Explores The Construction Of New Classes. Caste, Religion And Gender Identities In Colonial Punjab. Examines How The Notion Of Being High Caste-Contributed To The Formation Of A Middle Class Among The Hindus And The Sikhs. 5 Chapters-Conclusion, Bibliography, Index.
This Book Focuses On How The Notion Of Being `High Caste`, As It Developed And Transformed During The Colonial Period, Contributed, To The Formation Of A `Middle Class` Among The Hindus And The Sikhs.
'Caste' is today almost universally perceived as an ancient and unchanging Hindu institution preserved solely by a deep-seated religious ideology. Yet the word itself is an importation from sixteenth-century Europe. This book tracks the long history of the practices amalgamated under this label and shows their connection to changing patterns of social and political power down to the present. It frames caste as an involuted and complex form of ethnicity and explains why it persisted under non-Hindu rulers and in non-Hindu communities across South Asia.
Appropriating Gender explores the paradoxical relationship of women to religious politics in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. Contrary to the hopes of feminists, many women have responded to religious nationalist appeals; contrary to the hopes of religious nationalists, they have also asserted their gender, class, caste, and religious identities; contrary to the hopes of nation states, they have often challenged state policies and practices. Through a comparative South Asia perspective, Appropriating Gender explores the varied meanings and expressions of gender identity through time, by location, and according to political context. The first work to focus on women's agency and activism within the South Asian context, Appropriating Gender is an outstanding contribution to the field of gender studies.
Caste and gender are complex markers of difference that have traditionally been addressed in isolation from each other, with a presumptive maleness present in most studies of Dalits (“untouchables”) and a presumptive upper-casteness in many feminist studies. In this study of the representations of Dalits in the print culture of colonial north India, Charu Gupta enters new territory by looking at images of Dalit women as both victims and vamps, the construction of Dalit masculinities, religious conversion as an alternative to entrapment in the Hindu caste system, and the plight of indentured labor. The Gender of Caste uses print as a critical tool to examine the depictions of Dalits by colonizers, nationalists, reformers, and Dalits themselves and shows how differentials of gender were critical in structuring patterns of domination and subordination.
Can a state empower its citizens by classifying them? Or do reservation policies reinforce the very categories they are meant to eradicate? Indian reservation policies on government jobs, legislative seats and university admissions for disadvantaged groups, like affirmative action policies elsewhere, are based on the premise that recognizing group distinctions in society is necessary to subvert these distinctions. Yet the official identification of eligible groups has unintended side-effects on identity politics. Bridging theories which emphasize the fluidity of identities and those which highlight the utility of group-based mobilizations and policies, this book exposes didactic enforcement of categorizations, while recognizing the social and political gains facilitated by group-based strategies.
Religious Identity and Political Destiny: "Hindutva" in the Culture of Ethnicism is an ethnography of a contentious on-going debate about the place of religion in Indian civic life. Exploring Hindu nationalism from the varied perspectives of its critics in women's activist and Left intellectual circles, its ideologues, supporters, and sympathizers, Deepa S. Reddy locates "Hindutva" in a broader culture of critique in which identity movements of all kinds compete for recognition, representation, and rights. This book will be of interest to anthropologists, historians, and sociologists, as well as readers of ethno-nationalist movements, religion, activism, global feminisms, and all matters Indian/South Asian.
Religious identity constitutes a key element in the formation, development and sustenance of South Asian diasporic communities. Through studies of South Asian communities situated in multiple locales, this book explores the role of religious identity in the social and political organization of the diaspora. It accounts for the factors that underlie the modification of ritual practice in the process of resettlement, and considers how multicultural policies in the adopted state, trans-generational changes and the proliferation of transnational media has impacted the development of these identities in the diaspora. Also crucial is the gender dimension, in terms of how religion and caste affect women’s roles in the South Asian diaspora. What emerges then from the way separate communities in the diaspora negotiate religion are diverse patterns that are strategic and contingent. Yet, paradoxically, the dynamic and evolving relationship between religion and diaspora becomes necessary, even imperative, for sustaining a cohesive collective identity in these communities. This bookw as published as a special issue of South Asian Diaspora.
The population of the South Asian Diaspora in the US is over 2.5 million people. Yet in a post 9/11 climate of opinion, little is known about this group beyond images of Muslim and Hindu fundamentalists and terrorists. This is particularly true of women where simplistic assumptions about veils and subordination obscure the voices of the women themselves. Rarely are Hindu and Muslim American women—many of whom are social workers, physicians, lawyers, academics, students, homemakers—asked about their everyday lives and religious beliefs. Living our Religions brings out these hidden stories from South Asian American women of Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Indian and Nepali origin. Their accounts show how diverse and culturally dynamic religious practices emerge within the intersection of histories and politics of specific locales. The authors describe the race, gender, and ethnic boundaries they encounter; they also document how they resist and challenge these boundaries. Living our Religions cuts through the myths and ethnocentrism of popular portrayals to reveal the vibrancy, courage and agency of an invisible minority. Other Contributors: Shobha Hamal Gurung, Selina Jamil, Salma Kamal, Shweta Majumdar, Bidya Ranjeet, Shanthi Rao, Aysha Saeed, Monoswita Saha, Neela, Bhattacharya Saxena, Parveen Talpur, Elora Halim Chowdhury and Rafia Zakaria