Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 56-57).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 56-57). Also available in print.

published_or_final_version / Asian Studies / Master / Master of Arts

Thesis (M.S.)--Florida State University, 2006. / Advisor: Dale Smith, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences, Dept. of Political Science. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed June 9, 2006). Document formatted into pages; contains ix, 81 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Full text release at OhioLINK's ETD Center delayed at author's request

Typescript. / Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii, 1971. / Bibliography: leaves 467-480. / xiii, 480 l map, tables

No description available.

In its Constitution, postcolonial India acknowledges the caste-based practice of "untouchability" as a social and historical wrong, and seeks to redress the effects of this wrong through compensatory discrimination. Dalits are recognized by the state as having suffered the effects of untouchability, and thus as eligible for statutory protections and remedial measures, on the condition that they profess no religion "different from the Hindu religion" (a condition later expanded to include Sikhism and Buddhism as well). The present work charts the career of the idea underlying this condition of recognition - the idea that the "untouchable," insofar as she has not converted to Islam, Christianity, or another "world religion," must be Hindu - and its consequences, from the late nineteenth century to the present. Historically and ethnographically grounded in the community life of the sanitation labor castes - those Dalits castes that perform the vast majority of South Asia's sanitation work - in the north Indian city of Lucknow, the study tracks the idea from its ruptive colonial beginnings to its propagation by Hindu nationalists, induction into mainstream nationalism and installation in the edifice of postcolonial law. This is also an account of the everyday effects of postcolonial India's regime of recognition in the present: what it confers, what it transforms, what hides in its shadows.

This dissertation explores whether women and men can be empowered through cultural nationalism based on religious/ethnic identities. Religious fundamentalism is typically not associated with women's empowerment. As a patriarchal, Hindu nationalist party that advocates violence, the Shiv Sena is also an unlikely agent of women's empowerment. Yet, the Sena has been attracting numerous women who claim to have gained confidence through the party. Using the Shiv Sena as my case study, I interviewed four male and seven female Shiv Sena members using the biographic narrative method. By examining their biographic narratives and interviews of their families and colleagues, I was able to delineate the different empowerment cycles for men and women in Shiv Sena and determine each participant's level of empowerment. The empowerment framework defined by Jo Rowlands (1997), which distinguishes between personal, collective, and relational empowerment, serves as the basis of my assessment of women's and men's empowerment. As violence is generally disregarded as a means of empowerment, I discuss it in relation to the construction of empowering cultural identities. While establishing theoretical frameworks regarding empowerment, cultural identity and gender, I also examine the disempowerment of Maharashtrians (whom Shiv Sena originally represented) by the socio-economic and historical conditions of Bombay, India. I then demonstrate how Shiv Sena, led by its Chief, Bal Thackeray, has constructed a new hegemonic masculine identity for Maharasthrian men as a means of empowerment. In the final chapters, I examine Shiv Sena's impact on the lives of individual women and men. This analysis revealed that despite the patriarchal constraints imposed by the Sena, women were becoming personally empowered in both the private and public spheres. In contrast, while Shiv Sena men were achieving collective empowerment in the public sphere, they had more difficulty becoming personally empowered in both the home and workplace.