Author Archives: Thebookreviewindia

Renowned Hindi author Mridula Garg emphasized that writing must create disturbance and discomfort. She challenged the assumption that women’s rebellion must necessarily be directed against the home, calling this a problematic reduction. On translation, she cautioned against imposing personal interpretations that distort the original text, while asserting that she writes not ‘as a woman writer’ but simply as ‘Mridula Garg’.

. Bordeaux urges caution in numismatic studies, emphasizing the need for chemical analysis in addition to the usual focus on visual representations, scripts and the external forms of coins so as to arrive at surer conclusions. Kazim Abdullaev’s discussion, highlighting the problems when the provenance of coins is unknown, is in a sense complementary; he also touches on the untidy, and occasionally murky world of markets for antiquities. François Thierry provides a glimpse of premodern ‘numismatists’—Chinese scholars who described,

The next two chapters are about the archaeological remains of the greater Varanasi zone covering Sarnath and Saidpur-Ghazipur area on the left bank of the Ganga and Vindhya-Kaimur Hill zone on the southern side. These contain information about a lesser-known Gupta temple at Bhitari in Ghazipur district and stone quarries at Chunar and other places on the southern side which supplied sculptural and architectural elements to Sarnath and other places. Then there is a short essay on the clay bull figurines from the early historic period at Hastinapur which, according to Jayaswal, formed part of fire rituals or yagnas.
The concluding essay,

Amalananda Ghosh would be involved in the Bikaner survey, and he would present some of his findings to the Indian History Congress in Jaipur in 1951: ‘The discovery of these mounds brings the Harappa culture much closer to the heart of India and reveals how deeply it had taken its roots in the Indian soil.’ The authors however also point out that Ghosh was not, in referring to India,

In this context, she emphasizes the role of natal affiliations, marriage alliances, affect and emotions in the political process. Tazkiras, when compared with information in the Mughal official records, are extremely valuable for studies on elite Mughal women, who are presented as politically influential, with vast personal economic power, creativity, self-expression, and as patrons of political and cultural activities, particularly, architectural enterprise and building construction. The tazkiras,

who visited the site in 2021 when thousands of villagers were in town in double-decker trolleys for a mela. One of the stops before the Swarn Mandir (Golden Temple) was the Bagh. But where was the Bagh I saw as a child? In its place was a shiny new memorial with museums cooled by Chinese air conditioners. The entry has been widened, and the walls of the entry passage are adorned with murals. An exit is provided, possibly to aid tourists.

‘Punjab ka Khoon’ written by Kavi Das in 1922 expresses the pain of families whose relatives were killed in this massacre, and challenges the British saying, ‘dekhenge tere kaam, karishme apne bhi dikhla denge, tu aankh nikal dekh, ahinsha se swarajya ham pa lenge’.
The fourth chapter includes only one poem, ‘Gaurang Gunanuvad’ written by Sree Muktajeev. The poet describes the quality of the Whites in his poem of 52 lines.

The Gulf in the 18th century, under the Qasimis of Ras-al-Khayam, emphasized the need to revise Western political and military domination in West and South Asia. The British rule, referred to by a historian as a Pax Britannica, benefitted from its establishment in India and the Gulf. The chapter on Dubai addresses the end of British colonial rule, the shaping of the oil economy, and the emergence of modern states. It provides an analytical overview of modern-day Gulf societies, the creation of their welfare states based on redistributive economies, and their monarchical political systems.

Nuclear signalling has been evident in any period of tension between the two conflict parties. While the Indian nuclear doctrine rests on the pillars of credible minimum deterrence, no first use, and massive retaliation in case of a nuclear weapon attack, Pakistan’s nuclear posture rests on Full Spectrum Deterrence that allows the state to indulge in nuclear sabre-rattling.

PLI schemes assume that lowering costs and raising returns will induce firms to invest and expand. Swaminathan cautions that if the institutional terrain remains weak, firms will expand output without changing employment practices or investing in skills. The result is more production, but not necessarily more secure jobs or stronger capabilities. Competitiveness achieved through informality and insecurity may deliver output, but not the social foundations of a mature manufacturing economy. Her essays, therefore

The Central Government’s persistent meddling in State affairs under Indira Gandhi’s leadership, the dismissal of the Akali-Janata Party Government, the refusal to return Chandigarh to the State, and the repression of the peaceful Dharam Yudh Morcha, all contributed to the rise of Sikh militancy in the 80s. Chopra highlights the State’s violations of human rights as the security agencies employed coercive tactics to quell militancy. Many of the Sikh youth who sought refuge abroad during the period later developed sympathies for the separatist cause. Shruti Devgan examines the diaspora community’s attempt to digitally create, reconstruct, and revive the horrific memory of the anti-Sikh violence in order to subvert the Indian state’s attempt to erase the hurtful memories of the anti-Sikh pogrom in 1984

Also incarcerated in Rajshahi Central Jail at the time was the legendary peasant leader Ila Mitra—an Olympic-level athlete who had suffered sexual violence and torture in police custody. In prison, Amin studied Marxism, political economy, history of religion and Bengali. He had the responsibility of reading and explaining English newspapers to those who could not read English. Amin used this to improve his command over both English and Bengali—something he put to use after his release by writing an Urdu-Bengali dictionary.

Her arrest on 6 February 2010 along with her husband, her incarceration in Naini Central Jail, and the charges brought against her under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act or UAPA, accusing her of waging war against the state and having Maoist links, do not read like an exceptional episode from the past, especially when one considers how long she remained in prison before being granted bail by the Allahabad High Court.
What is particularly compelling about the diary is that it does not try to turn prison into a site of constant spectacle or heightened drama

Dalits must opt to remain within the Hindu fold as the downgraded ‘scheduled castes’, while those Dalits who exercise agency by stepping out of Hinduism to convert to Islam or Christianity are ‘punished’ by being denied the mechanics of reparation of historical wrongs afforded to the ‘Hindu’ Dalits. Quite inexplicably, and rather arbitrarily, Dalit converts to Sikhism or Buddhism do not have to pay any penalty for their conversion.

In the 1990s, there was explicit use of the term ‘feminism’ in the media. In this process, concepts like autonomy, freedom, and choice began to be associated with feminism, while women’s activism was seen as an imposition. An example is the way International Women’s Day is celebrated. Generally, this day is marked by women’s organizations that align themselves with progressive forces. But, in the 1990s, one can see that there was a hijacking of Women’s Day. Feminism was associated with discounts and free goodies, and consumption became central to its meaning. The media promoted a notion of feminism which is market-friendly.

I tell them that there are many who take up wide problems but no one takes up narrow and small issues, therefore I have to be narrow minded…’ (p. 132). Similarly, another diary entry of Narayan Uke dated 02.11.1946 mentions that Dr Ambedkar was busy most of the day with the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in an important meeting and how the latter praised his book What Congress and Gandhi have done to the Untouchables.

Yet, the space was carefully designed to ensure that the ‘masses’ were separated from the ‘classes’ thereby building social inequity into the very architecture of the space. Neither the Europeans nor the Princely State, the author observes, were willing to imbibe the ‘idea of equality as a central tenet of being modern’ (p. 68). Later, in its bid to become a global city, Hyderabad witnesses the construction of a giant IMAX theatre with a six-storey-high screen, a four screen multiplex and other recreational facilities.

India of course is largely a population of ‘informal workers’, with no formal contracts, no unions representing them, living precariously on subsistence wages in small enterprises in the cities. With these enterprises shutting down, what were they to do? There were no buses or trains—the Shramik trains came much later—they decided to walk back to their villages.

It is the mundane materiality of groceries, virtual schooling, work from home, and housework that remind us about the behind-the-scenes effort that people, especially women, make on a daily basis to carry on with the business of life, even in times of upheaval and uncertainty. The author goes beyond the residents who inhabit this relatively prosperous street to include in her creative ambit the grocery delivery boy Shyam, who decides to walk home to the safety of his village however illusory that safety might be

The pervasiveness of patriarchal atrocities come across as unusually stifling as stories such as ‘Dastoor’ elucidate how they thrive under the garb of custom and tradition. Such a hostile environment is exacerbated by rampant alcoholism, abject poverty and lack of employment whose intersection is reflected in many of these writings. Consequently, one also comes across women fighting and trying to forge an identity of their own and ‘dukka’ or toil becoming a defining aspect of their life.