2005/2006

Ashis Nandy, Ph.D.

Professor of Political Psychology

Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi

Born in 1937 in Bhagalpur, India
Studied Sociology at Nagpur University and
Clinical Psychology at Gujarat University

Project

Memories and Anti-Memories of Genocide

This study, parts of which were written during my earlier stay at the Wissenschaftskolleg in 2004, centres on the mass violence that accompanied the creation of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. No reliable figures are available, but the violence may have killed as many as two million and uprooted another 20 million. The study is aware that (a) the disowned memories and the cultivated silence surrounding the violence are a crucial presence in the public life of all three countries and continue to distort the self-definitions and vitiate relationships among them; (c) unlike some other instances of twentieth-century genocide, the violence faced deep resistance at the ground level; and (d) it is possible to build upon both this resistance and the conceptual frames the victims, witnesses and perpetrators have deployed to understand the violence. The work is based on detailed interviews with about 200 persons and a less intensive survey of another 1500.
During my proposed stay, I want to work on a small book based mainly on the survey data and try to answer a few basic questions: How far and in what way do the experiences of a refugee camp shape the understanding of the victims or, as some ethnographers suggest, consolidate existing stereotypes and prejudices and sharpen bitterness? What is the extent of help received from members of the enemy community and how does that influence constructions of the genocide? What kinds of defensive shield do "grassroots theories" of the genocide constitute and to what extent do these theories coexist with or subtly subvert official histories? Are these theories transmitted ( deliberately or unwittingly ( to the next generations to constitute an informal but resilient shared "legend"? I shall try to answer at least some of these questions from a comparative, cross-cultural perspective.

Recommended Reading
Nandy, Ashis. The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self Under Colonialism. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983; paperback, 1988.
-. Traditions, Tyranny and Utopias: Essays in the Politics of Awareness. New Delhi Oxford University Press, 1987; paperback, 1992.
-. An Ambiguous Journey to the City: The Village and Other Odd Ruins of the Self in Indian Imagination. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Publications from the Fellows' Library

Yearbook Article

2005/2006

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Ashis Nandy, Ph.D.

Project

Memories and Anti-Memories of Genocide

Publications from the Fellows' Library

Nandy, Ashis (2009)

Nandy, Ashis (Delhi [u.a.], 2009)

Nandy, Ashis (New Delhi, 2006)

Nandy, Ashis (2006)

Nandy, Ashis (New Delhi, 2005)

Nandy, Ashis (Delhi [u.a.], 2004)

Nandy, Ashis (New Dehli, 2003)

Nandy, Ashis (New Delhi [u.a.], 2003)

Nandy, Ashis (New Delhi [u.a.], 2001)

Nandy, Ashis (New Delhi [u.a.], 2000)

Yearbook Article

2005/2006