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Contemporary South Asia publishes books on a wide range of social science issues, dealing with the politics, society and culture of South Asia since 1947. The series is intended for both students and the general public, and titles are issued simultaneously in hardback and paperback. Many of them are written by established authors who are already engaged in researching specific aspects of South Asian society. All books provide in-depth, stimulating analyses of topical themes.

  • Editorial Boards: Jan Breman, G. P. Hawthorn, Ayesha Jalal, Patricia Jeffery, Atul Kohli, Dharma Kumar

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9 results in Contemporary South Asia

India in the World Order
  • Searching for Major-Power Status
  • Baldev Raj Nayar, T. V. Paul
  • Published online:
    05 July 2014
    Print publication:
    06 November 2002
  • Two highly regarded scholars come together to examine India's relationship with the world's major powers and its own search for a significant role in the international system. Central to the argument is India's belief that the acquisition of an independent nuclear capability is key to obtaining such status. The book details the major constraints at the international, domestic and perceptual levels that India has faced in this endeavor. It concludes, through a detailed comparison of India's power capabilities, that India is indeed a rising power, but that significant systemic and domestic changes will be necessary before it can achieve its goal. The book examines the prospects and implications of India's integration into the major-power system in the twenty-first century. This book's incisive analysis will be illuminating for students, policy makers, and for anyone wishing to understand the region in greater depth.

The Untouchables
  • Subordination, Poverty and the State in Modern India
  • Oliver Mendelsohn, Marika Vicziany
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    30 April 1998
  • In a sensitive and compelling account of the lives of those at the very bottom of Indian society, Oliver Mendelsohn and Marika Vicziany explore the construction of the Untouchables as a social and political category, the historical background which led to such a definition, and their position in India today. The authors argue that, despite efforts to ameliorate their condition on the part of the state, a considerable edifice of discrimination persists on the basis of a tradition of ritual subordination. Even now, therefore, it still makes sense to categorise these people as 'Untouchables'. The book promises to make a major contribution to the social and economic debates on poverty, while its wide-ranging perspectives will ensure an interdisciplinary readership from historians of South Asia, to students of politics, economics, religion and sociology.

Footloose Labour
  • Working in India's Informal Economy
  • Jan Breman
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    13 September 1996
  • In a penetrating anthropological study of the working poor in India, Jan Breman examines the lives of those who, pushed out of the agrarian labour market, depend on casual work. Beginning his local-level research in two villages in south Gujarat, the author discusses the mobilisation of casual labour, which is hired and fired according to the need of the moment, and transferred for the duration of the job to destinations far away from the home area. His case-study reveals that the circulation of labour is indicative of an employment pattern which dominates both the rural and urban economy of large parts of South Asia. Elaborating on the social profile of the work migrants, the author argues that their identity is shaped by both class and caste relations and, despite action by state agencies, nothing of significance has been achieved to improve their quality of life.

India Working
  • Essays on Society and Economy
  • Barbara Harriss-White
  • Published online:
    06 July 2010
    Print publication:
    06 November 2002
  • By drawing on her extensive fieldwork in India and on the adjacent theoretical literature, Barbara Harriss-White describes the working of the Indian economy through its most important social structures of accumulation. Successive chapters explore a range of topics including labour, capital, the state, gender, religious plurality, caste and space. Despite the complexity of the subject, the book is vivid and compelling. The author's intimate knowledge of the country enables the reader to experience the Indian local scene and to engage with the precariousness of daily life. Her conclusion challenges the prevailing notion that liberalisation releases the economy from political interference and leads to a postscript on the economic base for fascism in India. This is an intelligent book, first published in 2002, by a distinguished scholar, for students of economics, as well as for those studying the region.

Democratic Politics and Economic Reform in India
  • Rob Jenkins
  • Published online:
    13 May 2010
    Print publication:
    09 March 2000
  • Successive Indian governments, from right and left, have remained committed to market-oriented reform since its introduction in 1991. In a well-argued, accessible and sometimes controversial examination of the political dynamics which underlie that commitment, Rob Jenkins challenges existing theories of the relationship between democracy and economic liberalisation. He contends that while democracy and liberalisation are no longer considered incompatible, theorizing over-emphasizes democracy's more wholesome aspects while underestimating its practioners' reliance on obfuscating tactics to defuse political resistance to policy shifts. By focusing on formal political systems, existing research ignores the value of informal institutions. In India it is these institutions which have driven economic elites towards negotiation, while allowing governing elites to divide the opponents of reform through a range of political tactics. In fact, the author argues, it is precisely through such political manoeuvring that democracy survives.

Population, Gender and Politics
  • Demographic Change in Rural North India
  • Roger Jeffery, Patricia Jeffery
  • Published online:
    07 January 2010
    Print publication:
    13 July 1997
  • Roger and Patricia Jeffery are well known for their work on religion and gender in South Asia. In their latest book, a study of the demographic processes of two castes in rural north India, they ask why fertility levels are higher among the Muslim Sheikhs than the Hindu Jats. They conclude that explanations can only partially be attributed to gender relationships and religion, and it is the economic and political interests of both groups which are the defining factors. Their marginal economic position provides little incentive for the Sheikhs to raise small families, while the Jats, who are locally dominant, are encouraged to use birth control and educate their children. The authors go on to demonstrate the significance of this analysis for a wider understanding of the problems of population and politics in India generally. The book will be invaluable for students of South Asia and for anyone interested in the demography of developing countries.

Remembering Partition
  • Violence, Nationalism and History in India
  • Gyanendra Pandey
  • Published online:
    06 January 2010
    Print publication:
    22 November 2001
  • Through an investigation of the violence that marked the partition of British India in 1947, this book analyses questions of history and memory, the nationalisation of populations and their pasts, and the ways in which violent events are remembered (or forgotten) in order to ensure the unity of the collective subject - community or nation. Stressing the continuous entanglement of 'event' and 'interpretation', the author emphasises both the enormity of the violence of 1947 and its shifting meanings and contours. The book provides a sustained critique of the procedures of history-writing and nationalist myth-making on the question of violence, and examines how local forms of sociality are constituted and reconstituted, by the experience and representation of violent events. It concludes with a comment on the different kinds of political community that may still be imagined even in the wake of Partition and events like it.

Democracy and Authoritarianism in South Asia
  • A Comparative and Historical Perspective
  • Ayesha Jalal
  • Published online:
    26 October 2009
    Print publication:
    06 April 1995
  • In a comparative and historical study of the interplay between democratic politics and authoritarian states in South Asia, Ayesha Jalal explains how a shared colonial legacy led to apparently contrasting patterns of political development - democracy in India and authoritarianism in Pakistan and Bangladesh. The analysis shows how, despite differences in form, central political authority in each state came to confront similar threats from regional and linguistic dissidence, religious and sectarian strife, as well as class and caste conflicts. By comparing state structures and political processes, the author evaluates and redefines democracy, citizenship, sovereignty and the nation-state, arguing for a more decentralized governmental structure. This original and provocative study will challenge students and scholars in the field to rethink traditional concepts of democracy and authoritarianism in South Asia.

Seeing the State
  • Governance and Governmentality in India
  • Stuart Corbridge, Glyn Williams, Manoj Srivastava, René Véron
  • Published online:
    22 September 2009
    Print publication:
    22 September 2005
  • Poor people confront the state on an everyday basis all over the world. But how do they see the state, and how are these engagements conducted? This book considers the Indian case where people's accounts, in particular in the countryside, are shaped by a series of encounters that are staged at the local level, and which are also informed by ideas that are circulated by the government and the broader development community. Drawing extensively on fieldwork conducted in eastern India and their broad range of expertise, the authors review a series of key debates in development studies on participation, good governance, and the structuring of political society. They do so with particular reference to the Employment Assurance Scheme and primary education provision. Seeing the State engages with the work of James Scott, James Ferguson and Partha Chatterjee, and offers a new interpretation of the formation of citizenship in South Asia.