Articles by Gyanendra Pandey

Hindus and Others: The Militant Hindu Construction Gyanendra Pandey A discussion on Hinduism must necessarily ask the question, who is a Hindu? What does it mean to be a Hindu? Several people have asked this question with reference to theological position and ritual practice. It is asked here with reference to political practice in India over the last hundred years or so.

One needs to make no apology for yet another article on 'communalism', or even, as in the present case, for stray thoughts on the subject, given the current political situation in India. 

Liberalism and the Study of Indian History A Review of Writings on 'Communalism' Gyanendra Pandey ONE of the more remarkable facts about the historiography of the factor called 'communalism' in Indian history is the large area of common ground shared by interpreters of it from Cambridge to Calcutta. or perhaps one should say Chicago to Canberra. I am fully sensible, in writing this, of the significant differences of approach, say, between liberal scholars in the West and leftist historians in India, and of the major advances made in the study of nationalism and comrmmalism since the 1960s, The validity of my statement should, however, become clear in the course of this paper. Suffice it here to say that one feature of this area of agreement among historians of South Asia is the practical absence from its concerns of such nebulous and uncertain quantities as consciousness, religion and popular culture.