Frederick M. Smith

Well-Being in India: A Historical and Anthropological Report

This chapter summarizes various conceptions of well-being in South Asia from ancient to modern times, with an emphasis on India. The article is divided into three broad areas: (1) ancient, classical, and premodern India; (2) well-being in post-independence India according to the anthropological record; and (3) general conceptions of well-being in modern India. The first section draws from the prescriptive frames of the classical Sanskrit literature on behavior, governance, medicine, and ritual, as well as on descriptions found in classical literature, art, and poetry. Key texts cited include the Bhagavad Gītā and the Laws of Manu. In addition to brahmanical or Hindu texts and practices from all periods, we examine Islam and popular culture. Notions of well-being of all periods are clustered around comfort, a common good (which usually extends only to the edges of one’s own social or religious community), status, and wealth. However, religious ideals are also a part of well-being, often superseding wealth and modifying position. Well-being is also reflected in marriage practices, the dynamics of caste, recognition that the notion of the individual is constituted differently in India than in the West, and in public religious rituals to secure well-being. Finally, we trace the development of neoliberalism in India and its impact on the modern notions of well-being.

Reflections on the Tantras

The brochure touches upon all the principal precepts of Tantra, especially the esoteric practices. An account of the Sakta pithas has also been given in the background of the ethnological divisions of India. New light has been thrown on the origin of bija, mantra and gayatrt occuring in Tantric works.

Fertile Disorder: Spirit Possession and its Provocation of the Modern, by Kalpana Ram, Honolulu, University of Hawai‘i Press, 2013, xiii + 317 pp,

‘closed’ national borders but also the porosity of the Bengal border, which rather defined itself as ‘an area of vibrant economic activity’. The Bengal border became an economic frontier, a laissez-faire arena of movement of goods and people, which has persisted up to the present century. Roy also focuses on the reorganization of strong, centralized nation states in the aftermath of partition. Migration and property became the two major elements in this act of reorganization as it sought ‘declaration of intent’ to reconfirm nationalization and citizenship. There was an element of ambiguity in this new definition of citizenship. The ‘Bengal Partition thus generated a unique form of trans-territoriality where national citizenship was defined by domicile, but religious community defined proxy citizenship’. This duality reinforced the marginality of minorities as loyal citizens of their territorial nations. Finally, the book also examines the cartographic complexities of partition. The question of borderlands as the periphery and the role of borderland people in redefining national identities as well as the emergence of unified South Asian region have been discussed elsewhere. Identities once again hinged on the physical location of the border. The responsibility of citizenship was on the migrants and the refugees, and in turn the state used the emergence of the national identity as a function of this new territorial jurisdiction as the ‘principal axis of state control over mobility and citizenship’. Haimanti Roy’s research points to the continued relevance of Partition on the social fabric of India and Bangladesh. Her meticulous handling of the disparate and huge volume of sources holds the reader’s attention throughout this often-told tale of partition, making it gripping and accessible. Her focus on the border and the millions who crossed it time and again draws attention to the fact that this happened before the evolution of an international regime of dealing with refugees and migrants, and so the newly emerging nations had to create their own refugee, rehabilitation and human rights regimes. Roy’s book not only adds to the rich histories and narratives of partition but is also an important contribution to the understanding of the pre-Geneva Convention refugee rehabilitation efforts on the larger scale.