Modernity: an ongoing global political project

With its lecture series currently underway, the India Studies program is hoping to draw in crowds with an outside perspective. Tithi Bhattacharya, an associate professor of history at Purdue University, gave a speech about the concept of modernity in India on Monday.

“Being Tibetan, from a third-world country, I just wanted to know how she deals with modernity from a non-Eurocentric point of view,” first-year graduate student Tenzin Tsepak said.

Tsepak was one of about 30 people who attended the lecture, which focused on the developing nation of India in the late 19th century.

Bhattacharya, author of two books on the topic of her speech, introduced the idea of modernity as an ongoing political project rather than a model set by Europeans and emulated throughout their colonies. She argued that not only is modernity different in the East than it has been considered to be in the West, specifically Europe, but that the two forms are alternatives to each other.

Bhattacharya posited that although India modeled itself after its colonial mother in the emphasis it placed on scientific research and education, the modernization it achieved could not be called “European” because it was an entirely different type of modernization.

Bhattacharya led the audience through this speech by analyzing the writings of the 19th century Indian scholar Swarnakumari Debi. Bhattacharya said she chose Swarnakumari because of the cultural abnormality that she represented. In the 19th century in India women generally spent their time at home with their role centered around their children and families.

Debi was atypical because she was a published scholar that focused her writings on subjects other than her home life and took a strong interest in and advocated for the importance of scientific education and social reform.

“Modern values are adopted not to become like Europe but to become truly Indian,” Bhattacharya said.

Debi even went so far as to claim that many of the scientific discoveries made by Europeans, such as the solar system’s heliocentric nature, were preceded by similar discoveries by ancient Indians.

“What Europe claimed to be its achievement was already in the possession of Ancient India,” Debi wrote.

Bhattacharya ended her discussion with the idea that although the monopoly on the moment might now belong to Europe, “the momentum is for anyone to seize.”

Although the lecture seemed to be targeted towards a very specific and interested audience, the other lectures scheduled for the future are likely to have a broader appeal.

IU junior Ellyn Church, who is majoring in Religious Studies and India Studies, has been to several lectures before and said they tend to be more globally centered.
“They’re typically pretty good,” she said.

Church, who plans to shoot a documentary about agriculture in India this summer, said she felt she got more out of the discussion that followed the lecture than the lecture itself.

“There’s a lot to be learned and to be done,” she said.