This paper examines the work of Ashis Nandy, one of Indian's foremost contemporary intellectuals, a social psychologist, psychoanalyst and political scientist, responsible for developing what he calls a ‘critical traditionalism.' Adopting a broad conception of Indian civilization in which modernity poses an explicit threat (and, more ambiguously, an implicit element), Nandy's discussion of personality and the individual is crucial at various levels - in particular theoretical - to understanding India and developing a theory of civilization. One of the prominent features of his discussion is the multiple composition of the self and its relations to both Indian and Western civilizations.
Ashis Nandy; India; Civilization; Culture