Politics of difference

REL 221

Religion in Society: South Asia

Essay 1

In the film, Stories My Country Told Me, Eqbal Ahmad describes nationalism as a “politics of difference” and argues that “there is no end to politics of difference” (2003). Over the past few weeks we have seen how the struggle to define national identity has affected postcolonial South Asia. Drawing extensively on Tahmima Anam’s book A Golden Age and on the book chapter by Willem van Schendel, discuss how this politics of difference affected people and religious communities in postcolonial South Asia.

A good paper will use detailed examples from the readings (especially Anam’s book) to show how nationalist politics affected individuals and religious communities in South Asia. Make sure you (1) discuss shared religious worlds in some depth, and (2) show how these were affected by nationalist constructions of identity and religion.

Each essay must be 4-5 pages long. All papers must be typed in 12 point Times Roman font. Papers must be double spaced with 1 inch margins on all sides (word default is acceptable). Papers must be proof-read, spell checked, and properly referenced using the Chicago Manual of Style, In-Text citation format.

Please refer to the handout on citation provided to you to make sure that your paper is properly referenced and that you have not plagiarized. Plagiarism and use of AI will result in a failing grade as well as appropriate administrative action.

This paper tests your understanding of ideas and concepts introduced in the class as well as your ability to communicate this understanding to others. Clarity of written expression is essential here. Please make sure you refer to the handout on Writing Good Papers before you write this paper. I encourage you to take your papers to the Writing Center ahead of the due date for the essay.

Grading criteria is available in your syllabus as well as on the D2L site for this class. You must be able to effectively integrate one external scholarly source (apart from van Schendel and Anam) into your analysis in this paper in order get a grade of a ‘B’. This external source should be one of the other articles we have read over the course of the term (Hirst and Zavos or Zamindar).