This striking book, a collection of thirteen papers, on the genealogy, locations and practices of sociology in India tries to locate within the complex, contradictory, and contesting histories of sociological traditions in the various settings during the colonial period and immediately after, before the spiralling expansion of the university…
Gail Omvedt’s book attempts to understand caste, critiquing the position that equates Indian tradition with Hinduism making Vedas the foundational texts of Indian culture that imprisons even secular minds within brahmanical perspective and proposes to go beyond the debate of posing secularism or reformist Hinduism…
The book under review unravels the way in which the adivasi society negotiated with itself and interacted with shifts and changes that were taking place during the colonial period. The book is divided into three parts consisting of 13 papers. The Editor’s introduction seeks to explore the nature of tribal society in colonial India…
At a time when adivasis are both central to the national political discourse on conversion, migration, the environ-ment, and insurgency, and yet strangely silenced, Alpa Shah’s straight up ethnography of a Munda village in Jharkhand is very welcome. It grounds her critical discussion of these larger issues…
After a gap of many years, Margaret and Percival Spear returned to India to recall and reflect on the life they had together spent in this country during the twenties, the thirties and half the forties of this century.
Any serious student of Indian federalism must be aware that if Indian federa-lism has been the key to holding this very complex and culturally diverse country together in conditions of democracy over the last half a century-a remarkable record of nation and state building in sharp contrast to the former USSR and many countries…