The Ambivalent Moderation of Hindu Nationalism in India

Despite regular participation in national and regional elections and occupation of office both at the centre and in the regional governments, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has not acquired the aura of moderation. It has not achieved acceptance into the party system of India in a manner that would make it comparable to Christian Democratic parties in Europe. This appears puzzling in the light of Downs’ moderation thesis, which suggests that regular participation in free, fair and competitive elections transforms extremist parties to moderates as they converge towards the median voter. The article approaches this puzzling counterfactual in intra-system comparison by drawing on the case of Sikh nationalism. With a focus on BJP, the article presents an analysis of party competition, party programs, policies and public opinion data on issue positions and the social base of the party. In conclusion, three general enabling conditions are identified that help explain the deviant case of the ambivalent moderation of the BJP.

印度人民党虽然参加全国和地方选举,虽然在中央和地方政府中任职,但并没有因此就有稳健克制的样子。它没有能够像欧洲的基督教民主党那样被纳入印度的政党体系。这就成为汤恩的克制理论解释不了的谜团,按汤氏的理论,正常参加自由、公正而竞争性的选举,会使极端主义政党变得稳健克制,向一般投票者趋近。本文通过系统内比较,以民族主义的锡克教为例,破解了这个谜团。作者聚焦印度人民党,分析了政党竞争,政党计划、政策以及关于某些话题立场的舆论资料、还有政党的社会基础。作者发现三种情形能够一般性地解释印度人民党的偏激不稳健。     

Women in the Urban Informal Sector: Perpetuation of Meagre Earnings

The argument of exploitation of women workers in the labour market notwithstanding, this article examines whether women in India are unable to participate fully in the labour market because they are required to combine their household activities with income yielding jobs. They are constrained to work in the neighbourhood of their residence (the location of the residence having been decided upon by male family members), and can access jobs only through informal contacts (which usually means they end up in jobs similar to those of the contact persons), both of which reduce their bargaining power considerably. The tendency for specialized activities to be concentrated in different geographic locations of a city further restricts the possibility of women workers being engaged in diverse jobs and thus aggravates the situation of an excess supply of labour in a particular activity. Constrained choice, limited contacts of women and physical segmentation of the labour market perpetuate forces that entrap women workers in a low‐income situation with worse outcomes than those of their male counterparts. Consequently with greater intensity of work they still continue to receive low wages, while residual participation in the labour market restricts the possibilities of skill formation and upward mobility. All of these factors offer a substantive basis for policy recommendations.     

Translation as techné: female sexuality and the science of social progress in colonial India

Abstract

In this article, I analyze processes of translation that shaped the science of sex in eastern India between the 1880s and the 1930s. I trace the impact of translation – the rendering of words between the language of English and Bengali as well as the travel and transformation of concepts – through close textual analysis of influential Bengali-language medical and scientific textbooks on nymphomania, female sexual excesses, and the evolution of Indian society. The translation of sexual categories was a techné by which Bengali intellectuals produced categories of social behavior and identity as equivalent and homogenous. Through claims of equivalence in translation, Bengali scientists argued for the commensurability of Indian social practices with universalist schemes of social evolution and civilizational progress. This process of exchange pivoted on the figure of the sexually deviant woman, who became a key site of translation and categorical equivalence. In thinking translation through techné, I foreground how a semiotics of female sexuality produced ‘the social’ as an object of inquiry in colonial India.     

Experiencing ‘moments of home’ through diaspora tourism and travel

Whilst the relationship between diasporic communities and tourism has been explored in the tourism literature, it has generally been underpinned by a limited consideration of the notion of home. Based on ethnographic research with an Iranian diasporic community in the South Island of New Zealand, this paper explores the different ways in which this diaspora community engages with travel and tourism to (re)produce and taste ‘home’. It is argued that the notion of home should be viewed as incomplete, contingent and fleeting, rather than fixed and permanent, specifically within the tourism context. The concept of ‘moments of home’ is presented to illustrate how diasporic communities use travel and tourism to find, maintain or make home when away from their original homeland. Thus, ‘moments of home’ is proposed in order to allow a more complex and dynamic understanding of the relationship between diaspora tourism and home.