Ahimsa, identification and sacrifice in the Gujarat pogrom

Ghassem‐Fachandi, Parvis

doi:10.1111/j.1469-8676.2010.00105.x

Cited by 24 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…18 Sacrificial terminologies accompanied the pogrom on the street in rumours and in vernacular newspapers. 19 Such language was frequently employed to legitimize the ritual mechanics of pogrom violence (pratikriya) conceived as an automatic karmic retribution that supposedly struck without any way to stop it. 20 The pogrom itself was frequently referred to as 'purification', a word that was often used in English by persons who knew not to speak that language.…”

Section: He Continuedmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As I have argued elsewhere, non-violent renunciation whose essence is disgust, however, becomes itself implicated in the legitimization of violence against Muslims. 10 In Gujarat, meat is not an indifferent substance, but one much alive through a plethora of meanings that inform an array of unique behaviours and reactions. The powerful capacity of meat to signify has been recorded by ethnographers of South Asia in diverse settings.…”

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confidence: 99%

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On the political use of disgust in Gujarat

Ghassem‐Fachandi¹

2010

South Asian History and Culture

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In the context of mobilization for Hindu nationalism, processes of stereotyping a familiar other, the neighbourhood Muslim, play a significant role in fomenting experiences that confirm stigmatizations. These experiences concern the figure of the Muslim that arouses a phantasmagoria of fear, disgust and anger. Fear surrounds the 'Muslim' as she invokes the possibility of terrorism and calls for heightened security measures. Disgust is the register of a radical identification with a new form of hyperbolic vegetarianism. Anger, however, is what allegedly fuels the violence of the masses. This article investigates enunciations and representations that relate directly to consumption and production of meat in concrete quotidian practices: vegetarianism and rejection of animal sacrifice. It argues that the affect of disgust for meat has become an important cultural relay in the vegetarian politics of the state. By insisting on an identity formulated in the language of non-violence, it simultaneously renders permissive identification with violence.In the context of mobilization for Hindu nationalism, processes of stereotyping of the familiar neighbourhood Muslim are significant in fomenting experiences that confirm stigmatizations. Stereotypes often include wide-ranging and contradictory tropes -from linking Muslim fertility and excessive consumption to puritanical piety and doctrinal rigidity; from naïve superstition and lack of proper education to arrogant theological sophistication and Islamic radicalism. Such representations are less important as descriptions of the particular social standing or predicament of those subjected to them than as evidence of important experiences of those wielding and ascribing stereotypes. As Herzfeld 1 has pointed out, stereotypes are always generative and creative, and, by rendering intimate the abstraction of otherness, they become an important signature of nationalist identification.This article examines the relation of Hindu stereotypes of Muslims to the consumption and production of meat in concrete quotidian practices and conceptions of diet and worship: meat-eating, vegetarianism and the rejection of animal sacrifice. It is a relation that carries the power to arouse the affect of disgust and can produce the most pronounced sentiments of moral indignation including even physical experiences of nausea and collapse. 2 Disgust for a substance and by extension for those associated with it, however, does not engender stable representations, but on the contrary collapses distinction culminating in intimate experiences and proximity to the subject of stigmatization. *

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

On the political use of disgust in Gujarat

Ghassem‐Fachandi¹

2010

South Asian History and Culture

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“…In the study of Hindu-Muslim violence in India, the value of this approach has been realised by several scholars (Berenschot 2011;Brass 2003;Varshney 2002;Wilkinson 2004). Whereas the culturalist framework, which has been dominant in the study of ethnic violence in India (Freitag 1989;Ghassem-Fachandi 2010), provides a rich background into the demonisation of minority groups, the difficulty lies in assessing the extent of such explanations and, subsequently, their analytical depth -it is unclear, probably unknown, why and how socially constructed fear varies across space, leading to different levels of violence across often contiguous spaces. At the time of my research, a dichotomy existed even within the literature on geographic variation, wherein explanations either took a top-down (e.g.…”

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Mapping the self: challenges of insider research in a riot-affected city and strategies to improve data quality

Dhattiwala

2017

Contemporary South Asia

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Ethnic riots in India rarely lead to convictions of perpetrators and redress for victims. By implication, antagonisms prevail years after violence has ceased and victims often find themselves sharing everyday spaces with their attackers. The task of identifying the risk factors leading to ethnic violence as well as the nuances of coexistence for individuals ridden with memories of violence and prejudice is rife with methodological and ethical challenges. Concerns surrounding data quality are enhanced when the researcher is also an insider. In a study spanning 26 months (undertaken between 2010 and 2015), I examine the challenges of an insider researcher in the context of HinduMuslim violence that occurred in Gujarat in 2002, and offer techniques to improve data quality. Strategies include the cross-verification of sources within official data; interviewing respondents in group and individual settings to address the attitudinal fallacy; and employing respondent-empowered cognitive maps. I argue that visual data, such as cognitive maps, enable a better understanding of abstract social concepts and also facilitate a balance between distance and involvement for the insider researcher.

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“…On Hindu nationalism/the Ramjanmabhoomi movement, see Andersen & Damle (); Brass (); Hansen (); Nandy, Trivedy, Mayaram & Yagnik (); Rajagopal (). On defining aspects/ramifications of the 2002 violence, see Ghassem‐Fachandi (); Gupta (); Ohm (); Sarkar (); G. Shah (); Shani (); Varadarajan ().…”

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Why does the subject speak? Prejudgement in fieldwork with Naxalites and Hindu rioters

Chitralekha

2017

Royal Anthropological Inst

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This article explores the shifting trajectory of dramaturgical encounters with ‘subjects’ in two disparate contexts of violence in contemporary India: Naxalites in Jharkhand and Bihar; and participants in the 2002 riots in Gujarat. It argues that why (and thereby what) the subject speaks has to be located within the larger text of performances in the ‘field’, involving the prejudgement (in a Gadamerian sense) of both researcher and subject. Limits and possibilities to prior knowledges of both predetermine outcomes of interaction and inform the enterprise of doing theory in troubled contexts.

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Ahimsa, identification and sacrifice in the Gujarat pogrom

Cited by 24 publications

References 17 publications

On the political use of disgust in Gujarat

On the political use of disgust in Gujarat

Mapping the self: challenges of insider research in a riot-affected city and strategies to improve data quality

Why does the subject speak? Prejudgement in fieldwork with Naxalites and Hindu rioters

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