which is most often singular, modernity remains the protagonist. These are called “counter-modernities” so that the vantage point remains with that of modernity. Modernity includes; modernity excludes; but more importantly, modernity includes by excluding. The status quo of inclusion through exclusion is always meant to be partial inclusion and never complete; the realpolitik here is actually in this suspension and deferment. It includes the other by making it the ‘other’ in the first instance—modernity claims the other as other through the process of otherization; modernity also colonizes the other as other through the process of colonization. “The rhetoric of modernity”, as Walter Mignolo points out, “is that of salvation, whereas the logic of coloniality is a logic of imperial oppression. They go hand in hand, and you cannot have modernity without coloniality; the unfinished project of modernity carries over its shoulders the unfinished project of coloniality” (2006: 313). The other, thus, is suspended, entangled and eventually made a part of the habitat of the self: it can neither make itself completely free from the self nor is it allowed to become part of the self. Modernity is, at the same time, hospitable and hostile towards the other. Objects and beings, which in any case considered exotic and sacred implicitly, are made ‘exotic’ and ‘sacred’—the others of modernity—so much so that these ideas cease to exist altogether once modernity is bracketed out. The idea of the exotic and the idea of the sacred are among many such ideas which now cannot exist beyond the realm of modernity; the very meaning of the exotic and the sacred can now only be tweaked out of the dough of modernity. So, what remains at the end of the day are the pre-, the post-, the alternative, the sub-, and the counter- of that one all-encompassing “grand narrative” called modernity. The others of modernity are not modernity’s other, rather part of the same discursive practice.
Modernity, hence, is an end in itself. It does not lead to anywhere. It is a project, an ever unfinished project: a journey whose marked destination is also modernity. It is a project of domination and colonization, of mind and body, of physics and metaphysics, of existence and essence. Unlike the modern, which is ideationally static and sedentary, modernity is constantly on the move. Modern is being; modernity is being and becoming at the same time. While hinting at the aspect of stasis and kinesis, Dilip Gaonkar in his ‘On Alternative Modernities’ lists some of the unforgettable figures of modernity: Marx’s “revolutionary”, Baudelaire’s “dandy”, Nietzsche’s “superman”, Weber’s “social scientist”, Simmel’s “stranger”, Musil’s “man without qualities” and Benjamin’s “flaneur”, and points out how “each is caught and carried in the intoxicating rush of an epochal change and yet finds himself and formulated by a disciplinary system of social roles and functions” (1999: 3). Modernity, as many have pointed out, was a reaction to a very specific socio-cultural, geographical and historical event; but what happened eventually is, because of colonization and later globalization, that it has turned into a phenomenon which is regarded as transcendental and universal. Therefore, what was primarily conceived as and meant to be local has, because of certain definite turns in world history and politics, turned out to be universal. This is what we call dissemination of modernity which has led to the rise of, what is often quoted now as, global modernity. Our argument is: there is nothing which we can call and point out as global modernity but rather globalization of a certain set of local modernities, a set of narratives which are overtly and covertly white, west European, masculine, and Christian. Modernity is a milieu of these modernities or narratives, which are mostly provincial, and which are more often than not considered and hailed as transcendental and disembodied. It is incorrectly believed to be atemporal and aspatial in characteristics and in function. The here of modernity in such scenario becomes the everywhere and the now of modernity, the always. This is what we describe as ‘modernity-history singularity’: the point at which the history of human civilization and the historical development of modernity turned into one and the same thing. Our effort here would be to look for those openings and prospects where we could disentangle the latter from the former—where history and historiography cease to remain mere discourses of modernity and affirm agencies of their own.
The dissemination of modernity across the globe started with those initial encounters and transactions between west European countries and new found lands; stratified with the imperial powers annexing those new found lands and turning them into new territories; and consolidated with the birth of modern nation-states in those new territories. Now, in the age of late capitalism, globalization and post-nationalism, it has more or less become the dominant worldview of the world—it even dictates the way the world looks upon itself. Even in several ongoing postcolonial studies across the world with its indulgence on non-hegemonic and non-Eurocentric understandings and strategies one can easily find traces of this trope and this kind of worldview.
We would disagree with those who point out the plural nature of modernity and talk about different modernities which are absolutely discreet and different from each other. We would also, at the same time, disagree with those who suggest its singular and monolithic nature. Modernity, rather, is slightly more complicated than that. It is, we think, a complex wave of several attributes or narratives—it is neither singular nor plural in nature. It is certainly a grand narrative, consisting of much petit or micro-modernities. It is a whole: a summation of all such narratives and, more correctly, much more than the summation of those narratives. It is, for instance, white, Eurocentric, anthropocentric, capital driven, patriarchal and many others and yet, it is much more than that. These phenomena are certainly not petit or micro in their nature and function and have agencies of their own; but since they blend, add on to and eventually propel that one greater narrative called modernity, we have called these petit or micro-modernities.
A modern nation-state—an embodiment of all that modernity is and stands for—can also prove for our study a laboratory where all these phenomena could be dissected and understood in a far effective and heuristic manner. A modern nation-state with its precise and well maintained geopolitical boundaries is a reification of this grand and yet, complex narrative of modernity. The edges of the nation-state are also the edges of modernity and the space between the two edges—the space where one political block ends and another begins—is what we understand as borderland. This space, which also has its own temporality, is also the space where one set of modernities ends and another begins. But we would here negate our own thesis if we consider this space to be a vacuum; we are not saying that borderlands are free of modernity, which obviously these are not in any case. We are also not naïve enough to point out here that borderlands are spaces or zones beyond modernity—pristine, untouched and untrodden—but rather have an ambiguous, often confusing and far more complicated sort of modernity. Like that of mainland, borderland modernity is also a complex; and yet a suture of several overlapping modernities whose agencies, as opposed to the former, are feebly and not so persuasively asserted. Borderland modernity is confused and convoluted kind of modernity: borderlands are where the narrative of modernity, which works quite succinctly in and around the mainland, covers the distance from the centre to the periphery, and in the process starts to lose its might and vigor. This already ‘weak’ modernity, when at an everyday level starts encountering with the other just on the other side of the border, becomes more, as we have already mentioned, confused and convoluted. It is at this stage/state that it starts contradicting and challenging itself in a more explicit manner: it is where it becomes a paradox of/in itself. Borderland modernity is the result of some of the inherent aporias in the system of modernity, understanding of which can enable us to use it as a strategic tool—a mode of deconstructing the hitherto ‘natural’ and transcendental aspects of modernity.
In its day to day negotiation with the other and, here in case, in the physical presence of the other, modernity finds itself in a tricky position. Mainland modernity is more comfortable with homogeneity and generally thinks in terms of binaries (that is, either/or); but as soon as it hits the borderland, the ground becomes slippery. It finds itself difficult to stand on the ground which was hitherto solid and based on certain a priori principles, and now, has suddenly become unstable and unreliable. As opposed to the reliable topography of the mainland, borderland poses a lot of difficulties to the praxis of modernity. There occurs a sudden rupture between the theory and praxis of modernity which is hard to reconcile. It is at this juncture that the borderland, amidst this continuous and quite congested traffic
