The Programme on Social and Political Theory is concerned with theorizing our complex present and the wide range of new experiences that mark it and which seem to reveal the limitations of many of our received theories and theoretical categories. Contemporary transformations through what is referred to as ‘globalization’ – the new experiences of time and space, the transformation of urban spaces, new modes of control and surveillance, new conflicts in the countryside – all these have been engaging the attention of members of the Programme in their individual work.

The Programme also takes forward an abiding concern of the CSDS since its very early days – that of exploring traditions of social and political theorization in India and other parts of the non-Western world. It recognizes that many of the difficulties of contemporary social theorization in India arise from simply ‘applying’ theory from one context to understand practices in another. It is therefore deeply invested in an exploration of what can be called ‘Indian intellectual traditions’ in the broadest sense. As such many of the faculty members, associated with the programme, are engaged in a sustained exploration of the history of ideas in India/ South Asia. As part of this endeavour, the Programme has also initiated a reading group that is currently engaged in a study of the Mahabharata and that intends to take up other significant texts from various traditions, including the Islamic, that go into the making of what can broadly be called India’s intellectual history.

Some of the key issues that currently engage us include democracy, violence and social justice, particularly justice for Dalits and religious minorities. Emerging from these concerns is our longstanding involvement in and contribution to the debates on the issue of secularism. The Programme recognizes that any meaningful theorization on these issues must be predicated upon a fresh look at our society’s entire engagement with modernity and the diverse intellectual and political responses it brought forth.

In its early years the programme organized four conferences: (1) Philosophy of the Indian Constitution; (2) Humiliation; (3) State of Political Theory in India; (4) Perspectives on Social Theory. The proceedings of the Conference on the Constitution and on Humiliation have already been published in a book form by Oxford University Press, Delhi. Apart from these, the Programme has organized a series of conferences, starting with one on ‘The Culture and Democracy’, jointly with Transcultural Studies, Chicago. This series has become a bi-annual feature.

The Programme aspires to act as a bridge between other programmes of the Centre, bringing the empirical work done in the CSDS, to bear on the task of theorization.