Militant Publics in India

Valiani, Arafaat A.:
Militant publics in India : physical culture and violence in the making of a modern polity / Arafaat A. Valiani. - Basingstoke ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. - ca. 284 S. : Ill.
ISBN 978-0-230-11257-5
US$ 90,00 / £ 55,00
DDC: 320.95475

Beschreibung
This creative study explores how Mohandas Gandhi’s celebrated concept of satyagraha (non-violence) was eclipsed by the xenophobic Hindu nationalist movement that has organized ferocious episodes of ethnic cleansing against minority communities in contemporary India. By means of a close reading of Gandhi’s writing on popular mobilization and resistance, and a detailed historical investigation of hitherto understudied episodes of satyagraha that took place in the first half of the twentieth century, Valiani illuminates debates on politics in South Asian history, anthropology, and sociology. Among other insights, this inquiry underscores the continuities and discontinuities between physical culture and various contending modes of popular political protest and activism in Gandhi’s satyagraha movement and the militant Hindu nationalist movement in the western Indian state of Gujarat in the colonial and postcolonial periods. Interpreting his own direct observation of Hindu nationalist pogroms in contemporary Gujarat, in addition to testimonies and ethnographic observations of the inner workings of the movement that were revealed to the author when he was a “trainee” within it, this brilliant account offers readers a rare insider perspective on the social and religious world that historically and culturally produces militants. [Verlagsinformation]

Aus dem Inhalt
PART I: MODALITIES OF POLITICAL MOBILIZATION
   Efficacies of Political Action: Physical Culture and the Kinesthetic Politics of Gandhian Nationalism
   Preparatory Training and Disciplined Satyagraha in Bardoli (1928)
   Militant Peacekeeping and Subterfugic Violence of the Quit India Movement (1942)
PART II: ELABORATING POLITICAL ITINERARIES
   Physical Culture, Civic Activism, and Hindu Nationalism in the City
   Physical Training, Ethical Discipline, and Creative Violence: Zones of Self-Mastery in the Hindu Nationalist Movement

Autor
ARAFAAT A. VALIANI is an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at Williams College. He is also affiliated faculty in Asian Studies, International Studies, and Arabic Studies at Williams College. Profile page.

Quellen: Macmillan; Palgrave; Amazon; WorldCat