Vinay Lal
Encyclopedia
Vinay Lal is a cultural critic
, historian
, scholar and writer who divides his time between Los Angeles and New Delhi
. He writes widely on the history and culture of colonial and modern India, popular and public culture in India (especially cinema), historiography, the politics of world history, the Indian diaspora
, global politics, contemporary American politics, the life and thought of Mohandas Gandhi, Hinduism
, and the politics of knowledge systems.
in 1961 and grew up in Delhi
, Tokyo
, Jakarta
, and Washington, D.C.
He spent four years in Tokyo, 1965–69, but has almost no memory of those years; and it is not until 1987 that he returned to Japan for a short visit, followed by a lengthier stay of four months in Osaka
in 1999 when he was a Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science at the National Museum of Ethnology (Minpaku). His memories of the two years he spent in Jakarta, around the time, he thinks, when Barack Obama
(also born in 1961) was there, are somewhat sharper. He returned to Indonesia after a gap of well over 25 years around 2000.
and wrote his Master’s thesis on Emerson and Indian philosophy
. Lal then studied cinema in Australia and India on a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship
before commencing his graduate studies at the University of Chicago
, where he was awarded a Ph.D. with Distinction from the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations in 1992. He was William Kenan Fellow in the Society of Fellows in the Humanities at Columbia University
in 1992-93, and since 1993 has been on the faculty of history at the University of California, Los Angeles
(UCLA), where he also holds a joint appointment in Asian American Studies. He was Professor of History at University of Delhi
, 2010-11.
and Indian Express. A new edition of the book, with a fresh foreword, appeared in 2005, and the book is presently in its sixth impression.
Introducing Hinduism, illustrated by Borin van Loon, is Lal’s contribution to the “Introducing” Series; the book has been translated into Spanish
, Korean
, and Finnish
. The book was reissued in 2010 as Introducing Hinduism: A Graphic Guide. Political Hinduism: The Religious Imagination in Public Spheres (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009) is a collection of eight essays, but the book is not centrally concerned with the rise of Hindu nationalism as such; rather, it considers what a political Hinduism might be that is not Hindutva
. Another of Lal’s abiding interests is cinema, and his book on Deewaar
, the 1975 blockbuster Hindi-language film with Amitabh Bachchan
and some of the most memorable dialogues in Indian film history – “mere paas ma hain”, ‘I have mother’ – was published by HarperCollins in 2011. His co-edited book, Fingerprinting Popular Culture: The Mythic and the Iconic in Indian Cinema, appeared from Oxford University Press (2006). It is one of two books, along with The Future of Knowledge and Culture: A Dictionary for the Twenty-first Century, he has co-edited with Ashis Nandy
, arguably India’s most prominent intellectual. Lal’s engagement with the work of Ashis Nandy commenced in the late 1980s, and led eventually to the first serious assessment of Nandy’s work, published as Dissenting Knowledges, Open Futures: The Multiple Selves and Strange Destinations of Ashis Nandy.
The range of Lal’s intellectual, cultural and political interests is perhaps best explored in his collection of eight essays, Of Cricket, Guinness and Gandhi: Essays on Indian History and Culture. Writing on cricket
, the hijras, popular cinema, Gandhi, the national security state in India, notions of masculinity, and the obsession with the Guinness Book of Records, Lal argues that there is a tension between the idea of India as a nation-state and the idea of India as a civilization. How India resolves this tension may well determine the course of India’s future.
, Malaysia, since 2002. Lal is the founding editor of the Dissenting Knowledges Pamphlet Series, under which eleven works have appeared so far, and also the Asian Thinkers (Pamphlet Series), launched in 2011. Both series are initiatives of Multiversity and Citizens International. He has also been associated with INCAD (International Network for Cultural Alternatives to Development), the Intercultural Institute of Montreal, and the Coalition for an Egalitarian and Pluralistic India (Los Angeles).
For some years, Lal wrote a column for the Economic and Political Weekly (Mumbai) published as “Letter from America”. He is an acerbic critic of American foreign policy and many aspects of American society. Lal is equally a critic of Hindu nationalism, and his op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times, “Coming Out From Gandhi’s Shadow” (19 May 1998), was the first piece in a major American newspaper to sharply criticize India’s nuclear explosions. An edition of his writings on American politics and society is presently under preparation for Citizens International.
(Edited) Dissenting Knowledges, Open Futures: The Multiple Selves and Strange Destinations of Ashis Nandy (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000).
(Edited) The History of Railway Thieves, by M. Pauparao Naidu (4th ed., 1915; reprint with critical introduction by Vinay Lal, Gurgaon, Haryana, Vintage Books, 1996).
Empire of Knowledge: Culture and Plurality in the Global Economy (London: Pluto Press, 2002; new updated edition, Sage Publishers, 2005; Urdu translation, published as Ilm ki Sultanat, from Mashal Books, Lahore, 2009).
The History of History: Politics and Scholarship in Modern India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003; new edition, 2005).
Of Cricket, Guinness and Gandhi: Essays on Indian History and Culture (Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2003; paperback ed., Penguin Books, 2005).
Empire and the Dream-Work of America. Dissenting Knowledges Pamphlet Series, no. 4 (Penang: Multiversity and Citizens International, 2004).
Introducing Hinduism (London: Icon Books, 2005).
Introducing Hinduism: A Graphic Guide (London: Icon Books, 2010).
(Co-edited with Ashis Nandy) The Future of Knowledge and Culture: A Dictionary for the Twenty-first Century (Delhi: Viking Penguin, 2005; Kannada translation, 2007).
(Co-edited with Ashis Nandy) Fingerprinting Popular Culture: The Mythic and Iconic in Indian Cinema (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006; Oxford India Paperback, 2007).
The Other Indians: A Political and Cultural History of South Asians in America (Los Angeles: Asian American Studies Center Press, UCLA and New Delhi: HarperCollins, 2008).
(Edited) Political Hinduism: The Religious Imagination in Public Spheres (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009).
Deewaar: The Footpath, the City, and the Angry Young Man (Delhi: HarperCollins, 2011).
(Edited) Mohandas K. Gandhi, Colonialism and the Call to Freedom (with an introduction by Vinay Lal) (Penang: Citizens International & Multiversity, 2011).
Official Blog: http://vinaylal.wordpress.com/
Webpage at the Department of History, UCLA:
Cultural critic
A cultural critic is a critic of a given culture, usually as a whole and typically on a radical basis. There is significant overlap with social and cultural theory.-Terminology:...
, historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
, scholar and writer who divides his time between Los Angeles and New Delhi
New Delhi
New Delhi is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. It is one of the nine districts of Delhi Union Territory. The total area of the city is...
. He writes widely on the history and culture of colonial and modern India, popular and public culture in India (especially cinema), historiography, the politics of world history, the Indian diaspora
Non-resident Indian and Person of Indian Origin
A Non-Resident Indian is an Indian citizen who has migrated to another country, a person of Indian origin who is born outside India, or a person of Indian origin who resides permanently outside India. Other terms with the same meaning are overseas Indian and expatriate Indian...
, global politics, contemporary American politics, the life and thought of Mohandas Gandhi, Hinduism
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
, and the politics of knowledge systems.
Early life and education
Lal was born in IndiaIndia
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
in 1961 and grew up in Delhi
Delhi
Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...
, Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
, Jakarta
Jakarta
Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...
, and Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
He spent four years in Tokyo, 1965–69, but has almost no memory of those years; and it is not until 1987 that he returned to Japan for a short visit, followed by a lengthier stay of four months in Osaka
Osaka
is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...
in 1999 when he was a Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science at the National Museum of Ethnology (Minpaku). His memories of the two years he spent in Jakarta, around the time, he thinks, when Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
(also born in 1961) was there, are somewhat sharper. He returned to Indonesia after a gap of well over 25 years around 2000.
Academic career
He earned his B.A. and M.A., both in 1982, from the Humanities Center at The Johns Hopkins UniversityJohns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
and wrote his Master’s thesis on Emerson and Indian philosophy
Indian philosophy
India has a rich and diverse philosophical tradition dating back to ancient times. According to Radhakrishnan, the earlier Upanisads constitute "...the earliest philosophical compositions of the world."...
. Lal then studied cinema in Australia and India on a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship
Thomas J. Watson Fellowship
The Thomas J. Watson Fellowship is a grant that enables graduating seniors to pursue a year of independent study outside the United States. The Fellowship Program was established by the children of Thomas J. Watson, the founder of IBM....
before commencing his graduate studies at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, where he was awarded a Ph.D. with Distinction from the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations in 1992. He was William Kenan Fellow in the Society of Fellows in the Humanities at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in 1992-93, and since 1993 has been on the faculty of history at the University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
(UCLA), where he also holds a joint appointment in Asian American Studies. He was Professor of History at University of Delhi
University of Delhi
The University of Delhi is a central university situated in Delhi, India and is funded by Government of India. Established in 1922, it offers courses at the undergraduate and post-graduate level. Vice-President of India Mohammad Hamid Ansari is the Chancellor of the university...
, 2010-11.
Publication
Lal is the author or editor of a dozen books. The Empire of Knowledge: Culture and Plurality in the Global Economy, argues that nothing has been more effectively, even insidiously, globalized than the knowledge systems of the West. The History of History: Politics and Scholarship in Modern India, is a study of the politics of history-writing in India since the early 19th century; the book also makes an unusual argument, naturally not well received by historians, to the effect that ahistoricity has been one of the most characteristic features of Indian civilization, at least until the beginning of Muslim dynasties. Unlike colonial writers, however, Lal does not even remotely construe the absence of histories as a lack. The book was reviewed widely in the Indian press, and in scholarly journals in India and abroad, and nearly full page excerpts appeared in the Hindustan TimesHindustan Times
Hindustan Times is an Indian English-language daily newspaper founded in 1924 with roots in the Indian independence movement of the period ....
and Indian Express. A new edition of the book, with a fresh foreword, appeared in 2005, and the book is presently in its sixth impression.
Introducing Hinduism, illustrated by Borin van Loon, is Lal’s contribution to the “Introducing” Series; the book has been translated into Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
, and Finnish
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
. The book was reissued in 2010 as Introducing Hinduism: A Graphic Guide. Political Hinduism: The Religious Imagination in Public Spheres (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009) is a collection of eight essays, but the book is not centrally concerned with the rise of Hindu nationalism as such; rather, it considers what a political Hinduism might be that is not Hindutva
Hindutva
Hindutva is the term used to describe movements advocating Hindu nationalism. Members of the movement are called Hindutvavādis.In India, an umbrella organization called the Sangh Parivar champions the concept of Hindutva...
. Another of Lal’s abiding interests is cinema, and his book on Deewaar
Deewaar
-Films:*Deewaar , directed by Yash Chopra and starring Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor*Deewaar , directed by Milan Luthria and starring Sanjay Dutt, Akshaye Khanna, and Amrita Rao-Television:...
, the 1975 blockbuster Hindi-language film with Amitabh Bachchan
Amitabh Bachchan
Amitabh Bachchan is an Indian film actor. He first gained popularity in the early 1970s as the "angry young man" of Hindi cinema, and has since appeared in over 180 Indian films in a career spanning more than four decades...
and some of the most memorable dialogues in Indian film history – “mere paas ma hain”, ‘I have mother’ – was published by HarperCollins in 2011. His co-edited book, Fingerprinting Popular Culture: The Mythic and the Iconic in Indian Cinema, appeared from Oxford University Press (2006). It is one of two books, along with The Future of Knowledge and Culture: A Dictionary for the Twenty-first Century, he has co-edited with Ashis Nandy
Ashis Nandy
Ashis Nandy is an Indian political psychologist, a social theorist, and a contemporary cultural and political critic. A trained sociologist and clinical psychologist, his body of work covers a variety of topics, including public conscience, mass violence, and dialogues of civilizations.He was...
, arguably India’s most prominent intellectual. Lal’s engagement with the work of Ashis Nandy commenced in the late 1980s, and led eventually to the first serious assessment of Nandy’s work, published as Dissenting Knowledges, Open Futures: The Multiple Selves and Strange Destinations of Ashis Nandy.
The range of Lal’s intellectual, cultural and political interests is perhaps best explored in his collection of eight essays, Of Cricket, Guinness and Gandhi: Essays on Indian History and Culture. Writing on cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
, the hijras, popular cinema, Gandhi, the national security state in India, notions of masculinity, and the obsession with the Guinness Book of Records, Lal argues that there is a tension between the idea of India as a nation-state and the idea of India as a civilization. How India resolves this tension may well determine the course of India’s future.
Contributions
Lal has been involved in various initiatives designed to enhance South-South cultural and political contacts, foster systematic critiques of dominant knowledge systems and the various imperialisms of the West, and suggest more ecumenical futures for all humanity. Prominently among these initiatives is Multiversity, an organization of activists, scholars, and intellectuals from the Global South that has had four meetings in PenangPenang
Penang is a state in Malaysia and the name of its constituent island, located on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia by the Strait of Malacca. It is bordered by Kedah in the north and east, and Perak in the south. Penang is the second smallest Malaysian state in area after Perlis, and the...
, Malaysia, since 2002. Lal is the founding editor of the Dissenting Knowledges Pamphlet Series, under which eleven works have appeared so far, and also the Asian Thinkers (Pamphlet Series), launched in 2011. Both series are initiatives of Multiversity and Citizens International. He has also been associated with INCAD (International Network for Cultural Alternatives to Development), the Intercultural Institute of Montreal, and the Coalition for an Egalitarian and Pluralistic India (Los Angeles).
For some years, Lal wrote a column for the Economic and Political Weekly (Mumbai) published as “Letter from America”. He is an acerbic critic of American foreign policy and many aspects of American society. Lal is equally a critic of Hindu nationalism, and his op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times, “Coming Out From Gandhi’s Shadow” (19 May 1998), was the first piece in a major American newspaper to sharply criticize India’s nuclear explosions. An edition of his writings on American politics and society is presently under preparation for Citizens International.
Books
South Asian Cultural Studies: A Bibliography (Delhi: Manohar Books, 1996).(Edited) Dissenting Knowledges, Open Futures: The Multiple Selves and Strange Destinations of Ashis Nandy (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000).
(Edited) The History of Railway Thieves, by M. Pauparao Naidu (4th ed., 1915; reprint with critical introduction by Vinay Lal, Gurgaon, Haryana, Vintage Books, 1996).
Empire of Knowledge: Culture and Plurality in the Global Economy (London: Pluto Press, 2002; new updated edition, Sage Publishers, 2005; Urdu translation, published as Ilm ki Sultanat, from Mashal Books, Lahore, 2009).
The History of History: Politics and Scholarship in Modern India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003; new edition, 2005).
Of Cricket, Guinness and Gandhi: Essays on Indian History and Culture (Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2003; paperback ed., Penguin Books, 2005).
Empire and the Dream-Work of America. Dissenting Knowledges Pamphlet Series, no. 4 (Penang: Multiversity and Citizens International, 2004).
Introducing Hinduism (London: Icon Books, 2005).
Introducing Hinduism: A Graphic Guide (London: Icon Books, 2010).
(Co-edited with Ashis Nandy) The Future of Knowledge and Culture: A Dictionary for the Twenty-first Century (Delhi: Viking Penguin, 2005; Kannada translation, 2007).
(Co-edited with Ashis Nandy) Fingerprinting Popular Culture: The Mythic and Iconic in Indian Cinema (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006; Oxford India Paperback, 2007).
The Other Indians: A Political and Cultural History of South Asians in America (Los Angeles: Asian American Studies Center Press, UCLA and New Delhi: HarperCollins, 2008).
(Edited) Political Hinduism: The Religious Imagination in Public Spheres (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009).
Deewaar: The Footpath, the City, and the Angry Young Man (Delhi: HarperCollins, 2011).
(Edited) Mohandas K. Gandhi, Colonialism and the Call to Freedom (with an introduction by Vinay Lal) (Penang: Citizens International & Multiversity, 2011).
External links
Official Website: http://www.vinaylal.com/Official Blog: http://vinaylal.wordpress.com/
Webpage at the Department of History, UCLA:
- http://www.history.ucla.edu/lal/
- http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/history/lal/