Author Description

Product Description This volume explores the relationship between experience and theory in Indian social sciences in the form of a dialogue. It focuses on questions of Dalit experience and untouchability. While Gopal Guru argues that only those who have lived lives as subalterns can represent them accurately,Sundar Sarukkai feels that people located outside the community can also represent them. Thematically divided into five sections, the first discusses the problems associated with theory in the social sciences in the Indian context. The next makes inquiries into the nature of personal and collectiveexperience. The third explores the larger connection between ethics and theory in India, both in the natural and social sciences. The fourth examines the ontological and epistemological nature of experience itself and the politics of experience, and the last focuses on the experience and theory ofexperience in India. The authors invoke the image of a cracked mirror to suggest a more complex and distorted relation between experience and theory.This book will interest scholars, researchers, and students of Dalit studies, subaltern studies, and politics. About the Author Gopal Guru is Professor, Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.Sundar Sarukkai is Professor and Director, Manipal Centre for Philosophy and Humanities, Manipal University, Karnataka. Also, former Professor of Philosophy, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru.