Bibliography on Religious Nationalism in
South Asia
Compiled by Neelima
Shukla-Bhatt
India
Articles
by Lochtefeld, Smith and Juergensmeyer in vol.
26
(1996) of the Journal -
Religion.
They give a perspective on the
scholarly debate over how to interpret Hindutva.
David
Ludden, Contesting the Nation (alternately titled Making India Hindu) Uni. of Pennsylvania, 1996.
Amrita
Basu and Atul Kohli, Community
Conflicts and the State in India, Delhi: OUP, 1998.
Sunil
Kumar, The Present in Delhi's Pasts,
(Three Essays, Delhi, 2003). The book shows how places, archeological
sites, and neighborhoods in Delhi have been affected and effaced by
various forces associated with religious communalism, and in turn how
history associated with places has been rewritten to suit a Hindu
nationalist perspective.
Sumit
Sarkar et al, Khaki Shorts and
Saffron Flags.
Pandey,
Gyanendra. "In Defense of the Fragment: Writing about Hindu-Muslim
Riots in India Today," Representations, Winter 1992, 37: 27-55. Also
in Subaltern Studies Reader, 1986-1995.
Ranajit Guha, editor. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1997.
Besides
describing a particularly chilling and brutal "riot" in
Bhagalpur, Bihar, Pandey asks as a historian "How do we write
histories of violence?" and questions the sources used for history.
A member of an investgating team that went to Bhagalpur not long
after the events, he shows how records were systematically expunged and
stories of different groups formulated quickly to exculpate everyone
concerned. He uses poetry
written during the attacks as a source.
On
the Ayodhya - Ramjanmabhumi - Babri Masjid episode, two excellent and
accessible articles that focus on the manipulation of
religious symbols:
Anuradha
Kapur. "Deity to
Crusader: The Changing Iconography of Ram," in
Hindus and Others: The
Question of Identity in India Today, ed. Gyandndra Pandey. New Delhi:
Viking/Penguin India, 1993.
-
Richard Davis. "The
Iconography of Ram's Chariot." In Contesting the nation : religion,
community, and the politics of democracy in India / edited by David Ludden.
Imprint: Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996.
Brief
primary sources:
On
the Hindu side,
-
Savarkar, “Hindutva”, 1923
-
Swami Shraddhananda (an Arya Samaj leader), "Hindu Sangathan,
Saviour of the Dying Race". More
important than Savarkar’s “Hindutva” because more
down-to-earth, more representative for the Hindu psychology which led to
the various Hindu nationalist movements, yet also more social-reformist,
is the contemporaneous booklet by.
Most of its positions can still be found repeated verbatim on Hindu
nationalist weblists. It may
well be out of print, though, but if they sense a demand from Western
institutions they'll hurry to reprint it.
-
Deendayal Upadhyaya, "Integral Humanism" (1965)
Central text in the training of all
RSS volunteers and official ideology of the BJP, and hence also
required reading for every scholar who aspires to understand the Sangh
Parivar movement (though somehow unnoticed in most secondary literature).
-
Abhas Kumar Chatterjee, (a non-Sangh author), "Concept of Hindu
Nation" (1995). Very informative for the broader Hindu nationalist
motivation.
-
Girilal Jain, "The Hindu Phenomenon" by, 1994.
Posthumously compiled by his daughters
Meenakshi and Sandhya Jain. A trail-blazer in the "Clash of
Civilizations" approach, floated in India well before the term gained
currency in the West. Easily obtainable through the Delhi book exporters.
-
Shrikant Talageri's contribution, Voice of India's "Sita Ram Goel
Commemoration Volume". The best-informed Hindu critique of the Sangh
Parivar's performance, particularly of the BJP governments. Due out in
February 2005.
-
Shrikant Talageri’s and Shreerang Godbole’s contributions to Time
for Stocktaking: Whither Sangh Parivar? edited by S.R. Goel, 1997. Earlier
inside criticism of the Sangh. In those papers, you can see the failures
of the BJP governments predicted, a feat not managed by most of the
outside Hindutva-watchers.
Pakistan
S.V.R.
Nasr, “Islam, the State and the Rise of Sectarian Militancy in
Pakistan,” in Pakistan:
Nationalism Without a Nation, ed. Christoffe Jaffrelot, 85-114.
This article discusses the rise of Islamic sectarian movements in
Pakistan since the late 1970s, paying particular attention to the role of
the state and the international context in fostering them.
Bangladesh
Enayetur
Rahim, “Bengali Muslims and Islamic Fundamentalism: the Jama't-i-Islami
in Bangladesh,” in Understanding
the Bengal Muslims: Interpretative Essays, ed., Rafiuddin Ahmad.
This is an excellent essay on the role of the Jama't in
Bangladesh's freedom movement, and its subsequent rise to prominence.
Sri
Lanka
Ananda
Abeysekara, "The Saffron
Army, Violence and Terror(ism)" addresses notions of
nationalism,religion, and violence. It is a bit longer than 20 pages (42
pages excluding the endnotes).
Women
and Religious Nationalism (India,
Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka)
Patricia
Jeffery / Amrita Basu (eds.), Resisting
the Sacred and the Secular. Women's Activism and Politicized Religion in
South Asia, Delhi: Kali for Women, 1999.
Revised: December 23, 2004
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