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PhD Proposal

University for Humanistics Graduate School

in cooperation with the Promoting Pluralism Knowledge Program

1. Doctoral Research Supervision Team: Names and email addresses

(1) Promoter (UvH professor:) Prof Harry Kunneman (h.kunneman@uvh.nl )

(2) Second or Co – promoter (External: Pluralism Knowledge Program partner)

Prof. Sitharamam Kakarala, Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore,

India (ramsk@cscs.res.in)

(3) Co-promoter (UvH): Dr. Caroline Suransky (c.suransky@uvh.nl )

2. Research summary in Key Words (maximal 300)

In the last few decades India has been witness to an increasing number of conflicts around

community practices such as cow slaughter/ cow protection1, conversion2 and common

worship practices3. It is the dominant understanding today that cultural communities embody

values and beliefs that are important to individuals within it, and lack of recognition or

1Cow slaughter/ cow protection has come to be part of a religious conflict discourse in the Indian

context, because of the larger assumption that cow is ‘sacred’ for Hindus (a much challenged notion

since Dalits and many other Hindu communities slaughter and consume beef), while minority

communities such as Muslims and Christians consume beef. It has become the favoured issue for polarizing communities by what are seen as fundamentalist Hindu organizations.

2As cow slaughter is played out primarily between some Hindus and Muslims, religious conversion is

the topic of contention and recent violence between many Christian communities in India and some

Hindu communities. 3Many parts of mainland India and the west coast of India have a unique tradition of having places of

worship which are frequented by multiple communities from Hindu, Muslim, Jain, Christian

communities. Most of these sites are locations of diverse religious and local traditional practices none

of which can be exclusively traced to any one community. Such places have become sites of conflicts

in the last half a decade.

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marginalization of certain cultures is at the root of some of these conflicts. Multiculturalists

such as Bhikhu Parekh, Iris Young and Will Kymlicka have argued that we need new

understandings of diversity and justice in order to protect and nurture cultural diversity, to

judge and manage diversity (since all forms of diversity are not acceptable) and to deal with

conflicts arising between cultures (Parekh 2000, 8-9), (Young 2000), (Kymlicka 1995). The

dominant concept of diversity is oriented around categories such as rights and beliefs, both

concepts which are primarily associated with two kinds of cultural communities- the religious

communities and national communities or ‘nations’. This discourse sees cultures as the

repositories of the sum total of beliefs that individuals in a particular culture have and

individuals are understood to primarily relate to community practices through notions of

beliefs and rights. However, I would like to argue that, rights (coming from a sovereignty

framework) and beliefs (coming primarily from the religious framework) do not exhaust the

modes of relations that people have to their cultures or practices. When we are faced with

practices of groups which do not easily fit into either of the above mentioned communities

(such as groups worshiping at the same site) finding ways to explain such practices becomes

difficult, adding little to our understanding of the contemporary conflicts. In this doctoral

thesis I shall try to show that attempts to understand such communities and their practices

with the dominant notion of cultural diversity, and attendant concepts of rights and beliefs,

tend to homogenise these practices and reduce the multiple and dynamic relation

communities have to these practices. Through a case study approach, this study will examine

the dominant concept of diversity and some of the main ideas and concepts which inform this

frame and which has shaped our contemporary understandings of communities’ relation to

practices and the gradual changes they are undergoing. The case studies will focus on two

specific community practices, namely cow protection and common worship practices in

India. The research aims to introduce new perspectives to our understanding of these

practices, differently from its dominant representation in mainstream diversity and justice

discourse. The larger theoretical interest of the thesis is to understand the critical relation of

the concept of cultural diversity to the theory of social justice.

3. Details PhD Candidate

Family name and first name(s): Elizabeth Thomas

Date of birth: 29 June 1981

Nationality: Indian

Full Address: C- 305, Gowri Apartments, New BEL Road, Bangalore- 560054, Karnataka,

India

Phone number and e-mail address: + 91 9900260190, eliza29@gmail.com,

elizabeth@cscs.res.in

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Highest earned degree/Institution: M.Phil in English; Delhi University, Delhi

Date of Graduation: 2006

Academic Discipline/Department: English /Department of English, Faculty of Arts

4. A Focused Introduction of the Research

(a) Discuss the key ideas, concepts and scientific theories that are of importance to your

research. Include a critical review of the relevant literature (attach 3-4 pages) in which you

demonstrate that you are aware of the debates and issues raised in relevant bodies of

literature. References to key articles and texts should be made to show that you appreciate

their relevance to your research area

The last two decades in global politics have witnessed an increasing number of conflicts and

debates around community practices and values and the possibility of accommodating such

values within the modern state. In the Indian context issues such as cow protection/cow

slaughter, conversion, group demands around common worship spaces, etc. have resulted in

extended conflicts between communities resulting, in difficulties for the liberal state in

dealing with such situations (Ahmed Sayeed 2008), (Kim 2003), (Jaffrelot 1993). Many of

these conflicts revolve around questions and discourses of ownership, community rights, and

the longevity of a tradition, and generally lead to debates around notions of justice for

communities in terms of their cultural rights. Especially when such conflicts enter the domain

of state institutions, like the executive and the judiciary, these questions around just action

and justice to communities (even if not cast in these exact terms) become even more

pronounced. Such conflicts have thus increased the everyday and scholarly engagement with

the idea of cultural diversity and theories of social justice, such as how to sustain and foster

diverse practices, cultures and ways of living in the world, especially in democratic

multicultural societies (Chandoke 1999), (Bhargava, Bagchi, and Sudarshan 1999).

One such instance which has resurfaced in recent times in the Indian state of Karnataka is the

issue of cow slaughter. The Karnataka assembly recently introduced a bill (The Karnataka

Prevention of Slaughter and Preservation of Cattle Bill, 2010) to ban slaughtering of all cattle

in the state. It is a more stringent reworking of an already existing Act from 1964 which

banned slaughter of cattle that are still in their productive years (Govt. of Karnataka n.d.).

The new bill, which is yet to be fully passed and made into an act, has led to opposition and

counter mobilization by many groups such as Dalits, farmers, Muslim communities who

work as butchers and those in the leather trade. Many have called the bill not just anti-farmer,

who are expected to be most hit by it, but also anti-democratic and anti-minority (Staff

Reporter 2010). Although some invoke economic aspects related with the ban, the primary

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issue appears to be of state’s favouring some groups over others in terms of their seemingly

religious, social or political values. It is pointed that for some groups the cow is a ‘sacred’

animal while other groups make many instrumental uses of the animal from consumption to

uses for professional reasons. One of the crucial aspects of this situation is that the state is

seen as privileging one approach and way of thinking and living over others, which is highly

questionable in a democratic system.

Similar laws have been introduced in various other states in India in the post-independence

period. Academics, activists and lay people are constantly posing questions such as who is

the cow sacred for? (Jha 2004). It surely is not for all communities in India, it is not so for

Christians and Muslims it is not even for all Hindus, that is if Dalits are Hindus, then they are

found to eat beef.4 It is argued that particular political interests are being furthered by

protecting ‘Brahminical’ practices (Rajashekhar and Somayaji 2006). In fact, many point out

that the cow is not sacred for all Brahmins in India either (Jha 2004). The practice thus does

not neatly overlap with the interest of any one group at a pan-Indian level, however, it gets

constantly debated in the Indian context from pre-independence to the present as a problem

for a presumably overarching community, that is all Hindus.

The debate on the cow question goes back to 19th century India, the contours of which largely

remain unchanged today. Historical and anthropological writings on this period tell us about

the emergence of large numbers of cow protection societies or gaurakshini sabhas across

Punjab, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and the present day Uttar Pradesh which started mobilizing

people for their cause (Freitag 1990). When community conflicts and riots started occurring

in the name of cow slaughter and then went to the colonial administration, they would

attempt to determine what the custom of a region on such practices was, and further what

sources, authorities sanctioned such customs. In the period between 1880 and 1920, the

colonial state encountered new forms of crisis in villages and districts in many parts of

Northern India were traditionally either slaughter was banned or accepted (Freitag 1990).

Many Muslims started challenging the restrictions put in place by previous rulers, many

Hindu communities started demanding fresh blanket bans where there were none before. It is

in response to such crisis that administration began to define new customs, rights of

communities and notions of what is sacred to whom (Pandey 1993). In many instances the

colonial state worked with large categories like Hindus and Muslims and asked why do the

Hindus worship the cows and why do the Muslims slaughter (such as is it a religious

injunction to slaughter cows or bulls for bakr-id)? However, very often assumptions made

4At the face of it the implication is that ‘sacred’ implies something particular and these two actions are

mutually exclusive, that is if you say the cow is sacred you cannot also kill and eat it.

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about these large groups and their beliefs would fail when contradictory facts would appear

such as many Hindus eating and slaughtering cows and many Muslims participating in calls

by nationalist leaders for cow protection.5

Several conflicts in this period were thus cast as Hindu-Muslim riots by the British

administration and in popular imagination (Tejani 2007), (Dharampal and Mukundan 2002).

One finds sharp critique of this kind of narrative. For instance in a seminal writing on this

issue, Dharampal argues that gaurakshini sabhas and the later conflicts were primarily in

response to large number of slaughter houses opened in late 18th century for the needs of the

British standing army (Dharampal and Mukundan 2002). One of the crucial observations in

academic work on the issue is with regard to community’s relation to these practices by

pointing out that the new legal discourse and the larger idea of diversity, started changing

people’s understanding of their own actions as they started responding to an emergent

narrative of religious violation (Tejani 2007), (Pandey 1993). More importantly, people

started claiming a right to their practice unheard of before, thus increasing the violence

(Pandey 1993). The present anti-cow slaughter bill is symptomatic of the same problem

where certain groups demand specific legislation to protect what they see as their specific

practice.

The colonial state in India was thus centrally preoccupied with the problem of dealing with

and administering ‘diverse communities’ since the 19th century onwards. It was an especially

excruciating problem for the colonial rulers because of the marked difference of the Indian

polity from anything encountered in Europe, in its seemingly mind numbing diversity of

languages, traditions, religions and other social forms such as jatis or castes. In instances like

the above, the colonial government’s attempts to understand, record and codify customs and

practices of communities led it to believe that India was a land of warring groups and

therefore an external structure or government was necessary to rule it (Mukherjee 2010).

Even more recently, this reading of India remains intact with claims such as, “socio-political

diversity continues to be a major source of conflict in contemporary India” (Bryjak 1986).

The central questions in this study are: why and how is an issue seen as an issue of diversity

and thus of justice? Why has cultural diversity become a problem to be managed in the last

century, throwing up new issues to be dealt with? Why for instance, do we see cow protection

5Much of the readings on this issue have been developed into a working paper titled ‘Legal

discourses around social practices: an enquiry into the cattle slaughter bill’ co-authored by the author

of this paper and Ms. Serene Kasim in 2010. Some of the insights of the paper on cow slaughter are

being further developed for the present proposal.

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movements and the cow slaughter debate as a problem of cultural diversity given that the

practice does not overlap on to any of the constitutional communities6?

This question about cultural diversity has been an ever recurring one for the Indian context.7

We have now seen more than half a decade of debates around minority rights, on freedom of

conscience, on personal laws and more specific practices such as cow slaughter. Political

solutions have been proposed, debated and resisted to such issues of inter-community relations

and the general issue of diversity. For instance, from the pre-independence years onwards, there

has been vigorous debate on whether a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) should be introduced for all

citizens to legislate on all matters of civil dispute, or if the state should extend special rights

and privileges to minorities such as allowing them to be ruled by their customary laws (Baxi

2007). When the Constitution was being formed many leaders and members of the Constituent

Assembly (a group which was constituted to debate and form the Constitution from 1946-1949)

held that minority groups had the right to their own laws and customs and that it was necessary

to create the conditions for them to preserve their cultural distinctiveness (Bhargava

2008);(Pantham 2005). Others saw the divergent community practices and laws as a hindrance

to the liberal state’s values such as equality and individual rights and thus as an impediment to

a unified nation and the idea of progress (Bajpai 2005), (Bajpai 2008). Ambedkar8 was opposed

to the idea of the continuation of personal laws for communities believing that this would stand

in opposition to the cause of reform (Jaffrelot 2004). Although the UCC has not been

implemented by the Indian state, the debate on the issue still continues today.

6 Communities marked by administrative categories such as religion or caste,

7In his book Untouchables: Who were they and why they became Untouchables? Ambedkar sees

untouchability also as arising out of diversity of practice. He says in the Preface to the book, “The

thesis on the origin of Untouchability advanced in the book is an altogether novel thesis. It comprises

the following propositions: (1) There is no racial difference between the Hindus and the Untouchables;

(2) The distinction between the Hindus and Untouchables in its original form, before the advent of

Untouchability, was the distinction between Tribesmen and Broken Men from alien Tribes. It is the

Broken Men who subsequently came to be treated as Untouchables; (3) Just as Untouchability has no

racial basis so also has it no occupational basis; (4) There are two roots from which Untouchability has

sprung: (a) Contempt and hatred of the Broken Men as of Buddhists by the Brahmins (b)

Continuation of beef-eating by the Broken Men after it had been given up by others” (Ambedkar 1990,

242). With regard to beef eating he further observes that although this was not a difference from the

beginning and that all people including Brahmins ate beef only what he calls the ‘broken men’ continued to eat it once cow was declared to be a sacred animal. Although Ambedkar’s thesis has its

own set of contradictions, what is crucial is the difference principle on which his argument is based

(Ambedkar 1990).

8Dr. B. R Ambedkar was the chief proponent of the Dalit and lower caste struggle for social justice in

India; he belonged to the lower caste Mahar community of the state of Maharashtra. He became a

lawyer after going through great personal tribulations over coming social discriminations and became

one of the main members of the Constituent Assembly, the group constituted to debate and form the

new constitution of independent India, from 1946-49.

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The popular liberal left discourse explains this roughly hundred year old problem of cultural

diversity in India by pointing to an increasing absence of state neutrality and the state’s support

for more rigid and one-sided positions (Zoya Hasan 2009), (Roohi and Samaddar 2009),

(Chandoke 1999), (Hasan, Sridharan, and Sudarshan 2002). In many ways this explanation only

focuses on post independent India and the conflicts seen after that, however there is evidence to

show that much of these tensions have a longer trajectory than that. Many of the recent

problems between communities are traced to the growth of fundamentalist ideologies and its

hold on many groups of people here. Theorists and activists thus often point to the inadequate

commitment to rights, secularism and pluralism, and justice. They claim that the weak values

of justice have led to discrimination against minority groups and also against individuals from

marginalized groups who are loosing their rights (Chandoke 2009), (Guru 2008), (Zoya Hasan

2009).

Another stream of recent work attempts to indicate the limitations of the previous position and

to show the pluralistic approaches to be inherent to many of these practices. In response to

some of the intercommunity conflict around places of worship, there have been studies showing

the nature of overlapping practices in such places (Sikand 2001), (Mushirul Hasan 1991). This

literature highlights a specific problem when it comes to diversity, that is, to show that standard

readings of cultures and traditions (which some political and ideological approaches latch on

to) essentialises practices and assigns it specific meanings. A case in point are the tensions

around places of worship in large parts of the west coast of India where many different local

communities worship at the same site and bring their multiple practices to these spaces. It has

been noted that attempts either to claim these sites exclusively for one community (like in the

controversy surrounding the Bababudangiri dargah in the Chikmagalur district in Karnataka)

and the interventions of well-meaning civil society organizations or courts of justice to counter

such interference have transformed the original practices of such places into some new often

unrecognizable form (Sitharaman 2010).

Another such example is highlighted in a very thought provoking essay on sacred groves in

coastal area of the state of Orissa. Frederique Apffel-Marglin argues that the notion of sacred

emerged in the European context as another to the secular space exemplified by modern

science, this division was a cognitive and cultural enterprise to counter the effects of the

religious wars of the 17th

century. She argues that the use of the concept of sacred which has

functioned as an essential category in Europe, to understand some of the practices like the

festivals around groves fails to capture the dynamics of these practices imposing divisions such

as religious/ secular or utilitarian and non-utilitarian on their actions (Apffel-Marglin 1999).

The arguement is that sacred with its present meanings is an appropriate category primarily for

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the European context where the split of the sacred and the secular has happened historically and

conceptually. On the other hand, people of the region seem to use the idea of the sacred to

signify multiple things in their interaction with nature. Apffel-Marglin says, “The

simplification practices of the colonial state in India, continued by the Indian state after

independence, have tended to transform the diversity of place-times along the lines of the

European Cosmopolis. As in Europe, the indispensable tools of the state for achieving this have

been the sciences, both social and natural” (Apffel-Marglin 1999, 91). Pointing to the

participation of Hindus of all castes except the Brahmins (for which also she rejects the

standard explanation that Brahmin non-participation is relfective of discriminatory outlooks)

and Muslims in the rituals of the grove, she says, that “…diversity is not only not a threat to

these place-times; rather it is, as it were a built-in presupposition” (Apffel-Marglin 1999, 90).

She argues that the use of essentialist categories is potentially ‘lethal’ to diversity, while,

“notions of context sensitivity, of positionality and of orchestrated alterations are generative of

diversity” (Apffel-Marglin 1999, 90).

Research on syncretic practices challenge some of the state descriptions of India with which the

colonial administration used to function, such as India is a land of warring communities or that

there has been a long standing religious rivalry between Hindus and Muslims (Mukherjee

2010). In addition, they point to specific problems in reading certain practices through the

categories that diversity recognizes to mark cultures, religion being one of them. However,

many of these above mentioned writings on secular modern values or the specific research on

syncretic practices, share a basic assumption that cultural diversity becomes both a value or a

desirable of the world as well as a potential source of conflicts in the world, where some

cultures want to dominate others. What is the source of this assumption and the dilemma or

contradiction it implies, where cultural diversity becomes both a value and problem of the

world? This question will be partly will examined in the next section.

The Multiculturalist Debate

The discipline of anthropology has always been occupied with the question of diversity. For

years it has asked “What are the consistent laws underlying the observable diversity” (Geertz

2000). In an essay entitled ‘Uses of Diversity’, Clifford Geertz asserts that as a socio-political

project the anthropological enterprise stands validated even today albeit differently because of

the new global changes we are encountering (Geertz 2000, 68-88). He asserts, as do many

others, that we need to have an understanding of each other in order to live with each other

even though we might not fully comply with others’ values. According to him ‘imagining

difference and making it evident’ is thus an important intellectual and social function today.

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Interestingly theorists such as Bhikhu Parekh agree that even though cultural diversity was a

fact for pre-modern societies, it has becomes a problem only with the coming of the modern

state, apart from the fact that globalization has radically changed our encounters with the other.

Thus while accounting for pre-modern societies some speculate that such conflicts were

comparatively low because the minority groups accepted a subordinate status in those societies

(Parekh 2000).9 Multiculturalism is seen as an important normative theory in its relation to the

contemporary world, in that, unlike pre-modern societies, it insists on equality between cultures

(Mahajan 2002). Bhikhu Parekh argues that, “Our understanding of the nature, sources and

subtle forms of violence are deeper, and we appreciate that just as groups of people can be

oppressed economically and politically, they can also be oppressed and humiliated culturally,

that these and other forms of oppression reinforce each other, and that the concern for social

justice needs to include not just economic but also cultural rights and well being” (Parekh 2000,

9). He attributes some of these changes to historical events and some to the new knowledges

and theories of the world and argues that as a result our acceptance of cultural difference has

also increased. In effect, he suggests that our awareness of culture’s importance to people has

become radically pronounced and hence also our need to do justice to cultural communities.

In itself the thesis that drastic changes in the world that brought diverse communities face to

face with each other, sounds thin, since in principle, more diversity than before need not

naturally imply more conflicts between people. The later statement which claims the

contemporary increase in awareness of cultural issues and justice questions tied to them

because of historical changes and the coming of the modern state is an argument that needs to

be examined in more detail. There are historical narratives telling us about the domination of

many indigenous cultures owing to the colonial enterprise in many parts of the world.

Similarly, it is pointed out that the nation-state came at the cost of elevating one culture as the

national culture which belonged to the majority population and sidelining several other

minority cultures.

It appears then that multiculturalism has emerged as a critique of liberalism as a political

ideology and of the modern nation state as a political structure which inherits its tenets (and

also its underlying prejudices towards a particular kind of culture). However, it is noted that

liberalism itself is a theoretical enterprise that emerged in response to the religious sectarian

wars in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries (Laden and Owen 2007). Therefore concepts such

9One can see in this narrative that our judgement of societies prior to the modern state form is heavily

burdened with categories of the present, that is for instance to say minorities accepted a subordinate

status we have to also accept that people lived their lives with the new national categories of majority

and minority in the exact same way as we do.

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as state neutrality and individual liberty and toleration were concepts developed to live with

religious pluralism in that context. Theorists have pointed out also that one of the earliest

engagements with the question of cultural diversity was formulated within the liberal tradition

in the European encounter with the colonized and also in response to the emergence of

sovereign states (Taylor and Gutmann 1994). The rights of the people and of national

minorities became important issues in the 19th century and were vigorously debated by political

philosophers. An instance of this can be seen in Edmund Burke’s arguments in the trial of

Warren Hastings in colonial India where the ‘rights and laws’ of the Indian people formed the

axis around which the arguments and counter arguments were made (Mukherjee 2010).

If we look at the Euro-American context, the problem of indigenous people, of minority

groups, of immigrant populations has occupied cultural theorists for over two decades now.

The main issue in their work is the issue of how to govern diverse people and redress their

various political claims and how to do justice to these diverse groups, which have been the

victims of injustice and continue to be discriminated against because of historical conditions

and the emergence of the modern state structure. Many of these debates circulate around

rethinking liberal theory and its fundamental assumptions. For instance the multicultural

theorists today and their critics are often found debating about what kind of cultures and

practices can be validated and to what extend cultural diversity can be accommodated within

the otherwise operative frame of equality in modern democracies (Chandoke 2009), (Bhargava,

Bagchi, and Sudarshan 1999), (Mahajan 2002), (Fraser and Honneth 2003). Post 1980s cultural

theorists vigorously debated the failures of dominant social justice theories in addressing new

demands of identity and recognition. Many of them suggested that the roots of injustice and

discrimination lie in cultural organization (Young 1990).10 Literature shows that especially in

the European context, there have been major difficulties in dealing with exclusive cultural

identity claims and reconciling them with the liberal state’s ideals and principles.

A major recurring issue in the multiculturalist debate is about resolving the contradiction of

universal values such as human rights and specific issues of cultural difference.

Multiculturalism generally holds the inherent idea that cultures are inviolable albeit non-

10Some of the rethinking about the theory has come from a set of theorists such as Nancy Fraser, largely speaking from within economic paradigm itself. Fraser for instance has repeatedly pointed out

that it was necessary to keep away from a false distinction between notions of cultural and economic

justice (Fraser and Honneth 2003). She moves away from the criticism of social justice theorists who

argue that identity politics is counter productive to real economic issues to suggest that it is necessary

to take cognizance of problems of identity and demands of positive valuation of identities and cultures

rising from discrimination and marginalization of some cultures, without falling into the trap of

‘reification of identities’ (Fraser and Honneth 2003, 9-25). She argues for a ‘two-dimensional concept

of justice’ which integrates problems of redistribution and recognition since according to her, all

demands for recognition are also tied to demands for redistribution.

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homogenous units and they have an intimate relation to the life of an individual (Taylor and

Gutmann 1994). They argue that this fact has been insufficiently recognized by liberal theory

with its exclusive focus on the individual (Parekh 2000). While theorists like Charles Taylor

argue that although cultures need not be seen through an essentialist frame, they will have

specific conceptions of the good life or of collective goals which needs to be recognized and

preserved, while also adhering to the notion of individual autonomy (Taylor and Gutmann

1994).11 To look at one half of the statement about cultural diversity then, diversity is a

desirable because of the idea that cultural communities-whether nations or religions etc- are

repositories of beliefs and values which have to be preserved.

Two central problems appear repeatedly in the literature dealing with questions on cultural

diversity: one, about the individual’s relation to the community-how to account for individual

liberty and internal resistance, and two, about reconciling various and diverse notions of ethical

and moral good held by communities with the priorities and values of the liberal state. In both

cases, the structure of the question remains the same: that is: what can be justly accepted and

accommodated? As many theorists have shown, the issue of diversity, like equality, is

connected to notions of the authenticity and autonomy of the self and by extension of cultures

(Taylor and Gutmann 1994). Cultural diversity becomes an important idea to enhance these two

values, and hence becomes the essential pre-condition of human freedom and well being, in

that, preserving diverse cultures becomes a way of offering more and more avenues by which

individuals can choose their lives and realize their full human potential. Thus the idea of

individual autonomy within a culture has remained as a crucial principle of debate in literature

on cultural diversity (Parekh 2000), (Bhargava, Bagchi, and Sudarshan 1999), (Taylor and

Gutmann 1994).

The thesis that the modern world has seen an increase in awareness of diversity and justice is

directly related to the modern political commitment to do justice to communities and to justly

manage cultural diversity (Parekh 2000). In this debate diversity - although a cherished value-

has been at the root of injustice in contemporary times. We thus see an almost irresolvable

dialectic operating within a theory of justice which sees cultural diversity both as a value and a

problem (where cultures are potentially conflicting sometimes on cherished values and other

times on resources in the world, thus making it also an issue of equality as indicated earlier).

This dialectic seems to reflect a universal assumption about all cultures in the world, that

cultures and communities are bearers of rights and beliefs, which needs to be preserved but are

11In a slight opposition to this, Habermas argue that excessive talk about collective rights would only

burden the theory of human rights rooted in the individual. Instead achieving consistency in actualizing

individual rights would naturally also address the cultural questions (Taylor and Gutmann 1994).

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also in tension with each other, as in with another set of rights and beliefs. The concept of

diversity seems to reproduce this dialectic every time it encounters cultural practices, thus

adding to some of the community tensions which form the object of this study.

(b) Following this initial reading of the literature discuss the gaps, silences and limitations or

areas that in your opinion have not been covered adequately, and explain what you hope to

contribute to the existing body of knowledge

The cow slaughter debate and the common worship sites throw up several interesting

challenges to reckon with. Conventional categories which mark it as an issue of diversity and

then proceed to offer social and political solutions often end up adding to the strife. Attempts

to codify and mark practices also seem to take away from the life of these practices. Not only

do they exclude a multiplicity of practices, but they also erase the matrix in which these

actions make sense, transforming them into actions which have a religious or political telos.

One of the ways by which this transformation happens, is by asking foundational questions to

practices. Such a trajectory can be seen in19th century attempts to deal with the politics

around the cow protection movements. It seems that whenever questions were posed using a

religious frame such as, for whom is this practice sacred, or what are the underlying beliefs

and texts which authorize such practices, it led to more rigidness of positions than before.

One such instance which points to increased violence was the year 1888 when the United

Provinces (U.P) high court following complaints of slaughter from some Hindu groups

declared that the cow was not a ‘sacred’ object within the meaning of section 125, Indian

Penal Code, and thus slaughtering of cows cannot be seen as incitement of religious violence

(Pandey 1993). Similar changes occurred when statements were made around notions of

individual and community rights such as the ruling of the Allahabad (city in the state of Uttar

Pradesh) high court in the 1880s that ‘Muslims have a right to slaughter cows irrespective of

whether they had exercised the right’ (Freitag 1990, 206). In the same period in response to

petitions by many individual Muslims or groups who wanted to slaughter a cow for some

personal or public festival in a conflict ridden area, the court would often rule that if the

slaughter was for religious festivals then it has to be allowed however if it was for

consumption, then care was to be taken to not perform the act in public places where it would

cause some tension, however in most of these instances the court’s sense of rights and beliefs

was quite pronounced, thus leading to a new discourse of organising one’s world (Pandey

1993), (Freitag 1990).

Historians and anthropologists writing on the cow slaughter issue and cow protection

movements often find evidence of various kinds which cannot be fully explained by either of

13

the thesis forwarded to account for the conflicts (Freitag 1990), (Jalal 2001), (Mishirul Hasan

and Roy 2005), (Pinney 2004). The first thesis was produced by the colonial state in India to

call the conflicts on cow slaughter, from late-nineteenth century, as a problem of the Hindu

Muslim differences. Later day academic thesis suggests that the conflicts are a result of, the

imposition of upper caste ‘brahminical values’ on all people by Hindu fundamentalists and

the polarization which results from that (Gupta 2001). In contrast to these arguemnts

instances are found where many lower caste communities such as Ahirs and Kurmis, are seen

participating in cow protection movements and giving up beef, or traditions are discovered

where one would find many groups venerating saints such as Salar Masud and Pabuji

(legendary figures from 14th

century North India) who were thought of as ‘cow protecting

saints’ (Mishirul Hasan and Roy 2005). A more nuanced version of the later thesis observes

that although a strict distinction of communities did not exist with the earlier notions of cow

worship and cow protection, by the nineteenth century and later, it was appropriated more

and more to represent a specific Hindu identity (Jaffrelot 1993), (Pinney 2004). I would like

to extend the argument that in the cow slaughter issue the term ‘sacred’ acquired specific

religious overtones in the 19th century. Although some groups might have traditionally

refrained from eating beef and even worshipped the cow, their relation to others who did not

follow these practices, was not the same. In fact it is possible to argue that cow protection

was earlier seen as an action to morally and ethically orient oneself and thus originally had

very different connotations from the religious matrix in which it is seen today both by right

wing groups and their critics.12

In the case of the Bababudangiri Dargah, a much contested common worship site in coastal

Karnataka, the original crisis seems to have begun with the government’s attempts between

1950s to 1970s to determine whether the site belonged to the Hindus or the Muslims. This

gave rise to a series of legal and political tussles where multiple groups started claiming

ownership of the site and its major practices (Sitharaman 2010), (Srikantan 2004). The

situation was made worse in the 1970s by the interventions of fundamentalist groups like

12Some initial hints to begin this argument are available through many of the statements scholars pick

from the modern and pre-colonial assertions about cow protection, where cow protection is associated

with the moral quality of the state, or killing of cows is linked to a certain moral degradation (Gould

2005), (van der Veer 1994). More crucially in literatures prior to this period one can find cow protection being a particular act directed to the king or the ruler, who are told that it is their duty to

protect cows, women and brahmanas (Ambedkar 1990). So in a sense it is not cows which are sacred,

or even the act of protection a sacred duty in the way that we understand it today. Although kings and

rulers are constantly told that cow protection is a sacred duty, it is very difficult to conclude from here

that this sacred duty is equivalent to a religious action. Rather one could speculate and hypothesize that

the instruction can be meaningfully read as more to do with instilling an ethic of care and

responsibility of a king towards his subjects, than the actual act itself. We could also speculate that this

is the reason why the nationalist leaders especially backed cow protection this as an exemplary action

(Narayan 1968).

14

Hindu Jagaran Vedike who attempted to introduce new practices such as the appointment of

a Hindu priest along with the already existing Muslim officiating figure, of the sajjade

nashin, usually a person from the family which is believed to be a direct descendent of the

saint of the dargah. Groups like the Vedike also started asking for naming the place primarily

as a Hindu temple with the institution of standard practices. This led to conflicts and to much

polarisation in the region. In later years in response to such problems the courts intervened to

codify the original practices of the region. This attempt was also later backed by civil society

groups like the Komu Souharda Vedike (communal harmony forum) post 2006, who were

very critical of the interests of some political groups in making it into a Hindu temple. These

groups thus emphasized the syncretic nature of the space and demanded the local

administration and the courts, for the institution of practices from the time prior to the

beginning of the conflicts. The fallout of all these events has been that over the years many

practices that used to happen have moved to other locations (Sitharaman 2010) and the social

fabric of the region has been made weak by the claims and counter claims of various groups.

Some have identified this as a problem of constructing religion as a distinct and passive

repository of beliefs and identities (Sitharaman 2010). Although this is a crucial observation,

I would argue that a new enquiry into these conflicts and these practices will have to examine

received notions of diversity and justice, which understand such conflicts, through a matrix of

rights and beliefs, leaving little room to talk about other kinds of relations to traditions and

practices.

In many of the western examples of diversity that we are familiar with, group claims of

injustice and identitarian claims, are seen as issues of cultural diversity by positing the

communities as a variant of ‘nations’ or ‘people’. So whether in the case of immigrants, or

indigenous people, or what are called national minorities, the idea that one is doing justice to

‘a people’ often stands out (Kymlicka 1995). It is the underlying notion of nations and of

national sovereignty which saw other cultures originally as threats and now as discriminated

against. This is one of the reasons for the present, urgent concerns, with understanding

cultures living side by side (Geertz 2000) and for introducing specific legislations and rights

for groups such as religious minorities and subjects of historic discrimination, (Rosenblum

2002), (Kymlicka 1995). In the Indian instance the organising category for talking about

cultural diversity has been religion, in many of these instances. Today it is argued that there

are multiple Hinduisms and Islams and so we cannot speak of a unified culture (Sikand

2001). However the theoretical edifices provided by the diversity and justice frame to

respond to the phenomenal world remain caught in categories such as rights, beliefs and

values, such that every time a new conflict occurs in the Indian context the scholars and

15

activists fall back on ideas such as strengthening minority rights13

, because we still cast it as a

conflict between a majority and minority group, primarily separated by category of religion

or of caste which is a category within religion itself (Rajan 2002), (Chandoke 1999), (Zoya

Hasan 2009).

Diverse community practices have been the source of increasing conflicts in recent times in

India. These kinds of conflicts were more or less absent in the period before the mid-

nineteenth century. What changed in the period after that? Specific study is needed to

theorize why popular engagement with community practices often sees the same trajectory, of

reading most group conflicts as conflicts about rights and beliefs, or similar fundamental

values, such that other ways of relating to practices, other than through the frame of rights

and beliefs, gets excluded progressively. This requires us to revisit the debates around

pluralism and diversity from the European context in 17th century which came up both to deal

with its own internal divisions and to respond to its colonies. It appears that the form of this

understanding that was internally produced for Europe in its struggle with cultural diversity

was used in understanding other contexts such as its colonies, and in dealing with the specific

problems of diversity which arose in Europe in the 20th century.

The question of enhancing diversity and pluralism in the Indian context would have to ask

how traditions and practices in India came to be understood as diverse and what made them

diverse. In contrast to some of the modern narratives of violence and conflict, there are

historical accounts about cooperation and harmonious coexistence of many of these

communities in pre-colonial and even 19th century India (Mushirul Hasan 1991). What also

comes across is that these societies seemed to manage diversity without an elaborate theory

of justice or pluralism. How did they manage to do so? These questions make our task of

examining the modern discourse of diversity and justice and the assumptions they contain

more urgent. Do we have a good understanding of this diversity to be able to enhance it? And

secondly, assuming we are encountering new problems, we need to ask what the

arrangements prior to this were which were able to incorporate much more difference and

keep them from clashing.

As a beginning to this work, the study will offer an account of the engagement with certain

community practices and the conflicts surrounding them. It will analyse the implications of

13In itself one need not find faults with this exercise, especially since it is a commitment of modern

nation states. But whether it is the answer to contemporary community conflicts needs to be probed

into. Also important to understand are the assumptions behind saying that minority communities need

specific rights because they are potentially threatened by majority cultures. Behind such a claim is also

the dilemma I was trying to hint at, that diversity is good and needs to be nurtured and also that

diversity could be a problem and a source for further injustices and so it needs to be protected.

16

such engagement and develop a critical discussion of the central ideas and theoretical frames

which inform such engagement.

5. Concise Statement of the Research Problem and Key Research Question(s)

Following from the above discussion clearly and succinctly (in a few sentences) explain the

problem that undergirds the study and state your key research question(s)

Statement of Research Problem:

The last few decades in India have witnessed phenomenal increase in social conflicts along

identity lines. More often than not the sparking points of such conflicts are traced to

community-oriented socio-cultural practices such as conversion (changing one’s religious

orientation), slaughtering of cows (primarily associated with the Muslim community) or

protection of cows (primarily associated with the Hindu community), or common worship

sites or practices (one site and multiple religious orientations and meanings). These practices

as such have a long history in the Indian context, and the diverse communities hitherto appear

to have managed them without significant social conflict especially prior to the late-

nineteenth century period. The intensification of such conflicts in the last three decades has

become a major cause for concern for policy makers, social activists and academic scholars

alike, prompting both enquiries into the shift from a comparatively harmonious co-existence

of communities to the present situation, and an increased engagement with ideas of diversity

and pluralism,. However, the dominant discourse of cultural diversity around this engagement

remains largely caught in concepts such as local values, rights and beliefs, which seem

primarily able to represent and respond to religious communities and large secular

communities such as ‘nations’. The limitations of this discourse of cultural diversity become

particularly prominent while dealing with communities which do not easily fit into any of

these groups, and with their practices. Recent critical scholarship on European modernity,

both from Europe as well as from the erstwhile colonies, suggests that the superimposition of

modern categories such as nation, religion, citizenship, and secularism, which are inherently

somewhat categorical and rigid in their conceptualisation, on diverse cultural groups

characterised by social porosity and fluid pluriformity poses serious analytical problems. For,

these conceptual frames cannot adequately accommodate the true nature and character of the

community formations. The mainstream project of pluralism and diversity, or the way these

ideas are used in mainstream state and civil society action, appears to be insufficiently

capable to capture the dynamism of some of the community practices. One concrete example

of this problem has become manifest in some of the changes that have occurred around

common worship sites in the coastal area of the Indian state of Karnataka. Another example

17

is around cow slaughter, where the polarization has been long standing and became

crystallized as an intercommunity problem, even at the beginning of independent India. The

sixty year post-colonial era debate and discourse around this issue has nearly erased the

multiple meanings associated with the practice of cow protection. Both issues will be

critically studied in this project. An important challenge, both in intellectual as well as policy

terms, in understanding the contemporary intercommunity conflicts in India thus, is in

producing an analysis that provides new insights into the nature of the social groups

represented as ‘communities’ and the ways in which this analysis can inform the need to

reframe the modern categories mentioned above in order to better capture and accommodate

the dynamics of the pluriformity of the studied social groups and their practices.

Key Research Question:

How can we re-examine and problematize the existing dominant discourse on diversity and

pluralism to rethink our understanding of diverse communities and community practices in

the Indian context?

Subsidiary Research Question(s):

1. Why is there such a drastic increase in the conflicts around certain practices like cow

slaughter/cow protection, common worship practices? What has changed in intercommunity

relations in terms of their coexistence in recent times?

2. How did liberal political philosophy frame and resolve the conflict of cultural diversity in

17th century European context and what is its bearing on shaping the question about diversity

as well as approaches to cultural difference and diversity both in present day India and

contemporary Europe?

3. How can we rethink diversity and pluralism in ways which address diverse community

concerns which do not seem to be adequately captured by the concepts provided by

contemporary dominant justice theory for communities? What are its implications for

political action in the Indian context?

6. Research Methodology and Design

(1) Provide an outline and rationale of the methodological approach to your study. You

need to demonstrate an understanding of the approach that you consider suitable for

your research

(2) Describe for each research question how you will go about your data collection

(including information on empirical data collection) and data analysis

(3) Outline the anticipated structure of the thesis

18

The research will combine critical inquiry and the development of a grounded theory

approach. The grounded theory “openness to empirical leads spurs the researcher to pursue

emergent questions and thus shifts the direction of the inquiry” (Charmatz, 2005). Hence the

study will also include an empirical case study component.

The research starts by closely examining some of the dominant existing models which reflect

on cultural diversity in the Indian context. Two kinds of approaches will be highlighted,

which are represented here to draw out a methodological point. One approach is reflected in

the work of political philosopher Akeel Bilgrami. Bilgrami has written in some detail about

the problem of cultural diversity for the liberal state in the Indian context, with a focus on the

Muslim community (Bilgrami 1999), (Bilgrami 2007), (Bilgrami 1992). In many of his

writings on secularism, including his essay ‘Secular Liberalism and the Moral Psychology of

Identity’, he analyses the ways in which the state deals with reform issues in the Indian

context with respect to religious minorities such as Muslims. He argues in favour of what he

calls ‘internal reasoning’ while dealing with communities (Bilgrami 1999). The process of

such internal reasoning requires suspending the assumption that the state is always coercive

and instead work with the idea that the state is capable of engaging with the community’s

own substantive conceptions of good, even though their notion of ‘the good’ might not be the

same as the state’s. Bilgrami observes that some of the present problems arise because the

state constantly negotiates with ‘fundamentalists’ or extremists within the community,

whereas it should pursue dialogue with moderates in the community. Bilgrami’s work

questions how to deal with contending values without disregarding any one of them. I find

Bilgrami’s use of the ideas ‘internal reasoning’ and ‘moral psychology of identity’ useful in

thinking through issues of cultural diversity. Identity here is not seen not as fundamental

commitments that cannot be explained but as a set of values which are reasonable within the

moral universe of the community. This opens a possible route to now understand community

constitutions and their interactions with practices though more axis than through categories

such as rights and beliefs alone.

The second approach is reflected in the work of Ashis Nandy. Nandy has emphasized that

Asia has a unique model of cultural diversity, much of which we still do not understand

(Nandy 1998). Whereas the thrust of his critique has been on the historical process of

colonialism in erasing some of these past traditions, we need to go beyond a historical

critique and actively engage with and examine the political discourses we work with. His

essay on Cochin (the port city in Kerala) and its cultural pluralism offers an interesting

starting point (Nandy 2001, 157-209). Here he points out that cultural pluralism is able to

survive in the city without any major conflicts or riots, which in contrast have occurred in

19

other Indian cities with similar diversity. He tries to show that the reason for this is that

people are constantly involved in the act of keeping alive a dual narrative of the city of

Cochin-one realistic and one fantastic. That is their sense of a Cochin of old, of a Cochin with

mythic pasts constantly entangles with the historic city and its realities. The larger point that

he draws out both this essay and his other work has to do with a certain notion of double

register people live with, where there is a mismatch betweeen the political discourse they

articulate and the experiential concepts with which they conduct their politics (and the later

seems to borrow heavily from their lived traditions)(Nandy 2001). Interestingly, Nandy’s

work does not take values and beliefs as the starting point to show the daily negotiations of

the people. The suggestion is not that they are not important to people, but that values and

beliefs might be in constant interaction with other actions and factors which the conventional

discourse of cultural diversity seems often unable to capture.

In addition to analyzing and comparing these two conceptual approaches, I propose that,

while it is important to understand diversity in relation to differences in terms of stated values

and beliefs, it is also necessary to understand diversity in terms of lived experiences, that is,

to ask questions such as what does a particular difference mean to the people who perceive

the difference? This kind of phenomenological understanding of diversity is not completely

absent from recent engagement with practices and the issue of diversity at large, but a critical

re-examination of dominant discourse of diversity and its established concepts can help to

rethink and add to existing reflections. This research intends to do so, by engaging with

conceptual, archival and ethnographic data. The ethnographic data will be collected through a

case study approach which assumes that “social reality is created through social interaction,

albeit situated in particular contexts and histories, and seeks to identify and describe before

trying to analyse and theorize” (Stark and Torrance 2005, 33). Data gathering techniques,

such as observation and in-depth interviews, will create a rich description of the phenomena

under investigation in order to represent participants’ perspectives.

Documentary analysis will address the question of the historical background of the

researched issues. It will entail critical examination of existing documentary sources. Content

analysis will specifically be used to explore and analyse the perceptions as they feature in the

archival sources. The empirical component of the research will target different categories of

people from local communities, representing a wide range of local cultural and religious

groups. In depth interviews will be conducted to gain deeper understanding about local

perceptions within the communities. Initially, respondents will be selected through the use of

accidental/convenience and purposive sampling techniques, which are “available to the

researcher by virtue of its accessibility” (Bryman 2008, 183). The aim is to ensure an

20

inclusive account and therefore boost internal validity of the findings. Within the

communities, purposive sampling will identify key resource respondents; snowball sampling

and convenience sampling will be used to identify subsequent respondents.

I. The research will primarily focus on two specific issues: firstly the issue of cow slaughter

and secondly the issue of common worship sites with a primary focus on the coastal area

of the Indian state Karnataka but also extensible to other parts of the western coast

(covering parts of Goa and Kerala) where similar multiplicity of practices exist. Data

gathering will occur through document analysis and two empirical case studies, along

with an extensive examination of the authoritative literature on diversity and pluralism,

which would help to formulate new initial insights about the contemporary issues around

cultural diversity in a more focused manner. In the initial literature study I will select

relevant historical works and case studies which aimed to account for what I would

roughly call ‘living with diversity’ in the Indian context. The purpose is to frame and

engage with the crucial breaks and problems they identify in their analysis of such

traditions. The study will subsequently narrow down to literature on the specific practices

that I have referred to. This would be supported by archival work on the representation of

these practices (cow protection and common worship practices) in colonial ethnographic

encounters with various communities in the west coast of India and the prior material on

the region which they reflected upon. An example of this kind of text is Bartholomaeus

Ziegenbalg’s (1683-1719) Genealogy of the South-Indian gods: A manual of the

mythology and religion of the people of Southern India, including a description of

popular Hinduism.

a. The issue of cow slaughter: The project will follow the debates around the anti-

cattle slaughter bills which were introduced in independent India with a close focus

on the specific bill introduced in Karnataka in 2010. The focus will include post -

independence legislation on the issue as well as other relevant material and debates

surrounding these laws. The work will involve interviews with respondents in areas

of coastal Karnataka where cow slaughter has led to tensions in recent times. These

interviews will be conducted to capture people’s own perceptions about such

practices and new legal categories such as a ban. In addition, the project will study

archival material from around the 19th century, as well as older data on the practice of

cow protection, with the aim of mapping the crucial shifts the practice underwent

from pre-nineteenth century to its resurgence in the nineteenth century that led to

wide spread conflicts in many parts of North India. I will also analyse the following

data i) treatises and writings prescribed to rulers, ii) writings which discuss

overlapping worship traditions and iii) those which talk about managing community

21

life, which will raise the issue of slaughter of managing dead animals. My initial goal

will be to build a repository of observations, instructions, and sayings on people’s

relation to cow protection or cow slaughter, which will be analysed along with later

understandings of these actions. The specific orienting question in this case will be

on the practice of cow protection, its significance, and its transformation to become

the source of community conflicts.

b. The second case will focus on common worship sites and issues of conversion

which have become conflict points in recent times. The study will focus primarily on

such sites in the coastal Karnataka region but will also tap into similar practices

across the west coast (covering Goa and Kerala). The focus here will be to develop

insights on these practices vis-à-vis a more common understanding of syncretic

spaces and common worship sites in academic and intellectual studies. This will

require a close reading of the literature on syncretic traditions and a focused set of

field interviews and field studies of the practitioners and the sites respectively.

II. The research also demands a critical reading of key philosophical texts of the liberal

tradition especially from the 16-18th centuries which responds to the problem of diversity

and justice (this would involve reading some of the key figures like Locke, Rousseau and

Mill) to capture what set of questions/social and intellectual problems it was trying to

respond to. Also important would be the work of John Rawls in definitive articulations

on diversity and justice questions beginning from A Theory of Justice (1971). I shall

reflect on the interaction between this tradition of thought and the chosen two cultural

practices in the Indian context with a scope for a generalized set of observations on this

interaction.

Tentative outline of the thesis:

Chapter 1: Introduction to the research. Tracing the outlines and debates around the 2 case

studies: the issue of cow slaughter and common worship sites (or conversion) vis-à-

vis the concept of cultural diversity. What stands out as not explained by or excessive

to this understanding?

Chapter 2: A critical discussion on the development of the notion of diversity in the European

context. A section on Rawls and his critics.

Chapter 3: Contextualization of the idea of justice to communities and its centrality in managing

diversity in modern politics. Some limits of this discourse

Chapter 4: Re-presenting the practice: cow protection. Some larger implications to think about

similar practices

22

Chapter 5: Conclusion. Some thoughts on political interventions into community conflicts around

practices

7. Research planning

Provide an outline of the approximate timetable of the various stages of the proposed

research (per year, steps in research, work load, output)

2010- June 2011:

a. Finalizing the proposal and working out the research questions.

b. Finalizing questions and areas for field work.

c. Conducting preliminary field work in selected regions in coastal Karnataka. (General

interviews on cow slaughter and two sites of common worship practices and issue of

conversion)

d. Undertaking the literature survey for the two selected areas of study.

2011-12:

a. Continue literature research on subsidiary research questions with more focused reading

of liberal political philosophy of the 16-18th

century.

b. In-depth field work and ethnography on any one issue.

c. Draft Chapters 1 and 2.

2012-2013:

a. Archival work to look into the specific practice of cow protection.

b. Focused conceptual work on exploring the relation of diversity questions and justice

issues.

c. Draft Chapter 3-4

2013-2014: Chapter 5 and conclusion; finalizing the thesis work

8. Link with the Promoting Pluralism Knowledge Program / Kosmopolis Institute of the

University for Humanistics Research Program

Please describe the link with the Promoting Pluralism Knowledge Program in the context of

the regional program (India, Indonesia or Uganda) and the overall knowledge program.

Please describe the link with the Kosmopolis Institute- UvH research program

Group claims and conflicts among groups have become a central concern for democracy and

for notions of pluralism and diversity today. This PhD project aims to contribute directly to

one of the central concerns of the Pluralism India program in this regard, by examining the

issues related to cultural diversity by a close study of two practices which have come into

23

conflict in recent times. I hope to contribute to a richer understanding of the issues related to

cultural distinctiveness that the communities raise and which has become a problem to be

dealt with in the present, as an issue of justice.

9. Expected Academic Output, Strategic – and/or Practical significance of the study

(a) List the expected academic output (e.g. Doctoral thesis as a monograph and/or series of

refereed articles, handbooks, conference papers etc)

In dialogue with my supervisors, I aim to produce the following academic output through this

project:

i. A doctoral thesis

ii. A Journal Article on any one of the following debates/areas:

1. The cow slaughter debate in India: some reflections on diversity questions

2. Rethinking the Uniform Civil Code Debate

3. Trajectory of legal interventions into community practices in recent times

4. Social justice and social reform of community practices

(b) Briefly discuss the expected strategic – and practical implications: How do you expect the

results of the study to affect e.g. scholarly research, theory, practice, educational

interventions, curricula, counselling, policy etc. within the Pluralism Knowledge Program

and beyond?

The project expects to contribute to the collaborative work of academics and practitioners

with the following output:

1. A reflective case study for the program on recent debate around community

practices-such as cow slaughter. This would cover the state and civil society

interventions in response to group claims and conflicts around some of these issues-

cow slaughter/common worship sites/ conversion. To identify the key debates and

some of the strong points as well as the limitations of both state and civil society

approaches to the issues. This study would also be supported with ethnographic data

from the field and the practitioners.

2. Designing a seminar course around some of these issues including theoretical debates

and case studies (either to be used for the summer school or a more expanded version

which can be offered to undergraduate and postgraduate students in India).

c) Describe the anticipated output that is relevant for practitioners in the field , for example an

article in popular media or a policy brief for NGO or a contribution to a web site etc. that has

relevance for the Promoting Pluralism Knowledge Program

24

I will attempt to reach a wider non-academic audience by

(1) Using the popular media to write a newspaper article on pertinent issues related to

my research,

(2) Organise a conference along with practitioners on the two or three focused themes

and issues relevant to the west coast of Karnataka (that forms one of the regions of

study of the pluralism India programme) such as i) conversion ii) common worship

practices iii) conflicts around cow slaughter and other religious/cultural practices

which have created some controversies in the recent times

(3) Web document the material used for the research on the pluralism website of the

India program.

10. Bibliography

Attach a list of references to key articles and texts included in the application.

Ahmed Sayeed, Vikar. 2008. Divide and Rule. Frontline, June 7.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2512/stories/20080620251201300.htm. Ambedkar, B. R. 1990. Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches, Vol. 7. Mumbai:

Education Department, Govt. of Maharashtra.

Apffel-Marglin, Frederique. 1999. Secularism, Unicity and Diversity: The Case of Haracandi's Grove. In Tradition, Pluralism and Identity: In Honour of T.N. Madan,

ed. Veena Das, Dipankar Gupta, and Patricia Uberoi. New Delhi: Sage Publications.

Bajpai, Rochana. 2005. Redefining Equality: Social Justice in the Mandal Debate,1990. In Political

Ideas in Modern India : Thematic Explorations, ed. V. R Mehta and Thomas Pantham. Vol. 7. History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization. New Delhi: Sage

Publications.

———. 2008. Minority Representation and the Making of the Indian Constitution. In Politics and Ethics of the Indian Constitution, ed. Rajeev Bhargava. New Delhi: OUP.

Baxi, Upendra. 2007. Siting Secularism in the Uniform Civil Code: A "Riddle Wrapped Inside an

Enigma"? In The Crisis of Secularism in India, ed. Anuradha Needham and Rajeswari Sunder Rajan. New Delhi: Permanent Black.

Bhargava, Rajeev, ed. 2008. Politics and Ethics of the Indian Constitution. New Delhi: OUP.

Bhargava, Rajeev, Amiya Kumar Bagchi, and R. Sudarshan, eds. 1999. Multiculturalism, Liberalism,

and Democracy. New Delhi: OUP. Bilgrami, Akeel. 1992. What is a Muslim?: Fundamental Commitment and Cultural Identity.

Economic and Political Weekly 27, no. 20 (May 16): 1071-1078.

———. 1999. Secular Liberalism and the Moral Psychology of Identity. In Multiculturalism, Liberalism, and Democracy, ed. Rajeev Bhargava, R. Sudarshan, and Amiya Kumar Bagchi.

New Delhi: OUP.

http://www.cscsarchive.org:8081/MediaArchive/Library.nsf/(docid)/C1A7B709D1881C1A6

525706700349E6C?OpenDocument&StartKey=Multiculturalism,&Count=100. ———. 2007. Secularism and the Very Concept of Law. In The Crisis of Secularism in India, ed.

Anuradha Needham and Rajeswari Sunder Rajan. New Delhi: Permanent Black.

Bryjak, George J. 1986. Collective Violence in India. Asian Affairs 13, no. 2 (Summer): 35-55. Bryman, Alan. 2008. Social Research Methods. OUP.

Chandoke, Neera. 1999. Beyond Secularism: The Rights of Religious Minorities. New Delhi: OUP.

———. 2009. Equality of What or the Troublesome Relations Between Egalitarianism and Respect. In Humiliation: Claims and Context, ed. Gopal Guru. New Delhi: OUP.

Dharampal, and T. M. Mukundan. 2002. The British Origin of Cow-slaughter in India: With Some

British Documents On the Anti-Kine-Killing Movement 1880-1894. Mussoorie: Society for

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Integrated development of Himalayas.

Fraser, Nancy, and Axel Honneth. 2003. Redistribution or Recognition?: A Political- Philisophical

Exchange. London: Verso. http://books.google.co.in/books?id=IJxT6pxjO7YC&printsec=frontcover&dq=nancy+fraser+

and+axel+honneth&hl=en&ei=sT95Tb3oMIbZrQfMpo3EBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=re

sult&resnum=1&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false. Freitag, Sandra B. 1990. Collective action and community : public arenas and the emergence of

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11. Appendixes

(a) Short CV of PhD Candidate

...................................................................................................... (b) Certified copy of qualifying degree ..........................................................................................

(c) Additional documentation ........................................................................................................................

Please list possible appendixes in consultation with your supervisory committee

_________________________________________________________________________________

_

Statement of Approval by UvH Board of Professors

Names and signatures of Supervisory Committee:

(1) UvH Promoter

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

.

(2) External Second – or Co-promoter (Promoting Pluralism Knowledge Program partner)

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

..……………………………………………………………………………………………………

…..

(3) UvH Co-Promoter (Kosmopolis Institute)

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

(4) PhD Candidate

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

.

This research proposal was considered by the UvH Board of Professors on

………… ………………..(date) and was ranked

1 2 3 4 5

1: disapproved and not to be re-considered

2: To be reconsidered after major revision of the theory AND method section 3: To be reconsidered after major revision of the theory OR method section

4: Approved with minor adjustments

5: Approved

28

Date ……………………… ……………………………………………………….

Name and Signature Chair UvH Board of Professors: