Memories in the service of the Hindu nation : the afterlife of the partition of India / Pranav Kohli.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kohli, Pranav, author.

Series:

South Asia in the social sciences

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

India--History--Partition, 1947--Personal narratives.

India.

Political violence--India--History--20th century.

Political violence.

Political refugees--India--History--20th century.

Political refugees.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Pakistan)--History.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Pakistan).

Punjab (Pakistan)--History.

Punjab (Pakistan).

Nationalism--India--History.

Nationalism.

Nationalism--Religious aspects--Hinduism.

Purushārtha.

Theodicy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiv, 373 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2023.

Summary:

This book is based on fourteen months of ethnographic fieldwork with Partition survivors from west Punjab and the North-West Frontier Province, in Delhi and its surroundings between 2017-18. It locates the global rise of far-right nationalism within globalisation and memories of victimhood. Focussing on Hindu nationalism in India, this book is an important and timely contribution to the literature on South Asian Partition Studies that shows how tragedy begets tragedy. It tries to answer an urgent, provocative but nevertheless necessary question: 'What does it mean to remember the Partition in the time of fascism?' The author shows what makes up cycles of violence by connecting the reinscription of trauma in Partition memories to the self-serving justifications of the contemporary violence of Hindu nationalism. It analyses how the hegemony of Hindu nationalism has structured the narratives of Hindu Partition survivors and recruited them in service of a putative Hindu nation.

Contents:

Prologue : the linguistic context

Introduction : death and the problem of theodicy

Listening to ancestors : ethnography in a milieu of memory

Stories of Purusharth

A story half told : the moral and political claims of Purusharth

Sacrifice and hard work : martyrdom as theodicy

The Purusharth of women

The fractured nomos

Remembering violence

Remembering partition in the time of fascism

Healing, victimhood and ressentiment

Conclusion : field notes on global authoritarianism.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 27 Oct 2023).

Other Format:

Print version:

ISBN:

9781009318693 (ebook)

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.