Articles by Paul R Brass

The argument here, in brief, is that the political science of development has itself been implicated in the developmentalist framework of India's elites. Further, despite the rhetoric of socialism that accompanied that framework under Nehru, both the practice in India and the development theory that justified it were fundamentally conservative. The conservative elements in the developmentalist framework comprised an ideology of state-exaltation arising out of a 'fear of disorder' or an orientation towards the elimination of 'the cause of unrest'. So implicated were political scientists in the developmentalist goals of India's elites that they failed to provide an independent basis for critique that has become increasingly necessary as it has become more and more obvious that those goals have failed to transform India into the modern, industrial state of its elite's imaginings, have failed at the same time to provide for the basic minimum needs of its people, have failed to eliminate 'the causes of unrest' and have instead drawn the country into the ugly morass of state terrorism in the north-east, Punjab and Kashmir and have failed to provide a basis for accommodation between the Hindu and Muslim populations of the country.

The study of Indian politics in the US has for long remained an insignificant and stagnant sub-field of American political science. There are academic and ideological reasons for this neglect, but it also stems from the restrictions placed on foreign researchers by the Indian government. In effect, American scholars have become agents of the government of India rather than of the CIA.

Social Context and Political Strategy before Partition Paul R Brass How can the special role of the Muslims of the United Provinces in the origins and development of Muslim separatism in India and the intensity of Hindu-Muslim conflict in the province be explained?