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From Subjects to Citizens: Society and the Everyday State in India and Pakistan, 1947–1970*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2010

TAYLOR C. SHERMAN ,
WILLIAM GOULD  and
SARAH ANSARI
TAYLOR C. SHERMAN
Affiliation:
Department of International History, London School of Economics, London WC2A 2AE, UK Email: [email protected]
WILLIAM GOULD
Affiliation:
School of History, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK Email: [email protected]
SARAH ANSARI
Affiliation:
Department of History, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, TW20 0PX, UK Email: [email protected]
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Extract

This special issue of Modern Asian Studies explores the shift from colonial rule to independence in India and Pakistan, with the aim of unravelling the explicit meanings and relevance of ‘independence’ for the new citizens of India and Pakistan during the two decades after 1947. While the study of postcolonial South Asia has blossomed in recent years, this volume addresses a number of imbalances in this dynamic and highly popular field. Firstly, the histories of India and Pakistan after 1947 have come to be conceived separately, with many scholars assuming that the two states developed along divergent paths after independence. Thus, the dominant historical paradigm has been to examine either India or Pakistan in relative isolation from one another. While a handful of very recent books on the partition of the subcontinent have begun to study the two states simultaneously, very few of these new histories reach beyond the immediate concerns of partition. Of course, both countries developed out of much the same set of historical experiences. Viewing the two states in the same frame not only allows the contributors to this issue to explore common themes, it also facilitates an exploration of the powerful continuities between the pre- and post-independence periods.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 45 , Issue 1: From Subjects to Citizens: Society and the Everyday State in India and Pakistan, 1947–1970 , January 2011 , pp. 1 - 6
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

1 Yong, Tan Tai and Kudaisya, Gyanesh, The Aftermath of Partition in South Asia (London: Routledge, 2000)Google Scholar; Zamindar, Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali, The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia: Refugees, Boundaries, Histories (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007)Google Scholar.

2 Chakrabarty, Dipesh, Majumdar, Rochona, and Sartori, Andrew, (eds), From the Colonial to the Postcolonial: India and Pakistan in Transition (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007)Google Scholar.

3 For example, Zamindar, The Long Partition, Menon, Ritu and Bhasin, Kamla, Borders and Boundaries: Women in India's Partition (Delhi: Kali for Women, 1998)Google Scholar.

4 Fuller, C. J., and Benei, Veronique, (eds), The Everyday State and Society in Modern India (New Delhi: Social Science Press, 2000)Google Scholar; Hansen, Thomas Blom, and Stepputat, Finn, (eds), States of Imagination: Ethnographic Explorations of the Postcolonial State (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 See Needham, Anuradha Dingwaney and Rajan, Rajeshwary Sundar (eds), The Crisis of Secularism in India (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2007)Google Scholar.