A. Banerjee

This book brings the Indian Ocean forefront to the study of Empire, anti-colonial nationalism and ideas about globalization. It views the Ocean as the site where the local, regional and national intermingled with ideas of the universal. Together they constituted a sub-culture of tremendous economic and intellectual potential that could challenge the western global Empire. Sugata Bose focuses on this sub-culture that was the underbelly of Empire and sees it as an important propellant of anti-colonial nationalism. He laments that South Asian historiography has failed to integrate this referent to its larger narrative of nationalism and the formation of the nation state. He regrets that it has remained outside the purview of ideas of globalization as well.


Editorial
Raghuvendra Tanwar

Raghuvendra Tanwar’s weighty volume provides a wealth of material on developments in the Punjab during the period 1947-8. Despite its title, the work only in passing reflects on the different ‘spins’, news outlets imparted to the events of Partition. It rather uses newspapers and other documentary sources to piece together a detailed narrative. This begins with the breakdown in communal peace following the resignation on 2 March 1947 of the Khizr Tiwana Coalition Government and concludes with the impact on the Punjab of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination. While the coverage is stronger with respect to East Punjab, there is considerable material also on West Punjab, especially on developments in Lahore.


Editorial
David Hardiman

Histories for the Subordinated consists of nine essays, all of them reprints, but many of them not easily available, with an Introduction that is new and theoretically significant. Together, they will convey a deeper understanding of Hardiman’s work to his readers, both old and new. This is spread now over some three decades, and is marked throughout by a richness of fieldwork and oral material unequalled by any other South Asian historian. With this Hardiman has always combined meticulous and critically nuanced archival research, and oral and written data together have illuminated a whole series of obscure or unknown episodes and processes of the history of subordinated groups in modern Gujarat and western India.


Editorial
Neelum Saran Gaur

“For me, that day in late March, it began with the ringing of my mobile phone and Deb’s voice: Siddhantha, there’s this blast in Sikander Chowk Park. I want you to rush down and cover it. Immediately.” And so since there is no arguing with that Siddhantha does the story which he says wasn’t exactly a scoop. It was in fact a scrap of news so trivial that the desensitized eye quickly glosses over it in its insignificant corner of the local page,


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A. Banerjee

Translating India: The Cultural Politics of English is concerned with the produc- tion of the body of writing referred to as Indian Literature in English Translation or ILET. Rita Kothari offers a concise overview of the political and economic ideologies underlying translation activity in English in India, ‘what goes into feeding it’ and ‘the quarters that gives this industry its present prominence and help sustain its energy.’ She traces the development of ILET as a body ‘that is substantial and distinct’, and suggests that ‘its unprecedented rise from being a marginalized event to a pervasive trend’ over the last two decades is a phenomenon worth close attention (p.2).


Editorial
Brian Mendonca

I visited Goa shortly after receiving Last Bus to Goa, and sat on the beach under a rain- threatening sky to read: Like a slate of grey The sea stretches To meet the sky. The horizon blurs As the dawn Swollen with rain Douses the sun… (‘Velsao’)


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