Pub Date : 2022-03-15DOI: 10.1080/14736489.2022.2080486
Aditi Malik, M. Prasad
ABSTRACT Why do communal provocations generate violence in some moments but not in others? Drawing on 52 interviews and archival and ethnographic evidence from Bhagalpur, Bihar, we develop a theoretical framework to explain how communal conflict might be controlled. In Bhagalpur, we find that a state-society partnership has helped the city to avoid active violence since 1989. Civil society elites gain and maintain local followings by drawing on their access to the state to resolve quotidian problems for their constituents. Doing so cements their status in their communities and imbues them with the credibility to calm communal tensions. These findings illuminate the governance strategies through which state actors might delegate the performance of important state functions, such as maintaining order, to non-state groups. They also reveal a range of tactics through which state-society partnerships might thwart communal conflict in divided societies like India.
{"title":"Peace by committee: state, society, and the control of communal violence in Bhagalpur, Bihar","authors":"Aditi Malik, M. Prasad","doi":"10.1080/14736489.2022.2080486","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14736489.2022.2080486","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Why do communal provocations generate violence in some moments but not in others? Drawing on 52 interviews and archival and ethnographic evidence from Bhagalpur, Bihar, we develop a theoretical framework to explain how communal conflict might be controlled. In Bhagalpur, we find that a state-society partnership has helped the city to avoid active violence since 1989. Civil society elites gain and maintain local followings by drawing on their access to the state to resolve quotidian problems for their constituents. Doing so cements their status in their communities and imbues them with the credibility to calm communal tensions. These findings illuminate the governance strategies through which state actors might delegate the performance of important state functions, such as maintaining order, to non-state groups. They also reveal a range of tactics through which state-society partnerships might thwart communal conflict in divided societies like India.","PeriodicalId":56338,"journal":{"name":"India Review","volume":"21 1","pages":"181 - 215"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49084301","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-03-15DOI: 10.1080/14736489.2022.2080488
Aniruddha Saha
ABSTRACT While scholars (mainly from the Global North) in International Relations have been turning to a (critical) constructivist agenda in norms research, the field has increasingly become devoid of applying this area of research in understanding the nuclear behavior of deviant states from the Global South. The paper therefore attempts to bridge this research gap by using the case of the India-US nuclear relationship. To do so, the paper: i) identifies the probable convergences of the existing literature on nuclear policy and the research on constructivist norms, ii) highlights India’s racial treatment as a Southern nuclear state in academia and policy discourse, and iii) recognizes plausible avenues for the expansion of the Western dominated normative research agenda by analyzing India’s nuclear relationship with the US ― with a specific focus to norm contestation and normative change. In bringing together (critical) constructivists and scholars in nuclear politics to further our understanding of how we perceive security of non-western states, this work makes an epistemological and ontological contribution in the field of international security studies.
{"title":"Addressing the norms gap in international security through the India-US nuclear relationship","authors":"Aniruddha Saha","doi":"10.1080/14736489.2022.2080488","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14736489.2022.2080488","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT While scholars (mainly from the Global North) in International Relations have been turning to a (critical) constructivist agenda in norms research, the field has increasingly become devoid of applying this area of research in understanding the nuclear behavior of deviant states from the Global South. The paper therefore attempts to bridge this research gap by using the case of the India-US nuclear relationship. To do so, the paper: i) identifies the probable convergences of the existing literature on nuclear policy and the research on constructivist norms, ii) highlights India’s racial treatment as a Southern nuclear state in academia and policy discourse, and iii) recognizes plausible avenues for the expansion of the Western dominated normative research agenda by analyzing India’s nuclear relationship with the US ― with a specific focus to norm contestation and normative change. In bringing together (critical) constructivists and scholars in nuclear politics to further our understanding of how we perceive security of non-western states, this work makes an epistemological and ontological contribution in the field of international security studies.","PeriodicalId":56338,"journal":{"name":"India Review","volume":"21 1","pages":"216 - 248"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42368944","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-03-15DOI: 10.1080/14736489.2022.2080487
A. Phadnis, A. Khandelwal
ABSTRACT Around the world, the practice of politics has taken a turn toward “professionalisation.” A key political actor that is facilitating this change is the political consultant. However, despite the influential role that consultants play in contemporary politics, they have been subject to little scholarly attention. We introduce a study on political consultants for the context of India, a large middle-aged democracy that has seen a growing presence of consultants over the last two decades. The study investigates four main questions: (a) What factors have fueled the growth of political consultancy? (b) What are the characteristics of the industry, such as the number and types of firms and types of clientele? (c) What are the range of services that consultants provide to political clients? (d) How have political consultants grown and evolved over time in the Indian context? The data for the study come from a combination of primary sources such as interviews with political consultants, and secondary sources such as media and industry reports, and personal accounts published by consultants. The study concludes with a forecast of the future of political consultancy in India, and identifies the pain points that are likely to stifle its growth potential.
{"title":"The rise of political consultancy in India","authors":"A. Phadnis, A. Khandelwal","doi":"10.1080/14736489.2022.2080487","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14736489.2022.2080487","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Around the world, the practice of politics has taken a turn toward “professionalisation.” A key political actor that is facilitating this change is the political consultant. However, despite the influential role that consultants play in contemporary politics, they have been subject to little scholarly attention. We introduce a study on political consultants for the context of India, a large middle-aged democracy that has seen a growing presence of consultants over the last two decades. The study investigates four main questions: (a) What factors have fueled the growth of political consultancy? (b) What are the characteristics of the industry, such as the number and types of firms and types of clientele? (c) What are the range of services that consultants provide to political clients? (d) How have political consultants grown and evolved over time in the Indian context? The data for the study come from a combination of primary sources such as interviews with political consultants, and secondary sources such as media and industry reports, and personal accounts published by consultants. The study concludes with a forecast of the future of political consultancy in India, and identifies the pain points that are likely to stifle its growth potential.","PeriodicalId":56338,"journal":{"name":"India Review","volume":"21 1","pages":"249 - 276"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43281507","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-01DOI: 10.1080/14736489.2021.2018200
Rochana Bajpai, Lawrence Sáez
ABSTRACT Politicians winning elections with large margins of victory, beyond what is necessary to win electoral contests,what we term “winning big”, is a common, yet under-studied phenomenon across the world. Political economy models suggest that winning big is not an optimal allocation of scarce campaign resources in a SMP/FPTP electoral system. Inductive inquiry shows that incumbent politicians likely to win nevertheless campaign hard, often devoting considerable effort and resources, for reasons that remain unexamined. Focusing on India, this article explores a range of reasons that can help explain this phenomenon through an innovative research design that combines quantitative analysis with in-depth elite interviews with incumbent MPs from 10 states. We distinguish the phenomenon of “winning big” from that of “safe” seats,identify and probe factors that can contribute to large margins, including candidate strategy, party popularity, mobilizers, electoral uncertainty, and party control . Our findings suggest that while political parties in India, as elsewhere, do not spend more money on electoral contests that they likely to win comfortably, winning big can be the result, among other factors, of a party strategy to establish a reputation for invincibility, and/or individual efforts, stemming from a sense of political vulnerability felt by politicians, underestimated in the literature on safe seats.
{"title":"Winning big: The political logic of winning elections with large margins in India","authors":"Rochana Bajpai, Lawrence Sáez","doi":"10.1080/14736489.2021.2018200","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14736489.2021.2018200","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Politicians winning elections with large margins of victory, beyond what is necessary to win electoral contests,what we term “winning big”, is a common, yet under-studied phenomenon across the world. Political economy models suggest that winning big is not an optimal allocation of scarce campaign resources in a SMP/FPTP electoral system. Inductive inquiry shows that incumbent politicians likely to win nevertheless campaign hard, often devoting considerable effort and resources, for reasons that remain unexamined. Focusing on India, this article explores a range of reasons that can help explain this phenomenon through an innovative research design that combines quantitative analysis with in-depth elite interviews with incumbent MPs from 10 states. We distinguish the phenomenon of “winning big” from that of “safe” seats,identify and probe factors that can contribute to large margins, including candidate strategy, party popularity, mobilizers, electoral uncertainty, and party control . Our findings suggest that while political parties in India, as elsewhere, do not spend more money on electoral contests that they likely to win comfortably, winning big can be the result, among other factors, of a party strategy to establish a reputation for invincibility, and/or individual efforts, stemming from a sense of political vulnerability felt by politicians, underestimated in the literature on safe seats.","PeriodicalId":56338,"journal":{"name":"India Review","volume":"21 1","pages":"21 - 52"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43051465","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-01DOI: 10.1080/14736489.2021.2018202
Ashwath Komath
ABSTRACT This article looks into international cooperation based on shared religious solidarity; its causative factors, and how it influences relations between states. To demonstrate its effects in actual practice, this article examines the case study of the decision of the Indian government to revoke the special status of Kashmir in 2019, which prompted criticism by a few states, specifically Turkey and Malaysia, and also examines the role of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). The article engages with the reasons for these states to engage in criticism of the Indian government’s decision and explores the influence of religious solidarity, especially Islamic solidarity in their rebukes against India, and also briefly deals with the implications such moves may have on a state’s foreign policy calculus.
{"title":"The Kashmir Litmus test: an examination of international Islamic solidarity and co-operation","authors":"Ashwath Komath","doi":"10.1080/14736489.2021.2018202","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14736489.2021.2018202","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article looks into international cooperation based on shared religious solidarity; its causative factors, and how it influences relations between states. To demonstrate its effects in actual practice, this article examines the case study of the decision of the Indian government to revoke the special status of Kashmir in 2019, which prompted criticism by a few states, specifically Turkey and Malaysia, and also examines the role of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). The article engages with the reasons for these states to engage in criticism of the Indian government’s decision and explores the influence of religious solidarity, especially Islamic solidarity in their rebukes against India, and also briefly deals with the implications such moves may have on a state’s foreign policy calculus.","PeriodicalId":56338,"journal":{"name":"India Review","volume":"21 1","pages":"53 - 76"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42347728","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-01DOI: 10.1080/14736489.2021.2018203
K. Anand, Marie Lall
ABSTRACT Schools and textbooks are significant mediums for the transmission of political ideas. Textbooks therefore reflect the ideology of the day whilst imparting values, goals, and myths to younger generations. This article provides an insight into the nexus between politics, the state, the social contract, and school textbooks in India. It critically highlights the ways in which the discourses of political parties of the (national) Self and Other are invoked and reflected in school textbooks underpinning the parties’ versions of national identity and transmit their wider political messages, with devastating results on the debates about Indian citizenship. There is a clear link between changing political parties at the helm of national and state governments and which school textbooks are in use. The article reviews the textbook politics between 1998 and 2020, focusing in particular on how the present BJP-led government has appointed Hindutva-minded scholars to lead education institutions underpinning the message of India being a Hindu nation. The right wing RSS has been allowed by the Narendra Modi government to influence the formulation of the National Education Policy 2020 as well as suggesting changes to textbooks to push the national discourse of citizenship defined by Hindutva at the Union and State levels. The article adds, theoretically and substantively, to the specific link between education and the current issues of Indian citizenship as the government tries to change the values of India’s constitution. Not many in this generation of Indians think this is abnormal, as this reflects what they have learnt at school and historically been used to shape the hostile mind-set of new generations vis-à-vis their neighbors, and other religious communities. The article evaluates how over the last two decades textbooks of the National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT) interpret government policy objectives and guidelines to depict Indian national identity, internal ethnic and cultural diversity, and citizenship.
{"title":"The debate between secularism and Hindu nationalism – how India’s textbooks have become the government’s medium for political communication","authors":"K. Anand, Marie Lall","doi":"10.1080/14736489.2021.2018203","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14736489.2021.2018203","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Schools and textbooks are significant mediums for the transmission of political ideas. Textbooks therefore reflect the ideology of the day whilst imparting values, goals, and myths to younger generations. This article provides an insight into the nexus between politics, the state, the social contract, and school textbooks in India. It critically highlights the ways in which the discourses of political parties of the (national) Self and Other are invoked and reflected in school textbooks underpinning the parties’ versions of national identity and transmit their wider political messages, with devastating results on the debates about Indian citizenship. There is a clear link between changing political parties at the helm of national and state governments and which school textbooks are in use. The article reviews the textbook politics between 1998 and 2020, focusing in particular on how the present BJP-led government has appointed Hindutva-minded scholars to lead education institutions underpinning the message of India being a Hindu nation. The right wing RSS has been allowed by the Narendra Modi government to influence the formulation of the National Education Policy 2020 as well as suggesting changes to textbooks to push the national discourse of citizenship defined by Hindutva at the Union and State levels. The article adds, theoretically and substantively, to the specific link between education and the current issues of Indian citizenship as the government tries to change the values of India’s constitution. Not many in this generation of Indians think this is abnormal, as this reflects what they have learnt at school and historically been used to shape the hostile mind-set of new generations vis-à-vis their neighbors, and other religious communities. The article evaluates how over the last two decades textbooks of the National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT) interpret government policy objectives and guidelines to depict Indian national identity, internal ethnic and cultural diversity, and citizenship.","PeriodicalId":56338,"journal":{"name":"India Review","volume":"246 ","pages":"77 - 107"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41284829","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-01DOI: 10.1080/14736489.2021.2018201
Ilyas Chattha
ABSTRACT The communalization of the police, which resulted from the embittered political situation among the rival communities, was a prominent feature of the Partition violence in 1947. Instead of safeguarding minority communities under attack, the police largely condoned and contributed to the violence, not because of sympathies with their coreligionists, but because they could act with impunity in an environment of insubordination and administrative breakdown in the process of the transition of power of the outgoing British colonial state. This article will show that the absence of a restraining authority, impunity from the law at the point of transitional state-created conditions of violence and the participation of law enforcement agencies led to the widespread violence. This documentation is done by accessing previously unexplored police First Information Reports (FIRs) lodged at local police stations at the time, and the reports of the Punjab Special Branch Intelligence Police from the Roberts Club Archives (RCA), Lahore. The analysis not only contributes to recent scholarship that focuses on the ‘new history’ of Partition studies but also provides an intriguing insight into the role of law enforcement agencies in mass violence.
{"title":"Communalized force: the 1947 partition violence in Punjab and role of law enforcers","authors":"Ilyas Chattha","doi":"10.1080/14736489.2021.2018201","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14736489.2021.2018201","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The communalization of the police, which resulted from the embittered political situation among the rival communities, was a prominent feature of the Partition violence in 1947. Instead of safeguarding minority communities under attack, the police largely condoned and contributed to the violence, not because of sympathies with their coreligionists, but because they could act with impunity in an environment of insubordination and administrative breakdown in the process of the transition of power of the outgoing British colonial state. This article will show that the absence of a restraining authority, impunity from the law at the point of transitional state-created conditions of violence and the participation of law enforcement agencies led to the widespread violence. This documentation is done by accessing previously unexplored police First Information Reports (FIRs) lodged at local police stations at the time, and the reports of the Punjab Special Branch Intelligence Police from the Roberts Club Archives (RCA), Lahore. The analysis not only contributes to recent scholarship that focuses on the ‘new history’ of Partition studies but also provides an intriguing insight into the role of law enforcement agencies in mass violence.","PeriodicalId":56338,"journal":{"name":"India Review","volume":"21 1","pages":"1 - 20"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45404493","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-20DOI: 10.1080/14736489.2021.1993709
Isha Dubey
ABSTRACT The “cultural turn” in memory studies acknowledges that collective memory has a distinctive social aspect reflected in the manner in which it is communicated orally from one individual or generation to another. However, the point of departure is the emphasis on the need to account for the fact that memory is, in equal measure, shaped and mediated by tangible channels such as texts, images, objects, rituals, buildings and so on. The interactions and intersections between these two strands of approaching collective memory have been employed to write the most human and engaging histories of trauma and displacement – especially in the context of the Holocaust. This article takes this discussion forward by critically looking at the scope of the field of memory studies – with its largely Western frames of reference – to facilitate a deeper understanding of similar engagements and entanglements between communicative and culturally tangible forms of collective memory in South Asia. It looks at the ways in which the dominant discourse of nationalism is constructed and contested through the politics inherent in memorialization and memory in the South Asian context by comparing the partition of 1947 that resulted in the creation of Pakistan and the Liberation War of 1971 which gave birth to Bangladesh. Through a review of some important recent works of scholarship on the long, complex and intertwined afterlife of the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 and the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, this article shows how the processes of the construction and contestation of a dominant discourse of nationalism and nationhood are fraught with their own forms of remembrance and forgetting. And yet they speak in a language of exceptionalism that mirrors a somewhat universal template for remembering “difficult pasts” characteristic of the memorial landscape of the Holocaust. Finally, it is argued that the interstices of “national memory” contain voices that unsettle or counter it. Acknowledging these voices while also recognizing their own memory politics shall broaden and nuance the dominant modes of memorializing the partition and the Liberation War in a way that better reflects the specificities and complexities of their context.
{"title":"Remembering, forgetting and memorialising: 1947, 1971 and the state of memory studies in South Asia","authors":"Isha Dubey","doi":"10.1080/14736489.2021.1993709","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14736489.2021.1993709","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The “cultural turn” in memory studies acknowledges that collective memory has a distinctive social aspect reflected in the manner in which it is communicated orally from one individual or generation to another. However, the point of departure is the emphasis on the need to account for the fact that memory is, in equal measure, shaped and mediated by tangible channels such as texts, images, objects, rituals, buildings and so on. The interactions and intersections between these two strands of approaching collective memory have been employed to write the most human and engaging histories of trauma and displacement – especially in the context of the Holocaust. This article takes this discussion forward by critically looking at the scope of the field of memory studies – with its largely Western frames of reference – to facilitate a deeper understanding of similar engagements and entanglements between communicative and culturally tangible forms of collective memory in South Asia. It looks at the ways in which the dominant discourse of nationalism is constructed and contested through the politics inherent in memorialization and memory in the South Asian context by comparing the partition of 1947 that resulted in the creation of Pakistan and the Liberation War of 1971 which gave birth to Bangladesh. Through a review of some important recent works of scholarship on the long, complex and intertwined afterlife of the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 and the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, this article shows how the processes of the construction and contestation of a dominant discourse of nationalism and nationhood are fraught with their own forms of remembrance and forgetting. And yet they speak in a language of exceptionalism that mirrors a somewhat universal template for remembering “difficult pasts” characteristic of the memorial landscape of the Holocaust. Finally, it is argued that the interstices of “national memory” contain voices that unsettle or counter it. Acknowledging these voices while also recognizing their own memory politics shall broaden and nuance the dominant modes of memorializing the partition and the Liberation War in a way that better reflects the specificities and complexities of their context.","PeriodicalId":56338,"journal":{"name":"India Review","volume":"20 1","pages":"510 - 539"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2021-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43734178","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-20DOI: 10.1080/14736489.2021.1993710
Nimmi Kurian, Jayashree Vivekanandan
ABSTRACT The article looks at British India’s Burma campaign of 1941–45 and asks why the decisive battles of Imphal and Kohima appear to be virtually invisible from India’s national imagination today. It further critiques dominant readings of the twin battles for their failure to accommodate the heterogeneity of experiences and contributions of the hill tribes of the India-Burma borderlands who fought in it. The omission appears even more intriguing given that despite being on the winning side, the border communities end up losing the memory battle. While it questions the conventional notion that memory is the postcolonial state’s prerogative, it also recognizes that counter-memories are by no means monolithic. It makes the case for acknowledging alternative constructions and communities of practice that imaginatively decenter the construction of memory in the borderlands. Without connecting with the lives, and in turn, the memories of the border communities who inhabit the physical sites of the war, the cliché of the “forgotten war” will remain an overused, and ultimately, an offensive trope.
{"title":"Victorious outliers: India’s border regions and the contested memory politics of the Burma campaign","authors":"Nimmi Kurian, Jayashree Vivekanandan","doi":"10.1080/14736489.2021.1993710","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14736489.2021.1993710","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The article looks at British India’s Burma campaign of 1941–45 and asks why the decisive battles of Imphal and Kohima appear to be virtually invisible from India’s national imagination today. It further critiques dominant readings of the twin battles for their failure to accommodate the heterogeneity of experiences and contributions of the hill tribes of the India-Burma borderlands who fought in it. The omission appears even more intriguing given that despite being on the winning side, the border communities end up losing the memory battle. While it questions the conventional notion that memory is the postcolonial state’s prerogative, it also recognizes that counter-memories are by no means monolithic. It makes the case for acknowledging alternative constructions and communities of practice that imaginatively decenter the construction of memory in the borderlands. Without connecting with the lives, and in turn, the memories of the border communities who inhabit the physical sites of the war, the cliché of the “forgotten war” will remain an overused, and ultimately, an offensive trope.","PeriodicalId":56338,"journal":{"name":"India Review","volume":"20 1","pages":"497 - 509"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2021-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48785670","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-20DOI: 10.1080/14736489.2021.1993708
Manu Sharma
ABSTRACT Postage stamps are a significant visual text of an issuing state. In 1947, British India was divided into independent states of India and Pakistan. The successive new regimes in both countries got the freedom to design, print, and circulate the official visual iconography through postage stamps as a symbol of sovereignty for its citizens and the world community. This article explores how India and Pakistan visualized the narrative of national identity and discourse on development through postage stamps in the first two decades of their independence. The article does not intend to retell the narrative of the postcolonial nation-building process in the subcontinent. Instead, the objective is to introduce postage stamps as a primary visual resource for exploring the contours of public history of India and Pakistan by arguing that stamps retain its importance as excellent visual archives for postcolonial scholarly analysis in the age of new media.
{"title":"Postage stamps as sites of public history in South Asia: an intervention","authors":"Manu Sharma","doi":"10.1080/14736489.2021.1993708","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14736489.2021.1993708","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Postage stamps are a significant visual text of an issuing state. In 1947, British India was divided into independent states of India and Pakistan. The successive new regimes in both countries got the freedom to design, print, and circulate the official visual iconography through postage stamps as a symbol of sovereignty for its citizens and the world community. This article explores how India and Pakistan visualized the narrative of national identity and discourse on development through postage stamps in the first two decades of their independence. The article does not intend to retell the narrative of the postcolonial nation-building process in the subcontinent. Instead, the objective is to introduce postage stamps as a primary visual resource for exploring the contours of public history of India and Pakistan by arguing that stamps retain its importance as excellent visual archives for postcolonial scholarly analysis in the age of new media.","PeriodicalId":56338,"journal":{"name":"India Review","volume":"20 1","pages":"540 - 564"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2021-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42928146","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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