Learning at the Swami's feet: Hindu Youth and faith-based educational institutions in South India

在印度南部的卡纳塔克邦，教育系统的一个不同寻常的特点是，由以种姓为基础的印度教宗教组织(Mathas)组织的学校所扮演的角色。虽然其中一些学校有很长的历史，但自1990年代初以来，这些学校的数量急剧增加，Matha学校不再是高种姓的专属学校，因为种姓等级较低的种姓建立了自己的Mathas和学校，通常是在政府的援助下。自20世纪90年代初以来，随着印度教民族主义和伊斯兰好战情绪的兴起，宗教的作用成为南亚的一个关键问题。已经有一些关于宗教学校的研究，但玛撒教育是一个耐人寻味但研究不足的现象。一些学者认为，宗教学校教育将贫穷的穆斯林青年边缘化，使他们容易受到伊斯兰原教旨主义的影响。然而，印度教民族主义和反穆斯林暴力的兴起，促使我们考虑如何以及在哪里培育印度教青年的政治意识，使他们能够被动员起来成为一股政治力量。虽然对新成立的印度教民族主义学校(RSS-RSS)进行了一些研究，但很少有学术关注关注老牌印度教宗教机构在日常生活中扮演的重要角色。印度南部还没有进行过这样的研究。在选举期间，玛萨家族经常充当“投票库”的角色。2008年5月，印度教民族主义政党印度人民党(BJP)成为卡纳塔克邦的执政党，这是南印度的第一次。人们普遍认为，许多玛塔人支持印度人民党，这是该党成功将权力扩展到印度南部的主要原因之一，在那里，印度教民族主义以前从未流行过。自那以后，首都班加罗尔发生了几起炸弹爆炸事件，这表明社区暴力正在南部蔓延。在这个项目中，我们将试图了解这种政治环境的一些根源，以及这些Matha学校的意识形态对年轻人的影响程度，这些年轻人很容易(正如我们在印度许多地区看到的)被鼓励攻击不同宗教社区的成员。该项目将采用定性的社会研究方法(包括半结构化访谈、档案工作和参与者观察)，通过研究不同宗教教派和种姓经营的三所玛塔学校，调查这些印度教学校在支持宗教和种姓特性方面的作用，并对女孩的适当教育、学生应该学习的历史以及梵语在其课程中的作用等关键问题有不同的取向。我们还将调查这些学校如何与国家机构互动，以及这些机构基于信仰的性质损害了世俗主义和国家建设的官方目标的程度。对于学术用户，我们将撰写两篇同行评议的文章，其中一章是共同撰写的卷，并组织一个会议小组和演讲。为了传播给卡纳塔克邦的主要利益相关者，我们将组织宗教间教育家聚会，讨论我们的发现，否则他们很少见面。拟议的研究将审查宗教教育机构的日常生活，努力了解它们在普通人生活中的作用和重要性，并解决该地区的一项紧迫任务，以及迄今为止被研究南亚社区问题的学者忽视的主题。

One of the more unusual features of the educational system in Karnataka, in South India, is the role played by schools organised by caste-based Hindu religious organisations (Mathas). While some of these have a very long history, since the early 1990s there has been a dramatic growth in their numbers, and Matha schools are no longer the preserve of high castes, as castes lower down the caste hierarchy have set up their own Mathas and schools, often with Government assistance. The role of religion became a crucial concern in South Asia with the rise of Hindu nationalism and Islamic militancy since the early 1990s. There have been several studies on madrasas, but Matha education is an intriguing yet under-researched phenomenon. Several scholars consider that madrasa education serves to marginalise poor Muslim youth and make them vulnerable to Islamic fundamentalism. The rise of Hindu nationalism and anti-Muslim violence, however, urges us to consider how and where the political consciousness nurtured amongst Hindu youth enables them to be mobilized as a political force There have been a few studies of newly formed Hindu nationalist (RSS-run) schools but little scholarly attention has focused on the vital everyday roles of established Hindu religious institutions. No such studies have been conducted in south India. The Mathas have often acted as a 'vote-bank' at the time of elections. In May 2008, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) became the ruling party of Karnataka, a first for South India. It is widely believed that many Mathas supported the BJP and that was one of the main reasons why the party successfully extended their power into South India, where previously Hindu nationalism had never been popular. Since then, there have been several bomb blasts in the capital city of Bangalore, which suggests that communal violence is spreading in the South. In this project we will attempt to understand some of the roots of this political environment and the extent to which the ideologies of these Matha schools influence youth who can (as we have seen in many parts of India) so easily be encouraged to attack members of different religious communities. Using a mixture of qualitative social research methods (including semi-structured interviews, archival work and participant observation) the project will investigate the role of these Hindu schools in sponsoring religious and caste identities, by studying three Mathas run by different religious sects and castes, and with different orientations to key issues such as the appropriate schooling for girls, the history that pupils should be taught, and the role of Sanskrit in their curriculum. We will also investigate how the schools interact with state agencies, and the extent to official goals of secularism and nation-building are compromised by the faith-based nature of these institutions.For academic users, we will produce two peer-reviewed articles, a chapter in a co-authored volume, and organise a conference panel and presentations. For dissemination to key stakeholders in Karnataka, we will organise inter-faith gatherings of educationalists who rarely otherwise meet, to discuss our findings. The proposed research will examine the everyday lives of faith-based educational institutions, endeavouring to understand their role and importance in ordinary people's lives and addresses an urgent task in a region and on a topic that have hitherto been neglected by scholars working on communal issues in South Asia.