06 November, 2012

Saffron Versus Green: Communal Politics in the Central Provinces and Berar 1919-1947


Saffron Versus Green: Communal Politics in the Central Provinces and Berar 1919-1947

By- Kanchanmoy Mojumdar

Communalism was a factor in the politics of the Central Provinces and Berar after the Montford Reforms. The problem of adjustment of the interests of the entrenched Hindu and emerging Muslim elite was coeval with the process of administrative changes brought about by successive constitutional measures adopted by the British government. The social fall-out of the problem was the riots that raged in the region.

This work is a pioneering attempt at tracing the course of communalism in this particular politically backward province. The role of the British administrators in this growth of communalism has been critically analysed alongside the involvement of their politically ambitious Indian collaborators. The influence of the Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS and many Congressmen’s involvement in the Hindu unity movement have been explained. This is the first full-length study of the growth of Muslim political activity in central India both before and after the Muslim League became a factor to reckon with in this region.


Kanchanmoy Mojumdar has given lectures and seminars at Australian and American universities under the Commonwealth Universities Interchange Programme and Fulbright (Indo-American Cultural Exchange) Fellowship scheme respectively. In 1996 and 2000 he taught a course on the history of Modern India at the University of Colorado at Boulder, USA.

He was a Reader at Behrampur University, Orissa and later Professor and Head of the Department of History, Nagpur University.




ISBN  81-7304-527-5  2003   260p.   Rs.550/Pounds 45

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RSS’S Tryst with Politics: From Hedgewar to Sudarshan


RSS’S Tryst with Politics: From Hedgewar to Sudarshan

Pralay Kanungo

This RSS is perhaps the most controversial organization in contemporary India. This book explores the mission, method and motive of the RSS and suggests that the ideological core of the RSS—Hindu Rashtra—is political and not cultural. It argues that K.B. Hedgewar the founder of the RSS, had a clear political mission, while M.S. Golwalkar, his successor, despite his saintly appearance and overt distaste for ‘politics’, sharpened and amplified its ideology Nevertheless, deep down the RSS remained political.

This book goes on to delineate how Balasaheb Deoras, the third chief, who did not have much of a fancy for ‘culture’, plunged into Indian politics on the organizational and ideological foundation created by his predecessors. Deoras seriously pursued the homogenizing agenda of the RSS to integrate different sections like the Dalits, tribals and women into the fold of the Hindu Rashtra. Rajendra Singh, the successor of Deoras, consolidated the political mission by getting control over the State and reaching out to civil society more effectively. K.S. Sudarshan, the present chief, while attempting to retain a tight control over State power, simultaneously reinforces Hindutva.

The author concludes by arguing that the RSS—from Hedgewar to Sudarshan—continues its tryst with politics to convert India into a Hindu Rashtra.

Highly readable and of contemporary relevance, this book would be of immense interest to political scientists, political sociologists and all those interested in present-day India.


Pralay Kanungo is Reader at the Department of Political Science, Ramjas College, University of Delhi. His current research is on aspects of Hindu identity and diaspora in the United States, for which he has been awarded a Fellowship by the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library, New Delhi.






ISBN  81-7304-506-2   2003   314p.   Rs.325/Pounds 18.99

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Punjab Politics, 1936–1939


Punjab Politics, 1936–1939

The Start of Provincial Autonomy
Governor’s Fortnightly Reports and other Key Documents

By - Lionel Carter (Comp. and ed.)

This volume produces the texts of 123 fortnightly reports and other documents sent to the Viceroy by the Governors of the Punjab or their secretaries between 1936 and 1939. The Governors’ descriptions of their many tours throughout the Province provide a vivid picture of the Punjab in these last self-confident years of the Raj. There is much discussion of political developments taking place within the various communities. Congress was relatively weak in the Punjab at the start of the volume but its growing importance is evident at the close. The volume is dominated by the personality and activities of the Muslim Premier of the ruling Unionist Party, Sir Sikander Hyat Khan. His negotiation of a Pact with Jinnah’s Muslim League in October 1937 was to prove a milestone of the pre-independence years. The documents show the problems which arose in the actual working-out of the arrangements then agreed.


For more than 10 years. Lionel Carter was a member of the team (led by Nicholas Mansergh) which produced the British Government’s series of Documents on the Transfer of Power to India, 1942-47. From 1980 until 1999, Carter served as Secretary and Librarian of the Centre of South Asian Studies at the University of Cambridge. Carter has compiled a volume of Chronicles of British Business in Asia, 1850-1960 (Manohar, 2002) and has edited Mountbatten’s Report on the Last Viceroyalty (Manohar, 2003).




ISBN  978-81-7304-568-4   2004   444p.   Rs.995/Pounds 60

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Power, Politics and Rural Development: Essays on India


Power, Politics and Rural Development: Essays on India

By- G.K. Lieten

Based on fifteen years of intensive anthropological and sociological fieldwork, this book presents provocative insights in the daily life of men and women in various villages of India.

The topics dealt with are varied as also important and policy relevant. The author deals with the propensity of the village panchayats and their actual working in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, the impact of land reforms on development, the causes of the high human development index in Kerala, communalism at the village level, the views of poor villagers on the post-modernist views on development, child labour and family views on children as capital, and with the changing world view in relation to religion, caste and the position of women.

The author deals with these issues drawing on a multifaceted background, taking care at the same time that the views of the villagers, and their daily concerns come through as the principal empirical evidence.


G.K. Lieten has a long-standing research interest in South Asia, which started with his studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi in the early 1970s. He has written and edited a dozen books on India, the latest of which deal with land reforms in West Bengal and the functioning of panchayats in Uttar Pradesh. He is presently working on the development debate and on issues related to child labour in various developing countries. Kristoffel Lieten is a professor at the University of Amsterdam, where he teaches development sociology, and is associated with the Amsterdam School of Social Science Research.




ISBN  81-7304-475-9  2003   284p.   Rs.575/Pounds 45

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