Nandini Gooptu's magisterial 2001 history of the labouring poor in India represents a tour-de-force.

This volume reconsiders India's 20th century though a specific focus on the concepts, conjunctures and currency of its distinct political imaginaries. Spanning the divide between independence and partition, it highlights recent historical debates that have sought to move away from a nation-centred mode of political history to a broader history of politics that considers the complex contexts within which different political imaginaries emerged in 20th century India. Representing the first attempt to grasp the shifting modes and meanings of the 'political' in India, this book explores forms of mass protest, radical women's politics, civil rights, democracy, national wealth and mobilization against the indentured-labor system, amongst other themes. In linking 'the political' to shifts in historical temporality, Political Imaginaries in 20th century India extends beyond the interdisciplinary arena of South Asian studies to cognate late colonial and post-colonial formations in the twentieth century and contribute to the 'political turn' in scholarship.

The primary era of this study - the twentieth century - symbolizes the peak of the colonial rule and its total decline, as well as the rise of the new nation state of India. The processes that have been labeled 'westernization' and 'modernization' radically changed middle-class Indian life during the century. This book describes and explains the various technological, political and social developments that shaped one building type - the bungalow - contemporaneous to the development of modern Indian history during the period of British rule and its subsequent aftermath. Drawing on their own physical and photographic documentation, and building on previous work by Anthony King and the Desais, the authors show the evolution of the bungalow's architecture from a one storey building with a verandah to the assortment of house-forms and their regional variants that are derived from the bungalow. Moreover, the study correlates changes in society with architectural consequences in the plans and aesthetics of the bungalow. It also examines more generally what it meant to be modern in Indian society as the twentieth century evolved.

The promotion of an enterprise culture and entrepreneurship in India in recent decades has had far-reaching implications beyond the economy, and transformed social and cultural attitudes and conduct. This book brings together pioneering research on the nature of India’s enterprise culture, covering a range of different themes: workplace, education, religion, trade, films, media, youth identity, gender relations, class formation and urban politics. Based on extensive empirical and ethnographic research by the contributors, the book shows the myriad manifestations of enterprise culture and the making of the aspiring, enterprising-self in public culture, social practice, and personal lives, ranging from attempts to construct hegemonic ideas in public discourse, to appropriation by individuals and groups with unintended consequences, to forms of contested and contradictory expression. It discusses what is ‘new’ about enterprise culture and how it relates to pre-existing ideas, and goes on to look at the processes and mechanisms through which enterprise culture is becoming entrenched, as well as how it affects different classes and communities. The book highlights the social and political implications of enterprise culture and how it recasts family and interpersonal relationships as well as personal and collective identity. Illuminating one of the most important aspects of India’s current economic and social transformation, this book is of interest to students and scholars of Asian Business, Sociology, Anthropology, Development Studies and Media and Cultural Studies.

Urbanisation is rapidly changing the geographic and social landscape of India, and indeed Asia as a whole. Issues of collective violence, urban poverty and discrimination become crucial factors in the redefinition of citizenship not only in legal terms, but also in a cultural and socio-economic dimension. While Indian cities are becoming the centres of a culture of exclusion against vulnerable social groups, a long-term perspective is essential to understand the patterns that shaped the space, politics, economy and culture of contemporary metropolises. This book takes a critical, longer-term view of India’s economic transition. The idea that urban growth goes hand in hand with the modernisation of the country does not account for the fact that increasingly higher portions of the urban population are comprised of lower-income groups, casual labourers and slum dwellers. Using the case study of Ahmedabad, this book investigates the history of city and of its people over the twentieth century. It analyses the contrasting relationship between urban authorities and the inhabitants of Ahmedabad and examines instances of antagonism and negotiation – amongst people, groups and between the people and the public authority – that have continuously shaped, transformed and redefined life in the city. This book offers an important tool for understanding the bigger context of the conflicts, the social and cultural issues that accompanied the broader process of urbanisation in contemporary India. It will be of interest to scholars of Urban History, studies of collective violence and South Asian Studies.

""Slum" is among the most evocative and judgmental words of the modern world. It originated in the slang language of the world's then-largest city, London, early in the nineteenth century. Its use thereafter proliferated, and its original meanings unraveled as colonialism and urbanization transformed the world, and as prejudice against those disadvantaged by these transformations became entrenched. Cuckoo-like, "slum" overtook and transformed other local idioms: for example, bustee, favela, kampong, shack. "Slum" once justified heavy-handed redevelopment schemes that tore apart poor but viable neighborhoods. Now it underpins schemes of neighbourhood renewal that, seemingly benign in their intentions, nonetheless pay scant respect to the viewpoints of their inhabitants. This Oxford Handbook probes both present-day understandings of slums and their historical antecedents. It discusses the evolution of slum "improvement" policies globally from the early nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century. It encompasses multiple perspectives: anthropology, archaeology, architecture, geography, history, politics, sociology, urban studies and urban planning. It emphasizes the influences of gender and race inequality, and the persistence of subaltern agency notwithstanding entrenched prejudice and unsympathetically-applied institutionalized power. Uniquely, it balances contributions from scholars who deny the legitimacy of "slum" in social and policy analysis, with those who accept its relevance as a measuring stick of social disadvantage and as a vehicle for social reform. This Handbook does not simply footnote the past; it critiques conventional understandings of urban social disadvantage and reform across time and place in the modern world. It suggests pathways for future research and for alleviative reform"--