The indispensable centre: Ethnicity and politics in the Indian nation state

1990 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 521-539 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dipankar Gupta
Keyword(s):  
Nation State ◽  
Indian Nation ◽  
Ethnicity And Politics

Labels, Histories, Politics: Indian/South Asian Dance on the Global Stage

2008 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
AVANTHI MEDURI
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
First Century ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The South ◽  
Global Networks ◽  
Indian Nation ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The Uk

In this paper, I discuss issues revolving around history, historiography, alterity, difference and otherness concealed in the doubled Indian/South Asian label used to describe Indian/South Asian dance genres in the UK. The paper traces the historical genealogy of the South Asian label to US, Indian and British contexts and describes how the South Asian enunciation fed into Indian nation-state historiography and politics in the 1950s. I conclude by describing how Akademi: South Asian Dance, a leading London based arts organisation, explored the ambivalence in the doubled Indian/South Asian label by renaming itself in 1997, and forging new local/global networks of communication and artistic exchange between Indian and British based dancers and choreographers at the turn of the twenty-first century.

Patronage Government (1953–63)

2019 ◽  
pp. 138-204
Author(s):  
Aijaz Ashraf Wani
Keyword(s):  
Central Government ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The Third ◽  
The People ◽  
Indian Nation ◽  
Indian Secularism ◽  
Great Mass

The aggressive campaign by Praja Parishad in Jammu and Buddhist groups of Ladakh, assisted by Hindu nationalist forces in Delhi, deeply disillusioned Sheikh Abdullah. The nature of the revolt clashed sharply with the ideology of Abdullah which had prompted him to prefer India over Pakistan. Having got disillusioned with the expectations he had pinned on Indian secularism and India’s constitutional promises of sovereignty, Sheikh voiced his disappointment publicly and drifted towards a position in support of plebiscite which led to his widely condemned dismissal. The deposition of Sheikh Abdullah in 1953, replaced by Bakhshi, created a storm in Kashmir followed by the formation of Plebiscite Front under the patronage of Abdullah. At the same time the central government had the urgency to further integrate Kashmir with India which the popular leader, Abdullah had resisted. Thus emerged the need of Gramsci’s ‘expansive hegemony’ to obtain the consent of the great mass of the people willingly and actively to the ruling establishment. The third chapter engages with the steps taken by Bakhshi under the patronage of the central government to change the tide in favour of the Indian nation-state and their impact.

Imagining the Post-colonial Lawyer: Legal Elites and the Indian Nation-State, 1947–1967

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 156-186
Author(s):  
Alexander WILLIAMS
Keyword(s):  
Public Law ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Indian Politics ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
Supreme Court Of India ◽  
British Rule ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Indian Nation

AbstractA key feature of British rule in India was the formation of a class of elite metropolitan lawyers who had an outsized role within the legal profession and a prominent position in Indian politics. This paper analyzes the response of these legal elites to the shifting social and political terrain of post-colonial India, arguing that the advent of the Indian nation-state shaped the discursive strategies of elite lawyers in two crucial ways. First, in response to the slipping grasp of lawyers on Indian political life and increasing competition from developmentalist economics, the elite bar turned their attention towards the consolidation of a national professional identity, imagining an ‘Indian advocate’ as such, whose loyalty would ultimately lie with the nation-state. Second, the creation of the Supreme Court of India, the enactment of the Constitution of India, and the continuous swelling of the post-colonial regulatory welfare state partially reoriented the legal elite towards public law, particularly towards the burgeoning field of administrative law.

Citizens, the Smoking Guns of AFSPA and Bare Life in Northeast India

2020 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 351-367
Author(s):  
Vibha Arora
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Northeast India ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Bare Life ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
Indian Government ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Disturbed Areas ◽  
Indian Nation

At the heart of ‘Indian nation-state making’ in the post-colonial context is dominant imagery and imaginary of Indian-ness, and there is an uncertain relationship between legitimate and illegitimate violence, and debate on integration and coercion of diverse nationalities in this state-nation. The ethnic nationalities of India’s Northeast have not been well integrated into the Indian imaginary and share a sense of belonging. Insurgency shapes the politics of this borderland and fuels secessionist aspirations and led to a demarcation of disturbed areas and exceptional citizens. Following Foucault and Agamben, I highlight the immense ‘unchecked’ sovereignty and biopolitical control of the Indian government to demarcate zones of democratic exception in Northeast India and enforce laws such as the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) to perpetuate its domination, militarise and radically decide on matters of life. The law is draconian in its implications and I review some of the extant literature that reveals the ‘bare life’ enjoyed by some Indian citizens. Integrating ethnographic voices from Manipur, this paper deepens our critical perspective on the AFSPA to understand its fundamental impact on everyday life and routine violence in Manipur and the consequent emigration of its citizens.

Between Science and Religion: An Astrological Interpretation of the Asian Tsunami in India

2008 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 234-249
Author(s):  
Liang Yongjia
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
Indian Society ◽  
Indian Ocean Tsunami ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
Indian Nation ◽  
The Indian Ocean

AbstractAstrology plays an important role in Indian social life. Indian astrologers' claim to have accurately predicted the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, or the Asian Tsunami, was an effort to legitimize astrology as a full science. This effort demonstrates a difficulty in knowledge categorization, for in India, astrology is neither classified as a science nor as a religion. This is a result of the idea of an Indian nation-state, which rests upon both science and religion as foundations, but at the expense of expelling astrology from religion for not being scientific. However, as astrology continues to be important in India, the astrological interpretation of the Indian Ocean Tsunami drew substantial public attention. Astrology's significant presence in Indian society shows the role of a mature civil society in India as well.

Modernism in Kannada Literature

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. B. Tharakeshwar
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Modernist Poetry ◽  
Progressive Movement ◽  
Indian Nation ◽  
The Common ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Jawaharlal Nehru ◽  
Literary Renaissance

Modernism, known in Kannada as ‘Navya’, emerged as a literary movement in the 1950s. This period saw writers deliberately moving away from the Romanticism of the Navodaya period, which is considered an age of literary renaissance shaped by complex interaction with colonialism and the West. In contrast to Navodaya, which reflected nationalist sentiments, the Navya period emerged in the context of the formation of the Indian nation-state. The newly formed Indian nation-state aroused considerable expectations, and their betrayal led to anti-Congress (the ruling party), anti-Jawaharlal Nehru (the first Prime Minister of India) sentiments among the intellectuals and the literati. It was a post-Gandhi era of disappointment and disillusionment in literature. Navya was also partly in response to the leftist progressive movement, called Pragatisheela in Kannada, which arose in 1940s and continued in the 1950s. Pragatisheela literature, prominent in short stories and novels, focused on social issues such as poverty, the importance of context in shaping one’s personality, and the plight of the common man, and it employed realistic narration. Modernist poetry was shaped by its opposition to Navodaya writing, while modernist short stories and novels emerged as a reaction to Pragatisheela literature.

Adiga, Gopalakrishna (1918–1992)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. B. Tharakeshwar
Keyword(s):  
Focal Point ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Indian Nation ◽  
The Future ◽  
Jawaharlal Nehru ◽  
Opposition Parties ◽  
Literary Circles

Mogeri Gopalakrishna Adiga was the focal point of the modernist movement in Kannada. Hailing from a small village in South Karnataka, he moved to Mysore for his studies and worked in various places, but settled at a later stage of his career in Mysore. He taught English literature in colleges in Mysore and was the principal of a college in Sagar and in Udipi. He seems to have started writing in his twenties, initially imitating old Kannada poetry in his use of prosody. However, he soon shifted to writing in the mode of the Navodaya writers. This is evident in his first two collections of poems—Bhaavataranga (1946) and KattuvevuNaavu (1948). In these volumes, he shared a new enthusiasm for the anti-colonial struggle and dreamt of an ideal India for the future. He felt that with the transfer of power and the formation of the Indian nation-state, the dreams of his generation were belied. This led to a sense of disillusionment, turning him into a bitter critic of the Congress and of Jawaharlal Nehru. The Jansangh and Ram Manohar Lohia’s Party were the main opposition parties at that time. He translated Lohia’s Wheel of History as Itihasa Chakra (1972). In 1967 he unsuccessfully contested election to the Parliament as a candidate of the Hindu right-wing party Jan Sangh, which earned him several enemies in literary circles.

Inquisitive Legacies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Benedito Ferrão
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Indian Nation ◽  
City State ◽  
Political Right

In keeping with the shift of the modern Indian nation-state to the religio-political right, minority legacies in such regions as the Malabar and Konkan coasts are either being obfuscated or rehistoricized. To prove my point, I employ two botanical texts from the 16th and 17th centuries. The former, the Colóquios dos Simples e Drogas e Cousas Medicinias da Índia, was written by Garcia da Orta, a Jewish-Catholic converso who lived and died in Portuguese Goa under the threat of the Inquisition. In its efforts to represent its past and present as a modern quasi city-state in line with other Indian metros, the Goan State chose, in 2012, to commemorate the 17th century Hortus Malabaricus, an ecological treatise that, curiously, comes from the Malabar, because among its contributors were Saraswat Brahmins with a dubious connection to Goan history. That this commemoration occurred on the uncelebrated 450th anniversary publication of da Orta's opus - one of the earliest texts to be published in South Asia - underscores the State's investment in legacy-making and forgetting.

Internal Violence: The “Police Action” in Hyderabad

2015 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 435-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sunil Purushotham
Keyword(s):  
State Formation ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Peninsular India ◽  
Alternative Perspective ◽  
Indian Nation ◽  
Police Action ◽  
Princely State

AbstractThrough an examination of the September 1948 event known as the “Police Action,” this article argues that “internal violence” was an important engine of state formation in India in the period following independence in 1947. The mid-century ruptures in the subcontinent were neither incidental to nor undermining of the nascent Indian nation-state project—they were constitutive events through which a new state and regime of sovereignty emerged. A dispersal and mobilization of violence in and around the princely state of Hyderabad culminated in an event of violence directed primarily at Hyderabad's Muslims during and just after the Police Action. This violent mediation of the incorporation of India's Muslims into the postcolonial order left significant legacies in subsequent decades. These events in the heart of peninsular India, and the processes behind them, have remained largely invisible or obscured in the historical record. Here I substantially revise the historiography of what happened in Hyderabad, and draw on my findings to offer an alternative perspective on decolonization in India.

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