Modern Indian History

Nitin Sinha's work is a significant contribution to the history of communication in modern India. Focusing on eastern India – Bihar, specifically, Sinha draws out the interdependence of spatial transformation and communication networks in nineteenth-century India. In addition to material aspects of geography and knowledge production, however, the author uses networks of exchange and flow to emphasize the physicality of space.

Dance is a movement art, transmitted as an oral, or rather aural-visual, tradition.  What then is the relationship of shastric texts on dance to the actual performance practice, with particular reference to Odissi dance?  Shastric texts have become a major reference point and validating factor of “classical” dance in India since the 1930’s, in Orissa since the 1950’s, and are increasingly used in the training of today’s educated students of the dance.
Did these texts play a central role in the development of the Odissi dance tradition as we know it today, or have they been used after the fact in a quest to capture and codify a tradition?  What are the consequences of using textual codification as a starting point in classical training?  To what extent has Odissi dance gelled into a distinctive form as it passed through generations of dancers up to the present and how much latitude still remains for innovation within the tradition?
What texts play a role in Odissi dance and what is that role?  To what extent do contemporary practitioners of Odissi base their work on shastric tradition?
What are the problems of textual representation of a three-dimensional art form functioning in time and space translated to two dimensional paper and word symbolization?  What are the difficulties of taking a fluid tradition in art and categorizing its elements in narrowing definitions, definitions which can intrinsically exclude nuance and variation, and lose its channeled logic in tangents?  Does the quest for codification threaten the fluidity of tradition, tying teaching to text in future?
And finally, what role has shastric text played in bestowing legitimacy of recognition to Odissi dance as a classical tradition?

These two chapters provide an illuminating political and cultural history of the interior design of India’s presidential residence which was originally designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens to be the house for the British viceroy. They also provides a detailed catalogue of select artworks kept in the house. Rich illustrations reveal how the interiors stand now, and they are contrasted with archival photographs that show how the house has evolved over the past 90 years including previously unpublished plans and sketches for the décor of the interiors of the house some of which date back to as early as 1914—these provide a rare
glimpse into how it was originally intended.
While the architecture of the actual edifice of the Rashtrapati Bhavan may be Lutyens’s most enduring legacy, the interiors of the building preserve a much more versatile history. These chapters trace how Lutyens achieved a stylish interior that accommodated the tastes and needs of various British aristocratic residents, politicians and bureaucrats, but equally had to impress an Indian public—for which, it needed also to incorporate a vocabulary of Indian design ornament. After the independence of India, many symbols of the colonial empire were rendered inappropriate and the interiors of the Rashtrapati Bhavan had to be transformed into the home of the president of a democratic republic with a rich history. This glimpse into the tastes of its different residents and the compulsions that guided them traces a most telling history of a changing world.

The contribution of Ambedkar in building secular deemocratic India is matchless. Through his writings and struggles he oriented his work around the values of Liberty, Equality and fraternity. The movements and struggles led by him underlined that social justice is the non negotiable part of s secular democracy.

Introduction and first chapter of a new book: Even though ‘the crisis of secularism’ was declared decades ago, it remains unresolved. This book argues that its roots are internal to the liberal model of secularism, which emerged from the religious dynamics of the Protestant Reformation. In Europe and India, this model has gone hand in hand with an intolerant anticlerical theology that rejects certain traditions as evil ‘political religion’. Consequently, liberal secularism often harms local forms of coexistence rather than nourishing them.

Partly prompted by the current social unrest in India regarding the reservation policy and partly stimulated by the facts of the matter, I begin the process here of looking at the issue of reservation and social justice in a slightly different way. I leave it to you to say what, if anything, is different about this way.

Despite affirmative actions such as reserved government employment, incentives and subsidies for employers, tax exemptions, skill development training etc., employment opportunities for persons with disabilities in India continue to be characterized by lower workforce participation, lower wages, lack of or limited career advancement, and discrimination in the workplace. While there has been some research on the presence of persons with disabilities in formal employment, such studies have lacked critical assessment of the underlying conceptions of (dis)ability and its interface with changes in the wider political and economic context. Using a case study approach, this article examines the outcomes of three employment initiatives in India. We contend that work and employment opportunities for persons with disabilities remain trapped in constructs of ableism; while neoliberalism has resulted in complex, often adverse outcomes that have received little attention. The article calls for developing a more critical research agenda and building capacities for wider contestation against ableism and neoliberalism. This article examines the outcomes of recent efforts to employ persons with disabilities in India. It attempts to unmask the underlying ableist assumptions of such efforts and to critique the complex interface between ableism and neoliberalism. We begin with a brief overview of the present employment status of persons with disabilities in India, followed by a brief account of recent efforts to increase their employment opportunities, which highlights the popularity and

In his Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda, quoted Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s idea of nationalism in his own words thus:

”I call myself a nationalist but my nationalism is as wide as the universe; it embraces all nations. My nationalism includes the prosperity of all nations. I want a strong India able to transfuse its strength to other nations …. Let us look for something new; let us try the power of love and God which are the truth.”

Elsewhere, Gandhi had proclaimed that ‘loyalty to the country is always subordinate to loyalty to God’ and reemphasized that his nationalism was ‘not exclusive’ but is of ‘intense internationalism’.

His averment that ‘nationalism is as wide as the universe’, indeed, is the upanishadic concept of vasudhaiva kutumbakam but as it does not sync with the absolutist precepts of the Semitic faiths, obviously it is of no avail to further the cause of Indian nationalism. Be that as it may, it enabled Gandhi to ascend the throne on international moral high ground that is while leaving the Indian nationalism bereft of, so to say, any space.

Our method of recalling an event depends on the memory and memorialisation of the event. This memory and memorialisation is shaped by the things we choose to remember or let go. In this paper we look at two infamous events, Chauri Chaura (1922) and the partition of the Indian subcontinent (1947). We look at the memory associated with these events and the politics surrounding their remembrance.

This article examines the dichotomous relationship between racial hierarchies effected by imperial science, on the one hand, and the subversive potential of the scientific knowledge gleaned from the Andaman Islands, on the other, in Victorian Britain. Knowledge about the Andaman Islands and its 'savage' aboriginal tribes had been etched onto British consciousness since the establishment of Britain's naval base in Greater Andaman (present-day Port Blair), in 1789, followed by a century of anthropological, ethnological, zoological and linguistic and explorations into the Andamanese people. When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Sign of the Four began being serialised in 1890, a fantastical knowledge of manners and physiognomy of the Andamanese was remarkably familiar to London, through colonial histories, a wide array of photographs in British periodicals, and iconic clay sculptures of the aboriginals displayed at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in 1886. While British imperialism wanted to project its inexhaustible scientific and technocratic powers counterpoising them against the untameable and (supposedly) prehistoric life of the Andaman Islands, The Sign of the Four ruptured that discourse. I argue that, in the character of the little Andamanese "hell-hound," Tonga, Doyle presents an example of the failure of imperial scientific prowess to appropriate the savage identity into its racial and hierarchical discourse. Within the seemingly scarce presence of India in the world of Sherlock Holmes, it is deeply consequential that Doyle selected the Andaman Islands as a key location for the origin of his detective plot, as the home of the subaltern Tonga, who preempts the spectrality of the hound-a manifestation of imperial guilt and panic-to come later in The Hound of the Baskervilles.

India has been ruled by various foreign regimes Portuguese had the longest duration. In order to have unrestricted control over trade and permanent rule they always tried to keep sea shores under their captivity and that's how they got connected with Thane district. Vasai, Mahim were the places they got under control. Portuguese rule has been a long lasting influence over the religious, political and economic life of Thane district.

Bengal in the first half of the eighteenth century was a prosperous and flourishing province, noted for its wealth and manufactures. It was this affluence which induced the contemporaries to describe Bengal in such terms as 'Paradise of Nations', 'the Paradise of India', or 'the realm of Paradise'. It was the same lure of wealth which also brought to the shores of Bengal a host of foreign merchants from far and wide, including a great many Europeans of diverse nationalities. Their travel accounts and descriptions were no less copious in glorifying the land which had 'a hundred open gates to enter...and not one to come away again'.

The wealth of this nation was created of course by the bounteous soil of the region which produced a wide variety of agricultural commodities like rice, wheat and other grains, sugarcane, cotton, opium, indigo, oils of different kinds and vegetables. Other economic products found in abundance were lacca, wax, long pepper, salt and saltpetre. But more than anything else Bengal was then the general storehouse of a wide variety of cotton and silk products not only for Hindustan of the Empire of the Great Mughal, but also for the Kingdom and for Europe itself. The goods so manufactured were not only known for their exquisite fineness and delicacy of workmanship but were also relatively cheap. Bengal's industrial economy during the pre-colonial period compared thus very favourably with that of any nation on earth.

In this chapter, an attempt will be made to study the state of the major indigenous industries during the colonial period. An attempt will also be made to explain the causes of their ultimate collapse. In this connection, the role of the state which could stimulate or inhibit industrial development would be looked into to ascertain the real motive of British rule. Did they create an appropriate climate for promoting and encouraging indigenous industrial enterprises? Was the destruction due to natural causes or was it deliberate? The economic policies of the colonial state in relation to industries need, therefore, also to be looked into to ascertain the total effect of such policies on the domestic manufacturing industries.

Because of its particular history and its shared, related languages, North India presents a distinctive version of Hinduism whose contours continue to evolve under conditions of rapid development and globalization. An examination of three features of the religious culture of contemporary North India—practices that express an attachment to its landscape, modes of Hindu activism on behalf of the environment or the nation, and religious entrepreneurialism that is now generating exciting if sometimes problematic developments in Hindu religious life—show us how the transformations we see Hinduism undergoing in North India represent a distinctly modern, or even post-modern, environment. Shaped by the commodification of religion and the politicization of religious identity, these emerging realities reveal not simply how Hinduism is distinctive in North India, but how new forms are being actively produced by religious authorities and devotees alike.

Modernity and Democracy in India Anil Kumar Vaddiraju Abstract Modernity and democracy are products of a dual revolution in Europe: The industrial revolution and the French revolution. Modernity is followed by liberal democracy. We in India have adopted the principles of these two revolutions, (and more, we even hoped for a vague socialism), into the theory and practice of our democracy. However, of the principles of the two revolutions, the political principles of the French revolution, liberty, equality and fraternity, however internally contradictory in a capitalist society, have been postulated without the accompanying industrial revolution and development. The situation is that we have provided for ourselves political rights and democracy without providing accompanying means to realize them. Certainly, the unresolved agrarian question, slow pace of industrial development and distorted economic growth of the service sector, have all led to the nature of economic development that is not symmetrical or equally poised with political democracy and rights. Since democracy overwhelms economy, hence the calls to foreshorten the democratic principles and practice. The consequent result is the present political development of nationalism and authoritarian populism. In this paper, I would like to argue that as long as capitalism in India remains backward to a large extent, in agriculture and industry, and as long as the distorted development continues, we will be stuck with the impasse of backward looking nationalism and authoritarian populism. In sum, the current impasse is a product of achieving political modernity and a superstructure without its accompanying economic basis. Also, the state in the early post-colonial days had the commitment and faith in India towards both democracy and modernity. The state had taken upon itself the task of fostering the faith in modernity and democracy. Such a commitment on the part of the state, towards modernity and democracy, is now doubtful.

The commonplace view propagated in the media is that religious fundamentalism and militant identity assertion are incompatible with liberal-democratic capitalism, and represent a mediaeval revival. Innumerable arguments are advanced to prove their primordial nature. The theory of a 'clash of civilizations' is presented. The American-British 'war against terrorism' in Afghanistan, waged ideologically through the BBC, the CNN and their Third World franchisees, popularizes this myth and creates new symbols to characterize it. Religious and social identities are redefined. The Indian sub-continent was already an arena of sharp identity clashes, and with right-wing majorities in power in each country it faces the natural outcome--an intensification of these clashes. In India, particularly, where conflicts are multifaceted, the repercussions are grave.

The social reforms that started in India in the 19th century, threw up many interesting debates. The Indian intelligentsia reacted differently to the rapidly changing time under colonial subjection. The debate between Tilak (1856-1920) and Agarkar (1856-1895) gives us a fairly good understanding of the social and intellectual churning that went on in western Maharashtra, especially among the elites of society. This article explores the finer points of the debate in the context of the colonial political atmosphere that also produced the anti-colonial nationalist movement in the late 19th century. But how relevant was this debate for the vast majority of women in India? Tilak and Agarkar were close associates in their younger days. Born into the Brahmanical class, they both studied together in Pune. In those days, western education was a means to acquire a job in the British colonial bureaucracy, albeit at a lower level. But Tilak and Agarkar vowed not to work for the British government in India in any capacity. Instead, they decided to dedicate their lives to nation-building.

This essay is about how the act reading the newspaper aloud in groups among working class men has become the object of textual representation in the newspaper itself. The popular
gossip column called ‘‘Teashop Bench,’’ found in the Daily Blossom newspaper, rests on a different regime of circulation than that found in actual teashops. In purporting to represent
one type of public, the Daily Blossom’s ‘‘Teashop Bench’’ column is involved in the performative conjuring of a different type, a new Tamil public that is premised on an emergent
sense of private domesticity, where the newspaper is increasingly something to be read silently.

The Sannyasi Rebellion during the early years of British rule in India is a much discussed subject. This paper offered a new interpretation of the phenomena way back in 1985 by demonstrating that it was basically a conflict between two sets of traders -  foreign and indigenous, and that the Sannyasis were themselves basically merchants supported by country-folk who supplied them their merchandise.

History is conventionally imagined and narrated in the context of the nation, relating its stories and shaped by its imaginaries. To the extent the latter are selectively re-encoded into seemingly wider scales or spaces of historical narration, projects such as global history may be said to be oxymorons. Historians in the post-colonial world have also long been aware of the

Time in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children is characterized by a cacophony of representational forms that the narrator Saleem uses with and against each other, such as cyclical time, timelessness, and revisionary linear historical time. Existing analyses of the novel’s representations of time have generally concluded that one or another of the competing temporal frameworks in the novel is primary and that Rushdie and Saleem ultimately discard or subordinate the others. On the contrary, the novel denies a single coherent temporal structure and instead focuses on productively engaging the diversity of time in keeping with Paul Ricoeur’s theory of aporetic time. Ricoeur theorizes that every framework of representing time includes aporias, blind spots it can’t satisfactorily address, and he argues that we must explore these tensions in representations of time — a task for which narrative is uniquely helpful. Investigating aporetic time in Midnight’s Children develops our understanding of Ricoeur by providing a representation of aporetic time to supplement and challenge Ricoeur’s theoretical model (and Homi K. Bhabha’s thoughts on narrating the nation). Midnight’s Children’s narratorial ambivalence and multivalence with regard to temporal frameworks is closely tied to the novel’s major thematic concerns: constructing an understanding of oneself, one’s nation, and history in the face of conflicting experiences and imperfect narratives of significant and traumatic personal and historical events. Applying Rushdie and Ricoeur to each other productively develops our understanding of how complex, contradictory narrative representations of time and of identities can provide a way forward for individuals and nations between the twin dangers of tyrannical narrative orthodoxy and impotent relativism.

How did India's IT revolution happen so fast in a country which was almost a byword for bureaucratic delay? In New Delhi, the changes were attributed to the economic reforms of Prime Minister Narasimha Rao and his Finance Minister Manmohan Singh in 1991 which ended the Licence Raj. But a new book by Harish Mehta called The Maverick Effect: The Inside Story of India’s IT Revolution (Harper Collins, Gurugram, 2022) provides a real answer.

It has long been contended that the Indian Constitution of 1950, a document in English created by elite consensus, has had little influence on India’s greater population. Drawing upon the previously unexplored records of the Supreme Court of India, A People’s Constitution upends this narrative and shows how the Constitution actually transformed the daily lives of citizens in profound and lasting ways. This remarkable legal process was led by individuals on the margins of society, and Rohit De looks at how drinkers, smugglers, petty vendors, butchers, and prostitutes—all despised minorities—shaped the constitutional culture.

The Constitution came alive in the popular imagination so much that ordinary people attributed meaning to its existence, took recourse to it, and argued with it. Focusing on the use of constitutional remedies by citizens against new state regulations seeking to reshape the society and economy, De illustrates how laws and policies were frequently undone or renegotiated from below using the state’s own procedures. De examines four important cases that set legal precedents: a Parsi journalist’s contestation of new alcohol prohibition laws, Marwari petty traders’ challenge to the system of commodity control, Muslim butchers’ petition against cow protection laws, and sex workers’ battle to protect their right to practice prostitution.

Exploring how the Indian Constitution of 1950 enfranchised the largest population in the world, A People’s Constitution considers the ways that ordinary citizens produced, through litigation, alternative ethical models of citizenship.

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This article examines B. R. Ambedkar’s dramatically shifting politics in the years prior to Partition. In 1940, he supported the creation of Pakistan. In 1946, he joined Winston Churchill in his demands to delay independence. Yet, in 1947, Ambedkar rejected Pakistan and joined the Nehru administration. Traditional narratives explain these changes as part of Ambedkar’s political pragmatism. It is believed that such pragmatism, along with Gandhi’s good faith, helped Ambedkar to secure a place in Nehru’s Cabinet. In contrast, I argue that Ambedkar changed his attitude towards Congress due to the political transformations elicited by Partition. Ambedkar approached Congress as a last resort to maintain a political space for Dalits in independent India. This, however, was unsuccessful. Partition not only saw the birth of two countries but also virtually eliminated the histories of resistance of political minorities that did not fall under the Hindu–Muslim binary, such as Dalits. In the ca...

I can't remember when and where I met Jogen Chowdhury. I think I inherited him from the treasury of talent that God has bestowed on us  I have seen his typically fluid line drawings of humans outlined in free flowing shapes, that looked innocent but could convey the harshest of reality.  But what endears him to was always his extremely genial personality and his easy gentle manner. He had a charm that could disarm even Nadir Shah or his modern version, may be another bearded Shah. I remember introducing myself almost apologetically to Jogen da many years ago, as Hemen Mazumdar's grand-nephew. I had never painted or managed to wield anything more creative than a babu's pen. But to him it did not matter. He started telling me most enthusiastically and tried to explain how great a painter he was...

Political and social movements in South Africa, the United States of America, Germany, Myanmar, India, and elsewhere, have drawn inspiration from the non-violent political techniques advocated by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi during his leadership of the anti-colonial struggle for Indian freedom from British colonial rule. This course charts a global history of Gandhi's thought about non-violence and its expression in civil disobedience and resistance movements both in India and the world. Organized in three modules, the first situates Gandhi through consideration of the diverse sources of his own historical and ideological formation; the second examines the historical contexts and practices through which non-violence acquired meaning for him and considers important critiques; the third explores the various afterlives of Gandhian politics in movements throughout the world. We will examine autobiography and biography, Gandhi's collected works, various types of primary source, political, social, and intellectual history, and audiovisual materials. In addition to widely disseminated narratives of Gandhi as a symbol of non-violence, the course will closely attend to the deep contradictions concerning race, caste, gender, and class that characterized his thought and action. By unsettling conventional accounts of his significance, we will grapple with the problem of how to make sense of his troubled legacy.

The conditions between the two World Wars were ripe enough to trigger off utopian imagination among the Anglo-Indians. Caught between the rulers and the ruled, this marginal group of people were faced with a dilemma. Expectations from the British were high, but seldom fulfilled, although in the initial stages the Community had helped to a large extent to build and maintain the Empire.

Having faced the rage of various invasions and thereafter the nature, the Kangra fort stands proudly on a cliff in the lap of Dhauladhar mountain range (Figure 1 & 2). This fort has been the seat of Katoch Rajput dynasty which is claimed to be the oldest dynasty in India. The fort also has an ancient origin which has been verified by the ASI. It is also believed that this fort came to existence during the post Mahabharat period. From time immemorial this fort had been the target of attacks and invasions by many clans and races like Greeks, Kashmiris, Afghans, Tughlaques, Timurid, Mughal, Gorkha, Sikh and British, primarily due to its immense accumulated wealth and its strategic secure location. “He, who holds the Kangra fort, holds the hills” was the common belief among the locals.

The fort of Kangra is also famous for its unique art and architecture. In historical records this fort has been termed by different names as per their relevant context such as: Trigarth, Kaangarh, Kotochgarh, Bhimkot, Nagarkot and Susarmapura. The ancient history of Kangra fort, its ruler lineage, the fort’s unique strategic position, art and architecture along with some very curious unopened chapters which needs an attention encouraged me to write this paper. This paper will throw light on the interesting background of the ruling dynasty, the fort, conflicting theories about the name of the fort and its location, art and architecture and some spheres of information, over which new work and research is needed.