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"Liberal Perspectives for South Asia" discusses the essentials of the liberal philosophy, while also indicating how appropriate it is in the South Asian context. In the past, the subcontinent was renowned for the skill with which it took up the dominant ideologies of the west and articulated them for the Asian context. In the post-colonial period, the only dominant ideology that was sidetracked by all political parties was liberalism, the ideology that promoted freedom of the individual. The idea of a book about the need for liberalism in the subcontinent was the brainchild of Chanaka Amaratunga, who set up the first avowedly Liberal Party in Sri Lanka. Many political parties have implemented liberal policies on an ad hoc basis and without a proper framework to guide them. Not all parties would accept all aspects of a liberal programme, however, in a context in which many parties are seeking an ideology that accords both with the present times and trends, and also with some of the goals they accepted in the past. It is hoped that this volume will provide food for thought and ideas for adoption and incorporation within the party programme. Ranging from erudite expositions of classic liberal thinkers to lively discussions of liberal economic principles put into practice by imaginative entrepreneurs, this volume is essential reading for a region making a swift transition into the contemporary, globalized world.
Contributed articles.
This volume assembles renowned scholars to address, for the first time, the relationship between minorities and populism in South Asia and Europe from a critical perspective. Despite the very different and to some extent opposite historical and political trajectories, there is today a convergence on nationalist affirmation and on majoritarian politics between South Asia and Europe. In India, the Hindu majority rebels against wide-ranging minority rights anchored in the Constitution. In Europe, the refugee crisis and Islamic radicalization bring to the forefront the postcolonial legacy. Despite all rhetoric, there are obvious dangers of majoritarianism. Populist parties are divisive, partisan, disregard minority rights, engage in lynching, social division, stigmatization and exclusion, turning minorities into second-class citizens. There is a profound structural connection between minorities and the current rise of populism in India and Europe. But there remains a deep perplexity and also anxiety: Does the presence of minorities necessarily have to trigger majoritarian policies? Are there no solutions to this dilemma? Many observers considered multicultural policies and affirmative action programs in India as a possible model for Europe to adopt in order to achieve greater integration. But eventually they seem to have failed. Why so? Are multiculturalism and the recognition of differences still options today? On the other hand, most scholars in India typically reject the European model of liberal democracy and secularism as impracticable in India and locate the reason for the current malaise in the west. But is liberal democracy really so bad in dealing with pluralism? This volume, collecting a selection of the Reset DOC Venice-Padua-Delhi dialogue series, is going to answer two fundamental questions. First, what precisely is the nexus between minorities and populism in South Asia and Europe? Starting from those case studies, the authors will also draw some general theoretical inferences about the nature of populism. Secondly, given the dangers of populism for minorities, the volume will look for the most adequate and feasible solutions.
In South Asia, as elsewhere, the category of ‘the public’ has come under increased scholarly and popular scrutiny in recent years. To better understand this current conjuncture, we need a fuller understanding of the specifically South Asian history of the term. To that end, this book surveys the modern Indian ‘public’ across multiple historical contexts and sites, with contributions from leading scholars of South Asia in anthropology, history, literary studies and religious studies. As a whole, this volume highlights the complex genealogies of the public in the Indian subcontinent during the colonial and postcolonial eras, showing in particular how British notions of ‘the public’ intersected with South Asian forms of publicity. Two principal methods or approaches—the genealogical and the typological—have characterised this scholarship. This book suggests, more in the mode of genealogy, that the category of the public has been closely linked to the sub-continental history of political liberalism. Also discussed is how the studies collected in this volume challenge some of liberalism’s key presuppositions about the public and its relationship to law and religion.
Extricating liberalism from the haze of anti-modernist and anti-European caricature, this book traces the role of liberal philosophy in the building of a new nation. It examines the role of toleration, rights, and mediation in the postcolony. Through the biographies of four Filipino scholar-bureaucrats—Camilo Osias, Salvador Araneta, Carlos P. Romulo, and Salvador P. Lopez—Lisandro E. Claudio argues that liberal thought served as the grammar of Filipino democracy in the 20th century. By looking at various articulations of liberalism in pedagogy, international affairs, economics, and literature, Claudio not only narrates an obscured history of the Philippine state, he also argues for a new liberalism rooted in the postcolonial experience, a timely intervention considering current developments in politics in Southeast Asia.
This volume explores how we theorize, politicize, and practice peace and conflict discourses in the social sciences. As concepts, peace and conflict are intricately interwoven into a web of complementary discourses where states and other actors are able to negotiate, deliberate and arbitrate their differences short of the overt and covert use of physical violence. The essays in this volume reflect this eclecticism: they reflect on concerns of contemporary conflicts in world politics; the dissection of the ideas of peace and power; the way peace studies join with global agencies; peace and conflict in connection to geopolitics and identity; the domestic basis of conflict in India and the South Asian theatre including class, social cleavages and gender. Further they also process elements like globalization, media, communication and films that help us engage with the popular tropes and discursive construction of the reality that play critical roles in how peace and violence are articulated and acted upon by the elites and the masses in societies. This volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of political science, international relations theory, peace and conflict studies, public policy and area studies. It will also be a key resource for bureaucrats, policy makers, think tanks and practitioners working in the field of international relations.
This collection of essays collects the leading scholars on British colonial thought in Southeast Asia to consider the question: what was the relationship between liberalism and the British Empire in Southeast Asia? The empire builders in Southeast Asia: Lord Minto, William Farquhar, John Leyden, Thomas Stamford Raffles, and John Crawfurd - to name a few - were fervent believers in a liberal free trade order in Southeast Asia. Many recent studies of British imperialism, and European imperialism more generally, have addressed how the anti-imperialist tradition of Eighteenth century liberalism was increasingly intertwined with the discourses of empire, freedom, race and economics in the nineteenth century. This collection extends those studies to look at the impact of liberalism on. British colonialism in Southeast Asia and early nineteenth century Southeast Asia we see some of the first attempts at developing multicultural democracies within the colonies, experiments in free trade and attempts to use free trade to prevent war and colonisation.
This book offers an overview of the history and development of civil society in three major nations of South Asia – Pakistan, India and Bangladesh – from colonial times to the present. It examines the liberalization of civil society since the 1980s, the needs it created for civil action, the professionalization of civil society organizations, and the extent to which civil society may benefit society at large in the context of local, national and global transformations in the economy, political regime and ideology. The reader will find new insights on the interaction between the liberalization of multifaceted civil societies in the three countries, presenting contrasts such as restrictions put on women’s organizations or labour unions and acceptance of religious organizations’ activities. The volume looks at forms of transfer of civil society models, representation and democratic legitimacy of civil society organizations such as nongovernmental organizations, government organized NGOs and faith-based organizations, along with the structuring of civil society through legal frames as well as female, religious, and ethnic mobilizations around language and literature. Using wide-ranging empirical data and theoretical analyses, it deals with civil society issues relating to human rights and political challenges, justice, inequality, empowerment, and the role of bureaucracy, women’s movements, and ethnic and linguistic minorities. It also presents early responses to the Covid-19 crisis in 2020 which created significant pressure on the states and on civil society. This book will be useful to scholars and researchers of political studies, development studies, sociology, public policy and governance, law and human rights, as also to professionals in think tanks, civil society activists and NGOs.
The book introduces central themes that have preoccupied the field of South Asian politics over the last few decades and identifies new, emerging areas of research. Presenting both general political theory and context-specific case studies, the collection draws attention to the methodological challenges of working on an area-specific theme and the importance of generating generalizable insights linked to theory. Hence it will be of interest for political scientists working on South Asian politics as well as on other non-Western societies. The collection represents an unusually broad survey of scholarship emerging from a range of leading academic centres in the field.
Digital media histories are part of a global network, and South Asia is a key nexus in shaping the trajectory of digital media in the twenty-first century. Digital platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, and others are deeply embedded in the daily lives of millions of people around the world, shaping how people engage with others as kin, as citizens, and as consumers. Moving away from Anglo-American and strictly national frameworks, the essays in this book explore the intersections of local, national, regional, and global forces that shape contemporary digital culture(s) in regions like South Asia: the rise of digital and mobile media technologies, the ongoing transformation of established media industries, and emergent forms of digital media practice and use that are reconfiguring sociocultural, political, and economic terrains across the Indian subcontinent. From massive state-driven digital identity projects and YouTube censorship to Tinder and dating culture, from Twitter and primetime television to Facebook and political rumors, Global Digital Cultures focuses on enduring concerns of representation, identity, and power while grappling with algorithmic curation and data-driven processes of production, circulation, and consumption.