EVERYDAY NATIONALISM

Women of the Hindu Right in India

Kalyani Devaki Menon

"Menon argues that central to the popularity and success of Hindu nationalism is its willingness to accommodate groups whose beliefs and practices may be incongruous with the movement's mainstream. . . . An excellent study of a timely issue."
—Choice


"Everyday Nationalism is an important book for understanding the dynamics and rationale of hindutva ideology. Kalyani Menon's brilliant reconstruction reveals women as the key to the Hindu nationalist goal to establish India as a Hindu nation."
—Missiology: An International Review


"Menon provides a vivid portrait of the everyday lives of Hindu nationalist women. A witty, candid, unassuming ethnographer, she combines critical self-reflection with critical insights into the women she studies. Everyday Nationalism is an important contribution to scholarship in women's studies, South Asian studies, and anthropology."
—Amrita Basu, Amherst College

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272pp  215x140 mm  Hardback   4 illustrations

Published  price Rs 650

ISBN 978-81-87358-68-8

Pub date May 2012

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To understand the expansionary power of Hindu nationalism, Kalyani Menon argues, it is critical to examine the everyday constructions of politics and ideology through which activists garner support at the grassroots level. Based on fieldwork with women in several Hindu nationalist organizations, Menon explores how these activists use gendered constructions of religion, history, national insecurity, and social responsibility to recruit individuals from a variety of backgrounds. As Hindu nationalism extends its reach to appeal to increasingly diverse groups, she explains, it is forced to acknowledge a multiplicity of positions within the movement. She argues that Hindu nationalism's willingness to accommodate dissonance is central to understanding the popularity of the movement.
Everyday Nationalism contends that the Hindu nationalist movement's power to attract and maintain constituencies with incongruous beliefs and practices is key to its growth. The book reveals that the movement's success is facilitated by its ability to become meaningful in people's daily lives, resonating with their constructions of the past, appealing to their fears in the present, presenting itself as the protector of the country's citizens, and inventing traditions through the use of Hindu texts, symbols, and rituals to unite people in a sense of belonging to a nation.




Contents


Note on Transliteration
Introduction
Chapter One: Everyday Histories
Chapter Two: National Insecurities
Chapter Three: Violent Dharma
Chapter Four: Benevolent Hindus
Chapter Five: Fun, Games, and Deadly Politics
Chapter Six: Acceptable Transgressions
Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments


Kalyani Devaki Menon teaches religious studies at DePaul University.

ECONOMICS AND ITS STORIES

Amal Sanyal

The narrative of the book starts with the birth of economics from a confused pool of societal anxieties of pre-industrial Europe. It then follows up its growth into a self-conscious and assertive discipline.

Along the account appear the colourful eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries gurus – Smith, Ricardo, Marx, Walras, Keynes and many others. The narrative strings together the events and traditions of the era of these mentors with the economics they developed and controversies around them. In the process it explains the concepts that are indispensable for understanding our economic world today. It has chapters on the theory of markets; market failure and the role of the government; the labour market and unemployment; money and finance; international economics and globalisation; and economic development. The book’s lucid style demystifies technical terminology and goes to the heart of the matter.

It should appeal to the interested general reader as well as specialists and students.

Amal Sanyal teaches economics at Lincoln University, New Zealand. He has taught and interacted with many other universities, including Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, where he has worked for many years. He held the State Bank of India Chair on public policy for some time and was an economic advisor to the Government of Mauritius for a number of years. He has wide research interests and has published a large number of research articles and a few books. His current research includes issues of governance, corruption and public policy.

Contents

1. Introduction   

2. Scarcity, Opportunity Cost and Efficiency 

3. Imperfect Markets, Monopoly and all that

4. Market Failure and Government Failure

5. Labour Market, Unemployment and Keynes

6. After Keynes       

7. Money, Banks and Finance

8. International Issues

9. Economic Growth and Development

10. Conclusion

SAVAGE ATTACK

Tribal Insurgency in South Asia

Edited by Crispin Bates and Alpa Shah

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280pp 215x140 mm Hardback

ISBN 978-81-87358-69-5

SOCIOLOGY, ANTHROPOLOGY, POLITICS, HISTORY

Pub date July 2012

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Indigenous resistance is getting redefined in the global context; in India, the Scheduled Tribes, or more popularly called adivasi people, have gained prominence in the armed left-wing Maoist insurgency. They have been used as the front for social movements protesting against the neoliberal developmental policies of the state and the large-scale displacements that have resulted. They have also ignited special interest as both victims and agents in the communal violence emerging from the expansionist activities of militant right-wing Hindu Nationalist parties.

In Savage Attack: Tribal Insurgency in South Asia the authors ask whether there is anything particularly adivasi about the forms of resistance that have been labelled as adivasi movements. What does it mean to speak about adivasi as opposed to peasant resistance? Can one differentiate adivasi resistance from that of other lower castes such as the dalits? In this volume the authors argue that there is nothing particularly 'adivasi' or 'tribal' about forms of resistance that are labelled as such. Rather, the crucial question is how and why particular forms of resistance are depicted as adivasi issues at particular points in time. One interpretation has depicted adivasis as a united and highly politicised group of people, and has romanticised tribal society and history, thus denying the individuals and communities involved any real agency. Both the interpretations of the state and of left-wing supporters of tribal insurgencies have continued to ignore the complex realities of tribal life, the exercise of 'practical reason' by tribal peoples in dealing with the many challenges facing their communities, and the true diversity in the expressions of political activism that have resulted across the length and breadth of the Indian subcontinent.

Contents

Introduction : Alpa Shah, Crispin Bates

1. We Shall Fight Them on the Beach: Counterinsurgency, Colonisation and the Andaman Islanders, 1771-1863: Satadru Sen

2. 'Natural Boundaries': Negotiating Land Rights and Establishing Rule in Northern East-Bengal, 1790s-1820s: Gunnel Cederlöf

3. From 'Natural Philosophy' to 'Political Ritual': An Ethno-historical Reading of the Colonial Sources on the Konds' Religion (Orissa): Raphaël Rousseleau

4. Locating Adivasi Identity in Colonial India: The Oraons and the Tana Bhagats in Chotanagpur, 1914-1919: Sangeeta Dasgupta

5. Tribal Armed Rebellion of 1922-1924 in the Madras Presidency: A Study of Causation as Colonial Legitimation: Atlury Murali

6. Events, Incidents and Accidents: Re-thinking Indigenous Resistance in the Andaman Islands: Vishvajit Pandya

7. The Making and Unmaking of an Adivasi Working Class in Western Orissa: Christian Strümpell

8. Adivasis and Communists in Post-Reform Kerala: Neoliberalism, Political Disillusionment, and the Indigenist Challenge: Luisa Steur

9. Thoughts on Religious Experience and 'Politics' in Adivasi India: An Anthropologist Attempts a Rereading of History: Amit Desai

10. Alcoholics Anonymous: The Maoist movement in Jharkhand, India: Alpa Shah