Democratic Transformation and the Vernacular Public Arena in India
Since the structural change in Indian society that began in the 1990sthe result of the liberalisation of the economy, devolution of power, and decentralisation of the governmentan unprecedented, democratic transformation has been taking place. This has caused the emergence of unexpected coalitions and alliances across diverse castes, classes, and religious groups according to the issues involved.
In this volume, we intend to understand this deepening of democracy by employing a new analytical framework of the vernacular public arena where negotiations, dialogues, debates, and contestations occur among vernacular publics. This reflects the profound changes in Indian democracy as diverse social groups, including dalits, adivasis, and Other Backward Classes; minorities, women; individuals from rural areas, towns, and cities; the poor and the new middle classesthe vernacular publicsparticipate in new ways in Indias public life. This participation is not confined to electoral politics, but has extended to the public arenas in which these groups have begun to raise their voice publicly and to negotiate and engage in dialogue with each other and the wider world. Contributors demonstrate that the participation of vernacular publics has resulted in the broadening of Indian democracy itself which focuses on the ways of governance, improving peoples lives, life chances, and living environments.
An original, comprehensive study that furthers our understanding of the unfolding political dynamism and the complex reshuffling and reassembling taking place in Indian society and politics, this book will be relevant to academics with an interest in South Asian Studies from a variety of disciplines, including Political Science, Sociology, Anthropology, and Media Studies.
Taberez Ahmed Neyazi is an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Culture, Media & Governance at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. He has been a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Postdoctoral (JSPS) Fellow at Kyoto University and a Visiting Fellow at the EastWest Center in Hawaii.
Akio Tanabe is a Professor at the Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies and the Director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary India, Kyoto University. His publications include the award-winning Caste and equality: Historical anthropology of local society and vernacular democracy in India (in Japanese) (Tokyo, 2010).
Shinya Ishizaka is a Visiting Associate Professor, Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, Kyoto University and a Research Fellow, Center for Area Studies, National Institutes for the Humanities. He is the author of Environmental movement in India: Gandhism and connective politics (in Japanese) (Kyoto, 2011).
Routledge New Horizons in South Asian Studies
Series Editors
Crispin Bates
Edinburgh University
Akio Tanabe
Kyoto University
Minoru Mio
National Museum of Ethnology, Japan
Democratic Transformation and the Vernacular Public Arena in India
Edited by Taberez Ahmed Neyazi, Akio Tanabe, and Shinya Ishizaka
First published 2014
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
2014 Taberez Ahmed Neyazi, Akio Tanabe, and Shinya Ishizaka
The right of the editors Taberez Ahmed Neyazi, Akio Tanabe, and Shinya Ishizaka to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Democratic transformation and the vernacular public arena in India / edited by Taberez Ahmed Neyazi, Akio Tanabe, Shinya Ishizaka.
pages cm. (Routledge new horizons in South Asian studies)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. DemocracyIndia. 2. Political participationIndia. 3. Social changeIndia. 4. Social classesIndia. 5. Social groupsIndia. 6. IndiaSocial conditions. 7. IndiaPolitics and government. I. Neyazi, Taberez
Ahmed
JQ281.D54 2014
ISBN: 978-0-415-73867-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-77762-7 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
Contents
TABEREZ AHMED NEYAZI AND AKIO TANABE
YUMIKO TOKITA-TANABE AND AKIO TANABE
CRAIG JEFFREY AND JANE DYSON
SARBESWAR SAHOO
TABEREZ AHMED NEYAZI
ANUP KUMAR
BISHNU N. MOHAPATRA
SHINYA ISHIZAKA
BADRI NARAYAN
ANDREW WYATT
ANASTASIA PILIAVSKY
NORIO KONDO
Jane Dyson is a Research Associate at the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on children, youth, work, politics, and development within, and beyond, India. She is author of a major new monograph on working childhoods with Cambridge University Press, and she co-edited the book Telling young lives: Portraits in global youth (with Craig Jeffrey, Temple University Press, 2008).
Shinya Ishizaka is a Visiting Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, Kyoto University and a Research Fellow at NIHU (National Institutes for the Humanities) Center for Area Studies. He is the author of Environmental movement in India: Gandhism and connective politics (Showado, 2011) and the co-editor of the Handbook for sustainable humanosphere (Kyoto University Press, 2012) and Reflections on the Indian National Army during the Second World War: A collection of interviews with Japanese soldiers, vols 1 & 2 (Kenbun Shuppan, 2008).
Craig Jeffrey is a Professor of Development Geography at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of St. Johns College, Oxford. His research focuses on education, youth, politics, and social change in India and more broadly. His recent books include Timepass: Youth, class and the politics of waiting (Stanford University Press, 2010) and India today: Economy, society, politics (with Stuart Corbridge and John Harriss, Polity, 2012). He is planning future research on comparative youth politics around the world.
Norio Kondo is the Director of the South Asian Studies Group, Area Studies Center, at the Institute of Developing Economies in Japan. He specialises in the study of contemporary politics and rural development in India, as well as comparative politics in general. He is the author of Indian parliamentary elections after independence: Social changes and electoral participation
