Religion, Caste, and Nation in South India

Religion, Caste, and Nation in South India PDF Author: V. Ravi Vaithees
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780199451814
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Departing sharply from the principal focus on language and the 'secular-modern' in contemporary nationalism studies, this volume examines the religious roots of nationalism, specifically the religious roots of non-Brahmin Tamil nationalism and the Dravidian movement in India. The book argues that it was the anti-Aryan, anti-Sanskritic imperatives and spirit of the neo-Saivite movement that came to inform and animate the neo-Saivite readings of the Tamil and Indian past and indeed the articulation of neo-Saivism as a form of non-Brahmin Tamil nationalism.

Religion, Caste, and Nation in South India

Religion, Caste, and Nation in South India PDF Author: V. Ravi Vaithees
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780199451814
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Departing sharply from the principal focus on language and the 'secular-modern' in contemporary nationalism studies, this volume examines the religious roots of nationalism, specifically the religious roots of non-Brahmin Tamil nationalism and the Dravidian movement in India. The book argues that it was the anti-Aryan, anti-Sanskritic imperatives and spirit of the neo-Saivite movement that came to inform and animate the neo-Saivite readings of the Tamil and Indian past and indeed the articulation of neo-Saivism as a form of non-Brahmin Tamil nationalism.

Christians and Public Life in Colonial South India, 1863-1937

Christians and Public Life in Colonial South India, 1863-1937 PDF Author: Chandra Mallampalli
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134350244
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 645

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Book Description
This book tells the story of how Catholic and Protestant Indians have attempted to locate themselves within the evolving Indian nation. Ironically, British rule in India did not privilege Christians, but pushed them to the margins of a predominantly Hindu society. Drawing upon wide-ranging sources, the book first explains how the Indian judiciary's 'official knowledge' isolated Christians from Indian notions of family, caste and nation. It then describes how different varieties and classes of Christians adopted, resisted and reshaped both imperial and nationalist perceptions of their identity. Within a climate of rising communal tension in India, this study finds immediate relevance.

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.

The New Wind

The New Wind PDF Author: Kenneth David
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110807750
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 557

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Book Description


Religion, Caste, and Politics in India

Religion, Caste, and Politics in India PDF Author: Christophe Jaffrelot
Publisher: Primus Books
ISBN: 9380607040
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 835

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Book Description
Following independence, the Nehruvian approach to socialism in India rested on three pillars: secularism and democracy in the political domain, state intervention in the economy, and diplomatic non-alignment mitigated by pro-Soviet leanings after the 1960s. These features defined a distinct "Indian model," if not the country's political identity. From this starting point, Christophe Jaffrelot traces the transformation of India throughout the latter half of the twentieth century, particularly the 1980s and 90s. The world's largest democracy has sustained itself by embracing not only the vernacular politicians of linguistic states, but also Dalits and "Other Backward Classes," or OBCs. The simultaneous--and related--rise of Hindu nationalism has put minorities--and secularism--on the defensive. In many ways the rule of law has been placed on trial as well. The liberalization of the economy has resulted in growth, yet not necessarily development, and India has acquired a new global status, becoming an emerging power intent on political and economic partnerships with Asia and the West. The traditional Nehruvian system is giving way to a less cohesive though more active India, a country that has become what it is against all odds. Jaffrelot maps this tumultuous journey, exploring the role of religion, caste, and politics in determining the fabric of a modern democratic state.

Ritual, Caste, and Religion in Colonial South India

Ritual, Caste, and Religion in Colonial South India PDF Author: Michael Bergunder
Publisher: Primus Books
ISBN: 9380607210
Category : India
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description


The Pariah Problem

The Pariah Problem PDF Author: Rupa Viswanath
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231537506
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
Once known as "Pariahs," Dalits are primarily descendants of unfree agrarian laborers. They belong to India's most subordinated castes, face overwhelming poverty and discrimination, and provoke public anxiety. Drawing on a wealth of previously untapped sources, this book follows the conception and evolution of the "Pariah Problem" in public consciousness in the 1890s. It shows how high-caste landlords, state officials, and well-intentioned missionaries conceived of Dalit oppression, and effectively foreclosed the emergence of substantive solutions to the "Problem"—with consequences that continue to be felt today. Rupa Viswanath begins with a description of the everyday lives of Dalit laborers in the 1890s and highlights the systematic efforts made by the state and Indian elites to protect Indian slavery from public scrutiny. Protestant missionaries were the first non-Dalits to draw attention to their plight. The missionaries' vision of the Pariahs' suffering as being a result of Hindu religious prejudice, however, obscured the fact that the entire agrarian political–economic system depended on unfree Pariah labor. Both the Indian public and colonial officials came to share a view compatible with missionary explanations, which meant all subsequent welfare efforts directed at Dalits focused on religious and social transformation rather than on structural reform. Methodologically, theoretically, and empirically, this book breaks new ground to demonstrate how events in the early decades of state-sponsored welfare directed at Dalits laid the groundwork for the present day, where the postcolonial state and well-meaning social and religious reformers continue to downplay Dalits' landlessness, violent suppression, and political subordination.

The Politics of Cultural Nationalism in South India

The Politics of Cultural Nationalism in South India PDF Author: Marguerite Ross Barnett
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400867185
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
In this book Processor Barnett analyzes a successful political movement in South India that used cultural nationalism as a positive force for change. By exploring the history of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party, the author provides a new perspective on political identity. In so doing, she challenges the interpretation of cultural nationalism as a product of atavistic and primordial forces that poses an inherent threat to the integrity of territorially defined nation-states and thus to the progress of modernization. The founding of the DMK party in 1949, the author shows, was a turning point in the political history of Tamil Nadu, South India, because it ushered in the era of Tamil cultural nationalism. In the hands of the DMK, Tamil nationalism became an ideology of mass mobilization and thus shaped the articulation of political demands for a generation. The author analyzes the social, political, and economic factors that gave rise to cultural nationalism; the interplay between cultural nationalist leaders; and the role of cultural nationalism in a heterogeneous nation-state. Originally published in 1976. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Castes and Tribes of Southern India

Castes and Tribes of Southern India PDF Author: Edgar Thurston
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Caste
Languages : en
Pages : 536

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Book Description


Annihilation of Caste

Annihilation of Caste PDF Author: B.R. Ambedkar
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 178168832X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 391

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Book Description
“What the Communist Manifesto is to the capitalist world, Annihilation of Caste is to India.” —Anand Teltumbde, author of The Persistence of Caste The classic work of Indian Dalit politics, reframed with an extensive introduction by Arundathi Roy B.R. Ambedkar’s Annihilation of Caste is one of the most important, yet neglected, works of political writing from India. Written in 1936, it is an audacious denunciation of Hinduism and its caste system. Ambedkar – a figure like W.E.B. Du Bois – offers a scholarly critique of Hindu scriptures, scriptures that sanction a rigidly hierarchical and iniquitous social system. The world’s best-known Hindu, Mahatma Gandhi, responded publicly to the provocation. The hatchet was never buried. Arundhati Roy introduces this extensively annotated edition of Annihilation of Caste in “The Doctor and the Saint,” examining the persistence of caste in modern India, and how the conflict between Ambedkar and Gandhi continues to resonate. Roy takes us to the beginning of Gandhi’s political career in South Africa, where his views on race, caste and imperialism were shaped. She tracks Ambedkar’s emergence as a major political figure in the national movement, and shows how his scholarship and intelligence illuminated a political struggle beset by sectarianism and obscurantism. Roy breathes new life into Ambedkar’s anti-caste utopia, and says that without a Dalit revolution, India will continue to be hobbled by systemic inequality.