History of India

This essay provides an analysis of the Andaman Islands exhibit at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886. It explores the ways in which a display of near-life-size clay models, complete with indigenous-made manufactures, presented a specific vision of the region to a popular British audience. Using visual evidence, archival material and contemporary commentary on the exhibition, the essay investigates the mechanics of the exhibition paradigm, documenting its impact upon audiences’ perceptions of the Andamanese peoples. It argues that the models were intended and were successfully received as tools with which to popularize scholarly judgements of the region’s peoples at the lowest point of a perceived sociocultural-evolutionary hierarchy, and demonstrates how this specific exhibit was employed as dynamic, decorative visual entertainment for a metropolitan audience. The implications of the substitution of clay figures for real human bodies will be examined, and it will be argued that this particular medium acted as an absorbent surface upon which British audiences could safely posit perceived ‘truths’ about their distant subjects. Whereas ‘living exhibits’ were able to challenge the terms of their representation, the static models were seen to verify colonial concerns regarding the violent depravity, overt sexuality and corporeal availability of the non-Western ‘other’.

This book is the first fascicle in a series that is designed as a reader’s Companion to a Sourcebook that presents all written sources with regard to Hunnic Peoples in Central and South Asia from the 4th to the 6th centuries of the Common Era (edited by Dániel Balogh and published by Barkhuis, Groningen 2020; see also:
https://hu-berlin.academia.edu/D%C3%A1nielBalogh ).

The first fascicle of the Companion Series focuses on the history of Hunnic People in South Asia, where they are known as Hūṇa in Sanskrit literature or Alkhan according to their own coinage. These Alkhan entered the Subcontinent in the 4th century. The fascicle reconstructs the history of the Alkhan kings, Khiṅgila, Toramāṇa, and Mihirakula,
and the impact of their invasion and control of large parts of Northern and Western India on Indian history and culture, in particular on the Gupta Empire.

Published by:
Barkhuis, Groningen 2020.
ISBN: 9789493194007

Central Asia and India in particular witnessed Islamic invasion by Turks, Mongols and Moguls that left a permanent mark in the history that can be regarded as "Age of unreason" . The period was marked by large scale violence and wanton destruction of culture and arts

The main purpose of this paper is to survey the origins of educational policies during the colonial period. The emphasis on elite English education, and its displacement from traditional instructional models, resulted in a break with the everyday experiences of the "illiterate masses," and thus reified the gap between the classes. The educated elites' perception of "the uneducated population as an object of moral improvement"  is mirrored in the Utilitarian, Evangelical, Victorian educational models. Though British rule was cast off with relish, the educational models inherited from the colonizers continue to create paradoxical curricular paradigms in post-independence India.

I also briefly trace their appropriation and application by the nationalist movement and the persistence of these pedagogical paradigms in post-independence India. This discussion is situated within a critique of textbook-centered instruction. At the end of this paper I discuss a controversy that arose in the representation of history and the production of textbooks during the Janata government in the late seventies. The central question driving the writing of this paper asks, "Can a modern/traditional multi-ethnic political nation-state such as India, build a democratic entity through the schools, using textbooks as resources?" This paper thus discusses the influences of colonialism and nationalism on curriculum and textbook design in India, and offer a conclusion that raises more questions than answers.

This volume cross-examines the stability of heritage as a concept. It interrogates the past which materialises through multi-layered narratives on monuments and other objects that sustain cultural diversity. It seeks to understand how interpretations of " monuments " as " texts " are affected at the local level of experience, even as institutions such as UNESCO work to globalise and fi x constructs of stable and universal heritage. Shifting away from a largely Eurocentric concept associated with architecture and monumental archaeology, this book reassesses how local and regional heritage needs to be balanced with the global and transnational. It argues that material objects and monuments are not static embodiments of culture but are, rather, a medium through which identity, power and society are produced and reproduced. This is especially relevant in South and Southeast Asian contexts, where debates over heritage often have local, regional and national political implications and consequences. Reevaluating traditional valuation of monuments and cultural landscapes could help aid sustainability and long-term preservation of the heritage, this book will be useful for scholars and researchers of history, South and Southeast Asian history, heritage studies, archaeology, cultural studies, tourism studies and political history as well.

Table of contents
· Prefazione/Foreword, di Luca Clerici, Marcello Meli, Paola Mura > p. 9.
· Nota introduttiva / Introductory note, di Paola Mura, p. 17.
· Quasi una premessa / Almost a foreword, di Marcello Meli > p. 23.
· La Compagnia delle Indie Orientali britannica: economia, politica e cultura tra India ed Europa durante la seconda metà del Settecento e la prima metà dell'Ottocento, di Luca Clerici > p. 33.
· Fra filologia e linguistica. Divagazioni sulla conoscenza del vedico nell'Ottocento, di Romano Lazzeroni > p. 69.
· Il Rgveda e la tradizione nordica, di Marcello Meli > p. 81.
· Michele Kerbaker e la ricezione del Rgveda nell'Italia dell'Ottocento al tempo dell'Aurora di Giosue Carducci, di Daniele Maggi > p. 93.
· La letteratura indiana classica nell'editoria italiana contemporanea, di Giuliano Boccali > p. 111.
· Splendori e miserie della Sakuntala. I giudizi opposti di Herder e Hegel sull'India, di Davide De Pretto > p. 123.
· Gioco di specchi e coni d'ombra. Declinazioni del "pensiero indiano" in Hegel, Schopenhauer e Nietzsche, di Emanuela Magno > p. 145.
· La Sakontala di Foerster, Goethe e l?oriente, di Marco Meli > p. 167.
· Presenza della leggenda indiana di Sakuntala nelle creazioni musicali ottocentesche di area austro-ungarica, di Elisa Grossato > p. 179.
· Itinerari poetici e musicali tra India ed Europa, di Stefania Cerutti > p. 193.
· Aria di Sakontala, di Franz Schubert, revisione di Vittoria De Leonardis > p. 213.
· Il canto dell'ospite indiano. La suggestione indiana nel melodramma europeo tra Otto e Novecento, di Adone Brandalise > p. 229.
· Il fascino dell'India nelle arti figurative occidentali: le scenografie ottocentesche per il teatro d'opera, di Gabriella Olivero > p. 243.
· Mahler e l'Oriente: un percorso letterario e musicale, di Alberto Fassone > p. 261.
· Schegge indiane in due nuove opere liriche: Big Bang Circus (Piccola storia dell'universo) e Il canto della pelle - Sex unlimited, di Claudio Ambrosini > p. 273.
· Il fascino della musica indiana nel cinema di Pier Paolo Pasolini, di Roberto Calabretto > p. 307.
· Avventure coloniali, enigmi e viaggi dello spirito: alcune riflessioni sull'India nel cinema occidentale, di Stefano Socci > p. 319.

About this book
La ricezione della cultura indiana in Occidente è tema di grande interesse attuale e sottende un fenomeno complesso, stratificato e ricco di molteplici dissonanze. Uno degli aspetti indubbiamente rilevanti è costituito dalla funzione assunta dalle figure culturali provenienti dalla tradizione indiana nella rappresentazione dell'India operata in Occidente. Tradizione e ricezione, però, sono fenomeni distinti, e differenti gli intenti che ne sono all'origine. È vero infatti che, per un verso, la conoscenza della tradizione e dei testi indiani aiuta a comporre un discorso sull'India, più o meno scientifico che sia l'approccio prescelto. Per un altro verso, tuttavia, la ricezione non si arresta a un semplice dialogo con la tradizione, ma si sviluppa nell'elaborazione di una rappresentazione occidentale dell'India, dove quest'ultima costituisce spesso un pretesto per formulare un discorso che riguarda principalmente l'Occidente medesimo. Attraverso la rappresentazione dell'India, insomma, l'Occidente riflette e rappresenta se stesso.

http://www.padovauniversitypress.it/publications/9788869380266

The Bengali newspaper Samācār Candrikā from 1830 to 1831 offers a glimpse at the emergence of the Modern, popular Hinduism now evident in Hindu nationalism in India. Preserving orthodox Hindu responses to the reforms advocated by the rational Hindu monotheism of the Brahmo Samaj and evangelical Christian missionaries, the newspaper stressed the unifying Character of Hindu ritual, the spiritual significance of caste, and the traditional gender relations symbolized by widow immolation even after its 1829 abolition. The paper's greatest contribution to historians' understanding of the construction of Hinduism as a coherent entity is its clear testimony to the essential role played by Hindus themselves in that process, often associated with Orientalists and missionaries.

In the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, courtliness was crucial to the political and cultural life of the Deccan. Divided between six states competing for territory, resources and skills, the medieval and early modern Deccan was a region of striking ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity. People used multifaceted trans-regional networks-mercantile, kinship, friendship and intellectual-to move across the Persian-speaking world and to find employment at the Deccan courts. This movement, Emma J. Flatt argues, was facilitated by the existence of a shared courtly disposition. Engagement in courtly skills such as letter-writing, perfume-making, astrological divination, performing magic, sword-fighting and wrestling thus became a route to both worldly success and ethical refinement. Using a diverse range of treatises, chronicles, poetry and letters, Flatt unpicks the ways this challenged networks of acceptable behaviour and knowledge in the Indo-Islamicate courtly world-and challenges the idea of perpetual hostility between Islam and Hinduism in Indian history.

This introductory chapter sets out the rationale for the ensuing chapters and their division into different parts. It also provides an overall and comprehensive prologue to the Gramsci–Ambedkar encounter. Indeed, ‘parallels are strong and very striking for two thinkers who are otherwise so different – in political experience, philosophical background, and ideas of effective strategy’ (Jon Soske, personal communication). However, the moral fabric of their human and political commitment to Dalits/subalterns brings them very close, particularly when upholding and inspiring Gramsci’s ‘intellectual and moral reform’ and Ambedkar’s ‘social and moral consciousness of society’.

Gramsci and Ambedkar were contemporaries – both born in 1891 – and although operating in very different environments, the similarities of their strategies and political philosophy to empower subalterns/Dalits are indeed striking. Their activity as leaders, always combined with solid theoretical reflection, springs out of their own and others’ lived experience of subalternity. Both found inspiration in Marxism, both were critical of religion, but considered religion culturally and politically relevant; both assessed the presence of subalterns through social, cultural and historical critical analysis, and sought to negotiate a rightful place within the state, society and history/historiography for these ‘excluded’ individuals. For both of them, the solution would come from the effort of the subalterns themselves, as active protagonists of their own destiny, to achieve ‘consciousness’, and ‘collective will’ aided by the role of leaders/intellectuals. Their ‘holistic’ approach – which is a global critique to culture and to the structures of subalternity – enlightens the present-day ‘Dalit Question’ as a challenge posited not simply to Dalits and concerned scholars, but to societies/states and to the international community. Gramscian studies are currently flourishing in Italy and elsewhere. Although ‘Ambedkar has never really been taken seriously as a thinker in India’, (Omvedt 2006: 438), recent studies invite us to reflect on his fundamental intuition of the Untouchable subject becoming a Dalit (A. Rao 2009; Guru ed. 2009; Omvedt 2003; Zelliot 2004).

In this chapter, following a summary of Gramsci’s reception in South Asia, I briefly discuss both Gramsci’s demise and Ambedkar’s silencing, to then reaffirm the relevance of their being discussed in conjunction with each other. In conclusion, I offer a reflection proposing an introductory presentation of the articles offered in this volume.

Although Switzerland was never formally a colonial power, it was attached to many quasi-colonies such as settlements of Swiss missionary societies, which were financed and managed with money, personnel, and ideas from Switzerland. Including these settlements into Swiss social history narratives holds a lot of innovative analytical potential, as this article seeks to illuminate. It highlights the connections between 19th century philanthropic struggles against poverty in Switzerland and efforts to proselytise 'hindu heathens' in India. These historical connections did, however, not result in shared historical experiences and forms of consciousness among Swiss 'proletarians' and 'Christian Hindus' in India. Although people on both sides of the 'imperial divide' were subjected to similar forms of bourgeois 'civilizing missions', they were also divided according to social, gender, and racial hierarchies.

The Hindu Wodeyar dynasty formed the Mysore kingdom in 1399 (1). It ruled the region until India’s independence, with a couple of breaks in between, from 1760 to 1799 and 1831 to 1881. Established as a subsidiary of the Karnata Empire (popular as Vijayanagar Empire), the Wodeyars began to spread their wings after Vijayanagar was sacked at the battle of Talikoti in 1565 (2). During its long existence it saw the rise and fall of many empires, including the Mughals and Marathas. Chikkadevaraja Wodeyar who ruled from 1673 until his death in 1704, is seen as its most successful king. This essay highlights how this far sighted ruler developed and sustained friendship with Aurangzeb to not only check their common enemy the Marathas, but also to reform his kingdom.

Dr. E Stanley Jones through his Kingdom of God perspective had a lasting impact on racism both in India and North America.  Through his formation in India of the Christian Ashram movement in 1930 and transplanting it worldwide, Jones modeled a christian community in which divisions of class and cash had no place.  His book on his good friend Gandhi was instrumental in encouraging Martin Luther King Jr in the formation of the nonviolent civil rights movement.

La “Dottrina Gujral” rappresenta un modello teorico predisposto in India per la gestione dello spazio politico dell’Asia meridionale. Il saggio intende analizzare questa proposta politica, spiegando i motivi per cui nel Paese esistesse la necessità di un cambio di paradigma nei confronti dei vicini. Per l’analisi sono considerati la soluzione di un contenzioso con il Bangladesh e le difficoltà nei rapporti con il Pakistan.

This paper explores the process of legitimation involved in the struggle for secession in Telangana, India.  It argues that this was focussed on the securing of justice in a) gaining access to resources (the legitimation of risk) and b) the exercise of political power (the legitimation of democracy). The plight of Telangana demonstrates the historical and contextual nature of legitimacy. The paper asserts that the ongoing struggle to legitimate risk and democracy will be constitutive of the norms and values of the new state, influencing the way in which exposure to risk is differentiated, and democratic legitimacy defined.  It suggests that, although contextualized, local struggles to legitimate risk and democracy represent a microcosm of a wider global legitimation process which is constitutive of world society and the search for justice in a world at risk.

Review of: Leonid Alayev, Medieval India, Moscow: URSS, 2018.
Рецензия на: Л.Б. Алаев. Средневековая Индия. История: политическая, социальная, экономическая, культурная. 2-е изд., испр. и доп. М.: URSS–Ленанд, 2018. 280 с. (Академия фундаментальных исследований: История). ISBN 978-5-9710-4930-2 /./ // Восток. Афро-азиатские общества: история и современность. 2018. № 3. С. 199–202

The study of the history of the peoples of the Caspian region involves a systematic approach. It provides: analysis of ancient written sources; attraction of archaeological data; the study of toponymy of the region; geological history of successively alternating bodies of water up to the present-day Caspian, i.e. the totality of elements characterizing the evolution of the peoples of the Caspian region. This is due to the fact that an attempt to explore the geographical descriptions of antiquity based on the current geological and geographical situation, leads to a distortion of real history. Paying tribute to the mythological tradition of the Indo-Persian peoples, written sources of ancient authors and the rich material of the Chinese documentary base, in the light of the achievements of modernity, you can find a new look at the history of the peoples of the Caspian region.

In classical and especially medieval India books had a high circulation among cultured people. Nevertheless, Brahmanical culture regarded writing as a contemptible activity. In fact, a written text was understood as the defective realization of a perfect sonic essence. In the case of a revealed text, the written realization relied directly on the sonic essence. In the case of a text of human origin, the relation with the sonic essence was only indirect. In both cases that essence remained so crucial that the historical circumstances in which the text had been written down, and the fact itself that it was written down, were always thought of as insignificant. This ideology could have been developed by Brahmanism as a factor of self-identification in opposition to those flourishing cultures that assigned enormous significance to books.

International relations must distance itself from its Eurocentric and masculine moorings if it is to address its increasing irrelevance in the modern world and become more "international" and truly inclusive. The theoretical position of postcolonial feminism gives the discipline the best chance of doing so. The effect of conflict on women in Kashmir and the North East illustrates how a postcolonial feminist perspective enriches an understanding of the issue and enables international relations to reflect the lived reality of the people. - See more at: http://www.epw.in/journal/2017/20/special-articles/can-postcolonial-feminism-revive-international-relations.html#sthash.YHvmoJy9.dpuf

This book sheds new light on the dynamics of the colonial encounter between Britain and India. It highlights how various analytical approaches to this encounter can be creatively mobilised to rethink entanglements of memory and identity emerging from British rule in the subcontinent. This volume reevaluates central, long-standing debates about the historical impact of the British Raj by deviating from hegemonic and top-down civilizational perspectives. It focuses on interactions, relations and underlying meanings of the colonial experience. The narratives of memory, identity and the legacy of the colonial encounter are woven together in a diverse range of essays on subjects such as colonial and nationalist memorials; British, Eurasian, Dalit and Adivasi identities; regional political configurations; and state initiatives and patterns of control.

By drawing on empirically rich, regional and chronological historical studies, this book will be essential reading for students and researchers of history, political science, colonial studies, cultural studies and South Asian studies.

The Quit India speech is a speech made by Mahatma Gandhi on August 8, 1942, on the eve of the Quit India movement. He called for determined, but passive resistance that signified the certitude that Gandhi foresaw for the movement is best described by his call to Do or Die. His speech was issued at the Gowalia Tank Maidan in Bombay (now Mumbai), since renamed August Kranti Maidan (August Revolution Ground). However, almost the entire Congress leadership, and not merely at the national level, was put into confinement less than twenty-four hours after Gandhi's speech, and the greater number of the Congress leaders were to spend the rest of the war in jail. Many years later, Martin Luther King, Jr., would mimic Gandhi in his "I Have A Dream" speech that promoted nonviolence and equality of races. Gandhi made this speech to help India gain Independence.

This article presents new evidence with which to evaluate the validity of the popular picture of religious environmentalism in India. It examines accounts of a large number of incidents described in Indian language newspapers, the colonial archive, and hunting literature published between the 1870s and 1940s, in which British and other sportsmen clashed with villagers in India while hunting. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century the colonial sports-hunting obsession was in its heyday, but opposition to hunting across India was also mounting. Rural villagers, in particular, were often willing to lock into physical combat with hunters, apparently in order to protect local wildlife. Sportsmen often assumed that it was religious fanaticism that made Hindus defend the lives of what they saw as game animals, trophies, and specimens. The article provides evidence that in addition to religion, a mixture of other motivations explains Hindu interest in the conservation of certain species. Anti-colonial consciousness, assertions of local authority and territoriality, and an environmental ethic can all be identified as being at work. The end result was the increased conservation of certain species of wildlife.

'It provides a picture, fascinating...of some of the religious movements in Indian history.' — The book Review

This book addresses a range of debates regarding religious movements in the medieval and early modern periods. Eleven key essays debate the linkages between the religious and worldly aims of different movements and the continuity and change in their ideologies, social bases, and organizational structures over time. They present divergent views on important issues such as the relationship between caste and the sect, the idea of renunciation, the role of the Sufis in the conversion to Islam in medieval India, and the ways in which many South Asian popular movements emerged and gathered force.

In an insightful introduction by David Lorenzen, each debate is discussed in its historical and theoretical context. The influence of Dumont, Engels, and Weber on our understanding of the nature of religious movemtns in and beyond the South Asia is also analysed. Part of the pr estigious Debates in Indian History and Society series, this volume will be useful for students, scholars and teachers of medieval and early modern India, as well as those interested in religious studies, comparative religion, sociology, and anthropology.

Readership: students, scholars and teachers of medieval and early modern India, as well as those interested in religious studies, comparative religion, sociology, and anthropology.

More Info: ISBN 0195664485
Publisher: Delhi: Oxford University Press India
Publication Date: 2004
http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780195678765.do