ISBN:
9781803092706
Language:
English
Pages:
254 Seiten
DDC:
303.610954
Keywords:
Asian history
;
Asiatische Geschichte
;
HIS062000
;
India
;
Indien
Abstract:
Written by one of India s best-known public intellectuals,this book isessential reading for anyone interested in India s fascinating history as well as the direction in which the nation is headed. People have argued since time immemorial. Disagreement is a part of life, of human experience. But we now live in times when any form of protest in India is marked as anti-Indian and met with arguments that the very concept of dissent was imported into India from the West. As Romila Thapar explores in her timely historical essay, however, dissent has a long history in the subcontinent, even if its forms have evolved through the centuries. In Voices of Dissent: An Essay, Thapar looks at the articulation of nonviolent dissent and relates it to various pivotal moments throughout India s history. Beginning with Vedic times, she takes us from the second to the first millennium BCE, to the emergence of groups that were jointly called the Shramanas-the Jainas, Buddhists, and Ajivikas. Going forward in time, she also explores the views of the Bhakti sants and others of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and brings us to a major moment of dissent that helped to establish a free and democratic India: Mahatma Gandhi s satyagraha. Then Thapar places in context the recent peaceful protests against India s new, controversial citizenship law, maintaining that dissent in our time must be opposed to injustice and supportive of democratic rights so that society may change for the better
Description / Table of Contents:
PrefacePrologue: Is Dissent Necessary?1. The Dasyah-putrah Brahmana, or the Dasi-putra Brahmana, the Brahmana Who Is the Son of a Dasi2. The Presence of the Shramanas3. Otherness Imprinted4. The Bhakti Sant and the Sufi Pir5. A Recapitulation6. A Modern Movement of Dissent in the Context of the Nationalism of the Present7. Gandhi? s Satyagraha8. The Social Articulation of Protest9. Did the Public Response to Satyagraha Come Out of an Embedded Tradition of Dissenting Forms?10. Epilogue: Should We Remember Our Many Voices of Dissent from the Past and Hear Them Speak to Us Today?Readings
