Full Description
This volume explores the issue of minorities in India and how they are identified, defined, and categorized by legal and institutional processes. It examines how modern law creates and conditions minority identity and also how groups manipulate the ground-level situation to project a certain identity at a particular point of time. When more than one category applies to a group, and such categorizations become the basis for the struggle for rights, the politics of identity become even more complex. The volume specifically focuses on 'religious' minorities, questioning the religious identification of groups and showing that the construction of minority groups in religious terms is difficult to achieve given the existence of several, and sometimes contradictory, loyalties and identities.
The essays address the minority issue by engaging with different minority communities in India. These also question the relationship of minority identities to caste, gender, and tribal identity.
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ; INTRODUCTION, ROWENA ROBINSON ; 1. INDIA AND THE CONCEPT OF A MULTINATIONAL FEDERATION, MICHEL SEYMOUR ; 2. MAKING MINORITY IDENTITIES: GENDER, STATE, AND MUSLIM PERSONAL LAW, RINA VERMA WILLIAMS ; 3. SCHEDULED CASTES, CHRISTIANS, AND MUSLIMS: THE POLITICS OF MACRO-MAJORITIES AND MICRO-MINORITIES, LAURA DUDLEY JENKINS ; 4. REPRESENTING THE 'MINORITY', FARHANA IBRAHIM ; 5. BUDDHISTS: THE POLITICAL DYNAMICS OF CONVERSION AND CASTE, JOSEPH M.T. ; 6. CHRISTIAN AND TRIBAL: THE DYNAMICS OF SCHEDULED TRIBE STATUS IN THE FIELD, JOSEPH MARIANUS KUJUR ; 7. MINORITIES AND THE POLITICS OF CONVERSION: WITH SPECIAL ATTENTION TO INDIAN CHRISTIANITY, CHAD M. BAUMAN AND RICHARD F. YOUNG ; 8. THE PARSI MINORITY: ETHICS AND THE SPIRIT OF INDIAN MODERNITY, MURZBAN JAL ; 9. THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE RAMAKRISHNA MISSION: THE POLITICS OF MINORITY IDENTITY, SIPRA MUKHERJEE ; 10. SIKH MINORITY IDENTITY FORMATION: NATION AND POLITICS IN POST-COLONIAL INDIA, NATASHA BEHL ; 11. FROM INCLUSIVE TO EXCLUSIVE: CHANGING INGREDIENTS OF MUSLIM IDENTITY IN BOMBAY CINEMA, YOUSUF SAEED ; 12. THE VIOLENCE OF SECURITY: HINDUTVA'S LETHAL IMAGINARIES, DIBYESH ANAND ; NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
