Tag Archives: History

An even more disappointing presence, though sparse, is of the female characters. While they are hardly a part of the narrative, whenever they do appear, they seem to be objects of desire or cunning plotters hungry for power through their male counterparts.
‘The nautanki-wali’s breasts showed dark and bulbous beneath the thin pink silk of the baju. Rohidas, who could not tear his eyes away, recognized them at last for large purple brinjals,

Further, in the overarching context of the structural relations of modes of production, Baruah introduces three distinct cultural forms/windows—memoirs, ballads and world views—and their articulations by the respective figures of the hunter, the peasant and the rebel to draw attention to, as mentioned earlier, the combined nature of the underlying structure of colonialism in Assam.

As far as the Indian Paralympics is concerned, the story of country’s glorious sons and daughters resembles the socio-economic milieu of the country. The book provides a vivid description of the social background of the athletes, their rationale for choosing para sports, the physical and the emotional struggles they underwent during the course of their career. More than physical strength, it was the willpower of the para-athletes which makes their story enthralling.

The essay explores at length the close relations between the workings of the PWA and AAWA. Besides deliberating upon the evolution and checkered history of the PWA in India and Pakistan, Ramnath also makes an attempt at studying the socio-political and cultural scenario in which the journal Lotus emerged. AAWA provided a common platform for the reunion of Progressive Writers from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. While the journal Lotus ceased soon after the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, attempts at forging an alliance between Africa and South Asia have continued unhindered.

Purnima Dhavan’s ‘A Feast for the Heart and Mind: Print Culture, Polemics and Religious Debate in Punjab in the 1870s’ discusses the evolution of Islamic literature after the arrival of print in late-nineteenth century Punjab focusing on the Baran Anva, a lengthy seventeenth-century text, and Pakki Roti, a short booklet written in the nineteenth century. Focusing on Muslim Punjabis, Dhavan uses these texts to discuss printing enterprises, script, language and education in the 1870s. Going against the grain, she argues that Punjabi Muslims learnt about Islam not from Arabic or Persian, but through texts in Shahmukhi script that were in Punjabi and occasionally Urdu.

Bhatia begins the book with a personal story of this transformation. He recounts how any discussion among family, friends and acquaintances over the past decade ended with Islamophobia-laced muscular Hindu interpretation of India’s past and aspiration for India’s future. To grapple with this change is to pose some version of the question, ‘Where is this poison coming from?’—as articulated, with poignancy and a tinge of bewilderment, by Nisar.

For a long time, almost till the beginning of the nineteenth century, military engineers (who began receiving formal training on a regular basis only when the Company’s Military Seminary was set up at Addiscombe in 1809) carried out the tasks of architects, civil engineers and town planners. Civil engineers as distinct from military engineers were not appointed by the Company prior to the end of the eighteenth century.

Reid implies that Churchill lost interest in India affairs thereafter. But like many historians, he fails to ask: was that not an act of gross negligence, given that War-weary Britain’s exit from India was inevitable by then? Those ‘wasted years’, with all top INC leaders held incommunicado in jail, August 1942 to May 1945, was precisely the time to prepare for the world’s greatest political carve-out. One result: Mountbatten’s frenzied, hasty actions of March-August 1947, when even the borders of the new independent states, India and Pakistan, were not publicly revealed till 17 August, two days after the Independence of India.

The assassination of Gandhi marked a new stage in the history of the RSS. The organization, due to the immense public anger against it, and the imprisonment of Golwalkar, was forced to change its strategy. It was compelled to cease its violent actions and adopt measures which were acceptable in a sane society.

Some, though not all, of these aspects emerge from Purandare’s lucid prose. Strangely enough, the book has no bibliography but in the notes the reader will notice the major secondary sources, including biographies, on which the book is based; NC Kelkar (Marathi, 1923), Bhagwat and Pradhan (English, 2016), NR Phatak (Marathi, 1972), and Keer (English, 1959) are copiously drawn upon.

The Empire was, by the end of the seventeenth century, essentially an ‘Empire of the Indian Subcontinent’, encompassing almost the entire subcontinent. In the formative phase of his military career Aurangzeb had gained his experience in Central Asia where he had been deputed by Shah Jahan for campaigns in Balkh and Badakhshan.

Evaluating the nature of court histories and court chronicles, Joshi raises a few historiographical issues. Relating his concerns, he asserts that while these narratives depict the occurrences pertaining to official gatherings or festive events attended by elitist politically powerful male members,

Urban improvement by accumulating funds through lottery was popular in eighteenth and early nineteenth-century British colonies. The basic idea was that city-dwellers would voluntarily buy lotteries, and improvement would be funded from that money.

In the succinctly written Introduction, Aparna Vaidik, besides providing a bird’s eye-view of the book, discusses the complex nature of the primary theme of her study, viz., the historical-legal aspects of the Case, and the difficulties that she, as a historian, faced while working on it. An important challenge which she faced related to presenting a difficult theme in ‘accessible prose’

From a geopolitical perspective, British involvement in the Hajj served multiple strategic purposes. It allowed the empire to assert control over trade routes and exert influence in key regions such as Jeddah. Simultaneously, the British sought to earn the loyalty and legitimacy of their Muslim subjects by facilitating the pilgrimage, a move that was both pragmatic and symbolic. However

Despite a slightly rambling style and loose prose of the book, exhaustive research is evident emanating from a passion that rebuked any naked manipulation of knowledge. We gain well from the author’s efforts in presenting information on this crucial period of deep histories

The second part of the book concentrates on the Sufi orders which operated during Bahmani times, described in tandem with contemporary political events and rulers. One chapter reiterates Chishti tenets as found in north India and discusses Zain al-Din Shirazi’s and Gisudaraz’s relationships with the rulers. After Zain al-Din’s passing in 1369, Siddiqi sees a vacuum in Sufi activities in the Deccan

The fourth section entitled ‘Social History: Reflections on Conceptual Issues’ contains five essays reflecting mainly upon several historiographical approaches. In the chapter on ‘Social Structure and Commercial Pursuits in Early India’, the author focuses on the terminological parameters of commercial pursuits. Leaving aside the common terms, the author questions the meaning of vārtā in the changing contexts of society. He further questions how in ancient Indian terminological parameters

Simplicity offers opportunity to cleanse Perry’s apartment of possessions he did not really need (not going as far as to replace all his clothes with a dhoti or lungi, concluding sadly that he was not built for them) and to acquiring two new talents—spinning and playing the tabla.

Each scholar takes a different track: the art historian Zitzewitz looks at the theatrical performances that are imaged in the artist’s photo-performances, tracing a historical lineage to popular performances and even the artist’s own childhood participation in dramatic enactments of historical and mythological stories. Zitzewitz further argues for the interpretation of performance as an inhabiting of gender. Whether exploring the gendered iconography of nation or cinematic tropes