D.P Mukherjee’s view on the concept of personality, tradition, modernity and modernization

 

Nisha Nagwanshi,  

 

Hidayatullah National Law University, Raipur

 

ABSTRACT:

 

INTRODUCTION:

DP Mukerji was one of the very few social scientists in the academic world who recognized the importance of Marxism to analyze socio-economic forces operating in human society. He considered Marxism as a theory, which was founded on the priority of society and group which are separate and exterior to man, the individual a sort of environment to facilitate and hinder enfoldment of the capacities of the autonomous individual isolate. DP, s deepest interest was in the Marxian method rather than in any dogmas. In a short paper entitled, ‘A word to Indian Marxists’, included in his Views and Counterviews(1946: 166), he had warned that the ‘un-historically minded’ young Marxist ran the risk of ending up as a fascist’, and Marxism itself could ‘lose its effectiveness in a maze of slogans’. Nevertheless, it would not be misleading to say that DP did not indeed embrace Marxism in various ways, ranging from a simple emphasis upon the economic factor in the making of culture to an elevation of practice to the status of a test of theory. It was a close but uncomfortable embrace.²

 

In his basic two books on Personality and the Social Sciences (1924) and Basic concepts in sociology (1932), DP considered ‘personal documents’ products of his endeavor to formulate in adequate concept of social sciences. From the very beginning, he organized his ideas around the notion of personality. He took up the position that the abstract individual should not be the focus of social sciences theories.

 

Looking back to the world of his lifetime, DP said in his presidential address to the first Indian Sociological Conference in 1955 that he had come to sociology from economics and history because he was interested in developing his personality through knowledge. DP asserts that knowledge and knower ought to be seen together. Knowledge has to be philosophical, albeit based on empirical data. The element of “purpose” has been stressed as ‘progress’ is not a stage in automatic self-generating evolution. DP’s contribution to the following:³

 

1.      Personality.

2.      Tradition.

3.      Modern Indian culture.

4.      Modernization.

 

For DP the history of India was not the history of her particular form of class struggle because she had experienced none worth the name. The place of philosophy and religion were dominant in his history, and it was fundamentally a long-drawn exercise in cultural synthesis. For him, “Indian history was Indian culture” (1958: 123). India’s recent woes, namely, hatred and partition, had been the result of arrested assimilation of Islamic values; he believed that history halts until it is pushed. The national movement had generated much moral fervor but DP complained, it had been anti-intellectual. Not only had there been much unthinking borrowing from the west, there had also emerged a hiatus between theory and practice as a result of which thought had become impoverished and action ineffectual. Given his concern for intellectual and artistic creativity, it is not surprising that he should have concluded: “politics ruined our culture” (1958: 190).⁴

 

CONCLUSION:

Dhurjati Prasad Mukerji was one of the founding fathers of sociology in India. He had fairly long tradition of intellectual pursuits. Being an intellectual meant two things to DP. First, discovering the sources and potentialities of social reality in the dialect of tradition and modernity, and, second developing an integrated personality through pursuits of knowledge. Indian sociologists, in his opinion, suffered from a lack of interest in history and philosophy and in the dynamism and meaningfulness of social life. The theme of ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’ occupies an important place in his work and also survives as a major concern of contemporary sociology. The work of DP is quite significant in building sociology of India. He was deeply influenced by Marxian thought as is evident in his emphasis on economic factors in the process of cultural change. We find that how he looks at the impact of the west on the Indian society as a phase in the social process of cultural assimilation and synthesis. In his view, Indian culture has grown by a series of responses to the successive challenges of so many races and cultures, which has resulted in a synthesis.

 

Mukherjee’s basic ideas remain relevant for sociology in India even today. He showed that development of man or person is conditioned by the social milieu. Therefore, national independence, economic development and the resolutions of class contradiction within society are necessary conditions for human development in countries like India. Appropriate values for integrating autonomy of the self with collective’s interests, rationality with emotionality and care for tradition will have to be created. DP’s greatest contribution in order to analyze social change. He reminded us that the Indian social reality could be properly appraised only in terms of “its special traditions, special symbols and its special patterns of culture and social actions”.

 

REFERENCES:

·        (1994), “D.P. Mukerji”: A centenary tribute”, sociological bulletin, vol.43, no.2, September.

·        Mukerji, D.P. (1924). Perspectives and the social sciences, Calcutta: the book company.

·        Venugopal, C.N. (1998), Religion and Indian society: A sociological perspectives, New Delhi: Gyan publishing house.

·        Singh, Yogendra (1986). “Indian Sociology”, Current Sociology, vol.34, no.2.

 

1.       1945), On Indian History: A study in method, Bombay: Hind Kitab.

2.       (1994). “D.P. Mukerji: A Centenary Tribute”’ Sociological Bulletin, Vol.43, No.2, September.

3.       (1942, 1948), Modern Indian Culture, Bombay: Hind Kitab.

4.       T.K, and P.N. Mukerji (1986), Indian Sociology: Reflection and Introspection, Mumbai.