The making of modernity: violence and social revolution in the South Asian context

Abstract

The article examines the interrelationship between violence and modernity in the South Asian context. A social revolution is neither spontaneous nor is it a carefully planned project with a timeline prepared in advance keeping the political situation in mind. There are objective conditions to be met for any large-scale social transformation; apart from those conditions, the role of human intervention must be emphasized for change to be realized. The central argument of the article is that in the context of mass poverty it becomes imperative for the poor to come together and revolt with the intention of acquiring material gains resulting from economic growth. To what extent do victims of class society feel the need to revolt against their oppressors is an open question. The fact, however, is that there is a potential for revolution built into the nature of the oppression. Where the poor are in a vast majority, there is an authentic possibility that a spark is enough to create a chain reaction leading to changes along various levels. It is important to examine seemingly unrelated situations where a group of people fighting for an immediate cause are able to make their point through organized struggles. The paper examines the South Asian region where colonial contradictions are intertwined with structural inequalities in order to understand what the poor do in the process of revolting against an unequal condition; how they are able to modernize themselves through the use of violence that is paradoxically emerging as a result of a lop-sided modernity.