17 August, 2012

Asia Annual 2007: Envisaging Regions

Asia Annual 2007: Envisaging Regions

By- H.S. Vasudevan and Anita Sengupta (eds.)



In Asia Annual 2007, contributors have engaged with the notion of ‘regions’ in Asia from the standpoint of various disciplines of social sciences. In their choice of regions under discussion, the contributors have tackled Asiatic Russia, Central Asia, West Asia and South Asia—which, interestingly, comprise the very regions that have attracted the greatest attention in the realm of Area Studies since the Cold War.



The articles in this volume have approached the question of ‘regions’ from the standpoint of history, international relations and economics, which bring out the interdisciplinary character of the imagination of any region. All the contributors have emphasized the amorphous character of the category of the ‘region’ itself. They have argued that the process of conceptualization of an ‘area’ or a ‘region’ is strongly rooted in the historial conjuncture when the concept
develops. A logical conclusion which could follow from such an understanding of the
category of ‘region’ is that there is little or nothing in the featuers of a ‘region’ (barring its geography) that is immutable. This calls for an interrogation of the very discipline of Area Studies itself. The volume also includes other essays, research notes, review articles and reviews of books.





Anita Sengupta Fellow, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies, Kolkatta.




ISBN 81-7304-755-3 2008 386p. Rs.975/ Pounds 55


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RSS’s Tryst with Politics: From Hedgewar to Sudarshan

RSS’s Tryst with Politics: From Hedgewar to Sudarshan


By- Pralay Kanungo



This RSS is perhaps the most controversial organization in contemporary India. This book explores the mission, method and motive of the RSS and suggests that the ideological core of the RSS- Hindu Rashtra- is political and not cultural. It argues that K.B. Golwalkar, his successor, despite his saintly appearance and overt distaste for ‘politics’, sharpened and amplified its ideology. Nevertheless, deep down the RSS remained political.

This book goes on to delineate how Balasaheb Deoras, the third chief, who did not have much of a fancy for ‘culture’, plunged into Indian politics on the organizational and ideological foundations created by his predecessors. Deoras seriously pursued the homogenizing agenda of the RSS to integrate different sections like the Dalits, tribals and women into the fold of the Hindu Rashtra, Rajendra Singh, the successor of Deoras, consolidated the political mission by getting control over the State and reaching out to civil society more effectively. K.S. Sudarshan, the present chief, while attempting to retain a tight control over State power, simultaneously reinforces Hindutva.

The author concludes by arguing that the RSS- from Hedgewar to Sudarshan- continues its tryst with politics to convert India into a Hindu Rashtra.

Highly readable and of contemporary relevance, this book would be of immense interest to political scientists, political sociologists and all those interested in present-day India.



Pralay Kanungo is Reader at the Department of Political Science, Ramjas College, University of Delhi. His current research is on aspects of Hindu identity and diaspora in the United States, for which he has been awarded a Fellowship by the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library, New Delhi.



ISBN 81-7304-506-2 2003 315p. Rs.325/ Pounds 00


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Sikh Identity: Continuity and Change

Sikh Identity: Continuity and Change

By- Pashaura Singh and N. Gerald Barrier (Eds.)



The collection of seventeen essays, two critical introduction, and a keynote speech, resulted from an International Conference on ‘Sikh Identity: Continuity and Change’ held at the University of Michigan in 1996.



The contributions are in four sections which include Introduction and Keynote Speech: Symbols of Identity and Sikh Tradition; Recent Contemporary Sikh Identity; Politics, Social Issues and Contemporary Sikh Identity. The scholarship covers a wide range of be’, a class notion of identity. Emphasized are the connections between formal, conscious and organized processes of institutional development/identity markers and the informal, unconscious and spiritual ways in which people come to know themselves. These in turn fashion responses to how others understand and accept identity. The papers address ‘Who is a Sikh?’ and provides insights from disciplines such as history, sociology, anthropology, political science and religion.



Doctrine, code of conduct, historical interpretation, authority and creative responses to changing circumstances are issues that do not lend themselves to easy solutions. Yet an open exchange of ideas and alternatives hopefully should reduce tension and lead to a resolution of differences acceptable to Sikhs as a whole. This volume makes a positive contribution toward that process.





Pashaura Singh, Assistant Professor of Sikh Studies at the University of Michigan, teaches and publishes regularly about Sikh tradition, religion and history.

N. Gerald Barrier, Professor of History at the University of Missouri- Columbia has published widely on Sikh and Punjab history. Among his recent works are edited volumes on the Sikh Diaspora and the interpretation of Sikhism within the diaspora.




ISBN 81-7304-401-5 2001 400p. Rs.350/ Pounds 00


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Social Stratification and Change in India

Social Stratification and Change in India

By- Yogendra Singh



The book offers a profile of Indian sociology in terms of its concepts and theories. It carries the reader through the creative historical period of Indian sociology following independence up to the end of the nineties. It reviews critically the studies conducted during this period on the themes of social change. Its focus is on the adequacy of concepts and theoretical schemes in these studies, but in course of this examination the dilemmas and structural contradictions in the process of social stratification and change in India have also been exposed. Prepared originally as trend reports on concepts and theories of social stratification and change in India the book carries a new and updated introduction on the two substantive themes in a conceptual theoretical perspective.

The book is in many ways sociology on Indian sociology. It exposes the foundations of concepts and theories on which most Indian studies on social stratification and change are based.



Yogendra Singh is Professor of Sociology in the Centre for the Study of Social Systems at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He has taught and lectured at several universities in India and abroad, and done field work in Asian countries.


ISBN 81-7304-188-1 2009 272p. Rs.180/ Pounds 00


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