106 SOCIAL SCIENTIST thought, or between traditional and modern, or scientific and artistic. All use similar metaphorical strategics though perhaps different strategies gain dominance in different traditions. The instrumental rationality of the modern west is only one mode of thought and even this is metaphorical in character. Therefore the certainties of the modernist world view regarding the notion of a unified subject of knowledge, the possibility of progress, the infallibility of scientific knowledge and other such propositions are problematised in the postmodernist view. The modernist notion of progress to be achieved through the application of science and technology to human processes, has been one of the favourite targets of post-modernist critiques. Miller also has written about the simplicistic and limited quality of so many modernisation policies adopted in the developing world, the naive belief that society can be transformed towards progressive goals by initiating a package of social programmes such as literacy, urbanisation, improved communications and the like. To avoid the violence embodied in such approaches he argues that what is needed is not merely to replace one set of goals and policies by others, but rather to replace one set of attitudes and approaches by another. Only an open-ended, flexible, sensitive approach can hope to avoid perpetuating the problems of earlier modernisation programmes. There can be no hard and fast distinction between what is modern and what is traditional, what is progressive and what is undesirable and all such dichotomies should be carefully deconstructed. Among the dichotomies which Miller questions is the secular/religious one. Here one can see in Miller's writing the influence of some of the authors he has quoted such as Ashish Nandy and Sudhir Kakar. He argues that to label policies or behaviour as communal is to be trapped within a mould of thinking in which all subtleties are excluded. He explains, probably for a western audience, that Hinduism is syncretic, inclusive and can contain within itself many concepts which would be considered contradictory in western thought. In the Hindu world view the state cannot be secular, excluded from religion. But it need not also become theocratic. Instead we should judge a state by its efficiency, flexibility, and effectiveness in performing its functions. Certain obvious problems come to mind with this formulation. One is that Miller seems to be arguing for a neutral way of assessing states, a neutrality which he has earlier held is not possible within language. But leaving aside such problems, the point he is making is that the modern state seems inevitably to function through laws, authority, prohibitions. Even Hinduism is getting assimilated into this style of functioning. Miller feels that we should turn aside from this kind of politics and return to a more decentralised, participatory, community