2 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
general recognition that solutions depend to a large extent upon the way in which problems are posed, the questioning of existing social theory, its placement in political and spatial locations, the acceptance that since theory seeks to appropriate the world in a particular mode and is therefore always political it needs to be examined in terms of relevance to knowledge and practice, marked most of the discussions on the presentations.
Ravinder Kumar's paper 'Exploring the Historical Conjuncture1 brought out sharply the intellectual and the political moment in Europe where modern forms of historiography emerged as a way of comprehending entire forms of life of nations and of collectivities. The transference of this historiography to the colonies and its hegemonisation was part of the cultural baggage of imperialism, a legacy that was fundamentally flawed as it had originated in radically different cultures and social structures with distinct notions of time and space. Its consequent acceptance by specific schools of history resulted in inadequate and distorted history writing. The resultant shifts in historical understanding, as post-colonial societies came into their own, was the focus of this comprehensive paper. The anti-colonial challenge was not only political, it was a challenge to the epistemological basis of knowledge systems which had sought to collapse the history of different cultures into what was actually particular history but presented as universal history. The crisis of humanity, Ravinder Kumar pointed out, has made conventional modes incapable of explanation, and we have to explore new domains of knowledge to help us to understand our past.
Upendra Baxi in his paper 'Complicity and Struggle: Theory and Society1, argued that most of the social theory that was being generated in the contemporary world was indifferent to the human condition. Theory comes from texts and intellectuals are not engaged in societal transformation from a position of participation. The critiques of power and agendas of transformation lack authenticity, he argues, because of alienating modes of production of theory and a lack of vigilance. He stresses that social theory should focus on the issues of pain and suffering and the experiences of the victim in the modern world. Baxi's paper makes a strong and emotional plea for a return to that tradition of social theory which was sensitized to the problems of human alienation; most social theory, it was the implication of this paper, was sanitised and removed from the worlds it was seeking to comprehend, it was guilty of complicity with power. The positioning of the practitioner in social theory has always been of concern to that tradition of theory that seeks to unveil the human costs of political projects and explores the spaces for transformation, Baxi's paper is in that mould because it stresses that the ultimate criterion of theory is whether it complies with power or subverts it.