Ravinder Kaur

Synopsis:The first book that examines India's mega-publicity campaigns to theorize the global transformation of the nation-state into an attractive investment destination. The early twenty-first century was an optimistic moment of global futures-making. The chief narrative was the emergence of the BRICS nations -leading stars in the great spectacle of capitalist growth stories, branded afresh as resource-rich hubs of untapped talent and potential, and newly opened up for foreign investments. The old third-world nations were rapidly embracing the script of unbridled capitalism in the hope of arriving on the world stage. If the tantalizing promise of economic growth invited entrepreneurs to invest in the nation's exciting futures, it offered utopian visions of "good times," and even restoration of lost national glory, to the nation's citizens. Brand New Nation reaches into the past and, inevitably, the future of this phenomenon as well as the fundamental shifts it has wrought in our understanding of the nation-state. It reveals the on-the-ground experience of the relentless transformation of the nation-state into an "attractive investment destination" for global capital. As Ravinder Kaur provocatively argues, the brand new nation is not a mere nineteenth century re-run. It has come alive as a unified enclosure of capitalist growth and nationalist desire in the twenty-first century. Today, to be deemed an attractive nation-brand in the global economy is to be affirmed as a proper nation. The infusion of capital not only rejuvenates the nation; it also produces investment-fueled nationalism, a populist energy that can be turned into a powerful instrument of coercion. Grounded in the history of modern India, the book reveals the close kinship among identity economy and identity politics, publicity and populism, and violence and economic growth rapidly rearranging the liberal political order the world over.

Synopsis:‘Since 1947’, an oft-encountered phrase in Delhi, has been used in this book for an incursion into the embedded themes of disruption in one's everyday life: forced migration, and then reparation; rearrangement; and renewed embodiment of the migrant's personal and social bearings. The book broadly explores how past is employed to repair ruptures in people’s ordinary lives. It specifically delves into the Partition experience used by Punjabi Hindu refugees to evolve coping strategies when forced to leave their homes in 1947, and examines the emerging identification process. The book is organized around the twin courses travelled by the Punjabi migrants—from ordinary people to refugees and from refugees to locals in Delhi city—over a period of half-a-century. The main focus is on the period between 1947 and 1965, addressing the themes of displacement, loss, resettlement, and restoration. It discusses the last journey undertaken by millions of Hindus and Sikhs from West Punjab, and challenges the popular narrative that represents migration essentially as chaotic, disorderly, and hurried. It then discusses the government policies and practices of resettlement, wherein ‘compensation’ against property lost in Pakistan was the key criterion. Finally, the historicity of the identification processes among the Punjabi migrants in Delhi is examined.

Synopsis:This volume provide a multidisciplinary thematic exploration of religious violence in South Asia. The contributors examine the actual organization of violence, the role of governmental agencies and state authorities, the socio-economic conditions that contribute to violence, and the long-term consequences of such violence.

Providing original ethnographic accounts from sites of violence in South Asia it:

• map the contemporary discourse on Hindu-Muslim violence and focus on the causes of communal violence as well as its long-term consequences;
• situate the nation-state within the incidents of violence-variously termed ethnic, communal and everyday violence - that simultaneously frame and challenge the authority of the state;
• locate the current discussion on violence and the state in Pakistan, and provide a general thematic overview of religion and state institutions in Pakistan;
• discuss the specific locality-based socio-economic conditions that contribute to violence;
• expand various categories of violence to present a South Asian perspective in regard to the current western discourse on »global terrorism«.

Content

Francis Robinson: Foreword
Ravinder Kaur: Mythology of Communal Violence
An Introduction
Paul R Brass: The Body as a Symbol in the Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence
Jan Breman: Communal Upheaval as the Resurgence of Social-Darwinism
Dipankar Gupta: Between Ethnicity and Communalism
The Significance of the Nation State
Thomas Blom Hansen: Sovereigns beyond the State
On Legality and Public Authority in India
Ian Talbot: Understanding Religious Violence in Contemporary Pakistan
Themes and Theories
Oskar Verkaaik: On Terror and Sacrifice
Björn Hettne: South Asia and the War against Terrorism

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