This volume examines the media in the Indian public sphere and its interplay with politics, society and culture, and analyzes its transition from the colonial to the post-colonial period

Moving beyond the existing scholarship on language politics in north India which mainly focuses on Hindi–Urdu debates, Language Politics and Public Sphere in North India examines the formation of Maithili movement in the context of expansion of Hindi as the ‘national’ language. It revisits the dynamic hierarchy through which a distinction is produced between ‘major’ and ‘minor’ languages. The movement for recognition of Maithili as an independent language has grown assertive even when the authority of Hindi is resolutely reinforced. The book also examines increasing politicization of the Maithili movement — from Hindi–Maithili ambiguities and antagonisms, to territorial consciousness, and subsequently to separate statehood demand, along with the persistent popular indifference. Mithilesh Jha examines such processes historically, tracing the formation of Maithili movement from mid-nineteenth century until its inclusion into the eighth schedule of the Indian constitution in 2003.

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. In Hindu Pluralism, Elaine M. Fisher complicates the traditional scholarly narrative of the unification of Hinduism. By calling into question the colonial categories implicit in the term “sectarianism,” Fisher’s work excavates the pluralistic textures of precolonial Hinduism in the centuries prior to British intervention. Drawing on previously unpublished sources in Sanskrit, Tamil, and Telugu, Fisher argues that the performance of plural religious identities in public space in Indian early modernity paved the way for the emergence of a distinctively non-Western form of religious pluralism. This work provides a critical resource for understanding how Hinduism developed in the early modern period, a crucial era that set the tenor for religion's role in public life in India through the present day.

This book provides an in-depth exploration of South Asian readaptations of race in vernacular languages. The focus is on a diverse set of printed texts, periodicals and books in Hindi and Urdu, two of the major print languages of British North India, written between 1860 and 1930. Imperial raciology is a burgeoning field of historical research. So far, most studies on race in the British Empire in South Asia have concentrated on the writings of Western-educated elites in English. The range of Hindi and Urdu sources analyzed by the author provides a more varied and complex picture of the ways in which South Asians reinterpreted racial concepts, thereby highlighting the importance of scrutinizing the vernacular dimensions of global entanglements. Part I of the book centers on the debates on "civilization" and "civility" in Hindi and Urdu periodicals, travelogues and geography books as well as Hindi literature on caste. It asks if and in what respect the discussions changed when authors appropriated racial concepts. Part II revolves around the "science" of eugenics. It scrutinizes more popular genres, namely, early twentieth century advisory literature on "fit reproduction." It highlights how the knowledge promoted there was different from "eugenics" as the (mainly English-writing) founders of the Indian eugenic movements endorsed it. A fascinating analysis of the ways in which colonized elites have adopted and readapted racial concepts and theories, this book will be of interest to academics in the fields of Modern South Asian History, History of Science, Critical Race Studies and Colonial and Imperial History.

Education and the Public Sphere conceptually and empirically investigates and unfolds several complexities embedded in the educational system in India by exploring it as a site of transforming the public sphere. Bringing together a range of contributions from education and the social sciences, this volume analyses and reflects on structures in education and how these mediate and transform the public sphere in post-colonial India. Drawing on fresh research, case studies and testimony, this book debates issues such as the crisis in higher education, privatisation and politicisation of education, the reciprocal relationship between marginalisation and education, and the lasting impact that modern pedagogical practices have on the wider world. It critically reflects on the direct engagement of people, institutions, various cultural sensibilities and public debate to animate how these combined structures affect the teaching and learning process. From a unique interdisciplinary perspective, this book initiates an analytical enquiry into teaching and the culture of learning, generating critical discourses on the system as a whole. This book will be vital reading for researchers, scholars and postgraduate students in the field of international education, education theory and social justice education.

The bilingual relationship between the English and the Indian vernaculars has long been crucial to the construction of ideology as well as cultural and political hierarchies. Print was vital for colonial literacy; it was thereby instrumental in initiating a shift in the relation between 'high' and 'low' languages. Here, Dr Naregal examines the relationship between linguistic hierarchies, textual practices and power in colonial western India. Whereas most studies of colonialism focus on India's 'high' literary culture, this book looks at how local intellectuals exploited their 'middling' position through such initiatives as the establishment of newspapers and of influential channels of communication. How were the 'native' intelligentsia able to achieve a position of ideological influence? Dr Naregal shows that, despite their minority position, such people negotiated the arenas of education policy, the press and voluntary associations to advance their social class. In doing this, she sheds light on the process of self-definition among the Indian intelligentsia before anticolonial thinking articulated its hegemonic claims as a nationalistic discourse.

The original essays brought together in this volume examine the relationship between state and society in India, discuss ideas of citizenship, and study the broad area known as public sphere. The eminent scholars who have contributed to this volume provide numerous fresh insights into issues that have been the subject of extensive debate in recent years. The first book which deals simultaneously with civil society, the public sphere and citizenship in the contemporary context, it also provides a comparative perspective with the West.