State of the Art in the Art of the State

This book, which is the outcome of a workshop on the same title held in Kyoto in December 1999, also contains a few articles written by other scholars and omits a few which were presented there. In its present form, it contains a few samples of the best research available on the state in India, in both its historical and socio-political aspects. The work of the editors as well as many of the contributors give an indication of the interest that Japanese scholarship has been showing on problems of India – historical, social and political. Even the non-Japanese scholars appearing there have given a good account of themselves, thereby making this a statement of the state of the art in the business. The problem of the state has been engaging the serious attention of historians and other social scientists ever since the end of World War II, particularly for the way in which that institution had grown or overgrown beyond all expectations. The state developed into oversized leviathans and civil liberties, which it was expected to protect, were trampled down.