Ram Singh, 1858-1916, Indian architect.

This book is a religious dedication to 150 years of the Kuka movement.

'Civilizing Missions in Colonial and Postcolonial South Asia' offers a series of analyses that highlights the complexities of British and Indian civilizing missions in original ways and through various historiographical approaches. The book applies the concept of the civilizing mission to a number of issues in the colonial and postcolonial eras in South Asia: economic development, state-building, pacification, nationalism, cultural improvement, gender and generational relations, caste and untouchability, religion and missionaries, class relations, urbanization, NGOs, and civil society.

A Memoir of Pre-Partition Punjab is a richly annotated autobiography of Ruchi Ram Sahni (1863–1948)—social reformer, scientist, science educator, and, later, active participant in political affairs. A riveting account of life in nineteenth-century colonial Punjab, it covers Sahni’s growing up in a Hindu business family in Dera Ismail Khan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, and captures the social, political and intellectual ferment of the times. Sahni belonged to the first generation of Punjabis educated in English. The book recounts his confrontation with orthodox Hinduism and the ostracism he faced because of his secular and liberal Brahmo Samaj values. A close confidante of Dyal Singh Majithia, founder of The Tribune, he was for nearly thirty years a trustee of and contributor to this influential newspaper. Sahni also describes the discrimination practised by Europeans against Punjabis and his responses to maintain his self-respect. His close association with Motilal Nehru, Lala Lajpat Rai, Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, and other freedom fighters provides a behind-the-scenes record of the early phase of India’s freedom struggle.

Cultivating Sikh Culture and Identity explores the development of modern Sikh identities through the concept of ‘cultivation of culture’. It investigates diverse, but repeatedly overlapping, Sikh encounters in the fields of art, music and philology, and considers their role in the making of a continuous living tradition. The volume focuses particularly on the imperial encounter and intellectual interaction between coloniser and colonised. It emphasises the enduring importance of the modern rational approach of the Singh Sabha (Tat Khalsa) reformers in defining a normative Sikh tradition. In so doing, the author reflects on the importance of philological research and the complexity of modern knowledge production in relation to the formation of cultural identities. The chapters offer a critical historical overview of the changes in the performance and reception of Sikh devotional music in the context of the community’s successive encounters with the Mughals, the British and globalisation. They also provide new insights into the life and work of Max Arthur Macauliffe, author of the classic The Sikh Religion (1909), and a contextualised discussion of contemporary Sikh drawings by Emily de Klerk. Taking a global, interdisciplinary approach, this book will be of particular interest to scholars of religion, South Asian Studies and history.

“A widely and deeply researched, elegantly written, and vital portrayal of [Queen Victoria’s] place in colonial Indian affairs.”(Journal of Modern History) In this engaging and controversial book, Miles Taylor shows how both Victoria and Albert were spellbound by India, and argues that the Queen was humanely, intelligently, and passionately involved with the country throughout her reign and not just in the last decades. Taylor also reveals the way in which Victoria’s influence as empress contributed significantly to India’s modernization, both political and economic. This is, in a number of respects, a fresh account of imperial rule in India, suggesting that it was one of Victoria’s successes. “Readers encounter a detail-attentive and independently minded monarch . . . .Information, offered with verve and occasional humor, fills chapters of Empress with little-known details of Victoria’s active rule as Empress.” —Adrienne Munich, Victorian Studies “This is a nuanced portrait of an empire rich in contradiction.” —Catherine Hall, author of Civilising Subjects “Beautifully written and subtly crafted, this book provides a critical history of the cultural, political, and diplomatic significance of Queen Victoria's role as Empress of India.” —Tristram Hunt, Director of Victoria and Albert Museum “This is a highly intelligent, wonderfully lucid and well researched book that rests on an impressive array of Indian as well as European sources. It makes a powerful case for re-assessing Queen Victoria's own role and political and religious ideas in regard to the subcontinent.” —Linda Colley, author of Britons

This is an epistolary manuscript; each chapter a letter addressed to the author's grandchildren about their Indian heritage and other matters. It deals with ancestry, history of India, geography of India. It deals with the colonisation of India by the British and explains how this mixed race of people came about. It is a family history and contains the author's philosophical ideas that have developed through life and experience. It is a book of information and enlightenment for the author's young family and hopefully others in similar situations; a book for the young mixed blood generation of today and hopefully for others that may follow.

Through the concept of ‘Romantic nationalism’, this interdisciplinary global historical study investigates cultural initiatives in (British) India that aimed at establishing the nation as a moral community and which preceded or accompanied state-oriented political nationalism. Drawing on a vast array of sources, it discusses important Romantic nationalist traits, such as the relationship between language and identity, historicism, artistic revivalism and hero worship. Ultimately, this innovative book argues that because of the confrontation with European civilization and processes of modernization at large, cultivation of culture in British India was morally and spiritually more important to the making of the nation than in Europe.