The effort of my paper is to trace the presence of the marginalized social groups in the biographical narratives of the ruling elites, known as the tazkiras. Written in the Mughal period, they are collective biographies of the social and…
‘‘But isn’t this place, Harballabh, in the Punjab, near Jullundur of all places?’ my father had asked patronizingly, as though serious music and Punjab were incompatible. ‘I could never have imagined how sensitive and sophisticated the musical tastes of the…
Eastern U.P. constituted by Benares, Ghazipur, Ballia and Azamgarh is not only known as, culturally and traditionally, a rich Bhojpuri region but it was also politically sensitive. During the national movement particularly in Gandhian age the people of this region…
Professor Amalendu Guha’s passing away on the morning of 7 May 2015 is a huge loss for the world of historical scholarship in India. It will not be an exaggeration to describe him as a pioneer of modern history of…
I have no desire for heaven, Instead I go to the brewhouse, Gamblers, drunkards, prostitutes – bringing them together I sing of hope, sprinkling ashes from my soul’s pyre: In flocks the phoenix flies to the sky. (Amalendu Guha, 1960)
The year 2014 marked the 125 th birth anniversary and 50 death anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru. During that year the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust had organised a series of lectures assessing Nehru’s role in building independent India. Two of those…
One’s interpretation of the Nehruvian economic strategy (or the Nehru– Mahalanobis strategy as economist Sukhamoy Chakravarty [1987] had called it) depends naturally upon one’s conceptual framework; and it need not even coincide with that of the framers of the strategy.…
I shall talk today about the new metropolis and how important it is as a symbol of change. The announcement of a new metropolis is carefully timed and reflects the future aspirations of the rulers of the day. The announcement…
In spite of the damning indictment of India’s past in the colonial writings and the identification of communities with regions, resulting in the valorisation of some, while simultaneously trivialising others, much like concocting nationalities in the regions, to emphasise difference…
There is scarcely a society, throughout the empire, that British imperialism left undivided. The view that colonial rule in India was based upon the strategy of ‘divide and rule’ might seem to be a nationalist cliché, but is nevertheless substantially…