Identity In South Asia Research Articles

A South Asian Identity Constructed By The Indo-Pacific Discourse: India

It has been estimated that by 2050, four of the top five economies in the world will all be in Asia, with India, Japan and Indonesia all taking a spot alongside China in surpassing the United States, and revealing a global shift toward the Asian axis. While the Asia-Pacific discourse that has emerged since the Cold War promotes a China-centered understanding of Asia, a South Asian country, India, is emerging as a second rising power on the Asian continent and is taking a central position in the region. The continuing discourse will play an active role in the construction of a South Asian identity and its acceptance in the international arena.

Introduction

The June 2023 issue of our journal brings together our valuable readers with six different articles. In this issue, there are two research articles, one focusing on the continent of Europe and one on the Asian continent, two opinion articles focusing on the migration issue, which is one of the most important agenda items of Turkey and indeed the world, and two book reviews. The first research paper, authored by John Conrad Masabo, examines the potential repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic on the future of European Union (EU) integration and its global impact. Exploring different views on whether the EU can become the most influential power in the post-COVID-19 world, the author suggests that while this possibility exists, there are significant hurdles that the EU must overcome before achieving such status. Merve Özten Yıldız, the author of the second research article, which aims to reveal how India is trying to construct a South Asian identity with Indo-Pacific discourses, examines the rise of India as the second most influential power in Asia. In his article, the author analyzes the official and practical discourse of India to understand its role in shaping regional identity and its growing influence on the international scene. The first review essay, authored by Müzeyyen Okyay, focuses on the issue of migration. The author dealt with the refugee and migrant problem, which has recently become the primary agenda item in EU-Turkey relations. In this study, the situation of people who have to migrate from their homeland, which is a common problem of Turkey and the EU and requires joint efforts to solve, has been examined within the framework of local laws and international agreements, and the effects of migration on the relations between Turkey and the EU have been analyzed. The second review essay belongs to Ufuk Tok. In this article, Tok examines the uncertainties that arose in Afghanistan following the US withdrawal and the Taliban takeover in August 2021. The author, who has the expectation that the integration of the country under the rule of the Taliban with the contemporary world will not be easy and quick, but will be gradual, also analyzes the effect of the long-lasting war on irregular migration from Afghanistan to the west and explores the possibilities of preventing the migration movement towards Turkey. The first review in the publication review section belongs to Selin Çınar. Çınar presents a comprehensive review of the compilation book The Routledge Handbook of Ideology and International Relations, edited by Jonathan Leader Maynard and Mark L. Haased and published in 2022. The second publication evaluation was made by Ahmet Emin Yıldız and is on the book titled Post-Cold War China-India Relations, written by Nezir Oğuş, the first edition of which was published in 2021. We would like to thank all the authors who have contributed to this issue of our journal by sending their works, and all the referees who have put effort in the evaluation process of these works; we hope that the continuing interest in our journal from the national and international academic community will continue.

‘Currying Identities’: A Literary Re-Crafting of South-Asian Identities through Diasporic Women’s Cookbooks

Food has been an enduring presence in the construction of collective identities of migrant communities. From honing cooking techniques and selecting ingredients and tools to developing cultures of consumption and appreciation, diasporic communities seem to hold food as one of the primary markers of identity. Women writers from the diaspora not only emblematized their identities by writing about food but also opened feminist methodological opportunities for writing resistance. These ‘culinary fictions’ have since been mined to delve into the gendering of migrant identities. The genre of cookbooks shares a significant overlap with ‘culinary fiction’ in terms of its scope by stabilizing ‘authentic’ identities. However, it surgically punctures the romantic appeal of food imagination, shifting its focus instead to the labor that produces the sensory stimulation of culinary memory. This article uses this overlap and this gap as incentives to read select cookbooks published in the heydays of culinary fiction. Reading cookbooks against the metrics of labor provides a certain intimacy of engagement that offers entry into complex negotiations of uncertain migrant identities. Affective labor and its postcolonial entanglements have been used as catalysts in the article to read into the multilayered understanding of the politics of women writing about food in the diaspora. To this extent, it will challenge the stabilized ways of reading culinary identities and open food writing to more robust negotiations of gendered writings of food.

Uprooted in the ‘Postcolonial’ Moment: Attia Hosain’s No New Lands, No New Seas

‘Attia has come home.’ This is how Shama Habibullah describes the publication of a Distant Traveller (2013), a collection of essays and fiction written by her mother Attia Hosain. After the Partition of India in 1947, Hosain could not reconcile herself to India or Pakistan, created by imperial border-making and nationalist sentiments, and decided to remain in England. Hosain continued to grapple with the multitudinal meanings that came with leaving, making, and claiming a ‘home' in an unfinished novel No New Lands, No New Seas included in Distant Traveller. The novel centred recently settled and itinerant South Asian migrants in Britain as they struggle to establish roots and reconcile the borders of new homes. This article explores Attia Hosain's portrayal of migratory experiences in No New Lands, No New Seas on three levels. Firstly, it contends with how the migrant writer, Hosain, navigates border-making and the reorientations of ‘home' within these half-formed, tentative chapters. Secondly, it reflects on the form of the unfinished novel — Hosain embeds a longer pre-war, pre-Partition migratory narrative into chapters set in the 1970s. Thirdly, it considers how the novel’s protagonists deal with migration, economic hardship, racism, early formations of British South Asian identities, and the trauma-laced consequences of finding home after Partition.

Reconstructing Postcolonial Identity: A Comparative Analysis of Cultural Hybridity in Salman Rushdie’s Novels with a Focus on the South Asian Context

Salman Rushdie’s novels, including Midnight’s Children, The Satanic Verses, and The Ground Beneath Her Feet, offer profound insights into postcolonial identity in South Asia. This analysis explores the themes of cultural hybridity, religious transformation, and globalization, revealing the complex nature of identity negotiation in a postcolonial context. Beginning with an overview of postcolonial identity and the significance of cultural hybridity, the analysis focuses on Midnight’s Children, illustrating characters navigating the synthesis of diverse cultural elements in post-independence India. The theme of cultural hybridity becomes a lens for understanding the shifting nature of identities in the wake of historical changes. The Satanic Verses extends the examination to religious hybridity, revealing the transformative impact of religious experiences on individual and societal identities. The novel becomes a profound exploration of the intersections between religion, identity, and cultural conflict within the South Asian context. In The Ground Beneath Her Feet, the analysis delves into globalization and cultural fusion as transformative forces shaping South Asian identity. Characters navigate the tension between local traditions and global influences, offering a nuanced representation of South Asian identity in a transnational world. Within the South Asian context, the analysis scrutinizes cultural diversity, the impact of colonialism, and Rushdie’s nuanced representation of identity. The novels become a literary mirror reflecting the kaleidoscope of cultures, languages, and histories that define South Asia, challenging stereotypes and embracing the fluid, hybrid nature of postcolonial identities. Salman Rushdie’s novels contribute significantly to the discourse on postcolonial identity. Themes of cultural hybridity, religious transformation, and globalization collectively offer a profound exploration of the complexities inherent in identity formation in the postcolonial era. This comparative analysis invites readers to navigate the intricate terrain of postcolonial identities, transcending boundaries and embracing the richness of a world shaped by diverse cultural influences.

Kate Imy. Faithful Fighters: Identity and Power in the British Indian Army.

The British gained their empire by the sword, expanded it by the sword, and held on to it by the sword. Over the last two decades the vibrant field of “new” military history has explored the manifold ramifications of British imperialism enabled by Indian soldiers. Faithful Fighters: Identity and Power in the British Indian Army belongs to this expanding genre. However, the book is not solely a study of the army. It also examines “the Indian Army’s attempt to racialize and militarize South Asian identities” (1) and “the cultural legacies of the British Indian Army from 1900 to 1940” (2) to evaluate “how the army shaped colonial society in times of “peace” (7). Faithful Fighters is divided into six chapters. The first three consider three distinct and highly recruited religious communities, the Sikhs, “Muslims,” and Nepali Gurkhas, respectively. The fourth considers food and the military, and the fifth looks at education and the army. The final chapter discusses the political consequences of military desegregation. Each of the individual chapters adds, in varying degrees, to our knowledge of the connections between military and society. While the breadth of Faithful Fighters is impressive, its diverse topics do not coalesce around a consistent thesis encompassing all its parts. The one clear thread that runs through the book is the role and impact of religion.

INVESTIGATING THE EAST-WEST ENCOUNTERS: A POSTCOLONIAL RE-ORIENTALIST READING OF KAMILA SHAMSIE’S BURNT SHADOWS: A NOVEL

Kamila Shamsie’s (2009) Burnt Shadows is based on fictionalizing certain historical events as it narrates the histories of the two families’ sufferings during World War II, the atomic bombing of Japanese cities, colonialism in India, the division of the sub-continent into Pakistan and India and the conflicts between Pakistan, Afghanistan, and America in the wake of post-9/11. This study explores the novelist’s politicized and partial depiction of the characters belonging to the East and West. Shamsie (2009) treats the characters based on their national affiliations, the characters belonging to the USA/West have been positively represented while those representing the Non-western countries have been negatively portrayed in the novel. Utilizing Lisa Lau and Om Prakash Dwivedi's and Lau and Ana Christina Mendes’ insightful commentaries on the ideological role of re-orientalism in South Asian English writings as articulated in their respective seminal works Re-Orientalism and Indian Writing in English and Re-Orientalism and South Asian Identity Politics, this study argues that Shamsie’s (2009) strategic use of unreliable narration and unfavourable descriptions of the Eastern characters against the Western characters in the novel may underscore her a re-orientalist writer who consciously or unconsciously sustains and celebrates the erstwhile orientalists or colonisers’ perceived expectations about the orientals. Keywords: Orientalism, Re-orientalism, Misrepresentation, Representation,

‘Himalayasia’: Reclaiming Regional Identity in South Asia

South Asia is a conflict-prone region with numerous humanitarian challenges. South Asian states have long been struggling to bridge the political gaps among themselves. Regionalism has not been instrumental enough in this regard. This paper identifies a lack of regional identity for the South Asian peoples as one of the major obstacles why regionalism has never had much impact on the political map of South Asia. It is argued here that South Asia needs a major regional reorientation to reclaim its historic and cultural commonalities. And, that can be facilitated by a unique and meaningful geographical identification. In this regard, the Himalayan Mountain Range can be regarded as a geographical connector of the major South Asian States; hence, ‘Himalayasia’ could be a suitable name for their regional reorientation. The proposition is an outcome of a people-centric approach to constructing collective identity through social interaction among the peoples of South Asia based on their geographical identity and its already existing socio-cultural and civilizational legacies, which is expected to have gradual and incremental political implications in the states of this region. The research is qualitative-constructive as well as normative. It uses information, concepts and ideas from secondary sources and based on that substantiates new propositions vis-à-vis regional identity in South Asia.

Psychological Distress in Treatment-Seeking University Students: An Intersectional Examination of Asian Identity and Gender Identity

ABSTRACT We sought to elucidate the presentation of psychological distress across treatment-seeking university students at the intersection of gender and ethnic identity, concentrating on East and South Asian identity. Using retrospective baseline data from 1530 university students utilizing on-campus counseling services, ANOVAs were conducted to evaluate the effects of gender and ethnic identity on total and subscale scores of The Outpatient Questionnaire-45 (OQ-45). Compared to White students, South and East Asians exhibited significantly elevated levels of psychological distress. Although no gender differences emerged across overall psychological distress, there was a significant interaction between gender and ethnicity on total OQ-45 and certain subscales of this measure. Our findings provide important insight towards the limited body of evidence analyzing the intersection of gender and ethnicity in mental health. Revealing how multiple identities contribute to the presentation of psychological distress in postsecondary students can lead to the implementation of more effective interventions.

Childhood, Youth, and Identity: A Roundtable Conversation from the Global South

This roundtable session initially took place as part of the international conference “Childhood, Youth, and Identity in South Asia,” organized by the Department of History, Shiv Nadar University, Greater Noida, and the Centre for Publishing, Ambedkar University Delhi, India, on January 6–7, 2020.

Exotic Representation of the East in the Native West: A Re-Orientalist Analysis of Kamila Shamsie's Home Fire

This study analyzes Kamila Shamsie's Home  Fire (2017) from the re-orientalist perspective through Liza Lau's theoretical lens (2009). Re-orientalism deals with the issues of representation and seeks how far the representation is authentic. Analyzing the techniques of re-orientalism in the select novel, the current study takes into account the ways in which the author makes her novel appear an autobiographical account that in Meenakshi Mukerjee's view creates the problem of authenticity. The study also investigates the problem of generalization with “truth claims" to address the needs of larger Western communities. In practicing re-orientalism, South Asian writers either omit the presence of South Asian culture or reflect on it with stereotypes and sensational materials. The novel seems to critique South Asian shallow educated folks, who blindly admire or practice Western cultures. The commons and subalterns either have no identity and representation or have homogenous representation in such Diaspora writings, leading to the misrepresentation of the common masses. The study employs qualitative, interpretive, and textual analytical methods to codify and interpret the primary and secondary data. Besides addressing the concerned research community and educational needs, the broader impact of the study addresses the UN's SDG No. 04 (Quality Education) and SDG No. 10 (Reduce Inequality). References Aamer Shaheen, S. Q. (2018). Obsessive ‘Westoxification’ versus the Albatross of Fundamentalism and Love as Collateral Damage in Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire. Journal of Research (Humanities), 150-167. Afridi, A. (2018). The Cult of Authenticity and the Exotic East: A Re-Orientalist Reading of Jamil Ahmad’s The Wandering Falcon and Uzma Aslam Khan’s Trespassing . Islamabad: National University of Modern Languages. Ahmad, R. (2020). Towards an Ethics of Reading Muslims:Encountering Difference in Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire. Textual Practice, 1-17. Al-Hafizh, N. M. (2019). Deception Toward British Muslims In Novel Home Fire (2017) BY Kamila Shamsie. E-Journal of English Language &, 103-115. Banerjee, D. (2020). From Cheap Labor to Overlooked Citizens: Looking for British Muslim Identities in Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire. South Asian Review. Dwivedi, L. L. (2014). Re-Orientalism and Indian Writing in English. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Franco, J. (1996). Outside in the Teaching Machine by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Review). boundary 2, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Duke University Press), 177-184. Hotep, D. U. (2011). FROM RBG BLAKADEMICS DIGITAL LIBRARY. Retrieved January 9, 2020, from www.scribd.com: https://www.scribd.com/dr_imhotep Lau, L. (2009). Re-Orientalism: The Perpetration and Development of Orientalism by Orientals. Modern Asian Studies, 571-590. Mendes, L. L. (2011). Re-Orientalism and South Asian Identity Politics : The Oriental other within. Newyork: Routledge. Mukherjee, M. (1993). The Anxiety of Indianness: Our Novels in English. Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 28, No. 48, 2607-2611. shamsie, K. (2017). Hoe Fire. New York: Riverhead books. Shivani, A. (2006). Indo-Anglian fifiction: the new Orientalism. Race & Class Sage Publications, 1-25. Wikipedia :The Free Encyclopedia. (2019, November 11). Retrieved January 7, 2020, from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Fire_(novel)

A Case Study on Picture Book Application for Children as Semiotic Technology in Representing Asian Identities

Digital book applications have emerged as new formats of picture books, with an integration of digitally mediated resources to construct meaning. These picture book apps are written artefacts that contain cultural messages and values about the world that children live in. Dually, as semiotic artefacts, they consist of meaning potentials through the concept of interactivity along with other technologically created multimodal resources. These resources form the semiotic surfaces of picture book apps and thus the picture book app is classified as Semiotic Technology. Picture book apps as semiotic technology are instrumental in changing the way in which current young readers engage with stories. The multimodal aspect is amplified in this digital text by the concept of interactivity. In recognition of the impact of these semiotic artefacts on users, this case study proposes a model based on a semiotic technology approach (media dimension) and the concept of interactivity, to interpret meaning making in digital picture book apps for children. Through a qualitative approach that has employed purposeful sampling, a digital picture book app, Green Riding Hood, has been selected as a case study for this article to illustrate how Asian identities are represented through interactive features. It is found that, through semiotic meaning-making captured in interactivity defining features, South Asian (Indian) identity markers like ethnicity, religion, age, and gender have been represented as multicultural or diversity awareness conduits to users. Through main values like unity (friendship) and health and fitness (including environmentalism), this digitized children’s literature thus is an ideal mirror, window, and door to society. This approach on digitized picture books is deemed important to be understood and recognized because types of messages from children’s literatures that get across through lenses of children can impact their path of identity realization and understanding

About the Contributors

About the Contributors

Common South Asian Identity and Regional Integration in South Asia

This paper explores the avenues to evolve a common identity, in South Asia. This paper has been divided into five parts. In the first part, Identity and Regional Integration, the concepts of identity and regional integration have been defined and the need for a common identity for regional integration has been discussed. The second part, analyses South Asia as a region and the need for developing a common identity there. The third part, explores the different types of identities existing in the political, economic, social and cultural spheres of the South Asian region. In the fourth part, the challenges in evolving a common regional identity in South Asia, a region marked by diversity and myriad number of complex problems in different spheres has been discussed. By way of conclusion, it has been argued that a common identity is much required for furthering the process of regional integration in South Asia, which should be built on the common indicators of human development in the social sector as well as upon the common values, lifestyle and socio-cultural norms of the peoples of this region, like the ASEAN vision of an ASEAN Socio Cultural Community (ASCC).

Shaheen Bagh and the hermeneutics of Muslim identity in South Asia

This article locates the unique discursive contribution of women’s protests against India’s Citizen Amendment Act in 2019–2020 in the history of Muslim identity formation in South Asia. It does this by reviewing the relationship between religious reform and identity politics since colonial times and contrasts it with arguments and practices of the women involved in the protests at Shaheen Bagh in Delhi. It contextualizes the hermeneutical arguments anchored around the idea of community and nation in colonial and postcolonial governance in South Asia. And it compares them to the women’s methods and experiences of protest that privilege a relation to blood and soil to demonstrate the significance of experience as an alternative basis for the political imagination of Muslim identity in South Asia.

Nationalism and national identity formation in Bangladesh: A colonial legacy behind the clash of language and religion

The nature of identity formation is complex. The production of identity in South Asia, with its colonial past, has been largely dependent on the region’s colonial history. In this article we chart the process of political identity formation in Bangladesh. We identify the various historical causes that led to the creation of each of the two types of identity prevalent today. These two divisive identities based on language and religion, one pitted against the other, each became the central platform of each of the two major political parties, the Awami League (AL) and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). This disquisition shows clear patterns of political distress that resulted in the bifurcation of these two divisive political identities that ossified by the late 20th century due chiefly to the actions of the colonial government of the Raj.

Preface to Historicising Sayyid-ness: Social Status and Muslim Identity in South Asia

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‘Pakis from Outer Space’: Oriental postmodernity in Leigh Bowery’s performative costuming

With his extraordinary self-styled personas, the late London-based costume designer, nightclub extravaganza and subcultural icon Leigh Bowery constantly unsettled clear divisions between fashion, performance and visual art. His performative costuming reflects in a prolific manner his hybrid aesthetic and his ability to fuse a wide range of visual elements stemming from high fashion, art, mainstream culture and underground practices that en masse render his bizarre presence highly enigmatic. Inspired primarily by the aesthetics and the representations of South Asian culture, and noticeably deviating both from the subcultural style of the early New Romantics and mainstream fashion trends, Bowery’s allegedly first performative look, the ‘Pakis from Outer Space’, integrates an array of clashing symbols and motifs in a distinctively postmodernist fashion. As fetishization of South Asian iconography, Bowery’s enactment provides a platform for deeper analysis in regard to the problems that postmodernist cultural appropriation poses for the politics of representation of the ‘exotic’, non-western other. Drawing on the discourses of postmodernism and orientalism, this article examines the visual codes of the controversial look and unfolds the ways in which by constructing a distorted and eccentric image of an inclusive South Asian identity, Bowery slips in cultural stereotyping and ethnic generalization. Although his postmodernist parodic ethos could potentially be read as an attempt to create a critical – but politically problematic – dialectical space regarding orientalist clichés, it does not only fail to deconstruct monolithic representations but, conversely, reinforces oriental banality.

Picturing Resistance and Resilience: South Asian Identities in the Work of Chila Kumari Burman

The issues of migration and the allocation of passports is a contentious issue in twenty-first-century Britain. This paper offers a timely assessment of Chila Kumari Burman’s diptych, Convenience, Not Love, 1986–7, which uses the passport motif to present a scathing indictment of British immigration policy in the post-1945 era, which champions the resilience of the British South Asian diaspora in the face of persistent racial discrimination. Taking issue with the stereotype of South Asian women as ‘meek and passive victims’, the paper concludes with a discussion of Burman’s self-portraits from the 1990s, proposing them as ‘radically narcissistic’.

Introduction: Historicizing Sayyid-ness: Social Status and Muslim Identity in South Asia

AbstractThe introduction to the special issue provides a framework to think about the changing conceptions of Sayyid-ness in various historical contexts in South Asia. First, we review some of the sociological and anthropological literature on caste among South Asian Muslims, to argue for a contextualised and historicised study of Muslim social stratification in Muslims’ own terms. Second, we throw light on the fact that Sayyid-ness, far from being a transhistorical fact, may be conceptualised differently in different socio-political and historical contexts. For instance, Sayyid pedigree was at times downplayed in favour of a more encompassing Ashraf identity in order to project the idea of a single Muslim community. Far from projecting an essentialising image of Sayyid-ness, by focusing on historical change, the articles in this collection de-naturalise Sayyids’ and Ashraf's social superiority as a ‘well-understood and accepted fact’. They further shift attention from the debate on ‘Muslim caste’, often marred by Hindu-centric assumptions, to focus instead on social dynamics among South Asian Muslims ‘in their own terms’. In so doing, these studies highlight the importance of the local, while pointing to possible comparisons with Muslim groups outside South Asia.