Customer Reviews

Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

NOTE: This review is for the 1997 edition.

This is an extremely brief review of about 200 years of history of the sub-continent, covering modern India, Pakistan and Bangladesh (with extremely brief nods to Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan). It is written for college- or graduate-level readers or, more likely, professors of Indian or Pakistani history. Because the two authors are far more interested in discussing trends in South Asian historiography than in actually reporting the facts, I do not recommend this book for anyone interested in history.

The book starts with ancient history (Mohenjodaro and Harappa) and covers through 1997 (with updated material in later editions), but it is clear that the authors are more interested in the late colonial period, and far more interested in Partition and post-Partition. They breeze through the pre-Islamic era and the Mughals quickly and shallowly. That's understandable and expected in a book on "Modern" South Asia, but when they come to the colonial period, they still devote more time to causes, effects, and intellectual cross-currents than to what actually happened. For a reader with a very solid foundation in sub-continental history, the focus on how modern scholarship has changed traditional understandings may be a welcome change from a bare recitation of the facts. But that means this is less a work of history, and more a work of historigraphy. I finished it knowing more about what scholars think about what happened in India than about what happened in India.

A few examples: the authors introduce the Indian National Congress on p. 107, but never explain what it is, who was in it, and what it did, except for what can be gleaned piecemeal over then next 140 pages. We are told on p. 122 that when "viceroy Hardinge made a ceremonial entry on an elephant into New Delhi in 1912, he was greeted with a Bengali revolutionary's bomb." So was Hardinge killed? The authors do not say. More to the point, who was Hardinge? A viceroy who rode an elephant once, is all I can get from the text. Apparently someone named Radcliffe was responsible for drawing the partition lines. Who was Radcliffe? The authors don't say (and in a book primarily focused on Partition, that is an especially unusual omission). Maybe the best example pertains to Gen. Zia ul Haq: "When Zia vanished into fire and ash in August 1988 the fiscal crisis of the state was visible to all" (p. 234). That's certainly evocative, but if you don't already know that he was killed in a plane crash, it's also quite bizarre.

The authors write of the 1857 revolt that "[i]t is simpler, certainly far less controversial, to catalogue the course and extent of the rebellion than to analyze its character" (p. 92). Undoubtedly true. And yet, in a history book, that seems an important thing to do. That sentence captures the essence of my view of the book: this is a history where the authors forgot the include the section on history.

Read this book if you already know the history of South Asia, and if you want an admirable bibliograhy. Otherwise, look elsewhere.

NOTE: If you find my review unhelpful, please tell me why in a comment.

I enjoyed reading this book, it is a concise and easy reading. It makes few but strong points--political economy of colonialism, freedom movement and also describes, what is known as the 'People's history' of South Asia. More focus has been given to Bengal, Punjab and Tamil Nadu. I wish there was some on more stuff on Sindh, NWFP, Nepal and so on.

A must read for those who are inteested in South Asia.

Although this book may serve to guide people through South Asia, it doesn't really explain or go into the complexities of the region. In the case of Pakistan we do not get a complete picture of its varied past as western Pakistan isn't South Asia, but is instead more Middle Eastern as it is populated by speakers of Iranian languages (as opposed to the Indic tongues spoken in eastern Pakistan) Pashtuns and Baluchis. Also the Hindu-Muslim struggles are reduced to religion rather than adding the linguistic and cultural divisions prevalent to this day. For being tauted as revisionist there seems to be little revisionism just different wording.

"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past" said George Orwell. Modern South Asia represents another attempt by Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal to wrest control of the past from those who control the present. Cutting right through the lies published in official history text books, Bose and Jalal make a clear, convincing and appealing argument: Partition was the result of misplaced assumptions and opportunism on the part of both Hindu and Muslim leadership. Classification of Muslims as a nation instead of a minority was initially only a tactic to ensure equal representation at the center. It is a great irony of history that it led to the disintegration of the same center. The book is generally well written although the poetry translations could be improved. It should, however, not be treated as a first introduction to the history of the region but as a commentary on partition which created the identities: indian and pakistani, and subsequent events which led to their objectification. A must-read.

The book does not provide nearly enough information to truly understand the complexities of the situations. It presents a somewhat biased view, as one author is Pakistani and the other is a member of Subhas Chandra Bose's family (and so naturally has less than glowing praise for the Congress leadership at the time of independence). The book is often repetitive, making the same points in multiple chapters. It attempts to sound more intellectual than it really is, through the use of complicated vocabulary, while presenting a rather simplistic history of the region. Overall, a disappointing book.

This is an eighth grade level account of India's history written in a high-sounding English. Also, this book assumes some familiarity by the reader with the past of India, but I think that if you already know that much, you do not need this book.
Perhaps, and only perhaps, the books suffers from mediocrity because the two authors, one of Indian and the other of Pakistani origin, had to make compromises in the emphasis they could jointly place on the aspects of modern India's history which are interesting to the younger generation. One such aspect is the causes and consequences of the partition of India, the role of three parties - the British, Indian National Congress and the Muslim League. The book seems to shy away in taking a hard and penetrating look at this. There are hardly any citations to original sources where one could look for more detail.
There are so many other good books where you can find modern Indian history covered at greater depth and width. If you have limited amount of money to spend to buy a good introductory book, then find another one.

This book will disappoint anybody with a decent knowledge of the history of India. While this book provides is a good general review of the events in the subcontinent over the last 300 years, it is not rigorous in its treatment of various events that have occured.

However, the authors have admirably condensed 300 years of history in a small text and thus the book merits three stars.

This book is one of the best introductory books to the history of modern South Asia. Well written by two revisionist historians, it gives an impressive overview of the partition of India. Although it is detailed enough to understand the complexities of South Asian history, it lacks depth. Good bibliography.

The book lacks originality and boldness, that is required for a post-colonial understanding of the past 300 years of Indian history.