Mobilizing Religion and Gender in India: The Role of Activism

174 Pages·2015·1.7 MB·English

by  Nandini Deo

Mobilizing Religion and
Gender in India
Religious nationalists and women’s activists have transformed India over the past
century. They debated the idea of India under colonial rule, shaped the constitu-
tional structure of Indian democracy, and questioned the legitimacy of the postco-
lonial consensus, as they politicized one dimension of identity.
Using a historical comparative approach, this book argues that external events,
activist agency in strategizing, and the political economy of transnational net-
works explain the relative success and failure of Hindu nationalism and the
Indian women’s movement rather than the ideological claims each movement
makes. By focusing on how particular activist strategies lead to increased levels
of public support, it shows how these strategies, rather than the ideologies of Hin-
dutva and feminism that mobilize people. Both of these social movements have
had decades of great power and influence, and decades of relative irrelevance,
and both challenge postcolonial India’s secular settlement – its division of public
and private. The book goes on to highlight new insights into the inner dynamics
of each movement by showing how the same strategies – grassroots education,
electoral mobilization, media management, donor cultivation – lead to similarly
positive results.
Bringing together the study of Hindu nationalism and the Indian women’s
movement, the book will be of interest to students and scholars of South Asian
Religion, Gender Studies, and South Asian Politics.
Nandini Deo is Associate Professor of Political Science at Lehigh University,
USA. Her previous publication was a co-authored book with Duncan McDuie Ra,
The Politics of Collective Advocacy (2011).
Routledge Contemporary South Asia Series
1 Pakistan 8 Regionalism in South Asia
Social and cultural transformations Negotiating cooperation,
in a Muslim nation institutional structures
Mohammad A. Qadeer Kishore C. Dash
2 Labor, Democratization and 9 Federalism, Nationalism and
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Pakistan India and the Punjab economy
Christopher Candland Pritam Singh
3 China–India Relations 10 Human Development and
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Ananya Mukherjee Reed
4 Madrasas in South Asia
Teaching terror? 11 The South Asian Diaspora
Jamal Malik Transnational networks and
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5 Labor, Globalization and Edited by Rajesh Rai and Peter
the State Reeves
Workers, women and migrants
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6 Indian Literature and Popular
Cinema 13 Himalayan Frontiers of India
Recasting classics Historical, geo-political and
Edited by Heidi R.M. Pauwels strategic perspectives
K. Warikoo
7 Islamist Militancy in
Bangladesh 14 India’s Open-Economy Policy
A complex web Globalism, rivalry, continuity
Ali Riaz Jalal Alamgir
15 The Separatist Conflict in 23 Economic and Human
Sri Lanka Development in
Terrorism, ethnicity, political Contemporary India
economy Cronyism and fragility
Asoka Bandarage Debdas Banerjee
16 India’s Energy Security 24 Culture and the Environment in
Edited by Ligia Noronha and the Himalaya
Anant Sudarshan Arjun Guneratne
17 Globalization and the Middle 25 The Rise of Ethnic Politics
Classes in India in Nepal
The social and cultural impact of Democracy in the margins
neoliberal reforms Susan I. Hangen
Ruchira Ganguly-Scrase and
Timothy J. Scrase 26 The Multiplex in India
A cultural economy of urban
18 Water Policy Processes in India leisure
Discourses of power and Adrian Athique and Douglas Hill
resistance
Vandana Asthana 27 Tsunami Recovery in Sri Lanka
Ethnic and regional dimensions
19 Minority Governments in India Dennis B. McGilvray and Michele
The puzzle of elusive majorities R. Gamburd
Csaba Nikolenyi
28 Development, Democracy and
20 The Maoist Insurgency in Nepal the State
Revolution in the twenty-first Critiquing the Kerala model of
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21 Global Capital and Peripheral Violence and transformation in the
Labour Karachi conflict
The history and political Nichola Khan
economy of plantation workers
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K. Ravi Raman Crimes in South Asia
Bina D’Costa
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Reincarnation of ultra-left 31 The State in India after
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century Interdisciplinary perspectives
Bidyut Chakrabarty and Edited by Akhil Gupta and K.
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32 National Identities in Pakistan 41 Explaining Pakistan’s Foreign
The 1971 war in contemporary Policy
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33 Political Islam and Governance 42 Development-induced
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34 Bengali Cinema Smrithi Talwar
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36 The Labour Movement in the Identity Politics
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37 Building Bangalore 45 Islamic Revival in Nepal
Architecture and urban Religion and a new nation
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38 Conflict and Peacebuilding in A classroom view
Sri Lanka Manabi Majumdar and Jos Mooij
Caught in the peace trap?
Edited by Jonathan Goodhand, 47 The Culturalization of Caste
Jonathan Spencer and in India
Benedict Korf Identity and inequality in a
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39 Microcredit and Women’s Balmurli Natrajan
Empowerment 48 Corporate Social
A case study of Bangladesh Responsibility in India
Amunui Faraizi, Jim McAllister Bidyut Chakrabarty
and Taskinur Rahman
49 Pakistan’s Stability Paradox
40 South Asia in the New Domestic, regional and
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50 Transforming Urban Water 59 Islam and Higher Education
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Govind Gopakumar
60 Religious Freedom in India
51 South Asian Security Sovereignty and (anti) conversion
Twenty-first century discourse Goldie Osuri
Sagarika Dutt and Alok Bansal
61 Everyday Ethnicity in Sri Lanka
52 Non-discrimination and Equality Up-country Tamil identity
in India politics
Contesting boundaries of social Daniel Bass
justice
Vidhu Verma 62 Ritual and Recovery in
Post-Conflict Sri Lanka
53 Being Middle-class in India Eloquent bodies
A way of life Jane Derges
Henrike Donner
63 Bollywood and Globalisation
54 Kashmir’s Right to Secede The global power of popular
A critical examination of Hindi cinema
contemporary theories of secession Edited by David J. Schaefer and
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55 Bollywood Travels 64 Regional Economic Integration
Culture, diaspora and border in South Asia
crossings in popular Hindi cinema Trapped in conflict?
Rajinder Dudrah Amita Batra
56 Nation, Territory, and 65 Architecture and Nationalism
Globalization in Pakistan in Sri Lanka
Traversing the margins The trouser under the cloth
Chad Haines Anoma Pieris
57 The Politics of Ethnicity in 66 Civil Society and
Pakistan Democratization
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ethnic movements Institutions, ideologies and
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Sarbeswar Sahoo
58 Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict
Identities and mobilization 67 Contemporary Pakistani Fiction
after 1990 in English
Edited by Mahendra Lawoti and Idea, nation, state
Susan Hangen Cara N. Cilano
68 Transitional Justice in 77 Being Bengali
South Asia At home and in the world
A study of Afghanistan and Nepal Edited by Mridula Nath
Tazreena Sajjad Chakraborty
69 Displacement and Resettlement 78 The Political Economy
in India of Ethnic Conflict in
The human cost of development Sri Lanka
Hari Mohan Mathur Nikolaos Biziouras
70 Water, Democracy and 79 Indian Arranged Marriages
Neoliberalism in India A social psychological perspective
The power to reform Tulika Jaiswal
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80 Writing the City in British Asian
71 Capitalist Development in Diasporas
India’s Informal Economy Edited by Seán McLoughlin,
Elisabetta Basile William Gould, Ananya
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72 Nation, Constitutionalism and Emma Tomalin
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Roshan de Silva Wijeyeratne 81 Post-9/11 Espionage Fiction in
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73 Counterinsurgency, Democracy, Spies and ‘terrorists’
and the Politics of Identity Cara Cilano
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From warfare to welfare? 82 Left Radicalism in India
Mona Bhan Bidyut Chakrabarty
74 Enterprise Culture in 83 “Nation-State” and Minority
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Edited by Nandini Gooptu identities
Tanweer Fazal
75 The Politics of Economic
Restructuring in India 84 Pakistan’s Nuclear Policy
Economic governance and state A minimum credible deterrence
spatial rescaling Zafar Khan
Loraine Kennedy
85 Imagining Muslims in South
76 The Other in South Asian Asia and the Diaspora
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Otherness Claire Chambers and Caroline
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86 Indian Foreign Policy in 95 Ethnic Subnationalist
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87 Corporate Social Responsibility
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88 Indian Capitalism in and Tan Tai Yong
Development
Barbara Harriss-White and 97 Twenty-First Century
Judith Heyer Bollywood
Ajay Gehlawat
89 Bangladesh Cinema and
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In search of the modern? Development in India
Zakir Hossain Raju Indigeneity in transition in the
state of Kerala
90 Suicide in Sri Lanka Darley Kjosavik and Nadarajah
The anthropology of an epidemic Shanmugaratnam
Tom Widger
99 State and Nation-Building in
91 Epigraphy and Islamic Culture Pakistan
Inscriptions of the Early Muslim Beyond Islam and security
Rulers of Bengal (1205–1494) Edited by Roger D. Long,
Mohammad Yusuf Siddiq Gurharpal Singh, Yunas Samad,
and Ian Talbot
92 Reshaping City Governance
London, Mumbai, Kolkata, 100 Subaltern Movements in India
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Nirmala Rao struggle against neoliberal
development
93 The Indian Partition in Manisha Desai
Literature and Films
History, politics, and aesthetics 101 Islamic Banking in Pakistan
Rini Bhattacharya Mehta and Shariah-compliant finance and
Debali Mookerjea-Leonard the quest to make Pakistan more
Islamic
94 Development, Poverty and Feisal Khan
Power in Pakistan
The impact of state and 102 The Bengal Diaspora
donor interventions on Rethinking Muslim migration
farmers Claire Alexander, Joya Chatterji,
Syed Mohammad Ali and Annu Jalais
103 Mobilizing Religion 105 Identity Politics and Elections
and Gender in India in Malaysia and Indonesia
The role of activism Ethnic engineering in Borneo
Nandini Deo Karolina Prasad
104 Social Movements and the 106 Religion and Modernity in the
Indian Diaspora Himalaya
Movindri Reddy Edited by Megan Adamson
Sijapati and Jessica Vantine
Birkenholtz
Mobilizing Religion and
Gender in India
The role of activism
Nandini Deo