Muslims, Terrorism and Rise of the Hindu Right in India

Muslims, Terrorism and Rise of the Hindu Right in India PDF Author: A. D. D. Gordon
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Hindus
Languages : en
Pages : 56

Get Book Here

Book Description
"India is located in the heart of a region in which more puritanical forms of Islam have been gaining ground for several decades. This radicalisation of Islam in South Asia has been furthered by the 'war on terror', and particularly the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Against this background, elements within India's predominantly Hindu population have been seeking to 'Hinduise' India's secular polity, sometimes directing violence against India's 130 million Muslims in the process. In response to these regional and domestic developments, a small minority of Indian Muslims outside Kashmir has chosen to take up the bomb and the Kalashnikov. This movement is closely tied to violent jihadi movements in neighbouring countries, especially the Gulf and Pakistan. The recently ousted, Hindu-led coalition government that has governed in New Delhi for the last seven years has at times responded harshly to this terrorism. Were it to continue, such a response could precipitate a classic downward spiral into terrorism and counter-terrorism. Any such development would have profound implications for India and the region. This paper examines the prospects for such a development in the context of the recent election of a more secular, Congress-led coalition in New Delhi. It argues that while the new government will seek to return India to its secular roots, now that the Bharatiya Janata Party is out of office at the centre, elements within the Hindu Right are likely to foment unrest between Hindus and Muslims, particularly at the periphery of Indian politics, in order to 'claw back' political power at the centre. Any such tactics may well cancel out the secular strategies of the new government."--Abstract from SDSC web site.

Muslims, Terrorism and Rise of the Hindu Right in India

Muslims, Terrorism and Rise of the Hindu Right in India PDF Author: A. D. D. Gordon
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Hindus
Languages : en
Pages : 56

Get Book Here

Book Description
"India is located in the heart of a region in which more puritanical forms of Islam have been gaining ground for several decades. This radicalisation of Islam in South Asia has been furthered by the 'war on terror', and particularly the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Against this background, elements within India's predominantly Hindu population have been seeking to 'Hinduise' India's secular polity, sometimes directing violence against India's 130 million Muslims in the process. In response to these regional and domestic developments, a small minority of Indian Muslims outside Kashmir has chosen to take up the bomb and the Kalashnikov. This movement is closely tied to violent jihadi movements in neighbouring countries, especially the Gulf and Pakistan. The recently ousted, Hindu-led coalition government that has governed in New Delhi for the last seven years has at times responded harshly to this terrorism. Were it to continue, such a response could precipitate a classic downward spiral into terrorism and counter-terrorism. Any such development would have profound implications for India and the region. This paper examines the prospects for such a development in the context of the recent election of a more secular, Congress-led coalition in New Delhi. It argues that while the new government will seek to return India to its secular roots, now that the Bharatiya Janata Party is out of office at the centre, elements within the Hindu Right are likely to foment unrest between Hindus and Muslims, particularly at the periphery of Indian politics, in order to 'claw back' political power at the centre. Any such tactics may well cancel out the secular strategies of the new government."--Abstract from SDSC web site.

Good Muslim, Bad Muslim

Good Muslim, Bad Muslim PDF Author: Mahmood Mamdani
Publisher: Harmony
ISBN: 038551591X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this brilliant look at the rise of political Islam, the distinguished political scientist and anthropologist Mahmood Mamdani brings his expertise and insight to bear on a question many Americans have been asking since 9/11: how did this happen? Mamdani dispels the idea of “good” (secular, westernized) and “bad” (premodern, fanatical) Muslims, pointing out that these judgments refer to political rather than cultural or religious identities. The presumption that there are “good” Muslims readily available to be split off from “bad” Muslims masks a failure to make a political analysis of our times. This book argues that political Islam emerged as the result of a modern encounter with Western power, and that the terrorist movement at the center of Islamist politics is an even more recent phenomenon, one that followed America’s embrace of proxy war after its defeat in Vietnam. Mamdani writes with great insight about the Reagan years, showing America’s embrace of the highly ideological politics of “good” against “evil.” Identifying militant nationalist governments as Soviet proxies in countries such as Nicaragua and Afghanistan, the Reagan administration readily backed terrorist movements, hailing them as the “moral equivalents” of America’s Founding Fathers. The era of proxy wars has come to an end with the invasion of Iraq. And there, as in Vietnam, America will need to recognize that it is not fighting terrorism but nationalism, a battle that cannot be won by occupation. Good Muslim, Bad Muslim is a provocative and important book that will profoundly change our understanding both of Islamist politics and the way America is perceived in the world today.

Hindu Nationalism in India

Hindu Nationalism in India PDF Author: Tanika Sarkar
Publisher: Hurst Publishers
ISBN: 1787387658
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 314

Get Book Here

Book Description
In the twenty-first century, there has been a seismic shift in Indian political, religious and social life. The country’s guiding spirit was formerly a fusion of the anti-caste worldview of B.R. Ambedkar; the inclusive Hinduism of Mahatma Gandhi; and the agnostic secularism of Jawaharlal Nehru. Today, that fusion has given way to Hindutva. This now-dominant version of Hinduism blends the militant nationalism of V.D. Savarkar; the Brahmanical anti-minorityism of M.S. Golwalkar; and the global Islamophobia of India’s ruling regime. It requires deep cultural analysis and historical understanding, as only the sharpest and most profoundly informed historian can provide. For two decades, Tanika Sarkar has forged a path through the alleys and byways of Hindutva. She has trawled through the writing and iconography of its organisations and institutions, including RSS schools and VHP temples. She has visited the offices and homes of Hindutva’s votaries, interviewing men and women who believe fervently in their mission of Hinduising India. And she has contextualised this new ferment on the ground with her formidable archival knowledge of Hindutva’s origins and development over 150 years, from Bankimchandra to the Babri mosque and beyond. This riveting book connects Hindu religious nationalism with the cultural politics of everyday India.

The Saffron Wave

The Saffron Wave PDF Author: Thomas Blom Hansen
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400823056
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 300

Get Book Here

Book Description
The rise of strong nationalist and religious movements in postcolonial and newly democratic countries alarms many Western observers. In The Saffron Wave, Thomas Hansen turns our attention to recent events in the world's largest democracy, India. Here he analyzes Indian receptivity to the right-wing Hindu nationalist party and its political wing, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which claims to create a polity based on "ancient" Hindu culture. Rather than interpreting Hindu nationalism as a mainly religious phenomenon, or a strictly political movement, Hansen places the BJP within the context of the larger transformations of democratic governance in India. Hansen demonstrates that democratic transformation has enabled such developments as political mobilization among the lower castes and civil protections for religious minorities. Against this backdrop, the Hindu nationalist movement has successfully articulated the anxieties and desires of the large and amorphous Indian middle class. A form of conservative populism, the movement has attracted not only privileged groups fearing encroachment on their dominant positions but also "plebeian" and impoverished groups seeking recognition around a majoritarian rhetoric of cultural pride, order, and national strength. Combining political theory, ethnographic material, and sensitivity to colonial and postcolonial history, The Saffron Wave offers fresh insights into Indian politics and, by focusing on the links between democracy and ethnic majoritarianism, advances our understanding of democracy in the postcolonial world.

Love Jihadis

Love Jihadis PDF Author: Mihir Srivastava
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789389152326
Category : Communalism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description


Islamism and Democracy in India

Islamism and Democracy in India PDF Author: Irfan Ahmad
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400833795
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 329

Get Book Here

Book Description
Jamaat-e-Islami Hind is the most influential Islamist organization in India today. Founded in 1941 by Syed Abul Ala Maududi with the aim of spreading Islamic values in the subcontinent, Jamaat and its young offshoot, the Student Islamic Movement of India or SIMI, have been watched closely by Indian security services since September 11. In particular, SIMI has been accused of being behind terrorist bombings. This book is the first in-depth examination of India's Jamaat-e-Islami and SIMI, exploring political Islam's complex relationship with democracy and providing a rare window into the Islamist trajectory in a Muslim-minority context. Irfan Ahmad conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork at a school in the town of Aligarh, among student activists at Aligarh Muslim University, at a madrasa in Azamgarh, and during Jamaat's participation in elections in 2002. He deftly traces Jamaat's changing position in relation to India's secular democracy and the group's gradual ideological shift toward religious pluralism and tolerance. Ahmad demonstrates how the rise of militant Hindu nationalism since the 1980s--evident in the destruction of the Babri mosque and widespread violence against Muslims--led to SIMI's radicalization, its rejection of pluralism, and its call for jihad. Islamism and Democracy in India argues that when secular democracy is responsive to the traditions and aspirations of its Muslim citizens, Muslims in turn embrace pluralism and democracy. But when democracy becomes majoritarian and exclusionary, Muslims turn radical.

Hate Spin

Hate Spin PDF Author: Cherian George
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262035308
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Get Book Here

Book Description
How right-wing political entrepreneurs around the world use religious offense—both given and taken—to mobilize supporters and marginalize opponents. In the United States, elements of the religious right fuel fears of an existential Islamic threat, spreading anti-Muslim rhetoric into mainstream politics. In Indonesia, Muslim absolutists urge suppression of churches and minority sects, fostering a climate of rising intolerance. In India, Narendra Modi's radical supporters instigate communal riots and academic censorship in pursuit of their Hindu nationalist vision. Outbreaks of religious intolerance are usually assumed to be visceral and spontaneous. But in Hate Spin, Cherian George shows that they often involve sophisticated campaigns manufactured by political opportunists to mobilize supporters and marginalize opponents. Right-wing networks orchestrate the giving of offense and the taking of offense as instruments of identity politics, exploiting democratic space to promote agendas that undermine democratic values. George calls this strategy “hate spin”—a double-sided technique that combines hate speech (incitement through vilification) with manufactured offense-taking (the performing of righteous indignation). It is deployed in societies as diverse as Buddhist Myanmar and Orthodox Christian Russia. George looks at the world's three largest democracies, where intolerant groups within India's Hindu right, America's Christian right, and Indonesia's Muslim right are all accomplished users of hate spin. He also shows how the Internet and Google have opened up new opportunities for cross-border hate spin. George argues that governments must protect vulnerable communities by prohibiting calls to action that lead directly to discrimination and violence. But laws that try to protect believers' feelings against all provocative expression invariably backfire. They arm hate spin agents' offense-taking campaigns with legal ammunition. Anti-discrimination laws and a commitment to religious equality will protect communities more meaningfully than misguided attempts to insulate them from insult.

Indian Muslims

Indian Muslims PDF Author: Rafiq Zakaria
Publisher: Popular Prakashan
ISBN: 9788179912010
Category : Hindus
Languages : en
Pages : 624

Get Book Here

Book Description


The Oxford Handbook of Terrorism

The Oxford Handbook of Terrorism PDF Author: Erica Chenoweth
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191047139
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 824

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of Terrorism systematically integrates the substantial body of scholarship on terrorism and counterterrorism before and after 9/11. In doing so, it introduces scholars and practitioners to state of the art approaches, methods, and issues in studying and teaching these vital phenomena. This Handbook goes further than most existing collections by giving structure and direction to the fast-growing but somewhat disjointed field of terrorism studies. The volume locates terrorism within the wider spectrum of political violence instead of engaging in the widespread tendency towards treating terrorism as an exceptional act. Moreover, the volume makes a case for studying terrorism within its socio-historical context. Finally, the volume addresses the critique that the study of terrorism suffers from lack of theory by reviewing and extending the theoretical insights contributed by several fields - including political science, political economy, history, sociology, anthropology, criminology, law, geography, and psychology. In doing so, the volume showcases the analytical advancements and reflects on the challenges that remain since the emergence of the field in the early 1970s.

Malevolent Republic

Malevolent Republic PDF Author: K. S. Komireddi
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 178738005X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 303

Get Book Here

Book Description
After decades of imperfect secularism, presided over by an often corrupt Congress establishment, Nehru's diverse republic has yielded to Hindu nationalism. India is collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions. Since 2014, the ruling BJP has unleashed forces that are irreversibly transforming the country. Indian democracy, honed over decades, is now the chief enabler of Hindu extremism. Bigotry has been ennobled as a healthy form of self-assertion, and anti-Muslim vitriol has deluged the mainstream, with religious minorities living in terror of a vengeful majority. Congress now mimics Modi; other parties pray for a miracle. In this blistering critique of India from Indira Gandhi to the present, Komireddi lays bare the cowardly concessions to the Hindu right, convenient distortions of India's past and demeaning bribes to minorities that led to Modi's decisive electoral victory. If secularists fail to reclaim the republic from Hindu nationalists, Komireddi argues, India will become Pakistan by another name.