Religion, modernity, and the nation: Postscripts of Malabar migration

Abstract

This paper attempts to read the event of Malabar migration as articulated in the migrant writings. Arguably, the event and the representations - both individual and community narratives - are political documents which facilitate different discourses on minority politics in Kerala/India. Community identity and claims of legitimacy in a secular modern state become crucial in these narratives which make them significant within the sphere of history-literature on the historical event of Malabar migration. The narratives are examined in view of the cultural and political signification of Syrian Christian community and the very act of writing history has in the ideological nexus associated within. In doing so, the paper looks at the way these discourses make inroads to the idea of modernity, nation-state, and thereby opens up discursive terrains of the politics of representation and the articulations of the self.