Sparsh

Colonisation reshaped political authority, economies, cultures, identities, borders, labour systems and the production of knowledge. Decolonisation therefore cannot be understood only as the formal end of imperial rule. It also involves continuing debates over memory, identity, representation, inequality and power. This revised reading list brings together history, political thought, memoir, social criticism and selected literary works from India, Africa, Palestine, South America, the wider Latin American region and the United States, alongside other regions shaped by colonial and imperial systems. The books have been grouped thematically, with each title linked to its Goodreads page. Colonialism, Empire and Decolonisation: Direct Studies The Construction of Communalism in Colonial North India - Gyanendra Pandey Creating a New Medina: State Power, Islam, and the Quest for Pakistan in Late Colonial North India - Venkat Dhulipala The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settle...

What is an Idea of India? Ask a liberal, this will be a democratic republic where secularism trumps, multiple cultures, and identities coexist in harmony and dignity and embodied in the Constitution. Ask a conservative Hindu, this will be the victory of Sanatan Dharma  and Akhanda Bharat . Indian State was founded on values of equality, redistribution, fairness, and social welfare in 1947. India inherited a liberal Constitution structured over the colonial institutional and legal structures that weren’t exactly suited for liberal democracy. Also, the constitution was imposed upon a society that was feudal in the customs and entrenched prejudices relating to caste, religion, and social hierarchies. The irreducible character of violence in Indian society is best depicted in the idea of the caste system and religious purity. The spiritual legitimization of something as discriminatory as caste is at the very heart of the structural violence that ails us as a society. There were legacie...