Notwithstanding his contributions to religion, nonviolence, civil rights, and civil disobedience, among other areas, Gandhi's most significant contribution is that as a political philosopher. While he is not often treated as such, Gandhi was, as Anthony J. Parel argues, a political philosopher sui generis, both in his philosophical method of constant self-criticism and his framework of philosophical analysis. Gandhi wrote daily on politics, but he did so as an activist; political philosophy was to him not just a way of understanding truths of political phenomena but was directly related to understanding those truths in action. If realized in action these truths would give rise to new political institutions, which in turn would create a corresponding peaceful political and social order. Parel dubs this order Pax Gandhiana. The main contention of Pax Gandhiana is that peace cannot be achieved by politics alone. Peace requires the confluence of the canonical ends of life: politics and economics (artha), ethics (dharma), forms of pleasure (kama), and the pursuit of spiritual transcendence (moksha). Modern political philosophy isolates politics from the other three ends, but Gandhi's originality, according to Parel, lies in the way that he brings all four together. In fact Gandhi's political philosophy is relevant not only to India but also to the rest of the world: it is a new type of sovereignty that harmonizes the interest of individual states with the community of states. Arguing against scholars who dispute a theoretical unity in Gandhi's writings, Parel suggests that Gandhi is the preeminent non-western political philosopher, and in this book he seeks to identify the conceptual framework of Gandhi's political philosophy, the Pax Gandhiana.

Notwithstanding his contributions to religion, nonviolence, civil rights, and civil disobedience, among other areas, Gandhi's most significant contribution is that as a political philosopher. While he is not often treated as such, Gandhi was, as Anthony J. Parel argues, a political philosopher sui generis, both in his philosophical method of constant self-criticism and his framework of philosophical analysis. Gandhi wrote daily on politics, but he did so as an activist; political philosophy was to him not just a way of understanding truths of political phenomena but was directly related to understanding those truths in action. If realized in action these truths would give rise to new political institutions, which in turn would create a corresponding peaceful political and social order. Parel dubs this order Pax Gandhiana. The main contention of Pax Gandhiana is that peace cannot be achieved by politics alone. Peace requires the confluence of the canonical ends of life: politics and economics (artha), ethics (dharma), forms of pleasure (kama), and the pursuit of spiritual transcendence (moksha). Modern political philosophy isolates politics from the other three ends, but Gandhi's originality, according to Parel, lies in the way that he brings all four together. In fact Gandhi's political philosophy is relevant not only to India but also to the rest of the world: it is a new type of sovereignty that harmonizes the interest of individual states with the community of states. Arguing against scholars who dispute a theoretical unity in Gandhi's writings, Parel suggests that Gandhi is the preeminent non-western political philosopher, and in this book he seeks to identify the conceptual framework of Gandhi's political philosophy, the Pax Gandhiana.

This book sheds new light on the relationship between religion and state in early modern Japan, and demonstrates the growing awareness of Shinto in both the political and the intellectual elite of Tokugawa Japan, even though Buddhism remained the privileged means of stately religious control. The first part analyses how the Tokugawa government aimed to control the populace via Buddhism and at the same time submitted Buddhism to the sacralization of the Tokugawa dynasty. The second part focuses on the religious protests throughout the entire period, with chapters on the suppression of Christians, heterodox Buddhist sects, and unwanted folk practitioners. The third part tackles the question of why early Tokugawa Confucianism was particularly interested in “Shinto” as an alternative to Buddhism and what “Shinto” actually meant from a Confucian stance. The final part of the book explores attempts to curtail the institutional power of Buddhism by reforming Shinto shrines, an important step in the so called “Shintoization of shrines” including the development of a self-contained Shinto clergy.

From Haryana to Gujarat to Maharashtra, numerous Indian states have been witness to protests by backward classes pressing for quotas and reservations. In stark contrast is the exemplary case of Tamil Nadu, which has managed to effectively integrate economic and development agenda for the backward classes into state policy. In the fifty years of rule between them, M. Karunanidhi, MGR, and J. Jayalalithaa—the iconic leaders of Tamil Nadu politics—managed to effectively transform institutions and structures to deliver a social welfare agenda in the state. Was it pure charisma on part of these leaders that gave us the unusual story of politicians and bureaucrats working hand in hand to implement a social agenda? Written by S. Narayan, who as part of the administration was both a witness to and a participant in these developments, this book is an intimate narrative on the Dravidian years of Tamil Nadu. At an important juncture of Tamil Nadu politics, it also makes us wonder: With no charismatic leader in the horizon, who can take the state forward?

Electricity is critical to enabling India’s economic growth and providing a better future for its citizens. In spite of several decades of reform, the Indian electricity sector is unable to provide high-quality and affordable electricity for all, and grapples with the challenge of poor financial and operational performance. To understand why, Mapping Power provides the most comprehensive analysis of the political economy of electricity in India’s states. With chapters on fifteen states by scholars of state politics and electricity, this volume maps the political and economic forces that constrain and shape decisions in electricity distribution. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it concludes that attempts to depoliticize the sector are misplaced and could worsen outcomes. Instead, it suggests that a historically grounded political economy analysis helps understand the past and devise reforms to simultaneously improve sectoral outcomes and generate political rewards. These arguments have implications for the challenges facing India’s electricity future, including providing electricity to all, implementing government reform schemes, and successfully managing the rise of renewable energy.

A sweeping and theoretically original analysis of the India-Pakistan rivalry from 1947 to the present. Since their mutual independence in 1947, India and Pakistan have been engaged in a fierce rivalry. Even today, both rivals continue to devote enormous resources to their military competition even as they face other pressing challenges at home and abroad. Why and when do rival states pursue conflict or cooperation? In The Difficult Politics of Peace, Christopher Clary provides a systematic examination of war-making and peace-building in the India-Pakistan rivalry from 1947 to the present. Drawing upon new evidence from recently declassified documents and policymaker interviews, the book traces India and Pakistan's complex history to explain patterns in their enduring rivalry and argues that domestic politics have often overshadowed strategic interests. It shows that Pakistan's dangerous civil-military relationship and India's fractious coalition politics have frequently stymied leaders that attempted to build a more durable peace between the South Asian rivals. In so doing, Clary offers a revised understanding of the causes of war and peace that brings difficult and sometimes dangerous domestic politics to the forefront.

This book presents an interpretation of Gandhi's political philosophy, and how he strove to connect it with the four goals of life (purushartha). Anthony Parel argues that Gandhi's aim was the restoration of harmony and the removal of any opposition between the spiritual and the temporal, the political and the ethical.

Using the principle of individual autonomy--rather than civil disobedience, Indian independence, or duty--as an analytical lens, Ronald J. Terchek offers a completely original interpretation of his subject's political thought. Terchek argues that Gandhi's thought is animated by a concern for the equal respect and regard for all persons, and he describes how Gandhi's writings illuminate several critical discourses in political theory, debates that overlap with many Western writers to whom Gandhi is seldom compared.

Himalayan Histories, by one of India's most reputed historians of the Himalaya, is essential for a more complete understanding of Indian history. Because Indian historians have mainly studied riverine belts and life in the plains, sophisticated mountain histories are relatively rare. In this book, Chetan Singh identifies essential aspects of the material, mental, and spiritual world of western Himalayan peasant society. Human enterprise and mountainous terrain long existed in a precarious balance, occasionally disrupted by natural adversity, in this large and difficult region. Small peasant communities lived in scattered environmental niches and tenaciously extracted from their harsh surroundings a rudimentary but sustainable livelihood. These communities were integral constituents of larger political economies that asserted themselves through institutions of hegemonic control, the state being one such institution. This laboriously created life-world was enlivened by myth, folklore, legend, and religious tradition. When colonial rule was established in the region during the nineteenth century, it transformed the peasants' relationship with their natural surroundings. While old political allegiances were weakened, resilient customary hierarchies retained their influence through religio-cultural practices.

British histories in the nineteenth century were by and large monologues. From the turn of the century Indians began to 'talk back', questioning colonial assumptions and narratives of India's past. What was the point of this endeavour? What was said when the Indians began to talk back? What was the discourse of civilization all about? Sabyasachi Bhattacharya explores these questions and lays bare the various forms this rhetoric took: from the defence of Indian civilization to a tendency towards vainglorious depiction of 'Hindu civilization'; from asserting civilizational unity in the distant past to creating a surrogate for nationhood. Tracing the inception of this discourse in the works of R.G. Bhandarkar and Bankimchandra Chatterjee, this book explores the evolution of the idea of civilization in the writings of luminaries like Gandhi, Tagore, Vivekananda, and Nehru, as well as works of intellectuals, historians, linguists, and sociologists like M.G. Ranade, V.K. Rajwade, D.D. Kosambi, Sardar K.M. Panikkar, Nirmal Kumar Bose, and many present-day scholars.