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Secularism, Religion, and Democracy in Southeast Asia
Until the 1990s, secularism was understood largely as exclusion of religion from the public domain. However, in the last two decades, the world has witnessed the return of religion as a medium and subject of national, regional, and global politics. With such a shift, the previously unquestioned Western values of modernity and secularism find themselves at loggerheads with the increasing assertion of religious identity, which results in difference-based conflicts. This antagonism also gives rise to a vibrant, religiously pluralistic civil society and speaks of a post-secular turn in modern Southeast Asian democracies. Secularism, Religion, and Democracy in Southeast Asia tries to understand the rise of religion in modern democracies and how everyday economic, social, and political conditions aid this post-secular phenomenon in Southeast Asia. Setting itself apart from most studies of religion in Southeast Asia through its regional focus, this volume explores the ideas, practices, state responses, and anxieties related to the religious–secular divide in this geopolitical region.
Non-discrimination and Equality in India
Social Justice is a concept familiar to most Indians but one whose meaning is not always understood as it signifies a variety of government strategies designed to enhance opportunities for underprivileged groups. By tracing the trajectory of social justice from the colonial period to the present, this book examines how it informs ideas, practices and debates on discrimination and disadvantage today. After outlining the historical context for reservations for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes that began under British colonial rule, the book examines the legal and moral strands of demands raised by newer groups since 1990. In addition the book shows how the development of quota policies ha...
Malaysia, State and Civil Society in Transition
Tracing historical and political dynamics underlying nearly 20 years of authoritarian rule, Verma addresses five issues: Islam, secular nationalism, citizenship, democracy and human rights, arguing that modernization has led to tensions in Malaysia.
The Empire of Disgust
All known societies exclude one or more minority groups, frequently employing a rhetoric of disgust to justify stigmatization. For instance, in European anti-Semitism, Jews were considered hyper-physical and crafty; some upper-caste Hindus find the lower castes dirty and untouchable; and people with physical disabilities have been considered subhuman and repulsive. Exclusions vary in their scope and also in the specific disgust-ideologies underlying them. In The Empire of Disgust, scholars present an interdisciplinary and comparative study of varieties of stigma and prejudice in India and USA—along the axes of caste, race, gender identity, age, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, religion, and economic class—pervading contemporary social and political life. In examining these forms of stigma and their intersections, the contributors present theoretically pluralistic and empirically sensitive accounts that explain group-based stigma and suggest forward-looking remedies, including group resistance to subordination as well as institutional and legal change, equipped to eliminate stigma in its multifaceted forms.
Constructivist Theories of Ethnic Politics
Taking the possibility of change in ethnic identity into account, this book shows and dismantles the theoretical logics linking ethnic diversity to negative outcomes and processes such as democratic destabilisation, clientelism, riots and state collapse. Even more importantly, it changes the questions we can ask about the relationship between ethnicity, politics and economics.
Women, Power, and Property
Quotas for women in government have swept the globe. Yet we know little about their capacity to upend entrenched social, political, and economic hierarchies. Women, Power, and Property explores this question within the context of India, the world's largest democracy. Brul employs a research design that maximizes causal inference alongside extensive field research to explain the relationship between political representation, backlash, and economic empowerment. Her findings show that women in government - gatekeepers - catalyze access to fundamental economic rights to property. Women in politics have the power to support constituent rights at critical junctures, such as marriage negotiations, when they can strike integrative solutions to intrahousehold bargaining. Yet there is a paradox: quotas are essential for enforcement of rights, but they generate backlash against women who gain rights without bargaining leverage. In this groundbreaking study, Brul shows how well-designed quotas can operate as a crucial tool to foster equality and benefit the women they are meant to empower.
Righteous Republic
What India’s founders derived from Western political traditions as they struggled to free their country from colonial rule is widely understood. Less well-known is how India’s own rich knowledge traditions of two and a half thousand years influenced these men as they set about constructing a nation in the wake of the Raj. In Righteous Republic, Ananya Vajpeyi furnishes this missing account, a ground-breaking assessment of modern Indian political thought. Taking five of the most important founding figures—Mohandas Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, Abanindranath Tagore, Jawaharlal Nehru, and B. R. Ambedkar—Vajpeyi looks at how each of them turned to classical texts in order to fashion an or...
Equality
The essays in this volume on the subject of equality are the work of scholars at Bard College and West Point. Their research falls within the areas of history, religion, legal theory, social science, ethics and philosophy. The regions covered include the Middle and Far East, Europe, and America; the time periods studied are both contemporary and historical. Each essay is a well-detailed exploration which assumes the reader has no prior acquaintance with the topic. Together, the studies reveal both conflicting standards of equality as well as patterns of pernicious inequality. In an ideal world, equality and inequality among humans would vary in acceptable proportion, increase of the one ensu...
Better Kungfu
Secrets of the most devastating of the Eastern martial arts! Kungfu is one of the most spectacular forms of martial arts in the world. Developed by the Chinese, it is the art of open-handed fighting, employing a series of movements, attacks and counter-attacks, parries and blocks without the use of weapons. Kung Fu's skill and effectiveness is well-known and is practiced all over the world by those who want to benefit by this supreme art. Here is a step by step guide to learning Kung Fu for self-defense, speed, sensitivity and endurance. This book provides you with your own complete course, with action illustrations to explain every position, parry, counter-attack, block etc., with special tips for all stances and movements.
Gandhi and the Contemporary World
This book develops a critical understanding of Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy and practice in the context of contemporary challenges and engages with some of his key work and ideas. It highlights the relevance of Gandhi’s legacy in the quest towards peace-building, equity and global justice. The volume examines diverse facets of Gandhi’s holistic view of human life – social, economic and political – for the creation of a just society. Bringing together expert analyses and reflections, the chapters here emphasise the philosophical and practical urgency of Gandhi's thought and action. They explore the significance of his concepts of truth and nonviolence to address moral, spiritual and ethical issues, growing intolerance, conflict and violence, poverty and hunger, and environmental crisis for the present world. The volume serves as a platform for constructive dialogue for academics, researchers, policymakers and students to re-imagine Gandhi and his moral and political principles. It will be of great interest to those in philosophy, political studies, Gandhi studies, history, cultural studies, peace studies and sociology.
