Ashis Nandy

Ashis Nandy (born 13 May 1937) is an Indian political psychologist, social theorist, futurist and critic. A trained clinical psychologist, Nandy has provided theoretical critiques of European colonialism, development, modernity, secularism, Hindutva, science, technology, nuclearism, cosmopolitanism, and utopia. He has conceptualised cosmopolitanism and critical traditionalism. Nandy has written an historical profile of India's commercial cinema as well as critiques of state and violence.

He was Senior Fellow and Former Director of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) for several years. Currently, he is a Senior Honorary Fellow at the CSDS apart from being the Chairperson of the Committee for Cultural Choices and Global Futures, New Delhi.

Nandy received the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize in 2007. In 2008 he appeared on the list of the Top 100 Public Intellectuals Poll of the Foreign Policy magazine, published by The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He received the Hans Killian Award in 2019.

Early life and education Nandy was born in a Bengali Christian family at Bhagalpur, Bihar, in 1937. He is the eldest of three sons of Satish Chandra Nandy and Prafulla Nalini Nandy, and brother of Pritish Nandy. Later, his family moved to Calcutta. Nandy's mother was a teacher at La Martiniere School, Calcutta and subsequently became the school's first Indian vice principal. When he was 10, British India was partitioned into two sovereign countries – India and Pakistan. He witnessed the time of conflicts and atrocities that followed.

Nandy quit medical college after three years before joining Hislop College, Nagpur to study social sciences. Later he took a master's degree in sociology. However, his academic interest tended increasingly towards clinical psychology and he did his PhD in psychology at Dept. of Psychology, Gujarat University, Ahmedabad.

While a professed non-believer, Nandy identifies with the Bengali Christian community.

Academic career Nandy joined the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi, as a young faculty member. While working there, he developed his own methodology by integrating clinical psychology and sociology. Meanwhile, he was invited by a number of universities and research institutions abroad to carry out research and to give them lectures. He served as the Director of CSDS between 1992 and 1997. He also serves on the Editorial Collective of Public Culture, a reviewed journal published by Duke University Press.

Nandy has coauthored a number of human rights reports and is active in movements for peace, alternative sciences and technologies, and cultural survival. He is a member of the Executive Councils of the World Futures Studies Federation, the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, the International Network for Cultural Alternatives to Development, and the People's Union for Civil Liberties. Nandy has been a Woodrow Wilson Fellow at the Wilson Center, Washington, D.C., a Charles Wallace Fellow at the University of Hull, and a Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities, University of Edinburgh. He held the first UNESCO Chair at the Center for European Studies, University of Trier, in 1994. In 2006 he became the National Fellow of the Indian Council of Social Science Research.

Nandy has explored a range of issues across politics, psychology, and society in his academic work. He has written extensively in last two decades. His 1983 book, titled The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self Under Colonialism, talked about the psychological problems posed at a personal level by colonialism, for both coloniser and colonised. Nandy argues that the understanding of self is intertwined with those of race, class, and religion under colonialism, and that the Gandhian movement can be understood in part as an attempt to transcend a strong tendency of educated Indians to articulate political striving for independence in European terms. Nandy's writings reflect his engagement with a wide range of topics, including political disputes, racial conflicts, and non-violence.

Works

+ Books Year Title Publisher 1978 The New Vaisyas : Entrepreneurial Opportunity and Response in an Indian City Durham, NC: Carolina Academic 1980 At the Edge of Psychology: Essays in Politics and Culture Oxford University Press 1980 Alternative Sciences: Creativity and Authenticity in Two Indian Scientists Oxford University Press 1983 The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self Under Colonialism Oxford University Press 1983 Science, Hegemony and Violence: A Requiem for Modernity Oxford University Press 1987 Traditions, Tyranny, and Utopias: Essays in the Politics of Awareness Oxford University Press 1989 The Tao of Cricket: On Games of Destiny and the Destiny of Games Oxford University Press 1993 Barbaric Others: A Manifesto on Western Racism Pluto Press 1994 The Illegitimacy of Nationalism: Rabindranath Tagore and the Politics of Self Oxford University Press 1994 The Blinded Eye: Five Hundred Years of Christopher Columbus Other India Press 1995 The Savage Freud and Other Essays on Possible and Retrievable Selves Oxford University Press 1995 Creating a Nationality: the Ramjanmabhumi Movement and Fear of the Self Oxford University Press 1996 The Multiverse of Democracy: Essays in Honour of Rajni Kothari Sage Publication 1999 The Secret Politics of Our Desires: Innocence, Culpability and Indian Popular Cinema -- 2002 Time Warps – The Insistent Politics of Silent and Evasive Pasts. -- 2006 Talking India: Ashis Nandy in conversation with Ramin Jahanbegloo Oxford University Press 2007 TIME TREKS: The Uncertain Future of Old and New Despotisms Permanent Black 2007 A Very Popular Exile Oxford University Press 2013 "Dissenting Knowledges, Open Futures":the multiple selves & strange destinations of Ashis Nandy by Vinay Lal, second edition Oxford University Press Selected articles

Selected essays Unclaimed Baggage, The Little Magazine 1982 – The Psychology of Colonialism: Sex, Age, and Ideology in British India. Psychiatry 45 (Aug. 1982): 197–218. 1983 – Towards an Alternative Politics of Psychology. International Social Science Journal 35.2 (1983): 323–38. 1989 – The Fate of the Ideology of the State in India. The Challenge in South Asia: Development, Democracy and Regional Cooperation. Eds. Poona Wignaraja and Akmal Hussain. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1989. 1989 – The Political Culture of the Indian State. Daedalus 118.4 (Fall 1989): 1–26. 1990 – Satyajit Ray's Secret Guide. East-West Film Journal 4.2 (June 1990): 14–37. 1991 – Hinduism Versus Hindutva: The Inevitability Of A Confrontation 1993 – Futures Studies: Pluralizing Human Destiny. Futures 25.4 (May 1993): 464–65. 1994 – Tagore and the Tiger of Nationalism. Times of India 4 September 1994. 1995 – History's Forgotten Doubles. History & Theory 34.2 (1995): 44–66. 1996 – Bearing Witness to the Future. Futures 28.6–7 (Aug. 1996): 636–39. 1999 – Indian Popular Cinema as a Slum's Eye View of Politics. The Secret Politics of Our Desires: Innocence, Culpability and Indian Popular Cinema. Zed: 1999. 1–18. (also editor) 2000 – Gandhi after Gandhi after Gandhi (May, 2000) 2002 – Obituary Of A Culture 2004 – A Billion Gandhis 2006 – Cuckoo over the cuckoo's nest Tehelka 2007 – What fuels Indian Nationalism? Tehelka 2009 – The Hour Of The Untamed Cosmopolitan Tehelka; Partition And The Fantasy Of A Masculine State The Times of India

Awards Fukuoka Asian Culture Grand Prize in 2007 Hans Kilian Prize by Kohler Foundation, Germany in 2019 Ashis & Uma Nandy Annual Lecture, Univ of California, San Diego 2024

Controversies During the Jaipur Literature Festival held in January 2013, Nandy participated in a panel where he was quoted to have made controversial statements on corruption among "lower" castes in India. It was reported that he said:

Rajasthan Police lodged an FIR under the SC/ST Act against Ashis Nandy for his statement regarding corruption among the SC/ST and OBCs. After Nandy's lawyer moved the Supreme Court to quash all the allegations against him, the Court issued a stay order on his arrest on 1 February 2013. The subaltern scholar Dr. P. Satyanarayana of Vaagdevi College of Engineering in Warangal has challenged Nandy's remarks and expressed shock at the vociferous support he received for this from the Indian media and academia, asking rhetorically, "Is Prof. Nandy a holy cow?".

Some scholars interpreted Nandy's controversial remarks as satirical, while others strongly criticized them as offensive and casteist. Nandy's use of sarcasm has been noted in academic contexts, though opinions about his statement were divided. In fact, he found support from academic quarters. In 2016–17, Nandy received the KK Daomdaran Award from the Sree Narayana Mandira Samiti for his academic contributions, including work related to marginalised communities and castes.

Views on Narendra Modi In 2019, The New Yorker magazine reported:

Interviews Ashis Nandy in conversation with Gurcharan Das Ashis Nandy in conversation with Vinay Lal