Social Change and Political Discourse in India

Discourse in India Gerald Studdert-Kennedy A VOLUME of chapters by diverse hands is a notoriously dangerous seduction for the potential editior in the social sciences. Discrete contributions may be hung without much difficulty from a loose common thread, but for the reader there is often the disappointment of the vacancies between them, the absence of an actively shared common focus, of interaction among the contributors and of thematic development. A one-day conference (November 15) in Paris, organised by Jean-Luc Racine for the Centre d'Etudes de l'lnde et de I'Asie du Sud and supported by the Foundation Maison des Sciences de I'Homme, concerned itself with the three volumes hitherto published out of a series of no less than four from a single editor.1 These comments represent the response of one participant to the conference.