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"Religion and Conflict in Modern South Asia is one of the first single-author comparisons of different South Asian states around the theme of religious conflict. Based on new research and syntheses of the literature on "communalism",̥ it argues that religious conflict in this region in the modern period was never simply based on sectarian or theological differences or the clash of civilizations. Instead, the book proposes that the connection between religious radicalism and everyday violence relates to the actual (and perceived) weaknesses of political and state structures. For some, religious and ethnic mobilisation has provided a means of protest, where representative institutions failed. For others, it became a method of dealing with an uncertain political and economic future. For many it has no concrete or deliberate function, but has effectively upheld social stability, paternalism and local power, in the face of globalisation and the growing aspirations of the region's most underprivileged citizens"--

This is one of the first single-author comparisons of different South Asian states around the theme of religious conflict. Based on new research and syntheses of the literature on 'communalism', it argues that religious conflict in this region in the modern period was never simply based on sectarian or theological differences or the clash of civilizations. Instead, the book proposes that the connection between religious radicalism and everyday violence relates to the actual (and perceived) weaknesses of political and state structures. For some, religious and ethnic mobilisation has provided a means of protest, where representative institutions failed. For others, it became a method of dealing with an uncertain political and economic future. For many it has no concrete or deliberate function, but has effectively upheld social stability, paternalism and local power, in the face of globalisation and the growing aspirations of the region's most underprivileged citizens

Administrative power and public morality : hierarchy and corruption in late colonial and early independent UP -- Religion, caste, and government servant recruitment, 1920s-1950s -- Imagining corruption : languages and symbolism in administrative and police power in north India -- The rise of anti-corruption : government servants and 'citizens', 1940-1952 -- The bureaucracy, police, and political change : maintaining the 'steel frame' in the 1950s and 1960s.

Offering a fresh approach to the issue of government and administrative corruption through 'everyday' citizen interactions with the state, this book explores changing discourses and practices of corruption in late colonial and early independent Uttar P.

In this book William Gould explores what is arguably one of the most important and controversial themes in twentieth-century Indian history and politics: the nature of Hindu nationalism as an ideology and political language. Rather than concentrating on the main institutions of the Hindu Right in India as other studies have done, the author uses a variety of historical sources to analyse how Hindu nationalism affected the supposedly secularist Congress in the key state of Uttar Pradesh. In this way, the author offers an alternative assessment of how these languages and ideologies transformed the relationship between Congress and north Indian Muslims. The book makes a major contribution to historical analyses of the critical last two decades before Partition and Independence in 1947, which will be of value to scholars interested in historical and contemporary Hindu nationalism, and to students researching the final stages of colonial power in India

Durante las décadas de 1930 y 1940 en Uttar Pradesh los debates sobre la primacía del hindi o el urdu como la lengua oficial, 'nacional' se solapaban en gran parte con el enfrentamiento entre hindúes y musulmanes. Atendiendo a la postura que adoptó la 'izquierda' del Partido del Congreso, vemos que la relación entre lengua e identidad religiosa es bastante compleja y en ocasiones paradójica. En este artículo exploramos cómo las características de sendos idiomas se asociaban a determinado comportamiento social y político y cómo de esa correlación de fuerzas surgió la hegemonía del hindi. ; In 1930s and 1940s Uttar Pradesh, the question of the relationship between Hindi and Urdu in debates about a possible 'national' language has been widely assumed to interface with a politics of communal antagonism between Hindus and Muslims. However, the politics of figures on the 'left' of the Congress in this period suggest that the role of language in relation to religious antagonism was complex and sometimes paradoxical. We will explore the ways in which characteristics of the two languages were associated with particular forms of social and political behaviour, and how these associations between language and behaviour came to characterise the rise of Hindi.