Ghulam Murshid

Authored, translated and about to be reviewed by a Bengali (a curious coincidence, indeed), this book by Ghulam Murshid, a well-known Britain based academic of Bangladeshi origin, is yet another addition to the large corpus of writings on the Bengalis. It offers, as Murshid says, ‘a general idea of Bengali culture’. But this thousand years old culture has neither been uniform nor unchanging; all cultures, for that matter, show exactly the same traits.


Reviewed by: Nabanipa Bhattacharjee
Divya Vaid

The importance of a book on social mobility in India can hardly be over-emphasized when nearly three decades of economic reforms are to be completed. A crucial premise of ‘economic liberalization’ was that deregulation of various aspects of the economy would create new opportunities, which were hitherto chained by the nexus of the traditional capitalists with the bureaucracy on one hand and government monopolies in certain areas apparently restricting dynamism on the other.


Reviewed by: Arindam Banerji
Sarbeswar Sahoo

Sarbeswar Sahoo’s Pentecostalism and Politics of Conversion in India is a significant study of one of the most sensitive issues in the politics of religion in India. Barring the limitation that usually goes with ethnographic studies—the exclusive focus on a limited location in studying what is a pan-Indian issue—this book is a must read for those interested in knowing the truth about conversion and re-conversion in India.


Reviewed by: Valson Thampu
Irfan Ahmad

Irfan Ahmad asks the reader to look for something in Islam which we all believed never existed, i.e. critique. He explores critique in Islam, when we understood that Islam was actually hostile to critique. In this book Ahmad has two main arguments; first being that ‘reason, critique, and reflexivity’ did not begin with the Enlightenment or with Kant. Rather, it can be traced back to prophets and savants of the axial age, some of whom we know as founders of major world’s religions.


Reviewed by: Mirza Asmer Beg
Asha Rani Mathur

There are two underlying narratives in this short but fine biography. One is the story of a set of remarkable women–patrons, musicians, enthusiasts who set the tone to cultural life in dusty Delhi after Independence. Upper class, confident, accomplished, generous, an amalgam of grace and nationalism—Sumitra Charat Ram, Nirmala Joshi, Nina Ripjit Singh (Naina Devi) and later Dipali Nag and Sheila Dhar were names to reckon with.


Reviewed by: Partho Datta