Ayesha Jalal

Sugata Bose

Professor of History and Diplomacy Director Center of South Asian and Indian Ocean Studies Sugata Bose

A new edition of this leading textbook that offers a rare depth of historical understanding of the politics, cultures and economies that shape the lives of more than a fifth of humanity.

History, Culture, Political Economy

Modern South Asia

'Ayesha Jalal's book is an important scholarly account of ... the partition of India in 1947.' American Historical Review

Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan

The Sole Spokesman

Jihad in South Asia

Partisans of Allah

Manto's life, times, and work across the India-Pakistan divide

The pity of partition

Self and Sovereignty surveys the role of individual Muslim men and women within India and Pakistan from 1850 through to decolonisation and the partition period. Commencing in colonial times, this book explores and interprets the historical processes through which the perception of the Muslim individual and the community of Islam has been reconfigured over time. Self and Sovereignty examines the relationship between Islam and nationalism and the individual, regional, class and cultural differences that have shaped the discourse and politics of Muslim identity. As well as fascinating discussion of political and religious movements, culture and art, this book includes analysis of: * press, poetry and politics in late nineteenth century India * the politics of language and identity - Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi * Muslim identity, cultural differnce and nationalism * the Punjab and the politics of Union and Disunion * the creation of Pakistan Covering a period of immense upheaval and sometimes devastating violence, this work is an important and enlightening insight into the history of Muslims in South Asia.

Individual and Community in South Asian Islam Since 1850

Self and Sovereignty

The fifth edition of Modern South Asia draws on the newest historical research and scholarship in the field to interpret and debate key developments in modern South Asian history and historical writing, covering the diverse spectrum of the subcontinent’s social, economic and political past. Jointly authored by two leading Indian and Pakistani historians, this definitive study offers a rare depth of historical understanding of the politics, cultures and economies that have shaped the lives of more than a fifth of humanity. This new edition on the 75th anniversary of independence and partition brings the narrative up to the present day, discussing recent events and addressing new themes such as the capture of state power in India by the forces of religious majoritarianism, economic development in the context of the ‘rise’ of Asia and strategic shifts occasioned by the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and China’s increasing role in the region. Providing fresh insights into the structure and ideology of the British raj, the meaning of subaltern resistance, the refashioning of social relations along lines of caste, class, religion and gender, the different strands of anti-colonial nationalism and the dynamics of decolonization, this is an essential resource for all students of the modern history of South Asia in an Indian Ocean and global context.

Delineates The Structural And Ideological Aspects Of The Late-Colonial And Post-Colonial State In India - Examines Binrnnynnnn Opposition Between Secular Nationalism Annd Religious Communalism - The Essays Attempt A Move Towards Offering Alternative Theories Of The State - 8 Essays - 2 Indexes - Well-Known Contributors.

State and Politics in India

Nationalism, Democracy, and Development

This book uses an innovative people-centered approach to the Kashmir problem to shed new light on why postcolonial partitions remain unfinished and why the wounds of postcolonial nation-state formation in South Asia continue to fester. "Kashmir" is viewed as a metaphor for the permanent internal wars of partition that mark the South Asian experience. Chapters sensitively bring Kashmiri voices to the fore to examine Kashmir in the national discourses of India and Pakistan, resistance in the Kashmiri imagination and the Kashmir conflict in a global context. The book foregrounds how the space of Kashmir as a cultural, historical and political sphere persists and continues to haunt the postcolonial national present as the people of Kashmir and their cultural, literary and artistic productions cannot be contained within the regnant paradigms of the nations across which the region is partitioned. Additionally, the book explores how long-term resolution would demand engagement with historical forces, political actors and social formations that exceed the nation-state. An important contribution to the study of this troubled region, this book will be of interest to academics and researchers of modern South Asian history and politics as well as comparative politics and international relations.

Kashmir and the Future of South Asia

In a probing biography of her native land, Ayesha Jalal provides a unique insider’s assessment of how the nuclear-armed Muslim nation of Pakistan evolved into a country besieged by military domination and militant religious extremism, and explains why its dilemmas weigh so heavily on prospects for peace in the region.

A Muslim Homeland and Global Politics

The Struggle for Pakistan

Today, more than ever, jihad signifies the political opposition between Islam and the West. As the line drawn between Muslims and non-Muslims becomes more rigid, Jalal seeks to retrieve the ethical meanings of this core Islamic principle in South Asian history. Drawing on historical, legal, and literary sources, Jalal traces the intellectual itinerary of jihad through several centuries and across the territory connecting the Middle East with South Asia.

The South Asian subcontinent is home to nearly a billion people and has been the site of fierce historical contestation. It is a panoply of languages and religions with a rich and complex history and culture. Drawing on the newest and most sophisticated historical research and scholarship in the field, Modern South Asia is written in an accessible style for all those with an intellectual curiosity about the region. After sketching the pre-modern history of the subcontinent, the book concentrates on the last three centuries from c.1700 to the present. Jointly written by two leading Indian and Pakistani historians, it offers a rare depth of historical understanding of the politics, cultures and economies that shape the lives of more than a fifth of humanity. In this comprehensive study, the authors debate and challenge the striking developments in contemporary South Asian history and historical writing. The book provides new insights into the structure and ideology of the British raj, the meaning of subaltern resistance, the refashioning of social relations along lines of caste, class, community and gender, the different strands of anti-colonial nationalism and the dynamics of decolonization. This book is a work of synthesis and interpretation covering the entire spectrum of modern South Asian history - social, economic and political. The authors offer an understanding of this startegically and economically vital part of the world.

Saadat Hasan Manto (1912-1955) was an established Urdu short story writer and a rising screenwriter in Bombay at the time of India's partition in 1947, and he is perhaps best known for the short stories he wrote following his migration to Lahore in newly formed Pakistan. Today Manto is an acknowledged master of twentieth-century Urdu literature, and his fiction serves as a lens through which the tragedy of partition is brought sharply into focus. In The Pity of Partition, Manto's life and work serve as a prism to capture the human dimension of sectarian conflict in the final decades and immediate aftermath of the British raj. Ayesha Jalal draws on Manto's stories, sketches, and essays, as well as a trove of his private letters, to present an intimate history of partition and its devastating toll. Probing the creative tension between literature and history, she charts a new way of reconnecting the histories of individuals, families, and communities in the throes of cataclysmic change. Jalal brings to life the people, locales, and events that inspired Manto's fiction, which is characterized by an eye for detail, a measure of wit and irreverence, and elements of suspense and surprise. In turn, she mines these writings for fresh insights into everyday cosmopolitanism in Bombay and Lahore, the experience and causes of partition, the postcolonial transition, and the advent of the Cold War in South Asia. The first in-depth look in English at this influential literary figure, The Pity of Partition demonstrates the revelatory power of art in times of great historical rupture.

Ayesha Jalal

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