By Mariam Dossal

Historical scholarship on Kutch is rather scanty. Although some aspects of the history of the region in the modern period have received the attention of scholars, there is hardly any work that deals with the colonial and postcolonial period as a whole. The colonial administrator LF Rushbrook Williams who held several important positions in the bureaucracy, and also wrote on historical subjects, penned a book on Kutch titled The Black Hills: Kutch in History and Legend which was published in 1958 shortly after the erstwhile State became part of Bombay Province in Independent India.


Reviewed by: Amar Farooqui
By Devasis Chattopadhyay

Piecing together evidence from their memoirs, newspapers, various journals and magazines, advertisements, burial records, building histories and street directories, the author has woven the tales of figures like Harry Hobbs, the piano tuner, raconteur and businessman; Robert Reid, the police detective; and Shirley Tremearne, ‘Law Officer—Media Moghul—Businessman in Kolkata’. The life-stories of Henry Thoby Prinsep reveal the issue of slavery and indentured labour in the city. Another figure, the American civil war hero,


Reviewed by: Kaustubh Mani Sengupta
By Michael D. Nichols

In the book we get to encounter many forms of Māra and many Buddhism(s) in vast temporality and diverse spatial contexts. The author proposes three features of Māra in this long history—didactic, demonizing and shapeshifting. In any given context the figure has been instrumental in communicating didactic messages of Buddhism (in plural) and to corner or criticize the other thoughts contrary to the vision of the tradition by labelling them as Māra or evil.


Reviewed by: Chandrabhan P Yadav
By Christopher Snedden

For the Indian Government, he says, the challenges are to accommodate the unique identity of the Kashmiris (one might justifiably ask: don’t the people of every Indian State have their own unique identity?) and make them renounce anti-India sentiments of their own volition. A ‘serious dialogue’, ‘consultation’ would be a start.


Reviewed by: TCA Rangachari
By Arsalan Khan Cornell

The main theme of the book is how the broad features of Islamic tradition reconfigured by the historical particularities of modernity are martialized in specific practices of Dawat (p. 19). The book elaborates the importance that the Tablighi Jamaat attaches to the ritual practice of Dawat to create a cohesive Islamic society.


Reviewed by: Majid Bashir
By Rajaram Panda

VOur two countries have the ability and responsibility to ensure that it broadens yet further and to nurture and enrich these seas to become of clearest transparence.’ In his speech, the Prime Minister also alluded to Swami Vivekananda, describing him as a Renaissance man ahead of his time, and to the enduring contributions of Justice Radhabinod Pal for his dissenting judgement in the Tokyo trial after the Second World War.


Reviewed by: Rup Narayan Das