"Indian Ideas of Freedom is an illuminating study of the lens through which freedom was perceived by thinkers such as Swami Vivekananda, Aurobindo Ghose, Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, B.R. Ambedkar, M.N. Roy and Jayaprakash Narayan. It examines how, for this ‘group of seven’, the pursuit of freedom was both individual and political; how their ideas and arguments, drawing heavily on indigenous cultural resources, were far from imitative and thus distinct. In that, it explores their contribution to an intellectual tradition that braced an extraordinary nationalist movement. And while the differences among these seven are apparent, their similarities are less recognized; they are presented here as parallel.
Dennis Dalton’s reading of the extensive writings and speeches of these thinkers is critical but compassionate. Moreover, as James Tully observes in his Afterword to the book, Dalton ‘participates in the dialogue’ in which he places the theorists-a method of studying political thought Tully deems ‘as original and important as the tradition of freedom it brings to light’.
This is an exemplary work about political thought for both the scholar and those interested in history and politics."
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"The history of India’s struggle for freedom is usually told from the perspective of the non-violent movement. Yet, the story of armed resistance to colonial occupation is just as important. Names such as Vinayak Savarkar, Aurobindo Ghosh, Rashbehari Bose, Bagha Jatin, Sachindra Nath Sanyal, Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad and Subhas Chandra Bose are still widely remembered. Their story is almost always presented as acts of individual heroism and not as part of a wider movement that had any overarching strategy or significant impact on the overall struggle for Independence. In reality, the revolutionaries were part of a large network that sustained armed resistance against the British Empire for half a century. They not only created a wide network inside India but also established nodes in Britain, France, Thailand, Germany, Persia, Russia, Italy, Ireland, the United States, Japan and Singapore. At various points, they received official support and recognition from the governments of some of these countries. Even the internal dynamics of the Indian National Congress of the time cannot be understood without the revolutionaries, who enjoyed widespread support within the organization. This was no small-scale movement of naive individual heroism but one that involved a large number of extraordinary young men and women who were connected in multiple ways to each other and to the evolving events of their times.
Krantikari, the Hindi translation of the bestselling Revolutionaries, tells their story, one that is replete with swashbuckling adventure, intrigue, espionage, incredible bravery, diabolical treachery and shockingly unpredictable twists of fate.“"
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"The year is 340 BC. A hunted, haunted Brahmin youth vows revenge for the gruesome murder of his beloved father. Cold, calculating, cruel and armed with a complete absence of accepted morals, he becomes the most powerful political strategist in Bharat and succeeds in uniting a ragged country against the invasion of the army of that demigod, Alexander the Great. Pitting the weak edges of both forces against each other, he pulls off a wicked and astonishing victory and succeeds in installing Chandragupta on the throne of the mighty Mauryan empire.
History knows him as the brilliant strategist Chanakya. Satisfied-and a little bored-by his success as a kingmaker, through the simple summoning of his gifted mind, he recedes into the shadows to write his Arthashastra, the ‘science of wealth’. But history, which exults in repeating itself, revives Chanakya two and a half millennia later, in the avatar of Gangasagar Mishra, a Brahmin teacher in smalltown India who becomes puppeteer to a host of ambitious individuals-including a certain slumchild who grows up into a beautiful and powerful woman.
Modern India happens to be just as riven as ancient Bharat by class hatred, corruption and divisive politics and this landscape is Gangasagar’s feasting ground. Can this wily pandit-who preys on greed, venality and sexual deviance-bring about another miracle of a united India? Will Chanakya’s chant work again? Ashwin Sanghi, the bestselling author of The Rozabal Line, brings you yet another historical spinechiller."
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What is the line that separates those with caste from outcastes? In the eyes of caste elites, this line was mutable. Depending on context, an outcaste could be anyone except rajputs, brahmans, and merchants. Despite shifting lines, the bhangi was indisputably and always “untouchable”. How and why did the bhangi come to constitute the extreme Other for Gandhi and for generations to come? What did this history have to do with Hindu–Muslim relations? Merchants of Virtue offers a granular, everyday account of the construction and practice of untouchability and its relationship with Hindu-ness in the kingdom of Marwar in eighteenth-century western India.
"‘Holders of power, great and small, have managed and controlled female sexuality… The need to nullify bodies with breasts, a vulva and a womb…and to act as if everything and anything sexual was [men’s] domain is remarkably widespread. It can be found in countless handed-down images, stories, symbols, rituals that concentrate on the body parts that distinguish women from men.’
The female body has been admired, used and abused throughout history.
Despite the symbiotic relationship between the sexes, men have had more power than women, and the female anatomy seems to lie at the root of this inequality. Mineke Schipper’s riveting cultural world history examines how men everywhere have had mixed feelings about the female body. Delight has gone hand in hand with insecurity, and power with feelings of impotence.
Mythology is permeated with threats and fear: vaginas with teeth, snakes in women’s abdomens, witches with multiple breasts. Male fear almost always turns into aggression, which is why violence against women—and the suppression of their own stories about themselves—is perennial.
Schipper travels all over the world and through antiquity, analysing stories about sexuality, pregnancy and birth—stories of immaculate conception, erotic lactation, virginal bleeding, contraception, chastity and instruments of torture designed for use on women. She explores male anxieties such as the dread of hymens and menstrual blood, and the fear of dependency on mothers and wives.
Drawing from ancient Mesopotamia and modern Turkey; medieval European art and contemporary fashion; Indian, Greek and Japanese myths; and tales from the Igbo of Nigeria, the Vikings, the Xhosa, and the Ming Dynasty, Hills of Paradise is an extraordinary work. This deeply researched, powerful and sometimes hilarious account offers not only clear insights into the past, but also into the way women and men still interact with each other today."
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"The modern history of Jammu and Kashmir is often focused mainly on the Kashmir valley, leaving out the other regions that make up the bulk of the erstwhile Princely State. A similar limitation marks most discussions of the rule of the fourth-generation Dogra ruler of Jammu and Kashmir, Maharaja Hari Singh. After his inheritance of the throne in 1925, Hari Singh introduced a number of progressive reforms—among them, programmes for girl education, opening temple doors for Dalits and abolishing the exploitative begar system of labour. However, contemporary historians look past these reforms and focus only on the issue of the accession of the State to India.
At a time when the entire subcontinent was reeling from the shock and violence of Partition, the Maharaja had to decide which dominion—India or Pakistan—the State would join. How was he to choose where to put his trust, especially after Pakistan-backed Pashtun tribals invaded the State and India refused to offer military help? Was any decision possible that would appease all—the Muslim majority of Kashmir, the Hindu majority of Jammu and the Buddhist majority of Ladakh?
Those tumultuous times took a toll on Hari Singh during the final years of his reign. Accession to India was not as easy as he had hoped, and pressurised by Nehru and Sardar Patel, the Maharaja was forced to choose exile in 1949 and spent the rest of his days in Bombay.
Harbans Singh’s A Modern History of Jammu and Kashmir, Volume One: The Troubled Years of Maharaja Hari Singh (1925-1949) offers a more rounded history of the State than most available scholarship. The first volume in a trilogy, this book offers a strong and nuanced defence of the last ruler of Jammu and Kashmir and is a valuable document in understanding its evolving history."
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