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Ethnicity and Madheshi Sub-National Identity in Nepal History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2024-02-22 Krishna Prasad Pandey
The 2015 Constitution defines Nepal as a multi-ethnic and multi-lingual country but not a multi-national; however, historically, two powerful ethnic groups with potential sub-national characters have been contesting each other under the native versus immigrant dyad. The alleged immigrants, namely the Madheshis, and the self-claimed native settlers, to name the Pahadis, both assert their distinct ethnic
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Selecting ‘History’: Baptist Mission in Nineteenth Century Naga Hills History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2024-02-19 Arenmenla Jamir
The article traces the efforts made by the American Baptist missionaries in the nineteenth century to connect with the local communities of the Naga Hills. The success of the mission has been credited to the mission’s successful use of terminologies drawn from local oral traditions in translating the Bible. While the article builds upon this argument, it also shows that while missionaries turned to
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Desertification, Water and Women in Banni Grasslands of India History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2024-02-19 Nikita Kaliravana, Ambati Nageswara Rao
Land degradation is one of the most serious ecological issues we face today. From the Rio+20 Summit through the 15th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD-COP15), many countries have made significant commitments to combat desertification. For its part, India also established goals in this area. UNCCD acknowledges the intricate relationship between
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Muslim Women Against a Backdrop of 1947: Facts and Fictions History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Farhat Nasreen
This article presents the stories of women who became victims of the multidimensional impact of the Partition of India in 1947. It steers through the autobiographic and fictional representations that emerged from their lives. The article argues that in the historical fabric, the socio-economic and political threads of time are so closely interwoven that it is almost impossible to study them in isolation
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Dearer Caste and Cheaper Lives: The SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and the Double Violence of Law in India History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2024-02-14 Javed Iqbal Wani, L. David Lal
The Constitution of India prescribes provisions to safeguard the lives of the Scheduled Castes. Special Acts are designed to address the existing challenges related to discriminatory practices and brutal violence against them by the dominant communities. However, the protective legislations have seldom acted to restrain the increasing display of cruelty against the historically marginalised. Mundane
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Equipoise of Emotions: The Case of Emperor Nasiruddin Muhammad Humayun History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2024-02-14 Yusuf Rana Kamal
Since time immemorial, healers like Charak, Hippocrates, Nagarjuna, Kasyapa Matanga and Avicenna and so on have emphasised the importance of mental wellbeing. It is not coincidental that just as the choices of men impact their mind and body, so does the state of the mind and body influence their choices. This article attempts to analyse the style chosen by Mughal Emperor Humayun. It studies the balance
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Devi Temple, Pahari, Loharu Rulers and History: Understanding the People’s Mind History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2024-02-12 Rajesh Kumar
It is believed that Devi Temple, Pahari is 850 years old; however, neither the archival sources nor the inscriptions are available to authenticate the hearsay. But, a 1904 British document has reference to Pahari ki Mandhi. Hence, with reference to the examination of the 304 archival files about Loharu State in the National Archives of India, contemporary traditions, popular songs, interviews, newspaper
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Literary Associations and Language Activism: Reading the Past and Present Motivations of Asam Sahitya Sabha History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2024-02-08 Ivy Dhar
In the early decades of the twentieth century in colonial Assam, the standardisation of language, the expansion of regional literature and literary circles, and the challenges arising for linguistic communities led to the formation of Asam Sahitya Sabha (ASS) that intended to work for the advancement of Assamese language in the interest of the public. Implicit in its model of association was the notion
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Biofilms and Biodeterioration: The Case of an Ancient Indian Monument History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2024-02-03 Saloni Sachdeva, Priyansh Srivastava, Nawaz Alam, Indira P. Sarethy
Historical buildings are substantially built with sedimentary rocks, especially limestone, and form an important component of a country’s cultural heritage. The monuments are exposed to external environmental forces (humidity and temperature) that facilitate the proliferation of microorganisms and biofilms in an ecological succession. Feroz Shah Kotla is an ancient monument in Delhi, India, dating
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Indira Bai: Foregrounding the Community Saga History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2024-02-03 Shashikantha Koudur
The first social novel in Kannada, Indira Bai, is an important work not just for literary enthusiasts but also for historians of modernity, communities and communalism. The novel presents the engagements and negotiations of an upper-caste community with modernity. The gaps, presences and absences in the novel have the potential to throw light on the inter-community relations of present-day coastal
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An Untold Saga of the Politics of Identity: The Struggle for Recognition of the Naths of Bengal History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2023-03-17 Kunal Debnath
The Naths of Bengal belong to the Yogi caste which can be seen from the perspective of ‘a struggle for recognition’. The Naths of Bengal have been asserting their identity and showing resistance ag...
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Jayadeva’s Gita-Govinda Against a Backdrop of Shri Radha-Shri Krishna Cults of Vrindavan History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2022-11-10 Nazim Husain Jafri, Farhat Nasreen
This article seeks to establish the importance of Jayadeva’s Gita Govinda in the growth of mystical ideas surrounding the worship of Shri Radha and Shri Krishna in the medieval Braj region, with Vr...
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Nature and Extent of Dohli Land Grant and Donations in the Territory of Kota State (1670–1820 CE) History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2022-10-10 Narayan Singh Rao
The Hada rulers of Kota state were devout followers of Hindu religion, but at the same time, they demonstrated their spirit of religious toleration towards all the other religions and sects. The ar...
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Historical Development of Legal Aid System in India: A Legal Perspectives History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2022-09-28 Sohail Nazim
Human civilisation has always been plagued by the problem of access to justice for the weak. With human development, the modern state took up the responsibility of administering justice. Modern sta...
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Plain Tales from the Hills and Epistles: Kipling’s Public Health Concerns in Colonial India History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2022-09-19 Chetan
The article studies Kipling’s career early writings, including personal letters, newspaper articles and short stories to show the impact of the Indian climate, topography, inadequate medical facili...
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Orient Romanticised: Disruption of Orient’s Reality in Select Occidental Literary Discourses History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2022-09-16 Shireen Siddiqui, Sujata
This article critically analyses the side effects of the Western Imperialism through their careful manufacturing of Orientalism as a discourse over centuries and promoting a stereotyped ‘Oriental’ ...
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Colonial Gaze as Reflected in the Narratives of Memsahibs History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2022-05-24 Sangeeta Sharma
The article seeks to explore the dimensions of ‘otherness’ in the attitudes of the Memsahibs, that is, how these women who accompanied British men to India perceived the ‘other’ in terms of the phy...
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Cultural Dimensions of India–Thailand Relations: A Historical Perspective History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2022-05-19 Karmveer Singh
In today’s world of ‘Asianisation’ whereby the countries of Asia are reinventing their historical linkages and asserting their combined power on the world stage, an understanding of the cultures of...
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Gods in Patnakalam: Tradition and Modernity in Colonial Art History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2022-05-06 Saumya Garima Jaipuriar
The appearance of Hindu gods was an essential feature of various indigenous Indian art tradition. The rise of hybrid Indo-Western art schools, notably Patnakalam heralded a fundamental shift in the...
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Buranjis and the Asian History Writing Tradition History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2022-03-17 Dharitri Narzary
The historiographical tradition of Assam called Buranji reached the Northeast of India with the coming of Ahoms in the first quarter of thirteenth century. The history of pre-colonial Assam is largely constructed on the basis of buranji and most modern historians mainly from the region have engaged with the buranji literature reproduced and interpreted by native scholars after the coming of the British
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Contextualising Colonial Education from a Historiographical Perspective in the Nineteenth Century: Institutions and Policies History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2022-03-17 Sangeeta Kumari
India was colonised by the British and was under the British rule for almost 200 years. During the British rule the shape of India changed and almost all aspects of life was affected. In this histo...
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Institutions for Women’s Education in Delhi (1900–1920): Philanthropists, Missionaries and the Government History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2022-03-16 Sangeeta Kumari
Delhi has been the seat of power for long. The British made their centre of power in Calcutta for sometimes for strategic reasons perhaps but soon they realised the importance of Delhi as the centre of power and thus, shifted the British capital from Calcutta to Delhi in 1911. This change brought with it many changes in all aspects of lives for the people of Delhi. This also meant changes in administration
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Ethnicity and Political Action in North-East India: Agency, Mobilisation and Community Relationship History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2022-03-15 V. Bijukumar
The ethnic political actions of multiple agencies like youth, students and women evoke mixed responses in the politics of the North-East India. While some actions like fight against drug addiction, HIV/AIDs and initiatives for building peace are commendable, the extreme forms of ethnic vigilantism and demands for ethnic homeland by constructing ethnic boundaries create strained relations among various
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Rethinking Cholera in Jagannath Puri in the Nineteenth Century History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2022-03-14 Pallavi Das
This article examines the social history of cholera in Jagannath Puri throughout the nineteenth century, focusing on the various factors that affected the colonial health and sanitary interventions in the region. It rethinks Puri’s ‘sacred’ space as a nexus of converging mobilities rather than a static centre, problematising the relationship between cholera and pilgrimage. It marks a departure from
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Elements of Medieval Town in Indian and Pakistan City Borders: Case of Amritsar and Lahore History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2022-02-28 Sakshi Sahni
The article presents various elements of the medieval cities of Lahore and Amritsar which are at an approximate distance of 51 km. These two-share various similar characteristics and patterns and were part of one state, Punjab. Although, the borders have been divided in India–Pakistan partition of 1947, still the urban fabric of both cities remains the same, and they share common features and elements
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Willem Schendel, Reading the Bengal Borderland: Beyond State and Nation in South Asia History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2022-01-01 Omprakash Mahato,Nirban Ray
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Competing Landed Interests: Customary Claims, Land Titles and Formal Law in Manipur, Circa 1890–1990 History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2021-12-14 Lalsanglen Haokip
This article provides a long-term perspective on the history of land tenure for over a century in the colonial and post-colonial eras of Manipur, India. Modernisation theory assumes too rigid division between traditional and modern attributes of land laws. The article, however, endorses the view that ‘the Anglo-Indian legal system was distinctly Janus-faced and rested on two contradictory principles’
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Past and Present: Surveying Medieval India Amidst the Present Perceptions of the Past in Popular Medium History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2021-12-14 Samana Zafar, Khanday Pervaiz Ahmad
In today’s Indian cinema, there is a deluge of films based on historical background. One of the central themes of many of these movies is the description and the representation of the ‘other’. Padmavat is the quintessential example and sums up all the ideas served in movies of this genre which were released before and after it. Padmini, Ratan Sen, Alauddin Khalji as depicted in the movie are the tropes
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Changing Area, Shrinking Spaces and Struggling Species: History of Camels History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2021-11-29 Manisha Choudhary
The camel is a strange animal for various reasons. Historically, it was mainly used for transportation activities. The presence of this animal in the Indian subcontinent is not very ancient as suggested by few researchers. Throughout the medieval centuries, it was mainly used for transportation, travelling and military purposes. Camel troopers were an essential unit of the postal departments. Many
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Misusing the Neighbours: Performing Andhra Child Marriages in Hyderabad State, 1930–1938 History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2021-10-29 Shaik Mahaboob Basha
The British Government passed the Child Marriage Restraint Act in 1929. The Act is popularly known as the Sarda Act. The Act fixed the minimum age of marriage of girls and boys at 14 and 18 years, respectively. The jurisdiction of the Act was confined to British India alone. However, much before the British Government restrained child marriage, few Princely States had already banned child marriages
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‘Using a Blacksmith’s Hammer to Crush a Fly’: Jallianwala Bagh, Public Order and Popular Protests in late Colonial India History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2021-10-24 Javed Iqbal Wani
This article reconstructs the unfolding of events in India in March–April 1919 that led to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. It evaluates the circumstances and the administrative and military response from a legal history perspective. It argues that the Jallianwala Bagh massacre was not a unique event but culminated colonial rage against a broader anti-colonial mobilisation.
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Monika Saxena, Women and the Puranic Tradition in India History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2021-01-01 Menka Rai
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Suraj Yengde, Caste Matters History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2021-01-01 Malavika Binny
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Sanjukta Das Gupta and Raj Shekhar Basu, Narratives from the Margins History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2020-01-01 Salma Khatoon
In conclusion, one can safely say that the book achieves its objective of making its readers more informed about the issues dealt with in the book as well as providing possible, sustainable solutions to the problems that are created by these phenomena. The fluent, lucid and easily comprehensible style of writing about core economic issue and the occasional personal anecdotes of the authors shared in
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S. M. Azizuddin Husain, Sufis of Punjab: A Biographical Study History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2020-01-01 Samer Moiz Rizvi
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Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo, Good Economics for Hard Times History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2020-01-01 Ajeeta Srivastava
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Iqtidar Husain Siddiqui, Indo-Persian Historiography to the Fourteenth Century History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2019-07-01 Gulfishan Khan
Thus, history has become, after the Koran [Qurʾān] and Ḥadīth, the third important source of knowledge and a distinguished characteristic of Islamic civilisation. In this regard, it emerges that besides the rulers, the Ulama (religious scholars), poets and even traders appear to have been conscious of their place in history. All this led to the richness of historical literature in the classical period
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Nishat Manzar, Urban Wage Earners in Seventeenth Century India: Artisans, Labourers, Service Providers and Entertainers History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2019-07-01 Rohma Javed Rashid
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Michael J. Hutt and Pratyoush Onta, eds., Political Change and Public Culture in Post-1990 Nepal History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2019-03-15 Ajay Gudavarthy
The book under review looks at the ongoing process of meaning making and self-representation of social groups that have remained outside the bounds of the dominant public sphere marked by formal politics and rational communicative action in contemporary Nepal. Graded social hierarchies in South Asia, along with circumscribed interaction between subaltern social groups have always posed a challenge
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Sven Beckert, The Empire of Cotton: A New History of Global Capitalism History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2019-03-15 Deep Kanta Lahiri Choudhury
Sven Beckert’s book is about cotton: as he asserts, the ‘very fabric of our lives’. Consisting of 615 pages and an introduction of 21 pages, this is a big book. Big not only in terms of weight but most importantly in terms of the depth and expanse of research. As the title suggests, it enmeshes important themes: global history and the more classical history of capitalism. It consists of a lengthy introduction
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Erika Rappaport, A Thirst for Empire: How Tea Shaped the Modern World History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2019-03-15 Janaki Nair
Conventional economic history has taken something of a backseat in history programmes worldwide and India is no exception. Something like an involuntary shudder passes through the graduate student faced with a table or a graph of wages, prices, national income indexes or five-year moving averages of population increases; the impulse is to quickly turn the page. Accompanied also by a discernible shift
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Gyanesh Kudaisya, A Republic in the Making: India in the 1950s History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2019-03-15 Shashi Bhushan Upadhyay
This book, by Gyanesh Kudaisya, covers the fifteen years period immediately after Indian independence from 1947 to 1962. He considers it as the extended decade of 1950s which was crucial in the formation of post-colonial India. This book synoptically deals with a variety of issues encompassing political and economic events in the country within this period. The author discusses various contentious
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Sarbeswar Sahoo, Pentecostalism and Politics of Conversion in India History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2019-03-15 Gnana Patrick
Sarbeswar Sahoo’s Pentecostalism and Politics of Conversion in India is an excellent volume, a welcome addition to the existing few research-based literature on debates related to Pentecostalism, politics centring on conversion and anti-Christian violence in the Indian context. Sahoo begins with a note that scholarly writing on Hindu–Christian violence, unlike that of the Hindu–Muslim violence, has
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Yasmin Khan, The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2019-03-15 Silvia Tieri
‘Partition’. In the South Asian context this single word, elsewhere a rather innocuous and seldom used one, acquires a dramatic and sombre connotation like no other. About seventy years ago, as the British withdrew from the ‘jewel in the crown’ of the Empire, two new independent countries—Pakistan and India—were coming into existence, carved out from the map of the dying Raj among unprecedented violence
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Pungent Irrationality and Troubled Modernity in Kerala History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2019-01-01 V. Bijukumar
Abstract The street protests of the upper caste Hindus and the members of the erstwhile royal family under the leadership of the BJP–RSS against the verdict of the Supreme Court of India on opening the Sabarimala temple for women of all age groups demonstrate the deep malaise of creeping irrationality in the globally acclaimed project of Kerala modernity. In fact, such outbursts not only unveil the
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Annie Besant’s Defence of Indian Caste System: A Critique History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2018-12-19 Chandra Lekha Singh
Abstract Caste system has remained an integral part of the Hindu social order. It has served to provide the uniqueness and the complexity to the latter. During colonial period as well as in the postcolonial period, it has been the most sought after issue. The colonial encounter added a new narrative to this system, as has been argued by the scholars such as Nicholas Dirks. However, apart from colonial
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Mathangi Krishnamurthy, 1-1800-Worlds: The Making of Indian Call Centre Economy History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2018-05-29 Babu P. Remesh
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Rosie Llewellyn-Jones, ed., The Alkazi Collection of Photography: The Uprising of 1857 History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2018-05-29 Deep Kanta Lahiri Choudhury
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Rahul Ramagundam, Including the Socially Excluded: India’s Experience with Caste, Gender and Poverty History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2018-05-29 Ramesh Bairy T. S.
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Watching the Trauma: Witnessing the Partition History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2018-05-29 Sadan Jha
Abstract The academic discourse of the mass violence that took place during the Partition/Independence of India and Pakistan has acquired certain maturity over the decades. The corpus of literature generated has been insightful and path-breaking. In the backdrop of this scholarship, the current article attempts to engage with the experiences of witnessing and emphasize upon transformative potential
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Caste Politics in Bihar: In Historical Continuum History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2018-05-15 Rakesh Ankit
Abstract This article provides a long-term narrative of movements for social change in Bihar, precipitated by the steady rise to political power by the Backward Classes/Castes in the state, since 1989. Locating this moment in a longer momentum of struggle since the 1920s, it probes the antecedents of recent social change in Bihar politics. Contextualising this process within a long recessional, it
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State’s Response to Intra-state Conflicts: The Case of North-East India History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2018-04-30 Nameirakpam Bijen Meetei
Abstract Contemporary state politics is marked by intra-state conflicts, many of which have ignited civil wars. In the midst of diversity, and despite her success in sustaining democracy, India still faces intra-state conflicts, which often threaten its territorial integrity. Presently, Jammu and Kashmir and the North-Eastern States are the most talked about cases in this regard. This article studies
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Trials of the Past: A Theoretical Approach to State Centralisation in Afghanistan History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2018-04-27 Aidan Parkes
Abstract German sociologist Max Weber observes that the centralisation of administrative function is imperative to a stable nation state. Yet, despite this sovereign necessity, attempts at incorporating heterogeneous sociopolitical entities into a cohesive society eluded nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Afghanistan. Ahmad Shah Durrani is known as the father of Afghanistan. He bears this title
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Jairam Ramesh, Indira Gandhi: A Life in Nature History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2017-12-22 Meera Anna Oommen
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In Defence of Sustho Sanskriti (Healthy Culture): Understanding Bengali Middle Classness in Neoliberal India History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2017-12-06 Shaoni Shabnam
Abstract The ‘new middle class’, often identified as an upwardly mobile segment, primarily employed in the growing private service sectors, such as the information technology, and supposedly, representative of the changing lifestyles and consumption patterns of the Indian middle class, has stolen much of the limelight of the contemporary popular as well as scholarly discourses on the Indian middle
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Bashing Naipaul: History, Myth and Refusals to See History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2017-12-03 Peter Campbell
Abstract Bashing V.S. Naipaul’s travel books on India, the Caribbean, the Islamic World and Africa has produced a massive body of writing since the 1980s. Focusing on his perceived racism and Islamophobia, this literature seeks to thoroughly discredit Naipaul as a reliable chronicler of the lives of the victims of Western imperialism. Condemned, indeed, as an apologist for Western imperialism, Naipaul’s
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Back to the Rough Ground of Rights: Pathways for a Historicisation of ‘Civil Liberties’ in India History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2017-11-06 Amit Upadhyay, Sasheej Hegde
Abstract This article is directed at historicising the language and practice of ‘civil liberties’ in India, and it does so by addressing the specific contingencies that have marked its early twentieth-century trajectory that continue to resonate in our historical present. Of course, the immediate point of departure for the article is a methodological fixation with what has been termed as a ‘political
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The Remaking of Custom in the Naga Hills History and Sociology of South Asia Pub Date : 2017-11-01 Khekali
Abstract The British search for the custom within tribes to reproduce their knowledge which could be used for the imperial expansion in the Naga Hills of North East India. Nagas practiced oral tradition, therefore the colonial court judgment was based on how it understood what the litigants testified orally in the court without any prior documented directives. This way customary tradition of the people