Exploring the concept of nationhood, this volume delves into its dual role in India—serving as both a vital tool for claiming liberation and a means of controlling identities. It challenges traditional narratives by offering fresh perspectives on Indian history, encouraging readers to rethink the implications of nationalism in the context of liberation movements.
Have Marxian ideas been relevant or influential in the writing and interpretation of history? What are the Marxist legacies that are now re-emerging in present-day histories? This volume is an attempt at relearning what the "discipline" of histo
The Lives of Indian Historiography
This book is about the production and consumption of history, themes that have gained in importance since the discipline's attempts to disavow its own authority with the ascendancy of postmodern and postcolonial perspectives. Several parallel themes crosscut the book’s central focus on the discipline of history: its intellectual history, its historiography, and its connection to memory, particularly in relation to the need to establish the collective identity of ‘nation’, ‘community’ or state through a memorialisation process that has much to do with history, or at least with claiming a historicity for collective memory. None of this can be undertaken without an understanding of the roles that history-writing and history-reading have been made to perform in public debates, or perhaps more accurately in public disputes. The book addresses a discomfort with postcolonial theories in and as history. Following are essays that examine the state of the discipline, the art of reading and using archives, practices of tracking the history of ideas, and the themes of history, memory and identity.
In this study, Benjamin Zachariah questions the tendency to regard nationalism as a necessary, inevitable and natural basis upon which to organise the world. In doing so, he embarks on a series of reflections on a longstanding project in Indian historiography which has until today not reached successful resolution: that of "decentring" the nation as the central focus of history-writing in and about India. This outstanding collection presents essays held together with one common thread: a concern with writing histories of India that cannot be subsumed within a bland and obligatory history of Indian nationalism, and a concern with not writing histories of nationalism while writing histories of absolutely anything or everything. Claiming to speak from the perspective of internationalism and celebrating the rootless cosmopolitanism of the merely human, Benjamin Zachariah urges historians to begin the completion of this incomplete yet necessary "decentring" project by placing their own histories, politics, and "interests" before a readership and leaving these open for scrutiny and comment.
Focusing on the interplay between domestic and international dimensions of Nehru's political and ideological journey, this biography offers a fresh perspective on his life. It contextualizes his actions within the significant issues of his era and challenges prevalent misconceptions about him, providing a nuanced understanding of his contributions and legacy.