Excerpt from Village Government in British India The Object of this preface is simply to acknowledge Obligations. My chief debt is to the Professor of Public Administration for his interest in this study and for the great help which I have derived from his extensive knowledge of the ideas and machinery of Local Government. My next Obligation is to the Librarian of the India Office and his staff for the abundant facilities which they gave me for access to books and records, and for their kindness and courtesy during the two years I worked there. Among those who have been good enough to help me with suggestions and criticism, I must mention especially Mr. S. C. Hill, late Superintendent of the Imperial Records Office, Calcutta; Mr. R. W. Frazer, Lecturer in Dravidian Languages at the Imperial Institute; and Mr. S. Cotton, Editor of the Imperial Gazetteer of India. On village administra tion in North India, of which my knowledge is to a large extent second-hand, I have had the advantage Of some talks with Sir James Wilson and Sir M. Douie, which have been distinctly illuminating. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Inglorious Empire' tells the real story of the British in India from the arrival of the East India Company to the end of the Raj, revealing how Britain's rise was built upon its plunder of India. In the eighteenth century, India's share of the world economy was as large as Europe's. By 1947, after two centuries of British rule, it had decreased six-fold. Beyond conquest and deception, the Empire blew rebels from cannon, massacred unarmed protesters, entrenched institutionalised racism, and caused millions to die from starvation. British imperialism justified itself as enlightened despotism for the benefit of the governed, but Shashi Tharoor takes on and demolishes this position, demonstrating how every supposed imperial "gift" - from the railways to the rule of law -was designed in Britain's interests alone. He goes on to show how Britain's Industrial Revolution was founded on India's deindustrialisation, and the destruction of its textile industry.

An ethnographic study of Indian democracy that shows how agrarian life creates values of citizenship and active engagement that are essential for the cultivation of democracy. Cultivating Democracy provides a compelling ethnographic analysis of the relationship between formal political institutions and everyday citizenship in rural India. Banerjee draws on deep engagement with the people and social life in two West Bengal villages from 1998-2013, during election campaigns and in the times between, to show how the micro-politics of their day-to-day life builds active engagement with the macro-politics of state and nation. Her sensitive analysis focuses on several "events" in the life of the villages shows how India's agrarian rural society helps create practices and conceptual space for these citizens to be effective participants in India's great democratic exercises. Specifically, she shows how the villagers' creative practices around their kinship, farming and religion, while navigating encounters with local communist cadres, constitute a vital and continuing cultivation of those republican virtues of cooperation, civility, solidarity and vigilance which the visionary Ambedkar considered essential for the success of Indian democracy. At a time when so much of that constitutional vision is under threat, this book provides a crucial scholarly rebuttal to all, on Right or Left, who dismiss rural citizens' political capacities and democratic values. This book will appeal to anyone interested in India's political culture and future, its rural society, or the continuing relevance of political anthropology.

This book is an interesting study of the Khilafat (Caliphate) movement in early twentieth century India. The abolition of the caliphate institution in Turkey provided food for thought to the Muslim elite in India. They saw it was possible to theologically explore and evolve the caliphate institution from a one man caliph-emperor to a socially elected caliphate state, from an individual caliph to the concept of an Islamic state. After tracing the earlier view of the Caliphate, this study looks at the Karbalas `Ashura tragedy, an event religious scholars and Indian politicians effectively used to galvanize Muslims into demanding from the British government and the Indian National Congress a separate Islamic country they would call it Pakistan. This book is an invaluable source not only for university students of history but also for theologians, politicians, sociologists, general readers and also those interested in the last days of the British empire in India.