This textbook provides a different approach to the History of India than previously advocated. It argues that there was constant interaction between peoples and cultures, and as such, the it presents the history of India in this fashion. This interactive, dialogic approach provides a more better understanding of how power and social relations operated in South Asia. Consisting of seven chapters, each being divided roughly between political and thematic questions, the book covers the history of India from Mughal times to the first years of independent India. Topics discussed include: The Mughal system and European engagement in local and Asian commerce Mughal warfare and military developments The growth of India's pre-colonial economy India under British rule and the development of Indian states The construction of Indian culture Indian, regional and local political articulation The discovery of the Indus Valley culture in 1922 The Indian National Congress, Gandhian and Anti-Gandhian Movements, local 'separatist' and other groups India's Independence and the end of British rule The growth of the Hindu Right The 1946 Elections, rise of the Muslim League, the high politics of Partition and the drive for Pakistan Dispute over Kashmir The Indian Constitution as a product of dalit consciousness - 1950 Diasporic movements Written in an accessible, narrative style, this book will be suitable as required reading in courses on Indian and South Asian History, courses on World History and South Asian Studies.

An immersive portrait of the lives of the British in India, from the seventeenth century to Independence Who of the British went to India, and why? We know about Kipling and Forster, Orwell and Scott, but what of the youthful forestry official, the enterprising boxwallah, the fervid missionary? What motivated them to travel halfway around the globe, what lives did they lead when they got there, and what did they think about it all? Full of spirited, illuminating anecdotes drawn from long-forgotten memoirs, correspondence, and government documents, The British in India weaves a rich tapestry of the everyday experiences of the Britons who found themselves in “the jewel in the crown” of the British Empire. David Gilmour captures the substance and texture of their work, home, and social lives, and illustrates how these transformed across the several centuries of British presence and rule in the subcontinent, from the East India Company’s first trading station in 1615 to the twilight of the Raj and Partition and Independence in 1947. He takes us through remote hill stations, bustling coastal ports, opulent palaces, regimented cantonments, and dense jungles, revealing the country as seen through British eyes, and wittily reveling in all the particular concerns and contradictions that were a consequence of that limited perspective. The British in India is a breathtaking accomplishment, a vivid and balanced history written with brio, elegance, and erudition.

Presenting a grand sweep of Indian history, this work covers antiquity to the later half of the 20th century. The authors examine the major political, social and cultural forces which have shaped the history of the Indian subcontinent. This third edition of the text has been updated to include current research as well as a revised preface, index and dateline.

This volume addresses the power of ideas in the making of Indian political modernity. As an intermediate history of connections between South Asia and the global arena the volume raises new issues in intellectual history. It reviews the period from the emergence of constitutional liberalism in the1830s, through the swadeshi era to the writings of Tilak, Azad and Gandhi in the twentieth century. While several contributions reflect on the ideologies of nationalism, the volume seeks to rescue intellectual history from being simply a narration of the nation-state. It does not seek to create a 'canon' of political thought so much as to show how Indian concepts of state and society were redrawn in the context of emergent globalized debates about freedom, the constitution of the self and the good society in the late colonial era. In so doing the contributions here resituate an Indian intellectual history that has long been eclipsed by social and political history. These essays were originally published in a Special issue of the journal Modern Intellectual History (CUP, April 2007).

Are Indian women powerful mother goddesses, or domestic handmaidens trailing behind men in literacy, wages, opportunities, and rights? Have they been agents of their own destinies, or voiceless victims of patriarchy? Behind these colorful over-simplifications lies the reality of many feminine personas belonging to various classes, ethnicities, religions, and castes. This two-volume set looks at Indian history from ancient to modern times, revealing precisely why ideas of gender rights were not static across eras or regions. Raman's work is a reflection on the various ways in which women in a non-Western culture have developed and expressed their own feminist agenda. Are Indian women powerful mother goddesses, or domestic handmaidens trailing behind men in literacy, wages, opportunities, and rights? Have they been agents of their own destinies, or voiceless victims of patriarchy? Behind these coloful over-simplifications lies the reality of many feminine personas belonging to various classes, ethnicities, religions, and castes. This two-volume set looks at Indian history from ancient to modern times, revealing precisely why ideas of gender rights were not static across eras or regions. Raman's work is a reflection on the various ways in which women in a non-western culture have developed and expressed their own feminist agenda. Individual chapters highlight the enduring legacies of many important male and female figures, illustrating how each played a key role in modifying the substance of women's lives. Political movements are examined as well, such as the nationalist reform movement of 1947 in which the ideal of Indian womanhood became central to the nation and the push for independence. Also included is a survey of women in contemporary India and the role they played in the resurgence of militant Hindu nationalism. Aside from being an engaging and readable narrative of Indian history, this set integrates women's issues, roles, and achievements into the general study of the times, providing a clear presentation of the social, cultural, religious, political, and economic realities that have helped shape the identity of Indian women.

Pt. I. History and the public. 1. Interpretations of early Indian history ; Historical perspectives of nation-building ; 3. Of histories and identities ; 4. In defence of history ; 5. Writing history textbooks: a memoir ; 6. Glimpses of a possible history from below: early India -- pt. II. Concerning religion and history. 7. Communalism: a historical perspective ; 8. Religion and the secularizing of Indian society ; 9. Syndicated Hinduism -- pt. III. Debates. 10. Which of us are Aryans ; 11. Dating the epics ; 12. The epic of the Bharatas ; 13. The Ramayana syndrome ; 14. In defence of the variant ; 15. Historical memory without history ; 16. The many narratives of Somanatha -- pt. IV. Our women-then and now. 17. Women in the Indian past ; 18. Becoming a Sati - the problematic widow ; 19. Rape within a cycle of violence.

Open-access edition: DOI 10.6069/9780295748856 Beginning in the late nineteenth century, India played a pivotal role in global conversations about population and reproduction. In Reproductive Politics and the Making of Modern India, Mytheli Sreenivas demonstrates how colonial administrators, postcolonial development experts, nationalists, eugenicists, feminists, and family planners all aimed to reform reproduction to transform both individual bodies and the body politic. Across the political spectrum, people insisted that regulating reproduction was necessary and that limiting the population was essential to economic development. This book investigates the often devastating implications of this logic, which demonized some women’s reproduction as the cause of national and planetary catastrophe. To tell this story, Sreenivas explores debates about marriage, family, and contraception. She also demonstrates how concerns about reproduction surfaced within a range of political questions—about poverty and crises of subsistence, migration and claims of national sovereignty, normative heterosexuality and drives for economic development. Locating India at the center of transnational historical change, this book suggests that Indian developments produced the very grounds over which reproduction was called into question in the modern world. The open-access edition of Reproductive Politics and the Making of Modern India is freely available thanks to the TOME initiative and the generous support of The Ohio State University Libraries.