 2011); Bryce Ryan, ‘Status, Achievement and Education in Ceylon: An Historical Perspective;’ in, The Journal of Asian Studies; Vol. 20; No. 4, August 1961 (http://www.jstor.org/pss/2049955 - last accessed on 24th September 2011). 

[17] Email communication from H.L. Seneviratne, Professor of Anthropology Emeritus, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, 18th September 2011. 

[18] Much of the information here is from a personal email message (6th September 2011) from Tudor Siva, Professor of Sociology and former Head, Department of Sociology, University of Peradeniya and the webpage of the Department of Sociology (http://www.arts.pdn.ac.lk/socio/ ), visited on 6th September 2011. 

[19] This information is from Professor Laksiri Jayasuriya via email (6th September 2011). 

[20] Email communication from H.L. Seneviratne, Professor of Anthropology Emeritus, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, 18th September 2011. 

[21] Email communication from H.L. Seneviratne, Professor of Anthropology Emeritus, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, 18th September 2011. 

[22] Email communication from H.L. Seneviratne, Professor of Anthropology Emeritus, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, 18th September 2011. 

[23] I am indebted to Professor Tennyson Perera for providing this and other historical information on the Department of sociology and anthropology, Sri Jayawardenapura University via telephone on 08th September 2011. 

[24] Information from the webpage of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Sri Jayawardenapura (http://www.sjp.ac.lk/fa/soci/index.html). Accessed on 7th September 2011. 

[25] Please refer to the following URL for the course outline of the anthropology degree program which also offers courses in physical anthropology: http://www.sjp.ac.lk/fa/soci/coanth.html. Accessed on 7th September 2011. 

[26] Information from the webpage of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Sri Jayawardenapura (http://www.sjp.ac.lk/fa/soci/index.html). Accessed on 7th September 2011. 

[27] Please refer to the following URL for additional information on the history of the Colombo department: http://www.cmb.ac.lk/academic/arts/socio/history.html. Accessed on 7th September 2011. 

[28] This information is from Professor Laksiri Jayasuriya via email (7th September 2011). 

[29] This information is from Professor Laksiri Jayasuriya via email (7th September 2011). 

[30] This information is from Professor Laksiri Jayasuriya via email (7th September 2011). 

[31] This information is from Professor Laksiri Jayasuriya via email (7th September 2011). 

[32] Two colleagues however maintain a self-proclaimed interest in urban issues (one of them retired in 2010). The success or failure of my own initiative to formally focus departmental undergraduate research on urban space beginning in 2010 over the next five remains to be seen. 

[33] For a detailed survey of research by Sri Lankan anthropologists (based locally and overseas) from about the late 1950s to mid 1980s, please refer to ‘The Work of Sri Lankan Anthropologists: A Bibliographic Survey’ by Elizabeth Nissan. In, Contributions to Indian Sociology, 1987;21;1 (http;//cis.sagepub.com). 

[34] For a more detailed and critical reading of this kind of writing, please refer to the following essays: ‘In Search of a Sri Lankan Sociological and Anthropological Tradition’ by Sasanka Perera. In, Lanka Guardian, Vol. 19, # 2 (May 15, 1996) and Vol. 19 # 3 (June 1, 1996). Colombo: Guardian Publications; Sri Lankeeya Manawawansha Lekanakaranaye Pathikadak’ (in Sinahala) by Sashika Sajeewani, Samanmali Kumari and Krishantha Fredericks. In, Pravada, 19-20 (July-December 2001). Colombo: Colombo: Social Scientists Association; ‘Dealing with Dinosaurs and Reclaiming Sociology: A Personal narrative on the (non) Existence of Critical Sociological Knowledge Production in Sri Lanka’ by Sasanka Perera. In, Sociological Bulletin: Journal of the Indian Sociological Society, Vol. 54, Number 3, (Sept-Dec 2005). 

[35] The discussion from this point onwards is a slightly edited and partially re-written version of my key-note address, ‘Contemporary Social Sciences and Humanities in Sri Lanka: Towards a Reflexive Understanding through a Critical Reading of Sociology/Anthropology’ delivered at the Third International Symposium, Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka, 26 – 28 August 2010. 

[36] http://www.mohe.gov.lk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=73&Itemid=96 (Visited on 8 August 2010). 

[37] http://www.mohe.gov.lk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=73&Itemid=96 (Visited on 8 August 2010). 

[38] In the same seminar, many individuals were horrified to here the Minister criticizing anthropologist Gananath Obeyesekere’s seminal text, The Cult of the Goddess Pattini (University of Chicago Press, 1984) as a “useless” text as it has no “developmental” relevance; interestingly however, this remark has been removed from the published versions of his speech. 

[39] Though this transformation included the sciences, engineering and related disciplines as well as medical, dental and veterinary training, the transformation was not complete in these disciplinary areas, and in most cases a complete reversal to English has taken place in most universities. 

[40] Email communication from Professor Ajit Kumar Danda, 26th September 2011. 

[41] With the expansion of Tamil medium universities such as the University of Jaffna, Eastern University of Sri Lanka and South Eastern University of Sri Lanka that offer courses in anthropology/sociology as well as limited Tamil language teaching of these subjects in other universities such as Colombo and Peradeniya, the same genre of publications in Tamil have become an obvious presence in the local academic marketplace in more recent times.

Education and its Crises: Rambling Thoughts

Cartoon on Sri Lankan education y Awantha Artigala, Colombo

(Welcome address at the at the conference, Educational Transformation and Transformative Education: Possibilities and Alternatives to the Educational Crisis, March 21st 2014, India International Centre, New Delhi; organized by the Department of Sociology, South Asian University, New Delhi)

Colleagues and friends, good morning. On behalf of the Department of Sociology and the Faculty of Social Sciences at South Asian University, let me welcome you.

Today, we are expected to deliberate on the broad theme, ‘Educational Transformation and Transformative Education: Possibilities and Alternatives to the Educational Crisis’ with a very politically conscious focus on South Asia’s multiple crises in education. To contextualize what we are about to embark upon, let me divert your attention to another time that has nothing to do with our region, our times or even our post-enlightenment notions of reality and rationality. For a brief moment, let me take you to mythic times where gods, humans, nature, culture and a multiplicity of ideas interacted fairly freely. I have in mind a very nuanced encounter between a god and a king as outlined in ‘The Legend of Thamus’ by Plato in his book Phaedrus. As we know, Phaedrus is a dialogue between Plato's main protagonist, Socrates, and Phaedrus. I must admit that I unashamedly and repeatedly refer to this mythic encounter in many of my conversations on education as it allows me to place my thoughts in context, as would be the case today.

Thamus, the king of a great city in Upper Egypt, once entertained god Theuth who was the inventor of many things, including numbers, calculation, geometry, astronomy, and writing. Theuth’s assertion was that his inventions should be made available to Egyptians because of their utility. At one moment, while introducing his invention of writing to the king, the god observed: “Here is my accomplishment, my lord the King, which will improve both the wisdom and the memory of Egyptians.”[1] To this, Thamus replied, “Theuth, my paragon of inventors, the discoverer of an art is not the best judge of the good or harm which will accrue to those who will practice it. So it is in this: you, who are the father of writing, have out of fondness for your offspring attributed to it quite the opposite of its real function. Those who acquire it will cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful; they will rely on writing to bring things to their remembrance by external signs instead of by their own internal resources. What you have discovered is a receipt for recollection, not memory. And as for wisdom, your pupils will have the reputation for it without the reality: they will receive a quantity of information without proper instruction and in consequence be thought very knowledgeable when they are for the most part quite ignorant. And because they are filled with the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom, they will be a burden to society.”[2]

You might quite legitimately wonder what this mythical conversation has got to do with a series of deliberations on the multiple crises in education in our region. For me, this seemingly unconnected narrative is a point of departure for what we are about to discuss. After all, it deals with the unthinking and ideologically motivated posturing of a specific technology as a solution to all known ills in society when in fact it can well be the foundation for creating a group of citizens who are a burden to society as warned by King Thamus. It is not that different from the way policy makers and politicians in our region attempt to promote education at all levels as something that is fundamentally utilitarian, something decided by the market, something for the market, something useful for development, something in my opinion is shorn of any nuanced historical consciousness.

Can we be satisfied that domains of education in South Asia, from primary to secondary to tertiary as a system, function to impart knowledge along with wisdom and a broader sense of inclusive citizenship or a collective sense of regional identity? Or, does that system simply offer a quantity of information without situating it in the wider political and social contexts within which it must ideally be understood, learned and practiced? If the latter is the case, what kind of citizens and what kind of an intellectual climate would we end up creating? What kind of young people do we train and send to universities, colleges and markets?

I was very amused to read a few weeks ago the vision and mission statements of the Ministry of Higher Education in Sri Lanka very loudly articulated in its website. Its vision is to make Sri Lanka “an international hub of excellence for higher education by 2020.”[3] Its mission is to “To Delight Students, The Industry, Staff And Other Stakeholders Of The Higher Education System Of Sri Lanka By Formulating And Implementing Results Oriented Policies & Strategies And To Deliver Results In An Effective And Efficient Manner Through A Participatory Process, To Produce The Best Intellectuals, Professionals, Researchers, Entrepreneurs; To Deliver Innovative Solutions To Make Sri Lanka “The Wonder Of Asia” (sic).[4] It seems to me that the vision reads more like a hallucination and the mission more like an impossible mission to achieve and a wish list formulated by someone who does not seem to have the foggiest idea of the crises that Sri Lankan education system as a whole is currently enveloped in. But then, that is the nature of hallucinations and missions impossible.

I refer to this example for a specific reason. This is not an exception. If you were to read policy documents, particularly pertaining to higher education in any of the countries in the region, you would read similarly unenlightened verbosity. What exactly is meant by “Formulating And Implementing Results Oriented Policies & Strategies” and how does one “Deliver Results In An Effective And Efficient Manner Through A Participatory Process?” Aren’t these the hallmarks of the kind of market-driven education system, devoid of a conscience, a sense of self-reflexivity or a historical sensibility that has been implemented in our region since neo-liberal ideological premises impacted upon systems of governance in general and education in particular since at least the late 1970s in our part of the world? Isn’t this the description of a parochial technical education that does not allow people to think? Unfortunately, this is the kind of system that is in place today not only in Sri Lanka, but elsewhere in the region too, if we go by the public articulations of politicians on what education is supposed to be like.

But then, can the ‘Miracle of Asia’ as imagined by Sri Lanka’s present regime and ‘Incredible India’ in the case of the Indian state’s self-perception of itself and other similarly fantastic self-perceptions of neighboring countries be achieved in a vacuum, particularly when their education systems have been highly politicized and in dire straits over a considerable period of time? Clearly, in the case of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka heads of major state-funded universities are appointed by the highest political authorities in these countries. What does this mean when juxtaposed with ideas such as academic excellence, cutting edge knowledge, academic freedom and so on which most of us would cherish as ideals and also regularly emerge in the rhetoric of regimes in our region whose practice however very clearly undermine what these words actually mean.

Can we expect anything other than crises when universities, research organizations and think tanks are headed by people not because of their training, competence or integrity in a specific domain of knowledge, but simply because of their proximity to political structures that hold power at a specific time and their uncritical acceptance of the prevalent structures of power. This general state of affairs brings to my mind Edward Said’s comments on post-independence Arab universities outlined in his essay, ‘Identity, Authority and Freedom’ (2001). As he observes, in the post independence period, in Arab countries, national universities were conceived as extensions of the national security states, many of which were established consequent to independence. In such a context, academic freedom and other ideals of higher education as identified earlier, could not exist because they were perceived as a threat to the sustainability of that national security state. What was needed instead was a system through which potentially free thinking zones such as universities could be controlled by regimes or other structures of power. Said makes the following observations with reference to the situation in the Arab academy: “Alas, political conformity rather than intellectual excellence was often made to serve as a criterion for promotion and appointment, with the general result that timidity, a studious lack of imagination, and careful conservatism came to rule intellectual practice”[5] (Said 2001). I am sure you would agree with me that Said’s observations of the Arab academy describe equally well the collective status of South Asian academy today.

But these systemic failures become possible because of wider failures in the societies we live in; because of the shrinking public sphere that we have by and large accepted as a matter of fact over which one has no control; because of the relative absence of wisdom and tolerance of a plurality of ideas in most political contexts in South Asia. It is clear that ruptures in the wider society reproduces themselves in school and university systems which become part of a single process with very little space for publically articulated difference. It is in such a situation we can understand such intellectually demeaning acts as the banning of books: Rohinton Mistry’s novel, Such a Long Journey was removed by the University of Bombay from its English syllabus while not to be outdone, Delhi University banished from its history syllabus the Collected Essays of A.K. Ramanujan and Paula Richman's Many Ramayanas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia with a focus on Ramanujan's work. James Laine’s work of history, Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India was removed from local circulation due to protests by the publisher Oxford University press in 2003, while this year under somewhat similar circumstances Wendy Donniger’s book, The Hindus: An Alternate History was withdrawn by the publisher, Penguin India. Similarly, the novel Lejja by Tasleema Nasreen was banned in Bangladesh as soon as it was published while the Sri Lankan government banned Stanley J. Tambiahs’s book, Buddhism Betrayed? In these kinds of situations, it is not always easy to locate the boundaries between the state’s thinking and the influence of hegemonic political currents on one hand, and the actions of universities and schools on the other. Often, they complement each other.

Let me flag one final issue. I think we need to recognize that much of what has happened in the systems of education in our region is also related to education’s affinity with neo-liberal policies of governance that South Asia has adopted in different ways since about the late 1970s. All of us would agree that as a regime of governance neoliberalism constitutes of an ideology that is organized upon the ideas of “liberalizing the capitalist market from state control and refashioning state practices in the idealized image of the free market.”[6] Within this system, what has happened to the individual, the man, the woman and the child down the street and in the mall, and to their sense of citizenship? Gordon notes that the emergence of neoliberal government means that “the notion of the social body as a collective subject committed to the reparation of injuries suffered by individual members gives way to a new role for the state as a custodian of a collective reality principle, distributing the discipline of the competitive world market throughout the interstices of the social body.”[7] This means that neoliberalism necessitates a radical transformation of the social body which takes a toll in the long run on pre-existing institutions and practices, which includes what we flippantly call democracy. As suggested by Lemke, “the key feature of neoliberal rationality is the congruence it endeavors to achieve between a responsible and moral individual and an economic rational actor.”[8]

Of course, as post-neoliberal South Asia amply demonstrates, it is this ‘responsible and moral individual’ and the ‘economic rational actor’ who has by and large supported the tampering of democratic practices and institutions in the hope of achieving an economic and developmental miracle in which they can be part of. It is this same character who has often tolerated anti-minority agitations in many societies in the region among numerous other tendencies that have destabilized the region’s democratic political environment. It is in this context that Hindess’ ideas also make sense (1996). He notes the marketization tendencies in governmentality significantly impacts the political and social rights of citizenship.[9] More specifically, “political rights (such as they are) may remain but their scope is restricted as market regulation takes over from direct regulation by state agencies and the judgment of the market is brought to bear on the conduct of states, while the social rights of citizenship (where they exist) are pared back as provision through the market replaces provision directly or indirectly through the state.”[10] The issue is that this radical transformation in the value of the individual and in citizenship in order to privilege market prerogatives has been facilitated essentially through our schools and through our universities and colleges. I am not suggesting a reductionist approach in which all the ills in education can simplistically be located in the context of the region’s experimentation and flirtation with neoliberalism. I am simply suggesting however, that this affinity cannot be taken out of the equation which also constitutes of numerous other factors.

I often wonder why policy makers and politicians in our region ruling over different sectors of education simply do not see or perceive the crises that have engulfed these sectors and experienced by ordinary mortals as a matter of routine. These are the crises that you too would deliberate upon in detail as you can also see them. This invisibility is a matter of convenience as very eloquently sketched in a fictional setting by Salman Rushdie in his novel, The Enchantress of Florence (2009). After his inability to win the heart of Alessandra Fiorentina, Marco Vespuchi hung himself and his dangling body was visible to Alessandra Fiorentina even though she never saw it. That is because in the words of Rushdie, she “had long ago perfected the art of seeing only what she wanted to see, which was an essential accomplishment if you wanted to be one of the world’s masters and not its victim”[11]. In this fictional narrative, “if she did not see you then you did not exist”[12] and simply became a casualty of her erasing gaze. It seems to me that we see these crises simply because we either experience them as part of lives; help create discourses on these as scholars or both. We see them because we are also victims of these circumstances. But politicians and policy-makers, centrally located in domains of power, are in the business of becoming the world’s or at least their own fiefdoms’ masters, and simply cannot see these crises as they do not wish to see them. Instead, they will see and become part of grand narratives such as the ‘Miracle of Asia’ or ‘Incredible India.’ In fact, it is their erasing gaze that constitutes how politics unfold in our times.

What I have outlined here is simply the tip of the proverbial iceberg. In building that iceberg, I only focused on a few issues in tertiary education that I have thought about and written about before. I did not even touch on the primary and secondary education systems. These were simply some of the things that came to my mind when I was thinking about how I could contextualize the deliberations that would begin today. Naturally, there is much more that needs to be addressed and probed. We also need to go beyond the critiques that we are quite familiar with and look for practical alternatives. When you do this in the specificities of your own papers and your own experiences and research, I hope some of the larger issues I have attempted to outline today might be of some use.

Let me end with a personal note, which also has to do with education in our times. It gives me endless satisfaction and pleasure to see this kind of exercise taking place in my own department and faculty. Not too long after we came together as an institution and as a collective of individuals, the Department of Sociology was the first in the university to initiate a conference, and that too coordinated by my colleague Ravi Kumar with the support of Rosa Luxembourg Foundation. I am grateful for these efforts. Thank you. And we have continued these efforts in a number of different but obvious ways. After all, it is not only our teaching, but our thinking, what we read, what we write and how we reach out to intellectual domains beyond the university that would ultimately construct our public intellectual personality. We are attempting to build a particular kind of institution with a very specific regional identity and sensibility not as imagined by the regimes of the region, but as we have re-imagined how South Asia should be with porous borders across which people, ideas and manifestations of culture could move with relative ease. This is not too different from the porousness of borders that our own discipline as well as social sciences and humanities more generally have experienced in recent times. But in that re-imagination, while our regionalism is clear, we are also very open to ideas from the wider world. Nevertheless , it endlessly frustrates me when faced with the obvious realization that in spite of the emergence of political structures such as SAARC and the flippant and all too often mantra-like chanting of something called South Asian and South Asia, “we do not have regular and serious forums for South Asian scholarship to showcase our own research and our own thinking on our own terms. Even now, more than half a century after the process of official decolonization began in the region, much of the analyses and pontifications on our problems, situations, histories and dynamics emanate from Euro American academia; this is certainly the case when it comes to conceptual formulations and theoretical approaches from the Euro‐American zone that are being employed in exploring the region’s social and cultural complexities often without much self-reflection”[13] and quite comfortably adopted by our own scholars without seriously exploring their possible contradictions.

My hope is that if conferences like this are carefully thought out and organized, then they should ideally become forums for not simply research on South Asia, but also for theorizing from the Global South. In such a context, we should be able to seriously ask “if Euro-American thought could not be dislodged or decentered from the center of historical practice in non-Euro-American places such as ours. If we do this, then what are the consequences we have to anticipate when cultural practices from our part of the world are translated into categories of social science which derives their own power from a completely different historical and political lineage? Of course, I am not promoting a sense of naively simplistic nativism — This is also not a simple matter of shunning thought from these established centers of knowledge be they in Europe or North America.”[14] Instead, I am arguing quite seriously for a robust engagement with these issues within South Asia on a consistent, dynamic and larger scale.

It is with this kind of dream and hope that some of us came to this university. We were ideologically motivated to create a very special place of thinking rather than simply being enamored by the salary alone which I am told is somewhat higher than the rest of the universities in India. So, “if we are keen to see a dynamic cultural and intellectual environment in the region, delinked from the shackles of religion, ethnicity, caste, nationalism and parochial local politics and expansionist global agendas,”[15] we necessarily have to carve out our own path, our own history and our own way of dealing with failures and frustrations and try to decide the shape, color the directions of our own futures. We have to decide if we want to be the footnotes of history, its lost memories or the major players and authoritative writers of that history.

But these efforts are unfolding and our dreams are manifesting at a time, in a region and in a city where the multiple crises in education that you will be discussing in this conference provide us a veritable backdrop as a disconcerting presence. Despite our newness as an institution, the poltergeist of conservatism is hovering all around us not just in the immediate neighborhood and beyond but in our own corridors of power, our class rooms in the offices of some of our colleagues as well, always casting its long shadow. But then, as I have stressed, these are the repercussions of a larger malaise that afflict our region and our times, from which we cannot clinically escape by simply wishing them away. They have to be overcome despite the odds through a process, which often involves conformations that are by definition unpleasant.

Seen from this perspective, there is no confusion in my mind that in our endeavors we have to deal with many people , who in the words of King Thamus , “are filled with the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom.” I think it was Nelson Manedla who once said that, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” But what if that weapon is faulty or those of us who bear it or claim ownership over it simply do not know how to use it well? What ‘if’, indeed????? I hope my anxieties might disturb your conscience too.

Thank you for your presence, and I hope you will have two very fruitful days.

_______________________________________________

[1]. http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/the-legend-of-thamus 

[2]. http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/the-legend-of-thamus 

[3]. http://www.mohe.gov.lk/index.php/en/about-ministry/vision-and-mission 

[4]. http://www.mohe.gov.lk/index.php/en/about-ministry/vision-and-mission

[5]. Edward Said; ‘Identity, Authority and Freedom.’ In, Reflections on Exile: And Other Literary and Cultural Essays, Granta Books, 2001. 

[6]. Matthew B. Sparke. ‘A neoliberal Nexus: Economy, security and the Bio-politics of Citizenship on the Border.’ In, Political Geography 25 (2006) 151-180. 

[7]. Quoted in Matthew B. Sparke. ‘A neoliberal Nexus: Economy, security and the Bio-politics of Citizenship on the Border.’ In, Political Geography 25 (2006) 151-180. 

[8]. Quoted in Matthew B. Sparke. ‘A neoliberal Nexus: Economy, security and the Bio-politics of Citizenship on the Border.’ In, Political Geography 25 (2006) 151-180.

[9]. Quoted in Matthew B. Sparke. ‘A neoliberal Nexus: Economy, security and the Bio-politics of Citizenship on the Border.’ In, Political Geography 25 (2006) 151-180. 

[10]. Quoted in Matthew B. Sparke. ‘A neoliberal Nexus: Economy, security and the Bio-politics of Citizenship on the Border.’ In, Political Geography 25 (2006) 151-180. 

[11]. Salman Rushdie, The Enchantress of Florence; 190; 2009(London: Vintage). 

[12]. Salman Rushdie, The Enchantress of Florence; 190; 2009(London: Vintage). 

[13]. Sasanka Perera, ‘The Introduction’; South Asia Journal for Culture, Volume 1 (2008); Colombo: Colombo Institute for the Advanced Study of Society and Culture. 

[14]. Sasanka Perera, ‘The Introduction’; South Asia Journal for Culture, Volume 1 (2008); Colombo: Colombo Institute for the Advanced Study of Society and Culture. 

[15]. Sasanka Perera, ‘The Introduction’; South Asia Journal for Culture, Volume 1 (2008); Colombo: Colombo Institute for the Advanced Study of Society and Culture.

My lamentation

I was sick from 7th of February for about a month, with a relentless cough, a fever and a multitude of body aches that lingered on like a foe who refused to be vanquished despite all possible bio-medical attempts: colorful pills, sugary syrups, inhaling steam mixed with unknown substances. But nothing spiritual was attempted; nor exorcism in case this was a demon with no name but a bad attitude. AAP's high drama in Delhi over the previous couple of weeks brought to an end of its first incarnation what initially seemed like an enlightened experiment with a new kind of politics. That end came through a realm of what can only be described as a politics fascist populism and shrill sloganeering that was no different from anyone else’s sloganeering rhetoric. This does not mean that the experiment is over. But it was a pitiful site and did not give any respite to the pains my body was feeling, which had soon begun to suffocate my mind as well.

And then, Wendy Doniger’s book, The Hindus: An alternate History was withdrawn by the publisher, Penguin India with an out of court deal to turn what remains of the book into pulp. That was the deal made with the Shiksha Bacho Andolan led by Mr Dina Nath Batra. Their contention of course was that the book hurt their religious sentiments. Mr Batra’s outfit has been variously called ‘fringe’, ‘rightwing’ and so on by opponents outraged over what had transpired. I know nothing of Mr Batra or his organization to call them any names. But I have no doubt that the book offended Mr Batra and many others who see the world as they do. There is no reason to question their hurt feelings. But then, it also did not offend many others who profess the same religious sensibilities but see the world somewhat differently. By all counts, it appears that their feelings too have been irrevocably hurt by the decision to destroy the book by its publisher as evidenced by numerous comments in the media. I thought I had bought Prof Doniger’s book sometime ago and had begun to read it very slowly. But in the midst of all this, I realized what I had bought was her more recent collection of essays, On Hinduism (2013), and remember marveling at the fact that only in India it would be possible to acquire such a tome of 660 pages for a measly Rs. 995.00. 

Obviously, I never had the time to read the book and my confusion of that book with the one that created the controversy was not helpful in my present predicament. Now, it was entirely possible that I might not be able to buy the book at all as it would soon be pulp. Besides, the latter book might also hurt someone else’s feelings and could end up as being pulp as well. But what about many others who would like to read and make up their own minds? For one, though I had read Wendy Doniger’s work initially as the work of Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty, and admired her scholarship, I have not passed judgment on her work as a whole. In fact, my attempt to read On Hinduism did not work initially as it could not capture and keep my attention, which I cannot remember happening when I first read her Origins of Evil in Mythology (1976) and Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts (1980). But even in this case, I would not hasten needlessly to pass judgment on her writing. It is entirely possible that all that time ago, as a graduate student I had more time and the urge to read her as opposed to now, when I have many other things to attend to as well, including concerns over the future of ideas and thoughts in our midst. 

The issue for me is quite simply this: in a world of extremely subjective sentiments such as ‘hurt feelings,’ what would the life trajectory of ideas be if we are moved to take extreme actions such as turning a book into pulp or turning them into bonfires rather than allowing for a plurality of ideas to emerge and take their own course? As we all know, this is not the first time that the issue of banning books have arisen in India or in South Asia more generally. Rohinton Mistry’s novel, Such a Long Journey, James Laine’s work of history, Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India and more recently, the Collected Essays of A.K. Ramanujan and Paula Richman's Many Ramayanas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia with a focus on Ramanujan's work had experienced the same plight in different institutional settings. Similarly, the novel Lejja by Tasleema Nasreen was banned in Bangladesh as soon as it was published while the Sri Lankan government banned Stanley J Tambiahs’s book, Buddhism Betrayed? In the US in my postgraduate years, Salman Rushdee’s Satanic Verses suddenly became unavailable in many Barnes and Noble bookstores after a few were firebombed. All these were banned or made unavailable on the grounds of hurt feeling.

Personally, I would prefer to read Wendy Doniger’s book or that of anyone else and see if they hurt my own feelings. I am quite sure that some books I am likely to read in times to come would hurt my feelings. But then, my intention would not be to litigate and ensure what I don’t like is not available or destroyed, but instead not take it too seriously and also voice my opinion on it if I think it necessary. Up to that point, I am sure Mr Batra’s campaign would have been fine. One thing that some belief systems in our part of the world such as Hinduism and Buddhism should have taught us by now is that the real world we live in is not so easily and simplistically black and white or right and wrong. It is precisely this non-binary grey area within which religious practices actually unfolds that has also attracted the attention of Wendy Doniger along with her interest in its esoteric practices which allowed for an interpretation that might be different from the more dominant and taken for granted definitions of Hinduism that have come about since its encounter with colonialism in much the same way Buddhism has in neighboring Sri Lanka. My belief is that great religious traditions in the region such as Hinduism and Buddhism that I am reasonably familiar with, have ensured their longevity and reach amongst our people and impacted their lives and helped evolve great civilizations precisely because of their flexibility in orientation and practice. Not being mindful of these is about not being mindful of ourselves or where we come from. 

This brings me back to the story of making pulp from Wendy Donniger’s book. Now that I do not have a copy of the book and it might not be readily available in the few books stores I could visit, what about my own feelings about the knowledge that a great Indologist and Sanskrit scholar has produced with which I may or may not yet agree. The book is now technically not accessible to me. This takes me back to the words of the Buddha which my early teachers tried to instill in me, but quite decidedly failed in instilling in many people of my generation who went to the same kind of schools. This is one of the obvious conclusions I could come to if I go by what my own citizens are up to these days in the name of the Buddha and what he preached. The Kalama Sutta, which the Buddha preached to the residents of Kesaputta known as the the Kalamas outlines what might be taken as the principles that could be adopted by anyone who seeks knowledge. In their meeting, it is reported that the Kalamas asked the Buddha: "There are some monks and brahmans, venerable sir, who visit Kesaputta. They expound and explain only their own doctrines; the doctrines of others they despise, revile, and pull to pieces. Some other monks and brahmans too, venerable sir, come to Kesaputta. They also expound and explain only their own doctrines; the doctrines of others they despise, revile, and pull to pieces. Venerable sir, there is doubt, there is uncertainty in us concerning them. Which of these reverend monks and brahmans spoke the truth and which falsehood?"[1] Obviously, they were asking the Buddha whose word should be taken seriously in a context when competing ideas were preached and each was presented as the ultimate truth to the extent of expelling other ideas. 

In a somewhat long discourse, the crux of what the Buddha is supposed to have said can be outlined as follows: “"It is proper for you, Kalamas, to doubt, to be uncertain; uncertainty has arisen in you about what is doubtful. Come, Kalamas. Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning; nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over; nor upon another's seeming ability; nor upon the consideration, 'The monk is our teacher.' Kalamas, when you yourselves know: 'These things are bad; these things are blamable; these things are censured by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to harm and ill,' abandon them.”[2]

Without being simplistic, it seems to me that what the Buddha is credited with saying all those years ago, still make sense: accept what makes sense after reasonable consideration and discard what does not. Ideas that are discarded, be that of Wendy Doniger or someone else’s will simply not take root or will take root without consequence. Ideas that are worth pondering over will survive over time, sometimes forgotten but hopefully rediscovered at different times. We should leave things at this. Rather than making pulp of knowledge our times have produced, let they become irrelevant over time if that is the nature of things. If not, we will simply end up creating lapses in our collective stories and narratives, of our histories and our present. And future generations unable to fathom these silences and lapses will be all the more impoverished in their knowledge about our fears, our anxieties, our triumphs and the worlds in which we lived. 

At the beginning of March, I went to see the doctor yet again, drank more medicine, swallowed more pills, coughed even more before things got somewhat better about a week later. IN teh same week, I went to my class again and pretended to work in an enlightened world already fourteen years into the ‘new’ millennium, which we have now mostly forgotten had even arrived. Over the next few days, my body felt better after a few bouts of not feeling too great. But with certainty, my mind continued to be lost in the dark clouds that lack of enlightenment in our circumstances often brings forth. I also knew that the world I am passing through, needs far more medicine than I ever would to heal itself.

[1] http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/soma/wheel008.html

[2] http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/soma/wheel008.html

සැමතැන සරණා බුදුන්

දොර අසලත් බුදුන්ය;
මැද මිදුල සැමතැනත් බුදුන්ය;
අවන්හලෙත් බුදුන්ය;
මදුපැන්සල අසලත්
ආලින්දයෙත්
ශාලා සැමතැනත් බුදුන්ය, සඟුන්ය.

සුසුමක් ලෙසවත් ඒත්
නෑසුනේ ඇයිදැයි සිතුනි
බුදුන්ගේ හඬ
අල්ලාප සල්ලාප
ටකරං සංගීත නද
පැතිර යන විට
දසත.

10 නොවැම්බර් 2013; රනිපූල්, සිකිම්