HI4800.WN - History of India

Afterimage of Empire provides a philosophical and historical account of early photography in India that focuses on how aesthetic experiments in colonial photography changed the nature of perception. Considering photographs from the Sepoy Revolt of 1857 along with landscape, portraiture, and famine photography, Zahid R. Chaudhary explores larger issues of truth, memory, and embodiment. Chaudhary scrutinizes the colonial context to understand the production of sense itself, proposing a new theory of interpreting the historical difference of aesthetic forms. In rereading colonial photographic images, he shows how the histories of colonialism became aesthetically, mimetically, and perceptually generative. He suggests that photography arrived in India not only as a technology of the colonial state but also as an instrument that eventually extended and transformed sight for photographers and the body politic, both British and Indian. Ultimately, Afterimage of Empire uncovers what the colonial history of the medium of photography can teach us about the making of the modern perceptual apparatus, the transformation of aesthetic experience, and the linkages between perception and meaning.

The army in India was the principal pillar of British power in South Asia from the mid-nineteenth century until Indian independence. This volume aims to evaluate the combat effectiveness of the army in British India from the mutiny of 1857 until the British departed Indiaain 1947. It examines how the army in India developed from a colonial police force into one of the world's largest volunteer armies which saw service around the globe. The author presents new primary material from international archival sources and develops original interpretations of the political and military role of the army in colonial India. These new arguments include- the army's conduct of 'small wars' on the North-West frontier aided it in conducting tactical warfare in Burma during World War II; small unit raids developed in India were put to good effect beyond India's borders; the army's practical experience of counter-insurgency was used in Greece and Indonesia after 1945; and, contrary to existing scholarship, the British did not follow a deliberate policy of 'Indianization' of the officer corps .

This revised and enlarged edition of The Arts of India has over 150 impressive gravure and full-color illustrations. These include various important objects and monuments not usually seen in general surveys to supplement the many essential art milestones that this book features. It is also unique in beginning its visual survey with relics of India's stone age and in concluding the book with works from the nation's great folk tradition and selected paintings by modern artists. Here is a book with captions and a text that are highly readable blends of scholarly information and informal comment by an Indian art expert. This grants the reader special insights into the concepts that lie behind art so different from that of the West. Author Mookerjee has judiciously selected photographs which present the vast panorama of Indian art from its earliest beginnings. Examples of Indian folk arts and some works by 20th-century Indian artists round out this rich historic survey of over 5,000 years of continuous creativity--a collection of paintings, reliefs, statues, and architectural monuments from this sprawling sub-continent now divided into the lands of India, Pakistan, Ceylon, Burma and Afghanistan.

'Britain in India, 1858-1947' seeks to trace the last 90 years of British rule in the light of modern historical debates. The volume examines the ambiguities of British rule that followed from the post-Mutiny settlement: the tensions between an authoritarian bureaucracy and the promise of a liberal vision of the future, and between imperial interests and the growing coordination of Indian aspirations for self-rule. The volume analyses these tensions with reference to contemporary historical debates, and traces them through changing international relations and world wars to Indian independence and partition in 1947.

A historical narrative that examines the role of ulema and their use of the concept of jihad during India's struggle for independence. Colonialism and the Call to Jihad in British India examines the role of Muslim religious leaders or Ulema's  in India's freedom struggle. And it does so by visiting the life and times of seven main protagonists- the 19th century cleric Sayyid Ahmad Barelvi, the mystic revolutionary Maulvi Ahmadullah Shah, Maulana Mahmoodul Hasan( the founding father of the Silk Conspiracy and later of Jamia Millia Movement), Maulana Obaidullah Sindhi, Barkatullah Khan and Maulana Hussain Ahmad Madani. All eulogized the idea of 'Jihad' but used it to fight and lead the freedom struggle against the British. It examines the roots of the Walliullahi movement which led to the Deoband movement in the second half of the 19thcentury in North India. It also highlights the 20thcentury Silk letter movement in which Muslim Ulema worked in tandem with the Hindu and Sikh Nationalists led Ghadar Party which was active not just in India but also in Europe and the USA. The book is a timely reminder of a shared Hindu-Muslim unity during our freedom struggle and helps us understand the commonly misunderstood notion of Jihad in the Indian context. The book in the end puts onus on the prevailing political system to ensure that India does not fall victim to sectarian violence and religious intolerance.  

A Concise History of Modern India by Barbara D. Metcalf and Thomas R. Metcalf, has become a classic in the field since it was first published in 2001. As a fresh interpretation of Indian history from the Mughals to the present, it has informed students across the world. In the third edition of the book, a final chapter charts the dramatic developments of the last twenty years, from 1990 through the Congress electoral victory of 2009, to the rise of the Indian high-tech industry in a country still troubled by poverty and political unrest. The narrative focuses on the fundamentally political theme of the imaginative and institutional structures that have successively sustained and transformed India, first under British colonial rule and then, after 1947, as an independent country. Woven into the larger political narrative is an account of India's social and economic development and its rich cultural life.

The Great Rebellion of 1857 in India was much more than a 'sepoy mutiny'. It was a major event in South Asian and British colonial history that significantly challenged imperialism in India. This fascinating collection explores hitherto ignored diversities of the Great Rebellion such as gender and colonial fiction, courtesans, white 'marginals', penal laws and colonial anxieties about the  Mughals, even in exile. Also studied are popular struggles involving tribals and outcastes, and the way outcastes in the south of India locate the Rebellion. Interdisciplinary in focus and based on a range of untapped source materials and rare, printed tracts, this book questions conventional wisdom. The comprehensive introduction traces the different historiographical approaches to the Great Rebellion, including the imperialist, nationalist, marxist and subaltern scholarship. While questioning typical assumptions associated with the Great Rebellion, it argues that the Rebellion neither began nor ended in 1857-58.  Clearly informed by the 'Subaltern Studies' scholarship, this book is post-subalternist as it moves far beyond narrow subalternist concerns. It will be of interest to students of Colonial and South Asian History, Social History, Cultural and Political Studies.

This book challenges the view, common among Western scholars, that precolonial India lacked a tradition of military philosophy. It traces the evolution of theories of warfare in India from the dawn of civilization, focusing on the debate between Dharmayuddha (Just War) and Kutayuddha (Unjust War) within Hindu philosophy. This debate centers around four questions: What is war? What justifies it? How should it be waged? And what are its potential repercussions? This body of literature provides evidence of the historical evolution of strategic thought in the Indian subcontinent that has heretofore been neglected by modern historians. Further, it provides a counterpoint to scholarship in political science that engages solely with Western theories in its analysis of independent India's philosophy of warfare. Ultimately, a better understanding of the legacy of ancient India's strategic theorizing will enable more accurate analysis of modern India's military and nuclear policies.

In this book William Gould explores what is arguably one of the most important and controversial themes in twentieth-century Indian history and politics: the nature of Hindu nationalism as an ideology and political language. Rather than concentrating on the main institutions of the Hindu Right in India as other studies have done, the author uses a variety of historical sources to analyse how Hindu nationalism affected the supposedly secularist Congress in the key state of Uttar Pradesh. In this way, the author offers an alternative assessment of how these languages and ideologies transformed the relationship between Congress and north Indian Muslims. The book makes a major contribution to historical analyses of the critical last two decades before Partition and Independence in 1947, which will be of value to scholars interested in historical and contemporary Hindu nationalism, and to students researching the final stages of colonial power in India.

This new edition of Burton Stein's classic A History ofIndia builds on the success of the original to provide anupdated narrative of the development of Indian society, culture,and politics from 7000 BC to the present. New edition of Burton Stein?s classic text provides anarrative from 7000 BC up to the twenty-first century Includes updated and extended coverage of the modern period,with a new chapter covering the death of Nehru in 1964 to thepresent Expands coverage of India's internal political and economicdevelopment, and its wider diplomatic role in the region Features a new introduction, updated glossary and furtherreading sections, and numerous figures, photographs and fullyrevised maps

A major contribution towards the different perspectives and issues central to understanding ancient India This book engages with some of the most important issues, debates, and methodologies in the writing of ancient Indian history. Thematically structured, the first section discusses religious and regional processes through a meticulous analysis of inscriptions and material remains. The second--based extensively on archival sources--connects ancient and modern India through a discussion of the beginnings of Indian archaeology and the discovery, interpretation, and reinvention of ancient sites in colonial and post-colonial times. The third underlines the importance of reconstructing the intellectual landscape of ancient India through a sensitive, yet, critical historicization of political ideas in texts and inscriptions. The final section makes a strong case for situating ancient India within a broader,  Asian, frame.  

World War II was a global catastrophe. Far broader than just the critical struggle between Allies and Axis, its ramifications were felt throughout the world. It was a time of social relocation, reorienting ideas of patriotism and geographical attachment, and forcing the movement of people across oceans and continents. In India at War, Yasmin Khan offers an account of India's role in the conflict, one that takes into consideration the social, economic, and cultural changes that occurred in South Asia between 1939 and 1945-and reveals how vital the Commonwealth's contribution was to the war effort. Khan's sweeping work centers on the lives of ordinary Indian people, exploring the ways they were affected by a cataclysmic war with origins far beyond Indian shores. In manpower alone, India's contribution was staggering; it produced the largest volunteer army in world history, with 2.5 million men. Indians were engaged in making the raw materials and food stuffs needed by the Allies, and became involved in the construction of airstrips, barracks, hospitals, internee camps, roads and railways. Their lives were also profoundly affected by the presence of the large Allied army in the region, including not only British but American, African, and Chinese troops. Madras was bombed by the Japanese and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands were occupied, while the Bengal famine of 1943-in which perhaps three million Bengalis died-was a man-made disaster precipitated by the effects of the war. This authoritative account offers a critically important look at the contributions of colonial manpower and resources essential to sustaining the war, and emphasizes the significant ways in which the conflict shaped modern India.

This fascinating book, based on extensive archival research in Britain and India, examines why mutineer-rebels chose to attack prisons and release prisoners, discusses the impact of the destruction of the jails on British penal policy in mainland India, considers the relationship between India and its penal settlements in Southeast Asia, re-examines Britain's decision to settle the Andaman Islands as a penal colony in 1858 and re-evaluates the experiences of mutineer-rebel convicts there. This book makes an important contribution to histories of the mutiny-rebellion, British colonial South Asia, British expansion in the Indian Ocean and incarceration and transportation.

Based on new source material available in both England and India, India's Partition examines the partition in the context of the retreat of the British Empire. The freeing of India from British rule was the result of internal forces in both countries, while the split of the subcontinent along religious lines served as a harbinger for things to come. Panigrahi argues that partition was not a foregone conclusion and was not the favoured option for most of the main parties, but rather was the result of a unique set of circumstances. An erudite exploration of the highly complex relations between India and Britain leading up to independence and the split, India's Partition looks at the leaders who made far-reaching decisions - and their motivations - during this critical time.

This work seeks to examine the event and concurrent transition that the inauguration of India and Pakistan as 'postcolonial' states in August 1947 constituted and effectuated. Analysing India and Pakistan together in a parallel and mutually dependant reading, and utilizing primary data and archival materials, Svensson offers new insights into the current literature, seeking to conceptualise independence through partition and decolonisation in terms of novelty and as a 'restarting of time'. Through his analysis, Svensson demonstrates the constitutive and inexorable entwinement of contingency and restoration, of openness and closure, in the establishment of the postcolonial state. It is maintained that those involved in instituting the new state in a moment devoid of fixity and foundation 'anchor' it in preceding beginnings. The work concludes with the proposition that the novelty should not only be regarded as contained in the moment of transition. It should also be seen as contained in the pledge, in the promise and the gesturing towards a future community.

Through an investigation of the violence that marked the partition of British India in 1947, this book analyses questions of history and memory, the nationalisation of populations and their pasts, and the ways in which violent events are remembered (or forgotten) in order to ensure the unity of the collective subject - community or nation. Stressing the continuous entanglement of 'event' and 'interpretation', the author emphasises both the enormity of the violence of 1947 and its shifting meanings and contours. The book provides a sustained critique of the procedures of history-writing and nationalist myth-making on the question of violence, and examines how local forms of sociality are constituted and reconstituted, by the experience and representation of violent events. It concludes with a comment on the different kinds of political community that may still be imagined even in the wake of Partition and events like it.

'There are no two things in the world more different from each other than East-Indian and West Indian-slavery' (Robert Inglis, House of Commons Debate, 1833).In Slavery, Abolitionism and Empire in India, 1772-1843, Andrea Major asks why, at a time when East India Company expansion in India, British abolitionism and the missionary movement were all at their height, was the existence of slavery in India so often ignored, denied or excused? By exploring Britain's ambivalent relationship with both real and imagined slaveries in India, and the official, evangelical and popular discourses which surrounded them, she seeks to uncover the various political, economic and ideological agendas that allowed East Indian slavery to be represented as qualitatively different from its trans-Atlantic counterpart. In doing so, she uncovers tensions in the relationship between colonial policy and the so-called 'civilising mission', elucidating the intricate interactions between humanitarian movements, colonial ideologies and imperial imperatives in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.

This book examines the economic, cultural, political and social positions of Muslim women in medieval India. It explores the changes that took place with the advent of Arabs, Turks, Mongols, Tartars, Afghans and Persians whose customs and traditions influenced the existing Islamic society.   Though Islam improved the position of women by instituting many reforms, the Islamic religious texts laid down the minutest code of conduct for women, the slightest deviation from which was considered irreligious. Such rigidity, coupled with the apathy of the ulemas, led to the weakening of position of women. The book goes on to show how the diktats of the Quran were subjected to many interpretations down the ages, affecting the status of women in various ways.   

As it enters its sixtieth year of independence, India stands on the threshold of superpower status. Yet India is strikingly different from all other global colossi. While it is the world’s most populous democracy and enjoys the benefits of its internationally competitive high-tech and software industries, India also contends with extremes of poverty, inequality, and political and religious violence.   This accessible and vividly written book presents a new interpretation of India’s history, focusing particular attention on the impact of British imperialism on Independent India. Maria Misra begins with the rebellion against the British in 1857 and tracks the country’s advance to the present day. India’s extremes persist, the author argues, because its politics rest upon a peculiar foundation in which traditional ideas of hierarchy, difference, and privilege coexist to a remarkable degree with modern notions of equality and democracy. The challenge of India’s leaders today, as in the last sixty years, is to weave together the disparate threads of the nation’s ancient culture, colonial legacy, and modern experience.