This pioneering 1961 study by Walter Hauser, tracks the history of the Bihar peasant movement as it both influenced and was buffeted by national and international politics. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka

This study on Bihar highlights the fact that nationalism was not a monolithic movement, but was constituted of diverse facets and streams which unleashed a variety of protests. Once people's desires and aspirations were linked to nationalism, the movement developed its own rhythm and dynamics, throwing up its own agenda. Popular Translations of Nationalism: Bihar 1920-1922 revisits the historiography on nationalism by moving beyond the binary of elite and subaltern nationalism and focuses on the complex nature of popular nationalism. It also underscores the protests of the subordinate police, an area which has so far remained unexplored. By foregrounding the police's interface with nationalism and its varied trends, the study problematizes both the accepted view of the state's subordinates as being effectively integrated with the colonial state, and their identity as agents of the state. The study also reveals that nationalism was not merely an attempt to eject the British nor was it simply a political struggle for power. Rather, it was also a hegemonic contestation with colonialism, but one within which the counterhegemonic struggle of nationalism was also intertwined with the contest for hegemony within Indian society

First published in 1982. In this volume we present a collection of original papers, edited by Arvind N. Das, on agrarian movements in the populous Indian state of Bihar. These movements are traced from the early twentieth century through to the Naxalite activity of the recent past; their content and the forces which gave rise to them are examined; and the response of the state — both the colonial state and the post-colonial state — is identified. Believed to be a significant contribution to the literature on agrarian movements, which should be of considerable value to both specialists on India and to those with a more general interest in the agrarian question.

British policy towards indigo cultivation in Bihar and its impact on tenantry and labor.

State Formation and Radical Democracy in India analyzes one of the most important cases of developmental change in the twentieth century, namely, Kerala in southern India and begs the question of whether insurgency among the marginalized poor can use formal representative democracy to create better life chances. Going back to pre-independence, colonial India, Manali Desai takes a long historical view of Kerala and compares it with the state of West Bengal, which like Kerala has been ruled by leftists but has not had the same degree of success in raising equal access to welfare, literacy, and basic subsistence. This comparison brings the role of left party formation and its mode of insertion in civil society to the fore, raising the question of what kinds of parties can effect the most substantive anti-poverty reforms within a vibrant democracy. This book offers a new, historically based explanation for Kerala’s post-independence political and economic direction.