South Asian Context Research Articles

The millennium development goals and road traffic injuries: exploring the linkages in South Asia.

In a major summit of the members of the United Nations (UN) in 2000, a Millennium Declaration was adopted which called for making the elimination of poverty and promotion of sustainable development a global priority. A road map was agreed upon to operationalize the declaration, and the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) were integrated within the document. The MDGs are now increasingly being used to assess the performance of countries, institutions and the global community. WHO declares that the MDGs provide "a set of outcomes that are relevant to the development of national health policy frameworks". It also states that although MDGs do not cover all the components of public health, when broadly interpreted "the goals provide an opportunity to address important cross-cutting issues and key constraints to health". Consistent with WHO's call for a broad interpretation of the MDGs, and building on the health linkages identified by WHO, this paper explores the linkages between the MDGs and the impact of road traffic injuries (RTI). This is done in the context of South Asia, one of the poorest and populated regions of the developing world.

The Political Economy of the Samosa

The humble samosa has been much consumed but rarely, outside of the world of advertising, been brought into representation. This article is inspired by a short film, made by Nilesh Patel, which in loving detail portrays the production of a samosa by the film-maker’s mother. From this start, the multiple production and consumption cycles of the samosa are viewed through its circulation in South Asian and diasporic contexts as commodity/convenience food. A brief tour of this circulation serves to indicate the extent to which the samosa has been able to adapt and change to various circumstances. The article seeks to promote discussion of ‘ethnic’ food within the context of multiculturalism and argues that, in the British context, the high visibility of the samosa as a symbol of multiculturalism can be questioned in the light of its invisible production at the hands of South Asian female labour.

David Gordon White, . Kiss of the Yoginī: “Tantric Sex” in Its South Asian Contexts. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. xix+372 pp. $45.00 (cloth).

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewDavid Gordon White, . Kiss of the Yoginī: “Tantric Sex” in Its South Asian Contexts. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. xix+372 pp. $45.00 (cloth).Jonathan C. GoldJonathan C. GoldFordham University. Search for more articles by this author Fordham University.PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Religion Volume 84, Number 2April 2004 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/421830 Views: 7Total views on this site Permission to reprint a book review printed in this section may be obtained only from the author.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Kiss of the yogini: "Tantric Sex" in its South Asian contexts

Kiss of the yogini: "Tantric Sex" in its South Asian contexts

Politics of Insecurity

Politics of Insecurity Srirupa Roy (bio) Sankaran Krishna (1999) Postcolonial Insecurities: India, Sri Lanka, and the Question of Nationhood (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press). Published in 1999, Postcolonial Insecurities is of enormous significance in the present context when “nation-building,” the immediate subject matter of the book, has assumed new life as the favored sound byte of American imperium. Sankaran Krishna returns the phrase to the historical circumstances of its initial emergence after the second world war, in the context of efforts to establish decolonized nation-states in Asia and Africa. With this temporal and spatial relocation, he provides a powerful and prescient account of the perils of conjoining identity and territory under the sign of the unitary nation-state. Our critical attention is directed not only to the specific agent of nation-building nor to the problems associated with an externally imposed designer template of nation-statehood. As Krishna convincingly demonstrates, home-grown projects of nation-building have significant anti-democratic implications as well. At the same time however, the book explodes this distinction between external and domestic political projects through its historically nuanced account of how nation-building in the South Asian context has been constituted by agents and processes that unfold in both arenas. The ethical vision advanced by this book thus transcends the limiting binary of indigeneity versus foreignness, or local versus global, that confines much of political criticism and activism at the present moment. Effortlessly weaving together discussions of nationhood and identity from a wide range of theoretical perspectives, the book is an exemplary exercise in grounded inter-disciplinary scholarship and reasoned eclecticism. Krishna brings insights from literary studies, postcolonial theory, international relations theory, comparative politics, cultural anthropology, social history, and democratic theory to bear on a clearly demarcated and specified problem. The book traverses methodological as also epistemological boundaries and shifts linguistic registers from the scholarly to the passionate without ever compromising on lucidity. Its source material is equally diverse. The violence of ethnic nationalist movements, the dry prose of international peace treaties, the distinctive genre of political biography, the rich language of Salman Rushdie’s novels, and the televised images of political assassinations in South Asia are all, and equally, shown to constitute the very stuff of politics. Rich in empirical detail and fine-grained ethnographic observations about the South Asian post-colony, it engages at the same time with broad-ranging debates about the nature of modernity, power, and political agency in the world of nation-states. The importance of this book cannot be overstated. Krishna’s choice of opening quotes from speeches by India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and Sri Lanka’s premier Chandrika Kumaratunga urges readers to investigate the peculiar transitive locution of the phrase “nation-building.” At the moment of Indian independence on the midnight of August 14–15, 1947, Nehru famously observed that while the declaration of national sovereignty represented the fulfillment of a historic “tryst with destiny,” significant tasks still lay ahead. Moreover, Nehru tempered his celebration of the birth of the Indian nation with a somber reminder of the many disappointments and failures encountered along the way, most notably the coincidence of national sovereignty and territorial loss that had been brought about by the imperial partition of the subcontinent along religious lines. Echoing Nehru’s ambivalent and temporally inconclusive understanding of nation-building — the nation as ‘becoming’ rather than ‘being’ — is Kumaratunga’s emphatic declaration fifty years after Sri Lanka’s independence: “we have failed in the essential task of nation-building.” What are the implications of such narratives of the nation as failure, unkept promise, or unfulfilled dream? What relations of power and forms of subjectivity stem from such pronouncements of politics as unfinished business? To address such questions is to recognize that along with triumphalism and civilizational certitudes, discourses of anxiety and insecurity can equally inform projects of nation and state-making, and can constitute political formations that have significant anti-democratic effects. In Krishna’s account, the prevalence of such discourses can be explained by the specificity of the post-colonial situation, where nation-building is inevitably an attempt to “replicat[e] historical originals that are ersatz to begin...

Counting Tigers

Counting Tigers

Who is the Indian Shakespeare? Appropriation of Authority in a Sanskrit Midsummer Night's Dream

VASANTIKASVAPNAM, the Sanskrit translation of AMIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM produced by R. Krishnamachariin 1892, shows how, among some communities in colonial India, Shakespeare's authority may have been inevitably subservient to the authority of such cultural icons as Kalidasa. Even as this translation seems to serve the colonial project by promoting Shakespeare, it reconfigures the Elizabethan play to more closely resemble classical Sanskrit drama, and soto better suit the tastes of its target audience. Consequently, this translation challenges the recent idea that in colonial and post-colonial contexts so-called 'hybrid' texts speak first and subversively to colonizing powers.

Reconstructing Tantric Sex

David Gordon White. 2003. The Kiss of the Yogini: "Tantric Sex" in its South Asian Context.Chicago: University of Chicago Press. I smile to myself as I think of a modern-day self-avowed Tantric enthusiast, maybe somewhere in California, cruising Amazon.com looking for more readings on the latest enlightening import from India: a phenomenon known as Tantra, a spiritual practice that also teaches you how to have really great sex. Workshops and seminars abound on the Internet: "Tantra Sexuality Coach—Tantra Love Skills, Private Sessions, Extended Sexual-Spiritual Orgasm;" "Become A Tantric Master—hypnotic system, demystified Tantra methods to become a superior lover;" "Tantra Workshops, Tantric Seminars, Tantra Retreats—teach you the basics of sacred sex and extended lovemaking techniques." But they are expensive—hundreds or even thousands of dollars for weekend or week-long workshops. Our budding Tantrika, deciding on the self-taught route, goes to Amazon.com and types in "Tantra" as keyword. 249 responses immediately appear: among them, Tantra: The Art of Conscious Loving, Soul Sex, Tantra for Gay Men, Ecstatic Sex: A Guide to the Pleasures of Tantra, The Essential Tantra: A Modern Guide to Sacred Sexuality; Tantra: The Yoga of Sex; Tantra for Two, and last but not least—Tantra Between the Sheets: The Easy and Fun Guide to Mind-Blowing Sex. Hmmm...so much to choose from! How about something more serious, scholarly, South Asian? There are numerous works as well by various [End Page 539] Swamis—even the Dalai Lama—and translations of Tantras. O.k., maybe that's a little too serious, too South Asian—there's probably not enough about the sex part in there. How about this one? Kiss of the Yogini: "Tantric Sex" in its South Asian Context. Perfect! Still has the sex in it, but also some substantive stuff; the Yogini sounds titillating, and the South Asian context erudite... Two clicks and two days later, David Gordon White's new book arrives on the doorstep. Our unsuspecting Tantric enthusiast opens it, and eyes eagerly skimming the text, sees these words: "California, France and Italy, in particular, are crawling with [North Americans and Europeans dressed up as Tantric specialists], many of whom advertise New Age 'retreats' or 'workshops' in 'Tantric Sex' and many other types of hybrid practice on the Internet. (xi-xii)" Uh-oh, the apostrophes around the "Tantric Sex" should have been a warning. White goes on, and our enthusiast's brows begin to furrow. "New Age 'Tantric Sex' is a Western fabrication, whose greatest promise, if one is to take its Internet advertising at face value, is longer sexual staying power for men and more sustained and frequent orgasms for women. None of this has ever been the subject matter of any authentic teaching. All is Western make-believe except for one detail: the pricey weekends and workshops the 'Tantric sex' merchants are selling cannot be had for play money. (xiv)" White closes his preface with his intent for the pages to follow: "Although I will but rarely address or describe this New Age phenomenon, I intend, by reconstructing the medieval South Asian and Kaula and Tantric traditions that involved sexual practices, to deconstruct the 'product' that these modern-day entrepreneurs of ecstasy are selling to a benighted Western public. (xv)" Bravo, David Gordon White. Solid scholarly work has been done on the demographics and economics of the modern-day Western Tantra phenomenon (White references that of Hugh Urban), and fine scholarship abounds in the discipline of Tantric Studies. But White is the first that I have encountered who makes such a sustained, intellectually impeccable, exhaustive analysis of the origins of "Tantric Sex" in order precisely to destabilize the perch from which the Western "Tantric" gurus spout their "banalities and platitudes. (xiv)" Lest I have seemed unduly smug in enjoying the discomfiture of our hypothetical Tantric enthusiast, White makes clear at the outset why there is something wrong to what these self-appointed gurus are doing: "There is and has never been a hegemonic religious institution...

Defining Mother Tongue Education in Plurilingual Contexts

Education planners in the contemporary South Asian context have, by and large, committed themselves to education for all without seriously questioning the elitist framework of education inherited from the colonial set up; it does not take into account the complexity of speech variation across dialects in flux (and in plurilingual societies, often across languages) at the grassroots level. Examining the linguistic-cultural landscape of South Asia, this article critically addresses pragmatic issues concerning the scope of the ‘mother tongue medium’ stretched over the entire education career. The study takes afresh look at the phenomenon of education in a multilingual world, and discusses an alternate paradigm making education relevant to the communication ethos as prevailing in plurilingual societies. Taking its cue from Gandhian thinking on Basic Education, it lays stress on integrating education with work experience and also bearing in mind the specific needs of different cultures. The study brings into focus the complementary roles played by standard languages backed bytradition and contact languages shaped by the environment (such as the lingua francasHindustani, and Angrezi in the post-colonial context). In this endeavour, the State can actas an honest facilitating agent to provide an infrastructure where individual groups can exercise the choice of a particular medium, of phasing the shift and/or combining the mediums of instruction.

Marginalized Children as Social Actors for Social Justice in South Asia

This contribution highlights the role that marginalized girls and boys are themselves playing in varied contexts in South Asia to challenge inequalities and discrimination to ensure that the rights of all children are realized. Notions of rights are inextricably linked to the concept of social justice which is concerned with equality, needs and entitlements. Whilst highlighting the role of children and young people as social actors and active citizens, this paper also explores broader contextual and discourse issues concerning social work practice, social justice and child rights in South Asia. Case examples and ethnographic material from South Asia are shared. Furthermore, the changing nature and roles of social workers and development workers when enabling children's own protagonism are reflected upon, and lessons drawn for social and com munity work practice and policy development in different parts of the world.

Beyond Turk and Hindu

Beyond Turk and Hindu grew out of a collection of papers presented at a conferenceon "Islam in South Asia," held at Duke University in April 1995. Ithas 3 sections, 13 chapters, 8 photographs, 3 maps, 2 tables, a glossary, andan index. The book deals with the broad subject of civilizational interfaces inthe South Asian context. It belongs to the category of interfaith relations andis addressed to a general audience interested in the Hindu-Muslim dialectic.The authors do not accept the premise that interreligious differences inSouth Asia are set and irreconcilable. To quote the editor: "We vigorouslycontend that there is a larger point to make, namely, that the constant interplayand overlap between Islamic and Indic worldviews may be at least aspervasive as the Muslim-Hindu conflict ... " This position is a challenge tothose scholars who view India and Pakistan as embodiments of two separatereligious identities.Section One contains three essays on textual analysis to assess the samenessand otherness of identity formation. The authors do not avoid the controversiesthat are bound to emerge from the sometimes disparaging tennsused by Hindus and Muslims to refer to each other, or the animosities thathave emerged from the desecration of mosques and temples:Arabic and Persian use of the term Hindu had a range of meanings thatchanged over time, sometimes denoting an ethnic or geographic referentwithout religious content. Similarly, Indic texts referring to the invadersfrom the northwest used a variety of terms in different contexts, includingyavanas, m/ecchas,farangis, musafmans, and Turks. These terms sometimescarried a strong negative connotation, but they rarely denoted a distinctreligious community conceived in opposition to Hindus. In and ofthemselves, however, such terms tell us little. To understand the usage ofthese terms, one must move beyond the terminology itself- beyond Turkand Hindu - to analyze the framing categories and generic contexts withinwhich these terms are used.The authors illustrate the power of bidirectional cultural forces by offeringthe example of the Punjab's Bulle Shah and Bengal's mystical Satya Pir.Bulle Shah, a contemporary of Shah Waliullah of Delhi, lived in the late ...

Family Law in South Asian Context

Though the rate of divorce, i.e., the numbers of marriage breakdowns per thousand or raw percentages, amongst the South Asian communities may not be as high as in the Euro-American families, divorces do occur amongst South Asians, if adverts inserted in the matrimonial columns of ethnic newspapers are any indication of this phenomenon. Invariably the adverts speak of a South Asian female innocently divorced after a brief marriage. It is not the intent of this paper to discuss the reasons for divorce in South Asian communities, but rather the implications of divorce for a South Asian woman who may have been living in a joint family situation - a common phenomenon in many South Asian families - where the husband's parents usually live with their married son and his wife. The law in most American states and Canadian provinces dictates that matrimonial property, acquired before or since marriage, is to be divided equally, subject to various qualifications, between the separating or divorcing couple. Matrimonial property (also called family or community property) not only includes the matrimonial home but also all other assets (e.g., cash, savings, investments, company and private pensions, household furniture and furnishings, etc.) which are not personal property of the husband or wife, e.g., the individual's clothing or personal attire, gifts or inheritances, etc. Living in a joint family situation poses many problems for a South Asian working wife who may have spent a disproportionately larger share of her income for supporting the family than her husband. He or his parents may have been unjustly enriched by the wife's efforts. This paper will discuss (1) the issues related to the division of matrimonial property; (2) what is a woman's personal property, e.g., the ornaments or jewelery (Stridhanam) received by her as her 'dowry' or gifts from her parents, relatives and in-laws; and (3) whether the income or personal wealth of the wife's in-laws, residing with the couple, could/should be included as a part of the Net Family Property (NFP) of their married son? Anglo-American case law on this issue is generally silent, and most of the English, Canadian and American texts on family law have not dealt with this subject at any length. Therefore, this paper may come as a useful contribution to the issue of a South Asian woman's rights at marriage breakdown.

Hydropower for Energy in Nepal

An adequate and reliable supply of energy is a prerequisite for development. In Nepal, forests and water are the two major indigenous energy resources. Forests are being overexploited in many parts of the country, mainly for fuelwood, whereas water resources are underutilized with regard to their capacity to generate hydroelectricity. Nepal might be able to control forest degradation by adopting a differentiated approach to hydropower development. The prospects and the risks of such development are discussed here, and three scenarios that have received increasing attention in recent years are presented for implementation in a wider South Asian context.

Information Technology and Infrastructure Development: the South Asian Context

Information Technology and Infrastructure Development: the South Asian Context

Rapid assessment and response: some lessons learnt in the south Asian context

Sam Friedman has raised four main questions about Rapid Assessment and Response (RAR) (Friedman, 2000). First, does it further public health? Second, do short-term studies (as suggested in RAR) show better results than long-term studies? Third, does it obstruct creative thinking? Fourth, in order to reach a consensus action plan, does it lead to confirmation of the bias of the existing belief of politicians? In raising these questions, Friedman has called for a properly conducted evaluation designed to measure predetermined outcomes using intervention– control comparisons, if possible. I have been involved in rapid situation assessment and response since 1990 without realising that these methods would come to be described as RAR. I have conducted several such assessments in different settings, involving drug uses and sex workers (both brothel and non-brothel based) in five states of north-eastern and eastern India and two districts of Bangladesh, and have had the opportunity to see their outcomes over a period of a decade (Sarkar et al., 1993, 1996; Chatterjee, 1997; Quader, 1998). These experiences, alongside those I have gained while assisting Stimson and his team develop RAR methods and training, form the basis of my response to the questions raised by Friedman. Let me respond to his suggestion that RAR be evaluated. Nobody would object to the idea of stock-taking on how many regions or countries in which rapid assessments had been conducted or on how many regions or countries had switched to improved public health practices with or without RAR. But the attribution of an intervention to a single cause of assessment would be extremely difficult even if that is the case. The small number of samples (the regions or countries in which assessments have taken place), and the multi-factorial issues that bring about the response, would limit such an analysis. The contrary, however, is definitely not true. It is a mistake to assume that there is necessarily a correlation between long-term well-designed studies and good public health practice, at least in the field of HIV prevention. If this

Charting the Course: An Overview of Domestic Violence in the South Asian Community in the United States

In the South Asian community in the United States, domestic violence is a prevalent problem of significant magnitude. Although the community stridently denies the existence of this horror, women have been systematically organizing antiviolenceagainst- women work for the last 15 yearsAt this time, it is a vibrant movement struggling with several complex issues that are perhaps less common in thedominant white community. As in the lives of immigrant women of color, much of the intricacies of domestic violencein the South Asian context emerge from the intersections of race, class, andsresidencystatus problems. Consequently, a slew of personal, institutional, and cultural barriers commingle to form roadblocks for battered South Asian women, who attempt to escape family violence. As the needs of battered South Asian first and second generation women enlarge and become more perceptible, the community-based organizations have to ready themselves for more complicated activities in the future.

“Breathing the thin air of cyberspace”: Global knowledge and the Nepal context *

This article examines global and indigenous knowledge sharing with a focus on electronic information exchange in Nepal's development sector. Drawing on lessons from experience based on two local examples, a framework is presented of a strategy for realising the potential of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in countries where knowledge sharing and access is constrained in a variety of ways. The “iCAPACITY framework” outlined for the South Asian context integrates the inter‐dependent themes of Content, Access, and Partnership, highlighting the critical components that require consideration when building the capacity for ICT usage and knowledge sharing in a developing country context. Practical initial steps are put forward, that recognise the primary concern for holistically addressing economic, social and environmental issues, with the overall priority of alleviating poverty using broad‐based participation. The paper concludes that developing countries such as Nepal, currently occupy what may be metaphorically referred to as “the thin air of cyberspace”, where the essential knowledge needing to be shared locally or globally is not yet widely available or accessible. In this context, particular care has to be taken in formulating localised strategies and models that can improve the quality of this “air”, and lead to a situation where development efforts can truly be enhanced by the IT revolution.

The political economy of agricultural trade policy: Sri Lanka in the Uruguay round

The Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture (URAA) laid a firm foundation for establishing a rule‐based world trading system, encompassing both developed and developing countries, for agricultural products. This paper aims to broaden our understanding about the constraints faced by developing countries in their attempts to comply with new URAA rules through a comparative case study of Sri Lanka in the South Asian context. We find Sri Lanka's policy initiatives so far under the URAA to be unique among the South Asian countries. In a notable departure from the hesitant policy responses of the other countries, Sri Lanka has made use of the window of opportunity provided by the URAA to significantly liberalise agricultural trade as well as to lock in the ongoing trade reform process at low duty levels. This move has laid the foundation for further trade liberalisation with the aim of restructuring the agricultural sector in accordance with Sri Lanka's comparative advantage.

Climates of South Asia

METEOROLOGICAL BACKGROUND. South Asia: An Introduction to the Region. Tropical General Circulation: South Asian Context. Characteristic Features of South Asian Summer Monsoon. Other Meteorological Features and Systems of South Asia. CLIMATIC CHARACTERISTICS. Mean Climatology of South Asia. Rainfall Variability. Temperature Variability. Regional Climatic Features. The Changing Climate of South Asia: Its Environmental Impacts. Appendices. Bibliography. Index.

Nuclear deterrence in South Asia

The first part of this paper highlights the debate between nuclear proliferation optimists and pessimists. It then takes some general theoretical assumptions of deterrence and examines them in the South Asian context. The second part analyses the “second-strike” capability as a strong requirement for stable deterrence in South Asia, while pointing out the risks of uncontrolled escalation and accidental nuclearisation of a conflict between India and Pakistan, due to the uncertainties and deliberate ambiguities in the strategic contingency planning of both countries.