Book picks similar to
Coromandel: A Personal History of South India by Charles Allen
history
india
non-fiction
nonfiction
Accidental India: A History of The Nation's Passage Through Crisis and Change
Shankkar Aiyar - 2012
He argues that these turning points in the country’s history were not the result of foresight or careful planning but were rather the accidental consequences of major crises that had to be resolved at any cost.
The Making of Exile: Sindhi Hindus and the Partition of India
Nandita Bhavnani - 2014
The Making of Exile hopes to redress this, by turning a spotlight on the specific narratives of the Sindhi Hindu community. Post-Partition, Sindh was relatively free of the inter-communal violence witnessed in Punjab, Bengal and other parts of north India. Consequently, in the first few months of Pakistan's early life, Sindhi Hindus did not migrate and remained the most significant minority in West Pakistan. Starting with the announcement of the Partition of India, The Making of Exile firmly traces the experiences of the community - that went from being a small but powerful minority to becoming the target of communal discrimination, practiced by both the state as well as sections of Pakistani society. This climate of communal antipathy threw into sharp relief the help and sympathy extended to Sindhi Hindus by other Pakistani Muslims, both Sindhi and muhajir. Finally, it was when they became victims of the Karachi pogrom of January 1948 that Sindhi Hindus felt compelled to migrate to India.The second segment of the book examines the resettlement of the community in India - their first brush with squalid refugee camps, their struggle to make sense of rapidly changing governmental policies and the spirit of determination and enterprise with which they rehabilitated themselves in their new homeland. Yet, not all Sindhi Hindus chose to migrate and the specific challenges of those who stayed on in Sindh, as well as the difficulties faced by Sindhi Muslims after the formation of Pakistan, have been sensitively documented in the final chapters. Weaving in a variety of narratives - diary entries and memoirs, press reportage, letters to editors and, advertisements, legends and poetry, dozens of interviews and a wealth of academic literature - Nandita Bhavnani's The Making of Exile is one of the most comprehensive and multifaceted studies of the Sindhi experience of Partition.
The Man Who Saved India
Hindol Sengupta - 2018
He illuminated Indian politics with pragmatic and sensible ideas of nation-building at a time when his contemporaries were unable or unwilling to shed the romantic lens. The very shape of India that we recognize today was stitched together by Patel, the Iron Man of India. The Man Who Saved India unravels the personality of one of the greatest men in Indian contemporary history.
A History of India
Michael H. Fisher - 2016
Two of the world's great religions - Hinduism and Buddhism - have their origins in South Asia, and the lands east of the Indus River have long been a central hub for trade, migration, and cultural exchange. Today the subcontinent contains 20 percent of the world's population and is a thriving center for global business, making this region one of most significant economic powerhouses in the world.Go inside this thrilling story with A History of India, a breathtaking survey of South Asia from its earliest societies along the Indus and Ganges rivers through the modern challenges of the 21st century. These 36 sweeping lectures enable you to understand the epic scope of the subcontinent's history. Perhaps the most important facet of this history is how diverse the region truly is. Roughly the size of continental Europe, India - along with its neighbors, Pakistan and Bangladesh - contains a myriad of ethnic groups, socioeconomic classes, religions, and cultural mores.In this wide-ranging investigation, you'll: Meet the many religious communities that have coexisted in India, including Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians Delve into the legacies of the Mauryan Empire, the Mughal Empire, and British colonialism - three of the few governments that ever unified the subcontinent Witness the fight for independence from European powers and the partition of the region into the countries of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh in the 20th century Consider the challenges and opportunities faced by this area today, from expanding urbanization to the vast need for energy sources to the ongoing heated debates about national identity Professor Fisher, who has traveled and taught in South Asia for decades, reveals this complex narrative with skill and compelling insights.1. Introduction to India 32 min 2. The Mughal Empire in 18th-Century India 32 min 3. Indian and British Economic Interests 31 min 4. British Expansion in India (1757-1820) 28 min 5. Knowing the Country: British Orientalism 30 min 6. Race, Gender, and Culture (1750-1850) 30 min 7. The Age of Reform (1830-1850) 30 min 8. The Great Uprising (1857-1858) 27 min 9. Economics and Society under the Raj 29 min 10. Caste and Tribal Identity under Colonialism 29 min 11. The Nationalization of Hinduism (1870-1900) 32 min 12. Indian Muslim Identity and Colonial Rule 31 min 13. The Late-19th-Century British Raj 29 min 14. Princely States and Royalist Relationships 29 min 15. Indian Nationalism and the Freedom Struggle 31 min 16. The Great War and Its Impact on India 29 min 17. Gandhi's Moral-Political Philosophy 29 min 18. The Noncooperation Movement 31 min 19. Indian Muslim Politics between the Wars 29 min 20. The Civil Disobedience Campaign 32 min 21. Britain and Its Empire in the 1940s 30 min 22. The Raj on Its Knees (1945-1947) 30 min 23. A Split India: Negotiating Independence 30 min 24. Reflections on Postcolonial India 29 min
The Emergency: A Personal History
Coomi Kapoor - 2015
In the dark days that followed, Coomi Kapoor, then a young journalist, personally experienced the full fury of the establishment. Meanwhile, Indira Gandhi, her son Sanjay and his coterie unleashed a reign of terror that saw forced sterilizations, brutal evictions in the thousands, and wanton imprisonment of many, including Opposition leaders.This gripping eyewitness account vividly recreates the drama, the horror, as well as the heroism of a few during those nineteen months when democracy was derailed.
Everybody Loves a Good Drought
Palagummi Sainath - 1996
In the dry language of development reports and economic projections, the true misery of the 312 million who live below the poverty line, or the 26 million displaced by various projects, or the 13 million who suffer from tuberculosis gets overlooked. In this thoroughly researched study of the poorest of the poor, we get to see how they manage, what sustains them, and the efforts, often ludicrous, to do something for them. The people who figure in this book typify the lives and aspirations of a large section of Indian society, and their stories present us with the true face of development.
Twilight in Delhi
Ahmed Ali - 1940
As Bonamy Dobree said, "It releases us into a different and quite complete world. Mr. Ahmed Ali makes us hear and smell Delhi...hear the flutter of pigeons’ wings, the cries of itinerant vendors, the calls to prayer, the howls of mourners, the chants of qawwals, smell jasmine and sewage, frying ghee and burning wood." The detail, as E.M. Forster said, is "new and fascinating," poetic and brutal, delightful and callous. First published by the Hogarth Press in 1940. Twilight in Delhi was widely acclaimed by critics and hailed in India as a major literary event. Long since considered a landmark novel, it is now available in the U.S. as a New Directions Classic. Twilight in Delhi has also been translated into French, German, Portuguese, Spanish, and Urdu.
Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India
Akshaya Mukul - 2015
As of early 2014, Gita Press had sold close to 72 million copies of the Gita, 70 million copies of Tulsidas's works and 19 million copies of scriptures like the Puranas and Upanishads. And while most other journals of the period, whether religious, literary or political, survive only in press archives, Kalyan now has a circulation of over 200,000, and its English counterpart, Kalyana-Kalpataru, of over 100,000.Gita Press created an empire that spoke in a militant Hindu nationalist voice and imagined a quantifiable, reward-based piety. Almost every notable leader and prominent voice, including Mahatma Gandhi, was roped in to speak for the cause. Cow slaughter, Hindi as national language and the rejection of Hindustani, the Hindu Code Bill, the creation of Pakistan, India's secular Constitution: Kalyan and Kalyana-Kalpataru were the spokespersons of the Hindu position on these and other matters. The ideas articulated by Gita Press and its publications played a critical role in the formation of a Hindu political consciousness, indeed a Hindu public sphere. This history provides new insights into the complicated and contested rise to political pre-eminence of the Hindu Right. Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India is an original, eminently readable and deeply researched account of one of the most influential publishing enterprises in the history of modern India. Featuring an extraordinary cast of characters - buccaneering entrepreneurs and hustling editors, nationalist ideologues and religious fanatics - this is essential (and exciting) reading for our times.
An Uncertain Glory: India and Its Contradictions
Jean Drèze - 2013
After India gained independence in the year 1947, she decided to adopt a political system that was democratic in nature and involved the existence of several political parties and many political rights. The end of the colonial era saw the disappearance of the continual famines that were striking India. Instead of stagnation, India began to witness growth in her economy, making her eventually rank at number two in the list of fastest growing economies in the world. Even now, though India's economy has dipped slightly, it still has one of the highest growths in the world. An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions is a book that has the opinions of two of India's leading economists, Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen, who highlight the major problems that the country faces at present. These two experts stress on the need to have sound knowledge concerning the deprivations of humans in India.
Broken Republic: Three Essays
Arundhati Roy - 2011
most outspoken and fearless political activist.War has spread from the borders of India to the forests in the very heart of the country. Combining brilliant analysis and reportage by one of India's iconic writers. Broken Republic examines the nature of progress and development in the emerging global superpower. and asks fundamental questions about modern civilization itself. In three incisive essays Roy lays bare the corruption at the centre of government and industry. explores life with the Maoist guerrilla movement and reveals the thwarted search for justice and democracy in India.
Where the Rain is Born: Writings About Kerala
Anita Nair - 2002
A combination of essays, short stories, poems and extracts from published works in both English and Malayalam, this anthology affords a tantalizing glimpse into the rich and varied layers of experience that Kerala has to offer.
Outposts: Journeys to the Surviving Relics of the British Empire
Simon Winchester - 1985
He traveled 100,000 miles back and forth, from Antarctica to the Caribbean, from the Mediterranean to the Far East, to capture a last glint of imperial glory.His adventures in these distant and forgotten ends of the earth make compelling, often funny reading and tell a story most of us had thought was over: a tale of the last outposts in Britain's imperial career and those who keep the flag flying.With a new introduction, this updated edition tells us what has happened to these extraordinary places while the author's been away.
Japan Story: In Search of a Nation, 1850 to the Present
Christopher Harding - 2018
Masterly.' Neil MacGregorIt is told through the eyes of people who greeted this change not with the confidence and grasping ambition of Japan's modernizers and nationalists, but with resistance, conflict, distress.We encounter writers of dramas, ghost stories and crime novels where modernity itself is the tragedy, the ghoul and the bad guy; surrealist and avant-garde artists sketching their escape; rebel kamikaze pilots and the put-upon urban poor; hypnotists and gangsters; men in desperate search of the eternal feminine and feminists in search of something more than state-sanctioned subservience; Buddhists without morals; Marxist terror groups; couches full to bursting with the psychological fall-out of breakneck modernization. These people all sprang from the soil of modern Japan, but their personalities and projects failed to fit. They were 'dark blossoms': both East-West hybrids and home-grown varieties that wreathed, probed and sometimes penetrated the new structures of mainstream Japan.
Instant City: Life and Death in Karachi
Steve Inskeep - 2011
In recent decades, the world has seen an unprecedented shift of people from the countryside into cities. As Steve Inskeep so aptly puts it, we are now living in the age of the "instant city," when new megacities can emerge practically overnight, creating a host of unique pressures surrounding land use, energy, housing, and the environment. In his first book, the co-host of Morning Edition explores how this epic migration has transformed one of the world's most intriguing instant cities: Karachi, Pakistan.Karachi has exploded from a colonial port town of 350,000 in 1941 to a sprawling metropolis of at least 13 million today. As the booming commercial center of Pakistan, Karachi is perhaps the largest city whose stability is a vital security concern of the United States, and yet it is a place that Americans have frequently misunderstood.As Inskeep underscores, one of the great ironies of Karachi's history is that the decision to divide Pakistan and India along religious lines in 1947 only unleashed deeper divisions within the city-over religious sect, ethnic group, and political party. In Instant City, Inskeep investigates the 2009 bombing of a Shia religious procession that killed dozens of people and led to further acts of terrorism, including widespread arson at a popular market. As he discovers, the bombing is in many ways a microcosm of the numerous conflicts that divide Karachi, because people wondered if the perpetrators were motivated by religious fervor, political revenge, or simply a desire to make way for new real estate in the heart of the city. Despite the violence that frequently consumes Karachi, Inskeep finds remarkable signs of the city's tolerance, vitality, and thriving civil society-from a world-renowned ambulance service to a socially innovative project that helps residents of the vast squatter neighborhoods find their own solutions to sanitation, health care, and education.Drawing on interviews with a broad cross section of Karachi residents, from ER doctors to architects to shopkeepers, Inskeep has created a vibrant and nuanced portrait of the forces competing to shape the future of one of the world's fastest growing cities.
All Together Now?: One Man's Walk in Search of His Father and a Lost England
Mike Carter - 2019
I called work and booked some time off. Then I bought a one-way train ticket to Liverpool.'In 1981, Mike Carter's dad, Pete, organised the People's March for Jobs, which saw 300 people walk from Liverpool to London to protest as the Thatcher government's policies devastated industrial Britain and sent unemployment skyrocketing. Just before the 2016 EU referendum, Mike set off to walk the same route in a quest to better understand his dad and his country.As he walked, Mike found many echoes of the early eighties: a working class overlooked and ignored by Westminster politicans; communities hollowed out but fiercely resistant; anger and despair co-existing with hope and determination for change. And he also found that he and Pete shared more in common than he might have thought.All Together Now? maps the intricate, overlapping path of one man's journey and that of an entire country. It is a book about belonging, about whether to stay or go, and about the need to write new stories for our communities and ourselves.