Manohar Publishers and Distributors

03 August, 2012

M.A. Ansari: Gandhi’s Infallible Guide

By- Mushirul Hasan

While the ‘flickering lamp’ history has obscured the role of Mukhtar Ahmad Ansari, Mahatma Gandhi referred to his tenacity of character, his sense duty and his passion for Hindu-Muslim unity. For over two decades, his political career had been an extraordinary trek, attended by reverses and recoveries.

This book seeks a better understanding Dr. Ansari in relation to his political environment. In studying his ideas and engagements, M.A. Ansari: Gandhi’s Infallible Guide charts the course plotted by him in his ambition to become the leader of the Congress Muslims, a role which had eluded some of his leading contemporaries.

In this revised and enlarged version, Mushirul Hasan examines the politics of the 1920s and 1930s with skill and ingenuity. He avoids hagiography and demonology while bringing out all of Ansari’s strengths, as well as his weaknesses. Like many of his recent writings, he demonstrates his grasp of the detail of Ansari’s life with a magisterial ability to sweep the grand horizon. He contrasts his career with that of Mohammed Ali, the hero of the Khilafat days, with special emphasis on the impact of each upon the other.

Mushirul Hasan offers a corrective to the distorted image of the ‘Nationalist Muslim’. He refreshingly sheds much light on the pre- and post-Khilafat scenario, and illuminates, above all, Gandhi’s role which shaped the politics of the early 1920s. He describes the rise of the communal temperature vividly and exceptionally well.

Muhirul Hasan teaches at the Jamia Milia Islamia, New Delhi.

ISBN 978-81-7304-850-6 2010 340p. Rs.850/ pounds 50

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Histories of Intimacy and Situated Ethnography

By- Karen Isaksen Leonard, Gayatri Reddy and Ann Grodzins Gold (eds.)

Celebrating the world of Sylvia Vatuk, this volume highlights the intimate relationship between anthropology and history. The nine essays in this volume are authored by a range of scholars – anthropologists, historians, and folklorists – who have been inspired and influenced by Sylvia Vatuk’s extensive corpus of work on these disciplinary intersections as explored through her research on kinship and family history, gender, aging and the life cycle, and politics and the law.

The essays critically examine and extend Vatuk’s contributions to such intersections of historical and ethnographic work, exploring anew the ways in which constructions of culture are inextricably tied to specific historical and political contexts. The essays also stress the implications of such situated knowledge for contemporary understandings of history, culture, and politics in present-day India.

Apart from the editors the other contributors to this important volume are Helene Basu, Srimati Basu, Tarini Bedi, Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger, Pauline Kolenda, Gloria Goodwin Raheja, Helen E Ulrich, and Pnina Werbner.

Karen Isaksen Leonard is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of California Irvine, Irvine.

Gayatri Reddy is an Associate Professor Gender and Women’s Studies and Anthropology at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Her research lies at the intersections of sexuality, gender, health, and the politics of subject-formation in India, and more recently, within the immigrant South Asian queer community in the U.S.

Ann Grodzine Gold is a Professor of Religion and Anthropology at Syracuse University.

ISBN 978-81-7304-873-9 2010 312p. Rs.795/ Pounds 50

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Hindustani Music: Thirteenth to Twentieth Centuries

Hindustani Music: Thirteenth to Twentieth Centuries

By- Joep Bor, Francoise ‘Nalini’ Delvoye, Jane Harvey and Emmie te Nijenhuis (eds.)

North Indian or Hindustani art music has a wealth of vocal genres and instrumental styles, some of them rooted in the past and others of a more recent origin. Although Indian music is primarily an oral tradition, it has a long practice of written music theory. Through dozens of musicological treatises and other historical documents we know that changes in patronage and musical taste have had a profound effects on ragas, talas, style and repertoire.

This collection of twenty-five essays by prominent scholars provides a major overview of the history of Hindustani music from the thirteenth to the twentieth centuries, and the sources that make up this history. The essays are thematically arranged into five parts: (1) The Formative Period; (2) The Modern Period; (3) Musical Instruments; (4) Indian Music and the west, and (5) Concepts and Theories.

Addressing a broad range of issues, the authors raise questions about the sociocultural and political contexts in which new musical forms and instruments arose. Much attention is given to the developments that took place in the music life during the last three centuries, and to the impact of the colonial encounter and nationalism when Hindustani music acquired its modern identity.

Covering eight centuries, this 736-page volume has a comprehensive introduction and extensive bibliographies. With such a variety of topics and source materials, it is invaluable for anyone interested in Hindustani music and its history.

Joep Bor, a Professor at Leiden University , is the founder of the World Music Academy at Rotterdam Conservatory.

Francoise ‘Nalini’ Delvoye, a scholar of medieval Hindi literature and Indo-Persian culture, is Directeur d’etudes at Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris.

Jane Harvey has been involved with Hindustani music for around thirty years as a vocal student, publications editor, teacher and organizer.

Emmie te Nijenhuis, retired university professor of Indian musicology and member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences.

ISBN 978-81-7304-758-9 2010 720p. Rs.2750/ Pounds 130

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Ananda K. Coomaraswamy Essays on Music

Ananda K. Coomaraswamy

Essays on Music

By- Prem Lata Sharma (ed.)

Essays in Music is seventeenth in the series of the Collected Works of Dr. Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, in the IGNCA’s publication programme. These essays were published in a few books, journals, etc., mostly in the early years of the twentieth century.

Coomaraswamy held that music in countless ways had been bound up with the Indian national culture, for it was the most universal expression of emotion – religious, amorous or martial. Music belonged to every part of life. The flute of Krishna, the vina of Sarasvati, the dance of Shiva, the Gayatri as cosmic chant or music of the spheres; the hymns of passionate adoration of the Southern Saivite, all these belong to the association of music and religion.

In addition to the art music, he lays great emphasis on the folk songs of agriculture and crafts. This is music serving to lighten heavy labour, such as the songs of husbandmen, carters and boatmen. Music remained too intimately associated with religion, with drama and with life, whether courtly or popular, and was faithfully guarded by tradition.

Coomaraswamy was much against the harmonium and gramophone, when compared to stringed instruments; even the piano, he held, was an inferior instrument. Every time these mechanical instruments were used in place of man, the Indian musician was degraded, his living was taken away from him and the group soul of Indian life injured. Among musical instruments, he gave pride of place to vina.

He firmly believed that the importance of music in education can hardly be overestimated. He bemoaned that foreign (English) education had paralyzed the living impulses of Indians, and driven India to a state of social disintegration. He advocated that the restoration of Indian folk and art music to its proper place in Indian education would result in the understanding of the self-expression of India in her music.

Prem Lata Sharma, a distinguished scholar of Musicology, Sanskrit and Hindi, was Chairperson of U.P. Sangita Nataka Academy, Lucknow (1983-6), and Vice-Chancellor of the Indira Kala Sangita Vishwavidyalaya, Khairagarh (M.P.), (1985-8). She was also selected as Fellow of the Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi, in 1992.

ISBN 81-7304-611-5 2010 156p. Rs.500/ Pounds 40
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The Doctrine of Ultimate Reality in Sikh Religion: A Study of Guru Nanak’s Hymns in The Adi Granth

By- James Massey

Sikh religion though comparatively young among the world religions, has its adherents all over the world. Several good studies dealing with the teachings of Guru Nanak, its founder, and the general tenets of Sikh religion are available. Yet there is hardly any work which deals with the cardinal doctrine of Sikh religion.

The present study concentrating on the cardinal doctrine of Ultimate Reality in Nanak’s hymns attempts to fill this gap. It addresses such important questions as ‘Is the Ultimate Reality as seen by Nanak absolute or personal or both?’, ‘Is it transcendent or immanent or both?’, ‘How does Nanak address it or does it have any name?’, ‘Is this Reality with attributes or without?’, ‘What is the relationship of this Reality with the visible universe including human beings?’, ‘Can this Reality be known?’, ‘If so, how?’

The study is divided in five chapters. Starting with an introduction, the first chapter makes a detailed study of the key phrase of Mul Mantr, Ik Omkar based on the contents of Nanak’s hymns. Chapter two presents a brief survey of the various names used by Nanak for Ultimate Reality to facilitate proper grasp of deeper meanings of the doctrine. Chapter three examines the various attributes of the doctrine. One of the main attributes of the doctrine, viz. Karata has been separately discussed in the succeeding chapter. The key to the revelation of Ultimate Reality – gur prasadi had been studied in Chapter five. This is followed by a summary of the whole study and conclusion. A detailed glossary has been provided to facilitate understanding of various vernacular terms used in the book.

A perceptive work on Sikh religion in particular and comparative religion in general.

James Massey is currently the Director of the Centre for Dalit/Subaltern Studies and Community Contextual Communication Centre, New Delhi and Hon. Secretary of the Board of Theological Education of the Senate of Serampore College (University), West Bengal. Dr. Massey is Privatdozent, the Faculty of Protestant Theology at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

ISBN 81-85425-38-8 2010 176p. Rs.450/ Pounds 35
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Dissenting Voices and Transformative Actions: Social movements in a Globalizing World

By- Debal K. SinghaRoy (ed.)

This collection of essays examines the emerging patterns of social movements taking shape all over the world locally and also cutting across the geographical boundaries of the state and the nation globally. It not only critically analyses the conceptual underpinnings of the functional, symbolic interactional, Marxian, neo-Marxian, political process-resource mobilization, new social movement-identity, subaltern, Gandhian perspectives among others, but also delineates alternative viewpoints of social movement analysis. It focuses on the nature and forms of local resistance against global domination by pre-defined but rearticulated social categories like caste, race, tribe, and ethnic groups, and the emerging nature of the protest of women, farmers, students, and migrants in a changing scenario citing social movements taking place in North and South America, Eastern and Western Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia.

Both in terms of intensive empiricism and theoretical depth it is a unique treasure of intellectual contribution on social movement studies. This collection would be of immense use to students, researchers, teachers of sociology, political science, economics, history, social psychology and development studies, and also civil society activists, planners, executives and politicians dealing with the issues of social movement, conflicts, social developments, marginalization and social exclusion.

Debal K. Singh is Professor of Sociology, in the Department of Sociology, School of Social Sciences, Indira Gandhi National Open University. He is a recipient of the Australian Government Endeavour Fellowship, 2010.

ISBN 978-81-7304-869-2 2010 546p. Rs.1250/ Pounds 70

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Discovering Banda Bahadur

By- Surinder Singh

In this book, the author has attempted to tread a different path from the books written by various historians on Banda Bahadur. The period of 20 years (1688-1708) of Bairag, that Banda Bahadur spent before settling down at Nanded has been taken as dark period with no available historical account. Banda Bahadur spent these years amongst the Nagas, Sannyasis, Yogis, Gosains, Dasnamis, Dadupanthis and many other sects with their own akharas under charge of their own mahants. Large scale degeneration had set in amongst these bairagis eith the use of drugs, drinking, keeping women, fighting mercenary battles, trading and other commercial interests taking precedence over spiritual matters. Banda Bahadur did not take to the degenerated way of life of these warriors, but learned from them training of mind and body and battle strategy.

The meeting of Guru Gobind Singh with Madho Das (Banda Bahadur) has been cloaked in fanciful stories by almost all historians writing about the life of Banda Bahadur. These indiscreet stories have tarnished the guru’s image to some extent as well as Banda Bahadur’s image to a large extent. The merits of Guruji’s selection of Banda Bahadur and Banda’s achievements can best be judged from the quantum and quality of Banda Bahadur’s service to the Sikh Nation at the most crucial period of their survival.

This volume provides a much needed corrective to the history of one of medieval India’s greatest warriors.

Surinder Singh, retired in 1987 after over thirty years with Indian Defence Accounts. His publications include: Sikh Coinage: Symbol of Sikh Sovereignty (Manohar, 2004).

ISBN 978-81-7304-892-0 2010 414p. Rs.995/ pounds 60

MANOHAR PUBLISHERS & DISTRIBUTORS
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