Indigenization and vernacularization of social science in India: revisiting the debate

Abstract

ABSTRACT Indigenization has been an important nationalist project undertaken by various colonized countries seeking to liberate the existing knowledge systems from colonial hegemony. In India too, one witnesses serious efforts at indigenization that began during the colonial rule as part of the anti-colonial nationalist struggle. This continued after independence with new vigour. It found resonance in the domain of social sciences and the Indian social scientists have been engaged in debates around decolonizing the extant knowledge texts in their respective domains. An essential part of indigenization of social science in the Indian context is their vernacularization, which implies a process of translation and adaptation of the knowledge texts in its diverse local/regional languages. Underscoring the importance of both the processes in decolonizing the social sciences, the paper also highlights the existing and the emerging challenges to them.