Bhairabi Prasad Sahu’s book on society and culture in Post-Mauryan India is a companion volume to Volume 6 which deals with the political and economic history of the same period.
This is an important book at a significant time. It makes some incisive points on how the Anglophone world has refused to, and continues to ignore, the contributions of ‘far-reaching philosophical systems’ that arose outside the so-called western traditions.
The politics of Hindutva has created its hegemony in Indian politics in the recent past, particularly after the 2014 general election. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has emerged as a popular and strong leader, who has not only made his mark in the rural areas of different States (particularly North and West India) but also created a huge fan following in urban areas and within the Non-Resident Indian (NRI) communities in different countries.
The idea of ‘Warzone Tourism’ has a long past, going back some five hundred years earlier. Ladies from the royal/ruling/warring households and journalists have displayed a tendency to witness and watch live conflicts for fun and entertainment.
The opening episode of Sasanka Perera’s new book, Violence and the Burden of Memory; Remembrance and Erasure in Sinhala Consciousness is about his own memory of a school friend, Anura.
It is often stated that caste is class in India and that considerations of caste is more important than religion. It is for this reason that Ashwini Deshpande’s work deserves attention as she has researched extensively on caste and the policy of reservations in India.
No other public institution in any po- litical system has public interface with an identifiable visibility than the police. Circumstances are almost entirely regulatory that seldom create a positive image of the institution.
Indian Youth and Electoral Politics: An Emerging Engagement edited by Sanjay Kumar takes up critical questions that have dominated the larger political canvas since 2009.
Delhi probably has the single largest con- centration of scholars and opinion makers in the country who make a living studying, observing and commenting on politics.
2014
India’s democracy is acknowledged and cel- ebrated, at home and abroad, especially because very few Asian, African and Latin American societies have been able to maintain liberal democratic institutions and practices.
2014
One of the critical currents of con- temporary Indian political history has been Hindutva’s cerebral politics over the Ram Janmabhumi-Babri Masjid conflict and continuous struggle by its historians to create a coherent and authentic historical narrative that would demolish the dominant narrative on Ram and Ayodhya as constructed by the ‘Left Historians’.
Kris Manjapra’s Age of Entanglement is a worthy and comprehensive study of the transnational engagements between Germans and Indians, from the nineteenth century to the Second World War, when both nations were trying, in their own ways, to free themselves from British hegemonic control.
Thengphakhri ‘Baideo’ is the first Indian woman to be awarded the position of Izardar (or Tehsildar) by the contemporary British regime. She was given the responsibility to collect taxes in Mahan, Sunkush and Burhidiya, all belonging to a landlocked place popularly known today as ‘Bodoland’—on one side Bhutan and Sikkim, on another Coochbehar, while on the other sides Ahom and Bijni kingdoms ruled this small land.
D isobedient Girl by Ru Freeman is a story, in parallel, about two wo-men living in two different periods of time and in different situations. The novel is set in Sri Lanka against the backdrop of the political upheaval and social unrest of that time.
‘There was fear in the air—downcast eyes, nervous scurrying—for bombs had exploded in these close confines in the past, killing disproportionate numbers of packed humanity. The heat, humidity and stench of human effluence in the enclosed stalls made me nauseous.’ Shane Joseph’s Paradise Revisited is set against the background of the recent tragic, violent events that tore Sri Lanka apart and cast a long shadow.
Gods, Kings & Slaves is the story of two primary protagonists, both known to history. The first protagonist is Veera Pandyan of Madurai, and the other is a Hindu boy from Gujarat, who becomes Malik Kafur, Alauddin Khilji’s famous general. What the author does extremely well is to take characters from our history about whom we do not have much information, but are known enough so as to not appear fictional characters…
Maybe being an aggressive lesbian feminist was the easiest way for a young woman from India to find fame in those happening decades of 60’s and 70’s in the West (where Suniti Namjoshi has lived most of her adult life.) It is a pity though that she found fame thus, for her real talent lies elsewhere. It is in the magic that she weaves with words. It lights up everything she writes—poetry, prose, parables, fables, fantasies…
2014
‘You cannot go back and make a new start, but you can start now and make a new ending.’– The Almond Tree. Michelle Cohen Corasanti places one family at the centre of the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians to depict how it feels to be a Palestinian and have one’s land taken away and belongings destroyed under a strict military rule.
Anita Nair locates Idris: Keeper of the Light in the seventeenth century and draws our attention to a period of time chronicled by the better known Gregorian calendar between 1625 AD to 1661 AD.
This is a deeply pleasurable, immersive and impressive collection. It is a compilation about actors, their thoughts, ideas, craft and it captures the milieus in which they have lived and worked. The Act Of Becoming edited by Amal Allana is a collaborative publication by Niyogi Books and The National School of Drama. It provides us with accounts of 22 theatre actors from the 1880s to the present.