Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Each year a Hindu festival takes place in January/February at Allahabad, Northern India. Every twelve years the festival is celebrated as the famous Kumbh Mela. However, the annual festivals attract several million pilgrims, many living on the banks of the Ganges for a month. We will describe the religious, social and political significance of this event for Hindu identities. We will also explore the need for political psychology to analyse how collective ritual and public ceremony may be significant in building up a sense of community and collectivity. Although several disciplines address such issues the effects of participation are typically assumed rather than explicated.We will then discuss how political psychology could draw upon social psychological theory â?? especially as it concerns the concept of social identity. We believe that this tradition has considerable strengths but that the process of application in this context can enrich theory. First, whilst social psychologists have explored the dynamics and consequences of collective identification, much less attention has been paid to the way in which actual participation in collective events impacts upon social identity and communal interactions. Second, we believe that we have much to learn about the narrowness of our assumptions about collective identity processes through applying social psychological theory developed in the West to an Indian context. Throughout we will emphasise the importance of developing a theoretical perspective that directs our attention to cultural processes and conceives of culture as constructed, contested and dynamic.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: There is a large body of psychological research which addresses the conditions in which people will or will not lend support to others. Traditional theories tend to focus on the numbers of other people present, or on the likelihood of experiencing empathetic emotions. However, recent research has begun to suggest that helping may depend more on the nature of oneâ??s social categorical relations with others. For example, one may give more to those defined as oneâ??s fellows and less to those defined as belonging to different groups. In this paper I consider how acts of giving may reflect pilgrimsâ?? understandings of their social categorical relations with others. More specifically, I will consider how the varied categorical relations to be found in the ela are reflected in patterns of giving. Furthermore, I consider the complexity to giving and receiving from others. Not all acts of giving may be acts of charity designed to help those whom one construes as similar to self. Indeed, some acts of giving involve giving to dissimilar others and seem to involve rather different identity-related processes concerning social norms and the management of social relations.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Within social psychology and the social sciences more generally, it has been assumed that groups are imagined as â??horizontal communitiesâ??, that cohesion of the group and identification with the group depends upon the absence of intra-group difference or differentiation. These assumptions are at odds with the notion that Hinduism and Indian identity in general, as well as the community within the Mela festival, are rooted in caste structure. In this paper, we use a range of ethnographic, interview and survey data from two waves of study in order to examine the conceptions/practices of caste within the Mela. We argue, first, that the relation of caste to Hindu identity and its applicability to the Mela is contested. Second, the relevance of caste categories varies at different times and also at different sites within the Mela. Third, this variation is a function of both practical and symbolic concerns. Fourth, the experience of the Mela and commitment to Hinduism is a function of the relationship between conceptions of â??the Hindu idealâ?? and the experience of practices in the Mela.These data lead towards two general conclusions. In terms of our understanding of community it is important to acknowledge that hierarchy as much as equality can be a basis for identification and cohesion. In terms of our understanding of caste, it is important to move away from monolithic analyses and examine how â?? as with other categories â?? both salience and meaning is a function of temporal and spatial context