The Politics of Cultural Nationalism in South India

Marguerite Ross Barnett

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780691616865, 9780691075778
• eBook ISBN: 9781400867189
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Asian Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In this book Processor Barnett analyzes a successful political movement in South India that used cultural nationalism as a positive force for change. By exploring the history of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party, the author provides a new perspective on political identity. In so doing, she challenges the interpretation of cultural nationalism as a product of atavistic and primordial forces that poses an inherent threat to the integrity of territorially defined nation-states and thus to the progress of modernization.

The founding of the DMK party in 1949, the author shows, was a turning point in the political history of Tamil Nadu, South India, because it ushered in the era of Tamil cultural nationalism. In the hands of the DMK, Tamil nationalism became an ideology of mass mobilization and thus shaped the articulation of political demands for a generation. The author analyzes the social, political, and economic factors that gave rise to cultural nationalism; the interplay between cultural nationalist leaders; and the role of cultural nationalism in a heterogeneous nation-state.

Originally published in 1976.

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Note on Transliteration
• List of Tables, Figures, and Map
• Preface
• 1. Introduction
• Part I: Origins of Tamil Nationalism
• Part II: The Politics of Emergent Nationalism
• Part III: Elites, Masses, and Cultural Nationalism
• Part IV: Cultural Nationalism and Public Policy
• Appendix A: Communal Representation of Gazetted and Non-Gazetted Officers in Province of Madras
• Appendix B: Method for Sampling Party Leaders
• Appendix C: DMK Organization
• Appendix D: Questionnaire for Neighborhood Survey
• Bibliography
• Index