JUST PUBLISHED

REBELS FROM THE MUD HOUSES

Dalits and the Making of the Maoist Revolution in Bihar

George Kunnath

‘This book succeeds in competently presenting the dynamics of Dalit mobilization and demobilization in contemporary Bihar. The distinctive aspect of this book is that it makes a necessary organic connection between the category of Dalit and peasant particularly in the context of caste configuration and class relation as unfolding in Bihar.’  

Professor Gopal Guru

Centre for Political Studies, School of Social Sciences,

Jawaharlal Nehru University

265pp 215x140 mm  Hardback   12 illustrations

Published  price Rs 625

ISBN 978-81-87358-52-7

SOCIOLOGY, ANTHROLOGY, DALIT STUDIES, POLITICS

Pub date 2012

Dalits participate in the Maoist Movement in a variety of ways – as party cadres, guerrilla fighters, loyal suppliers of food and shelter, and as both active and passive members of a host of revolutionary mass organizations.

Why did the Dalits of the Magadh region of South Bihar and, in particular, the district of Jehanabad, infamously termed ‘the killing fields’ join the Maoist Movement? Were they trapped between ‘two fires’ – the

revolutionary and counter-revolutionary violence? Did all Dalit castes support the Maoists or was there any particular Dalit caste at the forefront of the struggle? What did they achieve through the Maoist Movement? What reasons do they give for their current state of demobilization? Rebels from the Mud Houses: Dalits and the

Making of the Maoist Revolution in Bihar examines Dalit mobilization and the transformation of rural power relations in the context of intense agrarian violence involving Maoist guerrillas and upper caste militias backed by state forces in Bihar in the 1980s. The book investigates why thousands of Dalits took up arms and participated in the Maoist Movement. It explores the dynamic nature of Dalit response which involved a

movement from relative quiescence to mobilization and armed resistance, and eventually, to demobilization and alternative assertions based on caste identities.

Rebels from the Mud Houses highlights the specificities of Dalit participation in the Maoist Movement and develops an anthropology of the Maoist Revolution in India.

Contents

1. Introduction: Maoist Revolution in Perspective

2. Submerged Violences: Dalits, Landlessness and Subordination in Bihar

3. From the Mud Houses of Magadh: Revolutionary Murmurings and Dalit Militancy

4. Bonded Labourer to Maoist Guerrilla: Life Story of a Dalit Revolutionary

5. Negotiating Powers: Dalits and Shifting Mobilizations

6. Production and Reproduction of Violence: State, Senas and Maoists

Conclusion: An Anthropology of Revolution

Index

George J.Kunnath is Research Fellow at Anthropology Department, Goldsmiths College, University of London. His research interests include Marxist and Maoist guerrilla movements, caste and class relations, Dalit and Adivasi identity politics, development-conflict nexus, violence and research ethics.

JUST PUBLISHED

BEHIND THE BACKLASH

Muslim Americans after 9/11

Lori Peek

“One of the most devastating effects of a widespread disaster is its ability to create shifts in the prevailing cultural climate of an entire countryside and to change the way the various peoples of the countryside relate to each other. Behind the Backlash is a compelling, perceptive, and sensitively drawn portrayal of what happened to Muslim Americans, among the most loyal of national groups, when the dark shadow known as 9/11 passed over our land. A truly important study.”

—Kai Erikson,

Professor Emeritus of Sociology and American Studies, Yale University

“While relating the stories of Muslims struggling for acceptance in America in the wake of 9/11, Behind the Backlash offers analytic insights that demonstrate many of the social dynamics at work in Muslim marginalization and traumatization, as well as in their constructive responses. What Peek describes has important implications for all Americans concerned for minority groups that suddenly become suspect.”

—Peter Gottschalk,

Professor of Religion, Wesleyan University;

coauthor of Islamophobia: Making Muslims the Enemy

“In Behind the Backlash, Lori Peek weaves together the voices of American Muslims who tell of life lived in a post-9/11 world with the demagoguery of the media, official reports, and history. Her finished tapestry is a compelling dialogue between the human experiences of bigotry and the abstract forces that drive it. Behind the Backlash challenges each of us to reexamine the importance of tolerance in a civilized society. This book will be widely read and discussed. Bravo.”

—Steve Kroll-Smith, Editor of Sociological Inquiry;

Professor of Sociology, University of North Carolina, Greensboro

RIGHTS NOT AVAILABLE

222 pp 215x140 mm  Hardback

Published price Rs 595

ISBN  978-81-87358-67-1

SOCIOLOGY, DISASTER STUDIES,

Pub Date 2012

As America tried to absorb the shock of the 9/11 attacks, Muslim Americans were caught up in an unprecedented wave of backlash violence. Public discussion revealed that widespread misunderstanding and misrepresentation of Islam persisted, despite the striking diversity of the Muslim community. Letting the voices of 140 ordinary Muslim American men and women describe their experiences, Lori Peek's path-breaking book, Behind the Backlash, presents moving accounts of prejudice and exclusion. Muslims speak of being subjected to harassment before the attacks, and recount the discrimination they encountered afterwards. Peek also explains the struggles of young Muslim adults to solidify their community and define their identity during a time of national crisis. Behind the Backlash seeks to explain why blame and scape-goating occur after a catastrophe. Peek sets the twenty-first century experience of Muslim Americans, who were vilified and victimized, in the context of larger sociological and psychological processes.

Contents

1.       Introduction

2.       Under Attack

3.       Encountering Intolerance

4.       Backlash

5.       Repercussions

6.       Adaptations

7.       Conclusion

Notes

Index

Lori Peek is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Co-director of the Center for Disaster and Risk Analysis at Colorado State University. She has published widely on vulnerable populations in disaster and is co-editor of Displaced: Life in the Katrina Diaspora. 

Everyday Life of Political Struggles
Series editor Alpa Shah

WINDOWS INTO A REVOLUTION

Ethnographies of Maoism in India and Nepal

Edited by Alpa Shah and Judith Pettigrew

352 pp 215x140 mm  Hardback 11 illustrations

Published price Rs 695

ISBN  978-81-87358-49-7

SOCIOLOGY, POLITICS, HISTORY

Pub date October 2011

Read the book review in The Hindu at
http://www.thehindu.com/arts/books/article3371529.ece

‘Lines of fear and conflict cross what is already a changing and disrupted social life. By revealing how people live, every day, with violence and fear of both sides in a civil war, the authors show how they suffer and also how they create their own new relations, sharing suspicions, fears and pleasures. This is a new kind of political writing. Out of intensive local fieldwork in difficult and often dangerous circumstances, this writing has an authority that none of the others, including those of the state and of its enemies, do because it is so much better informed and never loses its loyalty to the local people.’

Professor Stephan Feuchtwang

London School of Economics and Political Science

‘What is it like to live through a revolution? This important collection brings together superb, hard-won anthropological insights from field sites all the way from Pashupati to Tirupati (from Nepal to Andhra Pradesh). It is essential reading for anyone who wants to know about Maoism in South Asia.’

Professor David N. Gellner

University of Oxford

‘In a context in which there is no end of misinformation and disinformation about the Maoist movements of South Asia, the articles in this collection - all based on rich ethnography - provide an invaluable resource, illuminating the complexities of the many different local experiences of Maoism in both India and Nepal. Windows into a Revolution is a vitally important contribution both to South Asian studies and to the comparative anthropological study of revolutionary politics.’

Professor John Harriss

Simon Fraser University, Vancouver

Everyday Life of Political Struggles reflects the subaltern experiences of political struggles, which are sometimes explosive but at other times silent, invisible and unnoticed by many commentators. The books in this series explore the tensions and constraints of class, race, gender, caste and religion within these struggles. They draw on fine-grained research, detailed description and rigorous analysis to bring clarity to the confusion of information emerging from various sources. The series draws on the works of historians, political scientists, anthropologists, sociologists, geographers, activists and journalists.

Windows into a Revolution, edited by Alpa Shah and Judith Pettigrew, the first book in the series offers glimpses into the spread of Maoism in India and Nepal by tracing some of its effects on the lives of ordinary people living amidst the revolutions. Weaving through the nostalgic reflections of former Bengali Naxalites; the resurgence of ancestral conflicts in the spread of the Maoists in the remote hills of western Nepal; the disillusionments of dalits of central Bihar in the policies of the cadres; to the complexities of the interrelationship between non-aligned civilians and insurgents in central Nepal, the book offers a series of windows into different stages of mobilization and transformation into what are, were or may become, revolutionary strongholds.

Contents

1. Windows in to a Revolution: Ethnographies of Maoism in India and Nepal - Alpa Shah and Judith Pettigrew

2. In Search of Certainty in Revolutionary India - Alpa Shah

3. The Formation of Political Consciousness in Rural Nepal - Sara Shneiderman

4. Smouldering Dalit Fires in Bihar - George Kunnath

5. Reflections of a One-time Maoist Activist - Sumanta Banerjee

6. Radical Masculinity: Morality, Sociality and Relationships through Recollections of Naxalite Activists - Henrike Donner

7. Women’s Empowerment and Rural Revolution: Rethinking “Failed Development” - Lauren G. Leve

8. From Ancestral Conflicts to Local Empowerment: Two Narratives from a Nep alese Community - Anne de Sales

9. Terror in a Maoist Model Village in Mid-western Nepal - Marie Lecomte -Tilouine

10. Fear and Everyday Life in Rural Nepal - Judith Pettigrew and Kamal Adhikari

11. Anti-‘anti-witchcraft’ and the Maoist Insurgency in Rural Maharashtra  - Amit Desai

12. The Purification Hunt: The Salwa Judum Counterinsurgency in Chhattisgarh -  Jason Miklian

13. The Social Fabric of the Jelbang Killings - Deepak Thapa, Kiyoko Ogura and Judith Pettigrew

JASSA SINGH AHLUWALIA (1718-1783)
The Forgotten Hero of Punjab
Sumant Dhamija

‘Sumant Dhamija has written a wonderful, well researched and entertaining biography of Jassa Singh…and in the process has brought 18th century Punjab to life.’
Liaquat Ahamed,
Winner of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for History
for Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World

___________________________________________

378 pages 215x140 mm Hardback 38 illustrations
Published price Rs 950
ISBN 978-81-87358-45-9
HISTORY, SIKH STUDIES
Pub date February 2011

____________________________________________

In Jassa Singh Ahluwalia (1718-1783): The Forgotten Hero of Punjab, Sumant Dhamija describes the riveting history of Punjab’s struggle for freedom and sovereignty. A key role was played by Jassa Singh and his fellow misl sardars who came into conflict, principally, with Ahmad Shah Abdali ‘Durrani’ (1724-72), King of Afghanistan, regarded as the greatest conqueror of his time. Inspired by Guru Gobind Singh, Jassa Singh united the panth, leading the Dal Khalsa, the Sikh army, to ultimate victory. The people of Punjab looked up to him as the warrior-saint. This victory puts Jassa Singh in the front ranks of the heroes of Indian history.

Sumant Dhamija is a freelance writer. He was educated at Mayo College, Ajmer, King’s School, Canterbury and Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He lives in Delhi with his wife Iqrup. They have two children Ritika and Udai. As President of The Oxford and Cambridge Society of India, he organized the history lecture, ‘Jassa Singh Ahluwalia of Punjab: from Sevak to Sovereign’, after which the book was born.
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
1. Punjab in 1718–1723
2. Jassa Singh’s Childhood: His Birth and Ancestry
3. Jassa Singh’s Delhi 1723–1729
4. Influence of Sikh Gurus
5. The Making of a Warrior: 1730–1739
6. Jassa Singh the Warrior
7. The Mughals and the Sikhs 1739–1748
8. Amritsar and the Rise of Jassa Singh
9. Jassa Singh’s Greatest Adversary: Ahmad Shah Abdali, King of Afghanistan
10. Sikh Territorial Consolidation: Alliance with Marathas
11. The Marathas and Abdali
12. Jassa Singh’s Military Strategies: Conquest of Lahore 1761
13. Jassa Singh’s Defeat and Victory
14. Defeat of Abdali
15. Expansion of Sikh Territory under Jassa Singh
16. Jassa Singh’s Relationship with the Jats, Rajas of Patiala and Mughals
17. Jassa Singh’s Invasion of Delhi
Epilogue
Appendices
Chronology
Glossary
Bibliography

UNRULY HILLSNature and Nation in India’s Northeast
Bengt G. Karlsson

‘This wonderful ethnography of Meghalaya’s natural resource politics, of nature and nation, makes engrossing reading. Deforestation, mining, the drying up of rivers, climate change as well as insurgency and sovereignty are words that trip easily off policy makers’ tongues, but too often, they lack engagement with real life. Here is a book that brings flesh and passion to these issues showing what they mean to the people affected. Balancing multiple actors and institutions, from the Supreme Court of India which banned timber felling in the Northeast to the Khasi Student’s Union which is protesting against uranium mining to ordinary men and women who recount myths about their sacred hills, this volume fills a critical gap in the environmental history and ethnography of both Northeast India and the current moment of resource management.’
Nandini Sundar, Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University

‘Unruly Hills is one of the most original and provocative books on environment and politics in India. Communities supposedly control most land, forests and other natural resources in the hills of Northeast India. However capitalist transformations have rendered the hill communities quite powerless: they are hardly able to control the local resource base. Behind the legal fictions of community ownership lie the ugly reality of a ‘resource frontier’ where there is massive privatization and accumulation of land by local elites and serious environmental degradation as the result of the crude exploitation of forests, water, and mineral resources. Karlsson’s book brims with fresh insights on the crisis of legitimacy of India’s democratic institutions in this border region.’
Sanjib Baruah, Bard College, New York and Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi

_____________________________________________

350 pp 215x140 mm Hardback 14 illustrations
SSP-OBS joint publication
Published price Rs 695
ISBN 978-81-87358-59-6
Pub date Jan 2011

____________________________________________

Unruly Hills examines the intersection of environmental and ethnic politics in the Indian state of Meghalaya. Based on extensive fieldwork, the author traces the entanglements of forest management, mining and territorial conflicts with local demands for indigenous sovereignty and rebellious aspirations for ethnic homelands. Massive extractions of limestone; controversies over uranium deposits; and the Supreme Court ban on logging apply to the cases specifically explored.
The book will be of interest to students of anthropology, political ecology and environmental history as well as to those concerned with development and the rights of indigenous peoples.
ContentsIntroduction
1. Nature and Nation
2. Elusive Forests
3. Shifting Land Rights
4. Mining Matters
5. Indigenous Governance
6. Political Ecology at the Frontier
Bibliography
Index

Bengt G. Karlsson is Associate Professor in Social Anthropology at Stockholm University. His main research interests concern the politics of nature and identity, especially in relation to indigenous peoples’ movements in India. He is author of Contested Belonging: An Indigenous People’s Struggle for Forest and Identity in Sub-Himalayan Bengal (2000) and co-editor of Indigeneity in India (2006) with T.B. Subba.