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SOCIAL SCIENCES AND TRADE

REVIEW BULLETIN
October 2007

Sociology/Religion/Politics
Not just an urban phenomenon

Religious Division and Social Conflict: The Emergence of Hindu Nationalism in

Rural India
Peggy Froerer

‘This is a carefully analysed and well-written ethnography which provides an excellent

lens into grassroots processes by which Hindu nationalism becomes entrenched in rural
areas. It deserves a wide audience since it cautions against the facile assumption that the
Hindutva movement is merely an urban phenomenon and that it will soon disappear due
to its electoral defeat.’
Prema A. Kurien
THE HINDU, 2 October 2007

Sociology/ Demography/ Gender Studies

Still a long way to go
The Enigma of the Kerala Woman: A Failed Promise of Literacy
Swapna Mukhopadhyay

‘According to this study, despite higher educational levels, women in Kerala have a
lower status, lower work participation rates and more stressed out lives than women in
many other states.[The author] was perplexed by the disjoint between the relatively
higher educational achievements of women in the State, on the one hand, and
manifestations of old-fashioned patriarchy on the other, exemplified by higher recorded
crime rates against women, high incidence of domestic violence (despite lower reporting
rates), increasing female foeticide and a gradual erosion of their property rights. In this
book she, along with researchers from the Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum,
and Calcutta University, examines the seeming paradoxes of the Kerala situation, by
looking for a possible association between individual life characteristics, including
education, and psychological indicators of well being.’
Cavery Bopaiah
THE HINDU, 18 September 2007
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New Perspectives in South Asian History

History/ Culture Studies

Reproductive Health in India: History, Politics, Controversies
Sarah Hodges

Old Potions, New Bottles: Recasting Indigenous Medicine in Colonial Punjab, 1850-
1945.
Kavitha Sivaramakrishanan

‘For better or worse, the story of colonial medicine has generally been the familiar
imposition of 'modern' Western medical regimes on previously timeless non-western
traditions. In turn, the scholarly assessments of this legacy are usually benchmarked
along the extent of influence and control of the colonial state, or its specific public health
institutions. Despite the critical insights generated, the historiographical directions of
colonial medicine are still largely dependent on the perspectives of medical and public
health officials taken from official records.

The various articles in Reproductive Health in India, edited by Sarah Hodges, and Kavita
Sivaramakrishnan's Old Potions, New Bottles, seek to refocus the lens on the negotiations
of non-state subjects with Western medical discourses.’
Kai Khiun Liew
WELLCOME HISTORY Issue 34

Reproductive Health in India: History, Politics, Controversies

Sarah Hodges

‘This edited volume seeks to address the commonly held presupposition in the literature
on reproduction, that pre-modern Indian women were agents of backwardness, in contrast
to their counterparts. By focusing on the period from the 1850s to the 1950s, the book
traces the change in the tenor of discussions on reproductive health, from the fixing of
responsibility for the alarming rates of maternal and infant mortality on the traditional
midwife or dai to proposals promoting national efficiency by the time of Indian
independence. The papers show that while actors and campaigns changed over the course
of these hundred years, reproduction as a site for reform constant.’

Mridula Ramanna
MEDICAL HISTORY, 51(3) July 2007
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Old Potions, New Bottles: Recasting Indigenous Medicine in Colonial Punjab, 1850-
1945.
Kavitha Sivaramakrishanan

‘Kavita Sivaramakrishnan's new book is definitely the most comprehensive and eloquent
statement ... not only does she see ‘tradition’ as being ‘re-negotiated’ in the nineteenth
century, but indeed, she uncovers a fascinating series of overlaps between these re-
negotiations and a range of issues such as the various nationalisms (Hindu, Muslim and
Sikh), language controversies (Sanskrit, Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi) and movements for
religious reform (Arya Samaj, Khalsa, Santanist, etc). Sivaramakrishnan deftly knits in
all these narratives within a framework familiar to social historians as the ' patron-client'
model.

The great merit of this work, in our view, is its refusal to see medical history as an arcane
exercise in documenting the developments within the 'indigenous' medical world
alone...its intellectual sophistication and insight remain unparalleled by any of its
contemporary rivals by a long way.’

Projit Bihari Mukharji

SOCIAL SCIENTIST Vol 35/ Nos 5-6 May-June 2007

Religion
The Intimate Other: Love Divine in Indic Religions
Anna S. King and John Brockington, eds.

‘In keeping with the DHIIR’s (Dharam Hinduja Institute of Indic Religions) educational
mandate, the various authors have generally adopted an accessible tone, and the volume
as a whole will find a well-deserved place on many a college reading list. The best of the
papers reflect distillations of profound scholarship, delivering poised overviews and new
perceptions with lightness and clarity. In this regard there is no better starting place than
the first essay in the collection, where John Brockington’s discussion of “The epics in the
bhakti tradition” supplies the depth of field that is essential to a reading of medieval
devotional texts, while also showing how perceptions of the epics and their supposed
authors have been viewed retrospectively through the lenses of these medieval traditions
themselves. Brockington’s achievement of what might be called “summary without
dilution” is reflected in some of the papers also.’

Rupert Snell
BULLETIN OF THE SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES, Vol 70/2 2007
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International Politics/Peace Studies

Space, Territory and the State: New Readings in International Politics
Ranabir Samaddar, ed.

‘The discipline of International Relations has come under increasing criticism for the past
many years from authors adhering to post-modernism. The present volume is a welcome
addition to such literature. The subaltern theme is where the book provides a balanced
view between the approaches to the two regions as almost every contributor to the
volume has deliberated on the history of dominated and oppressed peoples. All
contributions on South and Central Asia comment on the local and indigenous people
being underrepresented and relegated to the periphery of world history.’

Farhan Hanif Siddiqi

CONTEMPORARY SOUTH ASIA

Polity
India at the Polls: Parliamentary Elections in the Federal Phase
M .P. Singh and Rekha Saxena

‘Singh and Saxena’s book examines the transition of India’s federal polity, from the one-
party dominance of the Congress party in the 1950s to the coalitional government headed
by a right-wing Hindu nationalist party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in the new
millennium. The book has sought to explore and analyse the various trends that has made
it possible for India’s federal pattern to survive and prosper in spite of seemingly diverse
social and political cleavages and the transformations that have been wrought in more
contemporary times.’

‘Overall, the book is highly readable and explains in persuasive tones the changing
contours of federalisation in Indian politics. The book will be particularly appealing to
scholars and academic experts specialising in electoral studies in general and that of
South Asian politics in particular.’

Mohammed Badrul Alam

CONTEMPORARY SOUTH ASIA
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Language/Culture Studies

Hindi Nationalism
Alok Rai

‘The book is part of the Tracts for the Times series edited by Neeladri Bhattacharya. The
aim of the series is to offer critical perspectives on themes pertinent to contemporary
India. Honoring this commitment, Rai’s exploration of the politics of language from
colonial times up to the present, in particular the nationalist claims of Hindi, is an
appropriate and welcome addition to the series.

Rai begins his tract with the aim of revisiting the set of debates concerning language
within the context of Indian nationalism and British colonial rule, in order to clear the
way for new solutions for more democratic possibilities of language use in India.’

Rama Sundari Mantena

CONTEMPORARY SOUTH ASIA

Public Administration
Public Accountability and Transparency: The Imperatives of Good Governance
Madhav Godbole

‘The book under review highlights the importance of public accountability and
transparency in promoting good governance, exploring how laws and institutions can best
foster such accountability in India. It offers a comprehensive account of governance
problems in India and examines a wide range of issues. Its originality lies not only in
pointing out significant gaps in rhetoric and reality, but also in proposing agendas for
legal and institutional reforms for ensuring good governance. Although the book is
written for an Indian context, it is useful for policy makers, academics and experts of
other South Asian countries, which share common problems of governance.’

Abdullah Al Faruque
SOUTH ASIA RESEARCH Vol.27 (2): 237-247
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Sociology/Politics
The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence and India’s Future
Martha C. Nussbaum

‘BEGINNING with the chilling facts of the Godhra carnage of 2002, Nussbaum
amplifies the calculated nature of the genocide unleashed by Hindu fanatics and the
complete breakdown of law and order in the economically prosperous state of Gujarat
.She points to the fast paced industrialization and urbanization, of ‘quality of life issues’,
the rise of ‘conservative’ Patels and the emphasis on technical rote learning over critical
thinking as some of the reasons for an upsurge of Hindu fundamentalism in the state.
Ironically, Samuel Huntington’s analysis of political decay attending certain kinds of
economic development comes to mind here. But Nussbaum is preoccupied with
challenging Huntington’s ‘clash of civilizations’ prophecy with the idea of the ‘clash
within’ all modern nations (heightened in today’s India) between people who are
prepared to live with and respect difference and those seeking homogenous nationhood.’

Vasanthi Srinivasan
SEMINAR 576- August 2007

Diaspora Studies
Diaspora Down the Centuries

Colonialism and Diaspora: Sikh Cultural Formations in an Imperial World

Tony Ballantyne

‘This volume, using rich sources and rigorous methodology, offers a refreshing and
innovative interpretation of Sikh historiography. The author critically examines a wide
range of primary sources: from colonial sources to non-conventional sources such as
film, sculpture, art, fiction, and the internet, which have been largely ignored so far, in
order to provide new perspectives on the Sikh past. Use of alternative sources gave him
leverage to cover a wide cultural spectrum— ranging from the history of the Indian army
to the ‘bhangramuffin’ of Apache Indian. Thus, Ballantyne sends a strong signal that it is
high time to elevate Sikh historiography from the narrow cauldron of religion and politics
to a broad diasporic cultural terrain to have a more nuanced understanding of the Sikhs
and Sikhism.’

Pralay Kanungo
THE BOOK REVIEW 11, August 2007
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Literature in Translation
Sand and Other Stories
Ashokamitran
N. Kalyan Raman and Gomati Narayanan, trans.

My Years with Boss at Gemini Studios

Ashokamitran

‘Ashokamitran is possibly the best known of modern Tamil writers outside Tamil Nadu.
This is almost certainly because he is the most widely translated and anthologized of
contemporary Tamil authors. He has been a prolific short story writer, and his novels are
short, often no more than novellas, as in this collection which brings together Sand
(Manal, 1974), Malati (Malati, 1981), and Those Two (Iruvar, 1993). The collection is
intriguing, both for the way a similar theme is handled in different ways in the first two
stories, and for the juxtaposition of these two earlier stories with the third, very different
one.

Ashokamitran is also master of a deceptively simple and understated style. He will often
light upon exactly the right detail– baby clothes drying on a makeshift clothes-line, a
small poster tucked away among giant hoardings – which brings a whole scene to life.
And most particularly there is his wryness of observation, a comic vision which
highlights the absurdities and ironies of the everyday, and counterpoints the undertow of
tragedy in his stories.

The second book under review is ravishing both for itself, and also because of the light it
throws on much of Ashokamitran’s fiction. For his years with Gemini and Vasan were to
be a storehouse, providing Ashokamitran with insights, characters and stories – about
aspiring actors and successful ones, tiger-impersonators, monster-impersonators, tycoons
as well as people on the margins of the film industry, desperate to eke out a living.’

WASAFARI
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Economics
Discussing ‘Inclusive Growth’ Ahead of Its Time

Inclusive Growth: K N Raj on Economic Development

Edited by Asoka Mody

‘This collection brings together a selection of K N Raj's essays on various aspects of

India's economic development in the post-independence period published in the
Economic Weekly and Economic and Political Weekly. Though only a fraction of his
writings on development issues, it brings out the wide range of issues that he studied, his
breadth of perspective, and the clarity and insightfulness of his analysis. His work covers
both macro-economic aspects of development strategy and policy as well as specific
aspects, notably agrarian structure and land reform, conceptual and measurement rural
unemployment, India's cattle economy, decentralisation and the impact of structural
changes in the world economy for developing countries. In all these areas his work
generated lively scholarly debates and provided a rich stimulus for researchers.’

A. Vaidyanathan
ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY July 28, 2007

Gandhi Studies
In the name of the father
In the Tracks of the Mahatma: The Making of a Documentary
Edited by A. K. Chettiar and introduced by A. R. Venkatachalapathy; translated from the
Tamil by S. Thillainayagam

Harilal Gandhi: A Life

Edited by Chandulal Bhagubhai Dalal and translated from the Gujarati by Tridip
Suhrud.

‘These two books come at the start of a series entitled Gandhi Studies overseen by Ashis
Nandy, Trdidip Suhrud himself, and Thomas Weber of La Trobe University in Australia,
so underscoring the global popularity of and interest in the Gandhian solution. The series
inscription is to Gandhi’s “unique practices” being as much part of his politics as his
spiritual life, and for that reason the series holds to no particular view of Gandhi
preferring instead to investigate all possible dimensions.
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At first sight, these two books have little in common apart from being translated into
English from their original languages but, upon reflection, they push into two quite
different but related aspects of the Gandhi life: the public and the private. A further
embellishment there is that they by definition raise more questions about the distance
between reality and symbol.’
Brian Stoddart
BIBLO July-August 2007

Life of a Son and the Making of a Film

‘So cathartic indeed is the impact of Chandulal Dalal’s life of Harilal Gandhi that one is
persuaded to compare it rather lamely with the passion and grief of Greek tragedy. The
tragic developments in Harilal’s life played out in the shadows of the Mahatma’s
superhuman moral growth belong to the realm of literature even as they stem from the
aspirations and frustrations of the mortal world.

For one, In the Tracks of the Mahatma: The Making of a Documentary defies all norms
of literary categorization. Neither a memoir nor a travelogue, though it has some features
of both, it could be described as possessing a certain picaresque quality … Anecdotal,
episodic, obstinately non-linear, the book is densely informative and full of a kind of
boyish zest. It reports freely of the famous and powerful with candidness and humour;
deeply reticent and modest, the author effaces himself from the narrative allowing the
process of making the documentary to occupy centre stage.’

Rohini Mokashi-Punekar
THE BOOK REVIEW September 2007

Fathers and Sons

Harilal Gandhi: A Life
By Chandulal Bhagubhai Dalal edited and translated from the Gujarati by Tridip Suhrud

‘One of the greatest advantages of reading this translation of Chandulal Bhagubhai

Dalal’s Gujarati biography is that there is no attempt to interpret the relationship in terms
of pseudo-theories. Without being judgmental, Dalal shows that Gandhi was
unintentionally indifferent to his eldest son in the early years. In his letters home in the
early 1890s, he rarely enquires about Harilal. We also learn some of the lesser-known
facts of Gandhi’s professional career in the 1890s.’
Parsa Venkateswara Rao Jr.
SWAGAT August 2007
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Retrieving a Vision

Gandhi is Gone. Who Will Guide Us Now? Nehru, Prasad, Azad, Vinibha,
Kripalani, JP, and Others Introspect Sevagram, March 1948

Edited by Gopalakrishna Gandhi and translated from Hindi by Gopal Gandhi and
Rupert Snell.

‘The book belongs to a separate genre. Compared to other books on Gandhism after
Gandhi, which primarily deal with stories of struggles by individual Gandhians and their
movements, the present documentation, of a crucial historical moment, seeks to rift apart
the oft-assumed monolith of Gandhism by focusing on trials and tribulations, fears and
anxieties, of the individuals who tried in their own ways to give expression through their
work the spirit and essence of Gandhism.’
Suparna Gooptu
THE STATESMAN 30 September 2007

History/Colonial Studies

Keeping track

27 Down: New Departures in Indian Railway Studies

Edited by Ian J. Kerr

‘The papers demonstrate the force of Kerr’s argument. Ranging from literature to films,
from economics to commerce, covering management and labour, they describe the
impact of railways and their significance in interpreting many different aspects of Indian
history. Yet for all their impact the railways did not achieve what Karl Marx prophesied
they would–they did not hasten the industrialization of India.

27 Down makes it abundantly clear that the railways of the Raj were at best a mixed
blessing for Indians. They were certainly not constructed with Indians in mind nor were
Indians allowed to manage them. The fact that the railways now serve India so well goes
greatly to the credit of the Indian managers who have shown there was no need for all
those Europeans. What’s more 27 Down suggests that India would have been a very
different place in 1947 if the British had allowed Indians to exploit the railways’ full
potential to develop the economy.’

Mark Tully
BIBLO July-August 2007
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History/Colonial Studies
Guilt-ridden historiography

The Scandal of Empire: India and the Creation of Imperial Britain

Nicholas B. Dirks

Decentering Empire: Britain, India and the Transcolonial World

Edited by Durba Ghosh and Dane Kennedy

‘What used to be read four decades ago in the writings of Ram Gopal, Brijen Gupta, John
Gurney and others on the British conquest of Bengal and the Carnatic, and of Dame Lucy
Sutherland and Peter Marshall on the social moorings of this phenomenon in 18th–
century Britain itself, has been served up again, albeit in a different form, now all
synthesized afresh, the argument recast, and with the important add-on of how this
conquest was rationalized. Every British schoolboy must now read this history once
again, less to recall the greats to mind, for praise or for censure, and more to understand
the moral underpinnings of contemporary empires and our own responses to these.

As may be gathered from the list of contents, the contributions range over a wide, wide
field of study, indeed, including different colonies and time periods as well, from the
mid-18th century to the mid-20th. ... If then “Empire” stands decentred at all in this
volume it is because of the many theatres of its manifestation and not because of the
presumed absence of a strong causative metropolitan dynamic that lay at the heart of
Empire.’
Majid H. Siddiqi
BIBLO July-August 2007

Social Medicine/Development Studies

Triumph of the survival spirit

Peculiar People, Amazing Lives: Leprosy, Social Exclusion and Community Making
in South India
James Staples

‘This book is an excellent study. With first-hand accounts, use of informants, and in-
depth study of leprosy and those affected by it, the author paints a different picture of the
issue than what traditional notions teach. In short, it brings out the beauty of the human
survival instinct and embraces a community that has always been misunderstood.’

Archana K Sudheer
BIBLO July-August 2007
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History/Culture Studies

Modern Times
Picturing the Nation: Iconographies of Modern India
Edited by Richard H. Davies

‘Picturing the Nation explores visual representations of India from the late nineteenth to
the late twentieth centuries, and thought the concept of the nation is largely a western
construct, offers the readers desi versions of imagination and analyses of the same.
Consciously differing from writings where imagining the nation is a predominantly
verbal and discursive activity, the book presents a visual history of modern India.’

Somdatta Mandal
THE STATESMAN 2 SEPTEMBER 2007

Agriculture

Issues of Agricultural Development

Science, Agriculture and the Politics of Policy: The Case of Biotechnology in India
Ian Scoones

‘Ian Scoones in his study on the development of biotechnology industry in India and its
relevance to agriculture analyses the politics of policy making and the manner in which
policy decisions get made in crucial areas which impact millions of people. The study is
based on interviews with people working in industry, NGO workers, government
officials, journalists, academics and farmers. … The book has clearly brought out the role
of the public agencies in giving a direction and finally disseminating the use of
biotechnology.’

Shakti Kak
THE BOOK REVIEW September 2007