Showing papers on "Communalism published in 1995"

The Colors of Violence: Cultural Identities, Religion, and Conflict

Abstract: For decades India has been the scene of outbursts of religious violence, thrusting many ordinary Hindus and Muslims into bloody conflict. This work analyzes the psychological roots of Hindu-Muslim violence and examines the subjective experience of religious hatred in the author's native land. Sudhir Kakar discusses the profoundly enigmatic relations that link individual egos to cultural moralities and religious violence. His psychological approach offers a framework for understanding the kind of ethnic-religious conflict that characterizes the turmoil in India. Using case studies, he explores cultural stereotypes, religious antagonisms, ethnocentric histories and episodic violence to trace the development of both Hindu and Muslim psyches. Kakar argues that in early childhood the social identity of every Indian is grounded in traditional religious identifications and communalism. Together these bring about deep-set psychological anxieties and animosities toward the other. For Hindus and Muslims alike, violence becomes morally acceptable when communally and religiously sanctioned. As the changing pressures of modernization and secularism in a multicultural society grate at this entrenched communalism, and as each group vies for power, ethnic-religious conflicts ignite. Sudhir Kakar is also the author of "The Analyst and the Mystic: Psychoanalytic Reflections on Religion and Mysticism", "Intimate Relations: Exploring Indian Sexuality" and "Shamans, Mystics and Doctors: A Psychological Inquiry into India and its Healing Traditions", all published by the University of Chicago Press.

Early Modern Democracy in the Grisons: Social Order and Political Language in a Swiss Mountain Canton, 1470–1620

Abstract: Acknowledgments List of illustrations Note on languages, orthography and abbreviations Introduction: social order, politics, and political language in the Grisons, 1470-1520 1. Communalism and other political models in Europe and the Grisons 2. Rhaetia to 1520: geography, society, history 3. Local practice and federal government in the Freestate 4. From consolidation to communal politics, c. 1580-1620 5. Elite power and popular constraint in sixteenth-century Rhaetia 6. Reform, communal action and crisis, c. 1580-1620 7. Political language and political cosmology during the crisis years, 1617-22 Conclusion: democracy in early modern Rhaetia.

The communist insurrection, 1948-1953

Abstract: The origins for the emergency, Feb-Sept 1948, Document numbers 139-167 Combating communism and communalism: diagnoses and prescriptions, Oct 1948-Dec 1950, Document numbers 168-205 Combating communism and communalism: progress and frustration, Mar 1950-Oct 1951, Document numbers 206-247 Changes at the top, Oct 1951-Feb 1952, Document numbers 248-268 Fulfilling the directive: Templer's regime to the declaration of the first 'white area', Feb 1952-Aug 1953, Document numbers 269-303.

Democracy, Nationalism, And Communalism: The Colonial Legacy In South Asia

Abstract: Democracy, nationalism and communalism - a Gramscian framework for analysis British colonial rule and India's class structure colonialism, nationalism and communalism the colonial state and democracy colonial Hindu politics - the leading classes and democracy the Indian National Congress and the politics of "liberalism", "extremism" and "nationalism" the subaltern classes and Indian democracy colonial Muslim politics - the colonial state and the Muslims the Raj and the Muslim landlords Muslim provincial politics the league in Muslim politics.

Farmers' movements and cultural nationalism in India: An ambiguous relationship

Abstract: How do the New Farmers' Movements relate to cultural and political nationalism in India today? The farmers' agitations and communalism Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh represent the two major kinds of social and political mobilizations in the past two decades in India that have come to influence national politics. The former type of movement is largely represented by democratically oriented, secular-interest organizations in the context of an increasingly state-directed capitalist agricultural economy. The latter, by contrast, are ethnic (cultural and political) movements that seek to damage the multi-ethnic character of the Indian state and society by attempting to enforce a social order based on particular religious and cultural values. This might lead one to believe that the two types of movements are completely at variance with each other, and that the strengthening of democracy would depend on the progressive development of secular interest organizations like the farmers' movements, whilst the increased proliferation of cultural identities and movements, on the other hand, would thwart efforts at secular mobilizations and democratic decision-making in a multi-cultural society.

Catholics, Buddhists, and the Church of England: The 1883 Sri Lankan Riots

Abstract: In his discussion of community formation, Benedict Anderson argues that communal identity is not "natural" but rather is constructed, dynamic, and fluid. He views identity as "imagined" by people who are linked together by the print medium, which has the power to consolidate despite great distances or geographic boundaries.' The development of Catholic identity in Sri Lanka, a predominantly Buddhist country, provides an interesting example of the fluid nature of communalism that Anderson addresses. In this paper, I explore the changing identity of Sri Lankan Catholics in the colonial and postcolonial periods, especially as it appears in the 1992 Kandalama project controversy and the 1883 Kotahena riots. In regard to this, I argue that, although in the present Sri Lankans cast identity predominantly in terms of markers such as Sinhala, Tamil, Burgher, or Moor, only one hundred years ago they cast it in terms of religion. As we shall see, the study of Catholic identity in Sri Lanka affords an interesting instance of the way in which communal identity is constructed and deconstructed in response to various historical exigencies.

Communalism and Indian Princely States: a comparison with British India

Abstract: Communalism and Indian Princely States A Comparison with British India Dick Kooiman In the study of communalism, the colonial policy of separate electorates for religious minorities has often been put forward as a powerful explanatory factor But a comparison of British India and the princely states of Baroda and Travanc'ore, which had no separate electorates, suggests that such arrangements had less influence on the formation of communal identities than has generally been assumed. Rather, the demand for separate electorates may have been an effect rather than a cause of communalism.

In the Shadow of History: The Passing of Lineage Society

Abstract: The spread of modernity throughout the non-Western world has had transformative effects not only on governments and economies but on the lives of individuals as well. The constraints and opportunities of modernization inevitably lead to the breakdown and supplanting of older social relations and livelihoods. In this volume Andrew P. Davidson examines the Nuba Mountain region of western Sudan to show how individuals and families struggle to maintain or expand their well-being in the face of continuous uncertainty, when control of their destinies is increasingly slipping out of the comforting confines of the village. As in many third world regions, changes in agriculture and market activity have occurred in the Nuba mountains in a far more compressed tune frame than in Europe. Davidson charts the social effects of the rationalization process by concentrating on the household as a mediating structure between the individual and the larger society. In his analysis the livelihood strategies of households act as a microcosm for the unevenness of development that is characteristic of modernizing economies. Davidson offers a comparative and historical examination of economic life in three villages in order to better understand the capacities and limitations that ultimately condition what people can and cannot do. He shows how the older lineage system based on communalism, kinship, and age-based hierarchy is being displaced by new forces of social organization and individual orientation which have eroded village cohesion and left the Nuba vulnerable to the Islamic-dominated government in Khartoum and the ravages of the continuing Sudanese civil war. In its combination of empirical analysis, ethnographic fieldwork, and theoretical inquiry "In the Shadow of History "reconceptualizes development in such a way that the dynamics of historical transformation are made clear. This study hi the classic anthropological tradition will be a valuable resource for anthropologists, economists, historians, and Africa area specialists.