Between critique and creativity

This essay seizes upon two statements of Dipesh Chakrabarty, separated by almost a quarter of a century, in order to explore the tension between the distinct intellectual-political positions they represent. Following Chakrabarty’s own usage of “History 1” and “History 2,” these positions are described as “Dipesh 1” and “Dipesh 2”: they are represented, respectively, by Chakrabarty’s 1992 essay on provincializing Europe and his more recent book on the Indian historian Jadunath Sarkar. On the one hand, Dipesh 1 is the fierce critic of Europe’s hegemonic narrative of modernity, that which forces other pasts into submission or simply jettisons them, and that must itself therefore be held in check by searching for the possibility of plurality. On the other hand, Dipesh 2 is the heir of Enlightenment curiosity, the free inquirer and seeker after Truth, perhaps with a dash of the Romantic idealist and something of a believer in the idea that we can learn from the past. The essay argues that the acuity of Chakrabarty’s thought lies in its effort to shift between these two “intellectual-affective modes” without having to choose decisively between them. Building on this distinction, the essay goes on to probe the resemblances between Jadunath Sarkar and similar figures in New Zealand history, picking as its prime example Sir Āpirana Ngata, whose adoption of historicist and progressive methods was repeatedly interrupted by his pride in a “persistent Māori historicity.” It also points to the different racial and cultural politics of Chakrabarty’s and the author’s positions, and the complex politics of indigenizing the past, as progressive historians seek to do. In sum, the essay asks: When does indigenizing in official terms simply re-enact forms of cultural colonization for the purposes of national identity-making

Creativity · Epistemology · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Philosophy · Philosophy, History, and Historiography · Psychology · Social Psychology · South Asian Studies and Diaspora