Social Science Press
49 books
After seventy years of independence, the tragic reality is that the schools we attend and the quality of education we receive are influenced by our identity; who we are, where we live, how much we earn and our gender.
In Inside Indian Schools: The Enigma of Equity and Quality, Vimala Ramachandran explores the contours of a school system that is facing a crisis of legitimacy. While India aspires to march towards a knowledge driven society and economy, millions of ...
Society and Culture in India is a collection of eighteen carefully chosen essays written by internationally famous sociologists whose work is on India. It has been designed to take the reader through the discipline of Sociology to get an understanding of the complex nature of Indian society.
The editor of the volume, Subas Mohapatra has very perceptively grouped the various readings in the book under five main heads, they are: ‘An Introduction to Sociology ...
Behind India’s recent economic growth lies a story of societal conflict that is scarcely talked about. Across its villages and production sites, state institutions and civil society organisations, the better and less well-off sections of society are engaged in antagonistic relations that determine the material conditions of one quarter of the world’s ‘poor’. Increasingly mobile and often with several jobs in multiple locations, ...
Dipankar Gupta brings together social theory with policy practice to enlarge our understanding of the difference that democracy makes to the life of a nation. Unlike nationalism, democracy takes our attention away from the past to the future by focusing on the specific concerns of 'citizenship'. Historical victories or defeats, blood and soil are now nowhere as relevant as the creation of a foundational base where individuals have equal, and quality, access to ...
Based on oral history, fiction, interesting intellectual gossip, and records of the Coffee Board of India, Much Ado Over Coffee: Indian Coffee House Then and Now is a many-sited description of the Indian Coffee House, possibly the world’s first coffee house chain.
The book offers interestingly written accounts of the addas or informal meetings, of the educated middle class in the cities of Calcutta, Allahabad and Delhi. Addas initially flourished in the ...
This unusual collection brings together Rabindranath Tagore's writings on forms of difference based on gender, caste, class, nation, community, religion, language, art, literature, philosophy, social custom and political belief. Via new translations, along with Tagore's own writings, lectures and conversations in English, this illustrated anthology presents his complex, dynamic approach to commonly perceived dualities -such as life/death, nature/culture, ...
This is an attempt to present the history of Calcutta by a new approach—that of combining poetry with historical writing thereby retaining the essence of both forms. Unfolding the tumultuous events of a critical period in the history of Calcutta—the 1940s and the 1950s, it views the city of Calcutta as a whole during the decades. It deals with the ordering of urban space, impact of war, famine and unrest, the nature of communal relations, and the ...
This compendium of fifteen papers, presented at a conference held at Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford, offers valuable insight into the realities of poverty at the ground level and unequal distribution of powers among different classes in the society in India. Attempting at identifying the poor, it discusses at length the construction of poverty and the poor in colonial and post-colonial India, the measurement, patterns and determinants of poverty, and reconceiving ...
This compendium of 10 papers, presented at a conference, held at the Royal Asiatic Society of London, attempts to explore the ways that Indian adivasi (tribal) people have been understood over the past two centuries. It investigate whether there is anything particularly adivasi about the forms of resistance that have been labeled as adivasi movements.
Moving beyond stereotypes of tribal rebellion, it argues that it is important to explore how and why particular ...
This is the first book in the series, French Writings on Indiaand South Asia. It considers the works of scholars, essayists andpoets or esotericists who has been influenced by both groups.
In Jassa Singh Ahluwalia (1718-1783): The Forgotten Hero of Punjab, Sumant Dhamija describes the riveting history of Punjab’s struggle for freedom and sovereignty. A key role was played by Jassa Singh and his fellow misl sardars who came into conflict, principally, with Ahmad Shah Abdali ‘Durrani’ (1724-72), King of Afghanistan, regarded as the greatest conqueror of his time. Inspired by Guru Gobind Singh, Jassa Singh united the panth, leading ...
Nature, Culture and Religion at the Crossroads of Asia explores how ethnic groups living in the Himalayan regions understand nature and culture. The first part addresses the opposition between nature and culture in Asia’s major religious traditions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and Shamanism. The second part brings together specialists of different representative groups living in the heterogeneous Himalayan region. They examine how these indigenous ...
The lower deltaic Bengal, the Sundarbans has always had a life of its own, unique in its distinctive natural aspect and social development. Geographical and ecological evidence indicates that most of the area used to be once covered with dense, impenetrable jungle even as patches of cultivation sprang intermittently into life and then disappeared. A continuous struggle ensued between man and nature, as portrayed in the punthi literature that thrived in lower ...
Marriage, Love, Caste and Kinship Support: Lived Experiences of the Urban Poor in India makes use of interesting case studies and photographs to describe the everyday life in a squatter settlement in Delhi.The book helps to understand the marital experiences of these people most of whom belong to the Scheduled Caste and live in one identified geographical space. The author describes the shifts within their marriages, remarriages and other kinds of unions and ...
Good Women should not claim a share in the inheritance, even if they have no brothers….' Notions such as this have, in their own way and over time, given the women in the Santal Parganas the resolve to wrest what is rightfully theirs.This is a powerful book in the way in which it unfolds the lives and anxieties of Santal women in the two villages of Dumka District, Jharkhand. From the very beginning, Adivasi women come alive through separate life ...
The Politics and Culture of Globalisation : India and Australia brings together Indian and Australian experts in the fields of political science, international relations, philosophy, cultural theory and political economy. Its timeliness and unifying theme derive from comparisons between Indian and Australian perspectives, and analyses by Australian writers on developments in India. Indian-Australian relations are explored in several chapters. The neo-liberal form ...
From the introduction, human development had been defined as 'a process of enlarging people's choices'. This approach to development places people at the centre and treats them as active subjects and not passive beneficiaries. Human beings and the expansion of their capabilities are treated as ends rather than means for sustainable growth. This concept is one of the most important attempts to formulate alternative development theories and strategies to replace ...
Trade, Finance and Investment in South Asia brings together nine papers by distinguished economists on the nature of trade in South Asia. Written lucidly by economists from South Asian countries these papers lend clarity to a problem that has confused many, making the volume indispensable to experts and accessible to others. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal figure prominently in this volume. The Maldives and Bhutan also receive attention. China, ...
In India, the WTO Agreement has been dogged by controversy from the very beginning. The proposed agreement on agriculture was seen as a threat to food security and rural employment in the country. There were also concerns about the Indian farmer becoming dependent on the corporate sector and having his traditional rights curtailed. The anxiety about the possible impact of the new trade agreement on agriculture was understandable in a country in which two-thirds ...