Suchergebnisse

Animal sacrifices are commonly practised in Himachal Pradesh on various occasions, including public festivals at the district level. Over recent years criticism of the practice has increased and some cases have been brought before the court. This chapter focuses on three court cases that were jointly decided in 2014 by the Himachal Pradesh High Court, where the judge ruled a total ban on animal sacrifice in the state of Himachal Pradesh. The case is still pending at the Supreme Court which means that it may potentially have an impact at national level. I first consider the context of this controversy, and the official and unofficial discourses of those involved in the case. Based on the court file, newspapers and ethnographic data, I then analyse the judicial handling of the case, which refers to legal, ritual, or reformist arguments or to animal welfare. The last section draws a comparison with a case concerning animal sacrifice in the Santeria religion, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, in order to bring out differences in the legal approaches in the two cases despite being both grounded in common law. It shows how, contrary to the legal handling of this issue in the Santeria case where the main concern is to protect religious freedom, in the Himachal Pradesh case the judge explicitly and repeatedly appealed to the role of the court in defining religion (as opposed to superstition), and to the court's responsibility in favouring 'moral progress' and promoting religious reforms.

In this article, I focus on how the issue of considering animals as legal persons has been argued in court by the Nonhuman Rights Project led by Steven Wise in the United States and how this project was recently adopted and reinterpreted by an animal rights organisation in India in preparation for their own court battle. In turn, Indian cases raising the question of the legal personhood of animals and rivers have been used by Wise as examples to argue his case in court. The comparison will raise the question of how legal ideas and strategies regarding so-called 'rights of nature' travel around the world, giving rise to reciprocal appropriations and possible idealisations.

International audience ; This paper proposes a survey of the many ways in which people look at and deal with animals in contemporary India. On the basis of ethnographic research and of multiple written sources (judgments, newspapers, websites, legal files, activist pamphlets, etc.), I present some of the actors involved in the animal debate-animal activists, environmental lawyers, judges, and hunter-conservationists-who adopt different, though sometimes interconnected, approaches to animals. Some of them look at animals as victims that need to be rescued and treated in the field, others fight for animals in Parliament or in Court so that they can be entitled to certain rights, others are concerned with the issue of species survival, where the interest of the group prevails on the protection of individual animals. In the context of a predominantly secularist background of the people engaged in such debates, I also examine the role that religion may, in certain cases, play for some of them: whether as a way of constructing a Hindu or Buddhist cultural or political identity, or as a strategic argument in a legal battle in order to obtain public attention. Lastly, I raise the question of the role played by animals themselves in these different situations-as intellectual principles to be fought for (or to be voiced) in their absence, or as real individuals to interact with and whose encounter may produce different kinds of sometimes conflicting emotions.

International audience ; This chapter examines how a ritual conflict involving supporters of two village deities, with a long history of unsuccessful attempts to resolve it through ritual and administrative proceedings, was eventually brought to court. This shift from a ritual and administrative arena to the judiciary is discussed in reference to the notion of 'judicialization', a notion used to indicate the broadening of the court's sphere of competence at the expense of politicians and/or administrators. By relying both on the legal file and on ethnographic material, the analysis bears on the arguments put forward by one of the gods' legal representative in order to prove the god's traditional right to an honorific position, as well as on the reasoning put forward by the judge in his ruling. It suggests that the shift to the courtroom transformed the nature of the case, from a conflict among gods' supporters over a ritual honour, to a conflict between them and the state administration over a religious right.

International audience ; An anthropological study on judicial practices in South Asia, this volume takes criminal cases as frameworks to examine power dynamics within a legal setting. Case studies in this book analyse a set of state and non‐state institutions and the practices of people associated with them. The essays delve into the underlying tension in institutional contexts between legal practitioners such as police officers, lawyers, and judges who orient their claims towards neutralism, objectivity, and equality and a set of everyday interactions and decisions where cultural, social, and political factors play a major role.

International audience ; L'État indien a fait preuve depuis l'indépendance d'une politique volontariste en matière légale qui, à l'écoute des conventions internationales et des organisations des droits de l'homme, l'a conduit à promulguer une série de lois visant à criminaliser et à déraciner certaines relations d'exploitation, de harassement ou de discrimination centrées sur la caste, le genre ou la religion. Si cette politique volontariste contribue à la diffusion d'une culture légale et d'un activisme juridique jusqu'au sein des catégories vulnérables ou défavorisées de la population, elle n'empêche pas les rapports de dominance et d'exploitation de se maintenir au niveau local. À partir de l'ethnographie d'un procès concernant le viol d'une fillette de basse caste en Himachal Pradesh (Inde du Nord) il s'agira de montrer comment ces relations de pouvoir traditionnelles et les nouveaux rapports de force produits par les lois qui s'opposent à ces mêmes relations, se manifestent au niveau judiciaire, et parviennent à interférer avec les procédures criminelles suivies par le tribunal.

In this chapter, I discuss a case which illustrates how the passage from religious festival to cultural programme is the result of a historically complex process involving different actors and mediations at different levels of society. I focus my observations on a royal cult in the Indian Himalayas -- the Kullu Dussehra -- established in the 17th century by a local king. At the beginning of the 1970s, it was nationalised and promoted as a national, then even international, 'folk dance festival'. Like many other examples of heritage production, the case I present here is neither an anonymous nor a spontaneous process. It has been consciously selected and set up by political leaders and local notables, not without causing some tension or even confrontation between other members of local society whose disagreement had different motivations and took up multiple forms. I will retrace the history of this controversial process not only by locating the main actors and the ritual and political stakes which are behind it, but by contextualising this local event within the wider national cultural framework to which it is strictly related. My concern here is on local debates about heritage and tradition, and how they took form in a specific regional context. In order to do so, I draw upon a selection of newspaper cuttings, and on narratives of people who took part in the cultural promotion of the Dussehra festival.

In this chapter, I discuss a case which illustrates how the passage from religious festival to cultural programme is the result of a historically complex process involving different actors and mediations at different levels of society. I focus my observations on a royal cult in the Indian Himalayas -- the Kullu Dussehra -- established in the 17th century by a local king. At the beginning of the 1970s, it was nationalised and promoted as a national, then even international, 'folk dance festival'. Like many other examples of heritage production, the case I present here is neither an anonymous nor a spontaneous process. It has been consciously selected and set up by political leaders and local notables, not without causing some tension or even confrontation between other members of local society whose disagreement had different motivations and took up multiple forms. I will retrace the history of this controversial process not only by locating the main actors and the ritual and political stakes which are behind it, but by contextualising this local event within the wider national cultural framework to which it is strictly related. My concern here is on local debates about heritage and tradition, and how they took form in a specific regional context. In order to do so, I draw upon a selection of newspaper cuttings, and on narratives of people who took part in the cultural promotion of the Dussehra festival.

This article examines the argument that people in India are strongly oriented towards litigation in court as against other forms of negotiation or advising. In spite of the centrality of the court system to Indian public life, the flow of cases arriving at court does not reflect any such fixed preference. Going to court may simply be a choice which the parties make in the first instance, but which will eventually be abandoned in favour of private forms of compromise. By drawing on the ethnography of a court case followed in a district court of Himachal Pradesh, this contribution will show how even in serious criminal cases where no private compromise is allowed, it often happens that all the prosecution witnesses deny before the judge what they are supposed to have previously stated to the police. The analysis of court interactions and out-of-court narratives will show how nonofficial forms of conciliation may internally unsettle the rules of evidence followed in criminal proceedings.

This article focuses on the political role that royal festivals have in contemporary India. In former times, royal festivals were a privileged framework where politics were strictly combined with ritual and religious activity. With the end of the kingdoms, these ritual contexts, far from being abandoned, have been integrated and reinterpreted by the new democratic state. By involving the state in royal festivals post-independence political leaders have implicitly created the conditions for keeping alive pre-colonial politico-religious roles and relationships in the contemporary democracy. I study this process by analysing the complex overlap of two systems in people's discourses and behaviour: one still embedded in values and models of interactions pertaining to royalty, the other emerging from the "secular" politics of the democratic state. I will focus on a long-standing conflict between different groups of villagers, who quarrelled over assuring their respective god a right of precedence during the festival. The arguments and the multiple interpretations of this conflict, as exposed by its different protagonists (king, gods' mediums, villagers and politicians), will show the multiplicity of registers used to construct and legitimize both divine and political authority.

This article focuses on the political role that royal festivals have in contemporary India. In former times, royal festivals were a privileged framework where politics were strictly combined with ritual and religious activity. With the end of the kingdoms, these ritual contexts, far from being abandoned, have been integrated and reinterpreted by the new democratic state. By involving the state in royal festivals post-independence political leaders have implicitly created the conditions for keeping alive pre-colonial politico-religious roles and relationships in the contemporary democracy. I study this process by analysing the complex overlap of two systems in people's discourses and behaviour: one still embedded in values and models of interactions pertaining to royalty, the other emerging from the "secular" politics of the democratic state. I will focus on a long-standing conflict between different groups of villagers, who quarrelled over assuring their respective god a right of precedence during the festival. The arguments and the multiple interpretations of this conflict, as exposed by its different protagonists (king, gods' mediums, villagers and politicians), will show the multiplicity of registers used to construct and legitimize both divine and political authority.

La présente contribution analysera un exemple de la récente production historiographique locale non professionnelle en Inde. Je partirai de la région himalayenne de Kullu, située dans l'Etat de l'Himachal Pradesh, en Inde du Nord. Dans le milieu intellectuel de cette région, nombre de discussions portent sur la façon de considérer l'histoire et la culture locale. Ces discussions concernent le passé et la spécificité de Kullu, mais ne lui sont pas propres et participent d'une histoire des idées que l'on retrouve, avec quelques années de décalage d'une région à l'autre, dans l'ensemble de l'Inde. Je limiterai ici mon analyse à la période d'après l'indépendance et à deux types de regards que les élites indiennes ont portés sur le passé et la localité. D'une part un regard "folklorisant", qui sélectionne des éléments de la culture locale pour les élever au rang d'"art populaire" et d'"héritage", qu'il faut documenter et préserver. D'autre part une approche "saffranisante" (en référence au nationalisme hindou) développée par une organisation, l'Akhil Bharatiya Itihas Sankalan Yojana (Comité pour Recueillir l'Histoire de l'Ensemble de l'Inde -ci-après ABISY). Celle-ci est l'un des mouvements de la droite hindoue et vise à (ré)écrire l'histoire nationale et régionale à partir d'une certaine préconception de l'histoire panindienne, à laquelle les diverses histoires régionales sont rapportées.

The present chapter concerns a Himalayan region that corresponds to the former Kullu kingdom. I analyse how territory has been taught, organized, and transformed in various ways and in different periods, according to a plurality of interrelated logics: ritual, political, fiscal, administrative, and electoral. My aim is to show that territory is not only the basis of ritual and political organization or individual identity; it is also a central topic of reflection and of explicit discourse. The analysis will focus on the notion of hār, used in the region to designate both the territory of a particular deity and the sovereignty of the deity over the inhabitants of this territory, defined as its 'political subjects'. The notion entails thus territorial ties between the inhabitants at a same hār. These various aspects will be analysed in the paper by taking into account successive forms of government in the region: first, a kingdom progressively came to be established in the seventeenth century; then the British colonial administration took over by the end of the nineteenth century; last, the region became part of the democratic Indian state, following Independence.

La présente contribution analysera un exemple de la récente production historiographique locale non professionnelle en Inde. Je partirai de la région himalayenne de Kullu, située dans l'Etat de l'Himachal Pradesh, en Inde du Nord. Dans le milieu intellectuel de cette région, nombre de discussions portent sur la façon de considérer l'histoire et la culture locale. Ces discussions concernent le passé et la spécificité de Kullu, mais ne lui sont pas propres et participent d'une histoire des idées que l'on retrouve, avec quelques années de décalage d'une région à l'autre, dans l'ensemble de l'Inde. Je limiterai ici mon analyse à la période d'après l'indépendance et à deux types de regards que les élites indiennes ont portés sur le passé et la localité. D'une part un regard "folklorisant", qui sélectionne des éléments de la culture locale pour les élever au rang d'"art populaire" et d'"héritage", qu'il faut documenter et préserver. D'autre part une approche "saffranisante" (en référence au nationalisme hindou) développée par une organisation, l'Akhil Bharatiya Itihas Sankalan Yojana (Comité pour Recueillir l'Histoire de l'Ensemble de l'Inde -ci-après ABISY). Celle-ci est l'un des mouvements de la droite hindoue et vise à (ré)écrire l'histoire nationale et régionale à partir d'une certaine préconception de l'histoire panindienne, à laquelle les diverses histoires régionales sont rapportées.

The present chapter concerns a Himalayan region that corresponds to the former Kullu kingdom. I analyse how territory has been taught, organized, and transformed in various ways and in different periods, according to a plurality of interrelated logics: ritual, political, fiscal, administrative, and electoral. My aim is to show that territory is not only the basis of ritual and political organization or individual identity; it is also a central topic of reflection and of explicit discourse. The analysis will focus on the notion of hār, used in the region to designate both the territory of a particular deity and the sovereignty of the deity over the inhabitants of this territory, defined as its 'political subjects'. The notion entails thus territorial ties between the inhabitants at a same hār. These various aspects will be analysed in the paper by taking into account successive forms of government in the region: first, a kingdom progressively came to be established in the seventeenth century; then the British colonial administration took over by the end of the nineteenth century; last, the region became part of the democratic Indian state, following Independence.