Books in the South Asia Seminar series

Today, powerful political forces seek to make the Indian state Hindu. Their rising influence since 1980 has occurred during a period of radical change in Indian society and politics, and has been accomplished by electoral means as well as by organized violence. The 1996 elections will be a major test of their power and of the influence of Hindu majoritarianism among the Indian electorate.Animated by a sense of urgency that was heightened by the massive violence following the destruction of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992, Contesting the Nation explores Hindu majoritarian politics over the last century and its dramatic reformulation during the decline of the Congress Party in the 1980s. Twelve prominent scholars from India, Europe, and the United States provide perspectives from the fields of political science, religious studies, ethnomusicology, history, art history, and anthropology, comparing trends in India with ethnic, religious, and cultural movements in other parts of the world.

This book explores the ways in which colonial administrators constructed knowledge about the society and culture of India and the processes through which that knowledge has shaped past and present Indian reality.

This study attempts to cross the boundaries between anthropology, folklore and history in order to cast new light on the relation between songs and stories, reality and realism, and rhythm and rhetoric in the expressive traditions of South Asia.