The Imaginary Institution of India: Politics and Ideas

Sudipta Kaviraj

Published by Columbia University Press 2010

The Imaginary Institution of India

Politics and Ideas

Sudipta Kaviraj

https://doi.org/10.7312/kavi15222

Overview
Contents

About this book

For decades Sudipta Kaviraj has worked with and improved upon Marxist and subaltern studies, capturing India's social and political life through its diverse history and culture. While this technique has been widely celebrated in his home country, Kaviraj's essays have remained largely scattered abroad. This collection finally presents his work in one convenient volume and, in doing so, reasserts the brilliance of his approach.

As evidenced in these essays, Kaviraj's exceptional strategy positions Indian politics within the political philosophy of the West and alongside the perspectives of Indian history and indigenous political thought. Studies include the peculiar nature of Indian democracy; the specific aspects of Jawaharlal Nehru's and Indira Gandhi's regimes; political culture in independent India; the construction of colonial power; the relationship between state, society, and discourse; the structure of nationalist discourse; language and identity formation in Indian contexts; the link between development and democracy, or democratic functioning; and the interaction among religion, politics, and modernity in South Asia. Each of these essays explores the place of politics in the social life of modern India and is powered by the idea that Indian politics is plastic, reflecting and shaping the world in which people live.

Author / Editor information

Sudipta Kaviraj is professor of Indian politics and intellectual history at Columbia University. He has taught at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and was an Agatha Harrison Fellow at St. Antony's College, Oxford.

Reviews

Sailen Routray:
Kaviraj's narrative about the state in India is an important one, and it is high time these influential papers were collected in one volume.

The analysis is stimulating, elegant, and novel.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. On State, Society, and Discourse in India Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	9
2. On the Construction of Colonial Power: Structure, Discourse, Hegemony Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	39
3. On the Structure of Nationalist Discourse Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	85
4. Writing, Speaking, Being: Language and the Historical Formation of Identities in India Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	127
5. The Imaginary Institution of India Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	167
6. A State of Contradictions: The Post-colonial State in India Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	210
7. Government and Opposition: Fifty Years of Indian Independence Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	234
8. The Reversal of Orientalism: Bhudev Mukhopadhyay and the Project of Indigenist Social Theory Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	254
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	291

Language: English
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 312

eBook

Published: May 4, 2010
ISBN: 9780231526517