The Hindu Nationalist Sociology of G.S. Ghurye

Abstract

This paper situates the thought of G.S. Ghurye within its intellectual and political context in order to reflect on the framing of a sociological discourse about Indian society by the first post-colonial generation of Indian academic sociologists. While Ghurye incorporated the Orientalist rendering of Indian history and society in his work, he turned this discourse around to develop a cultural nationalist sociology that rejects some of the premises of colonial knowledge. However, Ghurye's brand of sociology, by building itself around a particular understanding of Indian civilisation and 'Indian culture', emerges finally as an elaboration on a narrow Hindu/Brahmanical nationalist ideology that advocates cultural unity and nation-building rather than political and economic emancipation.