Minority Nationalisms in South Asia
South Asia is the theatre of myriad experimentations with nationalisms of various kinds religious, linguistic, religio-linguistic, composite, plural and exclusivist. In all the region's major states, officially promulgated nationalism at various times has been fiercely contested by minority groups intent on preserving what they see as the pristine purity of their own cultural inheritance.
This volume examines the perspective of minority identities as they negotiate their terms of co-existence, accommodation and adaptation with several other competing identities within the framework of the nation state in South Asia. It examines three different kinds of minority articulations cultural conclaves with real or fictitious attachments to an imaginary homeland, the identity problems of dispersed minorities with no territorial claims and the aspirations of indigenous communities, tribes or ethnicities.
The essays in this volume offer a rich menu: the evolution of Naga nationalism, the construction of the territory-less Sylheti identity, the debates over Pashtun nationalism in Pakistan, the evolution of Muslim nationalism in Sri Lanka, the politics of religious minorities in Bangladesh and Pakistan, the making of minority politics in India, and questions of Islam and nationalism in colonial India. It is an eclectic mix for students of nationalism, politics, modern history and anyone interested in the evolution of South Asia.
This book was published as a special issue of South Asian History and Culture.
Tanweer Fazal is Assistant Professor at the Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. He was earlier consultant to the Prime Minister's High Level Committee to Study the Status of Muslims of India (Sachar Committee, 2006).
South Asian History and Culture
David Washbrook - University of Cambridge, UK
Boria Majumdar - University of Central Lancashire, UK
Sharmistha Gooptu - South Asia Research Foundation, India
Nalin Mehta - La Trobe University, Melbourne
This series offers a forum that will provide an integrated perspective on the field at large. It brings together research on South Asia in the humanities and social sciences, and provides scholars with a platform covering, but not restricted to, their particular fields of interest and specialization. Such an approach is critical to any expanding field of study, for the development of more informed and broader perspectives, and of more overarching theoretical conceptions.
The series achieves a multidisciplinary forum for the study of South Asia under the aegis of established disciplines (e.g. history, politics, gender studies) combined with more recent fields (e.g. sport studies, sexuality studies). A focus is also to make available to a broader readership new research on film, media, photography, medicine and the environment, which have to date remained more specialized fields within South Asian studies.
A significant concern for the series is to focus across the whole of the region known as South Asia, and not simply on India, as most South Asia forums inevitably tend to do. We are most conscious of this gap in South Asian studies and work to bring into focus more scholarship on and from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and other parts of South Asia.
Health, Culture and Religion in South Asia
Critical Perspectives
Edited by Assa Doron and Alex Broom
Minority Nationalisms in South Asia
Edited by Tanweer Fazal
Gujarat Beyond Gandhi
Identity, Society and Conflict
Edited by Nalin Mehta and Mona Mehta
South Asian Transnationalisms
Cultural Exchange in the Twentieth Century
Edited by Babli Sinha
Religious Cultures in Early Modern India
New Perspectives
Edited by Rosalind O'Hanlon and David Washbrook
Minority Nationalisms in South Asia
Edited by
Tanweer Fazal
First published 2013
by Routledge
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2013 Taylor & Francis
This book is a reproduction of South Asian History and Culture, vol. 3, issue 2. The Publisher requests to those authors who may be citing this book to state, also, the bibliographical details of the special issue on which the book was based.
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ISBN: 978-0-415-55631-6
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Taylor & Francis Books
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The publisher would like to make readers aware that the chapters in this book may be referred to as articles as they are identical to the articles published in the special issue. The publisher accepts responsibility for any inconsistencies that may have arisen in the course of preparing this volume for print.
Contents
Tanweer Fazal
Sajal Nag
Rubina Saigol
Nabanipa Bhattacharjee
Tanweer Fazal
M. Raisur Rahman
Zarin Ahmad
Meghna Guhathakurta
Tariq Rahman
The chapters in this book were originally published in South Asian History and Culture, volume 3, issue 2 (April 2012). When citing this material, please use the original page numbering for each article, as follows:
Tanweer Fazal
South Asian History and Culture, volume 3, issue 2 (April 2012) pp. 163176
Sajal Nag
South Asian History and Culture, volume 3, issue 2 (April 2012) pp. 177196
Rubina Saigol
South Asian History and Culture, volume 3, issue 2 (April 2012) pp. 197214
Nabanipa Bhattacharjee
South Asian History and Culture, volume 3, issue 2 (April 2012) pp. 215235
Tanweer Fazal
South Asian History and Culture, volume 3, issue 2 (April 2012) pp. 236253
M. Raisur Rahman
South Asian History and Culture, volume 3, issue 2 (April 2012) pp. 254268
Zarin Ahmad
South Asian History and Culture, volume 3, issue 2 (April 2012) pp. 269287
Meghna Guhathakurta
South Asian History and Culture, volume 3, issue 2 (April 2012) pp. 288301
Tariq Rahman
South Asian History and Culture, volume 3, issue 2 (April 2012) pp. 302315
Tanweer Fazal
Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India