Bulletin of the French Research Institutes in India
Institut français de Pondichéry, École française d'Extrême-Orient, Centre de sciences humaines (New Delhi)
September 2010, No. 34

Editorial : Community, identity, mobility

The International Relations division of CSH has been running various individual and collective projects, dwelling on issues of regional security and foreign policy, on religious minorities and on diaspora. These various projects require a vast array of theories and methodologies, but they all focus on aspects of community, identity and mobility in South Asia and strive to go beyond traditional disciplinary and spatial boundaries.

The project on Muslim Localities in Urban India coordinated by Laurent Gayer and Christophe Jaffrelot led, for instance, to a conference in June, which pointed out new and important perspectives on the question of marginalisation among Indian Muslims (see FOCUS).

As for Rémy Delage's work on Spatial Trends and Social Change among South Asian Religious Minorities, it explores the issue of religious minorities with a geographical and regional outlook (see RESEARCH). Within this framework, a forthcoming conference on Shrines, Pilgrimages and Wanderers in Muslim South Asia is to be held at the EHESS, Paris on 23 & 24 September. It is co-organised by the Centre for Indian and South Asian Studies (CEIAS) in Paris and the CSH, and mainly funded by the CNRS (INSHS department), along with the CEIAS and CSH. Charlène Simon's doctoral work on Religious Innovation and Social Assertion also contributes to the expertise on identities and communities since it underlines significant aspects of social mobility among the Ravidasia sect in North India (see RESEARCH).

Finally, my own current project on Overseas Telanganites and long-distance regionalism examines the involvement of the diaspora in regional party dynamics in Andhra Pradesh. After having researched and published on the NRIs' "long-distance nationalism" and participation in the global Hindu nationalist movement, I am now focusing on the Telangana movement as a case of long-distance regionalism. NRIs from the Telangana region are indeed particularly active in lobbying for the  creation of a new State carved out of Andhra Pradesh and in election campaigning. This study will examine the transnational dynamics and implications of such lobbying, along with the impact of this long-distance regionalism on the very idea of India.

Ingrid Therwath, Head, International Relations, Csh

http://www.csh-delhi.com/publications/downloads/pattrika/pattrika_34.pdf