You may have to register before you can download all our books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Looks at the ideals of masculine Hinduism—and the corresponding feminine ideals—that have built the Indian nation, and explores their consequences.
Concerned chiefly with views and events of the 19th and 20th centuries. Discusses deviations from a putative ideal of femininity characterised by chastity and inactivity.
Interpretations of manhood have unfolded in India within a middle class cultural milieu shaped by an assertive self-confidence fuelled by liberalisation, a process by which India has been integrated into the global political economy and the prominence of Hindutva or Hindu nationalist politics. This book unpacks a particular gendered vision of nation in the modern Indian context by drawing on popular films. This muscular nationalism is an intersection of a specific vision of masculinity with the political doctrine of nationalism. The idea of nation is animated by an idea of manhood associated with martial prowess, muscular strength and toughness, but coupled with the image and construct of vi...
Natasha Behl uses ethnographic data from the Sikh community in India to upend longstanding assumptions about democracy, citizenship, religion, and gender. This book reveals that religious spaces can be sites for renegotiating democratic participation, and uncovers how some women engage in religious community in unexpected ways to link gender equality and religious freedom as shared goals. Gendered Citizenship is a groundbreaking inquiry that explains why the promise of democratic equality remains unrealized and identifies ways to create more egalitarian relations.
As the leading book in its field, Religion and Ethnicity in Canada has been embraced by scholars, teachers, students, and policy makers as a breakthrough study of Canadian religio-ethnic diversity and its impact on multiculturalism. A team of established scholars looks at the relationships between religious and ethnic identity in Canada's six largest minority religious communities: Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jews, Muslims and practitioners of Chinese religion. The chapters also highlight the ethnic diversity extant within these traditions in order to offer a more nuanced appreciation of the variety of lived experiences of members of these communities. Together, the contributors develop consistent themes throughout the volume, among them the changing nature of religious practice and ideas, current demographics, racism, and the role of women. Chapters related to the public policy issues of healthcare, education and multiculturalism show how new ethnic and religious diversity are challenging and changing Canadian institutions and society. Comprehensive and insightful, Religion and Ethnicity in Canada makes a unique contribution to the study of world religions in Canada.
The aim in this work is to address, through historical narrativization of some specific moments of colonial state building, the question: What, in theory, are the historical specificities of the 'colonial' state as distinct from other state forms? An attempt is made in this book, to weave together the discourse of state theory and the narrative of state practices. This approach is based on the argument that theory was not something out there to guide practice. Empirical evidence suggests a more complex picture of interaction between the two where, within parameters structured by theory, the practice in turn produces and structures theory at each conjuncture.
This study examines the political sources of violence against religious minorities in India. Focusing on Hindu organizations that have asserted dominance over religious minorities, particularly since the late 1980s, Amrita Basu questions the common assumption that Hindu-Muslim violence is inevitable.
In this classic study of Pandita Ramabai's life, Uma Chakravarti brings to light one of the foremost thinkers of nineteenth-century India and one of its earliest feminists. A scholar and an eloquent speaker, Ramabai was no stranger to controversy. Her critique of Brahminical patriarchy was in sharp contrast to Annie Besant, who championed the cause of Hindu society. And in an act seen by contemporary Hindu society as a betrayal not only of her religion but of her nation, Ramabai – herself a high-caste Hindu widow – chose to convert to Christianity. Chakravarti's book stands out as one of the most important critiques of gender and power relations in colonial India, with particular emphasis on issues of class and caste. Published by Zubaan.
This volume offers an empirically rich, theoretically informed study of the shifting intersections of nation/alism, gender and sexuality. Challenging a scholarly legacy that has overly focused on the masculinist character of nationalism, it pays particular attention to the people and issues less commonly considered in the context of nationalist projects, namely women and sexual minorities. Bringing together both established and emerging researchers from across the globe, this multidisciplinary and comparison-rich volume provides a multi-sited exploration of the shifting contours of belonging and Otherness generated by multifarious nationalisms. The diverse, and context specific positionings of men and women, masculinities and femininities, and hegemonic and non-normative sexualities, vis-à-vis nation/alism, are illuminated through a vibrant array of contemporary theoretical lenses. These include historical and feminist institutionalism, post-colonial theory, critical race approaches, transnational and migration theory and semiotics.