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Classic monographs on the history, anthropology and politics of South Asia.

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43 results in Cambridge South Asian Studies

Page 1 of 3

Communications and Power
  • Propaganda and the Press in the Indian National Struggle, 1920–1947
  • Milton Israel
  • Published online:
    05 February 2015
    Print publication:
    14 April 1994
  • At the end of the First World War, Government of India officials and Indian nationalist politicians began to recognise the need for an organized communications network that could reach out to a large and diverse Indian population. The challenge for Government and nationalists alike was to create an effective propaganda machine that could both disseminate news and, at the same time, elicit the desired political response. Milton Israel's 1994 book describes the role of the press, news services and propaganda agencies in the last stage of the nationalist struggle in India before the departure of the British, emphasizing the media's participation in the development of a 'national' perspective. Within this context, the author examines the significance of the encounter between imperialism and nationalism and the influence one had upon the other in achieving often conflicting objectives.

The State and Peasant Politics in Sri Lanka
  • Mick Moore
  • Published online:
    05 March 2012
    Print publication:
    14 November 1985
  • Dr Moore's enterprising book focuses on an apparent paradox: the failure of Sri Lanka's highly politicized smallholder electorate to place on the national political agenda issues relating to the public distribution of material resources. Sri Lanka has more than fifty years' history of pluralist democracy and such issues directly affect the interests of the smallholder population. Yet successive Sri Lankan governments have pursued economic policies favouring food consumers and the state itself at the expense of agricultural producers. In exploring the features of Sri Lanka's history, geography, politics and economy which explain this paradox, the author looks in detail at some of the dominant features of contemporary Sri Lanka: the political consequences of the plantation experience; the persistence of elite political leadership; and the causes and consequences of ethnic conflict.

The Devs of Cincvad
  • A Lineage and the State in Maharashtra
  • Laurence W. Preston
  • Published online:
    05 November 2011
    Print publication:
    18 May 1989
  • This innovative study of the power of lineage in India across two centuries examines some of the traditional social structures which transcended so successfully the political upheavals of British rule. Under the Maratha Kingdom, the Devs occupied a privileged position in the ritual, social and economic hierarchies of the state from the 1620s onwards, their continuing influence stemming principally from obtaining grants of rent-free land around Pune and successfully maintaining this inheritance from generation to generation. With the British conquest of Maharashtra in 1818, the close relations between state and privileged subject were slowly broken and by the 1850s, the British sought to settle the Devs' landed rights. Basing their inquiries on preconquest vernacular documents, they became entwined in disputes over the tenure of the Devs' lands and the mode of inheritance within the lineage that reveal a telling ignorance of the customary relations between the Indian State and its privileged subjects.

Muslim Endowments and Society in British India
  • Gregory C. Kozlowski
  • Published online:
    25 October 2011
    Print publication:
    21 November 1985
  • Dr Kozlowski's important study pioneers a fresh approach to the study of a critical Muslim institution: the endowments or awqaf which almost everywhere in the Islamic world provide support for mosques, schools and shrines. The wealthier Muslims who establish endowments inevitably have an eye on social, political and economic conditions and have traditionally used awqaf as part of an effort to preserve their wealth and influence, especially in periods of change and uncertainty. The book focuses on the use of endowments by Muslims suffering the dislocations caused by the imposition of British rule in India and examines in detail the social and political implications of the controversy over endowments that took place in the imperial courts and councils. The author's observations and insights can be applied to many periods and places in the Muslim world and his novel approach will attract all those interested in the study of Islam.

The Sole Spokesman
  • Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan
  • Ayesha Jalal
  • Published online:
    01 June 2011
    Print publication:
    18 April 1985
  • In 1940 the All-India Muslim League orchestrated the demand for independent Muslim states in India. Seven years later Pakistan was created amidst a communal holocaust of unprecedented proportions. Concentrating on the All-India Muslim League and its leader, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, The Sole Spokesman assesses the role of religious communalism and provincialism in shaping the movement for Pakistan.

Bengal Divided
  • Hindu Communalism and Partition, 1932–1947
  • Joya Chatterji
  • Published online:
    04 August 2010
    Print publication:
    08 December 1994
  • Whereas previous studies of the end of British rule in India have concentrated on the negotiations of the transfer of power at the all-India level or have considered the emergence of separatist politics amongst India's Muslim minorities, this study provides a re-evaluation of the history of Bengal focusing on the political and social processes that led to the demand for partition in Bengal and tracing the rise of Hindu communalism. In its most startling revelation, the author shows how the demand for a separate homeland for the Hindus, which was fuelled by a large and powerful section of Hindu society within Bengal, was seen as the only way to regain influence and to wrest power from the Muslim majority. The picture which emerges is one of a stratified and fragmented society moving away from the mainstream of Indian nationalism, and increasingly preoccupied with narrower, more parochial concerns.

Hindu Nationalism and Indian Politics
  • The Origins and Development of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh
  • Bruce Desmond Graham
  • Published online:
    06 July 2010
    Print publication:
    11 October 1990
  • This book presents a comprehensive and perceptive study of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh through the first two decades of its history from 1951. The Bharatiya Jana Sangh was the most robust of the first generation of Hindu nationalist parties in modern Indian politics and Bruce Graham examines why the party failed to establish itself as the party of the numerically dominant Hindu community. The author explains the relatively limited appeal of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh in terms of the restrictive scope of its founding doctrines; the limitations of its leadership and organization; its failure to build up a secure base of social and economic interests; and its difficulty in finding issues which would create support for its particular brand of Hindu nationalism. Bruce Graham ends with a major survey of the party's electoral fortunes at national, state and local levels.

India's Exports and Export Policies in the 1960's
  • Deepak Nayyar
  • Published online:
    03 May 2010
    Print publication:
    17 March 1977
  • This book examines India's export performance and export policies in the 1960s. The author analyses the causal factors underlying the trends in exports and evaluates the government policies which affected them. This authoritative work will be of interest to all those concerned with Indian economic problems, international trade and development economics.

Classical Political Economy and British Policy in India
  • S. Ambirajan
  • Published online:
    31 March 2010
    Print publication:
    15 June 1978
  • This book examines the effect of Classical political economy — the economic and monetary writings of Adam Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, the Mills and others — on the policy-making of the British government in India in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Professor Ambirajan shows how the economic doctrines of laissez-faire individualism and the freedom of market forces were instilled into the British administrative class. The East India Company's college at Haileybury was the most obvious agent but it is clear that a whole nexus of taught and unconscious attitudes predisposed the administrators to accept the ideas and ideologies of the economists.

Development Policy of a Communist Government
  • West Bengal since 1977
  • Ross Mallick
  • Published online:
    20 February 2010
    Print publication:
    18 November 1993
  • West Bengal has the longest-ruling democratically elected Communist government in world history. Since 1977 the Left Front has governed a population of 68 million people and has received considerable world-wide attention as a positive example of Third World development and change. In this book, Dr Ross Mallick convincingly challenges this view of the Left Front government, arguing that it has been a failure in terms of redistributive development reform.

A Field of One's Own
  • Gender and Land Rights in South Asia
  • Bina Agarwal
  • Published online:
    14 January 2010
    Print publication:
    23 February 1995
  • This is the first major study of gender and property in South Asia. In a pioneering and comprehensive analysis Bina Agarwal argues that the single most important economic factor affecting women's situation is the gender gap in command over property. In rural South Asia, the most significant form of property is arable land, a critical determinant of economic well-being, social status, and empowerment. But few women own land; fewer control it. Drawing on a vast range of interdisciplinary sources and her own field research, and tracing regional variations across five countries, the author investigates the complex barriers to women's land ownership and control, and how they might be overcome. The book makes significant and original contributions to theory and policy concerning land reforms, 'bargaining' and gender relations, women's status, and the nature of resistance.

The Political Economy of Commerce: Southern India 1500–1650
  • Sanjay Subrahmanyam
  • Published online:
    13 January 2010
    Print publication:
    30 March 1990
  • In The Political Economy of Commerce: Southern India 1500–1650 Sanjay Subrahmanyam explores the relationship between long-distance trade and the economic and political structure of southern India in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. He questions the more traditional views that external demand was the force behind pre-colonial Indian economic growth or that external trade was insignificant in quantitative and qualitative terms compared with the vastness of the internal economy. Instead, Dr Subrahmanyam authoritatively demonstrates the interaction between south Indian developments and larger international processes within certain economic institutions - most notably the network of marketing villages, great coastal emporia and operations of revenue-farmers and 'portfolio' capitalists. This book is based on extensive and previously unused Portuguese and Dutch archival sources. Its secondary theme is to explore the relationship between the documentation used and the context within which it was generated, thus illuminating how Europeans and Asians reacted to one another.

Public Expenditure and Indian Development Policy 1960–70
  • J. F. J. Toye
  • Published online:
    09 January 2010
    Print publication:
    18 June 1981
  • Of the many different ways in which economists have tried to analyse public expenditure, the most relevant to Indian economic development is that which links the level of public expenditure with the rate at which the state can accumulate capital. The abstract theory of this link, however, must be complemented by a historical account of the degree to which a state accumulation policy was understood by Indian policy makers, and of the other (often inconsistent) elements in the economic strategy of Indian nationalism. After attempting to provide accounts both of the abstract theory and of the institutional and policy context within which it was applied, this book analyses original empirical data on public expenditure in India between 1960 and 1970. The real growth rate of public expenditure, its functional and economic composition at the all-India level are presented, and the strong contrast between the patterns of the first and last five year periods is elucidated. The effect of the 1965-67 droughts and bad harvests in producing this contrast is assessed.

Judging the State
  • Courts and Constitutional Politics in Pakistan
  • Paula R. Newberg
  • Published online:
    06 January 2010
    Print publication:
    06 April 1995
  • The political history of Pakistan is characterised by incomplete constitution-making, a process which has placed the burden of constitutional interpretation on state instruments ranging from the bureaucracy to the military to the judiciary. In a penetrating and original study of the relationship between state and civil society in Pakistan, Paula Newberg demonstrates how the courts have influenced constitutional development and the structure of the state. By examining judicial decisions, particularly those made at times of political crisis, she considers how tensions within the judiciary, and between courts and other state institutions, have affected the ways political society views itself, and explores the consequences of these debates for the formal organisation of political power.

Shahjahanabad
  • The Sovereign City in Mughal India 1639–1739
  • Stephen P. Blake
  • Published online:
    06 January 2010
    Print publication:
    09 May 1991
  • From 1400 to 1750, Asian capital cities were often ruled in such a way that they became symbols of the power and influence their emperors extended over their states at large. These 'sovereign cities' became the empire in miniature. Shahjahanabad is the first study of a pre-modern Indian city (Old Delhi) as a sovereign city. Stephen Blake explores the way in which the emperors' and nobles' palaces and mansions dominated the landscape; how cultural life revolved around that of the emperors and their families; and how the households of the great men also dominated the urban economy and controlled a large percentage of state revenue. This study thus illuminates how Asian capitals were not the great amorphous agglomerations described by Marx and Weber. Instead they were urban communities with their own distinctive style and character, dependent on a particular kind of state organization.

Private Investment in India 1900–1939
  • Amiya Kumar Bagchi
  • Published online:
    06 January 2010
    Print publication:
    20 January 1972
  • This book deals with the history of private investment in India and its determinants during the period 1900-1939. It develops a simple theoretical framework in its first part and tries to isolate the influence on private investment in India of factor supplies, as against demand conditions. In the second part, all the major manufacturing industries of the period are studied in detail. Most of the analytical apparatus used is developed from orthodox economic theory, but a heavy emphasis is placed on Keynesian ideas. Finally, the author presents a case study in the economic relations between an imperial power (Britain) and a dependent colony (India). He also examines the social relations between the ruling race and the Indians, and provides one of the few detailed accounts of the mechanics of imperialism.

Bengal Agriculture 1920–1946
  • A Quantitative Study
  • M. Mufakharul Islam
  • Published online:
    15 December 2009
    Print publication:
    26 January 1979
  • This is a study of agricultural development in undivided Bengal during the period 1920-1946. The first part of the book is devoted to a close examination of the quality of the officially published crop statistics and a detailed analysis of the trends in cropped area, output and yield per acre. Particular topics discussed are the gradual deterioration in per capita crop production and the economic roots of the Bengal famine in 1943. The second part of the book deals with the factors that directly or indirectly affected crop trends. Amongst these are the effect of crop prices on area sown. Trends in physical capacity of Bengal agriculture are analysed and compared with those in the visible supply of labour and crop output. The problem of agricultural credit is discussed and the progress of the Co-operative credit movement evaluated.

Peasants and Imperial Rule
  • Agriculture and Agrarian Society in the Bombay Presidency 1850–1935
  • Neil Charlesworth
  • Published online:
    10 December 2009
    Print publication:
    28 March 1985
  • This book is a detailed historical study of agriculture and agrarian society in a major province of British India, the Bombay presidency. Its objective is to examine the impact of British rule on the Indian peasantry, and the changes it brought. Among the specific issues discussed by the author are the development of the British land revenue system, the pattern of expansion in commercial agriculture and the consequences in terms of ownership and organisation of land and agrarian social structure. Dr Charlesworth goes on to look at the role of government policy, the nature of peasant protest movements and the effects of the interwar depression. He concludes that significant long-term economic and social change did occur but that the highly 'differential' pattern to commercialisation prevented any structural transformation in the peasant economy and society.

Saints, Goddesses and Kings
  • Muslims and Christians in South Indian Society, 1700–1900
  • Susan Bayly
  • Published online:
    04 December 2009
    Print publication:
    26 January 1990
  • South India is often portrayed as a land of Hindu orthodoxy, yet in fact three great 'world religions' have inter-acted in the region over many centuries. Saints, Goddesses and Kings uses a powerful combination of oral, literary and archival evidence to investigate the social and religious world of those large and influential groups of South Indians who came to identify themselves as Christians and Muslims, while retaining powerful links with the religion and culture of the wider society. Susan Bayly shows how Christianity and Islam spread along the military and agricultural frontiers of southern India, and how certain beliefs and practices derived local force from an ambiguous relationship with the worship of existing Hindu goddesses. Saints, Goddesses and Kings thus illumines not only the meaning and history of religious conversion and the nature of community, but wider processes of social and political change within the sub-continent and, indeed, colonial societies in general.

British Policy in India 1858-1905
  • S. Gopal
  • Published online:
    02 December 2009
    Print publication:
    02 January 1965
  • The purpose of this substantial work is to study British policy towards India during the second half of the nineteenth century as formulated in Britain and India by the highest authorities. The period from the Revolt and the assumption by the British Government of direct responsibility for the administration of India to the end of Curzon's viceroyalty is a crucial one and 1905 may be taken as the end of the first phase of the Crown's rule in India. Thereafter political and constitutional developments become more important than the efforts of the administration.

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