Since the earliest times, epidemics have broken out at regular intervals killing a large number of people. They have presented peculiar problems both to the state and to the society. The colonial India in general and the Punjab in particular were affected intermittently by epidemics. The Punjab was one of the worst affected provinces of the colonial India in which several lakhs of people fell prey to the deadly epidemics. Punjab was the wheat basket of the British empire and the leading recruitment centre for military service in British Indian army. Due to its strategic and military importance, the British handled the epidemics with great vigour. However, in their attempt to contain the epidemic, the British impinged on the privacy and religious susceptibilites of the natives. The present work discusses the role of the state in handling the epidemics and the response of the society to such measures. Sasha: The author is currently working as an Assistant Professor at Panjab University, Chandigah.She did her doctorate in the faculty of Arts under UGC fellowship from the Panjab University. She has to her credit several publications both in international and national journals on the issues of health, medicine and society in the colonial period.

The Indus region, comprising the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent (now Pakistan), has always had its distinct identity - racially, ethnically, linguistically and culturally. In the last five thousand years, this region has been a part of India, politically, for only five hundred years. Pakistan, then, is no 'artificial' state conjured up by the disaffected Muslim elite of British India. Aitzaz Ahsan surveys the history of Indus - as he refers to this region - right from the time of the Harappan civilization to the era of the British Raj, concluding with independence and the creation of Pakistan. Ahsan's message is aimed both at Indians still nostalgic about 'undivided 'India and their Pakistani compatriots who narrowly tend to define their identity by their 'un-Indianness'.

International migration is favoured by the governments of many poorer countries despite often well-publicized abuses affecting individual migrant workers. Not only is local unemployment reduced but also it is expected that the migrants will learn new skills, with many even becoming entrepreneurs on their return home. Meantime they are seen as a source of foreign remittances, providing needed capital for economic development. Such is the attitude in Pakistan from where thousands of migrant workers leave every year for the Gulf states especially. An anthropological study approaching this issue from a local (village) level, this book focuses on two areas of the Punjab. Describing the historical passage of rural life from pre-colonial times to the present, it shows how the rural economy of the Punjab was not transformed by the green revolution - on the contrary, it is still a subsistence economy. The resulting poverty combined with Pakistan's labour-market policies forces many Punjabi men to seek work abroad, in turn bringing changes to the economic role of the women left behind. Remittances from abroad have brought further changes on the economic and social life of the villages but not, as expected, to bring economic development let alone capital or entrepreneurialism to the area.

'An incredible and important story, finally being told' - Mishal Husain On 28 May 1940, Major Akbar Khan marched at the head of 299 soldiers along a beach in northern France. They were the only Indians in the British Expeditionary Force at Dunkirk. With Stuka sirens wailing, shells falling in the water and Tommies lining up to be evacuated, these soldiers of the British Indian Army, carrying their disabled imam, found their way to the East Mole and embarked for England in the dead of night. On reaching Dover, they borrowed brass trays and started playing Punjabi folk music, upon which even 'many British spectators joined in the dance'. What journey had brought these men to Europe? What became of them – and of comrades captured by the Germans? With the engaging style of a true storyteller, Ghee Bowman reveals in full, for the first time, the astonishing story of the Indian Contingent, from their arrival in France on 26 December 1939 to their return to an India on the verge of partition. It is one of the war's hidden stories that casts fresh light on Britain and its empire.

This Study In 2 Parts Begins With The Geographical And Cultural Perspectives On The Early Punjab, And The Migration And Settlement Of Jatts By The Seventeenth Century. The First Part Dwells On Different Aspects Of Socio-Cultural Life In Northwestern India In The Precolonial Times, Whereas The Second Part Brings Out Multi-Faceted Change In The Region Under The Colonial Rule. This Volume Breaks Fresh Ground In Regional History And Raises Some Significant Issues Of Historical Methodology And Interdisciplinary Approach.