Review Reviewed Work(s): Religion and Personal Law in Secular India: A Call to Judgment by Gerald J. Larson Review by: Herman Tull Source: International Journal of Hindu Studies, Vol. 8, No. 1/3 (Jan., 2004), pp. 219-221 Published by: Springer Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20106899 Accessed: 23-11-2017 03:01 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms Springer is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to International Journal of Hindu Studies This content downloaded from 132.174.250.221 on Thu, 23 Nov 2017 03:01:51 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Book Reviews I 219 over the life course, a recognition that provides gender analysis "a valuable multidimensionality and specificity" (212). Lamb's ethnography provides vivid examples confirming McKim Marriott's influential focus on how Indians tend to see persons as open and composite, but she highlights how this varies by gender and age. While "people seemed to view the bodies of both women and men as relatively open or permeable," Bengalis see women as more open (183). Women become impure more easily?after sleeping in a bed, touching unwashed clothing, or engaging in sexual relations, and so on (184). Lamb's original contribution is to show that while married couples share one whole body, a widow becomes a half body that is still con nected to her deceased husband, while a widowed man is an incomplete half body much like an unmarried man (232). Lamb also uses aging to highlight the importance of centrality, hierarchy, and reciprocity as ruling principles in Indian society. Consistent with Gloria Raheja's focus on centrality, Lamb shows how adults in the prime of life are central, providing food to both young and old. The aged move to the periphery, spending less time in front veranda and more time in other's houses. She shows that principles of hierarchy emphasized by Louis Dumont are also apparent as seniors continue to give guidance. Lamb's original contribution is to highlight the principle of reciprocity: People care for elderly parents as parents had earlier cared for them. These scholarly contributions aside, the book also contributes to highlighting universal dilemmas of human life?"its compelling intensity, on the one hand, and its irrevocable transience on the other" (xii). Bengalis described attachment and affection as both wonderful and painful: the stronger the attachment, the more difficult the ensuing separation. For elderly people, the dilemma is espe cially apparent: Late in life, ties to others are numerous and strong, yet increase ingly ephemeral as people face the leave-takings of death. Steve Dern? State University of New York, Geneseo Gerald J. Larson, ed., Religion and Personal Law in Secular India: A Call to Judgment. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001. 280 pages. This volume consists of fourteen essays, twelve of which are the result of a colloquium held in spring 1999 at Indiana University. Underpinning the essays is one of the great peculiarities of the modem India State; namely, that a uniform code of personal law?that is, laws governing marriage, divorce, parentage, inheritance, charitable endowments, and so forth?does not exist in India. This content downloaded from 132.174.250.221 on Thu, 23 Nov 2017 03:01:51 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 220 / International Journal of Hindu Studies Although the creation of a uniform civil code is a stated objective of the Indian Constitution (Article 44), after more than fifty years a host of political, cultural, and even historical factors has left this goal unfulfilled. At the heart of this situation is the conflict between India's emergence as a modern, secular state and its history as a pluralistic society. As Ruma Pal, a jurist of the Supreme Court of India, notes in this volume: "India is a land of religions, Hindu, Buddhists,,..Christians, Muslims....The idea of a uniform civil code, therefore strikes at the heart of custom and orthodoxy" (24). Nonetheless, India has managed to adopt and live with a uniform penal code (established by the British in the 1860s and largely unchanged since then) as well as a basic codification of Hindu personal laws ('The Hindu Marriage Act," and so on, adopted in 1955 and 1956). Muslim law, however, remains unlegislated, under the control of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (established under the Shariat Applica tion Act of 1937) but still subject to the jurisdiction of the Indian courts?a situation that has led to a number of celebrated cases, some of which are dis cussed in this volume. Despite the assertion made in individual essays by Granville Austin and Ruma Pal that the forces of modernization (education, equal rights, and so on) will move India toward the adoption of a uniform civil code for all segments of its population, it seems more likely given the evidence of recent world events that, as Susanne and Lloyd Rudolph note in their contri bution to this volume, the opportunities for such a process have eroded (53). The collection is divided into four major sections: "The Secular State and Legal Pluralism: The Current Debate and Its Historical Antecedents"; "Relig ious Endowments, Reservations Law, and Criminal Law"; "Personal Law and Issues of Gender"; and "Cross Cultural Perspectives." Among the volume's strengths are its generally clear presentation of historical and factual information regarding the Indian legal system and Indian personal law; its thought-provoking discussions of the legal elements of "Hinduism" (the legal segmentation of which can be glimpsed, as the Rudolphs observe in their essay, from the 1980 Mandai Commission report that identifies 52 percent of the Hindu population as belonging to one of 3,743 backward castes); and its clear identification of the underlying social and political issues that have obstructed the creation of a uniform civil code. Along the way, the individual essays also point to several areas that demand further scholarly investigation; for example, given that the law books of Islam and Hinduism address issues of both personal and criminal law, why does a uniform penal code exist and not a uniform civil code; and given that Islam is far more homogenous than Hinduism in India, how is it that Hindu personal law acts were created but not a Muslim code? That these ques tions remain to be answered more fully is not a weakness but rather an indica tion that this volume establishes a solid foundation for future scholarship. As This content downloaded from 132.174.250.221 on Thu, 23 Nov 2017 03:01:51 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Book Reviews I 221 such, it should become a standard work to be consulted by any one (South Asianists and non-South Asianists alike) with interests in the critical issues of modernity and tradition, in particular, as it is expressed through the often reluc tant co-existence of religion and state in modem India. Herman Tull Princeton University Julia Leslie, Authority and Meaning in Indian Religions: Hinduism and the Case of V?lmtki. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2003. 251 pages. The beauty of Julia Leslie's scholarship rests in the twists and turns of her inves tigation as she paints an organic portrait of the myths centered around V?lm?ki, the legendary author of the R?m?yana, and the communities which worship him as a God. The catalyst for Leslie's investigation is a dispute between the dalit community of the V?lm?kis, composed of former "untouchables," and a South Asian radio program host, who, during a radio broadcast, referred to the legend of V?lmiki as a dacoit who was reformed and subsequently composed the R?m?yana. The V?lm?ki community rejects the dacoit myth about their godhead and demanded an apology. Using that as her starting point, Leslie launches into a fascinating exploration of the V?lm?ki legend and the evolution of the commu nity which refers to itself as the V?lm?kis, examining how meaning and identity, both social and religious, is constructed from within these communities as well as from without. She argues the most difficult element for the V?lm?kis in establishing a new social and religious identity, not as "untouchables," but rather as a unique spiritual community, is their dependence on the high-caste commu nities' Sanskritic traditions and literature to justify their own religious tradition in the face of their rejection of "Hinduism" and castism. Leslie's work urges that, "for the devotee, the key issues are self-representation and consensus" (116). Constant polarizations, in terms of caste structure and the j?ti system, "classi cal" and "later" literature, and Sanskrit and vernacular languages provide the parameters of Leslie's presentation. Leslie considers the earliest references to V?lm?ki in Sanskrit literature as she attempts to detangle the legend surrounding him, tracing its evolution through time, and the interweaving of the classical poet V?lm?ki of early literature with later legends relating to other figures, such as Cy?vana, who were conflated with the poet due to the similarity in an epithet and a false etymology of V?lm?ki 's name. Of especial importance also was the influence of bhakti, offering a context for "sinner-to-saint" stories which had not existed in Hinduism before; V?lm?ki, if portrayed as a sinner, offers a power This content downloaded from 132.174.250.221 on Thu, 23 Nov 2017 03:01:51 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms