04-13-2007, 06:26 AM
Glossing over some threads, it looked like most of the discussion seemed to be just on the need for hindu narrative.
There is no debate on the "need" for a hindu narrative here, but what are the components of this, and how to go about it?
Ronald Inden in his work, Imagining India writes about the state of intellectuals quite succinctly and could help developing the components for starters, unapolegetically.. past, present and future (implications)
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->With the rise of identity politics, 'postcolonial' historians have shifted away from imagining class and national unities in India's past and have started pointing to diversities, but many of these studies have a tendency to recuperate the older colonialist imaginings of India. Representations of the systematic mistreatment of women (patriarchy), the exploitation of the young (child labour), domination by a parasitic Brahman caste of Aryan descent, discrimination by caste (untouchability), and the triumphalism of an atavistic Hinduism reiterate the earlier images of India as an inherently and uniquely divided and oppressive place. The idea this time around, one presumes, is that leaders will stitch battered women, Hijras, the backward castes and classes, Dalits and Muslims into an alternative 'transnational' class, one that win challenge the leadership of the 'technopreneurs' as well as displacing [sic] the older class and national unities. Because this new scholarship has largely recycled the colonialist        Â
images of traditional India, it is unlikely that its proponants will undertake studies that would seriously disturb these images. Instead they are beginning to find 'identities' everywhere in South Asia not just in the present but far into the past<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thoughts?
There is no debate on the "need" for a hindu narrative here, but what are the components of this, and how to go about it?
Ronald Inden in his work, Imagining India writes about the state of intellectuals quite succinctly and could help developing the components for starters, unapolegetically.. past, present and future (implications)
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->With the rise of identity politics, 'postcolonial' historians have shifted away from imagining class and national unities in India's past and have started pointing to diversities, but many of these studies have a tendency to recuperate the older colonialist imaginings of India. Representations of the systematic mistreatment of women (patriarchy), the exploitation of the young (child labour), domination by a parasitic Brahman caste of Aryan descent, discrimination by caste (untouchability), and the triumphalism of an atavistic Hinduism reiterate the earlier images of India as an inherently and uniquely divided and oppressive place. The idea this time around, one presumes, is that leaders will stitch battered women, Hijras, the backward castes and classes, Dalits and Muslims into an alternative 'transnational' class, one that win challenge the leadership of the 'technopreneurs' as well as displacing [sic] the older class and national unities. Because this new scholarship has largely recycled the colonialist        Â
images of traditional India, it is unlikely that its proponants will undertake studies that would seriously disturb these images. Instead they are beginning to find 'identities' everywhere in South Asia not just in the present but far into the past<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thoughts?