When a few months ago I had the chance to come across the poetry of Margaret Chatterjee (The Sandalwood Tree) I was so deeply impressed, not only by her talent and skill as a poetess but also by her grasp of the various contemporary social and ageless philosophical problems reflected in her verses, that I made a point to meet her in person and find out more about her…
This extremely well-produced book is one of the most thorough and comprehensive studies yet published on the politics of the Indian Ocean, both in terms of littoral issues and the use of the sea itself.Although one may disagree with some of Dr. Singh’s arguments about the various powers as they jostle for influence in the area (if one can yet call the Indian Ocean an ‘area’) his book is a valuable aid to further analysis…
English has an uneasy existence in India, for we in India are not at home with it in spite of the Times Literary Supplement’s consistent advocacy of the recognition of Indian English. In India it is nobody’s language unless you would like to consider it the language of Anglo-Indians (Eurasians), but their number is small…
A Tamil proverb says that a half-nosed person is the king among noseless persons, This proverb can be applied with precision in the modern Tamil literary sphere where anything vaguely resembling political writing and everything that is made to seem revolutionary is hailed. The mere mention of a worker, revolution…
Kitsch and homogenization have been two important techniques used in the reduction of the person to the mass man by the mass society of today.Kitsch means that products of mass culture in which the aesthetic and intellectual work is done for the recipient, making him a passive recipient rather than an active discoverer…
The book is meant as a case study of different modes of transport provided by different agencies, under public and private ownership, in the Calcutta metropolitan area, and the economic and operational efficiency of these modes and agencies. The Calcutta State Transport Corporation, being the principal agency responsible…
In the struggle-torn world of today, not only individuals try to better their lot, but even nations compete ferociously to overtake each other. Ever-growing competition has led to an almost unwholesome image-consciousness which manifests itself in organized showmanship by almost every country…
‘The humbug, the waste and the plain stupidity that constitute a distressingly large part of our educational scene today’. This is the basic theme of this provocative collection of essays. Though they relate mostly to higher education, Professor V.V John also makes trenchant comments throughout this book…
‘The two principal political ideologies of the present age, democracy and socialism, either singly or in various combinations are built,’ writes Beteille, ‘on the premise of equality for all human beings.’ The philosophy underlying the concept of equality emerged mainly out of the concern within modern nation-states…
Duncan M. Derrett is an excellent survey of marriage laws in India. A Professor of Oriental Laws at the University of London, Derrett has given an analytical appreciation of Hindu Marriage Law. Being familiar not only with legal aspects of a law but being aware of Indian condition, he has contributed in understanding marriage…
First order theoretical activity has been rare in recent literature in social sciences. Works which convey an integrated social understanding and a sense of historical sweep, and which possess a philosophical quality while at the same time relating themselves to common human problems, are not easy to find. But claims to such status are not scarce…
The subtitle to this book explains the precise perspective, namely, an analysis of attitudes towards political power in the two countries between the seventh and second centuries B.C.This is clearly an ambitious undertaking, for it is easy enough to compare superficial similarities but more difficult to assess the historical mainsprings of particular patterns…
This book is one among a number of recent publications dealing with various aspects of the origin and development of Muslim communal politics during the national movement. Many of these—for example, Sheila Sen’s work on Bengal, A.K. Gupta’s book on the N.W.F.P and Francis Robinson’s…
The second volume of D.P. Mishra’s autobiography covers the years of Nehru’s ascendancy, decline and death, during the major part of which Mishra was himself in the political dog-house. For one whom his friends considered a Chanakya, Mishra shows himself by his own account to be extraordinarily…