Title: Militant publics in India
Description: "An historically informed ethnographic study of conceptions, arenas, and practices of physical training and militancy in the context of religious nationalism in twentieth- and twenty-first-century western India. Arafaat A. Valiani offers readers a telling glimpse and a rare insider perspective of the social world in which militants are made, explaining how group physical training and technico-ethical experiments with it have created a powerful religious nationalist movement in the Indian state of Gujarat that has been held responsible for carrying out massive episodes of ethnic cleansing against Indian minorities. A close reading of Mohandas Gandhi's writing on popular mobilization and resistance and a detailed historical investigation of hitherto understudied episodes of satyagraha (Gandhi's celebrated concept of non-violence), this work illuminates debates on politics in South Asian history, anthropology, and sociology. Valiani interprets his own direct observation of Hindu nationalist pogroms in contemporary Gujarat, in addition to testimonies and ethnographic observations of the inner workings of the movement discovered by the author when he immersed himself as a "trainee" within it"--
Subjects: Politics and government, HISTORY / Middle East / General, Physical education and training, Nationalism, Hinduism and politics, Violence, Political and social views, Social conditions, Religious militants, History, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology of Religion, Political Participation, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural, Gandhi, mahatma, 1869-1948, Nationalism, india, Religion and politics, Political aspects, POLITICAL SCIENCE, Political Process, General, Social & cultural anthropology, Asian history, Religious groups: social & cultural aspects, Society
Places: India, Gujarat (India), Gujarat
People: Gandhi Mahatma (1869-1948)
Time periods: 20th century, 21st century