Dr Brown presents a political study of the first clearly defined period in Mahatma Gandhi's Indian career, from 1915 to 1922. The period began with Gandhi's return from South Africa as a stranger to Indian politics, witnessed his dramatic assertion of leadership in the Indian National Congress of 1920 and ended with his imprisonment by the British after the collapse of his all-India civil disobedience movement against the raj. Focusing on Gandhi, this book nevertheless investigates the changing nature of Indian politics. It aims to study precisely what Gandhi did, on whom he relied for support, how he interacted with other nationalist leaders and how he saw his own role in Indian public life. Unlike the usual interpretation of Gandhi's rise to power as based on a charismatic appeal to the Indian masses, this study argues that his influence depended on a capacity to generate a network of lesser leaders, or subcontractors, who would organise their constituencies for him, whether these were caste, communal or economic groups or whole areas.

Even today, six decades after his assassination in January 1948, Mahatma Gandhi is still revered as the father of the Indian nation. His intellectual and moral legacy, and the example of his life and politics, serve as an inspiration to human rights and peace movements, political activists and students. This book, comprised of essays by renowned experts in the fields of Indian history and philosophy, traces Gandhi's extraordinary story. The first part of the book explores his transformation from a small-town lawyer during his early life in South Africa into a skilled political activist and leader of civil resistance in India. The second part is devoted to Gandhi's key writings and his thinking on a broad range of topics, including religion, conflict, politics and social relations. The final part reflects on Gandhi's image and on his legacy in India, the West, and beyond.

Examines Sayyid Ahmad Khan's life and contribution in the nineteenth century and his legacy in our current times.

By the end of the twentieth century some nine million people of South Asian descent had left India, Bangladesh or Pakistan and settled in different parts of the world, forming a diverse and significant modern diaspora. In the early nineteenth century, many left reluctantly to seek economic opportunities which were lacking at home. This is the story of their often painful experiences in the diaspora, how they constructed new social communities overseas and how they maintained connections with the countries and the families they had left behind. It is a story compellingly told by one of the premier historians of modern South Asia, Judith Brown, whose particular knowledge of the diaspora in Britain and South Africa gives her insight as a commentator. This is a book which will have a broad appeal to general readers as well as to students of South Asian and colonial history, migration studies and sociology.

Nelson Mandela is one of the most revered figures of our time. The essays in this Companion, written by experts in history, anthropology, jurisprudence, cinema, literature, and visual studies, examine how Mandela became the icon he is today and ponder the meanings and uses of his internationally recognizable image.

The theory and practice of civil disobedience has once again taken on import, given recent events. Considering widespread dissatisfaction with normal political mechanisms, even in well-established liberal democracies, civil disobedience remains hugely important, as a growing number of individuals and groups pursue political action. 'Digital disobedients', Black Lives Matter protestors, Extinction Rebellion climate change activists, Hong Kong activists resisting the PRC's authoritarian clampdown...all have practiced civil disobedience. In this Companion, an interdisciplinary group of scholars reconsiders civil disobedience from many perspectives. Whether or not civil disobedience works, and what is at stake when protestors describe their acts as civil disobedience, is systematically examined, as are the legacies and impact of Henry Thoreau, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King.