This research focuses on Islamism as a political ideology by taking up the case study of Jamaat-e-Islami in India and Bangladesh. It looked into the varied forms of Islamist ideological expressions in different contexts even while affiliated to the same organisation. It analysed the similarities and differences in the Islamist ideological morphology in a minority context of India where Muslims core audience/constituency of Islamist ideology is a minority group and in Bangladesh, where Muslims form a majority group. It also explores the nature of support for Islamism in these countries.
This book is an outcome of author’s doctoral thesis in Oxford University which has analysed the political ideology of Islamism. In doing so, writer tried to understand the similarities and differences of the ideological articulations of Islamism in a Muslim minority context of India and in a Muslim majority context of Bangladesh. The thesis is written from a political theory perspective in general and within the realm of ideology studies in particular. The study analyses how and why the Jamaat is responding to the economic and cultural issues of neo-liberal India and Bangladesh.
One cannot possibly ignore the neo-liberal context within which Islamists are generating markedly new kinds of political articulations with an unprecedented set of political demands, never seen before in the history of Islamist movements. This thesis analyses Islamist responses to neo-liberalism by discussing the contrasting conditions of contemporary India and Bangladesh. In doing so, he concludes that in India, Jamaat is opposed to neo-liberalism whereas in Bangladesh, it has a ambiguous character vis-à-vis neo-liberalism.
It probes at whether Islamism can articulate a politics of alternative in a world marked by capitalist globalization and neo-liberal consensus; what happens to the promise and goal of Islamism in providing an alternative to capitalism after the failure of twentieth-century socialism; and if a religious ideology like Islamism can represent a politics of social transformation, or can it only limit itself as a peculiar politics of resistance and critique to neo-liberal capitalism.
This book addresses how, in a contemporary globalized world, Islamists construct an antagonistic frontier and try to mobilize people behind the political project of Islamism. It deals with the Islamist critique of neo-liberal economic policies and ‘western cultural globalization’. Further, Islamists in both these countries are opposed to cultural issues like atheism, ‘blasphemous’ views, live-in relationships and homosexuality, which they construe as the products of ‘western cultural globalization’. In this respect, author tries to analyse why the Islamists are opposed to ‘western cultural globalization’.
The ideological articulations of Jamaat in this book have been studied by analyzing various primary sources—organisational literature, the party constitution, policy resolutions, press releases, election manifestos and political pamphlets of Jamaat-e-Islami. In addition, this research has also relied on field interviews with the Jamaat leadership in India and Bangladesh. Magazines and internet sources have been used for this study.
Finally, it traces the contemporary crisis of Islamist populism in providing an alternative to neo-liberalism and also explain how Islamism, as a politico-ideological project of populist mobilization is facing a crisis in contemporary India and Bangladesh.
Book contains following contents
Introduction: Islamism(s) of Academics and Islamists
Chapter 1: Islamism and Ideology: Philosophical Issues and Analytical Categories
Chapter 2: Islamism in Neoliberal India
Chapter 3: Ideological Articulations of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind
Chapter 4: Islamism in a Muslim Majority Context: The Case of Bangladesh
Chapter 5: The Crisis of Islamist Populism of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami
Chapter 6: Islamism in Contemporary India and Bangladesh: Comparative Overview of the Politics of Alternative
About Author
Maidul Islam was born and brought up in a liberal family of Calcutta the capital city of Indian state West Bengal. After schooling, for an undergraduate degree, he joined the prestigious Presidency College (Kolkata) with Political Science as honours subject with History and Economics as subsidiaries. He then completed Masters and M.Phil in Political Science from the exalted Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi) before moving to Oxford University for PhD. With years of research experience, his specialisation includes; (1) Islamist politics and ideology in contemporary India and Bangladesh (2) Indian Muslims and (3) Contemporary politics in India and Bangladesh.
About the Book
Title: Limits of Islamism: Jamaat-e-Islami in Contemporary India and Bangladesh
Hardcover: 340 pages
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (1 February, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1107080266
ISBN-13: 978-1107080263
Author’s Academia.edu profile
[This review has compiled from various internet source]
