This Book Begins With An Analysis Of The Impact Of Imperialism And Capitalism On India, Pakistan, Ceylon And Bangladesh Before And After 1947, And Examiner Their Effects On The Social, Economic And Political Institutions Of The Indian Subcontinent.

In reaction to British imperialism during the 19th and 20th centuries, Indian Muslims and Hindus imagined and invented their separate and distinct religious communities and communal nationalisms. These were institutionalized in the subcontinent's political systems by the British government in collaboration with Indian politicians. Stern argues that this production of communalism has been crucial in structuring the composition and organization of South Asia's politically dominant classes, and that they, in turn, have been crucial in determining parliamentary democracy's growth or atrophy on the subcontinent. In what became India, the overwhelmingly Hindu National Congress formed a coalition of professionals and landed peasants, later joined by industrialists, that was friendly to the development of parliamentary democracy. In its western provinces, Pakistan's legacy from British government was a ruling coalition of landlords and civilian and military bureaucrats that has continued to impede the development of parliamentary democracy. Until 1971, this coalition equated parliamentary democracy with the loss of their dominance to Pakistan's Bengali majority. Only among them, in Pakistan's eastern province, now Bangladesh, was there a politically dominant coalition of classes that was friendly to the development of parliamentary democracy. It had the ironic effect in Pakistan of entrenching the west's anti-democratic coalition. Dogged by the legacies of twenty-four years as Pakistan's subordinate province, disorganization among its dominant classes and a vanished rural base, the development of parliamentary democracy in Bangladesh has been slow and uneven.

Title first published in 2003. Chowdhury looks at the problems of democratization and development as it relates to building democratic institutions in the newly democratizing countries such as Bangladesh, India and Pakistan.

Economic policy analysis of the relationship between the political power of local government and productivity in the agricultural sector in South Asia - analyses the impact of social change on sugar cane agricultural production, as well as historical aspects of power structures in India; examines economic implications of local level power configurations, esp. As regards farm-level decision making; discusses determinants and varieties of rural mobilization. References, statistical tables.

Redistribution of the world's wealth, not only among nation. states but among cultural, class, and sexual groups, has become increasingly a major issue of concern. This book examines existing inequality in both the domestic and international arenas. Its multidisciplinary approach facilitates an understanding of the complex structure of global distr

General study of Bangladesh - covers historical and geographical aspects, population, education, living conditions, religion, the social structure, mass medias, the fine arts, the government and political system, international relations, the economic structure, agriculture, the industrial structure, commerce, defence, the administration of justice, etc. Bibliography pp. 307 to 330, glossary and maps.