Search

This article presents the text of the inaugural speech given by the author at the XI World Congress of Sociology held in New Delhi, India on August 1986. There is now an impressive body of literature on the sociology of sociology in India. Early Indian thinkers speculated abundantly about the origins of civil society and its management, the ideal kind of relationship that should prevail between religious forces as represented by the Brahmin, on the one hand, and secular forces as represented by the king, on the other, and kindred matters, but a systematic history of Indian social thought is yet to be written. Coming to recent times, there is no doubt that the Indo-British encounter was in many ways conducive to the growth of sociology and social anthropology. The conquest of the country by an alien power was humiliating to politically conscious Indians whose numbers increased with the development of communications and the spread of education. Such humiliation was compounded by the racial arrogance of the rulers, and by European missionary attacks on Indian religions, in particular, Hinduism, and on Indian customs and way of life.

Presents news briefs on sociology in India as of September 1971. Tribute to Professor Ardeshir Rustomji Wadia who died on August 21, 1971 in Bombay; Appointment of the Standing Committees by the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR); Grant awarded by ICSSR to the Indian Sociological Society.