This is a reprint of a book which relates the extremely interesting and important story of how the political and administrative consolidation of India was brought about swiftly and peacefully.

With his initial plans for an independent India in tatters, the desperate viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, turned to his seniormost Indian civil servant, Vappala Pangunni Menon—or VP—giving him a single night to devise an alternative, coherent and workable plan for independence. Menon met his stringent deadline, presenting the Menon Plan, which would change the map of the world forever. Menon was unarguably the architect of the modern Indian state. Yet startlingly little is known about this bureaucrat, patriot and visionary. In this definitive biography, Menon’s great-granddaughter, Narayani Basu, rectifies this travesty. She takes us through the highs and lows of his career, from his determination to give women the right to vote; to his strategy, at once ruthless and subtle, to get the princely states to accede to India; to his decision to join forces with the Swatantra Party; to his final relegation to relative obscurity. Equally, the book candidly explores the man behind the public figure— his unconventional personal life and his private conflicts, which made him channel his energy into public service. Drawing from documents—scattered, unread and unresearched until now—and with unprecedented access to Menon’s papers and his taped off-the-record and explosively frank interviews—this remarkable biography of VP Menon not only covers the life and times of a man unjustly consigned to the footnotes of history but also changes our perception of how India, as we know it, came into being.

This book tells of the events which led, in September 1949, to the integration of the Princely State of Hyderabad the largest and the richest of the Princely States into the Indian Union. The author questions the nature and popularity of the annexation of Hyderabad and attempts to answer sensitive questions through a detailed study of the crucial decade of 1938 48.

For many the entry of Jackie Robinson into Major League Baseball in 1947 marked the beginning of integration in professional baseball, but the entry of American Indians into the game during the previous half-century and the persistent racism directed toward them is not as well known. From the time that Louis Sockalexis stepped onto a Major League Baseball field in 1897, American Indians have had a presence in professional baseball. Unfortunately, it has not always been welcomed or respected, and Native athletes have faced racist stereotypes, foul epithets, and abuse from fans and players throughout their careers. The American Indian Integration of Baseball describes the experiences and contributions of American Indians as they courageously tried to make their place in America?s national game during the first half of the twentieth century. Jeffrey Powers-Beck provides biographical profiles of forgotten Native players such as Elijah Pinnance, George Johnson, Louis Leroy, and Moses Yellow Horse, along with profiles of better-known athletes such as Jim Thorpe, Charles Albert Bender, and John Tortes Meyers. Combining analysis of popular-press accounts with records from boarding schools for Native youth, where baseball was used as a tool of assimilation, Powers-Beck shows how American Indians battled discrimination and racism to integrate American baseball.

Analyzes events in India from September 1939 to August 1947.

The volume analyses the complex historical and political context for the processes of state formation in independent India. It provides both a conceptual and empirical framework for an understanding of Indian democracy through the perspective of reorganisation of states. Following the recommendations of the States Reorganisation Commission (SRC) in 1956, the territorial boundaries of the states were redrawn. However, within a decade, the geo-linguistic and cultural-ideological criteria could not be considered satisfactory for the future division of states. With the formation of three new states (Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Jharkhand) and the demand for Telangana statehood not accepted as yet, new dimensions and perspectives about state formation as a critical political practice have surfaced yet again in contemporary India. The book addresses a number of significant themes related to states reorganisation and its effects — questions of underdevelopment, size, political participation, governance, cultural identities — and also analyses the demand for smaller states. It focuses on different states, their historical and contemporary trajectory leading to the demand for territorial remapping and thus recognising specific political and cultural resources, and identities in the regions and sub-regions of states in India. The book will be useful for those studying politics, history, sociology, comparative politics and South Asian Studies.