The Bengal Army and the Outbreak of the Indian Mutiny

The Bengal Army and the Outbreak of the Indian Mutiny

By- Saul David

In 1857 the Indian troops of the Bengal Army rose against their colonial masters. They were quickly joined by tens of thousands of discontented civilians in what was to become the bloodiest insurrection in the history of the British Empire.

For much of the last century, Indian and British scholars downplayed the importance of professional grievances in their accounts of why the military insurrection of 1857 took place. Most viewed the Bengal sepoys as uniformed peasants who were affected by the same social, economic and religious concerns as their civilian counterparts. They tended to identify the defence of caste and religion as the key to the military uprising, while regarding the latter as little more than a precursor to a general revolt. Yet this study’s identification of professional concerns as the essential cause of the Indian Mutiny is very much in line with the recent historiography of military revolts.

All armies have grievances relating to conditions of service, particularly pay, career prospects and relations with officers. What set a colonial force like the Bengal Army apart is that it was a volunteer mercenary force officered by men of a different race and religion. Its loyalty to its paymasters, therefore, was entirely dependent on the incentives for service outweighing the disincentives. David argues that by 1857 this was no longer the case: primarily because the number and seriousness of the sepoys’ grievances was increasing, while the Bengal Army’s control over its soldiers was weakening.

Saul David is Professor of War Studies at the University of Buckingham in the UK, and the author of several critically-acclaimed books on the wars of the Victorian period.

ISBN  978-81-7304-780-0    2009   400p.   Rs.995/ pounds 60

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Territory, Soil and Society in South Asia

Territory, Soil and Society in South Asia

By- Daniela Berti and Gilles Tarabout (eds.)

This volume tackles a widespread stereotype in academic studies, according to which pre-colonial India consisted of territorial units with ill defined, fuzzy boundaries, and where territory had, and still has, little value as a cognitive category. In aiming to reconsider this perspective, the book follows two converging lines of enquiry. One explores the conceptions that stress the mutual determination of places and people, and the entrenchment of their identity in the soil. The other analyses historically and anthropologically the changing nature of the notion of territory, understood in its proper sense of a jurisdiction: an area where rights and power are exercised.

The investigation starts from the devaluation of religious territory in Vedic ritual texts, checks later developments of divine territories in relation to temples, details various types of ‘traditional’ jurisdictions, and ends up with an analysis of recent ethnicization of the Nation as shown in Hindutva produced videos. The book combines a diversity of sources (ethnographical, archival, textual and inscriptions), used by an international team of authors trained in different disciplines (Indology, history of religion, social anthropology). These approaches provide contrasting pictures of the plural conceptions and symbolic manipulations of territory in the Indian world from early times to the present day. The studies invite a comparison with other societies, based on the recognition of the historicity and plurality of territorial organizations that are at the core of human relationships.

Daniela Berti, a social anthropologist at the CNRS (Paris), has carried out fieldwork in Himachal Pradesh on rituals, on religion and local politics, and on the local entrenchment of Hindutva. She is currently leading an international project on judicial interactions.

Gilles Tarabout, a social anthropologist at the CNRS (Paris), has specialized in the study of Kerala’s society. He has co-edited volumes on violence and non-violence, religious mediumship, conceptions of the body, Islam and Christianity, transformations of rituals, conflicts and constitutionalism.

ISBN  978-81-7304-782-4    2009   380p.   Rs.950/ pounds 55

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Surrender at Dacca: Birth of a Nation

Surrender at Dacca: Birth of a Nation

By- Lt. Gen. J.F.R. Jacob

The campaign for the liberation of Bangladesh was short and swift, spread over some thirteen campaign days, conducted in riverine terrain highly suitable for defence.

The author describes events leading to the creation of Bangladesh, beginning with the Pakistan Army’s crackdown in East Pakistan on 26 March 1971, to the outbreak of full scale war following the Pakistani bombing of Indian airfields in the west on the evening of 3 December 1971 and the subsequent military operations leading to the surrender of Pakistan Eastern Command.

Outlining the evolution of the strategy for the campaign, he details the selection of thrust lines using subsidiary dirt tracks that bypassed centers of resistance and opened up axes of maintenance later. The objectives selected were communication centers in relation to the geopolitical heart—Dacca. A concise account of the execution of the campaign is given. He highlights the role of the Mukti Bahini and the great contribution they made towards the liberation of their country. He describes the pressures exerted at the Security Council and the pro-Pakistani stance of China and the United States as well as giving a first hand account of
the negotiations and the signing of the Instrument of Surrender.

The author draws lessons from the political and military aspects of the campaign and highlights the lack of clear directives both political and military and the adhoc higher command set up for war. The lessons of 1971 have yet to be learnt. This book will be of interest to general public, armed forces, staff and war colleges and all those concerned with the business of war.

Lt. Gen. Jack Jacob was born in Calcutta and commissioned into the Indian Artillery in June 1942. He saw active service with his regiment during World War II in the Middle East, Burma and later in Sumatra.

ISBN  81-7304-189-X                2011   264p.   Rs.450/ pounds 45

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Situating Federalism: Mechanisms of Intergovernmental Relations in Canada and India

Situating Federalism: Mechanisms of Intergovernmental Relations in Canada and India

By- Rekha Saxena

Canada in 1867 and India in 1950 adopted constitutions broadly similar in principle to the Westminster model prevalent in England but with the modification that they added on to a parliamentary framework of a federal component. Federalism created at least two orders of governments at the union and state levels with shared and demarcated jurisdictions. This feature of the governments in the two countries entailed the necessity of mechanisms of intergovernmental relations for negotiations, policy formulation, and political settlement of intergovernmental disputes. Initially less problematic in both countries, federal-provincial relations in Canada and union-state relations in India have become increasingly important with the growing federalization/regionalization in Canada since the post-World War II era and in India since the 1980s, especially 1990s.

This is the first book-length work on intergovernmental relations in India and Canada in a comparative perspective.

Rekha Saxena teahcers Political Science in Janaki Devi Memorial College, University of Delhi. She was awarded Shashtri-Indo Canadian Institute’s Doctoral (1999-2000) and Faculty Research Fellowship (2003) to visit Canada where she was affiliated with the Department of Political Studies and Institute of Intergovernmental Relations at the Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.

ISBN  81-7304-676-X    2006   356p.   Rs.795/ pounds 55

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Sanskrit-English Dictionary: Etymologically and Philologically Arranged with Special Reference to Cognate

Sanskrit-English Dictionary: Etymologically and Philologically Arranged with Special Reference to Cognate

Indo-European Languages

By- Sir Monier Monier-Williams

New Edition, Greatly enlarged and improved with the Collaboration of E. Leumann, C. Cappeller and Other Scholars

This classic volume is a reprint of the expanded Clarendon Press edition of 1899 completed by Monier-Williams just before his death.

In Monier-William’s own words: ‘It has consisted in adding about 60,000 Sanskrit words to about 120,000—the probable amount of the first edition; in fitting the new matter into the old according to the same etymological plan; in their justification by the insertion of reference to the literature and to authorities; in the accentuation of nearly every Sanskrit word to which accents are usually applied; in the revision and re-revision of printed proofs; until at length, after the lapse of more than a quarter of a century since the publication of the original volume, a virtually new Dictionary is sent forth.’

For students of Sanskrit, Vedic History and Comparative Philology this is the most comprehensive and useful Sanskrit-English Dictionary ever compiled.

Sir Monier Monier-Williams was born at Bomaby in 1819. He was appointed the Professor of Sanskrit, Bengali and Telugu in 1844 at the East India Company’s College at Haileybury. In 1860, he was elected the Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford, a post which he held till his death on 11 April 1899.

ISBN  81-7304-665-4    2006   1334p.   Rs.895/ pounds 95

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Return Emigrants in Kerala: Welfare, Rehabilitation and Development

Return Emigrants in Kerala: Welfare, Rehabilitation and Development

By- K.C. Zachariah, P.R. Gopinathan Nair and S. Irudaya Rajan

The book constitutes an attempt to construct a profile of migrants from Kerala to the Gulf region, on the basis of an extensive of survey of return emigrants and their households. The purpose of this study was to understand the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the emigrants at the various stages of emigration process—prior to emigration, during stay abroad and after return to Kerala. Another important aspect which is discussed is the costs and returns of emigration, the working and living conditions of emigrants in the destination region, the pattern of utilization of remittances back home and the problems of rehabilitation that the emigrants encounter after return.

While emigration in large numbers has assuaged the pain of massive unemployment in Kerala to a significant extent and raised the income levels of thousands of emigrants’ households by way of remittances, these processes have not led to a developmental take-off of the Kerala economy. While it is the duty of the government to help the returned emigrants whose emigration ended up in disaster and economic ruin (who constitute about one-fifth of the returned emigrants), the government may not find it justifiable to introduce social welfare programmers for the rest of them. However, the government may think of organizing welfare schemes and forming cooperatives of returned emigrants for undertaking projects, which they will be in a position to fulfill with discipline and dedication.

K.C. Zachariah currently Honorary Fellow at the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, was principal demographer at the World Bank, Washington D.C. Along with Professor S. Irudaya Rajan, Zachariah has conducted two large scale Kerala migration surveys in 1998 and 2003. He has to his credit several important books/monographs and articles on Kerala’s Demography.

P.R. Gopinathan Nair currently Honorary Fellow at the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, was earlier Head of the Department of Economics in the University of Kerala; National Coordinator, UNDP/Government of India project on National Strategies for Human Development in India and Programme Advisor, Kerala Research Programme on Local Level Development financially supported by the Netherlands government.

S. Irudaya Rajan is Fellow at the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram. He is the lead  author of the book, India’s Elderly: Burden or Challenge? Currently, he is coordinating two international projects on ageing—care of the elderly and healthy ageing.

ISBN  81-7304-675-1    2006   200p.   Rs.595/ pounds 45

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Reporting the Partition of Punjab 1947: Press, Public and other Opinions

Reporting the Partition of Punjab 1947: Press, Public and other Opinions

By- Raghuvendra Tanwar

The study is a novel attempt that chronicles Punjab’s partition while dealing with ‘partition itself’. The narrative weaves disparate local and national events, taking the reader back to 1947 in dimensions large in numbers and scope. Almost a day-to-day report of the Punjab through 1947, it restores the human dimension to a story that was essentially one of acute human misery.

Based mainly on 15 regional and national newspapers it closely examines the Punjab and its partition through letters, opinion columns, editorials, classifieds and photographs. Equal
emphasis is also laid on hitherto unused and unpublished sources; these include personal diaries, letters, memoirs and notes recorded by observant contemporaries including civil,
police and military field officers, culled from centers in India and the United Kingdom.

Tanwar breaks free of tutored statements of ‘so-called facts’ to provide new dimensions to crucial issues and events, challenging perceptions that have been held for long, seeking the ‘little histories’, the ‘local intensities’ the ‘local voices’, side stepping in the process the trend of downsizing, downplaying the tragedy of Punjab’s partition, a trend which has prevailed as part of a misplaced obligation to demonstrate oneness in writings on India’s struggle for freedom.

This book is exceedingly relevant to our present times, more so in view of the thawing process of relations between India and Pakistan. It is essential reading for those with interest in Punjab, both East and West, and colonial Indian history.

Raghuvendra Tanwar is Professor of Modern History at Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra.

ISBN 81-7304-674-3 2006 622p. Rs.1195/ Pounds 80


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