This article unravels the nature of interaction amongst indigenous medical practices or nattuvaidyam as reflected in the first Malayalam vaidya (indigenous medicine or medical practitioner) magazine Dhanwantari, published from British Malabar for a span of twenty-three years from 1903. The review of Dhanwantari is done in the context of debates on vaidyam (indigenous medicine), health and social body in other newspapers and magazines published during the same period from other parts of Kerala, such as Vivekodayam, Malayala Manorama, Nasrani Deepika and Yogakshemam. The attempt is not to sketch a linear history of practices, but to show the nature of knowledge incorporation from diverse sources for increasing the acceptance of nattuvaidyam. Print technology introduces new possibilities and enhances the reordering of the literate, neo-literate and non-literate practitioners. It also activates the refiguration of an ayurveda as a separate and unique practice amongst ayurvedas or nattuvaidyam.
One of the most serious issues in culturally diverse societies, like in Manipur, is the demand for territorial autonomy by ethnic conglomerates, which see themselves as a distinct nation. The communities included in the conglomerates are purposively mobilised on ethnic similarities to sharpen the claim for securing separate territories. The study on ethnic conflicts in Manipur highlights that most of the communities within the conglomerate groups are not only culturally diverse but also territorially dispersed. Thus, this article highlights two points. First, the trend of ethnic nationalism that emerged in Manipur (and other parts of the northeast region) is different from the earlier instances of nationalism found elsewhere. Second, the politics of differentiation within the conglomerates is a source not only for producing new demands for separate territories but also for intensifying ethnic conflicts in Manipur. As disagreements between them cannot be easily resolved, smaller groups often challenge the dominance of larger groups and demand new territories. This shows that when negotiating the claims of multiple identities, each of which sees itself as a distinct nation, conceding territorial autonomy will not resolve inter-ethnic conflict in a state like Manipur unless the issues of internal differences are adequately addressed.
This article focuses on the interactions among four parties during 1974–77 that led to their combining to form the Janata Party, which represented a united opposition to the then Prime Minister Mrs Indira Gandhi and her Congress government in January 1977. These inter-party exchanges remain an overlooked episode in the works on the Janata Party, when compared to its much written about the failure in government (1977–79). Forty years on, Janata Party’s formation continues to be understood as a natural and inevitable response to the imposition of emergency by Mrs Gandhi in June 1975. This article, instead, focuses on the engagements among the leaders of the Bharatiya Lok Dal (BLD), Congress (O), Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS) and the Socialist Party (SP) before, during and after the emergency and contends that Janata’s creation was neither a foregone conclusion nor a straightforward process. Second, this coming together of disparate individuals owed more to the possibility of gaining power and personal inclinations than any political principles or policy impulses. Third, while Jayaprakash Narayan (JP) is rightly celebrated as the rival protagonist in oppositional politics to Mrs Gandhi, this article argues that there were limits to his leadership in forging the new party and there was no automatic evolution of the latter from the former. This article is based on the papers of JP and his secretary Brahmanand and, supplemented by other relevant material, shows an unheralded facet of an attempt, which might have come to power on hyperbole but its formation was hard work.
The Indian prime minister’s clarion call for a ‘Swachh Bharat’ or ‘transparent India’ officially seeks to cleanse the image of a ‘squatting’ nation through building ‘toilets first, temples later’ (‘Devalaya Se Pehle Shauchalaya’)—a laudable slogan that sounds bizarre when heard from the member of a nationalist ‘Hindutvavadi’ political group that usually prioritises hardcore religious sentiments over civic issues. Keeping in mind the traditional Hindu discourse of ritual pollution, it is hard to believe that the Hindu mindset could bear the juxtaposition of the two sites within the space of one single sentence without considering the act as straightforward blasphemy! This article seeks to understand how—and under what sort of social circumstances—this kind of ideational somersault is being attempted today. This ingenious move is polysemic too, we argue, as the virtues of transparency and cleanliness could be rhetorically employed for a variety of purposes. We would examine whether a finer version of Hindutva is on its way to replace a cruder one by enfolding a series of tropes—from Shauchalaya to Mahatma Gandhi—that have never been within its order so far!
This article seeks to make sense of a widely acclaimed political experiment in decentralisation and people-centred development in Kerala of the 1990s, the People’s Planning Campaign, by placing it within a wider contemporary history of politics in the region. Much celebratory literature on this experiment has tended to view it as essentially an extension of pre-existing political initiatives in the state associated with mainstream left parties. Moving away from this view, the present analysis views it as a political response of the mainstream left to various challenges it faced in the early 1990s, to throw light on the many contradictions of political decentralisation in Kerala. Further, it reflects on ‘glocalisation’ of participatory democracy in Kerala and the subject-positions it has produced.
This article looks at how ‘indigenous’ medical systems, particularly Ayurveda figured in the official discourse of the Government of India in the post-independence period. In doing so, it studies the recommendations of the committees set up in the first few decades after independence to prepare reports on ‘indigenous’ medicines in India. By studying these reports, we may gain some insights on the paths that were cleared in the professionalisation of Ayurvedic medicine and its institutionalisation in colleges and hospitals. The focus here is on the recommendations and analyses of five committee reports. This article analyses the similarities and near consensus in their approach to the issue of research in Ayurveda. What accounts for such a consensus despite the constitution of different committees over a period of time? How are some of the differences in the recommendations and analyses of the reports resolved in ways that maintain an overall similarity? This article engages with these questions in its analysis of the committee reports.
Focused on a historically evolved marketplace, Chauta Bazaar of Surat (Gujarat), this article looks at the question of trust and its contours. In the popular perception, this bazaar has a history of five centuries of continuous survival. This account of a marketplace reveals everyday practices, popular investments in terms of its historical embeddedness and the manner in which notions of trust circulate in this market. The study argues that the narratives of trust are spatial as well as transmitted through generations. The ethnography throws a number of issues pertaining to this marketplace, popularly considered as a women’s market. At a wider level, the article goes beyond exploring the historical trajectories of this marketplace and looks at the narratives in which history is mobilised as an active agency shaping the dynamics of trust in a marketplace.