Manohar Publishers and Distributors: 11/07/12

07 November, 2012

Social and Cultural History of the Punjab : Prehistoric, Ancient and Early Medieval

By- J.S. Grewal

The ‘Punjab’ of this book is a metaphor for the geographical region surrounded by the Himalayas, the Great Indian Desert, the Aravali Hills and the river Jamuna. During a period of about 4000 years up to ad 1000, the cultural boundaries of this region did not coincide with its geographical boundaries and there were sub-regional differences as well. There was a great deal of interaction with the outside world and between sub-regions. The socio-cultural dynamics of the region are well reflected in the different periods of its history.

Seen from the regional angle, the Harappan civilization reveals sub-regional diversities and continuation in a rural setting. The Rigvedic culture appears to be a regional rather than an ethnic articulation. The formation of states within the region and its incorporation in empires set the stage for trade and urbanization, and for new socio-cultural formations. For the first time the great importance of Buddhism in the region gets underscored. Gradually, however, it was replaced by Shaivism, Vaishnavism and Shaktism.

Changes in religious history are related to the changing contexts of polity and economy in their bearing on the social order, languages, literature and the arts. The book should be of equal interest to the student, the professional historian and the general reader.

J.S. Grewal, formerly Professor of History and then Vice-Chancellor, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, and Director, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, is an eminent historian of the Punjab, and of medieval and modern Indian history in general.

ISBN 978-81-7304-565-3 2004 186p. Rs.465/Pounds 35

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Small Hands in South Asia: Child Labour in Perspective

By- G.K. Lieten, Ravi Srivastava and Sukhadeo Thorat (eds.)

Published in association with

Indo-Dutch Programme on Alternatives in Development

Child labour has become a hot issue. International attention has often been focused on South Asia, and initiatives have been undertaken to use pro-active policies, such as a trade boycott, to pressurise governments in India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh to implement a complete ban on child labour and to realize universal education.

A gathering of outstanding international scholars, financed by the Indo-Dutch Programme on Alternatives in Development, has discussed these issues on the basis of empirically grounded research papers. A selection of these papers has been edited for this volume.

The volume contains papers on the extent of child labour in South Asia (and the spread across regions and sectors), its correlation with education, some of the worst forms of child labour, and best practices. The papers are a good mix of social anthropology, economics and political science approaches.

The expertise of the contributors and their concern for what continues to be a stark reality in South Asia make this book an invaluable source of reference on the issue of child labour, academically rigorous and politically relevant. It will be highly relevant to policy makers, scholars, journalists and practitioners.

Kristoffel Lieten holds the Child Labour chair at the University of Amsterdam and at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam. He has been the chairman of the IREWOC Foundation (Institute for Research on Working Children) and has initiated several research projects on child labour and child agency.

Ravi K. Srivastava earlier worked at the University of Allahabad and is now professor of economics of the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. He has published extensively on the agrarian problem in India and has recently conducted various studies on human development, particularly on education, in the rural areas of north India.

Sukhadeo Thorat is a professor at the Centre for Regional Development at the Jawaharlal Nehru University and is the Director of the Indian Institute of Dalit Studies, New Delhi. He has published various articles on agriculture development, poverty, caste, the discrimination of dalits and inequality.

ISBN 978-81-7304-531-8 2004 342p. Rs.650/Pounds 50