Download or read book Beyond Religion in India and Pakistan written by Virinder S. Kalra and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-12-12 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on insights from theoretical engagements with borders and subalternity, Beyond Religion in India and Pakistan suggests new frameworks for understanding religious boundaries in South Asia. It looks at the ways in which social categories and structures constitute the bordering logics inherent within enactments of these boundaries, and positions hegemony and resistance through popular religion as an important indication of wider developments of political and social change. The book also shows how borders are continually being maintained through violence at national, community and individual levels. By exploring selected sites and expressions of piety including shrines, texts, practices and movements, Virinder S. Kalra and Navtej K. Purewal argue that the popular religion of Punjab should neither be limited to a polarised picture between formal, institutional religion, nor the 'enchanted universe' of rituals, saints, shrines and village deities. Instead, the book presents a picture of 'religion' as a realm of movement, mobilization, resistance and power in which gender and caste are connate of what comes to be known as 'religious'. Through extensive ethnographic research, the authors explore the reality of the complex, dynamic and contested relations that characterize everyday material and religious lives on the ground. Ultimately, the book highlights how popular religion challenges the borders and boundaries of religious and communal categories, nationalism and theological frameworks while simultaneously reflecting gender/caste society.
Download or read book Beyond Religion in India and Pakistan written by Navtej K. Purewal and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on insights from theoretical engagements with materiality and subalternity, Materiality, Practice and Performance at Sacred Sites in India and Pakistan opens new frames for understanding religion in South Asia. The book takes seriously the realm of material expression in popular religion as a very real and important indication of wider developments in political, social and religious identity and practice. As a result, the authors challenge the definition of religion more broadly. By exploring selected sites of piety including shrines and their associated ephemeral paraphernalia such as amulets, posters, and clay objects, the authors argue that popular religion of Punjab should neither be limited to a polarized picture between formal, institutional religion nor the `enchanted universe' of rituals, saints, shrines and village deities. Instead, the book presents a picture of `religion' as a realm of movement, mobilization, and multiplicity. Through extensive ethnographic research, the authors explore the reality of the complex, fluid and dynamic relations that characterize the everyday material and religious lives on the ground. Ultimately, popular religion challenges the borders and boundaries of religious and communal categories, nationalism, and theological frameworks.
Download or read book Beyond The Border written by Yoginder Sikand and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2011-07-19 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘I was born in India. Your grandparents were born in what is now Pakistan. But they live in India and I in Pakistan. Strange, isn’t it?’ Beyond the Border, based on two journeys to Pakistan, is a strikingly unconventional account of what life is like for ‘ordinary’ Pakistanis. Yoginder Sikand discovers a country that only remotely resembles the stereotype of the hostile Muslim neighbour all too common in the Indian imagination. From Shiela, the daughter of a feudal landlord, named after her mother’s Indian best friend, to the owner of a rundown local eatery who refused to take any money as Sikand was the first Indian to visit his stall, the author’s encounters with Pakistanis from all walks of life in Lahore, Multan, Hyderabad (Sind), Moenjo Daro, Bhit Bhah, Islamabad—among other places—reveal a country that is unexpected, paradoxical and rich in diverse narratives. Departing from the fi ercely polemical rhetoric common in Indian and Pakistani accounts of each other, Yoginder Sikand not only goes beyond the strategist’s view of the India–Pakistan divide, but dispels the myths about Pakistan as the terrible ‘other’ that have fi ltered into the Indian psyche. This brilliantly perceptive and quirky travelogue illuminates the Pakistani side of the story while telling Sikand’s own tale of exploration and self-discovery.
Download or read book Beyond Realism written by Rekha Datta and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2010-03 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the world is changing, many scholars, analysts, and policy makers agree that even as governments need to confront external threats, creating sustainable domestic environments is imperative as a policy priority. As events surrounding September 11, 2001 continue to remind us, marginalized sections of the population can become breeding grounds for dissatisfaction, disenchantment, and eventually, targets for terrorist groups. Throughout the cold war period, South Asia served as a strategic region in the bilateral rivalry between the United States and the former Soviet Union, coupled with China's careful scrutiny. In the post cold war period, several bilateral conflicts, the nuclear tests of 1998, the post 9/11 world in which South Asia has become a breeding ground for terrorists, entwined with an embattled, albeit a shared history, continue to make India and Pakistan a pivotal region to study. A timely analysis which starts with traditional approaches and combines them with new thinking within a human security policy framework, this book will contribute to a deeper and more holistic understanding of policy priorities of major players in a pivotal region of the world. It begins by analyzing security policies of India and Pakistan that have emerged in the context of geo-political concerns based on realist calculations. It also looks at the policies of the two governments in key areas such as the economy, education, public health, and safeguarding against gender-based violence. Concern with human security prompts analyses such as the one adopted in this book to argue that governments should empower and protect their citizens from serious threats to their survival. Home to a fifth of the world's population, large numbers of whom are reeling in poverty, where terrorism continues to be a concern, along with ongoing border disputes, India and Pakistan will find it imperative to make careful evaluations of this multipronged challenge to security. While it has relevance for regional policy priorities, this analysis also has broader implications for world powers such as the United States and China, for whom South Asia remains a key strategic area.
Download or read book Negotiating Democracy and Religious Pluralism written by Karen Barkey and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of essays that situates and furthers contemporary debates around the prospects of democracy in diverse societies within and beyond the West. Negotiating Democracy and Religious Pluralism examines the relationship between the functioning of democracy and the prior existence of religious plurality in three societies outside the West: India, Pakistan, and Turkey. All three societies had on one hand deep religious diversity and on the other long histories as imperial states that responded to religious diversity through their specific pre-modern imperial institutions. Each country has followed a unique historical trajectory with regard to crafting democratic institutions to deal with such extreme diversity. The volume focuses on three core themes: historical trends before the modern state's emergence that had lasting effects; the genealogies of both the state and religion in politics and law; and the problem of violence toward and domination over religious out-groups. Volume editors Karen Barkey, Sudipta Kaviarj, and Vatsal Naresh have gathered a group of leading scholars across political science, sociology, history, and law to examine this multifaceted topic. Together, they illuminate various trajectories of political thought, state policy, and the exercise of social power during and following a transition to democracy. Just as importantly, they ask us to reflexively examine the political categories and models that shape our understanding of what has unfolded in South Asia and Turkey.
Download or read book In the Clear Light of Day written by Jon Dorschner and published by . This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the second and concluding volume of a series describing the author's spiritual evolution. Volume one related the long and winding journey from Albuquerque New Mexico to India. In volume two, he relates his intense relationship with India, its culture, and its people, and the impact of Indian spirituality on his life. Starting with his integration into an Indian village and adoption into two separate and distinctive Indian families, one rural and traditional, the other urban, and Westernized. The author experiences total immersion into the Indian experience, and takes repeated and extensive journeys throughout the country, culminating in an intense relationship with the people and places of Vrindavan, a pilgrimage town of 5,000 temples, and the snowy heights of the Himalayas. He discovers that realization transcends geography and moves beyond India and beyond Hinduism, to Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Islam, Buddhism and more.
Download or read book Temptations of the West written by Pankaj Mishra and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2011-10-12 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Bollywood stars in Bombay worrying whether they are sexy enough to a heroin addict in Pakistan mocking jihad; from Indian mafia dons with political ambitions to Afghans waiting for American benevolence; from Kashmiri Muslims longing for democracy to Tibetan Buddhists fighting to preserve religion in politics – Temptations of the West is a travel book unlike any other. In a narrative as revealing as it is profound, Pankaj Mishra’s new book dissolves the old boundaries between East and West, challenging every romantic cliché about the conflicts and dilemmas at the heart of the modern world. ‘Mishra offers a compelling blend of memoir, narrative history, politics, religion and philosophy. Thoughtful, intelligent and rigorous, this is a deep, insightful study of the very notion of modernity’ Observer ‘Mishra is a precise observer and a subtle analyst, keener to understand than to blame . . . In a thousand details – such as the grimace he catches on the face of a sycophantic businessman as a politician’s bodyguard rinses curry-stained hands in his swimming pool – he salutes humanity’s paradoxes and wit’ The Economist ‘Wonderful. The narrative is interspersed with sophisticated cultural commentary . . . and, if anything, the point of this important book is to collapse fallacious distinctions between East and West’ Condé Nast Traveller
Download or read book Muslim Zion written by Faisal Devji and published by Hurst Publishers. This book was released on 2013 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published: London: C.Hurst & Co. (Publishers) Ltd., 2013.
Download or read book Beyond Belief written by V. S. Naipaul and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-08-15 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Brilliant. . . . A powerfully observed, stylistically elegant exploration." --The New York Times A New York Times Notable Book of the Year "The book's strength lies in Naipaul's extraordinary ability as a storyteller to draw striking portraits of a cross section of individuals."--The Boston Globe Fourteen years after the publication of his landmark travel narrative Among the Believers, V. S. Naipaul returned to the four non-Arab Islamic countries he reported on so vividly at the time of Ayatollah Khomeini's triumph in Iran. Beyond Belief is the result of his five-month journey in 1995 through Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, and Malaysia--lands where descendants of Muslim converts live at odds with indigenous traditions, and where dreams of Islamic purity clash with economic and political realities. In extended conversations with a vast number of people--a rare survivor of the martyr brigades of the Iran-Iraq war, a young intellectual training as a Marxist guerilla in Baluchistan, an impoverished elderly couple in Teheran whose dusty Baccarat chandeliers preserve the memory of vanished wealth, and countless others--V. S. Naipaul deliberately effaces himself to let the voices of his subjects come through. Yet the result is a collection of stories that has the author's unmistakable stamp. With its incisive observation and brilliant cultural analysis, Beyond Belief is a startling and revelatory addition to the Naipaul canon. "Highly accomplished. . . . Another display of Naipaul's remarkable talent." --The Independent (London)
Download or read book Religious Hatred written by Paul Hedges and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-03-11 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why does religion inspire hatred? Why do people in one religion sometimes hate people of another religion, and also why do some religions inspire hatred from others? This book shows how scholarly studies of prejudice, identity formation, and genocide studies can shed light on global examples of religious hatred. The book is divided into four parts, focusing respectively on: theories of prejudice and violence; historical developments of antisemitism, Islamophobia, and race; contemporary Western antisemitism and Islamophobia; and, prejudices beyond the West in the Islamic, Buddhist, and Hindu traditions. Each part ends with a special focus section. Key features include: - A compelling synthesis of theories of prejudice, identity, and hatred to explain Islamophobia and antisemitism. - An innovative theory of human violence and genocide which explains the link to prejudice. - Case studies of both Western antisemitism and Islamophobia in history and today, alongside global studies of Islamic antisemitism and Hindu and Buddhist Islamophobia - Integrates discussion of race and racialisation as aspects of Islamophobic and antisemitic prejudice in relation to their framing in religious discourses. - Accessible for general readers and students, it can be employed as a textbook for students or read with benefit by scholars for its novel synthesis and theories. The book focuses on antisemitism and Islamophobia, both in the West and beyond, including examples of prejudices and hatred in the Islamic, Hindu, and Buddhist traditions. Drawing on examples from Europe, North America, MENA, South and Southeast Asia, and Africa, Paul Hedges points to common patterns, while identifying the specifics of local context. Religious Hatred is an essential guide for understanding the historical origins of religious hatred, the manifestations of this hatred across diverse religious and cultural contexts, and the strategies employed by activists and peacemakers to overcome this hatred.
Download or read book A Secular Age Beyond the West written by Mirjam Künkler and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-05 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book compares secularity in societies not shaped by Western Christianity, particularly in Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa.
Download or read book Beyond Partition written by Deepti Misri and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2014-10-30 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Communal violence, ethnonationalist insurgencies, terrorism, and state violence have marred the Indian natio- state since its inception. These phenomena frequently intersect with prevailing forms of gendered violence complicated by caste, religion, regional identity, and class within communities. Deepti Misri shows how Partition began a history of politicized animosity associated with the differing ideas of ""India"" held by communities and in regions on one hand, and by the political-military Indian state on the other. She moves beyond that formative national event, however, in order to examine other forms of gendered violence in the postcolonial life of the nation, including custodial rape, public stripping, deturbanning, and enforced disappearances. Assembling literary, historiographic, performative, and visual representations of gendered violence against women and men, Misri establishes that cultural expressions do not just follow violence but determine its very contours, and interrogates the gendered scripts underwriting the violence originating in the contested visions of what ""India"" means. Ambitious and ranging across disciplines, Beyond Partition offers both an overview of and nuanced new perspectives on the ways caste, identity, and class complicate representations of violence, and how such representations shape our understandings of both violence and India.
Download or read book Beyond Lines of Control written by Ravina Aggarwal and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2004-11-30 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ravina Aggarwal explores how the conflict over Kashmir between India & Pakistan has affected the Buddhist & Muslim communities of Ladakh, part of Kashmir that lies high in the Himalayas.
Download or read book Modern Sufis and the State written by Katherine Pratt Ewing and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2020-08-25 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sufism is typically thought of as the mystical side of Islam. In recent years, it has been held up as a supposedly peaceful alternative to the spread of forms of Islam associated with violence, an embodiment of democratic ideals of tolerance and pluralism. Are Sufis in fact as otherworldy and apolitical as this stereotype suggests? Modern Sufis and the State brings together a range of scholars, including anthropologists, historians, and religious-studies specialists, to challenge common assumptions that are made about Sufism today. Focusing on India and Pakistan within a broader global context, this book provides locally grounded accounts of how Sufis in South Asia have engaged in politics from the colonial period to the present. Contributors foreground the effects and unintended consequences of efforts to link Sufism with the spread of democracy and consider what roles scholars and governments have played in the making of twenty-first-century Sufism. They critique the belief that Salafism and Sufism are antithetical, offering nuanced analyses of the diversity, multivalence, and local embeddedness of Sufi political engagements and self-representations in Pakistan and India. Essays question the portrayal of Sufi shrines as sites of toleration, peace, and harmony, exploring cases of tension and conflict. A wide-ranging interdisciplinary collection, Modern Sufis and the State is a timely call to think critically about the role of public discourse in shaping perceptions of Sufism.
Download or read book Hindu Rulers Muslim Subjects written by Mridu Rai and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-12-31 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Disputed between India and Pakistan, Kashmir contains a large majority of Muslims subject to the laws of a predominantly Hindu and increasingly "Hinduized" India. How did religion and politics become so enmeshed in defining the protest of Kashmir's Muslims against Hindu rule? This book reaches beyond standard accounts that look to the 1947 partition of India for an explanation. Examining the 100-year period before that landmark event, during which Kashmir was ruled by Hindu Dogra kings under the aegis of the British, Mridu Rai highlights the collusion that shaped a decisively Hindu sovereignty over a subject Muslim populace. Focusing on authority, sovereignty, legitimacy, and community rights, she explains how Kashmir's modern Muslim identity emerged. Rai shows how the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir was formed as the East India Company marched into India beginning in the late eighteenth century. After the 1857 rebellion, outright annexation was abandoned as the British Crown took over and princes were incorporated into the imperial framework as junior partners. But, Rai argues, scholarship on other regions of India has led to misconceptions about colonialism, not least that a "hollowing of the crown" occurred throughout as Brahman came to dominate over King. In Kashmir the Dogra kings maintained firm control. They rode roughshod over the interests of the vast majority of their Kashmiri Muslim subjects, planting the seeds of a political movement that remains in thrall to a religiosity thrust upon it for the past 150 years.
Download or read book Outrage written by Paul Rollier and published by UCL Press. This book was released on 2019-10 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether spurred by religious images or academic history books, hardly a day goes by in South Asia without an incident or court case occurring as a result of hurt religious feelings. The sharp rise in blasphemy accusations over the past few decades calls for an investigation into why offence politics has become so pronounced, and why it is observable across religious and political differences. Outrage offers an interdisciplinary study of this growing trend. Bringing together researchers in Anthropology, Religious Studies, Languages, South Asia Studies and History, all with rich experience in the variegated ways in which religion and politics intersect in this region, the volume presents a fine-grained analysis that navigates and unpacks the religious sensitivities and political concerns under discussion. Each chapter focuses on a recent case or context of alleged blasphemy or desecration in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar, collectively exploring common denominators across national and religious differences. Among the common features are the rapid introduction of social media and smartphones, the possible political gains of initiating blasphemy accusations, and the growing self-assertion of marginal communities. These features are turning South Asia into a veritable flash point for offence controversies in the world today, and will be of interest to researchers exploring the intersection of religion and politics in South Asia and beyond.
Download or read book The Great Partition written by Yasmin Khan and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2017-07-04 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A reappraisal of the tumultuous Partition and how it ignited long-standing animosities between India and Pakistan This new edition of Yasmin Khan’s reappraisal of the tumultuous India-Pakistan Partition features an introduction reflecting on the latest research and on ways in which commemoration of the Partition has changed, and considers the Partition in light of the current refugee crisis. Reviews of the first edition: “A riveting book on this terrible story.”—Economist “Unsparing. . . . Provocative and painful.”—Times (London) “Many histories of Partition focus solely on the elite policy makers. Yasmin Khan’s empathetic account gives a great insight into the hopes, dreams, and fears of the millions affected by it.”—Owen Bennett Jones, BBC
