India Places and forms of power

India : Places and forms of power

Today i’m going to speack about the notion places and forms of power espicially about this notion in India. First i’m oing to define this notion. In my opinion the power is the capacity of an idea or a person to lead other people or to control events. India is a country of tradition, where religions take an important place, and Hinduism is the principal religion (repesents 80,5%) . That’s why i have decided to study this country with this notion and wonder-myself this question : Hinduism can be considered as an important power in india ? India is a large country of south Asia which is one of the most populated country in the world with 1,2 billions of inhabitants. Firstly we are going to study the importance of religions and hinduism in the history of India and then how Hinduism lead the society and create inequalities.

During his History India was on the center of a lot of revendications which were political or religious. For exemple during the 16 century India was led by european power more particularly by British crown. Indeed British companies had inplanted tradings post to appropriate themselves India’s wealth and inported in Europe cotton, spices, tea and other things. At the begining of the 20 century, many indians started to revendicate their independance and in 1920 Mahatma Gandhi started a non-violent anti-brithish campaign. Finally, India was under British dominance until 1947. But in India there are 2 important religions : Hinduism and islam, muslims were in minority and worried about an exclusively Hindu government. In consequences, the muslim league demanded the division of india in two separate states and when british left India Bangladesh and Pakistan were created. This separation is at the origin of the greatest migrations of human in India, unfortunatly this separation has resulted a lot of violence and half a million people died during this migration.

So Hinduism and more generally the religions took an important place in india’s history. Moreover Hinduism is at the origin of the particular organisation of indian society.

Indeed, Indian society is based on an inportant cast’s system. The society is divided in 4 castes and the last one which is not considered as a cast but as an out-cast, the Dalits. The system of castes is frozen, anybody can change the cast into wich they are born or marry someone from an other caste. Even if the cast system is forbidden is still exist in rural areas and Dalit’s discrimination too. They are obliged to use different temples, eating places or school. This cast’s system take its birth in the Hinduism. Another important tradition in India is the Dowry, If it isn’t especially an hinduist tradition the Dowry is nevertheless convenient in all india. The Bride’s family is obliged to payed a sum called the dawry to the groom’s family. If they can’t pay, the wedding is cancelled. In India 40% of the population live below the poverty line, with less than 2 dollars per day, for this reason a lot of couples don’t want a girl because thy are unable to pay a dowry. As a consequece there is a big inbalence between girls and boys, in 2011 there was 940 girl aged 6 years old and under for 1000 boys. So to prevent this imbalance, abortion and echography to know the sex of the baby are prohibited, but unfortunatly, a lot of families kill their own baby at birth if it’s a girl, this fact is well illustrated by the text « another girl » writing by Shilpi SOMAYA GODWANA, in this text we can see a woman who try to convince her husband to keep her girl alive. In total 600 000 girls are sacrificed every year. And all of this because traditions.

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