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Burning the dead : Hindu nationhood and the global construction of Indian tradition / David Arnold.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2021]Description: 1 online resource (xviii, 249 pages) : illustrationsContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 0520976649
  • 9780520976641
Subject(s): Genre/Form: Additional physical formats: Print version:: Burning the deadDDC classification:
  • 294.5/388 23
LOC classification:
  • BL1226.82.F86 A76 2021
Other classification:
  • online - EBSCO
Online resources:
Contents:
Burning issues -- Colonial necropolitics and the polysemic corpse -- The city and its dead -- Consuming fire -- The global dead -- The rebirth of cremation -- Cremation and the nation -- Epilogue : rethinking the Hindu Pyre
Summary: "Burning the Dead traces the evolution of cremation in India and the South Asian diaspora across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Through interconnected histories of movement, space, identity, and affect, it examines how the "traditional" practice of Hindu cremation on an open-air funeral pyre was culturally transformed and materially refashioned under British rule, following intense Western hostility, colonial sanitary acceptance, and Indian adaptation. The book examines the critical reception of Hindu cremation abroad, particularly in Britain, where India formed a primary reference point for the cremation debates of the late nineteenth century, and it explores the struggle for the official recognition of cremation among Hindu and Sikh communities around the globe. Above all, David Arnold foregrounds the growing public presence and assertive political use made of Hindu cremation, its increasingly social inclusivity, and its close identification with Hindu reform movements and modern Indian nationhood"-- Provided by publisher.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Burning issues -- Colonial necropolitics and the polysemic corpse -- The city and its dead -- Consuming fire -- The global dead -- The rebirth of cremation -- Cremation and the nation -- Epilogue : rethinking the Hindu Pyre

"Burning the Dead traces the evolution of cremation in India and the South Asian diaspora across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Through interconnected histories of movement, space, identity, and affect, it examines how the "traditional" practice of Hindu cremation on an open-air funeral pyre was culturally transformed and materially refashioned under British rule, following intense Western hostility, colonial sanitary acceptance, and Indian adaptation. The book examines the critical reception of Hindu cremation abroad, particularly in Britain, where India formed a primary reference point for the cremation debates of the late nineteenth century, and it explores the struggle for the official recognition of cremation among Hindu and Sikh communities around the globe. Above all, David Arnold foregrounds the growing public presence and assertive political use made of Hindu cremation, its increasingly social inclusivity, and its close identification with Hindu reform movements and modern Indian nationhood"-- Provided by publisher.

Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on March 06, 2021).

In English.