Communalism and Sexual Violence in India

Communalism and Sexual Violence in India
Author: Megha Kumar
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 395
Release: 2016-06-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 178672068X

Sexual violence has been a regular feature of communal conflict in India since independence in 1947. The Partition riots, which saw the brutal victimization of thousands of Hindu, Muslim and Sikh women, have so far dominated academic discussions of communal violence. This book examines the specific conditions motivating sexual crimes against women based on three of the deadliest riots that occurred in Ahmedabad city, Gujarat, in 1969, 1985 and 2002. Using an in-depth, grassroots-level analysis, Megha Kumar moves away from the predominant academic view that sees Hindu nationalist ideology as responsible for encouraging attacks on women. Instead, gendered communal violence is shown to be governed by the interaction of an elite ideology and the unique economic, social and political dynamics at work in each instance of conflict. Using government reports, Hindu nationalist publications and civil society commentaries, as well as interviews with activists, politicians and riot survivors, the book offers new insights into the factors and ideologies involved in communal violence, as well as the conditions that work to prevent sexual violence in certain riot contexts.The Politics of Sexual Violence in India will be valuable for academic researchers, Human Rights organizations, NGOs working with survivors of sexual violence and for those involved with community development and urban grassroots activism.

Gender and Violence in Historical and Contemporary Perspectives

Gender and Violence in Historical and Contemporary Perspectives
Author: Jyoti Atwal
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2019-08-08
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1000639231

This book covers a range of issues and phenomena around gender-related violence in specific cultural and regional conditions. Using an interdisciplinary approach, it discusses historical and contemporary developments that trigger violence while highlighting the social conditions, practices, discourses, and cultural experiences of gender-related violence in India. Beginning with the issues of gender-based violence within the traditional context of Indian history and colonial encounters, it moves on to explore the connections between gender, minorities, marginalisation, sexuality, and violence, especially violence against Dalit women, disabled women, and transgender people. It traces and interprets similarities and differences as well as identifies social causes of potential conflicts. Further, it investigates the forms and mechanisms of political, economic, and institutional violence in the legitimation or de-legitimation of traditional gender roles. The chapters deal with sexual violence, violence within marriage and family, influence of patriarchal forces within factory-based gender violence, and global processes such as demand-driven surrogacy and the politics of literary and cinematic representations of gender-based violence. The book situates relevant debates about India and underlines the global context in the making of the gender bias that leads to violence both in the public and private domains. An important contribution to feminist scholarship, this book will be useful to scholars and researchers of gender studies, women’s studies, history, sociology, and political science.

The Cunning of Gender Violence

The Cunning of Gender Violence
Author: Lila Abu-Lughod
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 302
Release: 2023-06-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1478024542

The Cunning of Gender Violence focuses on how a once visionary feminist project has folded itself into contemporary world affairs. Combating violence against women and gender-based violence constitutes a highly visible and powerful agenda enshrined in international governance and law and embedded in state violence and global securitization. Case studies on Palestine, Bangladesh, Iran, India, Pakistan, Israel, and Turkey as well as on UN and US policies trace the silences and omissions, along with the experiences of those subjected to violence, to question the rhetoric that claims the agenda as a “feminist success story.” Because religion and racialized ethnicity, particularly “the Muslim question,” run so deeply through the institutional structures of the agenda, the contributions explore ways it may be affirming or enabling rationales and systems of power, including civilizational hierarchies, that harm the very people it seeks to protect. Contributors. Lila Abu-Lughod, Nina Berman, Inderpal Grewal, Rema Hammami, Janet R. Jakobsen, Shenila Khoja-Moolji, Vasuki Nesiah, Samira Shackle, Sima Shakhsari, Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, Dina M Siddiqi, Shahla Talebi, Leti Volpp, Rafia Zakaria

In Plain Sight

In Plain Sight
Author: Gaby Zipfel
Publisher: Zubaan Books
Total Pages: 472
Release: 2020-11-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9789385932816

Although it is now well-known how pervasive sexual violence is in situations of war and peace, not enough has been done to work towards its prevention. Compiled by the international research group Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict, this volume takes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding wartime sexual violence. Its inquiry employs four key relationships: war and power, violence and sexuality, gender and engendering, and visibility and invisibility. Within these subjects, the authors identify gaps in existing knowledge to develop a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the field. Through essays, reflections, and conversations, they show how such violence is polymorphic and heterogenous. Women's activism and research, according to them, has done a great deal to draw attention to sexual violence, showing how it is man-made and is structured by cultural, social, and historical conditions. Together, the contributors make a powerful argument for urgency in addressing this major issue across the world by listening to the voices of women on the ground.

Everyday Communalism

Everyday Communalism
Author: Sudha Pai
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2018
Genre: Communalism
ISBN: 9780199466290

With the demolition of the Babri Masjid and subsequent riots of the late 1980s and 1990s in Uttar Pradesh, the period that followed appeared relatively peaceful. Only at the turn of the century, India witnessed a strong wave of communalism in early 2000s. After the Godhra riots of Gujarat in 2002, Uttar Pradesh saw a series of them--in Mau in 2005, Lucknow in 2006, Gorakhpur in 2007, and Muzaffarnagar in 2013--announcing the return of fundamentalism in the Bharatiya Janta Party's core agenda of Hindutva politics. Everyday Communalism not only attempts to explore the anatomy of a Hindu-Muslim riot and its aftermath, but also examines the inner workings that enable deep-seated polarization between communities. Pai and Kumar show that frequent, low-intensity communal clashes pegged on routine everyday issues and resources help establish a permanent anti-Muslim prejudice among Hindus legitimizing majoritarian rule in the eyes of an increasingly polarized, intolerant, and entitled majority community of Hindus. Uttar Pradesh's rising cultural aspirations; economic anxieties to move away from its traditionally backward status; a deep caste-marked agrarian crisis; and sharp inequalities and acute poverty further play into the making a new post-Ayodhya phase of Hindutva politics.

Embodied Violence

Embodied Violence
Author: Kumari Jayawardena
Publisher: Zed Books
Total Pages: 328
Release: 1996-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9781856494489

Embodied Violence is a major investigation into the myriad of ways in which societies play out the struggle for cultural identity on women's bodies. Focusing on communal violence, it explores how such violence reconfigures women's experiences, facilitates the formation of particular identities and the dissemination of specific ideologies and how it positions women vis-a-vis their communities as well as the State. A distinguished cast of contributors explores the relationship between ideals of motherhood, tradition, community and racial purity, and uncovers the ways in which women's bodies become the recording surface of repressive cultural practices and symbolic humiliations.

Majoritarian State

Majoritarian State
Author: Angana P. Chatterji
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 551
Release: 2019
Genre: History
ISBN: 0190078170

A trenchant assessment of Narendra Modi's BJP government and its impact on India.

Ways of Remembering

Ways of Remembering
Author: Oishik Sircar
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 362
Release: 2024-05-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 1316512819

Investigation into how a shared narrative of law and cinema produces ways of collectively remembering mass violence in postcolonial India.

The Rise of Hindu Authoritarianism

The Rise of Hindu Authoritarianism
Author: Achin Vanaik
Publisher: Verso Books
Total Pages: 674
Release: 2017-03-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 1786630737

With the Hindu nationalist BJP now replacing the Congress as the only national political force, the communalization of the Indian polity has qualitatively advanced since the earlier edition of this book in 1997. This edition has been substantially reworked and updated with several new chapters added. Hindutva's rise necessitates a more critical take on mainstream secular claims ironically reinforced by liberal-left sections discovering special virtues in India's 'distinctive' secularism. The careful evaluation of the ongoing debate on 'Indian fascism' has resonances for the broader debate about how best to assess the dangers of the far right's rise in other liberal democracies. A study follows of how Hindutva forces are pursuing their project of establishing a Hindu Rashtra and how to thwart them through a wider transformative struggle targeting capitalism itself.