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Empire of Knowledge by Vinay Lal. All the eight chapters of this book do not necessarily have to be read in a particular order and each is bound to leave the reader with as many questions as have been answered in the book. Perhaps, the book is meant not to answer any question, but only to agitate the reader to find his or her own answers to the past, current and future of development in relation to modernisation and globalisation. Detailed notes and suggestions for further reading make the book truly an “empire of knowledge” for any inquisitive mind. The chapter, Reckoning with Millennium, describes how schedule and calendar rule most lives and how our sensibilities in current times are governed by extraordinary, but dreaded awareness of time. The author traces the history of the Christian Era and the Gregorian calendar, synchronisation of different times of the different countries, disciplinary time and Taylorism, linearity of time in the West, as compared to its cyclic nature in India and the concepts of Body Time, Food Time and Rail Time. The chapter on Politics in Our Times is devoted to the author’s concept of total violence in the twentieth century, revolutionary decolonisation and nationalism, development of the notion of human rights and its crooked interpretation to suit the “always right” powerful USA and Europe. The hypocrisy of such nations in extending the argument in underdeveloped countries is proof of their double yardsticks. Governance in the twenty-first century is the subject of another chapter. The author demolishes the myth of the US as the world’s sole superpower. He exposes the duality of its nuclear agenda, brings out the concept of rogue states, as invented by the US, talks about the United Nations slowly turning into a US handy tool and its peacekeeping role only contributing billion dollars to the arms industry of the US, and also of the hegemony of the powerful in the era of the WTO, resulting in vast inequalities between the developing and the developed nations. The author advances the idea of violence of development and how modern knowledge and its categorisation has perpetrated the integrity of human community. His analysis of disciplinary structure of modern knowledge, which has created more inequality and is responsible for the widening gap between the very poor and the super rich, is undoubtedly brilliant. Another chapter has development and its relationship with ecology, economy and equality as its theme. His agreement that the platform is not the poor but the rich, whose consumption level keeps increasing and is bound to eat up all the resources of the Earth, cannot be wished away. He argues that economy should be understood as “husbanding” of resources rather than in terms of mathematical models. Dissenting Future describes the relationship between the disciplines of anthropology religion and popular culture and mocks how cultural studies even after making a mark in history did not stop the USA from supporting reactionary movements in South Africa, encouraging militant Islam in Afghanistan and Central Asia and bombing Iraq. The author visualises a future world with a civilization ethos permitting dissidence and recommends teaching, writing and social practices of Mahatma Gandhi as very relevant. The last chapter, War Without End: New Categories of Knowledge and Terror, recalls the horrors of 9/11, how Islamic fundamentalism has affected the American way of life, America’s excuse of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to dislodge Saddam and control Iraq. The author’s anti-US and pro-developing nations stance, obvious in all the chapters, makes him invent every possible excuse to brand the US as responsible for all the ills of modern society. He stretches certain arguments far beyond what an informed reader can believe. Perhaps it is the philosopher in Vinay Lal that does not let him take the advantage of the genius and power of simplicity and virtues of direct communication of ideas. The book with 60-90 word sentences page after page makes the study complex, which otherwise could have become a readable, lucidly written literature. However, since it is not a book for the light-hearted, this luxury of the author’s style is permissible. This “new world order” point of view is a devastatingly fresh critique of the modern world. |
This book presents a powerful critique of the politics of knowledge as seen by the US through its “tinted powered glasses” and as understood by the rest of the world. It is an extraordinary book by an extraordinary author. It is a hard-reading, serious-business book for the intelligentsia, who have the patience to analyse a new and, till now, largely unchallenged point of view.