Political Science - Publications

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Browsing Political Science - Publications by Author "Devare, Aparna"
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    Alternative notions of sexuality and personhood: The case of Bal Gandharva
    ( 2018-07-03) Devare, Aparna
    This article examines the meteoric rise and enormous popularity of a Marathi stage actor and singer, Bal Gandharva, in early twentiethcentury western India. Gandharva was distinctive because he was a male artist who dressed and acted as a woman on stage and was adulated by both women and men for his powerful female roles. The article argues that Gandharva embodied ‘fuzzy’ boundaries between man and woman, drawing from indigenous traditions of gender fluidity. While maintaining strict boundaries between being a man in his personal life and a woman on stage, Gandharva tapped into alternative notions of masculinity. I argue that the adulation he experienced for his acting and singing as a woman points to transgressive possibilities in the otherwise conservative middle-class imagination and challenges what are colonial constructions of hyper-masculinity.
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    Dialogical international relations: Gandhi, Tagore and self-transformation
    ( 2018-01-01) Devare, Aparna
    In this chapter, I wish to take seriously David Blaney and Naeem Inayatullah’s (1994, 342) evocative call for the ‘possibility of a conversation of cultures that is found in the space bounded by an international society of both common values and commitments and diversity.’ An appeal made some time ago (in 1994), it remains as relevant in thinking about global encounters between cultures today given increasing global violence. Is it possible to think about non-hegemonic encounters between peoples in a world fraught with inequality, climate crises, and rising intolerance of various kinds? And those that celebrate plurality while also reasserting the language of universal(s)? Blaney and Inayatullah (1994, 342) do believe so, arguing that ‘this possibility, or hope, must be considered in the face of the serious barriers to conversation posed by a hierarchically ordered international society.’ Despite these constraints, how do they propose to undertake such a dialogue?.
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    History and the making of a modern Hindu self
    ( 2013-12-01) Devare, Aparna
    Taking the contentious debates surrounding historical evidence and history writing between secularists and Hindu nationalists as a starting point, this book seeks to understand the origins of a growing historical consciousness in contemporary India, especially amongst Hindus. The broad question it poses is: Why has 'history' become such an important site of identity, conflict and self-definition amongst modern Hindus, especially when Hinduism is known to have been notoriously impervious to history? As modern ideas regarding notions of history came to India with colonialism, it turns to the colonial period as the 'moment of encounter' with such ideas. The book examines three distinct moments in the Hindu self through the lives and writings of lower-caste public figure Jotiba Phule, 'moderate' nationalist M. G. Ranade and Hindu nationalist V. D. Savarkar. Through a close reading of original writings, speeches and biographical material, it is demonstrated that these three individuals were engaged with a modern historical and rationalist approach. However, the same material is also used to argue that Phule and Ranade viewed religion as living, contemporaneous and capable of informing both their personal and political lives. Savarkar, the 'explicitly Hindu' leader, on the contrary, held Hindu practices and traditions in contempt, confining them to historical analysis while denying any role for religion as spirituality or morality in contemporary political life. While providing some historical context, this volume highlights the philosophical/political ideas and actions of the three individuals discussed. It integrates aspects of their lives as central to understanding their politics. © 2011 Aparna Devare. All rights reserved.
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    Secularizing religion: Hindu extremism as a modernist discourse
    ( 2009-06-17) Devare, Aparna
    In this article, I suggest that Hindu nationalism, like many other religious extremist ideologies, is a modern discourse rooted in modern categories such as a homogenous national identity, objective science and history, hyper-masculinity, and secularism. To demonstrate the above claims, I undertake a close analysis of the writings of V.D. Savarkar, a key founder of "Hindutva" or Hindu nationalism. I show how he retools Hinduism by removing all aspects of religiosity/piety while replacing it with a primarily political-secular identity that places an exclusive Hindu nation at the center. © 2009 International Studies Association.
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    Understanding differing conceptions of violence through Self–Other relations in Gandhi and Fanon
    ( 2017-06-01) Devare, Aparna
    This article compares and contrasts Gandhi’s and Fanon’s views on violence by placing these ideas within a larger framework of how each viewed the Self and its relationship with the Other. I argue in the article that Gandhi did not view the Self as clearly separable from the Other; the Self was internal to the Other and hence violence to the Other would also affect the Self. This was one of the underlying reasons behind his adopting a philosophy of non-violence. In the case of Fanon, I argue that one can identify a “dominant” Fanon who makes a clear separation between Self and Other in contrast to Gandhi and hence can justify violence inflicted on the colonizer. But, the article also teases out a “marginal” or “Other” Fanon who comes much closer to Gandhi in the manner in which he views the Other as implicated within the Self particularly through his own lived experience, his activism, his views on psychiatry, and his other writings apart from Wretched of the Earth.