Reel India

‘Picture abhi baaki hai...’ If there’s one experience that unites India, it is cinema. In Reel India, award-winning film critic Namrata Joshi journeys through the interiors of the country intimately chronicling little-known accounts about the nation’s incessant obsession with the movies. In Lucknow, she encounters a Shah Rukh Khan fan who has embraced an alternate reality in which he lives and breathes the star. In Wai, she finds an entire economy fuelled by the film industry as the town transforms into a film set. An activist filmmaker in Odisha demonstrates how he teaches local tribal people the basics of his craft, empowering them to train the spotlight on issues threatening their habitat and livelihood. From the fever pitch of the ‘first day first show’ in makeshift halls to the rivalries of regional cinema, this is India’s immersion in the movies like it’s never been seen before. Filled with real-life stories that are as fascinating as the revelations and insights they offer, Reel India raises the curtain on the starry-eyed dreams and big-screen passions that live on after the final ‘cut’ is announced.

Based on new source material available in both England and India, India's Partition examines the partition in the context of the retreat of the British Empire. The freeing of India from British rule was the result of internal forces in both countries, while the split of the subcontinent along religious lines served as a harbinger for things to come. Panigrahi argues that partition was not a foregone conclusion and was not the favoured option for most of the main parties, but rather was the result of a unique set of circumstances. An erudite exploration of the highly complex relations between India and Britain leading up to independence and the split, India's Partition looks at the leaders who made far-reaching decisions - and their motivations - during this critical time.

Drawing on a wide range of archival evidence, Abigail McGowan argues that crafts seized the political imagination in western India because they provided a means of debating the present and future of the country.

Untouchable migrants made up a substantial proportion of Indian labour migration into Singapore in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. During this period, they were subject to forms of caste prejudice and discrimination that powerfully reinforced their identities as untouchables overseas. Today, however, untouchability has disappeared from the public sphere and has been replaced by other notions of identity, leaving unanswered questions as to how and when this occurred. The untouchable migrant is also largely absent from popular narratives of the past. This book takes the "disappearance" as a starting point to examine a history of untouchable migration amongst Indians who arrived in Singapore from its modern founding as a British colony in the early nineteenth century through to its independence in 1965. Using oral history records, archival sources, colonial ethnography, newspapers and interviews, this book examines the lives of untouchable migrants through their everyday experience in an overseas multi-ethnic environment. It examines how these migrants who in many ways occupied the bottom rungs of their communities and colonial society, framed transnational issues of identity and social justice in relation to their experiences within the broader Indian diaspora in Singapore. The book trances the manner in which untouchable identities evolved and then receded in response to the dramatic social changes brought about by colonialism, war and post-colonial nationhood. By focusing on a subaltern group from the past, this study provides an alternative history of Indian migration to Singapore and a different perspective on the cultural conversations that have taken place between India and Singapore for much of the island's modern history.

Weaving together the varied and complex strands of anti-colonial nationalism into one compact narrative, Christhu Doss takes an incisive look at the deeper and wider historical process of decolonization in India. In India after the 1857 Revolt, Doss brings together some of the most cutting-edge thoughts by challenging the cultural project of colonialism and critically examining the multi-dimensional aspects of decolonization during and after the 1857 revolt. He demonstrates that the deep-rooted popular discontent among the Indian masses followed by the revolt generated a distinctive form of decolonization movement—redemptive nationalism that challenged both the supremacy of the British Raj and the cultural imperatives of the controversial proselytizing missionary agencies. Doss argues that the quests for decolonization (of mind) that got triggered by the revolt were further intensified by the Indocentric national education; the historic Chicago discourse of Swami Vivekananda; the nonviolent anti-colonial struggles of Mahatma Gandhi; the seditious political activism displayed by the Western Gandhian missionary satyagrahis; and the de-Westernization endeavours of the sandwiched Indian Christian nationalists. A compelling read for historians, political scientists and sociologists, it is refreshingly an indispensable guide to all those who are interested in anticolonial struggles and decolonization movements worldwide.

In 2012, the Bombay High Court celebrated the 150th year of its existence. As one of three high courts first set up in colonial India in 1862, it functioned as a court of original and appellate jurisdiction during the British Raj for over 80 years, occupying the topmost rung of the judicial hierarchy in the all-important Bombay Presidency. Yet, remarkably little is known of how the court functioned during the colonial era. The historiography of the court is quite literally anecdotal. The most well known books written on the history of the court focus on humorous (at times, possibly apocryphal) stories about 'eminent' judges and 'great' lawyers, bordering on hagiography. Examining the backgrounds and lives of the 83 judges-Britons and Indians-who served on the Bombay High Court during the colonial era, and by exploring the court's colonial past, this book attempts to understand why British colonial institutions like the Bombay High Court flourished even after India became independent. In the process, this book will attempt to unravel complex changes which took place in Indian society, the legal profession, the law, and the legal culture during the colonial era.

Presents the documents of vital importance for writing such a history. The principle followed in listing the documents is chronological, and the following three volumes comprise a total number of three hundred and sixty documents, selected out of a total of 10,000 pages of material. These documents cover the protracted controversy between individuals and groups interested in laying railway in India, despatches of the Court of Directors of the East India Company and the Board of control headed by a British cabinet minister, and the Government of India in the early phase of its construction (1832-1853) etc. They are drawn from the minutes and notes of various Governors General of India (from Lord Dalhousie to Lord Curzon); reports made by the Consulting Engineers of Railway of the Government of India and the railway companies; despatches, minutes and notes of Secretaries of State for India and Government of India; despatches from British Residents of Native States, particularly those relating to the railway policies, selection of routes, acquiring of land for guaranteed interest, adoption of gauge, construction and extension of lines, fixation of rates and fares as well as the control and management of railways. Each of the documents presented here is provided with a title, a gist of contents, and the source reference; these are succeeded by the original document. The end notes comprise editiorial comments and, wherever necessary, cross-references. These volumes would serve as an important body of sources for reconstructing the history of Indian railways and in evaluating the impact of this venture on the economic situation as well as in integrating the sub-continent into a nation.