2013/07/01 by Neeti Nair · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Colonialism, slavery, and trade #Communalism #Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis #Hinduism #Law #Legislative assembly #Legislature #Majesty #Newspaper #Offensive #Philosophy #Political science #Politics #Ratification #Religious studies #Section (typography) #Sociology #Vietnamese History and Culture Studies
paper · doi:10.1177/0019464613494622
openalex publication_date 2013/07/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Late nineteenth–early twentieth century Punjab has been commonly regarded as a space for ‘competitive communalism’ whereby each of the province’s major religious communities participated in activities that increased hostilities between the communities. Such an assertion has been substantiated with reference to an increasing number of publications that were quickly deemed offensive to one or the other religious community of the Punjab and then banned. This article examines the controversies following the publication of one such pamphlet ‘Rangila Rasul’. These ultimately necessitated the addition of section 295A to the Indian Penal Code (IPC), a section that would punish those who, ‘with deliberate and malicious intention,’ insulted or attempted to insult ‘religious beliefs’ of any class of His Majesty’s subjects. Reading contemporary newspaper commentaries alongside debates in the legislative assembly, I show that legislators were able to rise above the interests of their religious communities (as Hindu or Muslim publicists) to speak for a larger putative ‘Indian’ community, collective, or nation. Far from being a textbook example of communalism, the debates bring into sharp relief an alternate moment in the making of an ‘Indian’ nation.