Showing papers on "Communalism published in 2006"

Philosophical Perspectives on Communalism and Morality in African Traditions

Abstract: Chapter 1 Methodological and Metaphilosophical Issues Chapter 2 African Conceptions of Personhood and Community Chapter 3 Moral Philosophy, Communalism, and Morality Chapter 4 Oral Tradition, Narratives, and Moral Education Chapter 5 Communalism and Epistemic Authoritarianism Chapter 6 Moral Education, Rationality, and Indoctrination Chapter 7 Reflections on Communalism, Responsibility, and Liberal Criticisms

Making India Hindu and Male: Cultural Nationalism and the Emergence of the Ethnic Citizen in Contemporary India

Abstract: Speaking in the discourse of a culture and tradition in which the notion of the ‘national’ is equal to ‘hindu’, articulated to jargons of authenticity, foreignness and ‘sons of the soil’ criteria of citizenship, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its base community of the hindu right in India hope to hegemonize the Indian political terrain. This article revisits Marx’s and Gramsci’s notions and critiques of civil society, ideology and hegemony to analyse the cultural politics of the hindu right, which through an aggressive masculinity and organized violence attempts to erase muslims from the national space.

Whose Homeland? Territoriality and Religious Nationalism in Pre-Partition Bengal

Abstract: Scholarly inquiries into communalism in South Asia have often exclusively focused on politically constructed religious and ethnic identity categories. This article challenges these assumptions by arguing that territoriality and the designation of homelands played an important, but largely unrecognized, role in developing social and political boundaries in the region. By analyzing the writings of Bipin Chandra Pal during the Swadeshi period, this article points to the territorialization of a Hindu-based version of the national homeland as a key process in the development of communal difference in Bengal and South Asia more generally. It is concluded that the Hindu-dominated rhetoric of the early nationalist movement implicitly marked Hindus as the only true members of the nation. By implicitly excluding all other forms of social affiliations from the narrative of the homeland, it is argued that the stage was set for the contestation of territorial identity categories that played out through the 20th centur...

Confessions of a Secular Fundamentalist

Abstract: Ever since the Babri Masjid dispute in 1986, the debate over secularism and communalism has been revived in all its sound and fury. It now occupies centre stage in our public discourse. In "Confessions of a Secular Fundamentalist", Mani Shankar Aiyar, crusader for a secular credo, calls for an unambiguous and decisive restoration of secularism to the core of our nationhood. In doing so, he revisits every dimension of our secular ethos and exposes the various myths perpetuated by communal elements of all hues. Putting under the scanner contentious issues like conversions, uniform civil code and Article 370, he nails the falsehood underlying terms like 'pseudo-secularism', 'appeasement' and 'soft Hindutva'. And he places the domestic debate over secularism in India in the wider external dimension by discussing the experiences of countries like Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Israel and erstwhile Yugoslavia. Admitting to wearing his secularism on his sleeve, Aiyar reasons that only a determined and inflexible adherence to secularism can counter religious bigotry and fundamentalism.

The Holocaust of Indian Partition: An Inquest

Abstract: The partition of India was a traumatic event. Apart from destroying the unity of India, the two-nation theory created a divided between the Muslims and non-Muslims which has not been easy to bridge. But, more important was its tremendous human cost-loss of about a million people. This holocaust, which Nehru described as a man-made Greek tragedy, is the focus of this book. Based on extensive and in-depth research, it sheds new light on several important issuses. The book surveys the critical eighteen-month period preceding the transfer of power which saw widespread communal hatred and violence. The poison of communalism had seeped so deep that it should have been evident to anyone that transfer of power was not going to be peaceful. But, the British and the leaders of the two would be dominions India and Pakistan failed to see this writing on the wall. The book vividly brings out the holocaust, makes a clinical and thorough inquest, and concludes that, with foresight and planning, its extent and severity could have been reduced substantially. Analysis of such a monumental tragedy inevitable leads to a critical appraisal of the role played by the authors of the tragedy, and the actors who played a part in it-on stage, backstage and in the wings.