T K Oommen, who called India a ‘multi-national state,’ stood against majoritarianism

By R Thirunavukkarasu Decades back, a young researcher during his interview at Delhi University was asked, in reference to his PhD thesis, “Is it a sociological work?” It was frightening for the young candidate. However, he politely but firmly replied that studying the Bhoodan-Gramdan movement launched by Vinoba Bhave could well be a vital contribution to sociology itself. Studying social movement(s) was not the main mandate of the discipline in the early 1960s. The discipline was obsessed with studying family, marriage, kinship, village and caste in rural India. By studying a social movement, that young scholar, who later became one of the doyens of sociology, T K Oommen, attempted to upend the hitherto existing conventional boundaries of the discipline. Since then, studying protest movements and collective mobilisations became a significant part of sociological scrutiny. Professor Oommen, who died on February 26 at the age of 88, is one of the pioneers in bringing in “modern” issues into conventional sociology. His work Doctors and Nurses, a study of the modern professions, is another leap forward in redefining the contours of conventional sociological research. The nation and nationalism, largely held by historians as their exclusive foray, began receiving sociological enquiry when Oommen questioned the role of religion being projected as a vital agency to reorder the country. By firmly rejecting religion as a source of nation-building, he proposed language and territory as a crucial matrix to imagine nations. Contentious though it was, this proposition led him to declare India a “multi-national State.” This proposition made him a permanent adversary of majoritarian politics. At the 2001 UN-sponsored Durban conference, where racial discrimination and xenophobic intolerance were discussed, Oommen resolutely said that caste-based discrimination should find a space. Refusing to endorse naïve and highly pedestrian arguments that caste is not race, Oommen aligned with the voiceless people from the margins of our society. Lutyens’ Delhi’s elite cabal was visibly upset with his strong resolve to discuss caste-based discrimination at the UN conference. However, nothing deterred him from speaking for voiceless people like the Dalits and tribal groups. • 1Devdutt Pattanaik writes: When vegetarianism becomes a badge of power, not compassion • 2Af-Pak ‘open war’: Rawalpindi has created a situation it can no longer control • 3Clearing Arvind Kejriwal in liquor case, slamming CBI, court sends out message that government must listen to • 4The CBI had no case against Arvind Kejriwal — only political orders. Opposition can use his acquittal to reclaim high ground • 5The City and I: From punya nagari to polluted skies, Pune’s promise now feels forsaken His immense contributions as a member of the Sachar Committee are also notable. While talking of the minorities in India, he said that it was the internal problems of the feudal elites of Punjab and Bengal who attempted to resolve them along communal lines. But the entire country paid for it. This observation helped us understand the complexity of communal politics today. His repeated assertion that majoritarianism is detrimental to the welfare of the majority community itself stems from his nuanced understanding of the Indian body-politic. With the passing of Professor Oommen, Indian academia has lost not only a fascinating sociologist, but one of the strongest defenders of an inclusive India. His quest to decentralise our political-fiscal administrative structure outraged many. As the first President of the International Sociological Association from the Global South, his vigorous defence of former colonial countries in international forums is quite akin to the Nehruvian utopia of third world solidarity. The writer teaches sociology at the University of Hyderabad