Contesting Nationalisms: Hinduism, Secularism and Untouchability in Colonial Punjab (1880 - 1930)

Contesting Nationalisms: Hinduism, Secularism and Untouchability in Colonial Punjab (1880 - 1930) PDF Author: Vikas Pathak
Publisher: Ratna Sagar
ISBN: 9789386552808
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
Indian nationalism has been a contested space over the last century. Claims and counter-claims have been advanced regarding its nature for long now. This book argues that there are multiple visions of Indian nationalism, each seeking hegemony over national discourse, and that divergences regarding the cultural-ideological contours of the idea of India are central to the contest over what Indian nationalism means. Contesting Nationalisms identifies four strands: composite culture nationalism; religious nationalism; a secular, citizen-centric nationalism, and a vision of 'Dalit nationalism' seeking to reorder the public sphere in its own fashion. It traces these visions, which emerged in colonial India, through an exploration of the ideas of key ideologues in colonial Punjab. The analysis also has implications for our understanding of communalism, which has been seen as intertwined with nationalism in India for more than a century now.

Contesting Nationalisms: Hinduism, Secularism and Untouchability in Colonial Punjab (1880 - 1930)

Contesting Nationalisms: Hinduism, Secularism and Untouchability in Colonial Punjab (1880 - 1930) PDF Author: Vikas Pathak
Publisher: Ratna Sagar
ISBN: 9789386552808
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
Indian nationalism has been a contested space over the last century. Claims and counter-claims have been advanced regarding its nature for long now. This book argues that there are multiple visions of Indian nationalism, each seeking hegemony over national discourse, and that divergences regarding the cultural-ideological contours of the idea of India are central to the contest over what Indian nationalism means. Contesting Nationalisms identifies four strands: composite culture nationalism; religious nationalism; a secular, citizen-centric nationalism, and a vision of 'Dalit nationalism' seeking to reorder the public sphere in its own fashion. It traces these visions, which emerged in colonial India, through an exploration of the ideas of key ideologues in colonial Punjab. The analysis also has implications for our understanding of communalism, which has been seen as intertwined with nationalism in India for more than a century now.

The Becoming of a Hero

The Becoming of a Hero PDF Author: Pradnya Bivalkar
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3946552889
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 530

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Book Description
Identity conflicts, a prominent feature of our times, a phenomenon of belonging somewhere yet belonging nowhere, are increasingly finding their way into cinema. This book looks at the representations of identity conflicts in India on the canvas of Indian cinema, connecting them with broader socio-political developments in contemporary India. Starting with the historical background of how political developments in Europe like the emergence of Nation states, secularism, modernity influenced socio-political developments in India in the past century, the book looks at how those developments have shaped modern India. While looking at the cinematic representations of a variety of identity conflicts through the lens of cultural and political analysis, it provides insights into how the construct of an Identity and the inherent conflicts associated with it evolve and manifest themselves through the medium of a film.

Hindu–Muslim Relations

Hindu–Muslim Relations PDF Author: Jörg Friedrichs
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 0429862075
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
This book reconstructs Hindu–Muslim relations from a European standpoint. Drawing from the Indian context, the author explores options for Western Europe – a region grappling with the refugee crisis and populist reactions to the growth of Muslim minorities. The author shows how India can serve not only as a model but also as a warning for Europe. For example, European liberals may learn not only from the achievements of Indian secularism but also from its crisis. Based on extensive interviews with Indians from diverse backgrounds, from politicians to social activists and from the middle class to slum dwellers, the volume investigates a wide range of perspectives: Hindu and Muslim, religious and secular, moderate and militant. Relevant, engaging and accessible, this book speaks to a broad audience of concerned citizens and policy makers. Scholars of political science, sociology, modern history, cultural studies and South Asian studies will be particularly interested.

Beyond Religion in India and Pakistan

Beyond Religion in India and Pakistan PDF Author: Virinder S. Kalra
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350041769
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Drawing on insights from theoretical engagements with borders and subalternity, Beyond Religion in India and Pakistan suggests new frameworks for understanding religious boundaries in South Asia. It looks at the ways in which social categories and structures constitute the bordering logics inherent within enactments of these boundaries, and positions hegemony and resistance through popular religion as an important indication of wider developments of political and social change. The book also shows how borders are continually being maintained through violence at national, community and individual levels. By exploring selected sites and expressions of piety including shrines, texts, practices and movements, Virinder S. Kalra and Navtej K. Purewal argue that the popular religion of Punjab should neither be limited to a polarised picture between formal, institutional religion, nor the 'enchanted universe' of rituals, saints, shrines and village deities. Instead, the book presents a picture of 'religion' as a realm of movement, mobilization, resistance and power in which gender and caste are connate of what comes to be known as 'religious'. Through extensive ethnographic research, the authors explore the reality of the complex, dynamic and contested relations that characterize everyday material and religious lives on the ground. Ultimately, the book highlights how popular religion challenges the borders and boundaries of religious and communal categories, nationalism and theological frameworks while simultaneously reflecting gender/caste society.

The Making of Indian Secularism

The Making of Indian Secularism PDF Author: N. Chatterjee
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230298087
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
A unique study of how a deeply religious country like India acquired the laws and policies of a secular state, highlighting the contradictory effects of British imperial policies, the complex role played by Indian Christians, and how this highly divided community shaped its own identity and debated that of their new nation.

Labor in Colonial Kenya after the Forced Labor Convention, 1930–1963

Labor in Colonial Kenya after the Forced Labor Convention, 1930–1963 PDF Author: Opolot Okia
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030176088
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
This book advances research into the government-forced labor used widely in colonial Kenya from 1930 to 1963 after the passage of the International Labor Organization’s Forced Labour Convention. While the 1930 Convention intended to mark the suppression of forced labor practices, various exemptions meant that many coercive labor practices continued in colonial territories. Focusing on East Africa and the Kenya Colony, this book shows how the colonial administration was able to exploit the exemption clause for communal labor, thus ensuring the mobilization of African labor for infrastructure development. As an exemption, communal labor was not defined as forced labor but instead justified as a continuation of traditional African and community labor practices. Despite this ideological justification, the book shows that communal labor was indeed an intensification of coercive labor practices and one that penalized Africans for non-compliance with fines or imprisonment. The use of forced labor before and after the passage of the Convention is examined, with a focus on its use during World War II as well as in efforts to combat soil erosion in the rural African reserve areas in Kenya. The exploitation of female labor, the Mau Mau war of the 1950s, civilian protests, and the regeneration of communal labor as harambee after independence are also discussed.

Castes of Mind

Castes of Mind PDF Author: Nicholas B. Dirks
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400840945
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
When thinking of India, it is hard not to think of caste. In academic and common parlance alike, caste has become a central symbol for India, marking it as fundamentally different from other places while expressing its essence. Nicholas Dirks argues that caste is, in fact, neither an unchanged survival of ancient India nor a single system that reflects a core cultural value. Rather than a basic expression of Indian tradition, caste is a modern phenomenon--the product of a concrete historical encounter between India and British colonial rule. Dirks does not contend that caste was invented by the British. But under British domination caste did become a single term capable of naming and above all subsuming India's diverse forms of social identity and organization. Dirks traces the career of caste from the medieval kingdoms of southern India to the textual traces of early colonial archives; from the commentaries of an eighteenth-century Jesuit to the enumerative obsessions of the late-nineteenth-century census; from the ethnographic writings of colonial administrators to those of twentieth-century Indian scholars seeking to rescue ethnography from its colonial legacy. The book also surveys the rise of caste politics in the twentieth century, focusing in particular on the emergence of caste-based movements that have threatened nationalist consensus. Castes of Mind is an ambitious book, written by an accomplished scholar with a rare mastery of centuries of Indian history and anthropology. It uses the idea of caste as the basis for a magisterial history of modern India. And in making a powerful case that the colonial past continues to haunt the Indian present, it makes an important contribution to current postcolonial theory and scholarship on contemporary Indian politics.

Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India

Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India PDF Author: Akshaya Mukul
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 9352772954
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 634

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Book Description
In the early 1920s, Jaydayal Goyandka and Hanuman Prasad Poddar, two Marwari businessmen-turned-spiritualists, set up the Gita Press and Kalyan magazine. As of early 2014, Gita Press had sold close to 72 million copies of the Gita, 70 million copies of Tulsidas's works and 19 million copies of scriptures like the Puranas and Upanishads. And while most other journals of the period, whether religious, literary or political, survive only in press archives, Kalyan now has a circulation of over 200,000, and its English counterpart, Kalyana-Kalpataru, of over 100,000. Gita Press created an empire that spoke in a militant Hindu nationalist voice and imagined a quantifiable, reward-based piety. Almost every notable leader and prominent voice, including Mahatma Gandhi, was roped in to speak for the cause. Cow slaughter, Hindi as national language and the rejection of Hindustani, the Hindu Code Bill, the creation of Pakistan, India's secular Constitution: Kalyan and Kalyana-Kalpataru were the spokespersons of the Hindu position on these and other matters. Featuring an extraordinary cast of characters - buccaneering entrepreneurs and hustling editors, nationalist ideologues and religious fanatics - this is essential (and exciting) reading for our times.

A Concise History of Modern India

A Concise History of Modern India PDF Author: Barbara D. Metcalf
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139458876
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
In a second edition of their successful Concise History of Modern India, Barbara Metcalf and Thomas Metcalf explore India's modern history afresh and update the events of the last decade. These include the takeover of Congress from the seemingly entrenched Hindu nationalist party in 2004, India's huge advances in technology and the country's new role as a major player in world affairs. From the days of the Mughals, through the British Empire, and into Independence, the country has been transformed by its institutional structures. It is these institutions which have helped bring about the social, cultural and economic changes that have taken place over the last half century and paved the way for the modern success story. Despite these advances, poverty, social inequality and religious division still fester. In response to these dilemmas, the book grapples with questions of caste and religious identity, and the nature of the Indian nation.

Our Modernity

Our Modernity PDF Author: Partha Chatterjee
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Bengal (India)
Languages : en
Pages : 24

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Book Description