Imagining the Public in Modern South Asia
In South Asia, as elsewhere, the category of the public has come under increased scholarly and popular scrutiny in recent years. To better understand this current conjuncture, we need a fuller understanding of the specifically South Asian history of the term.To that end, this book surveys the modern Indian public across multiple historical contexts and sites, contributions from leading scholars of South Asia in anthropology, history, literary studies and religious studies. As a whole, this volume highlights the complex genealogies of the public in the Indian subcontinent during the colonial and postcolonial eras, showing in particular how British notions of the public intersected with South Asian forms of publicity. Two principal methods or approachesthe genealogical and the typologicalhave characterized this scholarship. This book suggests, more in the mode of genealogy, that the category of the public has been closely linked to the sub-continental history of political liberalism. Also discussed is how the studies collected in this volume challenge some of liberalisms key presuppositions about the public and its relationship to law and religion.
This book was originally published as a special issue of South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies.
Brannon D. Ingram is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Northwestern University, USA. He specializes in the study of Islam in modern South Asia and South Africa, focusing particularly on Sufism and traditionally educated Muslim scholars (Ulama). Ingrams publications can be found in journals such as Modern Asian Studies and The Muslim World.
J. Barton Scott is Assistant Professor of Religion and Historical Studies at the University of Toronto, Canada. His current research interests include print culture in colonial India, the legal regulation of media publics, and the reception of liberalism among colonial Hindu reformers. He is the author of Spiritual Despots: Modern Hinduism and the Genealogies of Self-Rule (University of Chicago Press, 2016).
SherAli K. Tareen is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College, USA. He received his PhD in Religion/Islamic Studies at Duke University and his BA at Macalester College. His work centers on Muslim intellectual thought in modern South Asia with a focus on intra-Muslim debates and polemics on crucial questions of law, ethics, and theology. He is currently completing a book project entitled Polemical Encounters: Competing Imaginaries of Tradition in Modern South Asian Islam that explores polemics over the boundaries of heretical innovation (bida) among leading nineteenth century Indian Muslim scholars (Ulama). His articles have appeared in the Journal of Law and Religion, Muslim World, Political Theology, and Islamic Studies.
First published 2016
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2016 South Asian Studies Association of Australia
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Contents
J. Barton Scott and Brannon D. Ingram
David Gilmartin
J. Barton Scott
Brannon D. Ingram
SherAli K. Tareen
Francesca Orsini
Ajay Skaria
Ritu Birla
William Mazzarella
Rupa Viswanath
Sandria B. Freitag
The chapters in this book were originally published in South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, volume 38, issue 3 (September 2015). When citing this material, please use the original page numbering for each article, as follows:
Chapter 1
What is a Public? Notes from South Asia
J. Barton Scott and Brannon D. Ingram
South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, volume 38, issue 3 (September 2015)pp. 357370
Chapter 2
Rethinking the Public through the Lens of Sovereignty
David Gilmartin
South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, volume 38, issue 3 (September 2015)pp. 371386
Chapter 3
How to Defame a God: Public Selfhood in the Maharaj Libel Case
J. Barton Scott
South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, volume 38, issue 3 (September 2015)pp. 387402
Chapter 4
Crises of the Public in Muslim India: Critiquing Custom at Aligarh and Deoband
Brannon D. Ingram
South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, volume 38, issue 3 (September 2015) pp. 403418
Chapter 5
Contesting Friendship in Colonial Muslim India
SherAli K. Tareen
South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, volume 38, issue 3 (September 2015)pp. 419434
Chapter 6
Booklets and Sants: Religious Publics and Literary History
Francesca Orsini
South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, volume 38, issue 3 (September 2015)pp. 435449
Chapter 7
Ambedkar, Marx and the Buddhist Question
Ajay Skaria
South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, volume 38, issue 3 (September 2015)pp. 450465
Chapter 8
Jurisprudence of Emergence: Neo-Liberalism and the Public as Market in India
Ritu Birla
South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, volume 38, issue 3 (September 2015)pp. 466480
Chapter 9
A Different Kind of Flesh: Public Obscenity, Globalisation and the Mumbai Dance Bar Ban
William Mazzarella
South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, volume 38, issue 3 (September 2015)pp. 481494
Chapter 10
Commissioning Representation: The Misra Report, Deliberation and the Government of the People in Modern India
Rupa Viswanath
South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, volume 38, issue 3 (September 2015)pp. 495511
Chapter 11
Postscript: Exploring Aspects of the Public from 1991 to 2014
Sandria B. Freitag
South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, volume 38, issue 3 (September 2015)pp. 512523
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