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Bhatia begins the book with a personal story of this transformation. He recounts how any discussion among family, friends and acquaintances over the past decade ended with Islamophobia-laced muscular Hindu interpretation of India’s past and aspiration for India’s future. To grapple with this change is to pose some version of the question, ‘Where is this poison coming from?’—as articulated, with poignancy and a tinge of bewilderment, by Nisar.

For a long time, almost till the beginning of the nineteenth century, military engineers (who began receiving formal training on a regular basis only when the Company’s Military Seminary was set up at Addiscombe in 1809) carried out the tasks of architects, civil engineers and town planners. Civil engineers as distinct from military engineers were not appointed by the Company prior to the end of the eighteenth century.

Reid implies that Churchill lost interest in India affairs thereafter. But like many historians, he fails to ask: was that not an act of gross negligence, given that War-weary Britain’s exit from India was inevitable by then? Those ‘wasted years’, with all top INC leaders held incommunicado in jail, August 1942 to May 1945, was precisely the time to prepare for the world’s greatest political carve-out. One result: Mountbatten’s frenzied, hasty actions of March-August 1947, when even the borders of the new independent states, India and Pakistan, were not publicly revealed till 17 August, two days after the Independence of India.

In the final chapter, Roy talks about Kashmir. Here, he notes the plight of Kashmiris, who live on the edge of a cultural and political chasm that shapes their social interaction with the rest of Indian society. Also, in commenting on the complex lives of (militant) women in Kashmir, Roy tells us about their painful encounters with violent, patriarchal bands of self-righteous men.

The assassination of Gandhi marked a new stage in the history of the RSS. The organization, due to the immense public anger against it, and the imprisonment of Golwalkar, was forced to change its strategy. It was compelled to cease its violent actions and adopt measures which were acceptable in a sane society.

Some, though not all, of these aspects emerge from Purandare’s lucid prose. Strangely enough, the book has no bibliography but in the notes the reader will notice the major secondary sources, including biographies, on which the book is based; NC Kelkar (Marathi, 1923), Bhagwat and Pradhan (English, 2016), NR Phatak (Marathi, 1972), and Keer (English, 1959) are copiously drawn upon.

Rai argues that during Gandhi’s lifetime, communal and caste conflicts emerged as the most serious challenges before India and Gandhi started many programmes and campaigns to tackle these problems.

The first chapter of the book titled ‘Backdrop’ maps out in detail the peculiar South Asian backdrop in which the stories unfold in the matrix often referred to as Mafia Raj. It also explores how ‘the art of making do’ (jugad) translates into ‘the art of bossing’ and how informal economy brushes with organized crime often supported by the political establishment.

India’s secret recipe for red blown glass, much sought after by medieval courts in Europe, is no longer known, and our current method of producing coloured glass was learnt from European manufacturers! In Firozabad, famed for its beautiful glassware in Akbar’s day, and still a major glass centre today, folklore has it that the famed Murano glass makers in Italy originally learnt their skills from Indian craftspeople, especially the art of mosaic and millefiori glass. Whether this is truth or legend, I don’t know.

Another fascinating aspect Gautam explores is the rise of soft spirituality among Millennials, reflecting their quest for personal meaning in an increasingly individualistic society. This spirituality, focused on personal choice and the freedom to select one’s own spiritual guide or guru, is becoming more prevalent.

Sarkar lauds Jyotirao Phule as the century’s most remarkable social reformer for his intersectional analysis of caste, class, and gender while noting the occasional compromises of reformers like Ranade. The author dedicates limited space to Dalit social reforms, primarily focusing on the Self-Respect Movement and Dr Ambedkar, indicating a potential area for further exploration in Dalit reformist historiography.

Even though Alyssa Milano’s tweet in 2017 calling for the victims of sexual violence was a rage, Iqra Cheema begins by talking about the invisibility and exclusion of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) at the onset of #MeToo movement. An increased international awareness about intersectional feminism and recognition of the need for feminist justice is what #MeToo leads to.

Among Irawati’s writings about her experiences in the field, the most moving and significant is her description of a dig in Langhnaj, Gujarat, which she undertook with her Deccan College colleague, Hasmukh Dhirajlal Sankalia, Professor of Proto-Indian and Ancient Indian History.

That we are now celebrating the half century mark has been made possible entirely due to the support and solidarity of our large panel of reviewers. If the journal is published with unfailing regularity every month, it is because we can confidently rely on our reviewers who never renege on deadlines, and deliver reviews in delectable prose and critical analysis. We are also thankful to the publishers for extending financial support by sponsoring issues, taking advertisements, underwriting the costs for seminars and organizing lectures

The Empire was, by the end of the seventeenth century, essentially an ‘Empire of the Indian Subcontinent’, encompassing almost the entire subcontinent. In the formative phase of his military career Aurangzeb had gained his experience in Central Asia where he had been deputed by Shah Jahan for campaigns in Balkh and Badakhshan.

Evaluating the nature of court histories and court chronicles, Joshi raises a few historiographical issues. Relating his concerns, he asserts that while these narratives depict the occurrences pertaining to official gatherings or festive events attended by elitist politically powerful male members,

Urban improvement by accumulating funds through lottery was popular in eighteenth and early nineteenth-century British colonies. The basic idea was that city-dwellers would voluntarily buy lotteries, and improvement would be funded from that money.

In the succinctly written Introduction, Aparna Vaidik, besides providing a bird’s eye-view of the book, discusses the complex nature of the primary theme of her study, viz., the historical-legal aspects of the Case, and the difficulties that she, as a historian, faced while working on it. An important challenge which she faced related to presenting a difficult theme in ‘accessible prose’

From a geopolitical perspective, British involvement in the Hajj served multiple strategic purposes. It allowed the empire to assert control over trade routes and exert influence in key regions such as Jeddah. Simultaneously, the British sought to earn the loyalty and legitimacy of their Muslim subjects by facilitating the pilgrimage, a move that was both pragmatic and symbolic. However

Sometimes the amalgam worked well, as in the architecture of Lutyens Delhi; most times it was terrible! Luckily rural India and our temples and mosques remained more or less immune from this scourge.