History of Education in Modern India

BOOK REVIEWS

British Muslims and the call to global Jihad, by Kylie Baxter, Melbourne, MonashUniversity Press, 2007, 96 pp., ISBN 978-1-87-692455-3

Kylie Baxter’s monograph explores how the British-based organisation, Al-Muhajiroun, has used Islamist tradition to define a role for Muslims living inwestern countries. Baxter begins with a detailed, mainly statistical, account of BritishMuslims. She describes British Muslims as socially disadvantaged and nurturing anidentity in which faith is an important element. The first section of the monographconcludes with a short assessment of the relationship between British Muslims andtransnational Islam, arguing that globalisation has strengthened ‘transnationalreactive identities’ and that new technologies, such as the Internet, have ‘enabled theemergence of ‘‘virtual’’ communities that create a sense of unity that is notdependent on geographic proximity’ (p. 22).

Section Two of the book deals with the issues of modern Islamism and beginswith a short assessment of its three intellectual founders – Syed Qutb, Mawdudi, andKhomeni. It then focuses on the foundation of Hizb al-Tahrir, as a modern Islamistorganisation whose aim is to bring unity to the Muslim Ummah (community) undera restored Caliphate. Baxter then gives a brief history of Jihad, beginning from itsfoundations in the Quran to contemporary interpretations by Syed Qutb. It is Qutb’sidea that Jihad is mainly about the ‘expansion of the Islamic faith’, in that it is notonly defensive but also offensive so as to create conditions in which Islam can beproperly propagated (p. 40). Baxter also notes the impact of events, such as theconflict in Afghanistan during the 1980s, which provided opportunities for thoseseeking to fashion Islamic identities in a more political way.

Section Three focuses on the foundation, theology and practice of Al-Muhajiroun founded in 1983 by the charismatic Sheikh Mohammad Bakri. Sheargues that militant Islamism in the United Kingdom is emblematic of the ‘dual-incubation’ phenomena whereby Islamism is fuelled by militant Islamism in Muslimmajority countries and the perceived failure of western countries to foster aninclusive sense of belonging in their Muslim communities. The aims of thisorganisation included re-establishment of the Caliphate, even through violence.Baxter notes that the organisation ‘strongly rejected the integration of WesternMuslims into their societies’ (p. 66). The ultimate demise of the organisation in theaftermath of strong anti-terrorism laws in the United Kingdom, the departure ofBakri from the United Kingdom in mid-2005, and the emergence of successororganisations are detailed in the remainder of this section.

The brevity of Baxter’s book means that many issues are unexplored. Theargument that Muslims be treated on terms of ‘parity’ and be provided with‘protection against denigration’ (pp. 18–19), in a society that does not protectChristianity from public ridicule, is not subjected to critical scrutiny. The bookclaims that only a tiny minority of British Muslims support any form of Islamism,

Contemporary South Asia

Vol. 18, No. 4, December 2010, 451–473

ISSN 0958-4935 print/ISSN 1469-364X online

DOI: 10.1080/09584935.2010.526364

http://www.informaworld.com

while also quoting a survey where 17% of the respondents cited some form ofsupport for the views of Bakri, as compared with 27% who were against them (p.83). Baxter also never defines the ‘Muslim mainstream’ and does not identify theauthors of the modernist interpretations of Islamic texts, which may leave readers alittle confused. On British Islamism too, Baxter fails to analyse why Al-Muhajirounmight be so attractive to its adherents. That said, Kylie Baxter’s monograph is animportant contribution and helps advance our understanding of modern Islamism inwestern countries.

Yaqoob Khan BangashUniversity of Oxford, UK

Email: [email protected]� 2010, Yaqoob Khan Bangash

International relations in South Asia: search for an alternative paradigm, edited byNavnita Chadha Behera, London, Sage, 2008, 360 pp., ISBN 978-8-17-829870-2

This book presents a critique of existing International Relations (IR) theories, but itfalls short of its basic premise of providing any indigenous ontological andepistemological stance for South Asian IR. Navnita Chadha Behera, in the editor’sintroduction, outlines the pedagogical practices of IR in India, Pakistan, Nepal andBangladesh, but she does not provide any coherent and thematic discussion of thescope of IR in South Asia as a whole. The aim seems to be to explain the existinginfrastructure of IR in South Asia by elaborating on regional institutions, epistemiccommunities, publishing issues, student training and funding. The chapter does notexplore what is happening inside these infrastructures to bring out the view points ofSouth Asian IR.

Distinctive contributions come in the chapters by Nizamani and Chatterjee.Nizamani, in ‘Our Region Their Theories . . . ’, refuses to agree with the assumptionsof the dominant realist approaches to IR, and uses insights from Critical SecurityStudies (CSS) to analyse South Asian security. He presents discourse analysis as analternative methodology by mixing the cultural perspectives of Foucault andTodorov. His two-step approach begins with doing away with ‘the state/societydichotomy’ (p. 102). The second step involves historically tracing national identitydiscourse through ‘subjective statements’ of political actors (pp. 104 and 109). Thecombination of CSS and Foucault’s perspective helps identify these statements as‘regimes of truth’ even though the empirical treatment of Pakistan/Indiadichotomous identities is very short. In ‘Intra-State/Inter-State Conflicts in SouthAsia . . .’, Chatterjee provides social constructivist analysis of South Asian conflictsas an alternative to realism. He objects to neorealist interpretations of the conflictbetween India and Pakistan. He explores the conflict in wider terms, examining bothstates’ nationhood where ‘the paradox of a territorialized state identity [is] not[being] reconciled with the idea of a common cultural past’ (p. 193). Among the restof the contributors, the most common aim is to evolve a normative base for peace inSouth Asia.

Sohail Inayatullah’s contribution, ‘Distant Futures and Alternative Presents forSouth Asia’, leans towards a postmodern approach as he explores nine possible

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scenarios for South Asian security. These futuristic cases vary from ‘hegemony’ ofIndia to ‘invasion of Bollywood’ without themselves being framed in any theoreticaledifice (pp. 64–65). Mangalika, in ‘Stripping Women, Securing the Sovereign‘‘National’’ Body’, adds a feminist voice and provides a narrative of ethnic conflict inSri-Lanka. Mijarul Quayes, in ‘The Westphalian State in South Asia . . .’, workstowards a normative objective as he uses a European model based on poolingsovereignty and collective identity as part of his formula for post-Westphalianstatehood in South Asia. Ayesha Siddiqa, in ‘Can Non-Provocative Defense Workfor Pakistan?’, uses neorealist assumptions as she argues that Pakistan could enhanceits security by opting for Non-Provocative Defense. The viability of such anapproach can be queried given that European Non-Provocative Defense wasunderwritten by US security guarantees and treaty obligations. Pakistan lacks suchexternal protection.

This volume provides a rich variety of different perspectives on problems in theinternational relations of South Asia. This positive initiative is to be welcomed evenif relatively little progress has been made towards setting out an alternative paradigmfor South Asia.

Muhammad Shoaib PervezLeiden University, The Netherlands

Email: [email protected]� 2010, Muhammad Shoaib Pervez

The golden triangle: an ethno-semiotic tour of present-day India, by Arthur AsaBerger, New Brunswick, Transaction Publishers, 2008, xix þ 103 pp., ISBN 978-1-41-280787-6

The ‘golden triangle’ refers to the popular India tour route that includes the citiesand architectural sites of Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur. Notwithstanding its title, ArthurBerger’s The Golden Triangle is neither a critical exploration of how a touring routebecomes metonymic of something else, nor a sustained semiotic treatment of desireddestinations and the complex of signs and resultant webs of discourses that supportsuch imaginaries. Rather, Berger’s book is an essay – or maybe more accurately, anextended journal entry – of his encounter with a particular part of India, the TajMahal included.

For an author with admittedly no prior academic immersion in South Asia,Berger prepares for his near one-month visit to Rajasthan by reading various travelguides, articles in popular publications, and some scholarly works, and doingplenty of Internet browsing. This reading does not seem to have included morerecent notable scholarship on Indian social and political matters (or at least theyare not in the bibliography). Indeed, this book, of mostly personal opinions,infrequently and minimally supported by authors such as Mary Douglas, LouisDumont, and E.M. Forster, might be better placed as an analysis not of Rajasthanbut of the Internet and its contribution to a public discourse on India. Berger isintrigued by what he sees as a host of contradictory assessments that recenttravellers have made of India. This confirms his later experience of India as a placeof contradictions.

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Berger’s interpretations of his experiences are coloured by the three-star hotelcum car and driver mode of travel. Much is made of observations or ‘signs’ that are,following the author’s interpretation, meant to convey something significant aboutRajasthani people and culture. This essentialising orientation is surprising given thatBerger himself notes: ‘We must remember that there is often a considerabledifference between the image people have of a country and what the country is reallylike’ (p. 11). The bigger problem that Berger faces, and one that he does not examine,is that in assuming that there is a way to capture what a ‘country is really like’, hereads the signs of Rajasthan and India too easily and rarely transcends his owndiscursive framings. India is ‘remarkably foreign’ (p. 11), men wear ‘costumes’ andwomen wear ‘saris’, and the dinginess of the international airport may say somethingabout the country more generally. And although Berger writes ‘I wanted to walkaround and interact with people in India’, this step towards ethnographic interactionis curtailed by the too-chaotic traffic (p. 34). Thus, Berger acknowledges that his wasa visit where ‘we were more or less forced, most of the time, to live in a touristbubble’ (p. 34).

Berger ends up revealing more about himself. Herein perhaps rests the strength ofthis book. The Golden Triangle is most interesting as a document about how theInternet serves as a vast site for circulating discourse about India. If scholars fromIndia, or elsewhere, are interested in learning about a segment of educated andpresumably middle-class America, this might be a good book to develop an initialsense of how one American scholar comes to view another place as fully Other –particularly after he reads quite a bit about how his fellow Americans are thinkingabout this Other place.

To Berger’s credit, he confides: ‘I always feel that my analyses of Rajasthan andIndia must always be tempered with the realization that I may be making terriblemistakes’ (p. 60). Of course, Berger is not the only sincerely curious and somewhatanxious tourist who, in spite of a meta-analysis of his and fellow tourists’ desiresand assumptions, is unable to pop out of his discursive bubble. Berger seems to hintat this when he shares that he ‘spent a lot of energy looking for Rajasthani signsthat I could interpret’ (p. 45). This book is an excellent source for remindingtourists and other readers alike that signs, while meant to be read, are slippery andshifting in meaning, and, at the very least, require their readers to pop out of abubble.

Hanna H. KimAdelphi University, USA

Email: [email protected]� 2010, Hanna H. Kim

Disappearing peoples? Indigenous groups and ethnic minorities in South and Central

Asia, edited by Barbara Brower and Barbara Rose Johnston, Walnut Creek, CA,Left Coast Press, 2007, 275 pp., ISBN 978-1-59-874121-6

The prospect of losing land, identities, and cultures portends great changes forindigenous peoples. Barbara Brower and Barbara Rose Johnston comment in the

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introduction that South and Central Asia are depicted in the media as a source of‘terror and political unrest but these regions have a long and complicated history andrich cultural diversity and identity’, which are changing at a rapid rate (p. 9).The essays on 12 indigenous groups in Asia include: the Raikas (India), theTharu (Nepal), the Dom (Pakistan), the Hazara (Afghanistan), the Badakshani(Tajikistan), and the Mangghuer (China).

The contributors come from both academic institutions and non-govern-mental organisations. Each chapter is focused on a particular group andcontains information on geographical setting, historical and political back-ground, subsistence strategies, and ways of coping with threats. The challengesrange from the environmental threat faced by most groups to the threats tocultural integrity faced by the Raikas of Rajasthan and the Wakhi and Kirghizof the Pamirian Knot. The book encourages an inter-disciplinary approach andthe historical, socio-political and cultural aspects of each community areaddressed. Each chapter includes a valuable section called ‘Food for thought’,which raises key questions and provides direction for future research forpotential researchers. For example, Arjun Guneratne’s contribution, ‘The Tharuof Chitwan, Nepal’, demonstrates how the Tharu community was transformedfrom being a dominant to a minority group as inward migration changespatterns of land tenure. They were also obliged to cope with the monetisation oftheir economy, a considerable challenge given a combination of illiteracy andignorance of the commercial world. The key research question brought forwardin this chapter is ‘who controls the pace of change, direction and the process ofchange’? (p. 104).

The book includes important case studies from politically disturbed regions tohighlight how political violence impacts communities’ identity leading to thedestruction of cultural and ecological fabric. For example, in ‘Peoples and Culturesof the Kashmir Himalayas’, Aparna Rao and Michael Caimir discuss show howmore than a decade of bloody violence has left every section of the society scarred.The war has also created a severe ecological crisis. Illegal felling has led to rapiddeforestation, erosion and landslides. Economic circumstances are difficult and somehave opted to work as contractors for the Indian military and paramilitary forces.This case sits somewhat awkwardly in relation to other groups discussed in the bookgiven that in Kashmir various identities have to be kept in view. A mitigating factoris the drawing together of artistic and linguistic commonalities into an identity orlifestyle known as the Kashmiriyat, which offers a possible basis for socio-culturalharmony and security in the valley.

A key issue for indigenous peoples is the disappearance of unwritten languages,as is the case for the Minhe Mangghuer in the eastern Qinghai province of China.Zhu Yongzhong and Kevin Stuart, in ‘The Minhe Mangghuer’, show thatMangghuer words are being squeezed out by the use of Chinese-language textbooksin schools. The tragedy is that language sustains distinctive folklore, and traditionalknowledge of the environment.

The book will make an excellent reader for undergraduate students. Complexjargon is avoided, which make this publication accessible to non-academic readersconcerned about minorities in Asia. Each chapter includes a list of films, Internetsources and grass-roots organisations that the readers will find very useful. Howeverthe referencing is highly uneven, with most chapters having just a few references.


This volume, which draws attention to peoples of South and Central Asia too oftenoverlooked, is very much to be welcomed.

Ambika AiyaduraiIndependent scholar

Email: [email protected]� 2010, Ambika Aiyadurai

Indian politics and society since Independence: events, processes and ideology, byBidyut Chakrabarty, Abingdon, Routledge, 2008, xv þ 243 pp., ISBN 978-0-41-540868-4

Bidyut Chakrabarty’s analysis of Indian politics is defined by three key ideologicalinfluences: colonialism, nationalism and democracy (p. 2). The book elaborates upon‘the dialectical interaction’ between these three factors ‘over a historical time leadingto India’s independence and its aftermath’ (p. 4). Critically analysing elements ofcontinuity from, and breaks with, pre-independence political structures, the studythen moves on to explicate more recent developments in Indian politics.

The volume derives much of its strength from efforts to understand the politicsand society of India since 1947 in the light of long-term historical developments.Politics and society are studied very much in relation to each other. This takes usbeyond politics per se, towards a political culture that finds its fullest expression in ‘acreative expression of democracy that is neither ethno-centric nor exactly imitative ofthe western experiences . . .’ (p. 5). There is a degree of optimism about India’sdemocratic culture in general that characterises Chakrabarty’s work, although notwithout the caveat that the ‘consensual politics’ of early Congress rule hadlimitations that included low levels of political awareness among the ‘lower castesand poor classes’ (p. 34). But the ‘persistence of abysmal poverty along with seriousdemocratic commitments on the part of the poor’ (p. 82) of our times results in acertain ‘reinvented’ form of democracy, one that is significantly context-driven andculture-specific.

As well as political culture, the specific trajectory of constitutional history isdiscussed in detail. An entire chapter discusses the marriage of the parliamentaryform of government with federalism. Connections are made to shifts in electoralpolitics. The chapter on constitutional history smoothly leads into a chapter on the1960s, aptly subtitled ‘decade of experiments and turmoil’ (p. 110). This chapterdescribes the strong challenges to the Congress dominant party system in the statesof West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, and Kerala. Thetransition to coalition politics, marking the rise of regional political parties,characterise India’s contemporary politics. This opens up academic ground withsome very provocative questions about the trade off between ideology and politicalexpediency in such politics. The case study of West Bengal’s Left Front politics inrecent years and the virtual redefinition of its Marxism also underscores not only theneed for parties to ‘invent themselves in tune with the surrounding social, politicaland economic milieu’ (p. 133), but also precisely the way they attempt that and therepercussions such reinvention projects bring about. The nature of the current LeftFront as a motley group of political activists is underscored. The Front struggles to

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achieve a balance between a ‘Marxism-inspired value system’ and ‘market-drawnneo-liberal ideologies’ (p. 135). The challenge of operating in the different contexts ofrural and urban Bengal is duly noted.

Welcome additions to the book would include a study of Tamil Nadu’s language-based politics or a review of the complex political terrain of the North Eastern states.On the whole, however, the volume remains an appropriate and timely interventionthat, with its thematically organised bibliography, will be an asset for all interested inthe politics of modern India.

Soumen MukherjeeUniversity of Heidelberg, Germany

Email: [email protected]� 2010, Soumen Mukherjee

Serving empire, serving nation: James Tod and the Rajputs of Rajasthan, by JasonFreitag, Leiden, Brill, 2009, xv þ 227 pp., ISBN 978-9-00-417594-5

In this fine book, Freitag takes Foucault and Gramsci to Rajasthan in order tocritically examine the life and times of James Tod, as well his Annals and Antiquitiesof Rajasthan (first published in 1829 and 1832) and the haunting afterlife of both theman and his work. Seven chapters take us through what was known about theRajputs before Tod, some aspects of Tod’s early life, his actions and assumptions as acolonial administrator, the shape of his conservative thought on India (the contoursof which are ingeniously highlighted by a comparison with the utilitarianism ofJames Mill), an interpretation of the text of the Annals, a discussion of the English-language reviews of the work, and, finally, the translations to other languages inIndia and the instances in which the work was adopted in anti-colonial politics.

Annals is an archive/history of material relating to the physical and racialgeography of the Rajputs of Rajasthan. Such works tended to emphasise the positiveconsequences of understanding native histories and customs, while containinginformation (purportedly) of strategic, political and economic advantage. Annals is acomplicated text by any mark, but Freitag discusses, with precision, the varied tracesof Scotland and Scottish moral philosophy, the tropes of valour and ruin, anti-clericalism, philology and etymological and genealogical methodologies evident inTod’s text. There is also an intriguing but under-developed reference to the effects ofTod’s own sense of personal ‘displacement’: Tod was neither insider nor outsider inRajasthan; he did not ‘go native’, but neither did he remain in any simple sense abourgeois Scottish-Londoner.

In Rajasthan, Annals has influenced tremendously what is known about the pastat most levels of society; in another way, the affairs of the heroic martial RajputsTod chronicled have become synonymous with the reputation of the state (althoughthere are obviously other mechanisms for this aside from the text). The text that oncedescribed the territory has become part of its own ceremonial landscape. There are anumber of revealing passages in the work under review that suggest the author hasbeen frustrated by the gigantic influence of the work and the impossibility of seeingout of its shadow into the bright light of revisionist history; for example, the laconic‘when truth and splendour can be found together . . . there seems to be no need to


look any further’ (p. 5) and the desultory ‘there is no revolutionary method that willmake the existing materials coalesce into some new narrative formation’ (p. 103).The longevity and dominance of the text is attributed to the fact that Tod’s work hasbeen received by both a European audience – looking at Rajputs through the lensesof feudalism and classical Greece and Rome, which included ideas about racialessences, hierarchies of civilization and progress – as well as by those who werelooking for evidence that India had its own historical traditions, especially in theanti-colonial movement.

At the most abstract, this is a study of the precise mechanisms through whichimperial knowledge was constructed and transmitted to the ‘natives’. There isperhaps too little on how Tod went about conducting his own research. As ananthropologist, and therefore as more of a presentist, I would have also appreciatedgreater discussion of the ways such knowledge continues to insinuate itself in theongoing life of postcolonial India. The question is an intriguing one, as are thecurrent epistemological conditions of knowledge and power that make such aquestion possible.

Edward SimpsonSchool of Oriental and African Studies, UK

Email: [email protected]� 2010, Edward Simpson

The history of education in modern India: 1757–2007, by Suresh Chandra Ghosh,New Delhi, Orient BlackSwan, 3rd ed., 2009, xi þ 294 pp., ISBN 8-12-503524-9

This book provides a detailed historical analysis of the systems of education in Indiaover a span of two and half centuries beginning in 1757. The history of education, sooften neglected in India, has to be understood in relation to society and theformation of general attitudes and common sense. Unlike the few books available onthis subject that have mainly relied upon Government of India records and reports,Ghosh uses many rare documents including contemporary newspapers andproceedings of the Indian National Congress (INC) since 1885. This enables himto reflect on Indian reactions to changes in education under the British.

This book does two main things. First, it presents a large amount of empiricalmaterial drawn from contemporary memoirs, letters, diaries, and private papers ofthe British officials that highlight the issues and motives behind changes ineducation. Secondly, the book charts developments in three phases of time; namely,pre-Independence, post-Independence and post-globalisation.

Ghosh gives details of the various lesser known reports on education includingElphinstone’s Minute (1823), Munro’s Minute (1826), and Auckland’s Minute(1839). While analysing these reports, Ghosh underlines new developments such asthe importance of primary education, vernacular education, female education, andprofessional education, which were advanced under British rule and led to majorsocial transformations. In the post-Independence period, Ghosh shows how it wasdifficult for India as a developing country to build an education system to suit itssociety. The INC, in a pivotal political role after Independence, attempted to re-setthe future course of education in India. The Radhakrishnan Commission on

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University Education (1948), the Mudaliar Commission on Secondary Education(1952), and the Kothari Commission (1964) were the stepping stones. The NewNational Policy on Education (1986) envisaged a common educational structurebased on 10 þ 2 þ 3 and a common core to the curriculum. Ghosh mentions somenew concepts that have attracted attention, including functional literacy asdevelopmental literacy, and social education.

The book would have been stronger if, in addition to its empirical depth, it haddeveloped more analytical themes. The chapters could have been organised moreeffectively with rather less than two-thirds of the book being given over to the Britishyears. The author seems too enamoured of modern, English medium education. Hisapathy towards ‘distance learning’ in higher education (p. 265) will not be well-received by all readers. Distance learning helps reduce some resource limitations andcould be used more widely in India even if the lack of classroom interaction isundesirable. However, The History of Education in Modern India remains animportant contribution to the fledgling discipline of the history of education in India.

Ruchi ShreeJawaharlal Nehru University, India

Email: [email protected]� 2010, Ruchi Shree

Religious reconstruction in the South Asian diasporas: from one generation to another,edited by John R. Hinnells, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, ix þ 335 pp.,ISBN 978-0-33-377401-4

An examination of the methods by which South Asian religious traditions arereconstructed and transmitted in diaspora is important to understand how thesetraditions continue to persist in ‘new’ surroundings. This edited volume seeks toexamine these methods by focusing on the processes of religious reconstruction indiasporas in four western countries: Australia, Britain, Canada and the UnitedStates. The volume, which grew out of a research workshop held at the School ofOriental and African Studies in 1996, is divided into three parts dealing with religionand social issues, religious and political issues; and religions of the South Asiandiaspora post September 11 and the July 7 bombings.

The section on religion and social issues begins with an examination of religioustransmission among British Muslims, with Ron Geaves focusing on identity issuesand Philip Lewis on the search for religious guidance among British South AsianMuslims. Both note that young British Muslims identify themselves more with theirreligion, unlike previous generations who primarily view their identity in terms oftheir ethnicity. Both also observe the demise of the mosque as a source of religiousguidance and learning, with Geaves concluding that for young Muslims learningabout their religious tradition, ‘the inspiration is more likely to come from their owngeneration from across the Muslim world . . . than from the South Asian elders whostill pull up drawbridges of isolation’ (p. 26). The idea that young people are learningabout their religious traditions in a variety of ways is continued in Eleanor Nesbitt’sexamination of the different types of religious nurture received by young BritishHindus (‘The Contribution of Nurture in a Sampradaya to Young British Hindus’


Understanding of their Tradition’). John Hinnells’ ‘Parsi Zoroastrian Experiences inFour ‘‘Western’’ Countries: A Comparative Study’ also demonstrates theimportance of recognising that there is no single diasporic experience and thatdiasporic communities much be examined in their local context.

The importance of the local context is further highlighted in the section onreligious and political issues, which discusses the impact of state policies in the fourwestern diasporas on the evolution of ethnic identities (see Raymond Williams’‘Religion and Ethnicity in America’) and on dealing with religious pluralism(see Harold Coward’s ‘Public Policy Implications of Canada’s Multiculturalism forReligious Pluralism’, and Gary Bouma’s ‘Cultural Diversity, Religious Plurality andGovernment Policy in Australia’). The final section on the impact of 9/11 and 7/7focuses on the status of South Asians in America and on how the law in western hostcountries impacts on the processes of religious reconstruction.

Overall this is a very useful book tackling the subject of religious reconstructionfrom a number of perspectives and disciplines. It is clear however, from the views ofthe contributors themselves, that the idea that religious reconstruction only occurs‘from one generation to another’ is somewhat dated, possibly resulting from thefocus of the original workshop. Since then the Internet has emerged as a tool thatinforms young people about their religious traditions and appears to challenge theidea that religious transmission can only be inter-generational. Some discussionof the role of the Internet and of the emergence of religious transmission eventsbeing organised by the youth for the youth (for example, Sikh youth camps orNational Hindu Students Forum conferences) would have given this text a morecontemporary feel, but nevertheless, given the dearth of material regarding religioustransmission. this is a very useful and timely volume.

Jasjit SinghUniversity of Leeds, UK

Email: [email protected]� 2010 Jasjit Singh

Other tongues: rethinking the language debates in India, edited by Nalini Iyer andBonnie Zare, Amsterdam, Rodopi, 2009, xxxvii þ 208 pp., ISBN 978-9-04-202519-6

The language of Indian literary production has long been the subject of polemic anddebate among writers, critics and litterateurs. In postcolonial India, the role andinfluence of Indian Writing in English (IWE) vis-a-vis bhasha (other Indian-language) literatures has been especially controversial. According to Nalini Iyer andBonnie Zare, while the arguments for and against IWE as a legitimate enterprise mayhave been made and remade both in India and the Anglophone world abroad, thecontestations over language persist for two reasons. One, the workings of a profit-driven international publishing industry means entirely unequal prestige, visibilityand monetary rewards accruing to writings in English as compared with ‘regional’language productions. And two, because bhasha literatures function as a sanctuaryagainst the cultural flattening predicated by globalisation. Other Tongues comespositioned as ‘the first monograph to bring together voices from differing national,linguistic and professional contexts to examine the more hidden nuances of this

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debate over language’ (p. xiii). The debate is reflected in the format of the book,which includes academic essays, interviews, and personal reflections.

Other Tongues is divided into three sections, carrying 14 contributions in all.The first part, ‘Canonizing Authors, Authorizing Canons’, has six pieces exploringhow diasporic and native Indian writers negotiate with disparate canons andappeal to separate audiences. The literary choices and implications of ChitraDivakaruni, Jhumpa Lahiri, C.S. Lakshmi, and Rukhsana Ahmad’s work, amongothers, get particular attention. Part two, self-explanatorily provides ‘Perspectivesfrom the World of Publishing’. If Urvashi Butalia’s ‘India’ outlines the changes inthe Indian publishing scene over the past 25 years or so, the conversationsbetween Geeta Dharmarajan, Rizio Yohannan Raj and K. Dharmarajan andBonnie Zare (‘Reaching New Audiences’) and Mini Krishnan (‘PublishingTranslations’) elucidate the challenges and opportunities for advancing the projectof literary translations in India. The final section, ‘Translation and Transcreation’,includes essays that examine the practice and purport of translation in the contextof globalisation, ‘the postcolonial vernacular’, and technological aids like theInternet.

The chief strength of this collection is the internal dialogue and ‘crosstalk’between the contributions. Anushiya Sivanarayanan’s ‘Translation and Globaliza-tion’ focusing on the English translation of Bama’s Karukku, for instance, qualifiesMini Krishnan’s recollections on working with Lakshmi Holmstrom in translatingthe same text. Likewise, Josna Rege’s ‘Code-Switching, Shape-Shifting . . .’,discovering a comparable cosmopolitanism in the works of Rukhsana Ahmad andC.S. Lakshmi that resists pigeonholing, and problematises Nalini Iyer’s argument in‘Embattled Canons’ for distinguishing between resident Indian and diasporic Indianwritings in English. Overall, the intersections and divergences in positions enrich thediscussion in Other Tongues by alerting readers to the plurality of opinions andexperiences on the subject.

Indeed, inclusiveness (within certain parameters) is one of the stated aims ofOther Tongues. Yet, this is also where the collection is disappointing. While thepresence of Mahesh Elkunchwar (‘One Bhasha Writer’s Side of the Coin’) as thelone representative for the vast variety of bhasha writings seems like tokenism,the misnaming of established Marathi writer-critic and nativist, BhalchandraNemade (or Nimade) as Balakrishnan Nimade (p. 6) is certainly unfortunate. Butthe more unfortunate omission in Other Tongues is substantive attention toindigenous evaluative criteria: excepting a couple of contributions, the languagedebates are carried on as if giving recognition to bhasha writings in the form oftranslated literatures is enough. This means indigenous literary texts areconstrained to find circulation in the English-speaking world only through westernframes of analysis.

Future efforts must definitely address this lacuna in scholarship moresatisfactorily. But in the meantime and despite its blindspots, Other Tongues is awelcome endeavour to bring together different stakeholders, agencies, media andinterests, to explore anew the language debates in India.

Sharon PillaiDelhi University, India

[email protected]� 2010, Sharon Pillai


South Asian Christian Diaspora: invisible diaspora in Europe and North

America, edited by Knut A. Jacobsen and Selva J. Raj, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2008,267 pp., ISBN 978-0-75-466261-7

This exceptionally insightful compendium of essays sheds light on the heterogeneityof the South Asian Christian Diaspora, emphasising the significance of religion intheir immigrant experience, which has remained invisible. The editors bring to lightthe invisible diaspora through case studies of South Asian Christian immigrants inEurope and North America. The study is organised into two parts: the firstcontaining eight essays examining the European context, and the second consistingof five essays evaluating the North American context. In all these essays, religionplays a central part in maintaining traditional religious and cultural identities, whileassimilating, acculturating, and creating new identities.

Although all the essays in the book are perceptive, some are extremelycompelling. For example, Brigitte Sebastia in ‘Religion as an Arena for theExpression of Identity: Roman Catholic Pondicherrians in France’ observes thatTamil Christians demonstrate a strong interiorisation of Hindu customs andmanners, yet they also pride themselves on their affiliation with Christianity,rejecting all that symbolises Hinduism, especially the caste hierarchy (the majoritybelonging to the lower castes). Urmila Goel, in ‘The Seventieth Anniversary of‘‘John Matthew’’’, illustrates racism and the idea of otherness as key issues involvedin the life of a Kerala Christian migrant to Germany. Knut Jacobsen, in ‘Creating SriLankan Tamil Catholic Space in the South Asian Diaspora in Norway’, shows howTamil Christians assimilate and maintain their ethnic identity through rituals andreligious spaces, and emphasises Tamil religiosity as a quintessential aspect ofpassing culture to the next generation. On the other hand, Helena Sant’ana in‘Goans and Damanians in Portugal’ claims that Christians from Goa and Daman inPortugal have assimilated to such an extent that their distinct Indian identity hasbecome invisible as they have blended well with Portuguese Christians.

In North America, in ‘The Culture of Asian Indian Catholicism in NorthAmerica’, Elizabeth Galbraith observes the Syro-Malabar and Syro-MalankaraCatholic Churches to be part of a religious majority, yet they remain invisiblebecause of traditional and cultural underpinnings. This argument is validated in‘New Land, New Challenges’, as Selva Raj argues for the cardinal function ofreligion in acculturation among Syro-Malabar Catholics in Chicago, and alsohighlights the role language and rituals play in the transmission of the religioustradition. Despite changing Indian marriage patterns, religion remains a significantfactor in some groups, especially the Knanaya community, who maintain strictethnic and religious endogamy, as Farha Ternikar contends in ‘Indian Christiansand Marriage Patterns’. In ‘From Hinduism to Christianity, from India to NewYork’, Rachel McDermott observes that Dalit Christians feel more welcome in‘mainstream’ congregations where their national identity becomes more importantthan their caste-based Dalit identity.

The volume is a significant contribution to the field of South Asian Studies,Christianity, Hindu–Christian Studies, as well as Contemporary South Asianreligions, because the various essays discuss intra-religious plurality in the SouthAsian Christian Diaspora using diverse heuristic approaches presenting communityhistories, issues of identity, the use and reinvention of religious and culturaltraditions, new ritual formulations, attitudes to language, marriage and family life

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and their relationship to other non-Christian South Asians (p. 8). More importantly,this study draws attention to an understudied area in South Asian Diaspora studiesand reinforces the centrality of religion and the importance of further research intodiverse diasporic experiences.

George PatiValparaiso University, USA

Email: [email protected]� 2010, George Pati

Asymmetric warfare in South Asia: the causes and consequences of the Kargil conflict,edited by Peter R. Lavoy, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2009, xvii þ 407pp., ISBN 978-0-52-176721-7

Kargil has produced lots of partisan literature. In contrast, Asymmetric Warfare inSouth Asia is a comprehensive independent research study that offers rigorousanalysis of primary source interviews. Presented exactly a decade after the KargilWar, the authors have the advantage of some distance from the striking events of1999. The book is divided into three parts examining the causes and conduct of theconflict, consequences and impact of the conflict and lessons learned. Some themescrop up regularly in the book. The second chapter ‘The Strategic Context of theKargil Conflict: a Pakistani Perspective’ by Zafar Iqbal Cheema, and the thirdchapter ‘Pakistan’s Motivations and Calculations for the Kargil Conflict’ by FerozHassan Khan, Peter Lavoy and Christopher Clary, discuss the historical dimensionof Indo-Pakistan hostility. Both of these chapters stand out in this part. While thesecond chapter focuses more on Pakistan’s perspective, the third chapter discussesthe stories of historical grievances told on each side. However, both chapters describehow Kargil was seen by the Pakistani army as an act of revenge for India’s seizure ofSiachen Glacier in 1984.

The miscalculations made by the Pakistani army are much discussed throughoutthe book. It was assumed that Pakistan would be able to gain a strategic advantageand thus dictate terms to India in subsequent negotiations over the status ofKashmir. The contributors note how, in both 1965 and 1999, the Indian reactions farexceeded the expectations of Pakistani planners and so illustrate the asymmetricdimension of warfare between India and Pakistan.

The general view that Kargil deepened the gap between Prime Minister NawazSharif and Army Chief General Pervez Musharraf is not fully confirmed. Lavoy’schapter, ‘Why Kargil Did Not Produce General War: The Crisis ManagementStrategies of Pakistan, India and the United States’, demonstrates that both thearmy and Nawaz Sharif wanted a way out of Kargil. Another important dimensionof the Kargil conflict was the role of the United States. Riedel in ‘AmericanDiplomacy and the 1999 Kargil Summit at Blair House’ gives a very crisp descriptionof the events taking place at Blair House, which resulted in the withdrawal ofPakistan’s forces to positions behind the Line of Control and the conclusion of amajor crisis between the two nuclear-armed states.

Hasan-Askari Rizvi in ‘The lessons of Kargil as Learned by Pakistan’ highlightsthe Pakistan army’s mishandling of Kargil. Overall the different players involved in


the Kargil conflict learned lessons. India reorganised its security structure with theestablishment of the Defence Intelligence Agency. For Pakistan it became clear thatbetter coordination among different corps commanders and service chiefs wasnecessary; the Kargil war suggested the United States could use its intelligencesuperiority to moderate between India and Pakistan in a future crisis.

The present book could have been more inclusive. Reactions from civil societygroups could have been researched and some assessment of the efficacy of track IIdiplomacy in this part of world would have been useful. Although the title of thebook mentions South Asia, it deals with only India and Pakistan; a discussion ofhow other South Asian neighbours such as Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka sawconflict between two nuclear-armed powers in their region would have beeninteresting. Even so, the book has much depth, and will be useful for students,academics and policy-makers interested in South Asian issues.

Punam PandeyUniversity of Delhi, India

Email: [email protected]� 2010, Punam Pandey

The everyday life of Hindu Nationalism: an ethnographic account by Shubh Mathur,Gurgaon, Three Essays Collective, 2008, x þ 219 pp., ISBN 8-18-878943-7

In the past two decades the literature on Hindu nationalism and violence hasproliferated, and this includes ethnographic accounts of communal violence.Researchers have tried to show that, apart from political and economic aspects,there is a cultural dimension of communal violence too. The Everyday Life of HinduNationalism explores the transformation of cultural meanings in everyday life thatmake possible the political success and the anti-minority violence of the Hindu right.The book also questions the accuracy of media and academic accounts that depictreligious frenzy and fanaticism among members of the Hindu right. This, accordingto the author, they do by drawing attention away from the world of the everyday andthe ordinary. Behind the exploration of the above two lies a central question: howdoes one comprehend the selves that are capable of the extraordinary violencewitnessed in India at the turn of the millennium?

The study covers the period between 1991 and 1994, and follows the firstcommunal riot in Jaipur’s history in 1989. The period chosen for study included theformation of first Bhartiya Janta Party-led government in the state, increasedcommunal violence and the destruction of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. To address thecentral question and the issues raised, the book has five chapters. The first chapterjustifies the ethnographic method. The second and third chapters account for thecommunally charged atmosphere of the period. The fourth chapter lays out theethnographic accounts of individuals and organisations attached to the Hindu right.The fifth chapter develops the argument regarding ‘violence as ritual’ using storiesand dissecting the functioning of the judiciary and commission reports. It is here thatShubh Mathur has tried to address the central concerns of the work. She seems tosuggest that cultural constructions of the enemy (Muslims in this context) make theviolence possible. Conversely, according to Mathur, the patterns of violence express

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clearly the relationship of these cultural maps to institutionalised social and politicalpower. For Mathur, the constructions facilitating violence include: the idea that theHindu religion is tolerant and its adherents only retaliate when attacked by theenemy, the claim that violence provides opportunities for participation, and that actsof violence empower ordinary Hindus.

Addressing the central question, Mathur ventures into the problematic of modernthinking. She argues that to comprehend selves and their relation to violence, oneneeds to understand the theorisation on violence in India. She questions theauthorised accounts, judicial and academic, which empty communal violence of bothits actors and its victims. According to her, all of these serve to externalise theviolence, to separate the realities of Indian society and Indian subjectivities.

Although rich in detail and well placed in the genre of ethnographic studies ofHindu nationalism, this work suffers from various limitations. While arguing thatexisting academic and media accounts of communal violence are misleading, ShubhMathur seems to underestimate structural and political economy explanations ofcommunal violence. This work is also a late arrival given the length of time since theethnographic fieldwork was conducted. But this is not to deny the importance of thebook, which offers an insightful study into everyday politics in India.

Shashank ChaturvediJawaharlal Nehru University, India

Email: [email protected]� 2010, Shashank Chaturvedi

Grass-roots democracy in India and China: the right to participate, edited byManoranjan Mohanty, Richard Baum, Rong Ma and George Mathew, London,Sage, 2007, 498 pp., ISBN 0-76-193515-0

India–China comparisons are de rigueur these days, focused mostly on the realm ofeconomic development or cast in terms of ‘rising powers’ within the internationalsystem. More seldom, however, is an investigation at the level of domestic politics.Even more unusual is what this book attempts to do, which is an examination ofpolitical participation in both countries. The editors have brought together Indian,Chinese and US-based scholars to address the theme of grass-roots democracy fromtwo broad perspectives: old and new institutional structures, their enabling ordisabling impact on the right to participate, and changing state–society relations asseen through a spectrum of socio-economic issues including gender, religion,ethnicity and rural economy.

The book draws attention to new arenas of political negotiation and competitionthat have emerged in India and China. Two key reforms are described as recentturning-points. In India, the 73rd and 74th amendments transformed panchayats(village councils) and municipalities into constitutional bodies at the district leveland below, and introduced mandatory elections and guaranteed representation forwomen, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. In China the Organic Law on theVillagers’ Committee, approved by the Ninth People’s Congress in 1998, paved theway for villagers’ self-management, going so far as to introduce direct multi-candidate elections. Both developments suffer from serious limitations: in the


Chinese case 70% of candidates belong to the Communist Party, while in India localbureaucracy and elites continue to exert excessive influence.

Of the 19 empirical articles contained in the book, four compare commonchallenges facing India and China. These include the pull of centralisation, violence,corruption and the need to institutionalise democratic norms as discussed in GeorgeMatthew’s chapter, ‘Local Government System in India and China . . .’. Theenduring popularity of informal finance in rural China and India is discussed inKellee S. Tsai’s contribution, ‘Imperfect Substitutes . . .’. Each of the comparativechapters examines issues of stratification and institutional exclusion, patriarchy andwomen’s participation. The remaining contributions conduct case-study analysesthat provide a historical background to local government systems, examine the roleof agency in the form of civil society actors such as non-governmental organisationsor explore the differences in prevailing conditions and practices across Indian statesand Chinese provinces.

While the editors claim that the ‘volume contributes insights to the emerging fieldof local governance and local democracy’ (p. 13), only a few of the chapters link theirempirical study to an analytical framework. One exception is Richard Baum and XinZhang’s chapter, ‘Civil Society Revisited: The Anatomy of a Rural NGO in Qinghai’.Tracking the emergence and functioning of associational life in China, they focus onthe Sanchuan Development Association in northwest China that fails to fitconventional civil society models. In general, it would have been useful if each ofthe contributors had been asked to discuss how their studies strengthens or challengespolitical theories of democracy, participation and legitimacy – categories that are afterall broadly founded upon essentially western experiences of political development.

Nevertheless, this is an invaluable book for students and scholars of politicaldevelopment and social change. The articles are dense with information andreferences, showcasing institutional innovations that are perhaps little knownoutside certain fields of specialisation. For instance, the relationship between theCommunist Party, village administration and religious authorities or the politics ofaggregation pioneered by the first chief minister of Maharashtra bringing togethermultiple castes and communities under the leadership of the rich Maratha peasantry.Given the fact that India and China together constitute about 40% of the world’spopulation one would expect that their experiences of social and political changeshould contribute to general political theory.

Jivanta SchoettliUniversity of Heidleberg, Germany

Email: [email protected]� 2010, Jivanta Schoettli

Asian diplomacy: the foreign ministries of China, India, Japan, Singapore, and

Thailand, by Kishan S. Rana, Malta, Diplo Foundation, 2009, xviii þ 246 pp., ISBN978-0-80-189196-0

The lack of adequate serious literature on the diplomatic methods and practices ofAsian countries suggests a worrying disinterest in this important topic. This is alacuna that Ambassador Kishan Rana seeks to rectify in this book. My judgement is

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that researchers have tended to be soft on their own government distorting theirperspective on diplomatic methods. That said, governments must share the blamesince much of their activity is shrouded in secrecy. Little is known about thefunctioning of ministries of external affairs and their missions abroad. In addition,most Asian states are relatively youthful and the priority has been to secure the basiccharacter of their nation-state. Pre-occupation with issues of security, development,and welfare have encouraged cautious diplomatic styles, which have less interest forscholars of diplomacy. This is beginning to change as Asian countries have achievedgreater influence and seek to shape a new world order.

Asian Diplomacy studies the foreign affairs ministries of five significant Asianpowers: China, India, Japan, Singapore and Thailand. The author attempts to findcommonalities in their diplomatic styles. Themes explored include: attempts atstreamlining and professionalising ministries, the influence of domestic politics andculture, understanding of power, pragmatism, long-term perspectives and negotiat-ing styles. Rana also studies the changes and continuities in the five differentministries in the countries under study. The author looks at the origins of theministries and the driving force during the formative phase in each of country. Forexample, in case of China he analyses the way in which domestic political change(from revolution to reforms and everything in between) and subsequent change inthe perception of world affairs affected the country’s diplomatic engagement with theworld. The author argues that the early Chinese style was marked by assertivenationalism, combativeness towards adversaries and language marked by communistideology, whereas since 1979 professionalism and cooperative language helpedidentify a more sophisticated approach to diplomacy.

Five criteria have been used to study each ministry; namely, internationalisation,subject plurality, technology, public diplomacy and accountability. Broadly, thereare similarities in terms of organisational structure of the ministry, envoyappointments and some human resource practices. The author benefits from beinga former Foreign Service officer in the Indian Ministry of External Affairs. He useshis experience to bring out the nuances in the structures and diplomatic methods ofthe ministries. He explores the seminal influence of Jawaharlal Nehru on the IndianMinistry for External Affairs in detail. He also dwells on the dilemmas facing thepresent-day ministry. Extensive research is evident from the detailed data used insupport of the arguments. This is evident in the cross sectional and longitudinal dataused in Chapter Eight in which he compares the ministries in different countries onvarious criteria such as response to globalisation, structures, human resource policiesand processes.

More might have been said about how domestic political processes influence thework of ministries of foreign affairs. The relationship between the foreign policyorientation of a country and its diplomatic methods could have been exploredfurther. Indeed it is an interesting question as to whether diplomatic methods mightinfluence policy orientation. Otherwise, this volume is a fine addition to the literatureon this subject. It will be a valuable reference book and should stimulate futureresearch on the subject of Asian diplomacy.

Avinash Anil GodboleInstitute for Defence Studies and Analyses, India

Email: [email protected]� 2010, Avinash Anil Godbole


The Tibetan government-in-exile: politics at large, by Stephanie Roemar, London,Routledge, 2008, xii þ 220 pp., ISBN 978-0-41-545171-0

The Tibetan movement gathers publicity for its cause but the driving force, which keepsit alive, is not known to so many. In this book, Stephanie Roemer discusses in detail thenature and functioning of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA). This governmentin exile, headed by the 14th Dalai Lama, has been based in Dharamshala in India eversince the Dalai Lama was forced to seek asylum in India. The book seeks to discuss twoquestions: ‘firstly, how the CTA fosters its claims to be the sole representative of allTibetans over the last decades in exile; and, secondly, which policies have been carriedout in order to regain the homeland’ (p. i). It discusses these questions in four detailedchapters that look at the historical background, theories about the government in exile,the role of the exiled Tibetan community, and crucial CTA policies.

The author elaborates on the functioning of the CTA, which is divided into anexecutive, a legislature and a judiciary. The changing political strategy of the CTA isset out clearly. Initially, the CTA approached the United Nations, and although theUnited Nations did pass three resolutions, the Republic of China (PRC) was able toprevent further initiatives in this forum. By the 1980s the CTA made connectionswith international non-governmental organisations as a supplement to the UnitedNations and bilateral contacts with the PRC officials. Roemar details contradictionsthat exist within the working structure of the CTA. The primary contradictionappears to be the role of the Dalai Lama, given that there is still a high degree ofdependency on him. Roemar concludes: ‘progress of the democratic transformationprocess of the exile Tibetan political system during the last decades is stillquestionable and not yet finished’ (p. 101).

The movement of exiled Tibetans from China to various countries, especiallyIndia, has been traced in detail. Various Tibetan settlements in India are shownclearly on a map (p. 75). This book provides an in-depth analysis of the currentworking of the Tibetan government in exile, their day-to-day problems and theirproblem-solving methods. The challenges are numerous, including the task ofidentity maintenance. The CTA struggles to encourage interest in Tibetan cultureand religion among the new generation, which has the option of accepting Indiancitizenship (that brings with it various advantages).

This book is unusual, and welcome, because it studies the Tibetan movement inrelation to India, in contrast to the usual preoccupation with China. The book leavesthe impression that the major challenge faced by the CTA is not regaining autonomyin the Homeland, which is still the ultimate goal, but keeping the movement alive.The book is a timely contribution to the existing literature on the subject. Itsuccessfully counters the homogeneous image of the Tibetan movement and bringsout several layers of difference. The general perception is that there is onehomogeneous Tibetan government in exile. But after reading this book it becomesquite apparent that, although the Dalai Lama and the CTA are two separate entities,the former exercises some de facto authority over the latter. The result is a verywelcome and informative account of the Tibetan government in exile.

Gunjan SinghInstitute for Defence Studies and Analyses, India

Email: [email protected]� 2010, Gunjan Singh

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A manual of historical research methodology, by E. Sreedharan, Trivandrum, Centrefor South Indian Studies, 2007, xiii þ 374 pp.

The principal purpose of Sreedharan’s book is to analyse the methods of studyinghistorical events. His definition of history draws on the views of such scholars asAristotle, Bacon, Burke, Carlyle, Bloch, and Carr. The author indirectly suggeststhat history is not mere narration of events and that it is important to placehistory in the context of natural and social sciences. Sreedharan argues that it isimportant to use historical theories and models, and he uses examples to validateparticular concepts. When discussing historical controversy, the author analysesissues and debates and gives views of different scholars who participated in thedebate. So he takes up the issue of the Aryan problem and analyses the origin andgrowth of this issue. He finds that few historians believed in the existence of arace called the Aryans. Sreedharan presents the detailed views of participants inthis debate, including Max Muller, D.D. Kosambi, and B.K. Ghosh. A fewscholars have presented evidence that suggests the Vedic people were ofindigenous origin, while others believed in the Aryan invasion theory. The authordoes not take a view on such controversial topics. Nevertheless, a notable merit ofthe work is that it shows awareness of recent issues, debates, and problems inhistory.

This work is useful for those beginning historical research projects. It showshow historians analyse sources based on internal and external criticism, andemphasises the need to assess the veracity of primary sources. Models andmethods are discussed, including comparative methods, quantitative methods, andmicro history. Even though historians are reluctant to use comparison, due to theuniqueness of each historical event, this method can expand historical perspective.For example, Max Weber compared western and oriental civilisations tocomprehend the uniqueness of these cultures. While discussing quantitativemethods, it is suggested that the sampling method can be used to analyse largedata-sets, as done by Paul Thompson, who used a quota sampling to interviewselected Edwardians. Micro history is explained through an analysis of Le RoyLadurie and Carlo Ginzburg, wherein Ladurie attempted to analyse villagehistory based on court inquisition records. Concepts such as social role, sex andgender, class, status, and social mobility are discussed. The concept of social role,which is used extensively in the context of sociology, should be explored inhistorical studies. Historians, traditionally, are averse to the use of sociologicalconcepts, but the author refers to Peter Burke, who suggested that the role offunctionaries such as royal favourites should be analysed and expandedwhile discussing non-western societies. Feminist concepts are explored by studyingthe works of Peter Burke and Michel Foucault. In the context of India, one cantake up issues such as caste and social mobility, and draw parallels from pre-industrial Europe, wherein the church acted as the agent of social mobility, asindividuals with low social status could enhance their social status usingeducation, economic gain and political means. The application of the diversemethodologies discussed in this book could enhance the quality of research beingconducted.

E. Sreedharan provides a dependable guide for students of history,particularly for those in India. Such a book was long overdue, and Sreedharanhas filled this gap by compiling this work, which explores history’s uses and


values, the value of other disciplines, research methodology, and historicalcontroversy.

Nagendra RaoGoa University, India

Email: [email protected]� 2010, Nagendra Rao

Passionate modernity: sexuality, class and consumption in India, by Sanjay Srivastava,New Delhi, Routledge, 2007, 336 pp. ISBN 0-41-542415-1

Passionate Modernity explores the sexual cultures of twentieth-century India in thelarger context of postcolonial modernity. It contextualises public culture of sexualityin relation to broader discourses including sexual nationalism, consumerism, freemarket society, large-scale consumerism and urbanisation. It opens with a criticalexamination of the context marked by the increasing popularity of family planningand eugenics in the nationalist understanding of the early twentieth century. Besides,it presents an ethnographic analysis of the cultures of footpath pornography and sexcultures in metropolitan cities; namely, Delhi and Mumbai. The latter part of thebook offers an insight into the making of middle-class identities through discourseson consumption and morality by way of content analyses of contemporarysexological publications and women’s magazines.

The book distinguishes itself not only by combining archival and ethnographicresearch on the various connections between urban culture and sexuality, but alsoby discarding religious and psychological frameworks that have traditionally beenemployed to explain sexual cultures in India. More importantly, it delves deep intothe multiple possibilities of nationalist positions on issues of the body, intimacyand morality and the different ways in which the family was discussed as anationalist project. For example, in the nationalist imagination, birth controlmeasures were primarily directed at the poor and uneducated while the educatedclasses were the audience for the savants of sexual knowledge and pleasure. Theimplicit assumption that the primitive and animal-like sexual fervour of theuneducated had to be controlled reveals the class underpinnings of sexual politicsin India.

Three chapters investigate the idea of sexuality for sections of the economicallyand socially marginal urban populations. They look at the efflorescence of ‘sex-talk’in Hindi-language women’s magazines such as Grhashobha, Gruhlakshami, and MeriSaheli. To the extent that cities play a special role in the way we imagine sex, anunderstanding of sexuality can shed light on the multiple sites and processes of arapidly transforming modernity. Moreover, urban sexual culture posits a series ofassociations around the social meanings of individual actions, emotions, love andintimacy as well as the alignment of a marginalised medical system (as embodied in avariety of indigenous sexologists) with the bodies of marginal people.

Romance provides a way for non-middle-class men and women attempting tofind a place in a world that would generally discount their agency and well-being. Inthis sense, footpath pornography turns out to be a possible site of recalcitranceagainst those norms of domesticity that get articulated through the ideals of pativrata

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(devout wife) and attempt to control female sexuality. Indeed, in the nationalvernacular public sphere, journals like Sexology Darpan address the linkagesbetween the materially feeble bodies, sexual and economic desire, personal agency,and structural constraint. Viewed thus, sex clinics are sites of information aboutwhat modernity means for the urban poor.

The book focuses on the modern consuming woman. It unpacks the notion ofdomesticity for the population whose lives are marked by the uncertainties of shelterand unemployment in an alien city in contrast to the relatively secure section thathave bourgeois aspirations and has acquired some degree of permanence in the city.Thus, sexual ideologies cannot exist independent of larger political, social andcultural contexts.

Some readers may find the text hard going and the arguments somewhatlaboured in a book that is theoretically ambitious and in which the data are thinlyspread. However, the author largely succeeds in demonstrating that the narratives ofsexuality and the modern self are markers of class distinctions. Srivastava shows howcompeting segments of the middle class make use of variously coded conceptualisa-tions of emotional intimacy and conjugal modernity to establish their status.

Manish K. ThakurIndian Institute of Management Calcutta, India

Email: [email protected]� 2010, Manish K. Thakur

Khairlanji: a strange and bitter crop, by Anand Teltumbde, New Delhi, Navayana,2008, 214 pp., ISBN 978-8-18-905915-6

Anand Teltumbde’s book revisits the horror perpetuated at Khairlanji, an obscurevillage in the Bhandara district of Maharashtra, India. According to the author, thevillage represents ‘the quintessence of caste India’, where people are required toobserve their ‘ascriptive statuses, stay put in their place’ (p. 14). When theBhotmanges, a family of Dalit-Buddhists, asserted their independence and attemptedto cross caste boundaries, they became victims of one of the most outrageous castecrimes in recent times. The book addresses the question of socio-economictransformation in India in relation to the issue of Indian social hierarchy based onthe caste system, and argues that caste plays a dominant and decisive role in thefunctioning of democracy in modern India.

On 29 September 2006 in Khairlanji, Bhotmange Bhaiyalal’s wife Surekha andhis daughter Priyanka were stripped, raped and killed. His young sons, Roshan andSudhir were brutally assaulted and lynched. Bhotmange, who was working on hisfarmland, heard the commotion and hid behind a bush witnessing the horror.Overcome by fright, he ran away to Dusala, a nearby village to secure help. Themutilated bodies of his family members were recovered from a nearby canal. Thevillage of Khairlanji is dominated by backward castes, including the perpetratorswho belong to kunabi and kalar caste groups. The Bhotmange family repeatedlyfaced caste discrimination and was discouraged from starting new ventures designedto improve their economic status. In spite of this, the parents provided education fortheir children and battled through a protracted land dispute. When the Bhotmanges


won, the Gram Panchayat (village court) and other village authorities nursed a deepgrudge against them. A consensus was reached in the village that the family shouldbe punished. Teltumbde uses this brutal murder to remind readers that India, whichclaims to be an emerging global power, fails to protect its subaltern classes. Thebook, as Teltumbde claims, is an effort to ensure that the crime ‘will not be easilyerased from memory’ (p. 10), arguing that every village in India is a potentialKhairlanji.

The book falls into three main sections. The first section tracks the genealogy ofDalit crimes and how they operate within the contexts of history, religious ideologyand contemporary political economy. The second section investigates andinterrogates the key roles played by the state, mass media, police, the judiciary,political groups and civil society in such atrocities. This section is exhaustive in itsresearch and expertly scrutinises the ways in which the role players collude andpropagate a climate for social crimes. The third section focuses on the aftermath ofthe Khairlanji massacre, raising questions about the nature of Indian politicaleconomy and exploding myths of social liberalism in India. The chilling episode isnot sensationalised in the book; it is described only with the purpose of unveiling theubiquity of caste prejudice in state and society.

On the whole, the book is characterised by cautious weighing of evidence and isbased on solid empirical research, revealing a disturbing set of social values in whichcaste still determines daily interaction. It is a substantial addition to Dalit literatureas well as subaltern studies in general. Drawing inspiration from Abel Meeropol’spoignant poem ‘Strange and Bitter Fruit’, Teltumbde’s book demands social justiceand laments human depravity. It strongly resonates with the ‘bitter fruits’ of class,caste, communal and racial discrimination across the world.

Renuka RajaratnamManchester Metropolitan University, UK

Email: [email protected]� 2010, Renuka Rajaratnam

Clothing Gandhi’s nation: homespun and modern India, by Lisa Trivedi, Bloomington,Indiana University Press, 2007, xxvi þ 205 pp., ISBN 978-0-25-334882-1

Clothing Gandhi’s Nation shows how the khadi (homespun cloth) movementadvanced the cause of Congress nationalism in late colonial India. Lisa Trivediargues that khadi has to be understood both in terms of its production as well as itsconsumption. On the former point she reminds us that khadi was at the centre of analternative economic model. The author argues that ordinary Indians were notpassive consumers of khadi. They made their own choices as they did so. MahatmaGandhi had particular views about khadi, but as it was put into everyday use,compromises were made. Trivedi argues that khadi was especially important forgiving visual expression to nationalist ideology. In the 1920s khadi was promoted bytours and exhibitions. Promoters used magic lanterns to display ‘visual imagerythrough which ordinary people were encouraged to imagine a national community’(p. 56). Gandhi’s khadi flag, decorated with the charka (spinning wheel), was onlyreluctantly accepted by the Congress leadership. However, it was used on

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alternative holidays declared by nationalists. Trivedi argues that, in doing so,nationalists sought to wrest control of public space and the calendar from thecolonial regime.

Trivedi details the political tensions surrounding khadi within the Congressmovement. Critics were not convinced that it offered a viable economic model orthat it should be given such a prominent position in the nationalist struggle.Entitlement to participate in Congress was briefly linked to a ‘spinning franchise’whereby members had to produce 2000 yards of thread a month. This demandingcriterion was quickly dropped with Congress opting to strongly support khadi andback the swadeshi (indigenous goods) movement. Gandhi hoped that khadi wouldact as a leveller within the movement, producing a style of dress that in its plainuniformity would unify a diverse Indian people. Trivedi shows that his ambitionswere not entirely realised. Women risked social disapproval if they opted for a whitehomespun sari, a style of dress usually associated with widows, and a garment not inuniversal use across India. Wealthier members maintained class distinctions byseeking out the most expensive homespun cloth that set them apart from ordinarywearers of khadi. In spite of these ambiguities, Trivedi shows how khadi was aninnovative political tool that gave visual expression to the nationalist movement. Thecolonial authorities considered khadi to be subversive and periodically attempted tostop people from wearing it in certain official situations.

Clothing Gandhi’s Nation is interesting because it takes us beyond elite narrativesand examines ‘the reception and use of these goods in everyday life’ (p. xxii). Myonly reservation is that the issue of reception is at times addressed speculatively(pp. 144–145). This is a minor quibble, however, as the author does provide plenty ofother evidence that gives us a clear sense of how khadi was used in everyday life.Trivedi engages with relevant theoretical and historiographical issues, and this isdone while maintaining a clear, and readable narrative. Clothing Gandhi’s Nationfeatures many fascinating illustrations, 32 in all, which are analysed in the text. Theoverall result is a book that will travel well. Students will find it accessible andinformative as they study the history of modern India. Researchers working onnationalism, consumption and visual studies will find this thoughtfully argued bookvery useful indeed.

Andrew WyattUniversity of Bristol, UK

Email: [email protected]� 2010, Andrew Wyatt


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History of Education in Modern India

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