ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF CONTEMPORARY INDIA India is the second largest country in the world with regard to population, the world’s largest democracy and by far the largest country in South Asia, and one of the most diverse and pluralistic nations in the world in terms of official languages, cultures, religions and social identities. Indians have for centuries exchanged ideas with other cultures globally and some traditions have been transformed in those transnational and transcultural encounters and become successful innovations with an extraordinary global popularity. India is an emerging global power in terms of economy, but in spite of India’s impressive economic growth over the last decades, some of the most serious problems of Indian society such as poverty, repression of women, inequality both in terms of living conditions and of opportunities such as access to education, employment, and the economic resources of the state persist and do not seem to go away. Now available in paperback, this Handbook contains chapters by the field’s foremost scholars dealing with fundamental issues in India’s current cultural and social transformation and concentrates on India as it emerged after the economic reforms and the new economic policy of the 1980s and 1990s and as it develops in the twenty-first century. Following an introduction by the editor, the book is divided into five parts: • Part I: Foundation • Part II: India and the world • Part III: Society, class, caste and gender • Part IV: Religion and diversity • Part V: Cultural change and innovations. Exploring the cultural changes and innovations relating a number of contexts in contemporary India, this Handbook is essential reading for students and scholars interested in Indian and South Asian culture, politics and society. Knut A. Jacobsen is Professor of Religion at the University of Bergen, Norway. His previous publications include Yoga in Modern Hinduism: Hariharānanda Āran.ya and Sām. khyayoga, and Pilgrimage in the Hindu Tradition: Salvific Space. He is the editor in chief of the six volumes Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism. ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF CONTEMPORARY INDIA Edited by Knut A. Jacobsen First published in paperback 2018 First published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business ©2016, 2018 selection and editorial matter, Knut A. Jacobsen; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Knut A. Jacobsen to be identifi ed as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jacobsen, Knut A., 1956– Routledge handbook of contemporary India / Knut A. Jacobsen. pages cm 1. India—Social conditions. 2. India—Economic conditions. 3. India—History—Partition, 1947. I. Title. HN683.5.J33 2015 306.0954—dc23 2015005886 ISBN: 978-0-415-73865-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-31375-0 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-68257-0 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Apex CoVantage, LLC CONTENTS List of figures ix List of tables x Notes on contributors xi Contemporary India: foundation, relations, diversity and innovations 1 Knut A. Jacobsen PART I Foundation 19 1 Dreams, memories and legacies: partitioning India 21 Pippa Virdee 2 Symbiosis and resilience: the dynamics of social change and transition to democracy in India 35 Subrata Kumar Mitra 3 Foundations for a sustainable growth: India’s Constitution and its Supreme Court 48 Ananth Padmanabhan 4 Economic foundation of India 67 Kunal Sen 5 Equity, quantity and quality: the precarious balancing act in India’s schools 78 Vimala Ramachandran v Contents 6 Agriculture and the development burden 99 Rajeswari S. Raina PART II India and the world 119 7 Politics, security and foreign policy 121 Rajat Ganguly 8 Is India a South Asian or an Asian power? 135 Manjeet S. Pardesi 9 India’s role as an international development actor 146 Emma Mawdsley 10 Dispersals, migrations, diversity of communities and the notion of an Indian diaspora 159 Brij V. Lal and Knut A. Jacobsen 11 Yoga and physical culture: transnational history and blurred discursive contexts 172 Mark Singleton 12 Modernised Ayurveda in India and the West 185 Maya Warrier PART III Society, class, caste and gender 201 13 The politics of economic reforms in India 203 Diego Maiorano 14 Divided we stand: the Indian city after economic liberalisation 216 Nandini Gooptu 15 India’s middle classes in contemporary India 232 Leela Fernandes 16 Caste: why does it still matter? 243 Surinder S. Jodhka 17 Corruption and anti-corruption in modern India: history, patronage and the moral politics of anti-colonialism 256 William Gould vi Contents 18 Regional perspective: Gujarat and the contradictory co-existence of economic enterprise and political illiberalism 271 Harald Tambs-Lyche and Nikita Sud 19 Intimate spaces of struggle: rethinking family and marriage in contemporary India 283 Mallarika Sinha Roy 20 Adivasis and contemporary India: engagements with the state, non-state actors and the capitalist economy 297 Uday Chandra PART IV Religion and diversity 311 21 Myth as history and history as myth: the instructive case of India 313 Gerald James Larson 22 Matters that matter: material religion in contemporary Hinduism 329 Vasudha Narayanan 23 Hindu pilgrimage sites and travel: infrastructure, economy, identity and conflicts 347 Knut A. Jacobsen 24 Ambedkar’s life and his Navayana Buddhism 361 Eleanor Zelliot 25 Religion, identity and empowerment: the making of Ravidassia Dharm (Dalit religion) in contemporary Punjab 371 Ronki Ram 26 Muslims in contemporary India: socio-religious diversity and the questions of citizenship 384 R. Santhosh 27 Religious violence, crime statistics and India’s Muslim minority 400 Marika Vicziany 28 Christians in India: living on the margins with a diverse and controversial past 414 John C. B. Webster vii Contents PART V Cultural change and innovations 427 29 Combative constructions of femininity in the late twentieth-century narratives of India 429 Nandita Ghosh 30 The new Indian male: muscles, masculinity and middle classness 444 Michiel Baas 31 Changing food habits in contemporary India: discourses and practices from the middle classes in Chennai (Tamil Nadu) 457 Michaël Bruckert 32 Coping with the diseases of modernity: the use of siddha medical knowledge and practices to treat diabetics 474 Brigitte Sébastia Index 490 viii FIGURES 2.1 A dynamic neo-institutional model of state–society–economy interaction 37 22.1 Sarasvatī image in Embassy Row in front of Indonesia’s embassy 330 22.2 ‘Matter’ and spirit in the larger scheme of things 336 23.1 Śrāddha ritual as a collective ritual for a large group in contemporary Siddhpur 352 23.2 The pilgrims sitting in rows with the material items of the śrāddha ritual in front of them 353 24.1 Statue of Ambedkar with the Buddhist flag 362 24.2 Buddhists with picture of Ambedkar above the front door as a mark of their identity as follower of Ambedkar’s tradition of Buddhism 369 30.1 The ‘new Indian male’, lean and muscular on the cover of health magazines 446 ix TABLES 5.1 National gross enrolment ratios, all communities, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, India 80 5.2 Dropout rates of all categories, ST and SC students (2001–02 to 2010–11) 82 5.3 Current attendance rates by social groups (NSSO Rounds) 84 6.1 Indian agriculture – the current profile 108 6.2 Calorie poverty increases as consumption poverty declines 109 6.3 Distribution of number of operational holdings by major size-groups for all social groups: all India 110 15.1 Households by possession of assets (%) 235 27.1 Number of communal riots, incidents of tension and deaths in India in various states in 2012 and 2013 404 27.2 Proportion of employees in public order and safety activities in India at the Government of India Level and the State Governments Level 405 27.3 Share of Muslim employees in some State Governments 405 x CONTRIBUTORS Editor Knut A. Jacobsen is Professor in the History of Religions at the University of Bergen, Norway and author and editor of many books and numerous articles in journals and edited volumes on various aspects on religions of South Asia and in the South Asian diasporas. He is the author of Prakṛti in Sāṃkhya-Yoga: Material Principle, Religious Experience, Ethical Implications (Peter Lang, 1999), Kapila: Founder of Sāṃkhya and Avatāra of Viṣṇu (Munshiram Manoharlal 2008) and Pilgrimage in the Hindu Tradition: Salvific Space (Routledge, 2013). Jacobsen is the Editor-in-Chief of the six volume Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism (2009–2015) and the Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism Online. Editorial Board Barbara Harriss-White, Oxford University, UK Surinder S. Jodhka, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India Gerald James Larson, University of California at Santa Barbara and Indiana University, USA Vasudha Narayanan, Florida University, USA Rowena Robinson, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India Contributors Michiel Baas is currently a Research Fellow with the Asia Research Institute (NUS). Previously he was a Fellow with the new Nalanda University (Delhi and Rajgir, India); Coordinator with the International Institute for Asian Studies (Amsterdam and Leiden, the Netherlands); Lecturer with the Anthropology Department of the University of Amsterdam; Coordinator with the Eutopia Institute; and Coordinator with the Amsterdam Institute for Social Sciences Research.