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This book analyzes the ways in which organizations and individuals in India grappled with and contested definitions of democracy and unity in the decades directly preceding and following independent Indian statehood. The All India Scheduled Castes Federation and the All India Women’s Conference are used as case studies to explore Indian Dalit and women activists’ attempts to reconceptualize universal citizenship, Indian identity, dissent, and principled democracy during a moment of uncertainty in India’s political life. The author argues that, because the Indian nation and the Indian state remained in flux during the 1940s and '50s, marginal political actors, writers, social activists, and others were able to propose novel forms of democratic participation and new ideas about what it would mean to be a unified state that appreciates political responsibility, a respect for difference and a broader perspective of the population. Moreover, this book suggests that this redefinition of Indian politics is more widespread than generally understood and considers how strategies used by both organizations featured have continued to be part of the national story about democracy and dissent in India. Through an examination of public discourse, caste politics, women’s rights advocacy, and popular literature, this book excavates the traces of fundamental uncertainty regarding definitions and expectations of democracy and unity in India. It will be of interest to academics in the fields of modern South Asian history, democracy and nationalism, postcolonialism, gender studies, political organization, and global history.

India Is A Great Country. All The People Of This Country And The People Of Other Countries Have Praise For This Land. Many Indian And Foreign Authors Have Given A Wonderful Description Of The Glory Of This Country. The Indian Culture Is Very Ancient. It Has The Ability Of Tolerance And Assimilation Along With Its Stability.The Indian Culture Is One But Full Of Diversities. This Is Our Country S Biggest Characteristic. The People Of This Country Believe In Going Together And Sharing Every Thing. All The Religions Of The World, All The Thoughts And All The Political Views Get The Sense Of Security Here.This Book Is Directly Related To This Country, Related To The Meaning Of Nationality And Its Definition. It Is Related To Such Elements Which Are Harmful To The Unity Of The Nation And The Significance Of This Country.

Papers written as special lectures and seminar presentations between 1986 and 1995.

"The Temple of Understanding (India Chapter) President: Dr. Karan Singh The Temple of Understanding was founded in 1960 by the American Interfaith activist Juliet Hollister to address the urgent need of our time for furthering understanding among the religions of the world. While the international headquarters in New York have been promoting the cause dear to its founders through Interfaith retreats, summits, exhibitions, sacred dances and other activities, the India Chapter under the leadership of Dr. Karan Singh, who is also International Chairman, is active in furthering religious understanding and goodwill through lectures, seminars, national and international conferences and opening of centres in various cities of India. The Hari-Tara Charitable Trust Trustees: Dr. Karan Singh & Smt Yasho Karan Singh The Hari-Tara Charitable Trust was founded in 1972 in the memory of Maharaja Hari Singh and Maharani Tara Devi of Jammu & Kashmir, the parents of Dr Karan Singh. Since then it has been supporting various cultural and social welfare activities in Jammu & Kashmir and the rest of India. It manages the magnificent Amar Mahal Museum and Library set up by Dr. Karan Singh in Jammu, which has become the repository of a unique collection of books and paintings. It also sponsors a number of charitable and welfare activities including grants to charitable institutions, scholarships to poor and deserving students and subsistence allowances to the needy.

This brief biography of Dr. Rajendra Prasad; one of the tallest personalities of our time; narrates the fascinating story of the struggles and achievements of an unknown boy from an unknown village who; by dint of his extra-ordinary intelligence; keen intellect; hard work and selfless service rose to join the front rank of our national leaders—the builders of modern India. Beginning with Rajendra Babu’s ancestry; it takes us through his childhood; education; brief lawyer’s career; Champaran Satyagraha with which began his close association with Mahatma Gandhi; and his subsequent involvement in Indian politics. A brief account of the successive phases of the national movement in which he was an active participant carries the story further. The significant role he played in constitution-making in his capacity as the President of the Constituent Assembly; and the guidance he provided to the nation as the first President of the Republic of India; make up the rest of the story; which; finally ends with a description of the brief nine-month period of his post-retirement days spent in his old hermitage Sadaqat Ashram in Patna. A useful handbook on the life and career of an illustrious son and architect of modern India.

India celebrates itself as a nation of unity in diversity, but where does that sense of unity come from? One important source is a widely-accepted narrative called the “bhakti movement.” Bhakti is the religion of the heart, of song, of common participation, of inner peace, of anguished protest. The idea known as the bhakti movement asserts that between 600 and 1600 CE, poet-saints sang bhakti from India’s southernmost tip to its northern Himalayan heights, laying the religious bedrock upon which the modern state of India would be built. Challenging this canonical narrative, John Stratton Hawley clarifies the historical and political contingencies that gave birth to the concept of the bhakti movement. Starting with the Mughals and their Kachvaha allies, North Indian groups looked to the Hindu South as a resource that would give religious and linguistic depth to their own collective history. Only in the early twentieth century did the idea of a bhakti “movement” crystallize—in the intellectual circle surrounding Rabindranath Tagore in Bengal. Interactions between Hindus and Muslims, between the sexes, between proud regional cultures, and between upper castes and Dalits are crucially embedded in the narrative, making it a powerful political resource. A Storm of Songs ponders the destiny of the idea of the bhakti movement in a globalizing India. If bhakti is the beating heart of India, this is the story of how it was implanted there—and whether it can survive.

The historiography of modern India is largely a pageant of presumed virtues: harmonious territorial unity, religious impartiality, the miraculous survival of electoral norms in the world’s most populous democracy. Even critics of Indian society still underwrite such claims. But how well does the “Idea of India” correspond to the realities of the Union? In an iconoclastic intervention, Marxist historian Perry Anderson provides an unforgettable reading of the Subcontinent’s passage through Independence and the catastrophe of Partition, the idiosyncratic and corrosive vanities of Gandhi and Nehru, and the close interrelationship of Indian democracy and caste inequality. The Indian Ideology caused uproar on first publication in 2012, not least for breaking with euphemisms for Delhi’s occupation of Kashmir. This new, expanded edition includes the author’s reply to his critics, an interview with the Indian weekly Outlook, and a postscript on India under the rule of Narendra Modi.