Revised and substantially updated, The new international politics of South Asia argues that the politics of the individual states of South Asia cannot be understood without reference to the regional and international context. The author emphasises the need to consider rapid political, social and economic change in the context of debates over ethnic identity and changes within the international system following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Recent changes have opened up new opportunities for the region, but have also exposed specific weaknesses. The author discusses India’s evolving relationship with the international economic system, economic reforms in Pakistan and Sri Lanka, as well as key issues such as the regional position on the NPT treaty, the Comprehensive Test Ban treaty, environmental issues, and the post-Cold War world order.

Subalterns and Raj presents a unique introductory history of India with an account that begins before the period of British rule, and pursues the continuities within that history up to the present day. Its coverage ranges from Mughal India to post-independence Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, with a focus on the ‘ordinary’ people of India and South Asia. Subalterns and Raj examines overlooked issues in Indian social history and highlights controversies between historians. Taking an iconoclastic approach to the elites of South Asia since independence, it is critical of the colonial regime that went before them. This book is a stimulating and controversial read and, with a detailed guide to further reading and end-of-chapter bibliographies, it is an excellent guide for all students of the Indian subcontinent.

In this series of interconnected essays, Rajnarayan Chandavarkar offers a powerful revisionist analysis of the relationship between class and politics in India between the Mutiny and Independence. Dr Chandavarkar rejects the 'Orientalist' view of Indian social and economic development as exceptional and somehow distinct from that prevailing in capitalist societies elsewhere, and reasserts the critical role of the working classes in shaping the pattern of Indian capitalist development. Sustained in argument and elegant in exposition, these essays represent a major contribution not only to the history of the Indian working classes, but to the history of industrial capitalism and colonialism as a whole. Imperial Power and Popular Politics will be essential reading for all scholars and students of recent political, economic, and social history, social theory, and cultural and colonial studies.--Publisher description.

Preface

" The Playful Revolution is an entertaining journal.... exemplary... " --Illusions " The Playful Revolution breaks new ground by documenting developmental theatre in Asia in its current socio-political and economic ethos... " --New Theatre Quarterly "[T]his book is the account of a personal journey through Asia, a written documentary of a quest to find political theatre that really works and that possesses a vitality and passion that the contemporary Western theatre seems to have lost." --from the book In this groundbreaking book, van Erven reports on the liberation theatre movements throughout Asia, which include a diverse collection of creative artists whose politics range from liberal to revolutionary but who all share a common goal of using grass-roots theatre as an agent of liberation.

This book focuses on the retrogressive agrarian interventions by the Pakistani military in rural Punjab and explores the social resentment and resistance it triggered, potentially undermining the consensus on a security state in Pakistan. Set against the overbearing and socially unjust role of the military in Pakistan’s economy, this book documents a breakdown in the accepted function of the military beyond its constitutionally mandated role of defence. Accompanying earlier work on military involvement in industry, commerce, finance and real estate, the authors’ research contributes to a wider understanding of military intervention, revealing its hand in various sectors of the economy and, consequently, its gains in power and economic autonomy.

Capitalism and Colonial Production (1982) examines the ways in which capitalism has transformed the societies it came to dominate, and the link between colonialism and capitalism. These essays confront the complex of issues, using as material the various countries in Asia. They advance the debate by reconsidering the problems involved by identifying pre-colonial modes of production and by analysing the precise details of the changes wrought by colonial domination. They argue that capitalism does not in these countries co-exist side-by-side with feudalism, but that colonialism has created distinctive forms of capitalism depending for their character on pre-colonial modes of production.