Indian personal law : toward a comparative theoretical perspective -- Nationalism, recognition, and family formation -- Official nationalism, multiculturalism, and majoritarian citizen making : the formation of the postcolonial policy frame -- Recasting the normative national family : changes in Hindu law and commonly applicable matrimonial laws since the 1960s -- Minority accommodation, cultural mobilization, and legal practice : the experiences of Muslim law and Christian law -- Nationalism, multiculturalism, and personal law
AbstractThe paper explores mobilization to reduce the deepest inequalities in the two largest democracies, those along caste lines in India and racial lines in the United States. I compare how the groups at the bottom of these ethnic hierarchies—India's former untouchable castes (Dalits) and African Americans—mobilized from the 1940s to the 1970s in pursuit of full citizenship: the franchise, representation, civil rights, and social rights. Experiences in two regions of historically high inequality (the Kaveri and Mississippi Deltas) are compared in their national contexts. Similarities in demographic patterns, group boundaries, socioeconomic relations, regimes, and enfranchisement timing facilitate comparison. Important differences in nationalist and civic discourse, official and popular social classification, and stratification patterns influenced the two groups' mobilizations, enfranchisement, representation, alliances, and relationships with political parties. The nation was imagined to clearly include Dalits earlier in India than to encompass African Americans in the United States. Race was the primary and bipolar official and popular identity axis in the United States, unlike caste in India. African Americans responded by emphasizing racial discourses while Dalit mobilizations foregrounded more porously bordered community visions. These different circumstances enabled more widespread African American mobilization, but offered Dalits more favorable interethnic alliances, party incorporation, and policy accommodation, particularly in historically highly unequal regions. Therefore, group representation and policy benefits increased sooner and more in India than in the United States, especially in regions of historically high group inequality such as the Kaveri and other major river Deltas relative to the Deep South, including Mississippi.
Populist political forces have played significant roles in Indian politics, and have varied in their vision of political community, in the social groups they targeted, in the policies they pursued, and in their impact on democracy. The Indian National Congress had populist aspects in the interwar period, and then again under Indira Gandhi's leadership from the late 1960s to the late 1970s. Movements and parties that represented particular language and caste groups also employed populist rhetoric and methods of mobilization, and pursued populist policies. The nature of the populist organizations influenced the effect of populism on democracy. While Indira Gandhi's populism weakened Indian democracy, leading to a period of authoritarian rule, the populism of many of India's language and caste parties strengthened democracy. Populism is likely to continue in Indian politics, and is particularly significant currently in the mobilization of the lower castes. Adapted from the source document.
In: The SAIS review of international affairs / the Johns Hopkins University, the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Band 27, Heft 1, S. 81-91
In: The SAIS review of international affairs / the Johns Hopkins University, the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Band 27, Heft 1, S. 81-91
Recent political changes in Tamil Nadu (south India) are best understood with reference to the subcultures associated with the state's major parties, the DMK & the AIADMK. These parties promoted political participation among the intermediate & the lower strata, enriched civic life, built cohesive subcultures that cut across ethnic boundaries, & limited collective violence in Tamil Nadu from the 1960s to the late 1980s. The partial erosion of these Dravidianist subcultures is a crucial reason for the weakening of political participation & civic life, & the modest growth of mobilization & violence along caste & religious lines since then. Adapted from the source document.
Recent political changes in Tamil Nadu (south India) are best understood with reference to the subcultures associated with the state's major parties, the DMK & the AIADMK. These parties promoted political participation among the intermediate & the lower strata, enriched civic life, built cohesive subcultures that cut across ethnic boundaries, & limited collective violence in Tamil Nadu from the 1960s to the late 1980s. The partial erosion of these Dravidianist subcultures is a crucial reason for the weakening of political participation & civic life, & the modest growth of mobilization & violence along caste & religious lines since then. Adapted from the source document.
