Eminent political scientist and theorist Rajni Kothari passed away on Monday. He was in his mid-80s.
Kothari was the founder of Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) in 1963, a social sciences and humanities research institute, based in Delhi and Lokayan (Dialogue of the People), started in 1980 as a forum for interaction between activists and intellectuals.
He was also associated with Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), International Foundation for Development Alternatives and People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL).
One of the great political thinkers of the 20th-century, his well known works included Politics in India (1970), Caste in Indian Politics (1973) and Rethinking Democracy (2005).
In 1985, Lokayan was awarded the Right Livelihood Award, also known as "Alternative Nobel".[3]
Kothari was an only son of his father, a Jain trader. His mother died early in his life.
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He started his career as a lecturer at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda (Baroda University), while working here he first received recognition in 1961, when his essays series, "Form and Substance in Indian Politics" were published in Economic and Political Weekly (then Economic Weekly) over six issues.
He had also started writing for Seminar, the journal published by Romesh Thapar.
Thereafter he was invited by Professor Shyama Charan Dubey to become the Assistant Director of the National Institute of Community Development, Mussoorie. In 1963, he moved to Delhi, where using a personal grant of Rs. 70,000 given by Professor Richard L. Park, head of Asia Foundation's India chapter, he started Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), in the premises of the Indian Adult Education Association at Indraprastha Estate, Delhi, before moving to its present location in Civil Lines, Delhi.
Here working along with Ashis Nandy, D.L. Sheth, Ramashray Roy, Bashiruddin Ahmed and others, Kothari pioneered works in social sciences, which were published over the next two decades.
In 1970 he published Politics in India, which first theorized the Indian National Congress as a system rather than a party. Thereafter he published noted works like Caste in Indian Politics (1973) and Footsteps into the Future (1975).
In the early 1970s, he was said to be very close to Congressleader Indira Gandhi, but distanced himself with the entry of Sanjay Gandhi, and became associated with Jaya Prakash Narayan and the Janata Party.
After the Emergency of 1975, he moved away from political parties, and started a career as an activist.
This phase culminated with the foundation of Lokayan - Dialogue of the People in 1980, a forum for interaction between activists, thinkers and intellectuals to talked about positive changes in the fields of religion, agriculture, health, politics, and education.
Besides scholarly articles he also wrote newspaper columns, and in 2002 published his memoirs titled, Memoirs: Uneasy is the Life of the Mind.
He was married between 1947 and 1999.