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because traditional banks that were not permitted by regulation to invest in the a ssets that turned toxic dominated the financial sectors in the developing counties. These countries were affected more seriously, however, through volatility in capital flows and shrinking demand in the real sectors of the developed countries that adversely impacted their trade flows. The author notes that the experience from the crisis raises serious doubts about the efficacy of finance as currently practised in the developed countries. Therefore, while he recognises the need for continued reforms in the financial sector in the developing countries, he recommends gradualism and caution. He suggests taking into account the evolving wisdom insofar as the changes in regulatory structures, as opposed to regulatory policies aimed at the management of the crisis, are concerned. In Section III, Y V Reddy begins by considering the recurring issue of the Tobin Tax. In 1972, Nobel Laureate James Tobin

proposed a small currency transactions tax, say 0.5%, as a means of discouraging speculative capital flows that lead to both exchange rate volatility and destabili sation of monetary policy. Among other things, critics have argued that such a tax will discourage legitimate financial intermediation. Y V Reddy argues, however, that the measurable downside of the tax is negligible and that its ability to discourage short-term currency movement can be scarcely denied. He suggests that even if the tax lacks wide accept ability, individual countries can usefully employ it at the national level in order to reduce the exchange-rate volatility and gain better control of the monetary policies. On the reform of the global financial architecture, Y V Reddy is rather pessimi stic. In Chapter 22, he observes that there is no evidence of a fundamental review of the ideological base of the global economy and global finance being under way. He finds the actions taken to-date as relating to operational aspects within the existing

institutions with some shift in governance. He also considers the current confinement of the reform to national and global level as inadequate, advocating instead an additional regional layer. He argues that safety nets should include a regional layer that is responsive to the circumstances of the region. In conclusion, let me note that this review has only touched on a few of the themes articulated in the book. With little repetition across chapters, this 400 plus pages long book discusses a wide variety of issues relating to the global, regional and national finance as they relate to the recent crisis. After a first reading, most readers will find it useful to keep it on their shelves as a ready reference.

Arvind Panagariya (ap2231@columbia.edu) teaches at Columbia University, New York and is also Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. His book India: The Emerging Giant was published by the Oxford University Press, US in 2008.

Muslim Weavers, Hindu Traders

Nasreen Fazalbhoy

asanthi Raman speaks in the introduction of the deep anguish that led her into the explorations that have resulted in this book. Moved by the growing communalism evident especially in the wake of the destruction of the Babri masjid, she chose to explore its rami fications in the lives of a community of weavers in Banaras, the home of the B anarasi sari. The study takes us on a fascinating journey, entering as it does into the lives of the Momin Ansaris, or the J ulaha as they were once known. The study is a detailed account of community relations, of the search for a new identity by a community burdened by negative epithets, of craftspersons caught in the web of a changing world and a changing India. No easy answers and solutions are available, but this was not intended. The author points in her introduction to the need to make visible what has been invisible, not only in public consciousness but also in the

The Warp and the Weft: Community and Gender Identity among Banaras Weavers by Vasanthi Raman (New Delhi: Routledge), 2010; pp 384, Rs 795.

world of academia (particularly socio logy). This is the story of the Muslim community, and also a story of a community of weavers, who are facing a number of cha llenges in the India of today. It is a record of this that we can look for in this book.

Communal Consciousness
The fact that communal consciousness has grown in the past decades is a reality in India today. While there are various theories on the reason for this whether it is an offshoot of secularism, or a remnant of a colonial divide and rule policy, or the a scendance of the Hindu right wing, or a growing Islamic consciousness worldwide, what have been lacking are grounded studies which look at how the growth of separate identities are actually developing

and how this is affecting people in their everyday lives and relationships. It is an unfortunate fact that relations between Hindus and Muslims are today being projected as historically opposed and hostile and the portrayal of Muslims in the public i magination is limited to presentation i mages of terro rism, violence and criminal activity. Any evidence of a shared culture is largely confined to celebrations, in u rban c on texts, of the syncretism of a K abir or a B ismillah Khan. In fact, the history of the relations b etween Muslims and Hindus cannot be d escribed as having any single underlying thread. The People of India project of the Anthropological Survey of India identified more than 500 Muslim communities and many other communities that could not be identified as Muslim or Hindu on the basis of their religious practices. Each of these communities has its own history sometimes going back centuries and belongingness in a particular caste, occupation, region, the moment of conversion, etc. The history of the growth of communally opposed identities needs to be traced through these l ocal histories, and it is this that the a uthor attempts to do. With the

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help of interviews carried out over a period of about six years from 2000 to 2006, she looks at how the weavers have dealt with the various historical and contemporary factors that impinge on their lives. It is through this that she is able to bring out the variety of economic and social circumstances that have worked in tandem to create a growing sense of distance between the Hindu traders and the Muslim weavers of Banaras.

Identity Question
The first part of the book explores how the identity question arose and was resolved differently for the Muslim weavers and the Hindu traders, both of whom are intrin sically involved in the production of the Banarasi sari. Starting with the question of how the projection of Banaras as a Hindu city came about, Raman takes us through the extensive literature that brings out how this was partly a colonial construction and partly a function of a Hindu resurgence, which was supported largely by the upper castes, for whom Sanskrit was the core of Hindu civilisation. Not

only were the lower castes excluded from this vision, but also the Muslims, in this case made up of communities which were also largely from the lower castes . If the presence of the Julaha was acknow ledged then, it was as a foil against which the Hindu self could distinguish itself. The fact that the Julahas had taken part in the 1857 revolution, contri buted to their a scription as fundamentalist and bigoted in colonial writings, an epithet that had its own repercussions. Ironically, in the India of today, the participation of the Julahas in the revolution is a forgo tten aspect of history, as is the fact that they make up about 25% of the citys p opulation. Raman brings out the varied features that have gone into the making and breaking of identities. The colonial period was one during which major changes of selfdefinition were happening. For the Julaha it was Islamisation that became the means for a more dignified sense of self. It provided the route for a change in status from being a low caste, despised Julaha to becoming a Momin Ansari the

new nomen clature recalling an Islamic c ultural connection and thereby also r equiring an adoption of symbols of belonging to an Islamic cultural milieu in which veiling, observance of prayer, fasting, etc, became incumbent. It also led to some fragmentation within the com mu nity, since the pro cess of Islamisation is under taken by different sects such as the Ahl i Hadith, the Deobandis and the Barelvis, each having diffe rent requirements and interpretations on various a spects of r eligious practice. Consolidation of identity in the form of the Hindu right wing ideology was also a feature of this period, and Raman discusses the occurrence of riots in which the depiction of the bigoted Julaha was used to demonise the community. Gradually, the depiction of two communities opposed to one another on several grounds began to establish itself in the public imagination. The relationship that had been described as tana-bana (interdependent) was now also talked of as having an LoC (the separation of the line of control) and, more dangerously, as being a mini Pakistan.

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MICA invites applications for admission to its doctoral-level Fellow Programme in Management Communications (FPM-C). The FPM-C is an AICTE APPROVED, three-year, full-time, residential programme.

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It is instructive to ponder over the changes in this relationship. How deep did tana-bana go? The relations were perhaps never intimate a sense of limits was always present as, for instance, regarding the t aboo on inter-dining which was accepted. The interviewees recalled times when special cooks would be employed at weddings and other occasions as part of the hospitality being extended to their Hindu patrons who could not eat food cooked by them. But this was not a totally rosy picture. Under a new and emerging sense of dignity and self, the memories of the past are also memories of the sense of humiliation at not being allowed into the home or even shops of the upper caste traders who actually monopolised the commercial r eturns that the industry generated. What we see then is that these relationships had their boundaries in the past, and given the hierarchical nature of the society, these boundaries were not challenged. Today, under a new sense of self these are no longer acceptable. A major contribution that the study makes is in bringing out the complexities and contradictions in the issue of identity formation and communalisation. The a uthor describes the riots of 1992, which unearthed subterranean areas of suspicion and mistrust, evidenced in the readiness with which rumours were accepted as true. But this too has happened in a c ontext, in which many other factors were also at play. The caste issue and its linkage with Islamisation, the entry of low caste Hindus into a profession that was exclusive to the Julaha, the fact that the riots targeted the newly achieved prosperity of the Momin Ansaris, but also jeopar dised the economic interests of Hindus as well, have all contri buted to how the relations between Hindus and Muslims in Banaras have developed. Production moved smoothly and communal relations remained in equilibrium as long as the interdependence was between Hindu traders and Muslim weavers. Any change in this lower caste Hindus entering into weaving or Muslim weavers graduating to trading has had repercussions on the r elationships by changing the parameters on which they related to each other. Added to this now are the serious problems of livelihood faced by the weavers because

of the policies regarding the powerloom sector, and because of other changes in the supply of yarn, etc, which have made the economics of producing the Banarasi sari untenable. Inevitably this is a situation of flux and it remains to be seen how the r elations will develop.

World of Women
The author has also explored the world of women, looking at how the distinction between the private and public spheres works itself out in the lives of the women. The author seems to shift perspective here, partly motivated perhaps by the tendency to stereotype Muslim women as being victims of Muslim men. The interviews she discusses are of Muslim women from diverse economic and social backgrounds, and are not restricted to the A nsari community. Taken together they show how the Muslim women of Banaras, like women from any other community, have had to cope with the economic challenges by moving out of the relatively safe location of the home to take up outside work. In facing the changed situation, they have also taken positions on issues like purdah, divorce, education, which were perhaps not debated earlier. This reviewer would have liked more discussion on the gendered aspects of identity issues. For example, the telling statement that We speak English but observe purdah made by one of the male interviewees could have done with more probing on womens experiences of this. Some discussion of how the practice of endogamy is operating today would have also added to the gender issue as the practice affects women more than men and is one of the ways community identity is maintained. This would be e specially interesting since the Momin Ansari identity itself is undergoing change under the pressures of Islamisation on the one hand and the search for new locations in which to continue their trade and b usiness on the other. There are other i ssues which the author mentions but does not elaborate, such as that Islamisation has r esulted in increased education for girls and also in the implementation of rights of i nheritance, which need to be e xplored further. In centralising the issue of communalism and locating the study in a specific

community, the book makes a much n eeded intervention in an area which has been neglected by sociologists. The focus on a specific community of Muslims is e specially useful since it grounds the discussion away from generalities, and illustrates the varied factors and processes that go into creating and breaking intercommunity relations. There are many insights here that challenge any easy conclusions on how and why identities are c oalescing in India today. The book maps the fluidity of the situation, and the intermingling of different economic, social and political processes. Despite the obser vation that the communal situation has worsened in the last several decades, it is interesting to note that ultimately it was the motif of tana-bana that was resorted to when talking about inter-community relations in times of crisis, such as when Banaras saw bomb blasts in r ecent years. This is not unimportant even if the relations were unequal and limited, the fact that there were trade linkages and that each community was, therefore, dependent on the goodwill and labour of the other, at least created a situation where such motifs could arise. Today the dangers of ghettoisation, where Muslims are not able to get houses in certain areas or employment in service sectors and therefore are increasingly in occupations of self- employment, such i nteractions become limited and the prospects for improving communal relations are likely to become bleaker.
Nasreen Fazalbhoy (nasreenf1@gmail.com) retired after teaching at the Department of Sociology, University of Mumbai.

Digital Economy
The Department of Economics, Sacred Heart College, Chalakudy, Kerala is bringing out an edited book on the theme Digital Economy. Papers are invited for the same. For further information mail to
economics.shcollege@gmail.com.

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