LITERATURE AND NATIONALIST IDEOLOGY
Writing Histories of Modern Indian LanguagesEdited by Hans Harder

400 pp 215x140 mm Hardback
Published price Rs 695
ISBN 978-81-87358-33-6
Tentative Pub Date March 2010
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE, LINGUISTICS, HISTORY, SOCIOLOGY

‘This volume takes on…big questions, making a sophisticated and significant contribution to the great tradition of assessing the emergence of literary modernity in South Asia.’- Vasudha Dalmia, Professor of Hindi and Chair of the Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of California

Also available as ebook at: http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/literature_and_nationalist_ideology/

Writing histories of literature means making selections, passing value judgments, and incorporating or rejecting foregoing traditions. The book argues that in many parts of India, literary histories play an important role in creating a cultural ethos. They are closely linked with nationalism in general and various regional ‘sub-nationalisms’ in particular.

Literary historiography helps to establish a national literature in a way that is not always unproblematic: systematic representation of literary works and authors is as much part of this story as conscious omissions or political spins in the making of a literary heritage.The contributors to this volume look at a great variety of aspects of the historiography of modern regional languages of India. The approach excludes classical languages of India from this approach, except Tamil which is considered a modern and a classical language at the same time. It includes the late yet undoubtedly successful arrival of English in the nation’s literary corpus.

Hans Harder teaches Modern South Asian Languages and Literatures at the South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University, Germany.

Contents
Introduction - Hans Harder
1. Shaping a Literary Space: Early Literary Histories in Malayalam and Normative Uses of the Past - Udaya Kumar
2 Drowning in the Ocean of Tamil: Islamic Texts and the Historiography of Tamil Literature - Torsten Tschacher
3. From Scattered Archives to the Centre of Discourse: Histories of Telugu Literature in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Heiko Frese
4. Beyond the Nation: A Comparatist’s Thoughts on some Foundational Categories in the Literary Historiography of ‘Post’-colonial South Asian Literatures- Ipshita Chanda
5. Dinesh Chandra Sen’s ‘The Folk Literature of Bengal’: The Canonization of Folk and the Conception of the Feminine - Sourav Kargupta
6. Ethics or Aesthetics? Obscenity as a Category for Evaluating the Hindi Public Sphere in Colonial North India - Charu Gupta

7. George Abraham Grierson’s Literary Hindustan - Ira Sarma
8. The Impact of Sectarian Lobbyism on Hindi Literary Historiography: The Fascinating Story of Bhagvadacharya Ramanandi - Purushottam Agrawal
9. The Politics of Exclusion?: The Place of Muslims, Urdu and its Literature in Ramchandra Shukla’s ‘Hindi Sahitya ka Itihas’ - Navina Gupta
10. A Discourse of Difference: ‘Syncretism’ as a Category in Indian Literary History - Thomas de Bruijn11. Unscripted: The People of Arunachal Pradesh in Literary and other National Histories - Stuart Blackburn
12. Indian Literature in English and the Problem of Naturalisation - Hans Harder
13. The Mahatma as Proof: The Nationalist Origins of the Historiography of Indian Writing in English - Snehal Shingavi

THE MANY WORLDS OF SARALA DEVI: A DiaryTranslated from Jeevaner Jharapata
Sukhendu Raywith an Introduction by Bharati Ray&

THE TAGORES AND SARTORIAL STYLES: A Photo EssayMalavika Karlekar

Also available as ebook at: http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/the_many_worlds_of_sarala_devi_and_the_tagores_and_sartorial_styles/

228 pp 215x140 mm Hardback 15 illustrations
Published price Rs 550
ISBN 978-81-87358-31-2
Pub date January 2010

This charming book The Many Worlds of Sarala Devi and The Tagores and Sartorial Styles, as the titles suggest, contain two separate but related writings on the Tagores. The Tagores were a pre-eminent family which became synonymous with the cultural regeneration of India, specifically of Bengal, in the nineteenth century.
The first writing is a sensitive translation of Sarala Devi’s memoirs from the Bengali, Jeevaner Jharapata, by Sukhendu Ray. It is the first autobiography written by a nationalist woman leader of India. Sarala Devi was Rabindranath Tagore’s niece and had an unusual life. The translation unfolds, among other things, what it was like to grow up in a big affluent house Jorasanko, that had more than 116 inmates and a dozen cooks! The second writing by Malavika Karlekar is a photo essay, creatively conceived, visually reflecting the social and cultural trends of the times, through styles of dress, jewellery and accoutrements. The modern style of wearing a sari was introduced by Jnanadanandini Devi, a member of the Tagore family.
The introduction by the well-known historian, Bharati Ray, very perceptively captures the larger context of family, marriage, women’s education and politics of the time which touched Sarala Devi’s life. She points out that if memoirs are a kind of social history then women’s diaries record social influences not found in official accounts and are therefore, a rich source of documentation.

Sukhendu Ray has published several translations from Bengali literature of which the more recent ones are, The Winged Horse from Thakurmar Jhuli (OUP, 1997); Rabindranath Tagore’s Chokher Bali (Rupa, 2006) and Sukanta Chaudhuri ed. Selected Writings for Children: Rabindranath Tagore (OUP, 2006).
Bharati Ray is Honorary Professor, Department of History, Calcutta University. She is the author of Early Feminists in Colonial Bengal: Sarala Devi Chaudhurani and Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain (OUP, 2002); From Independence Towards Freedom: Indian Women since 1947 (OUP, 1999) and From the Seams of History: Essays on Indian Women (OUP, 1995).
Malavika Karlekar is Editor, Indian Journal of Gender Studies and the Curator of Re-presenting Indian Women 1875-1947: A Visual Documentary. Her recent publications include Remembered Childhood: Essays in Honour of André Béteille co-edited with Rudrangshu Mukherjee (OUP, 2010); In So Many Words: Women’s Life Experiences from Western and Eastern India co-edited with Aparna Basu (Routledge, 2008) and Re-visioning the Past: Early Photography in Bengal 1875-1915 (OUP, 2005).

Joint publication SSP-OBS

THE SUNDARBANS
Folk Deities, Monsters and Mortals
Sutapa Chatterjee Sarkar

212 pages 215x140 mm Hardback 10 illustrations
Published price Rs 550
ISBN 978-81-87358-35-0
HISTORY, ANTHROPOLOGY, SOCIOLOGY, ETHNOGRAPHY, ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY
Pub Date January 2010

The lower deltaic Bengal, the Sundarbans has always had a life of its own, unique in its distinctive natural aspect and social development. Geographical and ecological evidence indicates that most of the area used to be once covered with dense, impenetrable jungle even as patches of cultivation sprang intermittently into life and then disappeared. A continuous struggle ensued between man and nature, as portrayed in the punthi literature that thrived in lower deltaic Bengal between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries.

The construction of a permanent railroad connecting Calcutta to Canning further facilitated the influx of new ideas and these, subsequently, found expression in the spreading of co-operative movements, formation of peasant organizations, and finally culminated in open rebellion by the peasants (Tebhaga Movement). The struggle between men and the dangerous forests was therefore overshadowed by the conflict among men.

This book will be of great interest to students of history, sociology, anthropology and economic geography.

Sutapa Chatterjee Sarkar is Reader, Department of History, West Bengal State University.

Contents
Preface and Acknowledgements
Maps
Abbreviations
1. The Sundarbans Folk Deities, Monsters and Mortals: Introduction
2. Fearsome Forests and Rising Tides: A Historical Geography of the Sundarbans
3. The Sundarbans in punthi Literature
4. Tilman Henckell: An Advocate of Colonial Paternalism
5. Land Reclamation from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century
6. Development of the Port at Canning and Gosaba Co-operative
7. Tebhaga in Kakdwip
8. The Sundarbans in Modern Bengali Fiction
9. The Mangrove and the Man: A Conclusion
Glossary
Index

In Paperback: Religious Division and Social Conflict

RELIGIOUS DIVISION AND SOCIAL CONFLICT
The Emergence of Hindu Nationalism in Rural IndiaPeggy Froerer

316 pages 215x140 mm Paperback 8 b/w photographs
Rs 295
ISBN 978-81-87358-51-0
SOCIOLOGY, ETHNOGRAPHY, RELIGION, POLITICS

Pub date December 2009

Also available as ebook at: http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/religious_division_and_social_conflict/

Religious Division and Social Conflict: The Emergence of Hindu Nationalism in Rural India is an ethnographic account of the emergence of Hindu nationalism in a tribal (adivasi) community in Chhattisgarh, central India. It is argued that the successful spread of Hindu nationalism in this area is due to the involvement of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a militant Hindu nationalist organization, in local affairs. While active engagement in 'civilizing' strategies has enabled the RSS to legitimize its presence and endear itself to the local community, the book argues that participation in more aggressive strategies has made it possible for this organization to fuel and attach local tensions to a broader Hindu nationalist agenda.

ContentsAcknowledgements
Note on Transliteration
Glossary of Selected Words
1. Introduction
2. Adivasi Hindus and the RSS
3. Adivasi Christians and the Church
4. Health, Biomedicine and the RSS
5. Local Corruption and the Politics of Inclusion
6. Land Relations and Local Tensions
7. Liquor Disputes and the Communalization of Local Tensions
8. Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
Peggy Froerer is Lecturer in Anthropology, School of Social Sciences, Brunel University, UK.

THE EVERYDAY STATE AND SOCIETY IN MODERN INDIA
Edited by C. J. Fuller and Véronique Benei

231 pages 215x140 mm Paperback
Rs 350
ISBN 978-81-87358-57-2
SOCIOLOGY, POLITICS, GENDER STUDIES

Also available as ebook at: http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/the_everyday_state_and_society_in_modern_india/

The Everyday State and Society in Modern India focuses on how the large, amorphous and impersonal Indian state affects the everyday lives of ordinary citizens. All the eight essays in this book are original contributions and are based on empirical research. They dwell on a variety of issues, such as riot control, the Emergency, corruption, irrigation, rural activism and education and cut across academic disciplines.

Written lucidly on themes which preoccupy most people, these essays lend clarity and cogency to the confusion of everyday life, contributing to a better understanding of the Indian social and political environment.
C. J. Fuller is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the author of The Camphor Flame: Popular Hinduism and Indian Society (Princeton University Press, 2004); The Renewal of the Priesthood: Modernity and Traditionalism in a South Indian Temple (Princeton University Press, 2003) and has co-edited (with Jackie Assayag) Globalizing India: Perspectives from Below (Anthem Press, 2005).

Véronique Benei is Visiting Senior Fellow in Anthropology at the LSE . She is also Senior Research Fellow in Anthropology at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (IIAC/LAIOS) and holds an Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches from Paris University. She is the author of Schooling India: Hindus, Muslims, and the Forging of Citizens (2009) and several papers in edited volumes and scholarly journals.

Follow us on Twitter.com/beteillessp

INDIA’S ECONOMIC FUTURE
Education, Technology, Energy and EnvironmentEdited by Manmohan Agarwal


294 pages 215x140 mm Hardback
Rs 595
ISBN 978-81-87358-17-6
EDUCATION, ECONOMICS, POLITICS, BUSINESS STUDIES
Pub Date September 2009

Also see:http://www.cigionline.org/publications/2009/8/indias-economic-future-education-energy-and-environment

Available as ebook at http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/indias_economic_future/

The Indian economy continues to grow rapidly, taking in its stride poor harvests and rising oil prices. Industrial output, which had tended to be relatively low, has increased to double-digit levels, accompanied by rising levels of savings and investment. India’s healthy export performance has resulted in increased amounts of foreign exchange reserves, insuring against a large balance of payments (BOP) deficit in the future. An important factor in this process has been India’s relative political stability. Democracy is well entrenched and changes of government occur reasonably peacefully.

Is there a fly in the ointment? Could the growth process slacken or can it be accelerated further? What are the constraints to maintaining a high rate of growth over the next decade or two? These questions acquire special significance as we try to understand long-term growth in the current context of global economic slowdown. The papers in this volume seek to answer these questions.

Manmohan Agarwal former Professor, Centre for International Trade and Development, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), is Senior Visiting Fellow at The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), Canada. He has a long and distinguished record of expertise in international trade, development and economics as it relates to Asia, and especially to India.
Contents:
Introduction by Manmohan AgarwalSECTION I: MACRO POLICY, TECHNOLOGY AND GROWTHMaintenance of a High Rate of Growth: A Macroeconomic Perspective by Manmohan Agarwal
Emerging through Technological Capability? Analysing India’s Technological Trajectory by Amit Shovon Ray
Determinants, Constraints and Impact of Foreign Direct Investment: India–China Comparison by N. S. Siddharthan
Agricultural Development Policies and Growth of Indian Agriculture by Ramesh Chand
SECTION II: EDUCATION
School Education: A Constraint to the Sustainability of High Growth Rate in India by Muchkund Dubey
Dream India: Is Its Education Competitive Enough? By P.V. Indiresan
Reservations and the Idea of Fairness: Quotas for OBCs in Higher Education by Gurpreet Mahajan
SECTION III: SUSTAINABILITY, ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTEnergy and High Growth in India: Sustainability Issues by Yoginder K. Alagh
Sustainability of India’s Economic Growth by Aparna Sawhney

REFLECTIONS ON CAMBRIDGEAlan Macfarlane

243 pages with 20 illustrations 215x140 mm

Indian edition: Hardback Rs 450 ISBN 978-81-87358-48-0

International edition: Paperback $24.95 ISBN 978-81-87358-50-3
ANTHROPOLOGY, SOCIOLOGY, HISTORY

Pub Date August 2009

"... the Cambridge book - full of wisdom, warmth and great stories, a kind of manifesto for the liberal arts as well as a song of love for a place. "

- Michael Chaplin, film producer and writer

Also available as ebook at: http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/reflections_on_cambridge/

Also check out

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/cambridge-companions/507641/

http://www.thehindu.com/2009/08/25/stories/2009082550280200.htm

http://www.alanmacfarlane.com/FILES/camb-book.htm

http://www.cambridge-india.org/research/humanities/humanity.html

The traditions and creativity of Cambridge University have survived 800 years. In celebration, this first-ever combined historical and anthropological account explores the culture, the customs, the colleges and the politics of this famous institution. As professor there for nearly forty years, the author sets forth on a personal but also dispassionate attempt to understand how this ancient university developed and changed, and how it continues to influence those who pass through it. This book delves into the history and architecture as well as the charm and the ghosts of Cambridge presenting a valuable resource for anyone who studies, teaches, visits, or is intrigued by this great intellectual centre.

Alan Macfarlane is Professor of Anthropological Science, University of Cambridge, and Life Fellow, King’s College Cambridge. In 1986 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy. He was born in Assam, India, and his work covers Britain, India, China and Japan. Throughout his distinguished career, Alan Macfarlane has published widely in history and anthropology. His publications include Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England (1970,1999) Routledge, London; Resources and Population (1976) CUP; The Origins of English Individualism (1978) Blackwell, Oxford; A Guide to English Historical Records (1983) CUP; The Culture of Capitalism (1987) Blackwell, Oxford; The Savage Wars of Peace (1997) Blackwell, Oxford; Green Gold: The Empire of Tea (2003) (with Iris Macfarlane) Ebury Press, London.

Contents:PrefaceSection I: HISTORY
Strange Survival
The Changing Same
Section II: CULTURE
Charm and Ghosts
Culture
The Culture of Politics
Rhythms
Section III: SOCIETY
Customs
Colleges
Community
Associations
Section IV: IDEAS
Education
Creativity
Discovery

THE POLITICS AND CULTURE OF GLOBALIZATION

India and Australia
Edited by Hans Löfgren and Prakash Sarangi

358 pages 215x140 mm Hardback
Tentative price Rs 625
ISBN 978-81-87358-22-0
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, BUSINESS STUDIES, ECONOMICS, POLITICS, CULTURE STUDIES

Pub Date January 2009

‘An important contribution to the critical discourse on globalisation it is a unique Indo-Australian intellectual endeavour grappling incisively with deeper issues of philosophy and policy in the contemporary world.’

Manoranjan Mohanty,Council for Social Development, New Delhi

‘With its cogent analysis and lucid style, this volume is a valuable addition to critical readings on globalisation…The focus on process – governance, institutions, and area studies – is an added strength... With its analytical depth and empirical stretch, it will be a valuable addition to this important field.’
Subrata K Mitra,
University of Heidelberg, Germany‘It will be a very useful volume for all the graduate students who are trying to understand [the] complex and multi faceted nature of the phenomenon of globalisation.’Rajen Harshe,
Vice Chancellor, University of Allahabad

Also available as ebook at: http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/the_politics_and_culture_of_globalisation/

WE EXPERIENCE the culture of globalisation every time we visit a Tandoori restaurant in Chicago, or a Pizza Hut in Hyderabad, or as we watch Bollywood films in Australia. Globalisation is a label used for a wide range of political, social and cultural phenomena, many of which are explored in this volume.

The Politics and Culture of Globalisation: India and Australia brings together Indian and Australian experts in the fields of political science, international relations, philosophy, cultural theory and political economy. Its timeliness and unifying theme derive from comparisons between Indian and Australian perspectives, and analyses by Australian writers on developments in India. Indian-Australian relations are explored in several chapters.

The neo-liberal form of globalisation is a key focus of critique in this volume. Several chapters examine the search for alternative forms of governance as the nation-state undergoes profound change due to global interconnectedness.
Hans Löfgren is Director of the Master of Politics and Policy Program at Deakin University, Australia. He has published extensively on the politics and economics of pharmaceuticals, for example in New Political Science (2007), Australia and New Zealand Health Policy (2007) and Social Science & Medicine (2004).

Prakash Sarangi is Professor of Political Science at the University of Hyderabad. His publications include Liberal Theories of State: Contemporary Perspectives (1996) and Political Exchange and Public Policy: A Cross-National Analysis (1990).

ContentsIntroduction: Dynamics and Dilemmas of Globalisation – Hans Löfgren and Prakash Sarangi

Section I Making sense of globalisationJustice, Globalisation and Diverse Conceptual Worlds – Michael Leahy
Ontology of Permanence and Change: A Critique of Globalisation – A. RaghuramarajuNeo-liberal Hyperglobalism in Australian Political Thought – Geoffrey StokesHyperglobalisation’s Casualty: The Numerical Small – Purushottama Bilimoria
Section II Governance and globalisationGlobalization and Indian Federalism: Re-assertion of States’ Rights – Harihar BhattacharyyaChallenges of Globalisation in Urban Local Governance – Sudha Mohan
Understanding Community Governance and Rural Regeneration in a Globalised World – Kevin O’Toole
Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals in South India: ‘Sun-rise’ Industrialisation or Global Cost-shifting of Dirty Goods Manufacturing – G.VijayIndia’s Drug Multinationals: Growth Strategies and Global Industry Dynamics – Hans Löfgren

Section III Experiencing globalisation

‘The Good Australians’: Anglo-Indians, Multiculturalism and Cosmopolitanism – Glenn D’Cruz
Cosmopolitanism and Tolerance – Stan van Hooft
Late Marxism and Parliamentary Government: Indian Communism Today – Geoff Robinson
Section IV Globalisation, Foreign Relations and SecurityIndo-Australian Relations in the Post-Cold War Period – Y. Yagama Reddy and Ken BoutinIndo-Australian Relations: Beyond Indifference – Gary SmithTerror, Power and Protest – Andrew Vandenberg

Globalisation, ‘Glocalisation’ and South Asian Insecurity – B. Ramesh Babu

REBUILDING BUDDHISM
The Theravada Movement in Twentieth-Century NepalSarah LeVine and David N. Gellner

Social Science Press-Orient Blackswan joint publication
390 pages 215x140 mm Hardback
Rs 795
ISBN 978-81-87358-39-8
RELIGION, SOCIOLOGY, ANTHROPOLOGY, POLITICS
Pub Date December 2008

'a significant ethnographic contribution... a splendidly rendered ethnography that advances a wealth of informed analysis about Buddhist renewal in Nepal while suggesting many insights into the process of Buddhist revitalization throughout the region.'
Ingrid Jordt, American Anthropologist
Rebuilding Buddhism 'will remain the standard reference on Theravada Buddhism in Nepal for a long time to come... It is a long time since I have been so enchanted by a book (for a scholarly book – it is sad how seldom one can say this – it is written in an engaging and fluent way) and it is a long time since I learnt so much as from reading this monograph.'
Karénina Kollmar-Paulenz, Anthropos

'[T]he book is an excellent investment for anyone who wants to understand what is going on in Nepal today and what the future might hold not only for the Newar community but for all the peoples of Nepal.'
John Locke, S.J., Contributions to Nepalese Studies

Rebuilding Buddhism describes in evocative detail the experiences and achievements of Nepalis who have adopted Theravada Buddhism. This form of Buddhism was introduced into Nepal from Burma and Sri Lanka in the 1930s, and its adherents have struggled for recognition and acceptance ever since. With its focus on the austere figure of the monk and the biography of the historical Buddha, and more recently with its emphasis on individualizing meditation and on gender equality, Theravada Buddhism contrasts sharply with the highly ritualized Tantric Buddhism traditionally practiced in the Kathmandu Valley.
Based on extensive fieldwork, interviews, and historical reconstruction, the book provides a rich portrait of the different ways of being a Nepali Buddhist over the past seventy years. At the same time it explores the impact of the Theravada movement and what its gradual success has meant for Buddhism, for society, and for men and women in Nepal.
Contents
1: The Origins of Modernist Buddhism
2: Theravada Missionaries in an Autocratic State
3: Creating a Tradition
4: Charisma and Education
5: The Changing Buddhist Laity
6: Organizing and Educating the Monastic Community
7: Raising the Status of Nuns
8: Winds of Change
9: Other Buddhist Revival Movements
10: Nepal’s Theravadins in the Twenty-first Century
Appendices
Glossary
Notes and References
Index
Sarah LeVine is Associate in Sanskrit and India Studies, Harvard University. She is also the author of Mothers & Wives: Gusii Women of East Africa (University of Chicago Press, 1979), Dolor Y Alegria: Women and Social Change in Urban Mexico (University of Wisconsin Press, 1993), and The Saint of Kathmandu: Tales of the Sacred in Distant Lands (Beacon Press, 2008).

David N. Gellner is Professor of Social Anthropology and Fellow of All Souls, University of Oxford. Among his other books are Resistance and the State: Nepalese Experiences (Social Science Press, 2003), The Anthropology of Buddhism and Hinduism: Weberian Themes (OUP, 2001), Contested Hierarchies: A Collaborative Ethnography of Caste among the Newars of the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal (OUP, 1995), and Monk, Householder and Tantric Priest: Newar Buddhism and its Hierarchy of Ritual (Cambridge University Press, 1992).

‘GOOD WOMEN DO NOT INHERIT LAND’
Politics of Land and Gender in IndiaNitya Rao

‘… Rao's book is good development anthropology with deep ethnographic insights about gender empowerment. … the Santals ...[are] a distinct part of the peasantry in a de-peasantizing world!’
- Anjan Ghosh, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta



368 pages 215x140 mm Hardback 10 photographs
Social Science Press-Orient BlackSwan joint publication
Rs 795
ISBN 978-81-87358-24-4
SOCIOLOGY, SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY, HISTORY, GENDER STUDIES
Pub Date November 2008


‘Good women should not claim a share in the inheritance, even if they have no brothers….’ Notions such as this have, in their own way and over time, given the women in the Santal Parganas the resolve to wrest what is rightfully theirs.

This is a powerful book in the way in which it unfolds the lives and anxieties of Santal women in Dumka district, Jharkhand. Several case studies bring these women alive through the pages of the book. Land for the Santal women stands for security, social position and identity, and in this men have a distinct advantage. The use of personal narrative by the author brings out the similarities between the experiences of a woman brought up in a city and those of the tribal women in Jharkhand.
As the account unfolds, the reader is made aware that the use of a ‘community’ identity as adivasis has also been responsible for denying women rights to land in the context of the movement for political autonomy of Jharkhand.

Based on rich ethnographic material, this sensitive book lays bare the reality of being an adivasi and an adivasi woman, in all its nuances, in the modern globalized world.

Nitya Rao is Senior Lecturer, School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.

ContentsChapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: A Personal Journey
Chapter 3: Faces of Poverty: The Villages Profiled
Chapter 4: Reinventing Tradition: Agrarian Movements in History
Chapter 5: Land as a Productive Resource
Chapter 6: Locating Identities
Chapter 7: Women’s Claims to Land
Chapter 8: Custom and Courts: Bargaining with Modernity
Chapter 9: Development Interventions: Can One Size fit all?
Chapter 10: Conclusions
Bibliography
Index

RESISTANCE AND THE STATENepalese Experiences
Revised Edition
Edited by David N. Gellner



For South Asia only
392 pages 215x140 mm Paperback Revised edition
Rs 360
ISBN 978-81-87358-41-1
SOCIOLOGY, POLITICS, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS


'…an excellent contribution to our understanding of Nepal's current situation and worth the attention of anyone seriously interested in the subject.'
- JOHN WHELPTON in European Bulletin of Himalayan Research, 27 [2004]

Resistance and the State: Nepalese Experiences uses ethnographic case studies to explore healthcare programmes, forestry, national parks, political parties, and ethnic revivalism. This fascinating and readable book also gives a graphic description of conflicts over the interpretation of history, and various perspectives on the Maoist insurgency that has taken control of large parts of rural Nepal since 1996. This is arguably the longest and most widespread Marxist rebellion that South Asia has known.
The contributors to this volume illuminate the complex relationship — sometimes wary, sometimes accommodative, and sometimes violent — between a modernizing, developmentalist state, and the people it professes to represent and benefit. This book will be of immense value both to experts — political scientists, historians, sociologists, and anthropologists — and to the general reader.
David N. Gellner is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of All Souls.

NEW MANSIONS FOR MUSICPerformance, Pedagogy and Criticism
Lakshmi Subramanian

182 pages 215x140 mm Hardback 8 illustrations
Social Science Press-Orient Longman Joint publication
Rs 425
ISBN 978-81-87358-34-3
MUSIC, HISTORY, CULTURE STUDIES, SOCIOLOGY
Pub Date July 2008


THE ESSAYS in New Mansions for Music: Performance, Pedagogy and Criticism look at one of the most ancient and rigorous classical musical traditions of India, the Karnatik music system, and the kind of changes it underwent once it was relocated from traditional spaces of temples and salons to the public domain. Nineteenth-century Madras led the way in the transformation that Karnatik music underwent as it encountered the forces of modernization and standardization. This study also contributes to our understanding of the experience of modernity in India through the prism of music. The role of Madras city as patron and custodian of the performing arts, especially classical music offers an invaluable perspective on the larger processes of modernization in India.

In an immensely readable book peppered with anecdotes and conversations with leading musicians and critics of the day, as well as humorous visual representations, part caricature, part satirical, the author describes a rapidly changing society and its new look in early-twentieth-century Madras.
Contents:Introduction
Chapter 1: The Katcheri: Living Laboratory or Enchanted Space
Chapter 2: Articulating an Aesthetic: The Emergence of the Music Critic in Modern South India
Chapter 3: From the Gurukula to the University: Initiatives in Music Education
Chapter 4: The Lighter Side of Entertainment

On the History of Music: A Bibliographical Essay
Glossary
Index

Lakshmi Subramanian is Professor, Department of History and Culture, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. Her earlier publications include From the Tanjore Court to the Madras Music Academy: A Social History of Music in South India, O.U.P, Delhi, 2006.

WRITING HISTORY IN THE SOVIET UNION
Making the Past Work
Arup Banerji

342 pages 215x140 mm Hardback
Social Science Press-Orient Longman Joint publication
Rs 695
ISBN 978-81-87358-37-4
HISTORY, POLITICS, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Pub Date June 2008


THE HISTORY of the Soviet Union has been charted in several studies over the decades. These depictions have failed to draw attention to the political and academic environment within which these histories were composed. Writing History in the Soviet Union: Making the Past Work is aimed at understanding this environment.

The book seeks to identify the significant hallmarks of the production of Soviet history by Soviet as well as Western historians. The book surveys the rich abundance of writing the Russian Revolution generated as well as the divergent approaches to the history of the period. The conditions for research in Soviet archives are described as an aspect of official monitoring of history writing. Another instance of this is the manner by which history textbooks have, through the years, been withdrawn from schools and others officially nursed into circulation. This intervention, occasioned in the present circumstance by statements by President Putin himself, in the manner in which history is taught in Russian schools, continues to this day. In other words, over the years, the regime has always worked to make the past work.

Arup Banerji teaches Russian, Soviet and West European History at the Department of History, University of Delhi. He has published a study of private trade and traders during the 1920s, Merchants and Markets in Revolutionary Russia, 1917-30, and has written on politics and economic issues in the Russian Federation as well as on the Silk Routes.

Contents:Preface
Introduction: Inherited Traditions of Historical Scholarship
Chapter 1: The Histories of History in the Soviet Union
Chapter 2: The Impact of Glasnost on the Writing of History
Chapter 3: Histories of the Communist Party as Histories of the Soviet Union
Chapter 4: Depictions and Revisions: The Russian Revolution in History
Chapter 5: The Historical Archive
Chapter 6: History in Russian Schools
Bibliography
Index

PARTNERS IN DEVELOPMENTIndia and Switzerland
Richard Gerster

171 pages 160x250 mm Hardback 75 colour photographs
Rs 450
ISBN 978-81-87358-40-4
DEVELOPMENT STUDIES, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Pub Date April 2008


THIS ABUNDANTLY ILLUSTRATED, accessible and perceptive account of the Indo-Swiss cooperation in India’s development programme is a remarkable book. The cooperation dates back to 1958, and it is not widely known that Switzerland was the first country to enter into a treaty of friendship with the then newly independent India on 14 August 1948.

Partners in Development, as the title suggests, brings out the rare quality of a partnership between a donor and a recipient country. Written with a dispassionate assessment of this dynamic relationship which has undergone changes as India has itself become a donor country, the book throws open many important questions relating to development programmes in India today. The book states candidly that however important in specific instances, development cooperation should not be overestimated and that the Indo-Swiss development cooperation has benefited both sides. Nevertheless it comments that India is indeed a world economic power today, and Switzerland, jointly with other foreign agencies, has contributed to this success.
The book begins with an excellent introduction of the country’s brief history from independence to the present day, and concludes that India’s ‘economic miracle’, however important, is not as impressive as the survival and vitality of the country’s democratic institutions. This idea has been echoed by Gerster and other contributors to this volume.
It then moves on to dwell on areas where the cooperation has been successful as well as where it has not. The important areas of success have been in vocational training, animal husbandry and dairy farming, biotechnology and microfinance and methodology.

Richard Gerster is the winner of several development policy awards and has authored numerous books and articles on development policy He is the Director of Gerster Consulting, Switzerland (see www.gersterconsulting.ch).

POLITICAL THEOLOGIESPublic Religions in a Post-Secular World
Edited by Hent de Vries and Lawrence E. Sullivan

RIGHTS NOT AVAILABLE
Social Science Press-Orient Longman joint publication
360 pages 180x240 mm Hardback
Rs 795
ISBN 978-81-87358-36-7
THEOLOGY, POLITICS, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIOLOGY
Pub Date January 2008

“There is no more important topic today than the role of religion in public life. It is vital in both peace and war, debate and consensus, democracy and repression, nationalism and transnational humanitarian action. For anyone wishing to survey the range of theoretical perspectives on this theme, this collection by Hent de Vries and Lawrence Sullivan is indispensable. It offers the single best assemblage of sources for understanding not only political theologies, but issues of pluralism, secularism, and contending ideas of the human that they raise.”

—CRAIG CALHOUN, President, Social Science Research Council

“The wholly unanticipated reemergence of religion into the realm of politics and public policy, which is happening all over the world, is puzzling and worrisome to some people. Many explanations for this surprising development have been advanced, none fully satisfactory. Now this volume brings together some of the keenest and best-informed analysis yet available, from a variety of disciplines and perspectives. It sets a new gold standard for future attempts to understand the growing role of religion in the twenty-first century.”

—HARVEY COX, Hollis Professor of Divinity, Harvard University

IN A GLOBALIZED WORLD, how can one bridge the private lives of individuals and public cultures or ways of life? In what ways does religion, with regard to words, gestures, and things, exert a pressure on structures of governance? Political Theologies: Public Religions in a Post-secular World opens an inquiry concerning the engagement of religion with politics.

Religion, in its local and global form, is perceived as a ‘problem’ to which intellectuals, policy-makers, cultural critics and economists direct their attention. A society is ‘post-secular’ if it reckons with the diminishing but enduring – and hence, perhaps, ever more resistant – existence of the religious.

The seventeen papers in this volume examine interrelationships between the political, economic and cultural characteristics of the ‘age of globalization’ on the one hand and the vision of society and structures of governance developed over millennia by religious traditions on the other. It explores the possibility that religion might give people a chance to lead better lives in the modern milieu.
The volume will be of great interest to students of religion, politics, sociology and philosophy, as well as the interested general reader.

Hent de Vries is Professor of Humanities and Philosophy at The Johns Hopkins University and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. He is the author of: Philosophy and the Turn to Religion; Religion and Violence: Philosophical Perspectives from Kant to Derrida; and Minimal Theologies: Critiques of Secular Reason in Adorno and Levinas. He is the editor, with Samuel Weber, of Violence, Identity, and Self-Determination and Religion and Media.

Lawrence E. Sullivan is Professor of World Religions at the University of Notre Dame. The author of Icanchu’s Drum: An Orientation to Meaning in South American Religions, he was for many years director of Harvard University’s Center for the Study of World Religions, and he has served as President of the American Academy of Religion (AAR).

REGULATION, INSTITUTIONS AND THE LAW
Edited by Jaivir Singh

256 pages 215x140 mm Hardback
Rs 595
ISBN 978-81-87358-28-2 
ECONOMICS, POLITICS, INTERNATIONAL LABOUR LAWPub date November 2007


The twelve papers in Regulation, Institutions and the Law try to understand the specific context within which regulation has unfolded in a country like India, which is different in many ways from that of the United States and Western Europe. The volume also dwells on how these regulatory issues flow across national boundaries and affect the international arena in this age of globalization.

While some papers discuss conceptual issues others engage with how the political economy affects regulation both in terms of domestic political economy and in relation to pressures from international organizations. Banning the import of carpets, which use child labour, is a case in point. Yet other papers discuss some specific sectors in the economy, which are regulated, such as, finance, telecommunications and competition policy, in relation to the problem of regulation itself.

Jaivir Singh teaches at the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He has published articles on the economics of labour law, competition policy, regulation, legal procedure, judicial activism and separation of powers, and is the author of ‘Central Government Policies: Interface with Competition Policy Objectives’ in Pradeep S. Mehta ed., Towards a Functional Competition Policy for India (Jaipur: CUTS International 2005).

GLOBALIZATION AND THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALSNegotiating the ChallengeEdited by Manmohan Agarwal and Amit Shovon Ray

280 pages 215x140 mm Hardback
Rs 675
ISBN 978-81-87358-32-9
ECONOMICS, SOCIOLOGY, POLITICS, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Pub date September 2007


GLOBALIZATION is a controversial subject. While some argue that it promotes economic growth that translates into social progress, others believe that it is detrimental to social advancement.
Globalization and the Millennium Development Goals brings together conceptual and empirical insights into the interaction of globalization and the social sectors, focusing especially on the MDGs. Some of the papers included here explicitly look at the Indian experience with social progress in the context of globalization. The volume with introductory remarks by Meghnad Desai, reflects the multifarious views regarding the interplay between economic development and social progress and attempts to answer the question: Can globalization have a human face?

Manmohan Agarwal is Professor of Economics at the Centre for International Trade and Development at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Amit Shovon Ray, FRSH, is Professor of Economics (and currently the Chairman) at the Centre for International Trade and Development at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health.

READINGS IN HISTORYCULTURAL HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL INDIAEdited by Meenakshi Khanna

282 pages 215x140 mm 10 illustrations
Paperback Rs 230
ISBN 978-81-87358-30-5HISTORY, SOCIOLOGY, CULTURE STUDIES
Pub date July 2007


Cultural History of Medieval India is a part of the series, Readings in History. The books in this series have been edited and put together by eminent historians for their students.
This anthology of readings seeks to explore Indian culture in the medieval period through five themes: kingship traditions, social processes of religious devotion, inter-cultural perception, forms of identities, and aesthetics.

Written by well-known scholars, the eleven essays in this book present sub-cultures in diverse regional settings of the subcontinent. These readings introduce a new way of understanding medieval Indian history by engaging with interdisciplinary methods of research on issues that are significant to everyday existence in a plural society like that of India.
This book will be of great value to students of history, as well as to other readers interested in the culture of the medieval period in India.

Meenakshi Khanna is Reader in History, Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi.

READINGS IN HISTORY
DELHI: ANCIENT HISTORY
Edited by Upinder Singh

250 pages 215x140 mm
Paperback Rs 220
ISBN 978-81-87358-29-9
HISTORY, ARCHAEOLOGY, SOCIOLOGY
Pub date July 2006



NOT MANY people know that the busy and bustling capital city of Delhi and its surroundings have a long past, going back thousands of years. Prehistoric stone tools have surfaced here and many ancient remains have been found, sometimes accidentally by farmers tilling their fields, and at other times by archaeologists carrying out systematic excavations. A mound one passes everyday or a narrow strip of stream tells a story of ancient times. Centuries of history coexist with metro stations and plush cars.

The readings in this book give us glimpses of the lives of people who lived in the Delhi area over the centuries, and how these details have been pieced together by historians. It brings into focus the importance of the historian’s method and the sources of information found in ancient texts, archaeology and even legends and folklore, sometimes hanging on the thread of a slender historical fact.

The editor of the volume, points to the urgency of further exploration and documentation to fill in the still all-too-meagre details of Delhi’s ancient history. However, she ends on a note of caution, bordering on alarm, when she points out that invaluable evidence of the city’s past is being extensively destroyed due to quarrying and the construction of new roads and buildings. Such activities are an integral part of the modernization of a living city but the balance between modernization and the preservation of ancient remains is indeed very fragile and needs to be maintained from an informed and realistic perspective.
This collection of essays has been put together by a teacher for students of history, but will also be of enormous value to a large number of other interested readers.

Upinder Singh teaches ancient Indian history at the University of Delhi.