Books in the Contemporary South Asia series

Gyan Pandey's book is a compelling examination of the violence that marked the Partition of India and how it is remembered. It is also a critique of history-writing and nationalist myth-making. This is a book for historians of South Asia, sociologists, and all those concerned with the Indian subaltern story.

The authors chart India's search for an international role since gaining independence in 1947. Central to their argument is India's belief that the acquisition of an independent nuclear capability is key to obtaining such status. The book makes an important contribution to a controversial debate.

Thisstudy of the working poor in India examines the lives of those who, pushed out of the agrarian labour market, depend on casual work.

In a compelling account of the lives of those at the bottom of Indian society, the authors 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, a considerable edifice of discrimination persists.

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.

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.

How has democracy taken root in India in the face of a low-income economy, poverty, illiteracy and ethnic diversity? Leading scholars explore this intriguing anomaly. Themes addressed include politics, ethnicity, federalism, caste, poverty, and Hindu nationalism. This is a tightly conceived volume on a controversial topic for students and generalists.

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, although confronting similar threats from ethnic and regional movements.

This is a study of the demographic processes of two castes in rural north India, that asks why fertility levels are higher among the Muslim Sheikhs than the Hindu Jats.