SPECIAL ARTICLE Economic & Political Weekly EPW JUNE 8, 2019 vol lIV no 23 35 Research Scholars’ Epistemological Predicament A Chandrasekhar Reddy, Gitanjali Joshua, Ipsita Pradhan, Jangkhosei Touthang, Lalatendu Keshari Das, Mitaja Chakraborty, Priyam Sharma, Satheesh Perumalla, Shilpa Krishna The authors would like to thank Sundar Sarukkai and N Purendra Prasad for their comments on an earlier draft, which helped the authors refine their ideas, and for their continuous encouragement. The authors also thank the anonymous reviewer for their insightful suggestions, which helped them streamline the arguments. The position of the authors’ names is in alphabetical order and does not represent any difference in their contribution to the study. A Chandrasekhar Reddy (socio.hcu@gmail.com), Gitanjali Joshua, Ipsita Pradhan, Jangkhosei Touthang, Lalatendu Keshari Das, Mitaja Chakraborty, Priyam Sharma, Satheesh Perumalla, and Shilpa Krishna are research scholars at the Department of Sociology, University of Hyderabad. What is the position of research scholars in the knowledge food chain? Are they merely consumers of knowledge or can they also produce it? The University Grants Commission Regulations, 2009 and 2016 enforced two important rules: mandatory coursework on research methods and theory for MPhil and PhD programmes, and publication of at least one research paper in a peer-reviewed journal to be eligible to submit a doctoral thesis. An analysis of these regulations through the lens of research scholars offers an insight into the complexity of relationships between academic institutions, journals, and research scholars in the process of knowledge production. I n the introduction to her book, Southern Theory: The Global Dynamics of Knowledge in Social Science, Australian socio- logist Raewyn Connell (2008) notes that “social science is, at best, ambiguously democratic. Its dominant genres picture the world as it is seen by men, by capitalists, by the educated and affluent.” Notwithstanding the provocative stance of the work, Connell fails to mention that this dominant knowledge is produced by institutional academicians, with a little help from international governmental and non-governmental organisations (Zapp 2018). The purpose of this article is not to critique Connell, either for presuming a homogeneous “south” (Muller 2009; Collins 1997) or for being ignorant of the segment of research scholars. As we will discuss a little later, research scholars, throughout the world, have predominantly been relegated to the position of consumers of knowledge that is produced by agents who decry their own helplessness in getting recognition as produc- ers of knowledge. Our aim is to analyse the reasons, particu- larly in the case of India, that have caused research scholars to stay away from the production of knowledge debate and re- main mere consumers of knowledge. We take as the backdrop the University Grants Commission ( UGC) (Minimum Standards and Procedure for Award of MPhil/PhD Degrees) Regulations of 2009 and 2016, which made courses on research methods and theories mandatory in MPhil and PhD, and required PhD scholars to publish at least one research paper in a peer-reviewed journal to be eligible to submit their thesis. Thus, we 1 attempt to discuss, through empirical data, the problematic aspects of the relationships between academic institutions, journals, and research schol- ars in knowledge production. The article is divided into four sections. In the first, we discuss the debate around the politics of knowledge production in India and, while doing so, we try to demonstrate how it has bypassed the domain of research scholars. The next section discusses, in brief, the methods we used to collect empirical data to justify our claim. In the third section, we present data on five academic journals in India and show how research scholars view their relationship with these journals. Finally, we offer suggestions for the way forward. The Debate So Far By focusing on the training of research scholars in the theory and methods of social enquiry, on the one hand, and the dis- semination of their work to the academic peer group in the form of published research papers, on the other, the UGC 2009 and 2016 regulations necessitated a greater engagement on the part of academic institutions and journals to create “competent”