New books connected to South Asia research


New book about Jewish community in Andhra Pradesh

"The Jews of Andhra Pradesh – Contesting Caste and Religion in South India" is a new book authored by Yulia Egorova, Durham University, and Shahid Perwez, University of Bath. It is the first book of its kind, making a novel contribution to debates about what it means to be Jewish and examines ethnographically the way the time-old discourse about the Lost Tribes of Israel translates itself into the emergence of a Jewish community in the contemporary world. The book is devoted to the Bene Ephraim – a group of former untouchables in Andhra Pradesh who have claimed Jewish identity for themselves. Why would a community adopt Jewish identity as a social liberation strategy? What does it mean to be Jewish in the twenty-first century? Egorova and Perwez address these questions by focusing on this group in India whose unique circumstances provide a new perspective on communities claiming the status of the Lost Tribes of Israel. More information about the book.
Shahid Perwez is also a partner in a research project on ”Health, Gender, and Demography: A Socio-cultural study of Mother and Child Healthcare in two Indian states” with Dr. Torvald Olsson, School of Education and Environment, Kristianstad University, Sweden (more information about the project).


Collected essays by Pamela Price published in one volume

Orient Blackswan publishers have released a volume with the writings of Professor Pamela Price at the Department of Archaeology, Conservation and History, University of Oslo. The book  is entitled ”State, Politics, and Cultures in Modern South India: Honour, Authority, and Morality” and brings together ten of Pamela Price’s essays that appeared between 1979 and 2010, presenting studies from different political domains and linguistic areas.
Pamela Price has been a perceptive observer and analyst of the politics and cultures of southern India for more than three decades. She became interested in how the people in the region honour and respect those in public life while doing research in Madurai on Dravidian nationalism. She has also researched on similar issues in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. She was a member of SASNET’s board during the period 2001-06.
This volume of essays will be an invaluable guide for students of history and politics of southern India in both the colonial and modern periods. The book will also appeal to those interested in understanding the culture and politics of south India. More information.


New book on Religious Coexistence in old Danish colony Tranquebar

A book entitled "All Religions Merge in Tranquebar - Religious Coexistence and Social Cohesion in South India" written by Oluf Schönbeck together with Peter B. Andersen has been released by NIAS Press (NIAS Studies in Contemporary Asian History #8).
Tranquebar (modern Tharangambadi in Tamil Nadu, India) was once an old Danish colony. This has attracted the interest and enthusiasm of many Danes, including Oluf Schönbeck and Peter Andersen, who both has been involved in the Tranquebar Initiative by the National Museum of Denmark. The town of Tranquebar is an oasis of relative social cohesion and religious coexistence in a country often noted for being otherwise, and inspires a interest in returning in many. It was in part the exceptionalism of Tharangambadi that attracted the authors to undertake their study.
The book includes a discussion of the town's status as a world heritage site, and the work being undertaken to restore much of the old town. One of the organisations involved in this work has been the Danish Tranquebar Association, which has been especially involved in the restoration of Fort Dansborg. Recently a library was opened in connection with the Tranquebar Maritime Museum. At its inauguration, the vice-chairman of the association, Mr. Poul Petersen, presented a copy of the book to the library (see photo). More information.


New book about the impact of the agrarian crisis on women in Punjab, India

A book entitled "Those Who Did Not Die", about the impact of the agrarian crisis on women in Punjab, India has been published by SAGE. The book is written by Ranjana Padhi, a well-known New Delhi based activist and independent writer, who has worked with the women's organisation Saheli for many years.
Even as they produce food for society and its people, lives dependent on agriculture are barely able to make ends meet. The cost of food production far outweighs the returns; the peasantry is falling prey to indebtedness, both institutionalized and non- institutionalized. It is facing the severest of challenges, with even dalit landless labourers becoming victims of indebtedness and succumbing to suicide.
Based on a study done in eight districts of the Malwa region of the Punjab, this book uses quantitative data along with field work, narratives and interviews with peasant unions. Over 136 families have been interviewed where women as wives and mothers of the deceased speak of the aftermath of the suicide. 
The book outlines the distress borne by the family, including women, the children and the elderly in the aftermath of peasant suicides. By doing so, it interrogates the split between public and private; production and social reproduction; work and family. It highlights the determining character of capitalist-intensive agriculture in today's crisis times by focusing on women's reality and renewed hardships in a caste, class and patriarchal society. More information.


Fascinating history of the Christian minority in Pakistan

The Unconquered People. The Liberation Journey of an Oppressed Caste, by Dr. John O’Brien, with a PhD from Gregorian University Rome. He has spent twenty-five years in Pakistan working among its minorities in a variety of educational and development projects, while engaging in a dialogue with Islam. In what can be argued as one of the most detailed expositions on the origins of the Punjabi Christians in Pakistan, the book undertakes an arduous journey. It “explores the history, ethnography and liberation journey of the aboriginal, forest dwelling hunting tribe reduced to servitude by the Aryan conquests, who are called Chandala in classical Brahminic literature, designated as Chuhra in the census of India (1868-1931) and in contemporary Pakistan as Punjabi Christians.” With a population of 2.8 million, Christians are the largest minority in Pakistan and with limited material or studies on some aspects of their history the author has undertaken this venture to fill some much-needed gaps. Oxford University Press, Karachi, 2012.

 


New book on healing wounds after the war in Sri Lanka

The International Centre for Ethnic Studies in Sri Lanka (ICES) announces the publication of a new book entitled "Healing the Wounds - Rebuilding Sri Lanka after the War". The book is edited by Dr. Dhammika Herath at the Division of Peace and Development Research (PADRIGU), School of Global Studies, Gothenburg University, and Kalinga Tudor Silva, Professor of Sociology at the University of Peradeniya. 
Rebuilding the war-ravaged communities in Sri Lanka and healing the conflict survivors who continue to suffer from the wounds of the war present a major challenge for Sri Lankan society as it embarks on post-war reconstruction. While considerable progress has already been made regarding resettlements of IDPs and rebuilding physical infrastructure, corresponding efforts to rebuild the communities and heal the social and emotional wounds of the war have been lacking. Based on research conducted among the affected populations, this volume makes a strong a case for addressing the root causes of the war and rebuilding the war-torn communities with a view of achieving demilitarization, sustainable peace and human development. See release flyer. 


CBS launches volume on Transformation and Development in India and China

The Asia Research Centre at Copenhagen Business School (CBS) invites to the launch of "Transformation and Development: The Political Economy of Transition in India and China" (Oxford University Press), a volume of essays edited by Amiya Kumar Bagchi and Anthony P. D’Costa. 
In this volume, more than a dozen leading political economists share their expertise to provide a nuanced and critical appreciation of the process of Transformation and Development in the two largest and economically fast growing nations. Both countries are contributing to the realignment of the world economy at a time when advanced capitalist countries are reeling under a severe financial crisis. Yet both India and China in the process of transition are characterized by deep rural poverty, unprecedented forms of inequality and social and economic imbalances, excessive reliance on volatile export markets, brutal land grabs, and forms of ‘crony’ capitalism. More information.
The book launch takes place on Tuesday 19 February 2013, 15.00–18.00. Venue: Room Ks54, Copenhagen Business School, Kilevej 14,  Frederiksberg (closest metro station is Fasanvej). The event is free of charge, but registration is required. More information about the book launch.


New book on Medical Encounters in British India

A volume on "Medical Encounters in British India" has been released by the Oxford University Press. It is edited by Professor Deepak Kumar, History of Science and Education, Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies, at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi; and Raj Sekhar Basu, Associate Professor at the Department of History, University of Calcutta – and currently ICCR Indian Visiting Professor at the University of Vilnius.
The volume explores the nature of interactions between the East and the West in the field of medicine. It brings into focus conditions and historical processes through which there was an interaction between the social and medical domains, particularly under the rubric of colonialism. It discusses India's medical tradition and the challenges it faced when modern medical system entered the country; the exchange of knowledge between India and the west; and the influence of local medicinal knowledge on its colonial counterpart. The exchange of ideas and that of tradition was not a simple journey but rather a long and tortuous trajectory which was characterized by both assimilation as well as initiative which sought to differentiate one set of ideas from another. The level of interaction was seldom smooth and it was often ridden with the languages of dominance and hegemony. Through specific examples and case studies, the book also analyses various ailments and the changing medical domain from the point of view of the existing social norms/conditions. More information.


Kannan and Breman writes about India’s National Social Security Initiatives

On 11th January 2013, the Institute for Human Development (IHD) in New Delhi, and Oxford University Press (OUP) releases "The Long Road To Social Security - Assessing The Implementation Of National Social Security Initiatives for the Working Poor in India", a volume edited by Professor K.P. Kannan, Visiting Professor, IHD (and former Director, Centre for Development Studies in Thiruvananthapuram) and Jan Breman, Professor Emeritus at the University of Amsterdam. The book focuses on the fact that the Indian economy is characterized by a vast informal sector dominated by self-employed as well as hired labour without any employment and/or social security. There is a lack of security for the labouring poor in India. It is a critical study of the workings of two flagship national social security schemes initiated by the Government of India—the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (the national health insurance scheme). Fresh contributions made by senior scholars and researchers in the field, the essays provide rich data and analysis on social security schemes at work in five Indian states—Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala, Odisha, and Punjab. More information on the book. 


New book on Akhtar Hameed Khan – Pioneer of Microcredit

"Dr. Akhtar Hameed Khan – Pioneer of Microcredit & Guru of Rural Development" is a collection of ten articles and two poems on Dr. A.H. Khan, Pakistani social scientist and pioneer in the field of rural development and of microfinance. Dr. Khan is also the founder of the Bangladesh (previously Pakistan) Academy for Rural Development (BARD) and the Orangi Pilot Project (OPP) and was recognized by many academics, world leaders and global organizations, such as the World Bank, for his contributions to poverty alleviation. Dr. Khan passed away on October 9, 1999.
Author/Compiler Nasim Yousaf originally published this work in October 2012 (on Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader) as a tribute to Dr. A.H. Khan on his 13th death anniversary. The print version of the book has now been released. Go for the book on Amazon.com.


Volume IV of Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism now published

In September 2012, the fourth volume of the five volume Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism was published. It has been edited by Prof. Knut A. Jacobsen, University of Bergen, Norway (Editor-in-Chief for the entire series of Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism), assisted by Dr. Helene Basu, University of Münster, Germany, Dr. Angelika Malinar, University of Zürich, Switzerland, and Dr. Vasudha Narayanan, University of Florida, USA.
Volume IV of Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism presents a historical overview of Hinduism, covering significant periods from the Indus Civilization to contemporary India. In addition, the volume features more than 30 biographies dedicated to important figures of pre-19th century religious poets, teachers, and saints, alphabetically arranged. Special attention is given to the interchanges between Hinduism and other religions and traditions, and a separate section examines the connections between Hinduism and contemporary issues such as ethics, ecology, the Internet, tourism, and New Age spirituality. More information.


The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan releases new report on women, peace and security

The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA) invites to the release of its report "Missing the target - a report on Sweden's support for women, peace and security in Afghanistan" on November 9, 2012, 09.00 - 15.00 at Hilton Stockholm Slussen Hotel, Guldgränd 8, Stockholm. The report was written by Ann Wilkens on the initiative of the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan, Woman to Woman and Operation 1325. 
Report background: Despite pledges and contributions from Sweden and the international community in order to protect and promote women's rights and participation in Afghanistan, very little has changed for Afghan women. Recent years has seen a backlash regarding many previous improvements and it is women who most clearly shows their concern over the military withdrawal in 2014.
The report has been commissioned by a consortium of Swedish NGOs consisting of Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA), the Woman to Woman Foundation and Operation 1325. The objective is to analyse Sweden’s role in Afghanistan, based on its National Action Plan (NAP) for the implementation of UNSCR 1325.
About the author: Ann Wilkens is former Swedish ambassador to Pakistan and Afghanistan (2003-07) and former chair of SCA (2007-09). She is also a member of the Advisory Panel of the Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN) and has published a number of papers and reports on the Pakistan/Afghanistan region. More information. 


ISDP publication on India's Special Economic Zone policy

"India's SEZ Policy" by researchers Ebba Mårtensson and Per Olsson at the Institute for Security and Development Policy (ISDP) in Stockholm/Nacka is an interesting publication on India’s Special Economic Zone (SEZ) Policy. Over the last few decades India has emerged as an economic giant, and in 2000 the SEZ policy became part of  a strategy to maintain high growth and promote India’s manufacturing sector. However, according to the authors, India’s current SEZ policy does little to strengthen India’s economy and they argue that India should consider modifying its SEZ policy or abandoning it in favor of  broader economic reform. ISDP POLICY BRIEF No. 97 (3 July 2012). Go for the publication.


Pacific Affairs special issue on the impact of mobile phones in South Asia

In its September 2012 issue, the Pacific Affairs magazine has made a special theme on ”Celling South Asia: The Mobile Phone’s Impact on a Region”. Guest Editors Robin Jeffrey, Institute of South Asian Studies & Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore; and  Assa Doron, The Australian National University, introduces with an article entitled “The Mobile Phone in India and Nepal: Political Economy, Politics and Society”, followed by six other articles with a focus on the mobile phone's impact on culture, politics, economics and society in India and Nepal. The researchers being published include Subhashish Gupta from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bangalore; Sunil Mani from the, Centre for Development Studies (CDS) in Thuruvananthapuram; and Nimmi Rangaswamy from Microsoft Research in Bangalore. Go for Pacific Affairs special issue. 


Swedish security report on China and India – Great Powers on a Collision Course

The 2012 edition of the Swedish Defence Research Agency’s (FOI) annual publication, Strategic Outlook, was recently released. Included in the report is a chapter on Sino-Indian relations co-authored by FOI researchers Jerker Hellström and Kaan Korkmaz.  Go for the complete Strategic Outlook 2012 (pdf). The chapter on Sino-Indian relations, ”China and India – Great Powers on a Collision Course”, is on pp 76-84.

Jerker Hellström and Kaan Korkmaz.

The authors conclude that there are few reasons to believe that Sino–Indian relations will develop in a positive direction in the short term. Looking at this from a broader perspective, the trends seem to indicate a downward spiral. There is a risk that increased tension between China and India may lead to conflict. Both within the existing areas of friction and in new emerging domains where their interests collide. As the economic, political and military power of China and India grows, the two countries also improve their capabilities to assert their increasingly incompatible national interests. The need to project power has, in turn, produced new potential areas of conflict, further complicating their relations.
With an unresolved border dispute, divergent national interests and mutual mistrust, China and India’s relations are likely to be defined by increased tension and rivalry, according to the report.
Jerker Hellström is an East Asia analyst on the FOI Asia Security Studies Programme. He mainly studies issues regarding China and the Korean peninsula. His previous research at FOI has involved topics including China’s engagement in UN peacekeeping efforts, the Chinese presence in Africa and the EU arms embargo on China.
Kaan Korkmaz has previously worked as a consultant at FOI and is currently on an internship within FOI’s Asia Security Studies Programme. His main research is concerned with East Asian security.


Gendered practices of development in forest communities in India and Sweden

”Gender, Development and Environmental Governance. Theorizing Connections” by Associate Professor Seema Arora-Jonsson, Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Uppsala. Routledge, August 2012.
A major challenge in studies of environmental governance is dealing with the diversity of the people involved at multiple levels – villagers, development agents, policy-makers, private resource users and others – and taking seriously their aspirations, conflicts and collaborations. This book examines this challenge in two very disparate parts of our world, exploring what gender-equality, resource management and development mean in real terms for its inhabitants as well as for our environmental futures. Based on participatory research and in-depth fieldwork, Arora-Jonsson studies struggles for local forest management, the making of women’s groups within them and how the women’s groups became a threat to mainstream institutions. Insights from India, consistently ranked as one of the most gender-biased countries, are compared with similar situations in the ostensibly gender-equal Sweden. Arora-Jonsson also analyzes how dominant ideas about the environment, development and gender equality shape the spaces in which women and men take action through global discourses and grassroots activism. More information about the book.
SASNET members may buy the book at a discount price. Get this offer (as a pdf file).


A New India?: Critical Reflections in the Long Twentieth Century

Costa volumeA New India?: Critical Reflections in the Long Twentieth Century, volume edited by Anthony D'Costa, Professor in Indian Studies and Research Director at the Asia Research Centre, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. A critical examination of the notion of a ‘new’ India by exposing the many economic, social, and political contradictions that are integral to contemporary India, aimed at scholars and advanced students of contemporary India, comparative politics, and development studies; the intelligent and curious reading public interested in the rise of India. Includes foreword by Deepak Nayyar and chapters by Anthony P. D’Costa on ”New Interpretations of India’s Economic Growth in the Twentieth Century”; Kunal Sen on ”Continuity and Change: Notes on Agriculture in ‘New India’”; and Nitya Rao on ”The ‘New’ Non Residents of India: A Short History of the NRI”. Anthem Press, London, December 2010.
A paperback edition of the book is released in August 2012. More details here. 
The book will be officially launched in September 2012.


Ranjula Bali Swain writes about the Microfinance Impact

The Microfinance Impact, by Associate Professor Ranjula Bali Swain, Department of Economics, Uppsala University. Published by Routledge, London and New York, 2012.
Microfinance has enabled a positive change in the lives of the poor, by allowing them to receive small loans without collateral, build up assets, and buy insurance. In the recent years, however controversies, corruption, high interest rates, farmers’ suicides and political interference etc. have presented additional challenges. In a comprehensive scientific investigation of the Indian Self Help Group Bank Linkage (microfinance) Program (SBLP) that has covered more than 97 million poor households, Bali Swain discusses the emergence of SBLP in the context of the financial sector in India, its economic and social impact and the challenges that it encounters. Bali Swain argues that SBLP has positively impacted the lives of the members, leading to decline in vulnerability and greater asset creation. Empirical results demonstrate that on average, there is a significant increase in the empowerment of the women participants, revealing that economic factors, greater autonomy and changes in social attitudes have a significant role in empowering women. Contributing to the ‘minimalist’ and microfinance ‘plus’ debate, Bali Swain contends that training (especially business training) has a definite positive impact on assets. Effects of infrastructure and delivery mechanisms like linkage type are also explored.


Invisible India – important book on manual scavenging in India

An excellent and very important book entitled ”Adrishya Bharat” related to understanding of the caste system and practice of manual scavenging in India has been written by Bhasha Singh, Assistant Editor, Outlook Hindi. It is written in Hindi and has been published by Penguin Books, 2012. The book might be useful for students of South Asian Studies.
It is a narrative on the manual scavenging in India, an account of people, mostly women, carrying night soils on their heads. This book also talks about how these wretched of earth – who were never treated as human beings – are knocking at the closed doors of legislature, executive and judiciary.

The book is in two sections. First section deals with stories from visits to eleven states –  Kashmir, Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Bihar, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. It is a collection of some experiences of Baltiwalis of Kanpur, Dabbuwalis of Bengal, Tinawalis of Bihar, Tottikar of Andhra Pradesh and Watals of Kashmir. This book is different as it just not talks about the practice but also about the pain, the agony and the lives of the scavenger communities. Second section is about the legal, social and political hypocrisies which contribute to this practice. It exposes layers of lies of our socio-political system which protected this heinous practice even after 65 years of our country’s Independence.
Besides in-depth analysis, this is a well-documented book with latest data, charts, maps and photographs. The book also contains details of the scavenging castes across the country in a historical perspective.


Philip Oldenburg solves the puzzle of Indian-Pakistani divide

India, Pakistan, and Democracy: Solving the Puzzle of Divergent Paths, by Philip Oldenburg, research scholar at Columbia University, USA. Routledge 2010 (Indian edition distributed by Manohar). The book’s arguments are excellently summarized by Christophe Jaffrelot in an review essay entitled ”The Indian-Pakistani Divide. Why India Is Democratic and Pakistan Is Not” in Foreign Affairs April-May 2011. Read Professor Jaffrelot’s review.
Oldenburg dispels some common misunderstandings about India and Pakistan, the first being that they had similar experiences during the colonial era. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the British began gradually devolving power to local authorities in several provinces across India. They did not pursue such reform very far in the North-West Frontier Province and Punjab, two provinces that would make up the bulk of Pakistan after the 1947 partition. Both territories were important military recruitment grounds for the Raj and were located along its restive western frontier, where devolution was considered a security threat. Whereas several of the provinces India inherited from the Raj had experience with some democracy, Pakistan inherited two highly militarized provinces with no such background, laying the groundwork for the country's military-bureaucratic ethos. Even more, India was born with an intact bureaucratic apparatus in Delhi, whereas Pakistan had to build an entire government in 1947 under a state of emergency.

Pages