"Weapons of the Meek": Ecstatic Ritualism and Strategic Ecumenism among Tamil Hindus in Malaysia

Author: Willford A.

Source: Identities: Global Studies in Power and Culture, Volume 9, Number 2, 1 January 2002 , pp. 247-280(34)

Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

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Abstract:

This article examines the politics of Hindu revivalism among Tamils in Malaysia. In examining the dramatic pilgrimage and ritual of Thaipusam and the activities of a leading Hindu reform and performing arts organization, it is argued that the present resurgence of Hinduism is related to a growing sense of displacement experienced by Tamils in Malaysia. Thaipusam, while representing a collective assertion of Tamil and Hindu identity, also signifies "Indian" within an Islamic-modernist discourse of the Malaysian nation. Becoming an ethnic subject within a multicultural nationalist discourse, in turn, produces ambivalence among some Tamils which is manifested in status concerns and social distancing within the Tamil community. Many elite Hindus, in turn, are drawn to the apparently ecumenical and modernist teachings within Hindu reform organizations. The vicissitudes of Malaysian Hinduism bring into focus some of the complex ways that diasporic sentiments are produced and differentiated along lines of status and class within and against modernist state-ideologies.

Keywords: diaspora, ethnicity, Malaysia, nationalism, religi

Document Type: Research article

Affiliations: 1: Department of Anthropology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA

Publication date: 2002-01-01

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