This eleventh volume of G. B. Pant's Selected Works covers the sixteen-and-a-half months preceding independence in India. As Chief Minister of UP, Pant confronted communal tension in the wake of the "Direct Action" program of the Muslim League. This period also saw the influx of refugees from West Pakistan, as well as Pant's own efforts to preserve peace while also preparing the administration for new and impending challenges.
A reappraisal of the tumultuous Partition and how it ignited long-standing animosities between India and Pakistan This new edition of Yasmin Khan’s reappraisal of the tumultuous India-Pakistan Partition features an introduction reflecting on the latest research and on ways in which commemoration of the Partition has changed, and considers the Partition in light of the current refugee crisis. Reviews of the first edition: “A riveting book on this terrible story.”—Economist “Unsparing. . . . Provocative and painful.”—Times (London) “Many histories of Partition focus solely on the elite policy makers. Yasmin Khan’s empathetic account gives a great insight into the hopes, dreams, and fears of the millions affected by it.”—Owen Bennett Jones, BBC
Constitutional democracy is both a structure of governance and a way of providing an ideological perspective on governance. The 1950 Constitution of India established constitutional democracy in India and the narrative of the rise and consolidation of constitutional democracy in India cannot be understood without comprehending the politico-ideological processes that consolidated simultaneously both colonialism and constitutional liberalism. This book examines the processes leading to constitutionalizing India and challenges the conventional idea that the Constitution of India is a borrowed doctrine. A careful study of the processes reveals that the 1950 Constitution was the culmination of an ideational battle that had begun with the consolidation of the British Enlightenment philosophy in the early days of British paramountcy in India. The book therefore argues that constitutionalizing endeavour in India had a clear imprint of ideas which had its root in this philosophy. The study reveals a striking continuity of the same kind of ideological sentiments when the nationalists devised their own constitutionalizing design, visible in the 1928 Motilal Nehru report and which reappeared in the 1945 Sapru Committee report. Deviating from the conventional study of constitutional evolution of a polity, which is generally legalistic, this book explores the processes since the beginning of colonial rule in India which led to the conceptualization of constitutional democracy in a milieu engaging with arguments formulated by James and JS Mill. A detailed analysis of the roots of constitutional and political liberalism in India, this book sheds light on the material surrounding India’s constitutional development. It will be of interest to scholars in the field of Indian Political Theory, South Asian Politics and History.
"Pandit Ko bhi Salam hai aur maulvi ko bhi, mazhab na chahiye mujhe imaan chahiye." – Akbar Allahabadi “Rafi Ahmed Kidwai: Bridging Region and Nation” is a political biography of a congressman from Uttar Pradesh to whom nothing mattered but Indian freedom. During pre-partitioned days when greatest of the Muslims queued to Muhammad Ali Jinnah in his Pakistan movement, he stood his guns with resolute firmness. He was Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s closest colleague, India’s first communication Minister and was one of the two Muslims in the Nehru cabinet along with Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. He achieved miracles as Food and Agriculture Minister by his policy of food de-control. He was an administrative genius to the caliber of Sardar Patel, a nationalist Indian, and a humanist in truest term. This book is a product of extensive research on pre- partition Gandhian phase of UP congress vis-à-vis India as a whole. It will provide opportunity for the readers to peep inside the Congress organization in colonial era in the back drop of rising factionalism and communalism.
Tracing the complex and troubled relationship between the British Left and the nationalist movement in India in the years before Indian independence, Nicholas Owen's study looks at the failure of British and Indian anti-imperialists to create the kind of powerful alliance that the Empire's governors had always feared.
This Study Provides A Fairly Good Analysis Of Politics In Bihar During 1921-1937. The Nature Of The Congress Movement And The Articulation Of Communal Politics And The Incidence Of Communal Riots Are Critically Examined.
At the time when the national movement was still in its early stages, Madan Mohan Malaviya emerged as an enigmatic but commanding figure in the political landscape of India. This work reconstructs Malaviya’s ideal of nationalism, which was composite, constructive and creative and offers a fresh perspective on an important period of modern India’s political history. Utilizing new and authentic source material, this book traces Malaviya’s role in the freedom struggle, the people who supported him, his relations with other established political leaders of the country within and outside of the Congress party and how he saw his own actions and role in public life. Taking Malaviya as a particular example of subcontinental leadership, Jagannath Prasad Misra studies the method and manner of Malaviya’s nationalist propaganda. He shows that rather than being a restraining influence, Malaviya’s faith in constitutional politics and educational advancement laid a solid foundation for the uplift of the nation.
