Ramraksha: Ram-ifying the Society and Modi-fying the State 169- Popular Memory Group, "Popular Memory: Theory, Politics, Method," in
Making Histories: Studies in History-Writing and Politics, ed. Richard Johnson et al.
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982), pp. 205-10. - Ibid., pp. 211-13.
- Michael Bommes and Patrick Wright, "'Charms of Residence': The Public
and the Past," in Making Histories: Studies in History-Writing and Politics, ed. Rich-
ard Johnson et al. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982), p. 256. - Jan Vansina, Oral Tradition as History (Madison: University of Wisconsin
Press, 1985), pp. 3-8. - Sumita S. Chakravarty, National Identity in Indian Popular Cinema, 1947-1987
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993), pp. 160-62. - Majid Hayat Siddiqi, "History and Society in a Popular Rebellion: Mewat,
1920-1933," Comparative Studies in Society and History 28, no. 3 (July 1986), pp.
442^3. - Sakalesh, "Historical Legend, The Next Birth," Organiser, 9 July 1962, p. 11.
- Sudhir Kakar, The Inner World: A Psycho-analytic Study of Childhood and
Society in India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1981), pp. 14-15. In a later book,
Kakar includes both Hindus and Muslims "to bring out the subjective, experiential
aspects of conflict between religious groups, to capture the psychological experi-
ence of being a Hindu or a Muslim when one's community seems to be ranged
against the other in a deadly confrontation." With the help of interviews, psy-
chological tests, and speech transcripts of Hindu and Muslim fundamentalists, he
seeks to analyze the fantasies, social representations, and modes of moral reason-
ing about them that motivate and rationalize arson, looting, rape, and killing. See
Kakar, The Colours of Violence (New Delhi: Viking, 1995), pp. viii-ix. - Brian K. Smith, Classifying the Universe: The Ancient Indian Varna System and
the Origins of Caste (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 324. - A phrase used by Brian Smith; see ibid.
- See Peter van der Veer, "'God Must Be Liberated': A Hindu Liberation Move-
ment in Ayodhya," Modern Asian Studies 21, no. 2 (April 1987), p. 300. - Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1977), p. 183. - India Today, 15 May 1991.
- Zafar Agha, "Striking Down a Right," India Today, 15 June 1995.
- Radhika Desai, "The Image of India's Future?" Hindu, 6 March 2002.
- Pandey argues further that the changing character and modes of sectar-
ian strife need careful study, and it must be emphasized that there is no essen-
tial riot around which only the context changes. His prescription is to negate the
prescribed center of vantage point, such as the nation-state, and reject the official
archive as the primary source for the construction of general history. Pointing out
the provisionality and contested character of all unities, such as periods, territo-
ries, social groups, political formations, and other objects of historical analysis,
he highlights the role of what the historians call a "fragment," such as a weaver's
diary, a collection of poems, creation myths, women's songs, family genealogies,
and local traditions of history, to challenge the state's construction of history. See
Gyanendra Pandey, "In Defense of the Fragment: Writing about Hindu-Muslim
Riots in India Today," Representations 37 (winter 1992), pp. 27-55.