Author Archives: Thebookreviewindia

In contemporary Indian and Pakistani societies, the question of the role of the woman in the nationalist scenario remains a vexed one. Ann McClintock observes about the role of the woman in the developing world, ‘Excluded from direct action as national citizens, women are subsumed symbolically into the national body politic as its boundary and metaphoric limit.’

First, a statement of conflict of interest: the author was my student during his MPhil programme at the Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, Jawaharlal Nehru University, where I taught for more than three decades.  I was not his PhD supervisor, but have been in touch with him, as all teachers do with their bright students…

The Braided River is an ambitious project, an account of the journey that the journalist took tracing the river Brahmaputra from its Indian origin in Arunachal to Bangladesh where it takes a new name and merges with the Ganga.Divided into three broad sections, the book gives a detailed account of not only the route that the longest river of India follows, but also the lives it makes and breaks…

Climate change is one of the most pressing crises facing humanity today, regardless of geographical boundaries. While the science of the crisis has been proliferating in journals and public forums for several decades now, it is only recently that scholars have begun to pay serious attention to the implications of this crisis for social sciences and humanities…

Essays collected in the volume under review underscore the seminal role of Ranabir Chakravarti’s scholarship in the study of the maritime history of Indian littorals in the pre-1500 CE period. His numerous research articles and lectures over the last few decades have brought the relatively neglected pre-1500…

Midnights symbolize the beginning of a new day; leaving behind yesterday and stepping into a new tomorrow. In her book, Suchitra Vijayan documents the stories of people she met over seven years while travelling along the borders of India that were chalked out one fine midnight, when the monsoon rains lashed the subcontinent…

With a few honourable exceptions like Srinath Raghavan, Sushant Singh, Ajai Shukla, or Kallol Banerjee’s recent narration of Operation Cactus, chronicles about the military expeditions undertaken by the Indian armed forces are few and far in between. Arjun Subramaniam’s first book India’s Wars: A Military History, 1947-1971 was an attempt to seal this gap…

Popular and academic discourses on Northeast India have for long been centred around the themes of conflicts, ethnicity and insurgency. This is not surprising given that the region has been seen as a ‘troubled periphery’ marked by ‘durable disorder’. Seen against this backdrop, the book under review marks a significant…f

Narratives about lives popularly regarded as successful or marked by significant achievements, written by celebrities or eminent public figures, have always been eagerly received by a wider reading public. However, writings by those at the margins have visibly toppled the conventions of this genre in the twentieth century…

Reverence for the Prophet of Islam through an affirmation of his exceptionality has a contested legacy and an emotional salience that has captured the imagination of the political landscape of South Asia. Recently, the National Assembly of Pakistan was pressed to debate its infamous blasphemous laws in the context of the demand…

In recent times there have been several challenges to the use of theories that have been developed to investigate Euro-American societies, for understanding South Asian realities. Many of these challenges have emerged within the social science disciplines of sociology, social anthropology and political science…

The book under review serves as a ready description of ‘Brand New India’ in both economic and cultural terms. The earlier binaries of core/periphery, developed/developing, poor/rich are discarded to define the new India, which is more prosperous, mobile and enterprising. To redefine global capitalism, the author brings in the politics…

Over the last decade or so, there has been a remarkable expansion of scholarly interest in the rise of public and private forms of violence in democracies across the world, including India. One major reason for this attention is the concern that ‘toleration or encouragement’ of violence is often considered to be a ‘precursor of democratic breakdown…

Professor Nyla Khan’s newest book is a call to action: action formulated in a deep consciousness of understanding and caring. Composed out of her own experience and care for the peoples of Jammu and Kashmir and their trauma of insurgency and of the new, native nationalism of India…

The very title of the book—India: The Last Super Power–is intriguing. It is one of the few works by a foreigner that places India at the centre of global politics. Hiroshi Hirabayashi, a veteran Japanese diplomat, is highly hopeful of India joining the existing list of leading world powers: US, Russia and China. Once it joins…

Simultaneous Identities: Language, Education and the Nepali Nation (2020) comes at a time when education stands at a critical juncture in South Asia. As educational inequalities become the centre of analyses in the post-pandemic world, this book reminds us of the need to build a comprehensive understanding of educational practices…

Amish Raj Mulmi’s All Roads Lead North: Nepal’s Turn to China is a fresh breeze. It is based on his extensive travels in Nepal, formal interviews, relaxed and spontaneous chats, and first-hand observations of geography and experiences at Nepal’s northern border during the travels. Yet, this reportage is not simply a travelogue…

Economist and freedom fighter Rehman Sobhan is a unique personality who has helped shape the course of contemporary history in the subcontinent. A brilliant man and a friend and contemporary of former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, the second volume of his memoirs which deals with the early days of the founding of Bangladesh…

This is an autobiography of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan based on a 1983 text written by him in Pukhto.  An earlier 1969 account, also translated and published in English, was deemed incomplete by Bacha Khan and he therefore wrote a more complete account which is now available to a non-Pukhto knowing readership…

The book under review examines financial inclusion and monetary change in Pakistan, where liberalization of money and markets was initiated in the last few decades. Pakistan had been a low-inflation economy until liberalization and had for many decades maintained both fixed exchange rates and fixed pricing. However…