<p>The Partition of India in 1947 was a horrendous human tragedy on a gargantuan scale not seen before or since. The communal violence of serious magnitude was rearing its ugly head and creating havoc in various parts of the country like in Calcutta Noakhali Tippera and Bihar at least a year before the departure of the British. Unprecedented communal riots in Rawalpindi Multan Lahore Amritsar and Gurgaon in the undivided Punjab or Haripur in NWFP caused deep wounds on the collective psyche of both Hindus and Muslims and led to an all-out bloodletting following their departure. What should have been a moment of crowning triumph was marred by unimaginable violence bloodshed and the largest migration and dislocation in human history. This book is an outcome of the author’s six years of research and describes this inhuman fratricidal war whose severe aftershocks are felt even to this day. It also attempts to clear many of the misconceptions about this period and covers broadly what happened not only in the Punjab but also in NWFP Sind Baluchistan and importantly Bengal which cumulatively suffered as much perhaps more albeit over a long period. About the Author S.S. Sharma is a retired civil servant. Among the multifarious assign­ments held by him were District Magistrate directing faculty at LBS National Academy of Administration Joint Secretary in Home Ministry Chief Secretary in the State and Secretary to Government of India. He lives in Gurgaon and is currently working on his second book.</p>

<p>Dynamics of a Caste Movement deals with the attempts of the Rajbansi community to establish themselves as Kshatriyas in the first half of the twentieth century in Bengal. Situating the Rajbansi caste movement in the context of contemporary socio-political events this book examines the complexities inherent in the movement. The caste system despite many changes over the years remains significant in contemporary times. The colonization of the country and the response of indigenous society to the manoeuvres of colonial rulers provided a new impetus to mobilization along caste lines in the nine­teenth and the early twentieth century Bengal as in the rest of India. The Rajbansis constituted the most predominant section of the local Hindu population in the districts of north Bengal and were yet placed quite low in the hierarchy. Using Rajbansi caste literature and govern­ment records this study explores the formation of the Rajbansi identity the socio-cultural and economic profile of the community their efforts towards Kshatriyaization and the legitimization of their social and politi­cal rights. The author argues that there can be many identities within a caste group which play crucial roles on different occasions and at dif­ferent times. As class identity often cuts across caste lines so also territorial identities can lead to a fragmentation of a caste. In the context of recent political mobilization by the Rajbansis in north Bengal for a ‘separate Kamtapur state’ this book is essential reading for those wishing to understand the Rajbansis in their historical context. About the Author Swaraj Basu is Professor in Modern History at the School of Social Sciences Indira Gandhi National Open University New Delhi.</p>

<p>How can India become a great country once again is the question explored in this book. In the past India had significant achievements in science technology mathematics and business. A failure to build robust institutional networks of information and trust and indifference of the state to business communities brought all that crashing down within a generation. Many of these historical patterns persist till today. The ability to create wealth has everything to do with such networks. There was never any shortage of innovation in India. What was lacking was the ability to learn from their own experience. The building of learning networks and a learning ecosystem that could be used by people to leverage success – this is what is needed to unlock the huge talent pool that India possesses. This book addresses young educated and aspiring Indians in different walks of life who are interested in contemporary issues relating to nation society and economy. Teachers students chartered accountants businesses doctors builders housewives academics and nonacademics: this book puts forward for all of them some solutions to the problems that this great nation faces. It would be of interest to anyone who would like to know how history can teach us to rewrite the Indian growth story and to rebuild a great nation. The book could also be used as reading material for students of history political science public administration business administration in undergraduate and postgraduate classes. About the Author Meeta Rajivlochan has held the charge of Additional Director General of Foreign Trade Department of Commerce Government of India. She was also Secretary in the Department of Public Health and Department of Finance in Maharashtra. She facilitated the development of clinical guidelines for diagnosis that helped create a learningbased patientcentric model of health care that was adopted for the state health insurance scheme. Currently she is the Member Secretary in the National Commission for Women. She has written extensively on issues of public policy. M. Rajivlochan is at the Department of History Panjab University. His latest with Meeta and Gurinder Kairon is a biography of Sardar Partap Singh Kairon. He has authored books on agrarian distress on Jal Swaraj and on the social history of Chandigarh. He is on the Senate of the Punjab Engineering College Chandigarh and is a Member of the State Higher Education Council Chandigarh</p>

<p>Originally published in 1934 this volume contains Journals extracts from Journals and narratives written on board the Dragon and Hosiander by Thomas Best and various other persons including Ralph Standish and Ralph Croft. It also has with Best’s correspondence and extracts from Court minutes of the East India Company. It is edited by William Foster. About the Author Sir William Foster CIE (19 November 1863-11 May 1951) was a British historiographer and civil servant who was Registrar and Superintendent of Records in the India Office. He was a member of the Hakluyt Society and was the foremost authority on the detailed history of early British relations with India and other countries in Asia.</p>

<p>The third and final in a series ‘Seeta’ is an eponymous novel set against the backdrop of Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 or the First War of Indian Independence as it is now regarded. The first and second parts are‘Tara’ and ‘Ralph Darnell’ respectively. Written by [Philip] Meadows Taylor this novel narrates the story of the widow Seeta and her husband a British civil servant and what they and their friends and family undergo before during and after the uprising. Other than the uprising some incidents such as the dacoity that the novel opens with – Taylor himself was engaged in its trial in the district court – are authentic; others are products of his creativity – as are the characters and some locations. However the situations and events are all believable the characters are well-drawn and relatable and the book is free of the prejudice that one often sees in novels of that era. The author has not succumbed to the temptation of describing the horrific details of the massacres of 1857 uprising but has instead presented it as an episode in the novel only mentioning it when necessary. The events unfold seamlessly and naturally making this book an unputdownable. About the Author Philip Meadows Taylor (1808-76) was sent out to India to become a clerk to a Bombay merchant. In 1824 he accepted a commission in the service of the Nizam of Hyderabad. He is the author of several popular books including Confessions of a Thug Tippoo Sultan The Story of My Life and A Noble Queen.</p>

<p>In India several draconian acts were passed by the colonial administrators to notify register and restrict the movement of criminal tribes. The legislation to deal with these communities began in India with the enactment of the Act XXVII during the year 1871. The Police Commission of 1902-3 criticized the working of the Act and a fresh Act III of 1911 was enacted. As there had been many amendments to the original Criminal Tribes Act that a fresh Act of 1924 was passed consolidating the provisions of various earlier Acts. The Act of 1924 was amended by Act I of 1947. In the light of the actual experiences gained the government finally repealed the Criminal Tribes Act in 1952 and many of the criminal tribes were let free from the provisions of the criminal tribes’ acts of 1871 1911 1924 and 1947. But the shadow of the Criminal Tribes Acts is still haunting several communities in Independent India. The present work is an effort to study the need for regulation and control of the criminal tribes and passing of certain regulatory acts called the Criminal Tribes Acts between 1871 and 1965. In addition the life patterns of certain historically branded tribes under the Criminal Tribes Acts are also discussed. The study looks into the major changes or the deviations that took place under the Criminal Tribes Acts and the reasons that motivated the British to pass the Criminal Tribes Acts. The appendices contain a wealth of information. About the Author Malli Gandhi is Professor of History at Regional Institute of Education NCERT Mysore. His areas of research are the nomadic semi-nomadic and denotified communities. He has published several books the latest being Denotified Tribes of India: Discrimination Development and Change (2020). Presently he is working on his new title Tribes of India: Regional Issues and Development Discourse.</p>

<p>Indian Diaspora World Convention was held in Trinidad in 2017 to commemorate the 1917 decision of the Indian legislature to end further recruitment of Indians for overseas indentured service. The eleven essays in this two volume series cover a wide range under the heading ‘Charting New Frontiers’. It is a diverse collection indicating broad scope among the researchers on this theme. The contributors to this volume think through the conundrum of national citizenship in relation to their routes and roots from a variety of perspectives. The essays compiled in this monograph thus reveal that the subject areas comprising the study of the Indian diaspora are interdisciplinary in nature and constantly evolving. About the Author J. Vijay Maharaj is a Lecturer in the Department of Literary Cultural and Communication Studies at the University of the West Indies St Augustine. Her areas of interests include but are not limited to the making of political and cultural identities the trauma associated with postcolonial and modern histories as well as the convergences between neurosciences and literature. Radica Mahase is currently a Senior Lecturer in History at the College of Science Technology and Applied Arts of Trinidad and Tobago. She is the co-author of Caribbean History for CSEC (2014) author of Why Should We Be Called ‘Coolies’: The End of the Indian Indentured Labour (2021). Her research interests include Indian indentureship Indian diaspora and South Asian Studies.</p>

<p>Indian Diaspora World Convention was held in Trinidad in 2017 to commemorate the 1917 decision of the Indian Legislature to end further recruitment of Indians for overseas indentured service. This part is volume I of the two volume work Global Indian Diaspora. It is a significant addition to current research on India's cultural expansion into the Atlantic and Pacific worlds. In this volume the former indentured Empire speaks back giving its side of the narrative not in an apologetic accounting but rather on the positive side in diverse ways. The Girmitiyas (lit. agreement signers) maintained their core values using these to gain anchorage in the new places. At the same time they prudently took advantage of agencies such as the Canadian Mission to gain admission to the wider westernized community. They maintained ties with India through frequent visits of Indian scholars and missionaries. They equally preserved their cultural observances derived from Indian antiquity adding diversity to the colonial society. All of these elements combine to give a refreshing perspective on the globalization of the world which started long before all the time. About the Author Brinsley Samaroo had a long and distinguished career in teaching research and writing. Most of those years were spent at the University of the West Indies (UWI) and the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT). He has also served in the parliament of Trinidad and Tobago as a Senator and Cabinet Minister from 1981 to 1991. His published writings have focused on the Indian Diaspora the Caribbean and South Indian history. Primnath Gooptar is a writer biographer social worker cultural promoter former school principal Hindi cinema scholar and a lecturer in Indian Cinema (UWI) Trinidad. He has presented several papers on the Indian indentureship experience at conferences in Trinidad United Kingdom Suriname Mauritius St. Vincent and India. Kumar Mahabir is a former Assistant Professor at the University of Trinidad and Tobago. He obtained his Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Florida. He won a Florida Caribbean Institute Award an A. Curtis Wilgus Fellowship and an Organization of American States (OAS) Fellowship.</p>

<p>This book is a detailed analysis of the food scarcity and epidemics among the womenfolk and other vulnerable sections of society in colonial Orissa. Its major significance lies in the fact that the food crisis mass exodus and adverse sex ratio continue to raise questions in the contemporary world. Studies of such experiences help in re-designing strategies to meet the challenges arising from natural disasters wars pandemics besides pov­erty and uncertain production outcomes. The study of Orissa Famine of 1866 explodes the myth upheld by the colonial administrators that women died at a lower rate than men in fam­ines because they could easily adapt to food scarcity and were supposedly less prone to infectious diseases. Evidence based on historical sociolog­ical and biological factors showed that increasing male migration much of it leading to high mortality explains the change in sex ratio during the colonial period. This work also shows that many of today's consumption preferences linguistic usages and cultural habits of people carry traces of cataclysmic experiences. This book also highlights the fact that most famines are the result of policy failures and are often rooted in structural inequalities with serious consequences for women lower castes and the poor alike. About the Author of several books Bidyut Mohanty is the Head of the Women’s Studies Programme at the Institute of Social Sciences New Delhi. She has engaged in several projects concerning women's development local self-government and agrarian history.</p>

<p>The work is based on original sources in the archives and libraries of France England India and Vietnam. It recounts the activities of Subhas Chandra Bose and his freedom movement in Germany and brings out certain hidden features of his life as found in the records with adequate supporting evidence. The study also elaborates on Bose's activities in Southeast Asia with a special focus on French Indochina. Incidentally it was from Saigon that he disappears from the face of the world. After rejecting the air crash theory in which Bose was supposed to have died as well as the Russian escape theory as untenable for want of factual evidence the study concludes that Bose never left Saigon or Indochina after 17 August 1945 where he died in mysterious circumstances before the arrival of the Cabinet Mission to India. The war treasures of Bose were confiscated by the Allied troops in Saigon during a search operation. About the Author J.B.P. More (also known as J.B. Prashant More) is a historian. He obtained his Ph.D. in history from Paris and taught there. He Knows French English and Tamil and has authored 24 books including Pondicherry Tamilnadu and South India under French Rule: From François Martin to Dupleix 1674-1754.</p>