Modern Ladakh: Anthropological Perspectives on Continuity and Change. Edited by Martijn van Beek and Fernanda Pirie. Leiden: Brill, 2008. x, 314 pp. $147.00 (cloth) (original) (raw)
This is the list of contents and introduction to a special issue on Ladakh published by the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives. The volume contains a total of 11 papers on broadly ‘Tibetological’ themes, including the region’s political and religious history, contemporary development and social issues, and Ladakhi understandings of colour. Most of the papers were presented at the 16th international conference of the International Association for Ladakh Studies (IALS) in Heidelberg in April 2013, together with two additional contributions from Rob Linrothe and Nawang Jinpa.
Modern Ladakh : anthropological perspectives on continuity and change
2008
The modern history of Ladakh has been profoundly shaped by influences from South Asia and beyond. In detailed empirical case-studies the contributors document and analyse change and continuities in this region brought about by colonialism, independence and modernisation. In an introductory review essay highlighting emerging themes and continuing debates in the scholarship on Ladakh, the editors argue for the need to situate Ladakh in an Indian and South Asian context, while also taking into account its cultural, linguistic and historical ties with Tibet. Studies from the neighbouring (sub)regions of Kargil, Ladakh, Zangskar and Baltistan are brought together to make an important contribution to the anthropological and sociological literature on development and modernity, as well as to Ladakh, Tibetan and South Asian studies.
Ladakh and the Partition of India: How Ladakh (Re) Shaped after Partition
Bede's Athenaeum, 2019
The paper tries to explore the convoluted socio-cultural history of Ladakh in the aftermath of the partition of India. There has been less debate and discussion academically about the impact of partition on the Ladakh region. Many discourses consider Ladakh as a 'mystic' and 'isolated' place which had not been much influenced by the partition of India. However, it has not been the case. The paper tries to dig out the impact of partition on the Ladakh province that has resulted in the fragmentation of Ladakhi society on communal basis leading to the (false) consciousness among the people, belonging to different communities, i.e., Buddhists and Muslims. Ladakhi society before the partition of India was a testimony of heterogeneous milieu where the different communities, especially the majority of Buddhists and Muslims, lived in peace and harmony before the seeds of communalism were sown in the pre-partition India. This paper demonstrates the acuteness of antagonisms between the two communities that prevailed specifically after the partition of India and its causal tendencies on the contemporary Ladakhi society and its polarization due to political and social pressures. The paper studies some of the post partition travelogues on Ladakh by different travelers who along with their experiences during their visit also documented the accounts of the influences of partition primarily the communal influences on the Ladakhi society that has resulted in the conflicts of cultural and regional rivalries.
The Calcutta Journal of Political Studies, 2017
The Himalayas are a region where varied cultures have coexisted with each other leading to the formation of unique socio-cultural systems, which are a combination of Hinduism emanating from the south and Tibetan Buddhism coming from the North. The region is a site of cultural syncretism, which formed civilizational frontiers that had its own unique sense of sovereignty. They exercised their own sovereignty but were also seen to be providing tributes to either Nepal and/or Tibet with much influences exerted. Hence, for a section of the population in the Himalayan belt, Tibet, especially Lhasa was a power centre both in religious and socio-political terms. However, with the birth of the nation state in the Indian subcontinent and China, the earlier forms of sovereignty in the Himalayan regions were superseded by its authority. The newly emergent postcolonial states of China and India also led to the eventual colonisation of a number of communities in the Himalayan region. This research paper will look into this eventual transformation of sovereignty practices in the region, drawing upon the ideas of sovereignty as propounded by Susanne Rudolph. It will also delve into the significance of Tibetan Buddhism, which forms power centres in the Himalayas and its impact on the geopolitics of the region. More importantly, the paper will also focus upon the interaction between traditional ideas on sovereignty and the modern state system through a lens of residual formations as propounded by Raymond Williams, seen in the modern state translating its power in the region through a negotiation/accommodation with the Tibetan Buddhist elites.