Cultural Anthropology

Culture of Sinhala Elite and Shiv Sena in Post-Colonial Asia This paper considers the issue of culture within the context of post colonial Asia. The paper examines the cultural strategies of two cultures; the Sinhala elite and Shiv Sena and how these groups developed and emerged, redefining their own identity.

Religion and politics old ways destroyed by new regimes and ideologies Religion is a man made concept, as such all things connected to this can be seen as pure superstition and non-existent, yet from an anthropological point-of-view the religions and superstitions of other races is seen as an important and integral aspect of research and calls for an open and understanding mind. Man has since the dawn of time been involved in one form of symbolism, whether it be through cave paintings or making idols of goddesses.

Religion and ritual are always part of the world of Man, it has been there since man became a hunter and Gatherer. However, as this form of religion and ritual did he uses the offerings of his hunt to placate the Gods or did he just dance around a fire and call to the powers and spirits to aid him. As man grew into larger bands he formalized religion to his own ends, and the cost of religion hit the populace.

Religion causes wars and death, rarely does it bring happiness. Yet man continues to have his religions and sacrifices to placate the Gods and Goddesses. Hinduism is no different to religions around the world, both in the present and in the past, it has its followers and those who are devout yet it also has it discriminations and downfalls.

The use of sacrifice to the Gods is not just a symbolic gesture to them it is real and will continue until the belief in the Gods fail or a new religion stops the sacrifice. However, is the use of sacrificing the best of what you have for a God that is unseen and never heard from a satisfactory way to worship.

Can it be that those who have made up the names of the Gods and Goddesses have discovered a way of living off of the people? This sacrifice is just a form of ritual bribery that if the people do not appease the Gods then there will be no crops or the animals milk will fail then the people have to turn to the priests to help them.

One scholar, Professor Staal has discovered that the tradition of the Hindu religion supplies no single theory or thought that is consistent with the theory if ritual. However he states that there are a many contradictions (Everson 59) The Vedic Age or era was the most decisive and influential of eras to place a trend upon the culture of the people of India.

However, these trends have now changed and moved on since those times but the underlying rituals of this age still have an underlying effect upon the requirements of modern life (Sen PG).

Brow in his book Demons and Development: The Struggle for Community in a Sri Lankan Village (Hegemony and Experience - Critical Studies in Anthropology and History) revisits the village of the Vedda within the Anuradhapura, Brow seeks out the voices of the villagers, and allows them to have their say in matters important to them (Brow PG) Demons and Developments is a comparative study of the depth and understandings of the ethnological with a contextual analysis of the lives of these people, with a central ideology of the gama within their community and how an articulation of the local populace and national residents think, act and believe within a localised setting (Brow PG) With the returning and giving of land and houses as gift to the community of Kukulewa in the late 1970s which was a provision of the states programme of the Premadasa's Village Reawakening, due to this gift which was seen as a knife in the back due to the conflict that arose through allocation of the houses a new gama was born named Samadigama, this was seen to be marked by a new ritual for the protection of the village (Brow PG) Demons and Development is not such a book on religion rather an anthropological analogy of how religion effects politics and the village itself and the forces that bring to bear on actions of the elders, such as religion, Gods and demons of the Sinhala and V dda world (Brow PG) These Gods and demons of the Sinhala and V dda people have a considerable effect upon the villagers especially those connected with the Sinhala Buddhist pantheon, it can easily be illustrated within Brows book that the people of this village and the religion are clearly forming a symbiotic relationship (Brow PG) If we compare Brows book with the Wages of Violence by Thomas Blom Hansen, we can see how Hansen gives a full developing narration of how the people of Bombay, now Mumbai used its cultural history and developed a modern lifestyle but still managed to incorporate old values within an intensely ethnic conflict of nationalistic violence (Hansen PG) Hansen concentrates upon the militant Hindu movement of Shiv Sena, which has slowly advanced into a political unity of the common folk using vernacular ways incorporating religion and culture (Hansen PG) Hansen also shows the most recent trends in the changing of Indian politics and demonstrates that the foreign public culture within the society of today is deeply rooted within the religion and culture of the past which is being contested by modern politicians (Hansen PG) In comparison to Brow's book we see that the changes in a vernacular society can be one that goes against the systemic need for change, many feel within these societies that a status quo is better than forward moving system that will bring new change, destroy old ways that have worked for centuries and also cause a breakdown in societal structures.

Hansen gives the credible argument that the Shiv Sena's success is due to their violent attitudes to the common system of democratic process within India today and.