Across sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and the Caribbean, the English-language essay engages with colonialism and postcolonial reality to embody forms of life writing that grapple with the provocative confluences of English education, local context, and migrant desire. While conflicts between colonial legacy, postcolonial liberation, and creative imagination assume urgency with pioneers such as V.S. Naipaul and Chinua Achebe, linguistic limits on ethical and political values emerge as defining concerns for apartheid-riven writers such as Nadine Gordimer and Zoë Wicomb, while the scope and constraints of postcolonial representation energise the essays of Shashi Deshpande and Amit Chaudhuri. The fluid and constantly changeable identity of the postcolonial subject that drives the aspirations of the postcolonial essay finds language in its promiscuous texture and heterogeneous structure, its dalliance with analysis, narrative, and image, and its perpetually wandering and unfinished form.

Psychology’s past in Eastern civilizations were an inherent part of the religious and moral philosophies. In an overview of those non-Western traditions in psychology, points of interaction between East and West occurred in Persia, which served as a crossroad between India and the Arab world. Ancient Indian culture followed the traditions of Buddhism and Hinduism. The writings of the Vedas, especially the Upanishads, provided the foundation for Hindu philosophy. In China, imported Buddhism taught that self-denial and proper thinking were necessary to achieve well-being. However, the older philosophical movement of Confucianism offered a stronger basis for Chinese intellectual progress. Both Buddhism and Confucianism were exported to Japan, where they were transposed into Japanese philosophies to support nationalistic aspirations. Two Middle Eastern cultures, Egyptian and Hebrew, are important as predecessors for the ancient Greeks whose philosophical formulations would provide the foundations for the emergence of psychology. Egyptian achievements in art and architecture left us a legacy, especially expressed in astronomy and medicine. The Jewish foundation of monotheism and law, along with an understanding of the person as a unity of spirit and matter, interfaced with the Greek culture that was to dominate the Mediterranean world.

This chapter looks at the thinking and practice of international relations and world order in pre-Muslim India. It opens by setting India’s geopolitical context. In terms of thinking it covers Kautilya’s Arthashastra, Ashoka’s Dharma, and the ontology and epistemology of India’s epic literature. In terms of practice, it covers the Mahajanapadas and the peaceful spread of Indian culture.

This chapter addresses five difficulties in our approach: how to handle the close link between the discipline of IR that we now have and the period of Western world dominance; does culture matter in international relations or is it all materialism?; how ‘Western’ is modern IR?; Can ancient and modern concepts and practices be equated?; Empires versus states, and how to differentiate inside and outside.

This provides the rationale for the book and outlines the main argument. It provides a synopsis of the eight chapters and the conclusion. The central argument of the book is made explicit: the need to move beyond existing tropes, especially religion, that have defined Sikh subjectivities. It outlines the integrated approach to Sikh nationalism, identity and diaspora which offers a more comprehensive understanding of Sikh aspirations for self-determination since the late nineteenth century. The Sikh case, it suggests, provides new insights into minority religious nationalism in the colonial and postcolonial contexts and questions the centrality of the homeland in the discourse of long-distance nationalism in a globalised world, thus making possible de-territorialised nationalism.

It is generally acknowledged that Hinduism, as the name of a distinct religion, did not exist before the nineteenth century. Before that, “Hindu” had simply meant “Indian” and encompassed a variety of beliefs and practices (diffuse spirituality). There were also indigenous “Thomas Christians” dating fromthe 1st century CE. When missionaries arrived, lower caste groups found Christianity attractive. A sea-change occurred around the nineteenth century when Westerners found “Hinduism” to be incurably superstitious. Indians responded by reforming their practices (towards concentrated spirituality). Christianity continued to appeal to marginalized groups such as women, untouchables, and aboriginal ethnic groups. Hindu nationalists continue to view Christianity with suspicion.

British rule was increasingly challenged by religiously inspired resistance movements, and, from the early twentieth century, nationalist political parties. They attempted to split the province of Bengal in 1905 but had to undo this administrative measure soon after. Towards the end of their rule, they allowed elections at the provincial level, instituting communal politics.

The author reflects upon graveyards and physical memorials to the dead as place markers for individuals, families and communities. Syncretic Indian culture in medieval and modern times, has revolved around graves as Muslim Sufi saints were venerated by all communities, and their attitude to power influenced the masses. However, there is a new political discourse where graveyards are set against up cremation grounds, as if the two were incompatible, suggesting that Hindus and Muslims/Christians were incompatible. This chapter is about the divisive discourse and its impact on memory and attachment for communities who count upon a physical, emotional and spiritual attachment to the land

This chapter uses a range of records of grants and other documents of order to introduce the protagonists and to trace the story of their accmulation of entitlements related to land, agrarian revenues, and state offices. It discusses how such grants were received from emperor, princes, and nobles, as reward for a variety of services – military, fiscal, and administrative – provided to those higher authorities. As such, the protagonists are shown to be part of a ubiquitous and diverse social class, referred to in Mughal parlance as zamindars – holders of land. All this is used to show how the Mughal state was actuated and even inhabited, and turned into family property – not just at the top, but also the bottom of the regime's hierarchy.