Who Is Bharat Mata? On History, Culture and the Idea of India

Who Is Bharat Mata? On History, Culture and the Idea of India

Author: Purushottam Agrawal

Publisher:

Published: 2019-06-10

Total Pages: 538

ISBN-13: 9789386702876

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An unprecedented and timely collection of writings by and on Jawaharlal Nehru--the man who shaped newly independent India; and the icon whose legacy is the subject of intense and often angry debate today. 'Who is this Bharat Mata, whose victory you wish?' asked Jawaharlal Nehru--a leading light of the Indian freedom movement who would become the country's first prime minister--at a public gathering in 1936. And then he explained: the mountains and rivers, forests and fields were of course dear to everyone, but what counted ultimately were 'the people of India...spread out all over this vast land. Bharat Mata, Mother India, [is] essentially these millions of people, and victory to her [is] victory to these people.' This collection of writings and speeches by and on Nehru shows us the mind--the ideology, born of experience, observation and deep study--behind this democratic and inclusive idea of India. It is a book of particular relevance at a time when 'nationalism' and the slogan 'Bharat Mata ki Jai' are being used to construct a militant and purely emotional idea of India that excludes millions of residents and citizens. 'Who Is Bharat Mata?' contains selections from Nehru's classic books--An Autobiography, Glimpses of World History and The Discovery of India; his speeches, essays and letters from the pre- and post-Independence years; and some of his most revealing interviews. The concluding section of the book comprises reminiscences and assessments of Nehru by his contemporaries--among them, Mahatma Gandhi, Bhagat Singh, Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad, Aruna Asaf Ali, Sheikh Abdullah, Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, Ali Sardar Jafri, Martin Luther King Jr and Atal Bihar Vajpayee. In this carefully put-together anthology--which also carries an illuminating introduction--Nehru emerges as a remarkable man of ideas and action who had an instinctive understanding of India's civilizational spirit, as also a clear commitment to the scientific temper; and as a leader who, despite the compulsions of politics, remained a true democrat. His legacy continues to be extremely relevant--for, in the words of the editor, an understanding of 'Nehru's political and intellectual journey is a pre-condition for India's survival as a democratic polity and as a humane, compassionate society'.


Book Synopsis Who Is Bharat Mata? On History, Culture and the Idea of India by : Purushottam Agrawal

Download or read book Who Is Bharat Mata? On History, Culture and the Idea of India written by Purushottam Agrawal and published by . This book was released on 2019-06-10 with total page 538 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An unprecedented and timely collection of writings by and on Jawaharlal Nehru--the man who shaped newly independent India; and the icon whose legacy is the subject of intense and often angry debate today. 'Who is this Bharat Mata, whose victory you wish?' asked Jawaharlal Nehru--a leading light of the Indian freedom movement who would become the country's first prime minister--at a public gathering in 1936. And then he explained: the mountains and rivers, forests and fields were of course dear to everyone, but what counted ultimately were 'the people of India...spread out all over this vast land. Bharat Mata, Mother India, [is] essentially these millions of people, and victory to her [is] victory to these people.' This collection of writings and speeches by and on Nehru shows us the mind--the ideology, born of experience, observation and deep study--behind this democratic and inclusive idea of India. It is a book of particular relevance at a time when 'nationalism' and the slogan 'Bharat Mata ki Jai' are being used to construct a militant and purely emotional idea of India that excludes millions of residents and citizens. 'Who Is Bharat Mata?' contains selections from Nehru's classic books--An Autobiography, Glimpses of World History and The Discovery of India; his speeches, essays and letters from the pre- and post-Independence years; and some of his most revealing interviews. The concluding section of the book comprises reminiscences and assessments of Nehru by his contemporaries--among them, Mahatma Gandhi, Bhagat Singh, Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad, Aruna Asaf Ali, Sheikh Abdullah, Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, Ali Sardar Jafri, Martin Luther King Jr and Atal Bihar Vajpayee. In this carefully put-together anthology--which also carries an illuminating introduction--Nehru emerges as a remarkable man of ideas and action who had an instinctive understanding of India's civilizational spirit, as also a clear commitment to the scientific temper; and as a leader who, despite the compulsions of politics, remained a true democrat. His legacy continues to be extremely relevant--for, in the words of the editor, an understanding of 'Nehru's political and intellectual journey is a pre-condition for India's survival as a democratic polity and as a humane, compassionate society'.

The Goddess and the Nation

The Goddess and the Nation

Author: Sumathi Ramaswamy

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2010-04-09

Total Pages: 402

ISBN-13: 0822391538

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Making the case for a new kind of visual history, The Goddess and the Nation charts the pictorial life and career of Bharat Mata, “Mother India,” the Indian nation imagined as mother/goddess, embodiment of national territory, and unifying symbol for the country’s diverse communities. Soon after Mother India’s emergence in the late nineteenth century, artists, both famous and amateur, began to picture her in various media, incorporating the map of India into her visual persona. The images they produced enabled patriotic men and women in a heterogeneous population to collectively visualize India, affectively identify with it, and even become willing to surrender their lives for it. Filled with illustrations, including 100 in color, The Goddess and the Nation draws on visual studies, gender studies, and the history of cartography to offer a rigorous analysis of Mother India’s appearance in painting, print, poster art, and pictures from the late nineteenth century to the present. By exploring the mutual entanglement of the scientifically mapped image of India and a (Hindu) mother/goddess, Sumathi Ramaswamy reveals Mother India as a figure who relies on the British colonial mapped image of her dominion to distinguish her from the other goddesses of India, and to guarantee her novel status as embodiment, sign, and symbol of national territory. Providing an exemplary critique of ideologies of gender and the science of cartography, Ramaswamy demonstrates that images do not merely reflect history; they actively make it. In The Goddess and the Nation, she teaches us about pictorial ways of learning the form of the nation, of how to live with it—and ultimately to die for it.


Book Synopsis The Goddess and the Nation by : Sumathi Ramaswamy

Download or read book The Goddess and the Nation written by Sumathi Ramaswamy and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2010-04-09 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Making the case for a new kind of visual history, The Goddess and the Nation charts the pictorial life and career of Bharat Mata, “Mother India,” the Indian nation imagined as mother/goddess, embodiment of national territory, and unifying symbol for the country’s diverse communities. Soon after Mother India’s emergence in the late nineteenth century, artists, both famous and amateur, began to picture her in various media, incorporating the map of India into her visual persona. The images they produced enabled patriotic men and women in a heterogeneous population to collectively visualize India, affectively identify with it, and even become willing to surrender their lives for it. Filled with illustrations, including 100 in color, The Goddess and the Nation draws on visual studies, gender studies, and the history of cartography to offer a rigorous analysis of Mother India’s appearance in painting, print, poster art, and pictures from the late nineteenth century to the present. By exploring the mutual entanglement of the scientifically mapped image of India and a (Hindu) mother/goddess, Sumathi Ramaswamy reveals Mother India as a figure who relies on the British colonial mapped image of her dominion to distinguish her from the other goddesses of India, and to guarantee her novel status as embodiment, sign, and symbol of national territory. Providing an exemplary critique of ideologies of gender and the science of cartography, Ramaswamy demonstrates that images do not merely reflect history; they actively make it. In The Goddess and the Nation, she teaches us about pictorial ways of learning the form of the nation, of how to live with it—and ultimately to die for it.

Awakening Bharat Mata

Awakening Bharat Mata

Author: Swapan Dasgupta

Publisher: Penguin Random House India Private Limited

Published: 2019-05-25

Total Pages: 448

ISBN-13: 935305530X

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The rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was much more than an ordinary electoral phenomenon: it brought to the fore two contrasting views of nationhood: between those who saw modern India in terms of secular republicanism and on the other hand were those who sought to blend technological modernity with the country's Hindu inheritance. The Right's ascendancy and the debates that accompanied it, anticipated many of the concerns that find reflection today in the United States and Europe. The phenomenon of Hindu nationalism was also a profound intellectual challenge to the loose Left-liberal consensus that had prevailed in India since Jawaharlal Nehru became Prime Minister in 1947. The idea of Hindutva and the political character of the BJP have been closely scrutinised by scholars, and the impulse has been to view India's Right-wing politics as either a variant of fascism or merely a collection of sectarian prejudices. In fact, the inspiration for the Right in India has come from multiple and often contradictory sources, including the influence of individuals such as Sarvarkar, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo, not to mention the Arya Samaj movement. This collection is an attempt to showcase the phenomenon of Hindu nationalism in terms of how it perceives itself. Many of the concerns that drive the Indian Right are located in the country's nationalist culture. In trying to locate some of the ideas, attitudes and beliefs that define the Indian Right, Awakening Bharat Mata also seeks to identify the nature of Indian conservatism and identify its similarities and differences with political thought in the West. This book is not about Hindu nationalism in power but as a social and political movement and its aim is to encourage a more informed understanding of an idea that will remain relevant in Indian life far beyond victories and defeats in elections.


Book Synopsis Awakening Bharat Mata by : Swapan Dasgupta

Download or read book Awakening Bharat Mata written by Swapan Dasgupta and published by Penguin Random House India Private Limited. This book was released on 2019-05-25 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was much more than an ordinary electoral phenomenon: it brought to the fore two contrasting views of nationhood: between those who saw modern India in terms of secular republicanism and on the other hand were those who sought to blend technological modernity with the country's Hindu inheritance. The Right's ascendancy and the debates that accompanied it, anticipated many of the concerns that find reflection today in the United States and Europe. The phenomenon of Hindu nationalism was also a profound intellectual challenge to the loose Left-liberal consensus that had prevailed in India since Jawaharlal Nehru became Prime Minister in 1947. The idea of Hindutva and the political character of the BJP have been closely scrutinised by scholars, and the impulse has been to view India's Right-wing politics as either a variant of fascism or merely a collection of sectarian prejudices. In fact, the inspiration for the Right in India has come from multiple and often contradictory sources, including the influence of individuals such as Sarvarkar, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo, not to mention the Arya Samaj movement. This collection is an attempt to showcase the phenomenon of Hindu nationalism in terms of how it perceives itself. Many of the concerns that drive the Indian Right are located in the country's nationalist culture. In trying to locate some of the ideas, attitudes and beliefs that define the Indian Right, Awakening Bharat Mata also seeks to identify the nature of Indian conservatism and identify its similarities and differences with political thought in the West. This book is not about Hindu nationalism in power but as a social and political movement and its aim is to encourage a more informed understanding of an idea that will remain relevant in Indian life far beyond victories and defeats in elections.

The Idea of India

The Idea of India

Author: Sunil Khilnani

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 1999-06-04

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 9780374525910

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"In his new introduction, Khilnani addresses these issues in the new perspectives afforded by events of the recent year in India and in the world."--BOOK JACKET.


Book Synopsis The Idea of India by : Sunil Khilnani

Download or read book The Idea of India written by Sunil Khilnani and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 1999-06-04 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In his new introduction, Khilnani addresses these issues in the new perspectives afforded by events of the recent year in India and in the world."--BOOK JACKET.

‘The Mortal God'

‘The Mortal God'

Author: Milinda Banerjee

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-04-19

Total Pages: 455

ISBN-13: 110716656X

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This work explores how colonial India imagined human and divine figures to battle the nature and locus of sovereignty.


Book Synopsis ‘The Mortal God' by : Milinda Banerjee

Download or read book ‘The Mortal God' written by Milinda Banerjee and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-19 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work explores how colonial India imagined human and divine figures to battle the nature and locus of sovereignty.

Producing India

Producing India

Author: Manu Goswami

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2010-01-26

Total Pages: 415

ISBN-13: 0226305104

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When did categories such as a national space and economy acquire self-evident meaning and a global reach? Why do nationalist movements demand a territorial fix between a particular space, economy, culture, and people? Producing India mounts a formidable challenge to the entrenched practice of methodological nationalism that has accorded an exaggerated privilege to the nation-state as a dominant unit of historical and political analysis. Manu Goswami locates the origins and contradictions of Indian nationalism in the convergence of the lived experience of colonial space, the expansive logic of capital, and interstate dynamics. Building on and critically extending subaltern and postcolonial perspectives, her study shows how nineteenth-century conceptions of India as a bounded national space and economy bequeathed an enduring tension between a universalistic political economy of nationhood and a nativist project that continues to haunt the present moment. Elegantly conceived and judiciously argued, Producing India will be invaluable to students of history, political economy, geography, and Asian studies.


Book Synopsis Producing India by : Manu Goswami

Download or read book Producing India written by Manu Goswami and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-01-26 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When did categories such as a national space and economy acquire self-evident meaning and a global reach? Why do nationalist movements demand a territorial fix between a particular space, economy, culture, and people? Producing India mounts a formidable challenge to the entrenched practice of methodological nationalism that has accorded an exaggerated privilege to the nation-state as a dominant unit of historical and political analysis. Manu Goswami locates the origins and contradictions of Indian nationalism in the convergence of the lived experience of colonial space, the expansive logic of capital, and interstate dynamics. Building on and critically extending subaltern and postcolonial perspectives, her study shows how nineteenth-century conceptions of India as a bounded national space and economy bequeathed an enduring tension between a universalistic political economy of nationhood and a nativist project that continues to haunt the present moment. Elegantly conceived and judiciously argued, Producing India will be invaluable to students of history, political economy, geography, and Asian studies.

Art and Nationalism in Colonial India, 1850-1922

Art and Nationalism in Colonial India, 1850-1922

Author: Partha Mitter

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 538

ISBN-13: 9780521443548

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Partha Mitter's book is a pioneering study of the history of modern art on the Indian subcontinent from 1850 to 1922. The author tells the story of Indian art during the Raj, set against the interplay of colonialism and nationalism. The work addresses the tensions and contradictions that attended the advent of European naturalism in India, as part of the imperial design for the westernisation of the elite, and traces the artistic evolution from unquestioning westernisation to the construction of Hindu national identity. Through a wide range of literary and pictorial sources, Art and Nationalism in Colonial India balances the study of colonial cultural institutions and networks with the ideologies of the nationalist and intellectual movements which followed. The result is a book of immense significance, both in the context of South Asian history and in the wider context of art history.


Book Synopsis Art and Nationalism in Colonial India, 1850-1922 by : Partha Mitter

Download or read book Art and Nationalism in Colonial India, 1850-1922 written by Partha Mitter and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 538 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Partha Mitter's book is a pioneering study of the history of modern art on the Indian subcontinent from 1850 to 1922. The author tells the story of Indian art during the Raj, set against the interplay of colonialism and nationalism. The work addresses the tensions and contradictions that attended the advent of European naturalism in India, as part of the imperial design for the westernisation of the elite, and traces the artistic evolution from unquestioning westernisation to the construction of Hindu national identity. Through a wide range of literary and pictorial sources, Art and Nationalism in Colonial India balances the study of colonial cultural institutions and networks with the ideologies of the nationalist and intellectual movements which followed. The result is a book of immense significance, both in the context of South Asian history and in the wider context of art history.

India, Empire, and First World War Culture

India, Empire, and First World War Culture

Author: Santanu Das

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-09-13

Total Pages: 495

ISBN-13: 1107081580

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This is the first cultural and literary history of India and the First World War, with archival research from Europe and South Asia.


Book Synopsis India, Empire, and First World War Culture by : Santanu Das

Download or read book India, Empire, and First World War Culture written by Santanu Das and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-13 with total page 495 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first cultural and literary history of India and the First World War, with archival research from Europe and South Asia.

The Discovery of India

The Discovery of India

Author: Jawaharlal Nehru

Publisher:

Published: 1981

Total Pages: 604

ISBN-13:

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Book Synopsis The Discovery of India by : Jawaharlal Nehru

Download or read book The Discovery of India written by Jawaharlal Nehru and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 604 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Liberalised India, Politicised Middle Class and Software Professionals

Liberalised India, Politicised Middle Class and Software Professionals

Author: Anshu Srivastava

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2021-09-05

Total Pages: 120

ISBN-13: 1000425126

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This volume explores the emergence, evolution and definition of the middle class in India. As a class created as the interpreters between the colonial rulers and the millions whom they governed in the pre-Independence era, the Indian middle class has existed in congruence with the state, occupying vital positions in state administration. Since Independence, this middle class underwent major sociological change as they live independent of the state, which affected their social, economic and political position, reaping benefits of liberalisation and globalisation through education and employment. An otherwise internally differentiated and heterogeneous group, the new Indian middle class often unifies itself to shape socio-political discourse that affects politics and policymaking, from domestic to international affairs. This volume analyses this class phenomenon through a close study of a new metropolitan middle class in India – the software professionals, emblematic of the 'new India’. It discusses this emerging class as a political category and their engagements with the state, democracy, political parties, issues of gender, basic necessities and social justice. Further, it discusses their social action and ‘middle class activism’ for issues such as environment, cleanliness and corruption, particularly highlighting its presence in the private sector and electronic media. A fresh perspective on India’s political milieu, this volume will be of interest to scholars and researchers of sociology, modern Indian history, political science, economics and South Asia studies.


Book Synopsis Liberalised India, Politicised Middle Class and Software Professionals by : Anshu Srivastava

Download or read book Liberalised India, Politicised Middle Class and Software Professionals written by Anshu Srivastava and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2021-09-05 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores the emergence, evolution and definition of the middle class in India. As a class created as the interpreters between the colonial rulers and the millions whom they governed in the pre-Independence era, the Indian middle class has existed in congruence with the state, occupying vital positions in state administration. Since Independence, this middle class underwent major sociological change as they live independent of the state, which affected their social, economic and political position, reaping benefits of liberalisation and globalisation through education and employment. An otherwise internally differentiated and heterogeneous group, the new Indian middle class often unifies itself to shape socio-political discourse that affects politics and policymaking, from domestic to international affairs. This volume analyses this class phenomenon through a close study of a new metropolitan middle class in India – the software professionals, emblematic of the 'new India’. It discusses this emerging class as a political category and their engagements with the state, democracy, political parties, issues of gender, basic necessities and social justice. Further, it discusses their social action and ‘middle class activism’ for issues such as environment, cleanliness and corruption, particularly highlighting its presence in the private sector and electronic media. A fresh perspective on India’s political milieu, this volume will be of interest to scholars and researchers of sociology, modern Indian history, political science, economics and South Asia studies.