The Nation and Its Fragments

The Nation and Its Fragments PDF Author: Partha Chatterjee
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691201420
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
In this book, the prominent theorist Partha Chatterjee looks at the creative and powerful results of the nationalist imagination in Asia and Africa that are posited not on identity but on difference with the nationalism propagated by the West. Arguing that scholars have been mistaken in equating political nationalism with nationalism as such, he shows how anticolonialist nationalists produced their own domain of sovereignty within colonial society well before beginning their political battle with the imperial power. These nationalists divided their culture into material and spiritual domains, and staked an early claim to the spiritual sphere, represented by religion, caste, women and the family, and peasants. Chatterjee shows how middle-class elites first imagined the nation into being in this spiritual dimension and then readied it for political contest, all the while "normalizing" the aspirations of the various marginal groups that typify the spiritual sphere. While Chatterjee's specific examples are drawn from Indian sources, with a copious use of Bengali language materials, the book is a contribution to the general theoretical discussion on nationalism and the modern state. Examining the paradoxes involved with creating first a uniquely non-Western nation in the spiritual sphere and then a universalist nation-state in the material sphere, the author finds that the search for a postcolonial modernity is necessarily linked with past struggles against modernity.

The Nation and Its Fragments

The Nation and Its Fragments PDF Author: Partha Chatterjee
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691201420
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Get Book

Book Description
In this book, the prominent theorist Partha Chatterjee looks at the creative and powerful results of the nationalist imagination in Asia and Africa that are posited not on identity but on difference with the nationalism propagated by the West. Arguing that scholars have been mistaken in equating political nationalism with nationalism as such, he shows how anticolonialist nationalists produced their own domain of sovereignty within colonial society well before beginning their political battle with the imperial power. These nationalists divided their culture into material and spiritual domains, and staked an early claim to the spiritual sphere, represented by religion, caste, women and the family, and peasants. Chatterjee shows how middle-class elites first imagined the nation into being in this spiritual dimension and then readied it for political contest, all the while "normalizing" the aspirations of the various marginal groups that typify the spiritual sphere. While Chatterjee's specific examples are drawn from Indian sources, with a copious use of Bengali language materials, the book is a contribution to the general theoretical discussion on nationalism and the modern state. Examining the paradoxes involved with creating first a uniquely non-Western nation in the spiritual sphere and then a universalist nation-state in the material sphere, the author finds that the search for a postcolonial modernity is necessarily linked with past struggles against modernity.

The Nation and Its Fragments

The Nation and Its Fragments PDF Author: Partha Chatterjee
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780195634716
Category : India
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description


Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World

Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World PDF Author: Partha Chatterjee
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 9780816623112
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
"If it isn't obvious from the title of this book that this is going to be full of postmodern jargon, it becomes clear quite quickly that Chaterjee prefers difficult terms like 'problematic', 'thematic' and 'discourse' without always defining them - he even admits his admiration for Rorty, Barthes, Foucault and Derrida. Nonetheless, underneath all of this verbiage is a strong and convincing argument about the three stages of nationalism in India: the moment of departure (epitomized by Bankimchandra Chatttopadhyay), the moment of manoeuvre (Gandhi) and the moment of arrival (Nehru). Chatterjee clearly shows how nationalism in India was akin to Gramsci's concept of the 'passive revolution' - i.e. merely a drive towards independence, not towards transforming or breaking up colonial instutions. He argues that, instead of supporting nationalism, we should instead challenge the marriage between reason and capital. From the title of this book one might expect Chatterjee to draw links to other anti-colonial nationalisms but he doesn't; rather he only discusses India (not even other parts of South Asia). While this approach doesn't really make this book too useful for examining anti-colonial nationalisms in general, for someone like me who has never read a book on Indian nationalism this is a good introduction." -- from Amazon.ca.

A Possible India

A Possible India PDF Author: Partha Chatterjee
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
Summary: Post 1947 political situation in India.

Routine Violence

Routine Violence PDF Author: Gyanendra Pandey
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804752640
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
This book investigates the ideological and political conditions that allow, and sanction, the undisguised political violence of our times. It is concerned with the regnant demands of nationalism and of history writing, and the unity and uniformity upon which these insist.

The Truths and Lies of Nationalism as Narrated by Charvak

The Truths and Lies of Nationalism as Narrated by Charvak PDF Author: Partha Chatterjee
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438487789
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
Written in the voice of the mythical atheist, naysayer, and general all-purpose heretic of Indian philosophy, The Truths and Lies of Nationalism as Narrated by Charvak presents a completely new way of telling the history of Indian nationalism. Severely criticizing the doctrines of both Hindu nationalism and pluralist secularism, it examines the ongoing debates over Indian civilization and recounts in detail how the present borders of India were defined by British colonial policy, the partition of 1947, and the integration of the princely states and the French and Portuguese territories. The emphasis is not so much on the state machinery inherited from colonial times but on the moral foundation of a new republic based on the solidarity of different but equal formations of the people. After a trenchant critique of the present-day conflicts over religion, caste, class, gender, language, and region in India, the book proposes a new politics of revitalized federalism. Intended for a general readership, and eschewing academic jargon, this book will be of interest to anyone concerned about the future of India.

A Princely Impostor?

A Princely Impostor? PDF Author: Partha Chatterjee
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691090313
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 460

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Book Description
In 1921 a traveling religious man appeared in eastern British Bengal. Soon residents began to identify this half-naked and ash-smeared sannyasi as none other than the Second Kumar of Bhawal--a man believed to have died twelve years earlier, at the age of twenty-six. So began one of the most extraordinary legal cases in Indian history. The case would rivet popular attention for several decades as it unwound in courts from Dhaka and Calcutta to London. This narrative history tells an incredible story replete with courtroom drama, sexual debauchery, family intrigue, and squandered wealth. With a novelist's eye for interesting detail, Partha Chatterjee sifts through evidence found in official archives, popular songs, and backstreet Bangladeshi bookshops. He evaluates the case of the man claiming, with the support of legions of tenants and relatives, to be the long-lost Kumar. And he considers the position of the sannyasi's detractors, including the colonial government and the Kumar's young widow, who resolutely refused to meet the man she denounced as an impostor. Along the way, Chatterjee introduces us to a fascinating range of human character, gleans insights into the nature of human identity, and examines the relation between scientific evidence, legal truth, and cultural practice. The story he tells unfolds alongside decades of Indian history. Its plot is shaped by changing gender and class relations and punctuated by critical historical events, including the onset of World War II, the Bengal famine of 1943, and the Great Calcutta Killings. And by identifying the earliest erosion of colonialism and the growth of nationalist thinking within the organs of colonial power, Chatterjee also gives us a secret history of Indian nationalism.

Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge

Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge PDF Author: Bernard S. Cohn
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400844320
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
Bernard Cohn's interest in the construction of Empire as an intellectual and cultural phenomenon has set the agenda for the academic study of modern Indian culture for over two decades. His earlier publications have shown how dramatic British innovations in India, including revenue and legal systems, led to fundamental structural changes in Indian social relations. This collection of his writings in the last fifteen years discusses areas in which the colonial impact has generally been overlooked. The essays form a multifaceted exploration of the ways in which the British discovery, collection, and codification of information about Indian society contributed to colonial cultural hegemony and political control. Cohn argues that the British Orientalists' study of Indian languages was important to the colonial project of control and command. He also asserts that an arena of colonial power that seemed most benign and most susceptible to indigenous influences--mostly law--in fact became responsible for the institutional reactivation of peculiarly British notions about how to regulate a colonial society made up of "others." He shows how the very Orientalist imagination that led to brilliant antiquarian collections, archaeological finds, and photographic forays were in fact forms of constructing an India that could be better packaged, inferiorized, and ruled. A final essay on cloth suggests how clothes have been part of the history of both colonialism and anticolonialism.

Fragments of Development

Fragments of Development PDF Author: Suzanne Bergeron
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472031414
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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Book Description
Connecting post-colonial and feminist scholarship to economic theory, this book explains how modern economics has helped to constitute an expert discourse of development that marginalizes alternative perspectives and practices. It assesses theories of modernization, structural adjustment, and globalization.

Nation And Its Fragments Colonial And Postcolonial Histories

Nation And Its Fragments Colonial And Postcolonial Histories PDF Author: Partha Chatterjee
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780195637472
Category : India
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description