India’s foreign policy behaviour often challenges conventional theories of international relations (IR). Why for instance, did India wait 24 years after its first nuclear test to conduct another test? In the wake of its nuclear tests, why did the political leadership highlight the scientific achievements more than the military implications and why did it characterise India’s nuclear program as being unique in terms of its restraint and its commitment to total disarmament? Why did India engage in a discourse of friendship with China rather than adopt the anti-communist stance of other democratic states? These are just some of the questions that cannot be adequately explained by the positivist and ahistorical traditions of IR that down-play the connection between state identity and foreign policy or analyse foreign policy as the product of pre-existing realities, subjectivities and interpretive dispositions. An approach that takes into account the historical and cultural context of the construction of state identity however, offers a fuller understanding of India’s foreign policy behaviour. Using genealogy and the idea of identity performativity, this thesis analyses India’s foreign policy discourse as a representational practice which, through various codings of sex, gender and race, enacts India’s postcolonial identity. The thesis uses the findings of five case studies – India’s relationship with China, its nuclear politics, its relations with its South Asian neighbours and its interventions in Pakistan and Sri Lanka – to suggest that a deep ambivalence toward Western modernity lies at the heart of India’s postcolonial identity and, therefore, the foreign policy discourse that enacts it. This ambivalence arises because, on the one hand, Indian nationalists accepted colonial narratives in which the backwardness of ‘Indian civilisation’ led to its degeneration, but on the other hand, they recognised the need to advance a critique of Western modernity and its deep imbrication with colonialism. The result is a striving for a postcolonial modernity that is not only imitative but strives to be distinctly different and superior to Western modernity by being culturally and morally grounded. Thus, India is fashioned as a postcolonial civilisational-state that brings to international affairs a tradition of morality and ethical conduct which it derives from its civilisational heritage. This thesis argues that in order to comprehend the apparently inexplicable aspects of Indian foreign policy it is crucial to understand this self-fashioning. / Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of History and Politics, 2008

Representations of "madness" in literature written by women have been the focus of feminist studies in the western world since the Victorian Era. When Charlotte Gilman Perkins wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper" in 1892, she "met with consternation of disapproving males ...[and] it was virtually ignored for thirty years" (Kasmer 1). Glman herself had gone through a "rest cure" which had brought her "perilously close to having a nervous breakdown" (Kasmer 1). Kasmer holds that the treatment of "rest cure" was commonly prescribed to women diagnosed with hysteria, to help them through "reintegration [into her proper] position as wife by forcing her to focus only on her home and children" (Kasmer 1). Adrienne Rich calls for re-visionary readings of all feminist texts. "Revision--the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction" (483) is, for women, an act of survival. When we re-read female texts and re-write ourselves, we see "how our language has trapped as well as liberated us, how the very act of naming has been until now a male prerogative, and how we can begin to see and name--and therefore live--afresh" (Rich 483). Gilbert and Gubar, in their revision of Gilman's text, hold that the narrator "effects" her own liberation from the "textual/architectural confinement" of patriarchal constructs by tearing down the wallpaper when she discovers her double behind it, enabling the double to escape to freedom" (91). Thus, when female authors write about madness, they are "naming" themselves in their own language--the language of the body, which leads to freedom from the patriarchal construct and discourse. When women enter into this medium, they break free from the symbolic order, and only women who speak the same language, and listen with "another ear," (Irigaray) can interpret them. Interpreting this language through our bodies "involves a recognition of difference, a force different from the patriarch. This force points towards liberation" (Kasmer 13). My discussion of the representation of madness in Anita Desai's Cry. The Peacock and Bharati Mukherjee's Wife supports feminists' reading of madness. In both the books, the heroines break free from the patriarchal construct into another world where they can choose to name themselves. They rewrite and rename their experiences which leads them to liberation. This escape from the patriarchal construct and discourse is named "madness," but feminists claim this experience as empowering by questioning the very construct of madness. They claim that madness is actually a liberation from the patriarchal construct that keeps us in a subordinated and oppressed position in society. / Graduation date: 1994

Doct. Univ. : Los Angeles. 1984. / Bibliogr. p. 296-315. Index.

This study aimed to (1) review the reported levels of fluoride in drinking waters, food stuffs and other environmental media around the world, and the current magnitude of prevalence of fluorosis observed in human being and animals, with special reference to India and (2) critically evaluate the strategy adopted for prevention and control of the fluorosis problem in India by conducting questionnaire surveys with professionals from 11 endemic districts, and high school students of two schools located at an endemic area with high fluorosis incidences. Through a comprehensive literature review, it was able to identify 18 endemic states in India with high fluoride levels in their drinking waters while having various degrees of fluorosis problems. These states were further classified into three categories, namely high (>10 mg/L fluoride in drinking waters), moderate (5-9.9 mg/L) and low (1-4.9 mg/L) endemic regions. There were five, nine and four states falling into the high, moderate and low endemic categories, respectively. High fluoride concentrations were observed in the soil near industrial sites, foodstuffs and beverages, and tea leaves. Also, adverse effects of fluoride on terrestrial and aquatic plants, terrestrial vertebrates and invertebrates, and aquatic vertebrates and invertebrates, were observed and demonstrated in laboratory conditions. The questionnaire survey with Indian professionals in 11 fluoride endemic districts found that although all districts had received funds for combating fluorosis problems, there had been delays in executing the associated health promotion, monitoring and treatment programmes in some districts and the utilisation of the fund for the programmes was quite slow. Staff appointment, staff training, medical treatment provision, education and awareness activities, referral hospital facility provision, vehicle facility, monthly reporting, clinical survey and water and urine samples testing, timely monitoring and supervision, and involvement of various medical staff, were found to be inadequate in most districts. In the questionnaire survey conducted at the two high schools, one of the schools (school A) was supplied with alternate source of filtered water (i.e., with normal fluoride concentration) and the second school (school B) was one, which had non-defluoridated ground water supply for drinking (i.e., with high fluoride concentration). This survey found that the awareness about signs of fluorosis, field visit of health worker, cause and preventability of fluorosis, and perception of spread of fluorosis, was comparatively better amongst students of school A than that of school B. Both the schools’ students had positive attitude towards cooperation, prevention and control efforts being made for fluorosis. / published_or_final_version / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management

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published_or_final_version / Urban Design / Master / Master of Urban Design

published_or_final_version / Urban Design / Master / Master of Urban Design

published_or_final_version / Comparative Asian Studies / Master / Master of Arts