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Subject Area: India

 Poister, Geoffrey
2002 0-7734-7299-1 304 pages
This study determined that there are significant differences in subject content, visual style, and expression of cultural values in the photo collections, and that these are most strongly linked to differences in the parent culture, class, and gender. The effect of immigration is a dominant factor. “. . . until this book by Geoffrey Poister no one has done a systematic cross-cultural study of family photography. Poister not only looks at the private pictures of kin in their everyday worlds but also analyzes how family photography constructs family life. The author does not rely on methods that might distance him or us from his subjects, he gets close and personal using long interviews and participant observation on location, in homes. Poister reveals how photograph albums capture an idealized romantic version of the nuclear family. . . . By integrating the study of visual culture and family life, Poister’s innovative scholarship makes a contribution to many fields including sociology, anthropology, communications, and human development. This is both an insightful and richly descriptive book, one that will keep you reflecting about your own life and how you picture it.” – Robert Bogdan

 Arora, Daljeet
2008 0-7734-4796-2 308 pages
This work argues for the importance of studying rural India that is witnessing significant economic, political and social changes. Dr. Arora demonstrates for a village in Punjab, a north-west province of India, its complex embedded nature within regional, national and at times international network of relationships.
The author suggests that while Punjab gained considerably with changes in agricultural practices, little attention has been paid on ‘unintended consequences’ of change in relationships of production in the province and the role ‘social actors’ have played in developing adaptation strategies.

 Banerji, Naseem Ahmed
2002 0-7734-7209-6 248 pages


 Chowdhury, Purna
2007 0-7734-5347-4 348 pages
This work is about the narration of nation in the novels of Salman Rushdie and in post-Rushdie Indo-English fiction. It is an attempt to evaluate the articulation of national identity in these narratives as part of their endeavor to forge a postcolonial rupture with colonial history. While the tradition tries to retrieve its right to narrate its own story, the deep contradiction at the heart of these narratives is expressed in their conventions by which the “native” makes his reappearance in the postcolonial context and versions of nation often emerge as the underbelly of their colonial counterparts. While such projections of national identity may be a part of the still continuing colonial cultural legacy, the literary and academic success of such “exotic” ventures play no less significant a role in the production and proliferation of these narratives, mostly published in the West.

 Gardner, Peter M.
2000 0-7734-7819-1 280 pages
Dr. Peter Gardner’s ethnographic study of Paliyans is one of the most complete and up-to-date accounts of a South Asian hunting and gathering people. It covers the spectrum of Paliyan culture, from subsistence to medicine and word play, and it details the beliefs and practices which allow Paliyans to achieve their extreme egalitarianism and non-violence. Brief case studies throughout the account not only bring the people to life, they give the reader a sense of the rich, complex texture of Paliyan existence. The study uses recent perspectives and modes of analysis, situating the foragers in their time and place and employing tools such as fuzzy-set analysis. An appendix includes a topical Paliyan lexicon.

 Selvam, Solomon
2000 0-7734-7818-3 240 pages
This study shows that ‘caste’ and ‘class’ factors are in coalition as much as they are in opposition, that they are neither parallel nor compartmentalized but rather a dynamic process. Using the case of Vagaikulam, an average village in India, the study demonstrates that the caste-class dynamics are at work in all the major social aspects of life in the village: economics, business, politics, religion, culture and recreation.

 Ralston, Helen
1987 0-88946-854-0 150 pages
Focuses on the emergence and development of the Christian ashram (ashram: "a spontaneous community of seekers or disciples gathered around a spiritual leader, called a guru, who points a way toward salvation"). Classifies Christian ashrams as a new religious movement that seeks to amalgamate elements of traditional Christianity and traditional Hinduism in contemporary Indian society.

 Thompson, Frank
1992 0-7734-9158-9 164 pages
This study follows an evolution of thinking within the CISRS about Indian society, about the study of Indian religion, and about key social issues which are themselves replete with questions about the role of religion in social life. Thus, there are chapters exploring issues confronted by dalits (`the oppressed', Untouchables and other traditionally disadvantaged people), tribal people, and women.

 Sweetman, Will
1999 0-7734-7928-7 212 pages
Published in 1630, Henry Lord's book was the first in English to be entirely devoted to discussion of Indian religions, and represents the first serious attempt to go beyond reports by travellers of the strange religious beliefs and practices that they had observed in India. Lord was a chaplain, rather than a missionary, and made a serious attempt to understand the religions rather than condemn them. The display was used as a source by later European writers on Indian religions, most notably François Bernier. By identifying the relevant persons (mythological as well as historical), groups, texts and places, this critical edition does much to make Lord's work more accessible.

 Seenarine, Moses
2004 0-7734-6407-7 304 pages
This book explores the problems of how caste and gender issues are related to the education and empowerment of rural Dalit women in India. The key focus is on the presentation of Dalit female voices regarding their educational experiences. Specifically, this study explores the nature and role of education and its relationship to empowerment among thirty-three poor, rural Dalit women and girls who volunteered to become involved with an explicit women’s empowerment project, the Mahila Samakhya program in Karnataka (MSK) during the years 1994 to 1995. This book will be of interest to practitioners in the fields of development: sociology, cultural studies and education; caste, gender, post-modern and subaltern academics and students, the general public and policy makers in India; Dalits and Dalit women in particular.

 Saha, Antu
2007 0-7734-5260-5 248 pages
This study examines the interface between the cultural and political identities of people living on the international border between India and Bangladesh while discussing how the micro-differences of ethnic and cultural identities governed by religion of the people living on both sides of borderland have been institutionalized by the state in manifesting its political identities. Concerned with issues of identity, this book will be useful to Anthropologists, Sociologists, and Political Scientists interested in identity politics and strategic studies. Besides, the findings of the study will have great relevance for academicians, politicians, policy planners, social and political thinkers, social activists as well as the general reader interested in examining the vexed issue of border relations of India and Bangladesh. This book contains 10 Color photographs.

 Maxwell-Stuart, Peter G
2016 1-4955-0444-1 245 pages
Herodotos’ reputation as the teller of tall stories has undergone revision over the years. In India, he said, there were ants almost as large as dogs. The story was repeated many times by Greek authors and then by Roman, Byzantine, Arab, and Persian writers, before finding its way into Mediaeval and early Renaissance European literature. Attempts to rationalise the tale have centred upon the ants themselves. By the mid-twentieth century the puzzle appeared to be regarded as settled. However, based on studies of the etymology of various languages spoke in those area, and on anthropological investigations the book offers a new explanation of Herodotos’s story based on historical context rather than fantasy.

 Mathew, Mary T.
1996 0-7734-4236-7 242 pages
This book analyses the development of Tagore's heroines within the framework of the Bildungsroman, and also explores the ways in which the 'female Bildung' can be facilitated within a Hindu ideology. It examines gender development in Tagore in terms of both its privatized cultural context Western critical ideology.

 Peden, W. Creighton
1993 0-7734-9363-8 464 pages
Essays in this volume were selected from those presented at the ninth international social philosophy conference held in Dec.1991 at Gujarat University, Ahmedabad, India. The conference brought together thinkers from sixteen countries, discussing basic rights and the corresponding responsibilities that living in social communities involves. The conference was an especially valuable occasion for Westerners, who tend to think primarily in a "rights" mode, to discuss social issues with Indians, whose moral thinking tends to commence from the concept of "dharma" (duty or obligation). The papers here were chosen to be of the widest interest to readers, and to represent as much diversity of thought as possible.

 Harris, Ishwar
1998 0-7734-8352-7 272 pages
Provides insights into Gandhi's vision for India, and how his followers are building on his vision through a variety of constructive work programs. Includes brief biographies. “It is a work of admirable scholarly investigation and distinction. . . . goes far beyond anything that has heretofore been written about ‘Gandhians’ in the post-Gandhian period of India. . . . provides the reader with a very challenging and uplifting answer to those who claim that Gandhi’s dream is dead in India.” – Wendell Charles Beane

 Navarro-Tejero, Antonia
2005 0-7734-5995-2 188 pages
This book analyzes the intersections of gender, caste and the (re)telling of history in the narratives by two contemporary South-Asian women writers in English of Malayalam descent, Arundhati Roy and Githa Hariharan. The authors have chosen two novels: The Thousand Faces of Night (1992)– winner of the Commonwealth Prize for Best First Book– by Githa Hariharan; and The God of Small Things– winner of the Booker Prize in 1997– by Arundhati Roy. Githa Hariharan represents the reality for a considerable section of Indian womanhood inserted in a brahminical, high class environment, and Arundhati Roy depicts the fatal consequences of the inter-caste sexual relations in a supposedly caste-less Christian and at the same time communist community. The overall purpose of this study is to unravel, expose and analyze how these authors create new possibilities, using two main strategies: first, re-defining female subjectivity in the critical juncture of caste and gender, and second, by reinterpreting history. Telling stories, that is, creating history, is in itself a way of producing new entities, new identities. Consequently, from this angle, plotting family and lineage is very relevant. Roy’s and Hariharan’s stories call for a re-vision and transformation in the three main power structures–State, Religion and Family–subverting, thus, the canon and claiming the subalterns’ space in History.

 Martyn, John R. C.
1999 0-7734-8181-8 164 pages


 Gabriel, Theodore
1996 0-7734-8961-4 396 pages
This volume studies the dynamics of Hindu-Muslim relations in a hitherto little-known part of the province in India, North Malabar, paying special attention to the impact of external political powers on the communal situation. Besides the political history, it also examines social organization, habits of communality, intermarriage, mutual adaptations in literature, music, architecture, and other indications of cultural osmosis. Previously unused sources in the regional language, Malayalam, and the Alexander Bowland Papers on Malabar held by the National Library of Scotland provide important information of use to historians, sociologists, anthropologists, scholars of comparative religion, and political science.

 Wallis, Frank H.
2009 0-7734-4675-3 384 pages
This book examines British empire building in South Asia in the final decades of East India Company hegemony in India. It traces the history of military expeditions west of the Indus and north of the Sutlej rivers into Afghanistan, Sind, Gwalior, and Punjab. These are critical episodes in the history of empire as it manifested itself in the sub-continent in the middle of the nineteenth century, as an interdisciplinary case study to test theories of imperialism.

 Webster, John C. B.
1992 0-7734-9867-2 260 pages
This is the first attempt to write the history of the Dalit Christians. Between ten and fifteen percent of all Dalits in India are Christians. Between two-thirds and three-quarters of all Christians in India are Dalits. Dalit is an India term which means broken or oppressed, and refers to those also called untouchables. After a brief discussion of the origins of caste and untouchability, Webster traces their history within the context of the wider Dalit movement from the mass conversion movements of the late 19th century, through the religious competition and nationalist politics of the 1920s and 1930s, to the present post-independence period through 1990 when the government of India adopted a policy of compensatory or protective discrimination towards Dalits. The book concludes with a chapter on the history of Christian theological reflections vis-a-vis the Dalits.

 Meher, Rajkishor
2010 0-7734-3784-3 308 pages
Focuses on the three giant steel plants of India set up in the mineral rich tribal regions during the 1950s and 1960s. The study provides an account of the adverse consequences of displacement faced by the people and their ecosystem as a whole. It compares the three steel plants in terms of policy and implementation of the rehabilitation of the displacees from which useful lessons can be drawn for the future.

 Skop, Emily
2012 0-7734-2632-9 376 pages
A sociological examination of the immigration patterns of Asian Indians to the suburbs Phoenix, Arizona from 1965 to the present. It explores their housing patterns, as well as methods of overcoming racial, ethnic, and class barriers to their acceptance as American citizens, while also trying to hold onto their native born heritage. There is a lengthy discussion of the sociology of space, human geography, community formation, and native customs being transformed or even lost.

 Bongard-Levin, G. M.
2001 0-7734-3216-7 644 pages
Sharp controversy still exists concerning the origins of the peoples of India. This book draws upon extensive research, applying a unique technique of linguistic analysis. The author also compares and establishes close links between India’s two national heritages – the material one, based on most recent archeological discoveries by scholars from America, Britain, France, India, and Russia, and also the cultural legacy involving reference to various masterpieces of world literature. References are also made to the antique tradition during Alexander the Great’s campaign, Aristobulus, Diodorus Siculus, Nearchus, Plutarch, Ptolemy, Strabo, and others. The author expertly examines the art of various civilizations, dynasties and periods; as well as folklore and ritual. This book, the result of 45 years of work, will interest Indologists, Orientalists, philologists, and literary scholars, as well as those interested in the interaction among cultures, philosophies and religions. This book is in Russian.

 Callan, Richard J.
2003 0-7734-6673-8 188 pages
This monograph documents for the first time in publication the Guatemalan Nobel recipient’s intentional substratum of Hindu mythology. El Alhajadito is the dream of the god Vishnu creating our illusory world. The Asian identity of characters and incidents lies veiled in metaphorical language, but with knowledge of Hinduism the design emerges and the reader can perceive the Indian connection necessary for a cohesive understanding of this unusual work. Asian deities and beliefs then come to life in Asturias’s colorful metaphors, reflecting his conviction that mythology is the ancient literary means for expressing the doubts, desires, and conflicts of human experience. This monograph joins the few studies extant about this novel, and broadens the field that has only focused so far on the language. Indologists and others attracted to the religion of India will find their field unexpectedly serving as the basis of a novel epitomizing literary creativity.

 Balasubramanian, Radha
2013 0-7734-4357-6 296 pages
Tolstoy’s fictional works reflect a connection with Indian religious texts even before he had actually read them. His quest to read and assimilate ancient Hindu writing earned Tolstoy great respect- even reverence – from Gandhi and other Indian intellectuals such that Tolstoy took his place as a pre-eminent writer, thinker, and sage in India. Yet, much remained unexplored in regard to Tolstoy’s relationship with India and this book addresses the gaps in that research. (From the Preface)


 Lucas, Christopher J.
1990 0-88946-509-6 308 pages
Documentary reportage that provides a masterful portrait of Indian life and civilization in the early 1900s. An invaluable reference for specialists in South Asian Studies, students of Indian art and culture, historians of photography, and museum archivists: a rare set of images taken in India in the summer of 1906 by one of the foremost photojournalists of the day. With accompanying descriptive text.

 Cassels, Nancy G.
1991 0-7734-9686-6 169 pages
These essays assess some of the leading forces behind cultural encounter in the formative period 1785-1857. Assesses the importance of Orientalist scholars, the Utilitarian historian James Mill, soldiers and sepoys of the `Garrison State', and Evangelical missionaries in the colonial and, where sources permit, subaltern context of the East India Company regime.

 Markel, Stephen
1995 0-7734-9401-4 308 pages
This interdisciplinary study investigates the art-historical, textual, and epigraphical evidence examines the origin and development of the Indian planetary deities. With 52 illustrations.

 Kumar, F. L.
1991 0-88946-063-9 562 pages
Comprehensively treats the many alternate systems to Brahman consciousness: Jainism, Buddhism, Zen Charvakas, Nyaya, Vaisesika, Sankhya, Yoga, Mimamsa, and Vedanta. Takes note of the early chants, mantras, and prayers of the early thinkers.

 Chekki, Dan
2003 0-7734-6734-3 312 pages
This important book presents the quintessence of the Virasaiva philosophy as revealed in the dialogues of the Virasaiva philosophers and revolutionary mystics of the twelfth century. These spiritually stimulating and intellectually challenging discourses are reminiscent of the Dialogues of Plato. Virasaiva thinkers proclaimed and practiced a monotheistic ideal, and values associated with human rights, gender equality, liberty and fraternity, a strong work ethic, social justice, community service, cultural diversity, non-violence, environmental protection and sustainable development. This landmark volume is an indispensable authoritative resource for scholars and educated readers interested in religion, philosophy, and culture.

 Das, Dilip K.
2005 0-7734-6037-3 232 pages
A study of policing in six countries. These countries have some similarities but to a great extent are different. Several of these countries, India, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada have been influenced by the English approach to policing. Countries that were once colonies of the British Empire adopted the traditions and expectations of the British. Although these countries came under British rule there were differences in their culture and value system that were not eliminated by the British.

 Maxharraj, Uke
2011 0-7734-1502-5 379 pages


 Brumpton, Paul R.
2003 0-7734-6929-X 368 pages


 Harrington-Austin, Eleanor J.
1999 0-7734-7932-5 364 pages
This postcolonialist work locates Shelley in the context of England’s colonial venture in British India. It also ties together several major, seemingly disparate – and even competing - late-18th/early 19th-century discourses on British India, and illustrates how those discourses were later enlisted to serve the Imperialism of the English Raj. Shelley’s A Philosophical View of Reform, the guiding document of this study, demonstrates his knowledge of these debates and his own internalized contradictions concerning both English workers at home and Indian subjects abroad. Chapters include surveys of period issues of class, gender, race, and nationalism, their relationship to British India, and Shelley’s personal and literary treatment of them; English Orientalism concerning India and Indic elements in Shelley’s poetry; Utilitarian projects in India and England and Shelley’s reaction; Evangelical projects in India and England; Victorian imperialism.

 Carlton, Charles
2004 0-7734-6275-9 168 pages
This book is a multi-faceted study of the role of gardening in British India with several accompanying illustrations- it is a study of imperial history, environmental history, cultural history and women's history .

First, as a study in imperial history that shows how the British used landscape architecture to convey images of power to both themselves and the Indians.

Second, as a study in environmental history, this book traces the way in which the British established a whole series of Botanical gardens centered at Kew in London. Tea and cincinchona (an antidote for malaria) were imported to be grown in India, while opium was forcibly exported to China. Without cincinchona, imperialism would have been medically impossible and without tea or opium, imperialism would have not been immensely profitable.

Third, this is a study in cultural history, exploring how the British tried to modify India by creating their own cultural retreat - the hill station.

Finally, this book deals with women's history. Gardening became a means by which English women occupied themselves, creating a little England to alleviate the intense homesickness.

 Singh, Serjinder
2017 1-4955-0580-4 704 pages
This monograph traces the evolution of the naming process within the Sikh religion over the past five-hundred years in the context of social and political changes in the Sikh community. Initially, Sikh names weren't any different from those of their original religious communities.
The study includes a comprehensive lists of names compiled from historical and literary records and also from different genealogical records of ruling families and other historical sources.

 Tobin, Marilyn H.
2009 0-7734-4740-7 252 pages
The analysis of educational networks from a feminist perspective has not been substantially researched internationally. This study investigates the potential for networking as a leadership tool for change in not only classrooms, but also in school systems and the political arena.

 Dwivedi, A. N.
1982 0-7734-0167-9 152 pages
Traces the Indian elements in the poetry of Eliot with the focus of the book on The Waste Land and Four Quartets. Designed to interest both general readers and scholars with comparative and inter-disciplinary approaches to literature.

 James, Siby
2009 0-7734-4820-9 228 pages
This work examines literature’s inter-textuality with history and the discursive construction of language, sexuality and geopolitical space. It represents the first effort to elucidate the conventional essentialist notions regarding the archive of Maniprav lam, a hybrid language of Malayalam and Sanskrit, which was the dominant mode of literary production in Kerala from twelfth to fifteenth century A.D.

 Bhatnagar, R.S.
2008 0-7734-5115-3 208 pages
This work is the first sustained attempt of its kind to draw attention to the mystical side of Urdu poetry. The author goes on to show how the pantheistic form of mysticism appeared in Urdu poetry and how certain poets endeavored to reconcile mysticism with orthodox Islam. This book will appeal to scholars of mystical philosophy and Urdu literature.

 Good, Anthony
2004 0-7734-6397-6 358 pages
The temple of the god Kalugacalamurtti – the local name for Murugan, Siva’s younger son – is the largest economic enterprise in the town of Kalugumalai, South India, yet ostentatious display and devotionalism loom far larger in the conduct of its affairs than economic rationality, despite attempts at bureaucratic rationalism by successive governments.

This book describes this Hindu temple’s complex patterns of public liturgy and private worship, and explores the metaphysical themes which underlie them according to the Saiva Sidhhanta philosophy governing temple worship. It shows how temple rituals portray and enact the sexuality, kinship, and regality of the gods. It then recounts how temple economy and administration have changed over the past two centuries, how groups and interests within Kalugumalai town challenged the temple’s hegemony over their affairs, and how and why the Rajas of Ettaiyapuram, the temple’s hereditary Trustees, successfully resisted repeated government attempts to assume control of the temple over the past 50 years.

There have relatively few previous ethnographic studies of large Hindu temples and no other fieldworker has access to such detailed information on the orthodox and ceremonial economies of any Hindu temple in South India. The result is a unique synthesis of ethnographic and historical material.