Making Contemporary South Asia Intelligible: In Broad Brushstrokes on a Vast Canvas
Adnan Farooqui
SHADOWS AT NOON: THE SOUTH ASIAN TWENTIETH CENTURY by By Joya Chatterji Viking/Penguin Random House, 2023, 864 pp., INR 1299.00
October 2024, volume 48, No 10

South Asia, as a political construct, is a region marked by immense diversity across political, social, and cultural dimensions. Despite a shared past that could have served as a unifying force, historical grievances—both real and imagined—have come to dominate our present, reshaping how we perceive ourselves, our history, and the potential bonds that could bring us together. Over the decades, the nations within South Asia have focused on asserting their distinctiveness from their neighbours, often engaging in selective and creative reinterpretations of shared history. This has led to an emphasis on differences at the expense of a rich, shared heritage that could serve as a binding agent for the region.

While there is a wealth of literature on South Asia, much of it has concentrated on the region’s geopolitics. When historians have adopted a comparative approach, their focus has largely been on the period leading up to the Partition of the subcontinent. However, there have been fewer attempts to understand the region as a whole, highlighting both commonalities and differences across social, political, and economic spectrums. It took a historian of exceptional calibre to apply a historian’s eye to South Asia in its entirety, crafting a broader narrative that examines the region’s socio-political and historical landscape through a comparative lens.

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