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This article was downloaded by: [Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia] On: 14 October 2011, At: 09:30 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Contemporary South Asia
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Book Reviews
Available online: 20 Nov 2009

To cite this article: (2009): Book Reviews, Contemporary South Asia, 17:4, 449-468 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09584930903343997

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Contemporary South Asia Vol. 17, No. 4, December 2009, 449–468

BOOK REVIEWS

Secularism, communalism and the intellectuals, by Zaheer Baber, New Delhi, Three Essays Collective, 2006, ISBN 8-1887-8947-X Intellectuals do not create injustices; they only provide the ideological justifications to already existing ones. With the political ascendance of the Hindutva brand of communalism into power, many mainstream intellectuals overtly and covertly joined hands with the ideologues of Hindu nationalism (or Hindutva), in attacking secularism in India, as ‘pseudo’, ‘alien’ and ‘western’ (p. 23). Instead of looking at the communalism as an ideology that thrives on the exploitation of the religious sentiments of the masses by creating communal hatred and violence, many intellectuals have played the role of the apologist for Hindutva forces, laying the blame for communal strife and pogroms at the door of secularism (p. 24). The book under review, a collection of three essays by Zaheer Baber, dissects some of such attacks on secularism. The essays analyse the rise and growth of communalism and its Hindutva variety in an historical context to expose the apologetic role of the intellectuals, who provide it with ideological justifications. The author takes to task three prominent intellectuals in particular: T.N. Madan, Ashish Nandy and Veena Das ‘who argue that the very policy of aggressive secularism has contributed to the communal violence’ (p. 59). Madan describes secularism as ‘alien’ (p. 24); Nandy asserts that ‘secularists’ are ‘intellectually crippled and morally flawed’ (p. 35). Veena Das is quoted as calling for a ‘courageous experimentation with our heritage’ based on the ‘. . . principles of the Varnashrama and Purusartha’ (p. 33). India’s freedom struggle generated many ideologies. Some sought to unite the Indian people from across the boundaries of caste, ethnicity, religion, region and language, in order to create India as a secular nation state. Others sought to divide the people on sectarian and regressive principles. Communalism, as an ideology, was constructed by the reactionary elements in active connivance of the colonial rule and sought to mobilise people on religious lines and consequently diluted the anticolonial struggle. The ‘. . . postcolonial state was predominantly secular in its orientation’ in India but with substantive definitional changes. Secularism does not imply separation between state and religion but ‘equal respect to all the religions’ instead of equal indifference to all and equal accommodation of ‘religious demands and pressures from all religious communities’ (p. 59). With the emergence of Hindutva amidst the communal frenzy created by the long campaign leading to the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992 by Hindu nationalists under the leadership of the then-president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), L.K. Advani, many intellectuals came forward in their support and attacked secularism. Madan, for example, described secularism as an ‘alien cultural ideology’, ‘a gift of Christianity’, and as an ‘impractical basis of state action’ (p. 19). These intellectuals
ISSN 0958-4935 print/ISSN 1469-364X online DOI: 10.1080/09584930903343997 http://www.informaworld.com

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seem to foresee the failure of secularism in India because of the religious beliefs of the majority. It should be pointed out that in Europe secularism arose as a response to the control of the church over the affairs of the state. The author of this collection picks up the arguments of these intellectuals and demolishes them by providing a theory of communalism rooted in historical specificity. This is a useful reference book for the students of communalism and secularism in India. Ish Mishra Hindu College, University of Delhi, India Email: [email protected] Ó 2009, Ish Mishra

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To plead our own cause: personal stories by today’s slaves, edited by Kevin Bales and Zoe Trodd, Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-80147438-5 Kavin Bales and Zoe Trodd demolish the myth that slavery is ‘over’. Ninety five autobiographical narratives by modern day slaves comprise To Plead our Own Cause. The five chapters of the book are organised around the ‘strange scene’ of slavery: prison camps, contract slavery in factories and bonded labour. Chapter Two narrows the focus and compiles narratives by women and girls who are trafficked internally and internationally. In Chapter Three, slaves recount their ‘turning points’: their escape from slavery and their long route to redemption and security. The negotiation with freedom is the subject of the forth chapter, where former slaves continue to deal with the nightmares of their pasts and seek to compose a new self. Finally, in Chapter Five, the former slaves discuss their own views on possible solutions to modern day slavery. China seems to be the key space of prison slavery, where unpaid prison slaves produce products in impossible conditions. Debt-bondage slaves have existed in India for centuries. Narratives here tell us how, for a small initial debt, a human’s entire life is enslaved to the moneylender. Like debt-bondage slavery, India also has a rate of child labour. Children narrate their horrific experiences in the carpet looms of Uttar Pradesh where they are beaten, overworked, under-nourished and underpaid. Slavery means different things for men and women. Women slaves live in the fear of physical violence and rape. Sex trafficking in women and girls is now an industry, and international law has achieved precious little in curbing this horrendous practice. Nepalese women forced into prostitution due to poverty constitute a large chunk – 7,000-12,000 every year, according to the editors (p. 107) – of South Asian sex trafficking. Narratives in this chapter map the trauma of sex workers, sex slaves and their friends in brothels across India. Slaves eventually find a psychological ‘turning point’ in their life of slavery. Some, like Kavita (pp. 138–40), find it when they escape their slave context. In Chapter Three, narratives from the USA, Europe, the Middle-East and Asia originate in conditions of domestic slavery, sex trafficking, hereditary slavery and agricultural labour.

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Chapter Four’s narratives deal with ‘the problem of freedom’ (the subtitle of the chapter). Here former slaves present their stories of the recovery process, especially of the psychological battle against their pasts. Child soldiers in Sri Lanka and the Philippines carry the responsibility for their parents and families when, as young as 10 years of age, they enter the armies and militant groups. When back home, or released from the ‘army’, they have to deal with broken families, a whole new selfidentity and the problem of re-socialisation. Acquiring new skills, especially vocational ones, help children like Manju (Sri Lanka) find a measure of security and peace. Rehabilitation brings its own complications. In Chapter Five, former slaves from Uttar Pradesh in northern India record their experience of rescue and rehabilitation. In most cases, rehabilitation consists of a prolonged and wearying battle for rights, financial freedom (most of the victims are debt-bondage slaves) and social acceptance. To plead our own cause offers us a worrying theme: the persistence of social inequalities in South Asia and its concomitant conditions of slavery, exploitation and suffering. We discover, if we hadn’t before this when we read news reports, that slavery exists in myriad forms. We also discover something unacceptable in so-called ‘free’ and ‘developing’ nations – the absence of an efficient social and legal mechanism that monitors trafficking, slavery and child exploitation, and works to rehabilitate former slaves. Slaves in industries and quarries, households and sex districts are not ‘invisible’, yet they seem to have become so to the world. This volume is a harrowing testimony to the world’s suffering, a volume that documents the various ways in which humans are cruel to one another, and the institutional reneging of promises and hopes of safety. As an archive of suffering, To plead our own cause documents forms of South Asian (and international) slavery, even as it offers us courage and hope in the voices of former slaves. Pramod K. Nayar The University of Hyderabad, India Email: [email protected] Ó 2009, Pramod K. Nayar

Ethnic warfare in Sri Lanka and the UN Crisis, by William Clarance, London and Ann Arbor, Pluto Press, 2007, ISBN 139-7-8074-5325-262 This book provides a rare inside perspective into the Sri Lanka’s humanitarian crisis. William Clarance, head of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)’ s programme in Sri Lanka from 1988 to 1991, has documented the development of a strategy of ‘protective neutral engagement’ (p. xx) in Sri Lanka and the long struggle to get it accepted by the UNHCR bureaucracy. With ‘protective neutral engagement’, Clarance means a flexible combination of emergency relief and direct advocacy towards the warring parties based on data collected by staff on the ground. It was developed when UNHCR faced a potentially massive refugee crisis following a period of extreme violence in June–October 1990. The first five chapters of the book give background information on UNHCR’s protection mandate and practice and on the history of Sri Lanka’s violent conflict. The next nine chapters describe UNHCR’s work before, during and after the 1990

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violence. The last four chapters give a description of the Sri Lankan conflict from 1992 to 2006, a discussion of innovative and controversial aspects of UNHCR’s strategy in Sri Lanka, and a review of how UNHCR’s protection practice has developed since 1991. The book is of interest for two groups of people. For those interested in Sri Lanka’s history of conflict, this book gives a rare eyewitness account of the ferocious violence of 1990. Though rather fragmentary and focused on UNHCR’s own work and work areas, Clarance’s account gives valuable insight into moods and opinions as the situation developed: the kind of stuff that gets lost in formal history writing. For those interested in UNHCR, the book gives an interesting case study. By focusing on the protection of war-affected people before they became refugees, the programme was on the edge of UNHCR’s mandate. Clarance rightly focuses on the innovativeness of the strategy that he and his team worked out. In a context of a severe funding crisis, UNHCR Sri Lanka managed to run a very cheap programme that provided useful protection to tens of thousands of people. The subtext however is one of scathing criticism of UNHCR bureaucrats more interested in procedures than in the people they are supposed to protect. I think three elements deserve more attention. First, UNHCR never served more than 10% of the displaced population in 1990–1, in what was then one of the largest displacement crises in the world. What happened to the other 90% is worthy of documentation. Second, protection is limited to periods of relative stability. Whenever things get really violent and civilians need protection most, humanitarian agencies tend to be the first to evacuate. Even with an innovative programme in Sri Lanka, UNHCR has not been able to address this paradox. Third, to what extent can UN agencies be truly neutral in a conflict between a member state and a nonstate actor, which is particularly acute when the state itself is a perpetrator of mass violence against its own citizens? With UNHCR standing by during forced returns in 2006–7 (Conflict-related Internal Displacement in Sri Lanka: A Study on Forced Displacement, Freedom of Movement, Return and Relocation. Colombo: Inter-Agency Standing Committee, 2007) and its hurried evacuation of the northern war zone in 2008, it seems not to have stood up to the protection standards that Clarance rightly defends. Timmo Gaasbeek Wageningen University, The Netherlands Email: [email protected] Ó 2009, Timmo Gaasbeek

Buddhism, conflict and violence in modern Sri Lanka, edited by Mahinda Deegalle, London and New York, Routledge, 2006, ISBN 9-78-0-415-35920-7 This volume analyses Buddhism’s relationship to the Sri Lankan civil war from various disciplinary and ideological perspectives. While each of the 15 individual chapters deserves more sustained engagement than the mere mention which space allows here, as a whole the volume offers interested readers an entry point into the wide-ranging and complicated issues and debates which this relationship has generated for both scholars and practitioners.

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Eight chapters originated at a 2002 conference which ‘explore[d] the potential of using Buddhist teachings, practices, monks and institutions in creating peace, harmony and reconciliation in Sri Lanka’ (p. 11). In the cautious optimism of that rare moment of peace talks and ceasefire, Mahinda Palihawadana’s ‘The Theravada analysis of conflicts’ and P.D. Premasiri’s ‘A ‘‘righteous war’’ in Buddhism?’ explored Buddhist scriptural resources for conflict resolution and wartime justice, respectively. Gananath Obeyesekere’s ‘Buddhism, ethnicity, and identity: a problem in Buddhist history’ discerned traces of an assimilative pre-colonial Buddhist polity. R.A.L.H. Gunawardana’s ‘Roots of the conflict and the peace process’ detailed the development, obstacles, and prospects of the then-ongoing talks; Asanga Tilakaratne addressed ‘The role of Buddhist monks in resolving the conflict’ and George Bond described a non-monastic Buddhist example, ‘Sarvodaya’s pursuit of peace’. The final two papers included from the 2002 conference were however outliers to this seemingly comfortable trajectory from scriptural ideals to classical political realities to a range of opportunities for Buddhism to help create peace today. Peter Schalk’s ‘Semantic transformations of the Dhammadipa’ explicitly denied that the ‘present territorial conflict’ can ‘be resolved through . . . going back to the authentic teachings of the Buddha’ (p. 92), while Alvappillai Veluppillai’s analysis of ‘Sinhala fears of Tamil demands’ implied that increasing Buddhism’s political presence would further undermine the peace process. These outliers remain in the present collection as outliers; the seven new essays that have been added further complicate, but do not fundamentally challenge, the trajectory from Buddhist ideals to political practice. Richard Gombrich’s ‘Is the Sri Lankan war a Buddhist fundamentalism?’ carefully distinguishes Buddhism from Sinhalese nationalism. John Holt chronicles ‘Hindu influences on medieval Sri Lankan Buddhist culture’ as evidence of the traditional assimilative flexibility stressed also by Obeyesekere as well as Bardwell Smith, whose analysis of ‘Identity issues of Sinhalas and Tamils’ advocates (inclusivist, tolerant and Buddhist) Asokan principles to resolve them. Ananda Wickremeratne’s ‘Historiography in conflict and violence’ and Chandra R. de Silva’s ‘Buddhist monks and peace in Sri Lanka’ explore, in different ways, the shortcomings of Buddhist monastic political influence to date. The volume’s concluding chapter, the editor’s own ‘JHU politics for peace and a righteous state’, highlights the 2004 election of Buddhist monks to the Sri Lankan Parliament as being ‘by any standard . . . the watershed in the entire history of Theravada Buddhist monastic world in South and Southeast Asia’ (p. 234). The final new essay is also by the editor: ‘Introduction: Buddhism, conflict and violence’. It provides a general background and summarises what he considers the major points of each essay, but does not address the fundamental challenge posed by Schalk and Veluppillai to the overall assumption that authentically inclusivist and tolerant Buddhism should play an increasing role in effecting peace, nor the reality, by the time the book came into print, that the peace talks had collapsed. There are also many missed opportunities here to highlight the important ways in which these essays, old and new, speak to each other, and otherwise to give more shape to what ends up seeming a rather haphazard collection. But careful readers will be able to make those connections themselves, and though this expensive book is not likely to have a wide readership among the Buddhists to whom so much of it is addressed (the original conference proceedings were however published in Sri Lanka, in Sinhala), it

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certainly adds new depth to the growing scholarship on Buddhism and violence in Sri Lanka, and elsewhere. Jonathan S. Walters Whitman College, USA Email: [email protected] Ó 2009, Jonathan S. Walters

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Domestic goddesses: maternity, globalization and middle-class identity in contemporary India, by Henrike Donner, Farnham, Ashgate Publishing, 2008, ISBN 978-07546-4942-7 This book is gratifying to a long-term student of family life and urbanisation in India because, like my own work, it demonstrates the strong continuities within the joint family – in this case, within middle-class families in Calcutta – while also identifying significant adjustments that have occurred in recent decades. The bottom line is that the joint family remains intact – that it is a dynamic institution which successfully responds to changing economic conditions and changing ideologies about gender systems, marriage, reproduction, and schooling. Henrike Donner began her formal research in Calcutta in 1995, having lived there earlier as daughter of a German NGO administrator. Although she does not specify the total amount of time spent in Calcutta, visits for research spanned a decade during which India was undergoing liberalisation of the economy and increased globalisation that had transformative effects upon life in this urban center. Donner’s focus is upon the more subtle, less visible changes within the domestic sphere, and her principal research strategy is discourse – extended conversations with women who reside in two middle-class neighborhood: the Taltala area of central Calcutta and Ganguly Bagan, a southern suburb. Donner used an informal network approach to sample an unspecified number of women, aged 30–60 years. Donner’s theoretical orientation has been shaped by post-modernist cultural anthropology in its effort to address the construction of gender, class, and global identities within a specific context. Although the theoretical framework could be more clearly articulated, the research findings are important and are well organised in a series of chapters focused upon women’s domestic lives within patri-local multigenerational families; questions of love, marriage, and intimacy; the medicalisation of childbirth; modern schooling; and changing food habits. What significant changes have occurred? To maintain class status, for example, young pregnant women and their in-laws utilise private nursing homes that are expensive and that remove birthing from the home and control of women. The preferred method of delivery is caesarean section, also costly but one that young women believe is less painful and enables them to avoid the shame and pollution associated with vaginal births. It also allows them a longer recovery period before returning to household chores. Furthermore, since most couples now believe in having only one child, the expenses are incurred only once. What is perhaps most significant in the restructuring of joint family dynamics is a changed ideology of mothering. Once the shared work of mothers, mothers-in-law, and other women in the household, raising a single child who will succeed in the

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most prestigious schools and will achieve a desirable job in IT-related industries, has become the full-time responsibility of the birth mother. She must transport her child back and forth to school, tutorials, and other activities; tutor him (sons are preferred) in English, the new medium of desired education and employment; ensure that he is eating well and brings suitable foods to school for lunch and that he succeeds on exams, and so forth. This implies a major rearrangement of relationships, with daughters-in-law being less available for routine chores and children being less exposed to the care of grandmothers and others. It also implies a preference for mothers not to be employed outside the home, despite their educational accomplishments and personal desires. Family, marriage, and reproduction come first, with the expectation of nourishing one perfect child. Donner concludes that although there have been subtle re-arrangements in women’s relationships with one another and with men, a commitment to the joint family, based upon arranged marriage and patri-local residence, remains strong. The greatest danger posed, I suspect, is the new orientation to mothering based upon an exclusive dyadic bond rather than a group-oriented one. Susan Seymour Pitzer College, USA Email: [email protected] Ó 2009, Susan Seymour

The Bollywood reader, edited by Rajinder Dudrah and Jigna Desai, Milton Keynes, Open University Press, 2008, ISBN 978-033522212-4 Travels of Hindi song and dance: global Bollywood, edited by Sangita Gopal and Sujata Moorti, Minneapolis, Minnesota University Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-81664579-4 The Bollywood reader and Global Bollywood offer 32 insightful scholarly papers. From a range of perspectives, they unpack the shifting structural formations of Bollywood. This diversity gives an introduction to and interrogation of Indian cinema’s historical formation, various socio-cultural receptions, institutional and technological shifts, visual, audio, and song-dance material, and colonisation and globalisation, within and beyond India. Both volumes survey historical, cultural and political networks through theoretical and empirical analyses. They map Indian cinema’s spatiality across a contested, heterogeneous and expansive terrain, linking socio-cultural circuits to the logic, brand, and vision of Bollywood. The interdisciplinary theoretical scope of these contributions weaves colonial, nationalist, and diasporic formations that reconfigure the role and perception of Indian cinema in colonial and postcolonial societies. These collections compliment each other perfectly in developing Indian cinema’s pedagogy. The Reader presents key developments in early theories of Indian cinema and charts current analyses that broadened the scope of this material. Informed by these theoretical shifts, Global Bollywood focuses solely on the song and dance aspects of the Bollywood industry. Entire economies of song and dance are explored to reveal multiple sites of performance, consumption and reproduction that utilise Bollywood’s ‘inside’ film logic for social and cultural life ‘outside’.

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Both books offer thorough introductions and are structured by three sections that examine: Indian cinema foundations, diasporic formations, and new territories. The first sections in both begin by emphasising the enormity of India’s cinema history around specific sets of production, distribution, consumption, and representation relations. The Reader’s second section focuses on specific issues of cinema in India, namely, gender, censorship, dance, family and nationality. Section two of Global Bollywood examines the re-appropriation of song-dance routines amongst Indian diasporas in Indonesia, Egypt and Israel. The Reader’s final section critiques Bollywood as a concept and process to question the global cultural unity it suggestively represents. Particular emphasis is placed beyond the national boundaries of India: Indian films in Nigeria, the politics of song and dance, and queer relations. Global Bollywood’s concluding section shows how film music and dance inspire various principals that structure cultural performance and mobilise Indian-ness. They also interrogate the sites where South Asian diaspora occupy representational space, such as in American mainstream media and African American Hip Hop. Here Bollywood enters the politics of commodity and capital and raises issues of Orientalism, race, representation, piracy and cultural ownership. Both books challenge Eurocentric assumptions of cinema’s ontology associated with the impact of Empire cinema and of the dominance attributed to Hollywood’s imperial gaze in non-Western contexts. Attention to localised political and sociocultural contexts demonstrates how Bollywood manifests its aesthetic in public, visual and political economies. These collections analytically develop approaches that represent the complex de-territorialised spaces in which Bollywood operates. They outline a dynamic and critical framework that transcends associating Indian cinema as kitsch, escapist or second-rate to first world productions. They demarcate an alternative ontology specific to an Indian cinema industry, yet operate in relation to other cinema, national and diasporic productions. By extending the role of Indian cinema from celluloid projection within India to a host of additional spaces that informs fashion, poster art, internet groups, architecture, food and eventually smell as well as highlighting non-Indian geographical contexts; these collections validate the study of Bollywood by going beyond ethnic and area boundaries. They represent an epistemological confidence that ensures further fruitful and reflexive analysis. Both books give only brief introductory remarks to the older Indian diasporas associated with plantation labour. This exclusion misses an opportunity to expand the politics of the global South Asian diaspora by continuing to emphasise nonreturning Indian’s or second and third generation Desis and BrAsians. The colonial politics of earlier phases of capital and labour expansion offer invaluable material to speak to current South Asian diasporic interests and of their different processes of formation in the West. By positing their formations as incomprehensible, historically and geographically distinct, overlooks the numerous metropolitan spaces in which they inhabit, merge and dissociate. Furthermore, Bollywood plays a crucial role in informing notions of identity in these spaces through its strategies of representation, narrative and aesthetics that emphasise migration, social mobility, economic propriety, and India in the diaspora. Important work is only now beginning to develop a critical and methodological approach to these circuits that navigate historical, cultural and media flows of the South Asian diaspora. Seeking new and unique places of Bollywood-inspired reproductions without a sense of grounded politics and history has its limitations. The contributors’ analyses

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of the historical connections and cultural appropriations offer a vast economy of Bollywood and rests on critiquing notions of a dominant homogenised South Asian (Indian) diaspora. They transcend the tendency to celebrate diasporic identity formation as an already pre-articulated media savvy ethnic audience, who construct their lives outside the boundaries of the nation state. Superbly, both collections solidify theoretical continuums with a genealogical approach to Bollywood that merges cultural politics with historical contingency. This disavows the representational reproduction in Bollywood that loves to promote a diasporic Western bias of Indians constructing their lives in a vacuum of ideal ethnic homogeneity. In this respect, both books critique and undermine the operation of culture masquerading as a politics of empowerment, projecting ideals of purity, essentialism and conservative identity. These have become popular unifying factors in constructing a visual diasporic imaginary, but also vital for intimating notions of ethnic, religious and communal minority politics. The Bollywood reader and Global Bollywood place the cultural industry of Bollywood, its audiences and their sites of socialisation into larger discussions of gender, race, nation, sexuality and diaspora. They present a framework through which social and economic exchanges negotiate popular culture, political economy, and social imaginary, crucial to exploring the continuing expansion of Bollywood’s empire. Atticus Narain School of Oriental and African Studies, UK Email: [email protected] Ó 2009, Atticus Narain

Dravidian sahibs and Brahmin maulanas: the politics of the Muslims of Tamil Nadu, 1930–1967, by S.M. Abdul Khader Fakhri, New Delhi, Manohar, 2008, ISBN 817304-775-8 Much of the existing scholarship on Islam and Muslim communities in South Asia has focused attention primarily on the identity and politics of Muslims in North India – whether it is the period before Independence, on Partition, or their status in the Nation State after Independence. Further, Islam’s interactions with its religious and political ‘others’ in South Asia is examined principally in terms of its relationship with the Hindu communities and as constituted by the rise of Hindu fundamentalism from the late nineteenth century onwards. There is limited scholarship on Islam in the South Indian contexts, with most studies not going much beyond the Deccan sultanates. Abdul Khader Fakhri’s book is a much-needed contribution to the handful of studies on Islam in the South Indian and, in particular, the Tamil context. Examining the changing political identities of Muslims in Tamil Nadu between 1930 and 1967, Fakhri’s work is valuable for two reasons: first, while focusing on Tamil Muslims, he challenges ‘the notion that Muslims all over India constituted a monolithic, homogenous community that shared the same interests and acted unitedly in defence of them’ (p. 15); and second, he shifts focus from the usual investigation of Muslims in India within the framework of ‘Hindu-Muslim relations’, ‘Hindu-Muslim unity’ and ‘the Hindu-Muslim question’ to an

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investigation of Muslims and Islamic ideology as they related to the Dravidian Movement and politics in mid-twentieth century Tamil Nadu on issues of caste and language. Fakhri argues that unlike North India where Muslims had to define themselves as a distinct community and in opposition to the ‘majority’ Hindu community, in Tamil Nadu, the politics of mobilisation along caste lines fragmented the categories of ‘Hindu’ and ‘Muslim,’ allowing Muslims to participate in regional politics without being set aside as a separate community. Locating the Tamil Muslim community within the contexts of the ideology, political mobilisation and rhetoric of the Dravidian movement, Fakhri argues that significant ties on the basis of caste, language and ethnicity allowed Muslims to combine and straddle multiple identities: non-Brahmin, Dravidian, Tamil, Muslim and Indian. Fakhri takes the reader through three key stages in the relationship between Tamil Muslims and political movements in Tamil Nadu. First, he demonstrates the alliance between the Tamil Muslim community and the SelfRespect Movement in the early stages of the Dravidian Movement prior to 1947. This alliance, as Fakhri amply illustrates, was based on their joint assertions of a Dravidian identity that emphasised language, ethnicity and similarities between Islam and Dravidianism on questions of monotheism, equality and communal unity. Second, Fakhri shows Tamil Muslim resistance to and negotiations with the Congress and pan-Islamic identity in the decade just after Independence. He discusses the several paradoxes in the political ideology of the Congress and its construction of Indian nationalism and secularism: that although it first constructed and deployed the category ‘Indian Muslim’ it denied Muslims the right to demand an equal share in the nation’s resources as Muslims. Third, Fakhri moves to the 1960s which saw a strategic re-grouping between Tamil Muslims and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), now a political party rather than a radical political movement. Fakhri examines why, although one of the principal bases for the coming together of the two was the assertion of Tamil identity, ‘considerations of electoral politics outweighed ideological concerns’ (p. 209). In his analysis, Fakhri takes care to sift through the various differences within what are often taken to be homogenous or monolithic categories. Further, he provides a comparative analysis of the periods before and after India’s Independence, Muslims in North and South India, the interpellation of national, regional and local aspirations and politics, the different phases of the Dravidian movement and its interactions with the Congress. I was a little disappointed, however, that he did not compare, apart from two passing references, the politics and aspirations of Tamil Christians with those of Tamil Muslims, the other religious ‘minority’ in Tamil Nadu. On the whole, he offers a compelling and nuanced critical study of the ways in which Tamil Muslims have participated in different kinds of political mobilisations and formed strategic alliances across a horizontal spectrum, which both take advantage of regional associations and exploit the discourse of Indian nationalism for economic and political gains. Hephzibah Israel University of Delhi, India Email: [email protected] Ó 2009, Hephzibah Israel

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Sexualities, edited by Nivedita Menon, New Delhi, Women Unlimited, 2007, ISBN 81-88965-30-8 ‘Don’t think straight . . . think people’ (p. 131). This motto, on T-shirts worn by National Law School students in Bangalore, is memory of a critical Gay Rights seminar organised in the campus in 1997. The seminar, well-attended by the city’s gay community, also compelled the school’s faculty and administration to confront for the first time the issue of alternative sexual orientations – the slogan, from Tarun’s essay (written when the author was an undergraduate at the school), captures the essence of Menon’s thoughtfully edited volume on marginalised sexualities. The eclectic compilation of essays, including Tarun’s article on heteronormativity in educational institutions, shows how transgressive sexualities challenge norms of heterosexuality, gendered practices and illegitimate desires. Menon’s long-term intellectual ventures have added boldness and precision to studies in gender and politics. In this volume, her introductory essay sits well in the section on ‘counter-hegemonies’, and undisputedly stands out. It braids together sexualities with ‘counter-heteronormative movements’; and illustrates how women’s subjectivities, not entrenched in national, caste and religious identities, can destabilise feminist politics. Narain’s chapter on queer struggles against the law has a dull narrative style; it makes the reader unsure whether his use of terms such as ‘the contemporary context’, is deliberately provocative, or merely vague. Sukthankar’s exploration of transsexual rights and Bacchetta’s impressive study of lesbian positionalities in Delhi are far more effective in highlighting local and transnational queer alliances. Structured thematically, the second part of the volume focuses on caste and sexuality. In the Bhal region of Gujarat, a non-brahmanical cultural core offers Dalit women sexual autonomy. Franco, Macwan and Ramanathan’s essay determines the ways in which these women retain their freedom, especially by contesting the influence of restrictive high-caste rituals in their communities. In a later section on pleasure and desire, Chowdhury uncovers the image of the lustful woman in rural north India, exploring women’s subversion through collective songs. Though unremarked upon by the editor, these chapters are significant as they underline the sexual agency of rural women untutored in urban/global political discourses. The women display what Chowdhury describes as ‘a sort of natural feminism’ (p. 256). Masculinities are debated, at times quite masterfully, by Chopra and Cohen. While deliberating muted maleness in South Asia, Chopra makes an interesting contention that male servants in domestic spaces ‘veil’ their bodies through gestures, such as standing with their hands folded over their genitals. Cohen’s essay recounts how male desire is the topic of political satire in ‘secret literature’ circulated in Banaras. The latter essay, however, leaves the reader pondering whether a small genre of poems and cartoons in obscene pulp pamphlets can really question the sexuality of ‘the modern political subject’. ‘Pleasure. Enjoyment. Fulfilment. Passion. Desire. Craving’ (p. 227). The words that open Chandiramani’s essay on lust and safety unlock the door to ‘desire’. This section contains an erotic tale by an early twentieth century Malayali writer, Antarjanam. In the powerful text, the egg is imagined as a deity in a temple, and the sperm as a privileged pilgrim who makes his joyous journey towards the confluence.

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J. Devika’s essay goes on to analyse Antarjanam’s writing. She argues with eloquence that the writer’s emphasis on unconditional human bonding reconstructs the history of feminist thinking in Malayali society. Leaping from observation to experience, the essays are rounded off by a personal account on celebrating drag (by Maddox), and a selection of campaign documents. This volume, part of the ‘Issues in Contemporary Indian Feminism’ series, has a definitive purpose: to offer a blend of theory, fiction, history, real encounters, legal advocacy and activism. Even though the chapters are brimming with insightful interpretations of sexual identities, variations in quality, content and methodological rigour are likely to irk specialised academic readers. Nevertheless, the collection will be invaluable to students, scholars and activists keen to examine, and ultimately establish the importance of marginalised sexualities within political thought and action. Atreyee Sen University of Manchester, UK Email: [email protected] Ó 2009, Atreyee Sen

Islamic legitimacy in a plural Asia, edited by Anthony Reid and Michael Gilsenan, London and New York, Routledge, 2007, ISBN 978-0-415-45173-4 An outcome of research on ‘religion and globalisation in Asia’ by the Asian Research Institute at the National University of Singapore, this collection of 11 essays explores challenges of globalisation and democratic discourse to the ‘pluralist’ societies of South and Southeast Asia. They examine multiple ways of contestation, negotiation, and deployment of historically contingent ideas of pluralism towards co-existence of Muslims and non-Muslims, variously articulated in Islamic terms within diverse Asian societies, including both Muslim majority and minority contexts. Contextualising the debate of religious and cultural pluralism within a historically shared ‘Asian’ context is very significant for the study of Asian Islam. This will broaden debates on Islamic responses to democratic discourse and coexistence of communities within a modern set-up. Anthony Reid’s introduction successfully fulfils this task by mapping the principle and pragmatics of pluralism as markedly different from European and western Asian models, ‘intrinsic’ to the Asian context. The freshness of perspective lies in the recurring theme of the regional effects of the encounter between Asian and European models, in constituting a contested Asian pluralism. This is discussed by employing various tropes viz., Islamist intellectual figures of authority, well described by Barbara Metcalf and Michael Feener; particular Asian Islamic responses to pluralism (Abdullah Saeed, Bassam Tibi and Bryan S. Turner), colonialism (Azmi Ozcan and Nico Kaptein), and nationalism (Imran Ali, Greg Feanly and Joseph Liow). Bryan Turner’s essay evidently sets the mood for this theme by theoretically exploring the processes of cultural transformations within Islam in relation with modern educational reform and availability of new technologies. He cogently maps these changes, within the realms of political Islam as a consequence of

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social frustration following inequalities of global neo-liberal experiments, cleavages within institutions of Islamic authority, and an increasing emphasis on authenticity within Islamic jurisprudence influenced by western positive law related simultaneously with an ‘expressive individualism’ of a self-realised spirituality. Barbara Metcalf suitably complicates this theme by highlighting the multiplicity of visions among Islamic leaders for a postcolonial Indian nationalism. By depicting the persona of Maulana Madani as an ‘argumentative Indian’ in contradistinction to modernist views like Amartya Sen’s portrayal of argumentation as the foray of those rationally opposing ‘religious orthodoxy’ and ‘fundamentalism’, Metcalf effectively subverts epistemic connotations of pluralism. The arguments of a cleric like Madani for a ‘composite nationalism’ consisting of both believers and non-believers, she shows, embodied more religious pluralist ideas than those of Muhammad Iqbal’s of an Islamically shaped moral society without nationalism, and Maulana Maududi’s vision for an Islamist state. This is despite the ‘new’ cosmopolitan influences, shaped through interaction with European thought, on the latter thinkers. Likewise, Michael Feener’s essay on the manner in which contemporary pluralist imaginations are reconstituted through modern discourses of two twentieth century thinkers, M. Natsir and Anwar Harjono, also contributes to the above problematic, by bringing out the western derived influences in re-articulating contemporary Islamic resurgence in Indonesia. Both Nico Kaptein’s essay on the arguments of Sayyid Uthman of Batavia (1822–1914) that legitimised the Dutch colonial policies in the Netherlands East Indies by de-politicising Islamic discourses through his dealings with Sarekat Islam, and Azmi Ozcan’s essay addressing particular ways in which Indian Muslims reinvigorated their support for Ottoman empire as the seat of the universal caliphate to challenge British imperial power, insightfully bring out the expedient employment of Islam in responding to colonial rule; albeit in contrasting ways. Similarly vis-a`-vis nationalism, Imran Ali is highly informative in depicting how religion as a major galvanising political force was constituted as the central idiom of legitimacy and governance in Pakistan, not merely as a result of local exigencies but also of international geo-political imperatives of the US and the Soviet Union. The discourse on Asian pluralism problematised by Bassam Tibi, who argues for pluralism as a distinct democratic doctrine, presupposes a combination of diversity with the acceptance of core values shared by all actors. Towards seeking this norm, he scrupulously argues for reform of the shariya or Islamic jurisprudence by revisiting historical contexts, doctrines and social meanings of Islam as opposed to Islamism. In conclusion, the volume brings together divergent and sometimes incongruous perspectives on Asian pluralism. Perspectives are embedded in a normative modernity as well as in its critique, but nevertheless signal more robust theorisation of pluralism at the crossroads between Islam and modernity. Shireen Mirza School of Oriental and African Studies, UK Email: [email protected] Ó 2009, Shireen Mirza

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Colonial modernities: building, dwelling and architecture in British India and Ceylon, edited by Peter Scriver and Vikramaditya Prakash, London, Routledge, 2007, ISBN10: 0-415-39909-2 Representing Calcutta: modernity, nationalism, and the colonial uncanny, by Swati Chattopadhyay, London, Routledge, 2006, ISBN 0-415-39216-0 The last decade has seen the emergence of a new wave of writing on colonial architecture and urbanism in South Asia led by architectural historians, including several scholars whose essays appear in a new volume edited by Peter Scriver and Vikramaditya Prakash. Building on, and engaging with an earlier body of scholarship, these scholars are also rewriting South Asia’s architectural and urban history by challenging established truths, such as the dual-city model of the colonial city or the assumption that the colonial city was the product of the colonisers. Engaging with theory, drawing on secondary sources from a wide variety of fields, and plumbing the archives, the resulting scholarship allows for a more nuanced analysis of the colonial built environment that takes on a range of issues including hybridity, the agency of local populations, representation, and alternative modernities. The eleven historical essays that make up Colonial modernities, highlight the quotidian institutional spaces that accommodated the colonial administration as well as monumental complexes designed by prominent architects; the planned domestic environments of the coloniser and the colonised based on standardised plans produced by institutions such as the Public Works Department (PWD), the reshaping of pre-existing monumental architecture for homes by the British, and the construction of garden houses and mansions by colonisers and the colonial elite. Even as the essays foreground a range of building types, the authors are interested in not only how the buildings are constructed but also in how they are construed by their designers, users, and members of the public. This book is divided into three parts. Part one, ‘Frames of discourse’, contains the first chapter ‘Between materiality and representation: framing an architectural critique of colonial South Asia’, that functions as the introduction to the book where the editors, highlight their interest in both colonial buildings and the interstitial spaces of hybridity and cultural contact. The essays in part two, ‘Institutional frameworks’, examine how institutions such the PWD shaped the practices of constructing colonial buildings and infrastructure. Arindam Dutta’s thoughtful chapter ‘‘‘Strangers within the gate’’: public works and industrial art reform’ shows how the Department of Science and Art’s (DSA) concern with traditional skills that varied across regions was taken up by the PWD who deployed local terms and shrewdly managed and reinforced local traditional hierarchies and occupations in managing labour for construction. As Datta shows, such exploitation of labour continues in the post-colonial era. The third and most compelling part of the book, ‘Domestic frames of practice’, provides a concentrated focus on a range of residences. Sylvia Shorto’s essay ‘A tomb of one’s own: the governor’s house, Lahore’ examines the re-use of the tomb of a Mughal nobleman for the British governor’s house in Lahore. Swati Chattopadhyay turns our attention to the garden house used by the British and Bengalis in ‘The other face of primitive accumulation: the garden house in British colonial Bengal’, revealing through her fine-grained analysis that despite being a shared

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building type, it held different meanings for these two groups. In ‘The trouser under the cloth: personal space in colonial-modern Ceylon’, Anoma Pieris deftly reveals the relationship between clothing and residential space in Ceylon, while Jyoti Hosagrahar illustrates her concept of ‘indigenous modernities as a way to understand the alternative and localised interpretations of an idealised and universal modernity’ (p. 221) in the book’s final essay, ‘Negotiated modernities: symbolic terrains of housing in Delhi’. Also representative of the new wave of writing on colonial architecture and urbanism is Swati Chattopadhyay’s ambitious and important work Representing Calcutta, which begins with the commonplace depiction of Calcutta as modernity gone astray. Chattopadhyay’s book is indeed most concerned with the effects of different kinds of representations on the city’s form and functioning. The first two chapters of the book foreground British depictions of the city by analysing a vast range of materials including travel narratives, paintings, buildings, city plans, colonial government documents, and health maps which, as Chattopadhyay argues produced the dominant image of a problem-ridden city in the nineteenth century. The following three chapters focus on alternative ways of imagining the city emphasising modes of Bengali spatial imagination, the ways Bengalis conceived of ‘public space’, and the conflictual response to city life as Bengali residents struggled to accommodate the colonial city within their idea of the nation. Here too, Chattopadhyay works through an impressive array of sources including paintings, building plans and views, plans of parts of the city, and a wide array of literary sources, mostly Bengali. However, as she points out, the purpose of this project is not simply to replace an uncomplimentary set of images of the city with positive views, but ‘to problematise the idea of representing the city – both colonialist and nationalist – and explore the structures of power and knowledge that underlie different representations of the city’ (p. 3). As a method of writing about and analysing the city, Chattopadhyay argues for ‘thinking spatially’ (p. 10). She illustrates one way of doing this in her second chapter, ‘The limits of ‘‘white’’ town’ by effectively debunking the dual-city model of the colonial city through her spatial analysis that reveals the ‘blurring of boundaries’ rather than clear cut racial divisions (p. 77). Chattopadhyay concludes that ‘the power of vision’ was admitted by both British and Bengali representations, and yet ‘the British anxiety of not being able to see through spaces was paralleled in a Bengali discourse by a deep distrust of the merely visible. This was a conflict between two very different modes of vision, description, and spatial practice’ (p. 275). The value of Representing Calcutta to other studies of colonial cities is that it not only dislodges the eminence given to the coloniser’s depiction of colonial cities but also, as Chattopadhyay reveals, through an attention to Bengali narratives and spaces in the city, it unseats the commonplace assumption that colonisers are the leading actors in the making, imagining, and representation of a colonial city. Her timely reminder to think spatially is relevant to scholars across disciplines who neglect the spatial dimensions of not only literary and textual sources but also of cities themselves. Preeti Chopra University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA Email: [email protected] Ó 2009, Preeti Chopra

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Subject lessons: the western education of colonial India, by Sanjay Seth, Durham and London, Duke University Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0822341055 Sanjay Seth’s book looks at how modern ideas such as western education ‘travelled’ through the coercive agency of colonialism in India in an attempt to make Indians ‘modern’. And yet, he points out, Indians never quite seemed to live up to this task. They continually demonstrated a ‘lack’ of critical thinking as exhibited in their persistence in rote learning or what he calls ‘anxiety of cram’, and their confining of western education to the realm of the public domain for purely instrumental purposes while remaining doggedly ‘traditional’ at home. Seth provocatively asks whether we should read this ‘failure’ on the part of Indians to become modern subjects through western education as a ‘lack’ or as an indication of an alternative subjectivity rooted in other ways of being? Arguing for the latter position, he points out that indigenous learning in India posited a different relationship between teacher and pupil, knower and known and was based on an inseparability between transmission of knowledge and modes of transmission. Moreover, indigenous education was not an abstract and universalised system but context-specific; one had ‘different knowledges and different forms of instruction for different social-groups’ (p. 119). One of the main strengths of the book lies in not just showing how Indians began to see western education as ‘universal’ and synonymous with education and being ‘modern’, but also how indigenous systems of knowledge differed from western ones. The book is interspersed with discussions about the differences between western and indigenous systems of education, which he suggests could lie in alternative subjectivities. For instance he points out that ‘even the idea of a unified self as the source and site of ideas and of consciousness, seemingly so undeniable, was a category not at all self-evident to every Hindu’ (p. 68). The entire book is essentially a paean for recognising that there are different ways to be a ‘self’, and the need for moderns to move beyond their teleological thinking which privileges their own position. Having said that, he argues that one cannot step outside the conceptual categories framed by the modern, but the best one can do is recognise that these are not universal or global for all time and place. ‘The best we can do is to be vigilant; but it is an unequal struggle, for we struggle to express one thing, while our conceptual language leads us to express another’ (p. 44). While the book raises several significant questions, there are two I highlight here for the sake of brevity. First (I offer this less as a criticism and more as a collective self-reflection for all those trying to negotiate the limits posed by modern conceptual categories especially in non-western contexts), Seth turns to the more interpretive and hermeneutic thinkers within western philosophy such as Gadamer, Dilthey and anti-humanists such as Heidegger to reflect upon the limits of modern categories, especially in non-western contexts. He also discusses at some length others such as Charles Taylor and Bruno Latour who have pointed to the cultural specificity of modern ideas and their social constructedness. However, does Seth remain locked within the bind he himself contests, that the west continues to provide the theoretical concepts to ‘think’ while the non-west provides the ‘empirics’? All theoretical discussion in the book is drawn from western thinkers, while empirics are drawn from colonial India. But that is perhaps endemic to all post-colonial scholars working on these questions and is not Seth’s dilemma alone. Secondly, while expending considerable energies throughout the book on emphasising the need to recognise indigenous knowledge traditions, toward the end of the book he appears

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hesitant to ‘endorse’ them for fear of being labelled a ‘nativist’. He claims to be ‘agnostic’, ‘neither embracing what we have learned to call Reason, nor denouncing it as merely coloniser’s Reason’ (p. 186). I am not certain one can be ‘agnostic’ even if one claims to be so; the reader is left wanting on the author’s own position, which appears somewhat timid in the name of ‘neutrality’. Why hesitate to ‘validate’ nonwestern knowledge traditions after making that implication throughout the book? Overall, this is a very strong book because the author is very self-reflective. He is very self-conscious about his ‘history-writing’; the act of theorising and reflecting upon the writing of history is not detached from the actual history-writing itself. Aparna Devare American University, Washington DC, USA Email: [email protected] Ó 2009, Aparna Devare

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Sikh nationalism and identity in a global age, by Giorgio Shani, London, Routledge, 2007, ISBN 978-0415421904 Whatever happened to the Khalistan movement of the 1980s? This latest addition to the Routledge ‘Advances in South Asian Studies’ series addresses this question by examining the process of the construction of the Sikh national identity in postcolonial India and in the diaspora. Based on a decade of empirical research, this is required reading for anybody interested in the relationship between identity, politics, globalisation and territoriality. Shani begins his journey through the story of Sikh nationalism by succinctly summarising the factors which led to increased nationalistic tendencies amongst the Sikhs in India. He argues that it was the colonial ‘re-imagination’ of the Sikhs ‘as an ethnie possessing a separate religion, history, institutions, territory and martial traditions’ (p. 58) which provided a basis for Sikh claims to nationhood and emphasised their separation from the rest of Indian society. He then illustrates how Nehruvian secularism and the Green Revolution further increased nationalistic tendencies in post partition India during the 1970s and 80s. Following an analysis of the factors which led to the rise of the Khalistan movement, Shani argues that its demise resulted from the economic factors introduced by Dr Mahmohan Singh in the early 1990s. He explains how the disparity in Indian society caused by these reforms led the ruling parties of the Punjab to emphasise ‘politics of region’ (Punjabiat) over ‘politics of identity’ (Khalistan). This diminished the importance of the Khalistan movement in the Punjab. However, the Khalistan movement continues to flourish in the diaspora. According to Shani, this is because the ‘selective memory’ of the Sikhs generally emphasises their status as victims of both partition and the events of 1984 (the storming of the Golden Temple and the Delhi riots) (p. 98). He demonstrates how this is then used by many to argue the need for an independent Sikh nation. Shani further illustrates how Sikh organisations in the diaspora such as the Sikh Federation in the UK and Sikh Coalition in the US use the politics of recognition to further the Sikh cause. He argues that by highlighting incidents where Sikhs have encountered difficulties due to wearing the turban and/or kirpan, these organisations emphasise the difference between Sikhs and other groups. This differentiates Sikhs in

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the public consciousness and in media discourses, and allows Sikh organisations to ‘secure access to a ‘‘fair share’’ of political representation and government funding in order to facilitate their integration into the ‘‘national’’ mainstream’ (p. 126). Shani’s main argument is that it is globalisation above all else which has led to the decline of Sikh nationalism. His meticulous explanation of how globalisation has affected Sikhs in India and in the diaspora in different ways is exceptional and certainly provides an excellent foundation for understanding contemporary Sikh politics. Shani concludes by imploring the Sikhs to be self-reflexive, and to ask themselves whether a sovereign state is really needed to preserve the transnational ideals of the Khalsa. He argues that as globalisation has effectively de-territoralised sovereignty, the Sikhs have an opportunity to go beyond Khalistan and instead reassert the transnational sovereignty of the Khalsa by reaffirming the universal values and radical egalitarianism of the Sikh Gurus (p. 156). He demonstrates how organisations such as United Sikhs best represent the diasporic Sikh identity ‘encompassing a politics of both recognition and redistribution’ (p. 156). In conclusion, this is an exciting, readable volume which Sikhs amongst others would do well to consult to ascertain the relevance of the Sikh nationalist agenda going forward. Jasjit Singh University of Leeds, UK Email: [email protected] Ó 2009, Jasjit Singh In the presence of Sai Baba: body, city, and memory in a global religious movement, by Smriti Srinivas, Leiden, Brill, 2008, ISBN 978 90 04 16543 4 Strangely, for an ethnography about being in the presence of Sai Baba, Smriti Srinivas’ contribution to understanding this ‘trans-urban and transnational’ (p. 11) movement of Indian origin does not reveal too much about either the leader of the movement or its followers, many of whom are of non-Indian origin. For those who have been awaiting a nuanced ethnography on the membership of the global Sathya Sai Baba (SSB) movement, and for those who are interested in deciphering the accounts of magic, miracles, and mystery associated with the movement’s leader, Srinivas’ book will be less than satisfying. Nevertheless, In the Presence of Sai Baba is a densely detailed history of Sathya Sai Baba, the guru and the eponymous movement, and especially its institutional aspects. Srinivas provides a tremendous amount of historical and empirical data about such things as educational programs and schools, hospitals, and publications (pointedly excluding scandal and allegations of secrecy), to demonstrate that the SSB movement cannot be solely understood from the discursive platforms of Hinduism, South Asian diaspora, nation states, and colonialism. Srinivas’ broad argument is that the SSB movement aims to help its followers become certain kinds of citizens, namely people who are motivated to transform their somatic selves into a desired ideal and who do so while transforming the urban settings in which they live. Terming this orientation, ‘bio-civic ethics,’ Srinivas outlines the fascinating relationship between religious sociality and the urban polis, where teachings that emphasise the reorganisation of the body through certain disciplinary modes can result in new kinds of citizens, uses of urban space,

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and forms of architecture. She shares the relevant and timely observation that ‘religious sensibilities’ do have a ‘real role in urban policy or the discussions of urban futures’ (p. 344). Srinivas must be commended for her extensive readings of the SSB textual corpus as well as the writings of devotees. The effect of Srinivas’ textual mastery does not, however, sufficiently compensate for what is a striking dearth of devotees’ own voices. Aside from a few scattered direct quotations of persons encountered during field research, the voices in this book are from already published sources. One does not come away with a textured sense of the inner lives of current devotees or an appreciation of their reasons for joining SSB. One might be forgiven as well for wondering about seemingly selective omissions and whether Srinivas is too much of an insider to note the sometimes hagiographical tone of her writing. While being an ‘insider’, however tangentially, is not necessarily a scholarly handicap, Srinivas’ decision to not address the various controversial debates surrounding Sai Baba or the motivations of his devotees has clearly steered her towards a wealth of historical published data and away from the messiness and potential riches of devotees’ actual lives and thoughts. Regarding theory, Srinivas complements her data with a variety of recent contributions from geography, religion, and sociolinguistics (on code-switching as a way to interpret SSB bhajans, or devotional songs, in Atlanta, Georgia, USA). There are, however, inconsistencies in the application of theory. For example, in the introduction, Srinivas notes that she follows David Lorenzen’s critique of how scholars categorise Hindu traditions in terms of ‘cult, sect, or sectarian movement’ (p. 17). Yet, in different chapters, Srinivas uses ‘cult’ in reference to other South Asian traditions (p. 96, 164 and 306, for those who are interested). Finally, it must be noted that there is a forthcoming work on the SSB movement, written by another scholar named Srinivas. Winged Faith: Rethinking Religion and Globalization through the Sathya Sai Movement (Columbia University Press, 2009), by Tulasi Srinivas, addresses the lacunae mentioned above and provides an ethnographically alive portrait of the inner and outer world of SSB followers and the connections to be made about transnational devotional communities, cultural translation, and cultural pluralism. Differences aside, both Srinivas’ works transcend what Smriti Srinivas writes as ‘the singularity of a religious tradition’ and thereby problematise the expectation that India-based movements must be analysed in terms of Hinduism (p. 337). This perspective is certainly one that other groups and communities in India, Hindu or otherwise, could learn from. Hanna H. Kim Adelphi University, Email: [email protected] Ó 2009, Hanna H. Kim

The Bengal borderland: beyond state and nation in South Asia, by William van Schendel, London, Anthem Press, 2005, ISBN 1-84331-145-3 What is a border? What role do borders play in the making of modern nation-states? How do those living near and across borders understand national and local spaces? These are some of the questions addressed in van Schendel’s book, which takes as its

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example some of the complex and painful narratives left behind by the partition of Bengal. This work tells us the story, beginning with a fresh look at the instruments through which this political separation of geography was achieved. The Bengal Borderland argues that the division of India into two separate nations in 1947 was far more complicated than simply dividing Muslims and Hindus. The Christian dominated areas of Bengal, for example, have largely been over-looked by the existing literature. The book also dispels the misconception that Bengal was bisected; instead, the author argues that it was in fact cut into ‘four large pieces’ (p. 43). The Radcliffe Boundary Commission, almost a one-man show, ignored much of the long history of interaction and shared culture across the region. The decisions of the Commission, of course, as a consequence, left behind a strong shadow in the post-partition political landscape. A large number of people belonging to both communities have carried the brunt of this short-sightedness. The author describes the complex technical instruments (viz. bureaucratic control, paramilitary force, the homogenisation of the borderland population and conflict resolution diplomacy) have been used by governments to normalise and naturalise this artificial border. Schendel also describes the older schemes of the colonial state for the region to create independent dominions, such as the ‘Reid Plan’ (interestingly, the schemes of other bureaucrats in the region, such as Andrew Clow, the Governor of Assam, are not considered). Arguably, partition studies have over-looked many crucial dimensions of politics in the 1940s; yet, it is the legacy of this era that continues to repeatedly resurface in modern times. The politics of the modern region is saturated with movements seeking their own separate states in order to lessen the cultural hegemony of centralised India. Despite these movements however, van Schendel believes, and shows, how the ‘border’ remains more significant for relations between nations, arguing that the naturalisation of the border is essential for modern nation-states as they strive to assert exclusive sovereignty over a delineated self-enclosed geographical space. There are sub-borders within the borderland which add depth to the complexity of politics in the region. It is not, perhaps, out place to raise doubt about van Schendel’s suggestion that the ‘loyalty’ of inhabitants of Chor, the river islanders who also became victims of territorial bifurcation, to the successive states had ‘always been doubtful’. This assertion should be qualified because it runs contrary to cultural aspirations and state policy in Assam, as manifested in recent political discourse. The impact of this ‘border’ in the politics of another ‘non-border’ geographical entity, i.e. the Brahmaputra valley of Assam, particularly in the middle of the previous century, remains unexplored in this otherwise fine book. It is apparently true that in more recent times there has been attempt to reappropriate various borders in order to enhance economic prosperity in the region. The Indian government’s loosely-spelled-out ‘Look East Policy’ conveniently ignores the complexities involved in the political and social dynamics of these borderlands. Importantly, this book opens up fresh ground for relocating our understanding of the border and its cultural dimensions, particularly the pre-Partition period. Arupjyoti Saikia Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, India Email: [email protected] Ó 2009, Arupjyoti Saikia

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