Who Is Bharat Mata? On History, Culture and the Idea of India

Who Is Bharat Mata? On History, Culture and the Idea of India PDF Author: Purushottam Agrawal
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789386702876
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 538

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Book Description
An unprecedented and timely collection of writings by and on Jawaharlal Nehru--the man who shaped newly independent India; and the icon whose legacy is the subject of intense and often angry debate today. 'Who is this Bharat Mata, whose victory you wish?' asked Jawaharlal Nehru--a leading light of the Indian freedom movement who would become the country's first prime minister--at a public gathering in 1936. And then he explained: the mountains and rivers, forests and fields were of course dear to everyone, but what counted ultimately were 'the people of India...spread out all over this vast land. Bharat Mata, Mother India, [is] essentially these millions of people, and victory to her [is] victory to these people.' This collection of writings and speeches by and on Nehru shows us the mind--the ideology, born of experience, observation and deep study--behind this democratic and inclusive idea of India. It is a book of particular relevance at a time when 'nationalism' and the slogan 'Bharat Mata ki Jai' are being used to construct a militant and purely emotional idea of India that excludes millions of residents and citizens. 'Who Is Bharat Mata?' contains selections from Nehru's classic books--An Autobiography, Glimpses of World History and The Discovery of India; his speeches, essays and letters from the pre- and post-Independence years; and some of his most revealing interviews. The concluding section of the book comprises reminiscences and assessments of Nehru by his contemporaries--among them, Mahatma Gandhi, Bhagat Singh, Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad, Aruna Asaf Ali, Sheikh Abdullah, Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, Ali Sardar Jafri, Martin Luther King Jr and Atal Bihar Vajpayee. In this carefully put-together anthology--which also carries an illuminating introduction--Nehru emerges as a remarkable man of ideas and action who had an instinctive understanding of India's civilizational spirit, as also a clear commitment to the scientific temper; and as a leader who, despite the compulsions of politics, remained a true democrat. His legacy continues to be extremely relevant--for, in the words of the editor, an understanding of 'Nehru's political and intellectual journey is a pre-condition for India's survival as a democratic polity and as a humane, compassionate society'.

Who Is Bharat Mata? On History, Culture and the Idea of India

Who Is Bharat Mata? On History, Culture and the Idea of India PDF Author: Purushottam Agrawal
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789386702876
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 538

Get Book Here

Book Description
An unprecedented and timely collection of writings by and on Jawaharlal Nehru--the man who shaped newly independent India; and the icon whose legacy is the subject of intense and often angry debate today. 'Who is this Bharat Mata, whose victory you wish?' asked Jawaharlal Nehru--a leading light of the Indian freedom movement who would become the country's first prime minister--at a public gathering in 1936. And then he explained: the mountains and rivers, forests and fields were of course dear to everyone, but what counted ultimately were 'the people of India...spread out all over this vast land. Bharat Mata, Mother India, [is] essentially these millions of people, and victory to her [is] victory to these people.' This collection of writings and speeches by and on Nehru shows us the mind--the ideology, born of experience, observation and deep study--behind this democratic and inclusive idea of India. It is a book of particular relevance at a time when 'nationalism' and the slogan 'Bharat Mata ki Jai' are being used to construct a militant and purely emotional idea of India that excludes millions of residents and citizens. 'Who Is Bharat Mata?' contains selections from Nehru's classic books--An Autobiography, Glimpses of World History and The Discovery of India; his speeches, essays and letters from the pre- and post-Independence years; and some of his most revealing interviews. The concluding section of the book comprises reminiscences and assessments of Nehru by his contemporaries--among them, Mahatma Gandhi, Bhagat Singh, Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad, Aruna Asaf Ali, Sheikh Abdullah, Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, Ali Sardar Jafri, Martin Luther King Jr and Atal Bihar Vajpayee. In this carefully put-together anthology--which also carries an illuminating introduction--Nehru emerges as a remarkable man of ideas and action who had an instinctive understanding of India's civilizational spirit, as also a clear commitment to the scientific temper; and as a leader who, despite the compulsions of politics, remained a true democrat. His legacy continues to be extremely relevant--for, in the words of the editor, an understanding of 'Nehru's political and intellectual journey is a pre-condition for India's survival as a democratic polity and as a humane, compassionate society'.

The Goddess and the Nation

The Goddess and the Nation PDF Author: Sumathi Ramaswamy
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822391538
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 402

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Book Description
Making the case for a new kind of visual history, The Goddess and the Nation charts the pictorial life and career of Bharat Mata, “Mother India,” the Indian nation imagined as mother/goddess, embodiment of national territory, and unifying symbol for the country’s diverse communities. Soon after Mother India’s emergence in the late nineteenth century, artists, both famous and amateur, began to picture her in various media, incorporating the map of India into her visual persona. The images they produced enabled patriotic men and women in a heterogeneous population to collectively visualize India, affectively identify with it, and even become willing to surrender their lives for it. Filled with illustrations, including 100 in color, The Goddess and the Nation draws on visual studies, gender studies, and the history of cartography to offer a rigorous analysis of Mother India’s appearance in painting, print, poster art, and pictures from the late nineteenth century to the present. By exploring the mutual entanglement of the scientifically mapped image of India and a (Hindu) mother/goddess, Sumathi Ramaswamy reveals Mother India as a figure who relies on the British colonial mapped image of her dominion to distinguish her from the other goddesses of India, and to guarantee her novel status as embodiment, sign, and symbol of national territory. Providing an exemplary critique of ideologies of gender and the science of cartography, Ramaswamy demonstrates that images do not merely reflect history; they actively make it. In The Goddess and the Nation, she teaches us about pictorial ways of learning the form of the nation, of how to live with it—and ultimately to die for it.

Awakening Bharat Mata

Awakening Bharat Mata PDF Author: Swapan Dasgupta
Publisher: Penguin Random House India Private Limited
ISBN: 935305530X
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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Book Description
The rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was much more than an ordinary electoral phenomenon: it brought to the fore two contrasting views of nationhood: between those who saw modern India in terms of secular republicanism and on the other hand were those who sought to blend technological modernity with the country's Hindu inheritance. The Right's ascendancy and the debates that accompanied it, anticipated many of the concerns that find reflection today in the United States and Europe. The phenomenon of Hindu nationalism was also a profound intellectual challenge to the loose Left-liberal consensus that had prevailed in India since Jawaharlal Nehru became Prime Minister in 1947. The idea of Hindutva and the political character of the BJP have been closely scrutinised by scholars, and the impulse has been to view India's Right-wing politics as either a variant of fascism or merely a collection of sectarian prejudices. In fact, the inspiration for the Right in India has come from multiple and often contradictory sources, including the influence of individuals such as Sarvarkar, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo, not to mention the Arya Samaj movement. This collection is an attempt to showcase the phenomenon of Hindu nationalism in terms of how it perceives itself. Many of the concerns that drive the Indian Right are located in the country's nationalist culture. In trying to locate some of the ideas, attitudes and beliefs that define the Indian Right, Awakening Bharat Mata also seeks to identify the nature of Indian conservatism and identify its similarities and differences with political thought in the West. This book is not about Hindu nationalism in power but as a social and political movement and its aim is to encourage a more informed understanding of an idea that will remain relevant in Indian life far beyond victories and defeats in elections.

‘The Mortal God'

‘The Mortal God' PDF Author: Milinda Banerjee
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110716656X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 455

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Book Description
This work explores how colonial India imagined human and divine figures to battle the nature and locus of sovereignty.

The Idea of India

The Idea of India PDF Author: Sunil Khilnani
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780374525910
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
"In his new introduction, Khilnani addresses these issues in the new perspectives afforded by events of the recent year in India and in the world."--BOOK JACKET.

Nehru

Nehru PDF Author: Shashi Tharoor
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1628721987
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
Shashi Tharoor delivers an incisive biography of the great secularist who—alongside his spiritual father, Mahatma Gandhi—led the movement for India’s independence from British rule and ushered his newly independent country into the modern world. The man who would one day help topple British rule and become India’s first prime minister started out as a surprisingly unremarkable student. Born into a wealthy, politically influential Indian family in the waning years of the Raj, Jawaharlal Nehru was raised on Western secularism and the humanist ideas of the Enlightenment. Once he met Gandhi in 1916, Nehru threw himself into the nonviolent struggle for India’s independence, a struggle that wasn’t won until 1947. India had found a perfect political complement to her more spiritual advocate, but neither Nehru nor Gandhi could prevent the horrific price for independence: partition. This fascinating biography casts an unflinching eye on Nehru’s heroic efforts for, and stewardship of, independent India and gives us a careful appraisal of his legacy to the world.

India, Empire, and First World War Culture

India, Empire, and First World War Culture PDF Author: Santanu Das
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107081580
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 495

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Book Description
This is the first cultural and literary history of India and the First World War, with archival research from Europe and South Asia.

Padmavat

Padmavat PDF Author: Purushottama Agravāla
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789353040239
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


The Discovery of India

The Discovery of India PDF Author: Jawaharlal Nehru
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


Hitler And India

Hitler And India PDF Author: Vaibhav Purandare
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 9356293163
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 149

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Book Description
Hitler's autobiography, Mein Kampf, is a perennial bestseller in India, with even street-side bookstalls prominently displaying stacks of it. The name 'Hitler' -- anathema almost everywhere else in the world -- is tossed about casually in the Indian subcontinent, not infrequently invoked in praise. Many Indians still harbour the notion that the Fuhrer was a friend of the Indian people and had extended wholehearted support to their freedom struggle. To journalist Vaibhav Purandare, this clearly suggested that Indians continued to be largely unaware of the German dictator's views on India, in spite of the fact that they are unambiguously expressed in his own writings. This lacuna spurred him on to delve into the archives -- in Germany, India and elsewhere. The result of Purandare's research is this comprehensive and painstaking portrait and analysis of Hitler's outlook on India and its people, his opinion of their struggle against the British Raj, and his take on Indian history, culture and civilisation. Also within these pages are surprising details of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's entanglement with the Reich, the experience of other Indians living in Nazi Germany, the mission that Hitler sent to the Himalayas in search of 'pure-blood Aryans', and a number of other little-known historical nuggets. Accessible and rich in detail, Hitler and India is the very first examination of what India meant to a figure who, perplexingly, remains quite alive in the country.