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@article{204666,
        author = {Dr. Aniruddha Naik},
        title = {Beyond Eurocentrism: Decentering Global Sociology through the Lens of India},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2026},
        volume = {13},
        number = {1},
        pages = {3461-3468},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=204666},
        abstract = {Sociology, as a discipline, was born in the heart of modern Europe. Over time, it spread across the world and became a global academic field. But here's the problem — even though sociology claims to speak universally about human society, the knowledge it produces is still largely shaped by Western ways of thinking. Western experiences are treated as the default, the norm, the standard against which everything else is measured. That's a serious limitation, and it's one we need to talk about.
This paper takes a close look at why global sociology needs to step back from that Eurocentric center — and why India, in particular, deserves a far more prominent place in shaping sociological thought. India isn't just a case study for Western theories. It's a rich source of its own theoretical, methodological, and philosophical insights. Drawing on postcolonial sociology, Southern theory, subaltern studies, and indigenous knowledge traditions, this paper makes the case that the flow of knowledge can no longer be a one-way street running from the Global North to the Global South. That has to change. Why India? Because India brings something genuinely unique to the table. Its extraordinarily diverse social formations, ancient civilizational traditions, linguistic plurality, caste dynamics, religious heterogeneity, and deep history of philosophical thought make it an invaluable intellectual resource for rethinking sociology from the ground up. A significant part of this paper digs into how sociology's colonial roots have left a lasting mark on the discipline. Concepts like modernity, secularization, individualism, and development — all borrowed from Western intellectual traditions — often fall flat when applied to Indian society. They don't quite fit. They miss the texture, the complexity, the lived reality of life in India. The paper explores how Indian thinkers and sociologists — B. R. Ambedkar, G. S. Ghurye, M. N. Srinivas, A. R. Desai, D. P. Mukerji, and contemporary decolonial scholars — have offered far more nuanced and grounded ways of understanding Indian social life. It also highlights the power of indigenous concepts like Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (the world as one family), Dharma, Sarvodaya, and Lokavidya as genuine alternative frameworks for thinking about social relationships and collective existence.
The argument the paper here is straightforward but important: decolonizing sociology isn't just about adding more non-Western examples to the textbooks rather It's about fundamentally rethinking the conceptual foundations of the discipline itself. When sociology genuinely opens itself up to epistemologies from non-western countries which includes India and other non-Western societies, it becomes more reflective, more pluralistic, and more relevant to the world as it actually is — not just as the West has imagined it to be. Ultimately, this kind of intellectual transformation is about epistemic justice. It's about building a sociology that truly belongs to everyone.},
        keywords = {Global Sociology, Decolonization, Southern Theory, India, Eurocentrism, Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, Indigenous Knowledge Systems},
        month = {June},
        }