Narendra Subramanian
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780804788786
- eISBN:
- 9780804790901
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804788786.003.0002
- Subject:
- Law, Family Law
Centralizing states appropriated the authority of kin groups and ethnic and religious institutions over family life to varying degrees. The ways they regulated family and intimacy did not depend on ...
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Centralizing states appropriated the authority of kin groups and ethnic and religious institutions over family life to varying degrees. The ways they regulated family and intimacy did not depend on whether they claimed commitments to secularism or whether family laws were framed in culturally specific discourses. Salient discourses about nations and their constituent cultural groups and traditions interacted with social structure, the nature of state-society engagements under predecessor regimes, the coalitions regimes aim to build, and regime projects to change state-society relations. These interactions influenced approaches to form citizens, recognize cultures, and make families. The chapter demonstrates that this new version of the state-in-society approach to social analysis explains the extent to which regimes changed the personal laws they inherited, the effects of these changes on women's rights, the autonomy of individuals, the nuclear family, sources of family law, and the extent of legal pluralism.Less
Centralizing states appropriated the authority of kin groups and ethnic and religious institutions over family life to varying degrees. The ways they regulated family and intimacy did not depend on whether they claimed commitments to secularism or whether family laws were framed in culturally specific discourses. Salient discourses about nations and their constituent cultural groups and traditions interacted with social structure, the nature of state-society engagements under predecessor regimes, the coalitions regimes aim to build, and regime projects to change state-society relations. These interactions influenced approaches to form citizens, recognize cultures, and make families. The chapter demonstrates that this new version of the state-in-society approach to social analysis explains the extent to which regimes changed the personal laws they inherited, the effects of these changes on women's rights, the autonomy of individuals, the nuclear family, sources of family law, and the extent of legal pluralism.
Narendra Subramanian
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780804788786
- eISBN:
- 9780804790901
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804788786.001.0001
- Subject:
- Law, Family Law
The distinct personal laws that govern the principal religious groups are a major aspect of Indian multiculturalism and secularism, and support specific gendered rights in family life. Nation and ...
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The distinct personal laws that govern the principal religious groups are a major aspect of Indian multiculturalism and secularism, and support specific gendered rights in family life. Nation and Family is the most comprehensive study of the public discourses, processes of social mobilization, legislation, and case law that formed India's three major personal-law systems, which govern the Hindus, the Muslims, and the Christians. It is the first to systematically compare Indian experiences to those in various other countries that inherited personal laws specific to religious group, sect, or ethnic group. Subramanian shows why India's postcolonial policy makers changed the personal laws they inherited less than the rulers of Turkey and Tunisia but far more than those of Algeria, Syria, and Lebanon, and increased women's rights, contrary to the trend in Pakistan, Iran, Sudan, and Nigeria since the 1970s. He demonstrates that discourses about the nation, its cultural groups, and its traditions interact with features of state-society relations and influence the pattern of multiculturalism, the place of religion in public life, and the forms of family regulation. The study shows that the greater engagement of political elites with initiatives among Hindus and the predominant place they gave Hindu motifs in nationalist discourses shaped Indian multiculturalism, secularism, and family law, contrary to current understandings. In exploring the significant role of communitarian discourses in shaping state-society relations, public policy, and legal institutions, it takes “state in society” approaches to comparative politics and political sociology in new directions.Less
The distinct personal laws that govern the principal religious groups are a major aspect of Indian multiculturalism and secularism, and support specific gendered rights in family life. Nation and Family is the most comprehensive study of the public discourses, processes of social mobilization, legislation, and case law that formed India's three major personal-law systems, which govern the Hindus, the Muslims, and the Christians. It is the first to systematically compare Indian experiences to those in various other countries that inherited personal laws specific to religious group, sect, or ethnic group. Subramanian shows why India's postcolonial policy makers changed the personal laws they inherited less than the rulers of Turkey and Tunisia but far more than those of Algeria, Syria, and Lebanon, and increased women's rights, contrary to the trend in Pakistan, Iran, Sudan, and Nigeria since the 1970s. He demonstrates that discourses about the nation, its cultural groups, and its traditions interact with features of state-society relations and influence the pattern of multiculturalism, the place of religion in public life, and the forms of family regulation. The study shows that the greater engagement of political elites with initiatives among Hindus and the predominant place they gave Hindu motifs in nationalist discourses shaped Indian multiculturalism, secularism, and family law, contrary to current understandings. In exploring the significant role of communitarian discourses in shaping state-society relations, public policy, and legal institutions, it takes “state in society” approaches to comparative politics and political sociology in new directions.
