Hindu nationalism in power: Making sense of Modi and the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government, 2014–19

As the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance returns to power in India, it is appropriate to reflect on the coalition’s first term in office. This paper provides an overview of the government’s performance in key areas, especially vis-a-vis religious minorities, and of the competing approaches through which its policies have been understood. It argues for a need to move away from conventional explanations that have failed to predict the popular appeal of Hindu nationalism. Instead, an interpretive understanding anchored in social constructionism offers a more meaningful perspective on the seismic changes that are reflected in contemporary Indian politics

The control of scared spaces: Sikh shrines in Pakistan from the partition to the Kartarpur corridor

In November 2018, the governments of India and Pakistan agreed to develop the Kartarpur corridor linking the Sikhs’ two holiest shrines. The initiative is an important symbolic moment in the access to Sikh sacred spaces in Pakistan. This paper examines critically the efforts to control and manage this access since 1947. It assesses the policies of the two states to control access and reflects on the prospects for the Kartarpur corridor to become a ‘bridge of peace’. The Sikh case offers an unusual comparative case-study of closure of sacred spaces to a community in its ‘homeland’ and ‘holy land’

Partition violence, Mountbatten and the Sikhs: A reassessment

Despite major advances in the historiography of the partition, the causes of violence remain poorly understood. Drawing on new archival material, this article argues that violence in the Punjab resulted from the failure of the British Sikh policy from 1939. Mountbatten's complicity in the massacres, and his defence against the allegations, point to a wider policy failure. Systematic blame displacement for the violence onto the Sikhs by the Government of Pakistan, India, Britain, enabled the latter and Mountbatten to avoid responsibility for the consequences of the transfer of power to two highly centralised dominions for religious minorities

“Pork pies and vindaloos”: learning for cosmopolitan citizenship

This paper examines Audrey Osler and Hugh Starkey’s 2003 article on cosmopolitan citizenship 14 years after its publication. Since its publication, young people’s disconnection from political life has increasingly become a cause for concern for most, if not all, Western democracies. Specifically, this article examines the implications for young people’s political life in Leicester following a period of local, regional and national political changes. The study has shown how some South Asian young people occupy “outsiders-within” status in Leicester’s “common culture” (and all the sub-cultures that exist within it) and see their ethnic communities from a range of voyeuristic positions. Young South Asian participants in the study have not distanced themselves from the South Asian community entirely, but the way participants have approached narrating their self-identities has not necessarily been forged in, or determined upon, how “Indian” or “Pakistani” identities are conceived by the common culture. Consequently, two questions arise. Firstly, what is the impact of developing cosmopolitan citizenship among young people forging new types of ethnic identities in Leicester? Secondly, what types of educational approaches (formal and informal) would be important to help strengthen young people’s political engagement? The paper concludes that the ongoing challenge for educators is to strengthen mutual understanding between students from different communities and backgrounds by drawing on their lived experience within the caveat of promoting cosmopolitan citizenship

The limits of India’s ethno-linguistic federation: understanding the demise of Sikh nationalism

From 1984 until 1993, the Indian state of Punjab witnessed a sustained insurgency by Sikh militants campaigning for a separate sovereign state. This insurgency was ultimately defeated by the overwhelming use of security force that officially resulted in the deaths of 30,000 people. By the mid-1990s, a ‘normalcy’ had returned to Punjab politics, but the underlying issues which had fuelled the demand for separatism remain unaddressed. This paper examines critically the argument that India’s ethno-linguistic federation is exceptional in accommodating ethno-nationalist movements. By drawing on the Punjab case study, it argues that special considerations apply to the governance of peripheral regions (security, religion). Regional elites in these states struggle to build legitimacy because such legitimacy poses a threat to India’s nation and state-building. In short, India’s ethno-linguistic federation is only partially successful in managing ethno-linguistic demands in the peripheral Indian states