The saga of the Indian National Movement; with its unique leadership and ideological foundation; continues to engage those interested in the history of India. Raj to Swaraj: A Textbook on Colonialism and Nationalism in India takes its readers through the panorama of modern Indian history; with all its trials and tribulations; and keeps it intellectually stimulating all through the narrative. This textbook for students attempts to present its case; free from ideological biases. The result of a lifelong engagement with teaching and research; this book incorporates the sharp classroom debates and analysis of bright and committed students; thus enriching its formulations and interpretations. It provides a fresh look at the national struggle for independence and attempts to provoke; promote and unleash; critical and creative thinking among the student community. In the process; it seeks to relieve them from the drudgery of working as intellectual foot soldiers to the authorities in our academia. This book marks a departure from the earlier studies in terms of its new and updated sources as well as in its freedom from the great ideological divides that continue to bedevil our academic life. As such; it avoids both the extremes of woolly sentimentalism and ideology-based debunking. Essentially eclectic and synthesising in its approach; and written in a lucid style; the book covers different phases and facets of our national struggle. To that end; it adopts a thematic; rather than a chronological narrative. The book will prove invaluable for students of political science and modern Indian history; as well as general readers.

This is a re-issue of Amalendu Guha's influential work on Assam and the Northeast, 30 years after its original publication, with a new introduction by the author. Guha's analysis extends from Assam in 1826, the year of the British annexation, to the post-independence conditions in 1950. The peculiar features of the region's plantation economy; the imperialism of opium cultivation; the problems of a stready influx of immigrants and the backlash of a local linguistic chauvinism; peasants' and workers' struggles; the evolution of the ryot sabhas, the Congress, trade unions and later of the Communist Party - such are the themes that have received attention in this book, alongside an analysis of legislative and administrative processes.The narrative is structured chronologically within an integrated Marxist framework of historical perspective, and is based on a wide range of primary sources.

The Screening Of Six Films Of The Lumiere Brothers At Watson S Hotel, Bombay, On 7 July 1896 Marked The Beginning Of India S Engagement With The Moving Picture. It Also Laid The Foundation Of A Remarkable Body Of Non-Fiction Cinematic Work. B.D. Garga S From Raj To Swaraj: The Non-Fiction Film In India Traces The Century-Old History Of Newsreels And Documentaries In The Country. Beginning With An Account Of The Early Works Of People Like Hiralal Sen, J.F. Madan And Harishchandra Bhatwadekar Who Pioneered The Newsreel, Garga Goes On To Describe What Were Among The First Non-Fiction Films Jyotish Sarkar S Coverage Of The Anti-Partition Demonstration In Calcutta, 1905, And Charles Urban S Spectacular Film On The 1911 Delhi Durbar. Garga Also Chronicles The Landmark Events In The Development Of Non-Fiction Films In India: The Propaganda Films During The First And Second World Wars, The Passing Of The Cinematograph Act In 1918 And The Establishment Of The Censor Board, Lowell Thomas S Journey Across The Country To Film Romantic India, Louis De Rochemont S Controversial Coverage Of Police Repression In 1930, The Series Of The March Of Time Films On India, The Founding Of The Film Advisory Board And The Pioneering Efforts Of The Information Films Of India, And The Extraordinary Coverage Of Communal Riots During The Partition In 1947. Post-Independence, The Author Throws Light On The Role Of The Films Division And On The Work Of Mohan Bhavnani, Jean Bhownagary And Paul Zils, Who Created A Sound Base For Future Film-Makers. He Also Looks At The Powerful Body Of Works By Women Directors Like Suhasini Mulay, Deepa Dhanraj And Sumitra Bhave, Among Others, Which Courageously Addresses A Number Of Contentious Social And Political Issues. Critically Examining The Factors That Have Stunted The Development Of Documentaries In The Country, Garga Lauds The Efforts Of Film-Makers Like Anand Patwardhan To Keep The Movement Going In The Face Of Myriad Distribution, Logistical And Financial Hurdles. A Ground-Breaking Study By One Of India S Most Respected Film Historians, From Raj To Swaraj Not Only Explodes Many Existing Myths But Also Reveals Astonishing New Details About A Genre Of Films That Has Been Overshadowed By The Razzmatazz Surrounding Its More Glamorous Counterpart, The Masala Fiction Film.

This book examines the varied influences and accomplishments of the Indian Ladies’ Magazine, the first Indian magazine established and edited by an Indian woman—Kamala Satthianadhan—in English, written by women, for women. Influences include Victorian, Edwardian, and Modern literature and culture as well as traditional Indian literature and culture during the late colonial, pre-independence period. More than a literary journal, this publication also addressed social reforms, from “ladies’ philanthropy” to “women’s mission to women”; the emergence of Indian “identity politics” in response to the nationalist and independence movements; the Indian Woman Question in the context of female education debates and shifting concepts of “womanliness”; cultural exchanges recorded by Indian travelers to America; and the emergence of Indian nationalism, between World Wars I and II, leading to independence. This publication recorded and participated in the most pivotal moment in modern Indian history and did so by appealing to both the conservative and progressive socio-political urges marking the era.

The last one-and-a-half years in India have been defined by the anti-graft agitation led by Anna Hazare. His key lieutenant, Arvind Kejriwal, has played a central role in the movement. In 2012, as it became clear that the political establishment was not going to accede to the main demand of the movement - to pass the Lokpal Bill. Team Anna demanded the setting up of a Special Investigative Team to probe corrupt politicians. On 25 July 2012, Kejriwal, along with two of his colleagues and Anna Hazare, sat on a fast to press this demand. This book, which serves as a manifesto for the movement going forward, gives practical suggestions as to what the ordinary citizen, the opinion makers and the political establishment in India can do to provide a political alternative, or to achieve true swaraj (self-rule). The author's central point is that power must shift from New Delhi and the state capitals to the village councils and the town communities, so that people can be directly empowered to take decisions about their own lives. A must-read for anyone with a dream to leave behind a better India for the next generation.

Set in British India of the 1920s, Waiting for Swaraj follows the cadence and tempo of the lives of the intrepid revolutionaries of the Hindustan Republican Association and the Hindustan Republican Socialist Association who challenged the British Raj. It seeks to comprehend the revolutionaries' self-conception - what did it mean to be a revolutionary? How did a revolutionary live out the vision of revolution, what was their everyday like, did life in revolution transform an individual, what was their truth and how was it different from that of the others? The book locates the essence of being a revolutionary not just in the spectacular moments when the revolutionaries threw a bomb or carried out a political assassination, but in the everyday conversations, banter, anecdotes, and in the stray fragments of the life in underground. It demonstrates how 'waiting' was the crucible that forged a revolutionary.

Personal experiences of an Indian diplomat; chiefly on the post-independence political scene and diplomatic relations of India.

What India’s founders derived from Western political traditions as they struggled to free their country from colonial rule is widely understood. Less well-known is how India’s own rich knowledge traditions of two and a half thousand years influenced these men as they set about constructing a nation in the wake of the Raj. In Righteous Republic, Ananya Vajpeyi furnishes this missing account, a ground-breaking assessment of modern Indian political thought. Taking five of the most important founding figures—Mohandas Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, Abanindranath Tagore, Jawaharlal Nehru, and B. R. Ambedkar—Vajpeyi looks at how each of them turned to classical texts in order to fashion an original sense of Indian selfhood. The diverse sources in which these leaders and thinkers immersed themselves included Buddhist literature, the Bhagavad Gita, Sanskrit poetry, the edicts of Emperor Ashoka, and the artistic and architectural achievements of the Mughal Empire. India’s founders went to these sources not to recuperate old philosophical frameworks but to invent new ones. In Righteous Republic, a portrait emerges of a group of innovative, synthetic, and cosmopolitan thinkers who succeeded in braiding together two Indian knowledge traditions, the one political and concerned with social questions, the other religious and oriented toward transcendence. Within their vast intellectual, aesthetic, and moral inheritance, the founders searched for different aspects of the self that would allow India to come into its own as a modern nation-state. The new republic they envisaged would embody both India’s struggle for sovereignty and its quest for the self.