12 August, 2012

State, Society and Economy in the Twenty-First Century: Canada-India Perspectives


State, Society and Economy in the Twenty-First Century: Canada-India Perspectives

Shasrti Indo-Canadian Institute 40th Anniversary Commemorative Volume

By- A.S. Narang (ed.)


The papers in the volume analyse the trends and patterns of relations between India and Canada in the context of both being poised to play an increasingly important role in the international arena. Both India and Canada are regional powers with a global leadership role. Canada, the second largest country in the world, and India, the second most populous, share a number of common values including a firm belief in democracy, the rule of law and respect for pluralism. The two are among the rare examples of successful federal polities with a parliamentary system of government.

While during the first ten years of India’s Independence the two countries had developed cordial and close relations to the extent of being called ‘Indo-Canadian entente’, the later decades of the twentieth century witnessed almost a freezing of those. The twenty-first century has begun with a renewed interest in the two countries. There is great scope in areas of economic and trade cooperation as well as security-military and non-military-   issues including environment.

The essays in the volume bring out new trends in strengthening Indo-Canada relations and hope for a positive growth. At the same time they highlight the challenges in the way. The volume is part of the various efforts initiated to enhance political and cultural understanding between two different nations belonging  to two different civilizations, but capable of contributing significantly in world affairs in a positive manner.




Amarjit S. Narang is Professor of Political Science at Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi and President, Shasrti Indo-Canadian Institute.







ISBN  978-81-7304-836-4    2009   398p.   Rs.995/ Pounds 55

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South Asia in 2008 : A Review



South Asia in 2008 : A Review

By- Hernaikh Singh and Tridivesh Singh Maini (eds.)


South Asia in 2008: A Review is a collection of papers written by researchers at the Institute of South Asian Studies in 2008. Focusing on significant developments in South Asia, this publication highlights the key issues that dominated the news in the subcontinent last year.

It examines positive developments in the South Asian region such as the return of democracy in several of the countries, economic growth and cooperation. These papers also cover some of the fundamental challenges facing the region, including terrorism, the economic slowdown and obstacles to socio-economic development among countries in the region. Attention is also given to South Asia’s relationship with the principal partners such as China, Russia, the United States and Southeast Asia.

This publication is intended as a comprehensive and current reference to the complex issues that shape the political, economic and social landscape of South Asia.


Hernaikh Singh is an Associate Director at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), National University of Singapore (NUS). He started his career with the then-Trade Development Board (now International Enterprise Singapore). He then joined the Singapore International Foundation before coming on board at the Institute.


Tridivesh Singh Maini is a Research Associate at ISAS.



ISBN  978-81-7304-830-2    2009   496p.   Rs.995/ Pounds 65

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Society, Religion and Patriarchy: Exploring Medieval Punjab Through Hir Waris


Society, Religion and Patriarchy: Exploring Medieval Punjab Through Hir Waris

By- Ishwar Dayal Gaur


The kind of social history of medieval Punjab, which has been attempted in this book, does not subscribe to a narrow communitarian emplotment of the people of the region. The author, has endeavoured to construct a fresh profile of the Punjabis from their own socio-cultural point of view.

The book involves investigations of the lived experiences and representations of everyday life of the people of medieval Punjab, who in the colonial and post-colonial historiography are presented as ‘Muslim’, ‘Sikh’ and ‘Hindu’ Punjabis. Gaur has assigned them a prefix ‘Punjabi’ and hence has presented the social and cultural profile of the ‘Punjabi’ Muslims, instead of reading them as ‘Muslim’ Punjabis. The book reveals the evolution of socio-cultural fusion in the land of five rivers, which a student of history discovers by employing folklore/people’s literature as source-material. Thus the selection of Hir Waris, as an unconventional source of history writing, is a methodological departure, particularly when intervention of political ideologies in the craft of writing social history has been active since long, and when the semantic of culture has shifted from diversities to difference.

The present study does not simply ‘reproduce’ the medieval Punjabi society as ‘reflected’ in Hir Waris; rather it seeks to unfold the folk legend of Hir-Ranjha in the wider political, social, cultural and religious contexts of medieval Punjab. The volume suggests that a society, its folklore and history are organically linked with one another.


Ishwar Dayal Gaur is Reader in History at the Department of Evening Studies, Panjab University, Chandigarh. He specializes in culture, literature and folklore. He has versified the cultural mosaic of Punjab in two collections of poetry.



ISBN  978-81-7304-826-5    2009   260p.   Rs.675/ Pounds 45

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Notions of Life in Death and Dying : The Dead in Tribal Middle India

Notions of Life in Death and Dying : The Dead in Tribal Middle India

By- Eva Reichel


This anthropological study, sparked off by fieldwork among the Ho of Orissa and Jharkhand, is about ‘The Dead in Tribal Middle India’ who continue to be involved in the lives of the living.

The structured ceremonious treatment of corpse and soul of the dead and the symbolic interaction of the mourners - kin and affines – provide for the actors’ orientation and guidance from ritual. The public expression of the emotional response towards the ‘organic event’ in grieving is socially informed and life-oriented as much as death-centred. It is indicative of a culture-specific concept which conceives of death as a drawn out tranformative process and of the dead as integrally linked to the living and rooted in a known cosmic - societal perspective. The social obligations enacted in the drama of death and life contribute to reproducing tribal society, revealing marked differences from the radically decentred Western notion of the human condition with its focus on the individual as representing the supreme value.

This volume explores the cultural logic surrounding the conceptual unity and continuity of life, death and afterlife by examining the social and ideational setting of tribal middle India. The main body of the study is an analysis of the meaning of death as conveyed in the ethnographic literature on the Hill Juang of Keonjhar, the Sora in eastern Orissa, the Koya of Malkangiri, the Muria Gond of Bastar and the Ho of Singhbum and Mayurbhanj. The material on the Ho discussed here has so far not been published or is only locally accessible. Apart from anthropologists and sociologists, this volume will be of considerable interest to South Asian scholars, especially those working on Orissa and Jharkhand.



Born in 1948, Eva Reichel studied English language and literature and worked as a teacher. After retiring she read social anthropology at the Free University of Berlin where she currently is a lecturer at the Institute of Ethnology.



ISBN 81-7304-823-4 2009 124p. Rs.425/ Pounds 35

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Medicine, Disease and Ecology in Colonial India: The Deccan Plateau in the Nineteenth Century


Medicine, Disease and Ecology in Colonial India: The Deccan Plateau in the Nineteenth Century

By- Laxman D. Satya


Colonial Deccan like the rest of British India had all the social, economic, and material ingredients for the proliferation of epidemic diseases. Its population lived in the most unsanitary conditions, consumed contaminated water, and was crowded for space, living in wretched houses, extremely poverty stricken, sunk in debt, and suffered from serious food shortage and malnutrition. Diseases claimed lives on a regular basis even in the ‘officially’ designated non-famine and non-drought years. Failure to look at the material condition of the masses was in fact a reflection of not only the oppressive nature of British imperialism in India but also the insensitivity of European colonizers. The existence of mass poverty and its denial by the colonial state made the situation worse. This book argues that the reason for dysentery, diarrhoea, and bowel complaints was really malnutrition, undernourishments, and the general poverty of the masses.

Even though all the diseases were intimately associated with colonial modernization, yet the British imperial medical establishment continued to blindly adhere to the non-contagion miasmatic ideology. When the imperial state covered hundreds of miles of roads and railways, diseases like cholera, malaria, smallpox, plague, influenza, etc., travelled and proliferated everywhere. The absence of proper infrastructural response from the imperial establishment, made these epidemics even more deadly. This long-awaited study shows how the infrastructual changes brought about by British colonialism created eological conditions for the diseases to become epidemic.


Laxman D. Satya is a Professor of History at Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania. This is his third book on the subject of British imperialism, political economy, agrarian, and environmental history.



ISBN  81-7304-314-0    2009   310p.   Rs.775/ Pounds 50

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10 August, 2012

Maulana Daud’s Candayan: A Critical Study


Maulana Daud’s Candayan: A Critical Study

By- Naseem A. Hines


Candayan is the pioneer work in a series of Sufi love-narratives, the Masnavis, composed in India. The Indo-Sufi Masnavi genre continued to flourish for over 500 years, resulting in a substantial volume of every rich literature. Candayan also served as a model for subsequent Masnavis, such as Kutuban’s Mrgavati and Jayasi’s Padmavat.

In the Mahakoshal region of Madhya Pradesh, Canaini, a pastoral folk-tale also known as Lorikayan, was very popular. Maulana Daud based his Candayan on this oral epic. Lorik lives in Govar, a town on the banks of the Ganges river, with his wife Maina. One day he catches a glimpse of Canda, the princess of Govar, and falls in love with her. Canda also loves Lorik, and both elope to be able to live together.

After many adventures, Lorik and Canda return to Govar to live with Lorik’s family.

Until recently it was believed that the Sufi love narratives of India were substandard works, not quite representative of the Indian morals, and did not meet the Indian literary standards.

Consequently, for years, the Hindi Masnavi literature remained neglected. This study opens a window into the true nature of the Masnavi, and invites the reader to take a new look at the Indo-Sufi Masnavi genre and determine its rightful place in the history of Hindi literature.




Naseem A. Hines teaches Urdu-Hindi languages and Literatures in the Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies at Harvard University. Her articles, fiction, and English translations of Urdu poetry have been published in a number of American and International Publications. She is now working on bringing out a Critical Edition of Candayan and its English translations.




ISBN 978-81-7304-619-0 2009 256p. Rs.645/ Pounds 45


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Mapping Criminal Justice Delivery in India: Towards Development of an Index


Mapping Criminal Justice Delivery in India: Towards Development of an Index

By- Pramod Kumar and Rainuka Dagar


Globalization and economic reforms process has changed the policing terrain. With the threat posed by terrorism, globalization of rights and crime, resurgence and reconfiguration of identity markets, the principles and scope of criminal justice system have to be redefined. It is, therefore, essential to address the fear and risk of crime, improve provisions for the security of individuals and their living environment by creating effective justice institutions and mechanisms that aim at the creation of a crime-free society. It is in this backdrop that the present work has given primacy to human rights and fair delivery of justice.

This instrument provides a framework to strengthen the delivery of justice. It uses an inclusive approach and links local cultural needs of justice with global standards of human rights. The criminal justice system is viewed holistically. The institutions of the police, the courts and the prisons are taken as part of the system performing specialized functions. The purpose of this mapping is to find out, how far the criminal justice system is accessible, effective and accountable. It also intends to capture the level of safety and security enjoyed by the citizens and the nature of access to justice across religion, race, caste and religion. This has been measured with the help of multiple indicators including those from the supply and demand side along with process indicators to capture a rounded view of policy progress.



Pramod Kumar is currently Director, Institute for Development and Communication, Chandigrah. He is on the Board of Directors of Global Altus Justice Alliance, The Hague. He has been a recipient of the Homi Bhabha Fellowship in 1988.

Rainuka Dagar is Regional Representative of the Altus Global Alliance in the Institute for Development and Communication, Chandigarh.





ISBN 978-81-7304-791-6 2009 278p. Rs.695/ Pounds 45


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