Writing Self Writing Empire intro-duces the reader to the cultural world of the Mughal Empire and
the pluralistic ways of the Mughal imperial court through the works of Chandar Bhan Brahman, a munshi or a state secretary of the empire.
1977
When, oh! when, will Indian publishers approach textbook production with both the intelligence and sensitivity that it demands and the sincerity and dignity that it deserves? It is especially discouraging to see a slipshod, erratic text from a prestigious publishing house like Orient Longman.
The Goddess and the Nation provides a timely, if somewhat troubling re-minder of one strand within the
nationalist movement, tracing its development primarily through a study of visual representations of Bharat Mata, a deified mother India, and her children, especially her sons. Lavishly illustrated and annotated, it carries the reader through over a century of colonial and postcolonial history.
Dr. Nagaraja Rao is well-known to the reading public in Indian philosophy by his numerous learned as well as popular articles, reviews, books and lectures. The present work offers a consolidated presentation of the panorama of Indian philosophy starting from the Upanishads and culminating…
This book is also available in English under the title: Writings on India’s Partition edited by Ramesh Mathur, Maheep Singh and Mahendra Kulasreshta. The 22 page introduction analyses the influence of Indian Partition on fiction, giving the political background to this dark chapter in modern Indian history…
This book is a revised version of the author’s doctoral thesis, submitted to the University of Delhi. Being basically an expository account of Curzon’s treatment of the administrative problems of Indian agriculture, the sub-title is a misnomer.
I picked up Delhi: Adventures in a Megacity with much excitement and expectation. Excitement came from personal reasons for reading something new on ‘my’ city, a home that I returned to after some years of living out. Expectations grew by reading its cover and the first two printed pages dedicated to the praises for the book by some of the authors whose own writings on Delh…
In a book on ‘population and law’ the readers should expect an account of where the principles of planned parenthood and birth control stand in the legal system of the country. In India the most relevant branches of the legal system in this context are obviously the personal laws…
To those who lost family members, the 2733 lives extinguished in four days in the capital of the world’s largest democracy is a deep chasm which has destroyed the lives of those who had to carry on living.
The task of policing in Delhi is far more complex than any metropolitan city in India. The author, a serving police officer in Delhi, has done an excellent job of telling his readers why it is so. He has analysed in detail the nature of policing the largest city and capital of the country in the background of its history and problems peculiar to it.
Professor Galbraith’s fuller title for his book is reminiscent of the thoughts of Fitzgerald/Omar on the mystery of life but Galbraith briskly sets about his declared objective (‘Much discussion of money involves a heavy outlay of priestly incantation.’) of dispelling all mystery about money in his book which is lucidly written and eminently readable…
In a court complex in New Delhi, Tis Hazari, room number 137C is a rare liminal space where India’s colonial past, intimacy, marriage, norms, love and law collide and merge. It is here that the secular freedom to marry afforded by the 1872 Civil Marriage Act is utilized by couples in love. To marry under the Civil Marriage Act in India…
In Delhi, the social, cultural, psychological and political universe of the large-scale labour in the informal sector have so far been researched only in nascent form. Characteristic of the migrants to Delhi, as of the labour in other cities, is a very high geographical, sectoral and professional concentration. Moreover, the poor, low caste…
It is through the situated/local that several important historical interventions have been made regarding the national/general. Overarching theoretical formulations are invaluable conceptual tools that get their competence from historically and materially specific events. Women’s Studies is one of the disciplines where we see this emphasis on the situated with a political force…
On many a bright winter day, we would see an English family sipping beer or tea in their flowering garden, with a couple of spaniels or retrievers, jumping around them, playing with a tennis ball.Something about this city, lingers… its formidable fortress looking across an imaginary river, the spirited galis, the pungent trail of an open bazaar, soft yellow light filtering through trees in the autumn…
This is essentially a pictorial record of a pivotal moment in India’s history, but also a timely tribute to Ravi Dayal, the renowned publisher. Dayal, who married Khushwant Singh’s daughter Mala, passed away in 2006. He is not only remembered for his role in encouraging new authors but also for his intuitive sense of history…
Festschrifts are fashionable these days. In recent years a large number of them have come out in honour of distinguished economists. By and large, they tend to be of poor quality; except for one or two articles in each, these volumes contain material which would not have been otherwise published…
Edifices and monuments are built. Cities grow and evolve over time. There have, however, been exceptions. Mohammad bin Tughlak’s Daulatabad was one. The mad emperor, as some thought of him, ordered that his capital in Delhi be abandoned and the Court be established hundreds of miles south in the Deccan…
Delhi then and Now is a unique book. In two distinct parts, Narayani Gupta and Dilip Bobb have captured this ‘city in transit’ very graphically, recreating the richness of the nostalgic past juxtaposed with its vibrant presence.In Part-I-Delhi Then-Narayani Gupta has given an account of the evolution of the city interspersed with some interesting tid bits. She starts with a statement that ‘Delhi’ is an attractive name because of its brevity…
Before and after Independence, India was engaged in a process of discovering itself and re-fashioning an identity for itself.