The partition of India in 1947 was a seminal event of the twentieth century. Much has been written about the Punjab and the creation of West Pakistan; by contrast, little is known about the partition ...of Bengal. This remarkable book by an acknowledged expert on the subject assesses the social, economic and political consequences of partition. Using compelling sources, the book, which was originally published in 2007, shows how and why the borders were redrawn, how the creation of new nation states led to unprecedented upheavals, massive shifts in population and wholly unexpected transformations of the political landscape in both Bengal and India. The book also reveals how the spoils of partition, which the Congress in Bengal had expected from the new boundaries, were squandered over the twenty years which followed. This is an intriguing and challenging work whose findings change our understanding and its consequences for the history of the subcontinent.
This book considers the remarkable transformations that have taken place in India since 1980, a period that began with the assassination of the formidable Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Her death, and ...that of her son Rajiv seven years later, marked the end of the Nehru-Gandhi era. Although the country remains one of the few democracies in the developing world, many of the policies instigated by these earlier regimes have been swept away to make room for dramatic alterations in the political, economic and social landscape. Sumit Ganguly and Rahul Mukherji, two leading political scientists of South Asia, chart these developments with particular reference to social and political mobilization, the rise of the BJP and its challenge to Nehruvian secularism and the changes to foreign policy that, in combination with its meteoric economic development, have ensured India a significant place on the world stage.
In Beyond Partition , Deepti Misri shows how 1947 marked the beginning of a history of politicized animosity associated with the differing ideas of "India" held by communities and in regions on one ...hand, and by the political-military Indian state on the other. Assembling literary, historiographic, performative, and visual representations of gendered violence against men and women, she establishes that cultural expressions do not just follow violence but determine its very contours, and interrogates the gendered scripts underwriting the violence originating in the contested visions of what "India" means. Ambitious and ranging across disciplines, Beyond Partition offers both an overview of and nuanced new perspectives on the ways caste, identity, and class complicate representations of violence, and how such representations shape our understandings of both violence and of India.
In this powerful, compassionate work, one of anthropology’s most distinguished ethnographers weaves together rich fieldwork with a compelling critical analysis in a book that will surely make a ...signal contribution to contemporary thinking about violence and how it affects everyday life. Veena Das examines case studies including the extreme violence of the Partition of India in 1947 and the massacre of Sikhs in 1984 after the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. In a major departure from much anthropological inquiry, Das asks how this violence has entered "the recesses of the ordinary" instead of viewing it as an interruption of life to which we simply bear witness. Das engages with anthropological work on collective violence, rumor, sectarian conflict, new kinship, and state and bureaucracy as she embarks on a wide-ranging exploration of the relations among violence, gender, and subjectivity. Weaving anthropological and philosophical reflections on the ordinary into her analysis, Das points toward a new way of interpreting violence in societies and cultures around the globe. The book will be indispensable reading across disciplinary boundaries as we strive to better understand violence, especially as it is perpetrated against women.
This innovative work of historical anthropology explores how India's Dalits, or ex-untouchables, transformed themselves from stigmatized subjects into citizens. Anupama Rao's account challenges ...standard thinking on caste as either a vestige of precolonial society or an artifact of colonial governance. Focusing on western India in the colonial and postcolonial periods, she shines a light on South Asian historiography and on ongoing caste discrimination, to show how persons without rights came to possess them and how Dalit struggles led to the transformation of such terms of colonial liberalism as rights, equality, and personhood. Extending into the present, the ethnographic analyses of The Caste Question reveal the dynamics of an Indian democracy distinguished not by overcoming caste, but by new forms of violence and new means of regulating caste.
This new title in the World Economies series charts and explains the development of the Indian economy since independence and partition and provides a unique up-to-date overview of the contemporary ...Indian economy and the reasons it has assumed its current form.
India Working Harriss-White, Barbara
11/2002, Letnik:
v.Series Number 8
eBook
By drawing on her extensive fieldwork in India and on the adjacent theoretical literature, Barbara Harriss-White describes the working of the Indian economy through its most important social ...structures of accumulation. Successive chapters explore a range of topics including labour, capital, the state, gender, religious plurality, caste and space. Despite the complexity of the subject, the book is vivid and compelling. The author's intimate knowledge of the country enables the reader to experience the Indian local scene and to engage with the precariousness of daily life. Her conclusion challenges the prevailing notion that liberalisation releases the economy from political interference and leads to a postscript on the economic base for fascism in India. This is an intelligent book, first published in 2002, by a distinguished scholar, for students of economics, as well as for those studying the region.
Cette première monographie consacrée à l'œuvre d’Esther Tellermann met en lumière, à travers des textes de 1999-2019 dont le lyrisme décentré s’ouvre à l’Autre, un regard novateur sur des réalités ...intérieures et extérieures, l’intime du monde, l’Histoire et l’intertextualité. This first book-length study of Esther Tellermann’s œuvre highlights her innovative approach to inner and outer realities, in texts from 1999-2019 whose decentered lyricism foregrounds ritual and reverie while engaging in dialogue with fellow writers.
The question of why some countries have democratic regimes and others do not is a significant issue in comparative politics. This book looks at India and Pakistan, two countries with clearly ...contrasting political regime histories, and presents an argument on why India is a democracy and Pakistan is not. Focusing on the specificities and the nuances of each state system, the author examines in detail the balance of authority and power between popular or elected politicians and the state apparatus through substantial historical analysis.
India and Pakistan are both large, multi-religious and multi-lingual countries sharing a geographic and historical space that in 1947, when they became independent from British rule, gave them a virtually indistinguishable level of both extreme poverty and inequality. All of those factors militate against democracy, according to most theories, and in Pakistan democracy did indeed fail very quickly after Independence. It has only been restored as a façade for military-bureaucratic rule for brief periods since then. In comparison, after almost thirty years of democracy, India had a brush with authoritarian rule, in the 1975-76 Emergency, and some analysts were perversely reassured that the India exception had been erased. But instead, after a momentous election in 1977, democracy has become stronger over the last thirty years.
Providing a comparative analysis of the political systems of India and Pakistan as well as a historical overview of the two countries, this textbook constitutes essential reading for students of South Asian History and Politics. It is a useful and balanced introduction to the politics of India and Pakistan.
1. Introduction: Why India is a Democracy and Pakistan is not (yet?) a Democracy Part 1 : The First Thirty Years of Independence 2. Inheritances of Colonial rule 3. Constitutional & Political Choices, in the initial years 4. Institutionalizing Democracy 5. Who (Really) Governs? Part 2: From 1977 to the present 6. 1977 as a Turning Point? 7. Religion as an Explanation 8. External Influences 9. Clearly Diverging Paths 10. Prospects for Path Convergence in the Next Decades 11. Conclusion
Philip Oldenburg is a Research Scholar at the South Asia Institute of Columbia University, where he has taught political science since 1977. He has done field research in India on local self-government, and on national elections and has been editor or co-editor of ten books in the India Briefing series.
'This book deals with a most interesting and rather unexplored problem: why has India become a robust democracy and Pakistan ended up by being a military-ruled country while both of them share similar cultural features and emerged from the same history (including the colonial experience)?
Philip Oldenburg has not only chosen an excellent topic, he is also very well informed and gets his facts right. To present such an ambitious comparison in this format is a tour de force.' -- Christophe Jaffrelot, Senior Research Fellow CNRS, France
'This fine book, full of insight and wisdom, reflects Philip Oldenburg’s long scholarly engagement with the study of South Asian politics, and offers a magisterial synthesis of a wide literature in developing what will surely stand as the definitive comparative analysis of the political systems of India and Pakistan.' -- John Harriss, School for International Studies, Simon Fraser University, Canada
'This is the first major attempt to solve the puzzle of democratic divergence by looking at two countries with near-identical cultural, political, and social origins. Dr. Oldenburg's book is uniquely informed by deep familiarity with both India and Pakistan, and by a solid grasp of the relevant scholarly literature. It is a landmark in both regional studies and comparative political analysis, and will inform all future work on the democratization process.' -- Stephen P. Cohen, Brookings Institution, USA
"It's impossible for this review to do full justice to this richly-detailed, cool-headed, well-grounded must read for anyone interested in South Asia--or in the study of democracy." -- Patricia Lee Sharpe, Whirled View
"The book is carefully researched, well documented, and clearly argued...Policy analysts, journalists, and students interested in the contemporary politics of India and Pakistan will benefit considerably from a careful perusal of this book." -- Sumit Ganguly, H-Asia
"This book offers a nuanced assessment which shows that while India and Pakistan have not converged on an authoritarian model, they have much in common... Thoughtful questions are asked, difficult issues considered and a large amount of material is synthesised. Scholars, students and teachers alike will find this book very useful." - Andrew Wyatt, University of Bristol, UK; Pacific Affairs: Volume 85, No. 2 - June 2012
India Briefing Ayres, Alyssa; Oldenburg, Philip
09/2016, Letnik:
4
eBook
Since 2001, India has gained new attention as an emerging world power with a rapidly growing economy, a world-class science and technology sector, and a huge English-speaking labor pool. After a ...period of escalating tension with neighbor Pakistan, wide-ranging peace talks are underway. Within India, there is an unprecedented mood of optimism about the future. At the same time, the nation wrestles with difficult questions about the place of secularism in society, the role it sees for itself globally and within Asia, and the reality that millions of Indians still live at the subsistence level. This volume of India Briefing examines India's changing fortunes through chapters that cover the economy; the twists and turns of domestic politics; labor in the large informal sector; the cultural roots of Hindu nationalism; the foreign relations rollercoaster; the business of Bollywood; and a special chapter on the range of new resources about India available on the web.
Foreword; Map of South Asia; Map of India; Introduction. India Briefing: Takeoff at Last? - Philip K. Oldenburg and Alyssa Ayres; Politics: The BJP Falls from Power - Niraja Gopal Jayal; Indian Economy: New Pathways to Growth and Development - Isher Judge Ahluwalia; India's International Relations: The Search for Stability, Space, and Strength - Amitabh Mattoo; The Cultural Background of Hindutva, Richard H. Davis; Work and Wealth - Renana Jhabvala; The Business of Bollywood - Manjeet Kripalani; Downloading India: A Guide to Online Resources - Mary Rader; A Chronology - Irawati Parnerkar; Abbreviations and Glossary; About the Contributors; Index.
