The Origins of Ethnic Activism: Caste Politics in Colonial India

Lee, Alexander

doi:10.1017/rep.2018.29

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Daniela Berti's research shows how organizations within RSS have "tried to propogate its project on history throughout the national territory by creating 'local units ' at province, state, and district level" (2006: 16). 16 On mnemonic traditions of Dalits, scholars have observed how the Dalit mnemonic tradition articulates symbols, myths, epics, and other intangible sources of political mobilization (Jaoul 2006(Jaoul , 2008(Jaoul , 2018Krishna 2022;A. Lee 2019;Singh 2022;Tiwari 2001Tiwari , 2004Tiwari , 2009Tiwari , 2021).…”

Section: The Politics Underlying Unequal Mnemonic Structurementioning

confidence: 99%

The Promise of Memory: Politics of Memory and Caste Inequality in Collective Memory Consolidation

Choudhary

2024

J-CASTE

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In the generic description of Indian society, the question of memory is about passive recollection of past. But in the caste-system based Indian experience, memory is also an active source of transforming one’s condition in the present and reshaping the understanding of past. Based on the fieldwork conducted on the sites of important Dalit monuments in Uttar Pradesh with a focus on the process of memory consolidation in individual and collective entities, the role of memory in mobilization of political narratives and inter-group inequality is examined. The core argument is that Dalits are unequally placed as an entity in the caste-based memory structure of collective memory; this unequal placement of Dalits is carefully constructed and mobilized by the dominant castes. In the anti-caste struggle of Dalits, collective memory consolidation has played a vital role in ideologically creating counter-memories to challenge the Hindutva meta-narratives. Yet, there continues shaping of collective memory of Dalits by dominant castes by appropriating Dalit icons. Thus, the collective memory of creating an integrated Hindu identity as the only source of identifying with the past recently has led to the marginalization of Dalits’ collective memory. Overall, this article highlights the role of collective memory for a meaningful understanding of the caste politics.

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Section: The Politics Underlying Unequal Mnemonic Structurementioning

confidence: 99%

The Promise of Memory: Politics of Memory and Caste Inequality in Collective Memory Consolidation

Choudhary

2024

J-CASTE

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Rethinking the Study of Electoral Politics in the Developing World: Reflections on the Indian Case

Auerbach¹,

Bussell²,

Chauchard³

et al. 2021

Perspect. polit.

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In the study of electoral politics and political behavior in the developing world, India is often considered to be an exemplar of the centrality of contingency in distributive politics, the role of ethnicity in shaping political behavior, and the organizational weakness of political parties. Whereas these axioms have some empirical basis, the massive changes in political practices, the vast variation in political patterns, and the burgeoning literature on subnational dynamics in India mean that such generalizations are not tenable. In this article, we consider research on India that compels us to rethink the contention that India neatly fits the prevailing wisdom in the comparative politics literature. Our objective is to elucidate how the many nuanced insights about Indian politics can improve our understanding of electoral behavior both across and within other countries, allowing us to question core assumptions in theories of comparative politics.

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