Rel. 295
Religion, Community, and Conflict
in South Asia
Dr. Tim Lubin
Department of
Religion
Winter 1999, Washington & Lee
University
Phone: 8146, 8055 Electronic Mail:
LubinT@wlu.edu
Course Description
Why does religion so often become a source of conflict in society? How can doctrines that emphasize harmony and peace become the justification for rioting, war, and terrorism? Why is conversion from one religion so controvertial? What should be the proper role of religion in public life and in politics? This course approaches these questions in the cultural context of South Asia, drawing examples from India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Nepal. Topics include the place of religious ideas and practices in defining social identity and shaping actual communities, and roles of religion in politics. These examples serve as a running comparison with similar issues confronting contemporary America.
Course Requirements
Students should carefully read and reflect on the assignments for each class, and be prepared to talk about them. Formal work for the course will be: a 5-page take-home midterm essay question (25%); a 15-page term paper (50%) [Please click here for general advice on paper writing.]; and two presentations in class (one of which will concern the topic of the term paper) (together, 25%). Participation in class discussions can raise (and lack thereof may lower) the final grade. The aim is for the students to develop good analytical and expressive skills while exploring the subject.
Books for Purchase
Octavio Paz, In Light of India
Stephen Hay, ed. Sources of
Indian Tradition, 2nd ed., vol. 2 (SIT 2)
Vasudha
Dalmia and H. von Stietencron, eds., Representing Hinduism (RH)
Ainslie T. Embree, Utopias in Conflict: Religion and Nationalism in
Modern India
Richard Gombrich, Theravada Buddhism: A Social History
from Ancient Benares to Modern Colombo
Stanley Tambiah, Leveling
Crowds: Ethnonationalist Conflicts and Collective Violence in South Asia
Course Reader (CR)
Recommended:
Francis Robinson, ed., The Cambridge Encyclopedia of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives [Will be used as a core background source, abbr. CEI below]
Schedule of Readings
Week I: Overview
Octavio Paz, In Light of India, pp. 3-133.
Religion and Society in Premodern South Asia
Week II: Caste Order and Other Visions of the "Noble" Society"
Tu CEI, 39-77; Gombrich, pp. 1-81.
CR: RV 10.90, BAU 1.4, Laws of
Manu 2
Gita Dharampal-Frick,
"Shifting Categories in the Discourse on Caste," in RH.
Th CEI, 77-93; Gombrich, pp. 81-136.
CR: Edicts of Ashoka; Manu;
Ramayana
Week III: Hindus and Muslims / Hindutva (Hindu-ness) as Identity
Tu CEI, 93-147.
CR: SIT, vol 1, pp. 382-392,
399-411, 425-450, 463-489.
Th N. K. Wagle, "Hindu-Muslim Interactions in Medieval
Maharashtra," in HR.
SIT 2, pp.
243-296 (Gandhi, Tagore, Savarkar).
Religion and Society in Modern South Asia
Week IV: Indian Muslim or Muslim Indian?
Tu SIT, vol. 2, ch. 5.
J. Alam, "Composite Culture and
Communal Consciousness: The Ittehadud Muslimeen in Hyderabad," in RH.
Th Embree, ch. 5: "Muslims in a Secular Society"
Tambiah, ch. 6: "Ethnic Conflict
in Pakistan"
Week V: Religious Definitions of Social Identity
Tu SIT, vol.1, ch. 16.
V. Das, "Counter-Concepts and the
Creation of Cultural Identity: Hindus in the Militant Sikh Discourse," in RH.
Tambiah, ch. 5: "Sikh Identity,
Separation and Ethnic Conflict"
Th SIT 2, pp. 324-348 (B. R. Ambedkar and Conversion to
Buddhism for Untouchables).
CR:
Neera Burra, "Buddhism, Conversion and Identity: A Case Study of Village
Mahars," in Caste: Its Twentieth Century
Avatar.
Week VI: What is Hinduism? / Confrontation with Christianity
Tu CEI, 155-158, 229-231
Robert E. Frykenberg, "The
Emergence of Modern 'Hinduism' as a Concept and as an Institution," in RH.
Monika Horstmann, "Towards a
Universal Dharma: Kalyan and the Tracts of the Gita Press" in RH,
294-305.
Richard Burghart, "The
Category 'Hindu' in the Political Discourse of Nepal" in RH.
Th Vasudha Dalmia, "'The Only Real Religion of the Hindus'"
in RH, pp. 176-210.
Ram Bapat,
"Pandita Ramabai," in RH.
J.
Tharamangalam, "Caste Among Christians in India," in Caste: Its Twentieth
Century Avatar.
Week VII: Religious Revival and Reform, and Nationalism
Tu Embree, ch. 1: "Religion, Nationalism, and Conflict."
Embree, ch. 2: "The Question of
Hindu Tolerance."
Embree, ch. 3:
"The Politics of Religion in Contemporary India."
Th CR: Richard Cashman, The Myth of the
Lokamanya, pp. 1-16, 75-97.
Anncharlott Eschmann, "Religion,
Reaction and Change: The Role of Sects in Hinduism," in HR.
Anncharlott Eschmann, "Mahima
Dharma: An Autochthonous Hindu Reform Movement," ch. XX in CJ, 375-410.
Week VIII: Language, Ritual, and the Media / The Uses of History
Tu CR: Christopher R. King, "Forging a New Linguistic
Identity: The Hindi Movement in Banaras, 1868-1914," ch. 6 in
Culture and
Power in Banaras, ed. Sandria Freitag (U. Calif. Press, 1989), pp. 179-202.
Embree, ch. 4: "Religious
Pluralism, National Integration, and Scholarship"
Tambiah, ch. 9: "Hindu
Nationalism, the Ayodhya Campaign, and the Babri Masjid"
Th Partha Chatterjee, "History and the Nationalization of
Hinduism" in RH, pp. 103-128.
G.
Pandey, "The Appeal of Hindu History" in RH, pp. 369-388.
Week IX: Religious Status and the Law
Tu CR: Marc Galanter, "Hinduism, Secularism, and the Indian
Judiciary," ch. 10 in Law and Society in Modern India.
Dieter Conrad, "The Personal Law
Question and Hindu Nationalism," in RH.
Th Sudhir Chandra, "Whose Laws? -- Notes on a Nineteenth
Century Hindu Case of Conjugal Rights," in RH.
Jürgen Lütt, "From Krishnalila to
Ramarajya: A Court Case and Its Consequences for the Reformulation of Hindusim,"
in
RH,
142-153.
Ethnic and Religious Conflict in Sri Lanka
Week X: The Monks' History of Ceylon
Tu CEI, 147-155; 222-228.
Gombrich, chs. 6-8.
Week XI: Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka
Tu Tambiah, ch. 3: "The 1915 Sinhala Buddhist-Muslim Riots in Ceylon."
Th Tambiah, ch. 4: "Riots in Sri Lanka."
The Dynamics of Religious and Ethnic Violence
Week XII: Religion, Politics, and Collective Violence
Tu Tambiah, ch. 7: "Some General Features of Ethnic Riots
and Riot Crowds"
Tambiah, ch. 8:
"The Routinization and Ritualization of Violence"
Tambiah, ch. 10: "Entering a Dark
Continent: The Political Psychology of Crowds"
Th Tambiah, ch. 11: "Reconfiguring Le Bon and Durkheim on
Crowds as Collectives"
Tambiah,
ch. 12: "The Moral Economy of Collective Violence"
Seed Bibliography for Research Papers
Critical Perspectives on Nationalism
Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin
and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. London:
Verso
[first edition 1983].
Armstrong, John. 1982. Nations Before
Nationalism. Chapel Hill: Univ. of N. Carolina Press.
Gellner, Ernest.
1983. Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell.
Hobsbawn, Eric.
1990. Nations and Nationalism since 1780. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ.
Press.
Hobsbawn, Eric, and Terence Ranger, eds. 1983. The Invention of
Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Juergensmeyer, Mark. 1993. The New Cold War? Religious
Nationalism Confronts the Secular State. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Smith, Anthony D., ed. 1992. Ethnicity and Nationalism. Leiden:
Brill.
van der Veer, Peter. 1994. Religious
Nationalism: Hindus and Muslims in India. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
Religious and Ethnic Identities, Political Action, and Communalism
Ludden, David, ed. 1996. Contesting the Nation: Religion, Community, and
the Politics of Democracy in India. Philadelphia:
Univ. of Penn. Press; pub'd in India as: Making India Hindu (Delhi:
Oxford Univ. Press).
Lorenzen, David N., ed. 1994. Bhakti Religion in
North India: Community Identity and Political Action. Albany: SUNY Press.
Malik, Yogendra K., and V. B. Singh. 1994.
Hindu Nationalists in India: The Rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party. New
Delhi:
Vistar
Publications.
McLeod, W. H. 1989. Who Is a Sikh? The Problem of
Sikh Identity. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Oberoi, Harjot. 1994. The
Construction of Religious Boundaries: Culture, Identity and Diversity in the
Sikh Tradition. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Pandey, Gyanendra. 1990. The Construction of
Communalism in Colonial North India. Oxford University Press.
Tambiah, Stanley Jeyaraja. 1992. Buddhism Betrayed? Religion, Politics,
and Violence in Sri Lanka. Chicago: Univ. of
Chicago
Press.
van der Veer, Peter. 1988. Gods on
Earth: Religious Experience and Identity in Ayodhya. Delhi: Oxford
University Press.
Ethnicity and Race in South Asia
Robb, Peter, ed. 1997. The Concept of Race in South Asia. Delhi:
Oxford Univ. Press.
Bronkhorst, Johannes, and Madhav M. Deshpande, eds.
1999. Aryan and Non-Aryan in South Asia: Evidence, Interpretation
and Ideology. Harvard Oriental Series, Opera
Minora, vol. 3. Cambridge, Mass.: Dept. of Sanskrit and Indian Studies,
Harvard University.
Indian Law
Derrett, J. Duncan M. 1968. Religion, Law and the State in India. New
York; Faber & Faber.
_______. "The Definition of a Hindu," Supreme
Court Journal 2: 67-74.
Galanter, Marc. 1989. Law and Society in
Modern India. London: Oxford University Press.
Rocher, Ludo. 1972.
"Schools of Hindu Law," in J. Ensink and P. Caeffke, ed., India Major
(Leiden: Brill), pp. 167-176.
Lingat, Robert. 1973. The Classical Law of
India, trans. by J. D. M. Derrett. Berkeley: U. Cal. Press.
Revival and Reform Movements / Defining and Redefining the 'Hindu'
Cashman, Richard. 1975. The Myth of the Lokamanya: Tilak and Mass
Politics in Maharashtra. Berkeley: Univ. of California
Press.
Heimsath, Charles H. 1964. Indian
Nationalism and Hindu Social Reform. Princeton: P. Univ. Pr.
Jones,
Kenneth W. 1976. Arya Dharm: Hindu Consciousness in
19th-Century Punjab. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
Lorenzen, David N., ed. 1994. Bhakti Religion in North India: Community
Identity and Political Action. Albany: SUNY Press.
Sontheimer,
Günther-Dietz, and Hermann Kulke, eds. 1997. Hinduism Reconsidered, rev.
ed. New Delhi: Manohar.
Williams, Raymond Brady. 1984. A New Face of
Hinduism: The Swaminarayan Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Sikhism
McLeod, W. H. 1968. Guru Nanak and the Sikh Religion. Oxford:Clarendon
Press.
_______. 1976. The Evolution of the Sikh Community. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
_______. 1989. Who Is a Sikh? The Problem of Sikh
Identity. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Oberoi, Harjot. 1994. The
Construction of Religious Boundaries: Culture, Identity and Diversity in the
Sikh Tradition. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
South Asian Muslims
Iqbal, Sir Muhammad. 1934. The Reconstruction of Religious Thought is
Islam. London. [A modernist statement of the
meaning
of being a Muslim by a leading intellectual of colonial India.]
Nita Kumar.
1989. "Work and Leisure in the Formation of Identity: Muslim Weavers in a Hindu
City," ch. 5 in Culture and
Power in
Banaras, ed. Sandria Freitag (U. Calif. Pr., 1989), pp. 147-170.
Minault, Gail. 1982. The Khilafat Movement: Religious Symbolism and
Political Mobilization in India. New York: Columbia
Univ. Press. [Examines an important, Indian Islamic movement of the early 1920s
that supported and looked for inspiration
to the Turkish
sultanate up until its destruction by the British.]
Mujeeb, M. 1967. The
Indian Muslims. London: George Allen and Unwin.
Forms of Religious Practice and Authority in Hindu Traditions
van der Veer, Peter. 1988. Gods on Earth: Religious Experience and
Identity in Ayodhya. London: Athlone Press.
Gold, Daniel. 1987. The
Lord as Guru: Hindi Sants in North Indian Tradition. New York:
Oxford.
<More to come>
Conversion, Religious Mission, and Counter-Mission
Copley, Antony. 1997. Religions in Conflict: Ideology, Cultural Contact
and Conversion in Late-Colonial India. Delhi: Oxford
University Press.
Mallison, Françoise. 1997. "Hinduism as Seen by the Nizari
Isma'ili Missionaries of Western India: The Evidence of the Ginan." In
Sontheimer & Kulke 1997, pp. 189-201.
Sharma,
Arvind. 1992. "Ancient Hinduism as a Missionary Religion." Numen 39(2):
175-192.
Young, Richard Fox. 1981. Resistant Hinduism: Sanskrit Sources
on Anti-Christian Apologetics in Early Nineteenth-Century
India. Pubs. of the De Nobili Research Library,
vol. 8. Vienna.
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