Bøger udgivet af Tulika Books

This volume of the A People's History of India series deals with the period spanning c. 700 and c. 350 BC. During this important period of Indian history, iron technology diffused, transforming and multiplying tools; cities arose and commerce spread; the caste system assumed practically all its essential features; powerful states were formed, with armies and bureaucracies; and, finally, Jainism and Buddhism brought about a veritable religious revolution. All this is described in four chapters with clarity and precision, but with no attempt to conceal points of controversy. Special notes are furnished on punch-marked coinage, the Northern Black Polished Ware, problems of chronology, and the arrival of writing. Nine extracts from sources give the reader a taste of the textual sources. There are twelve illustrations and seven maps, and a chronological table at the end. Each chapter includes a bibliographical note, indicating sources and suggesting further reading.

The assassination of Mahatma Gandhi on 30 January 1948 was a declaration of war and a statement of intent. For the forces who conspired in the killing, the act was a declaration of war with the secular, democratic Indian state and all those who stood to affirm these principles, as well as an announcement of a lasting commitment to India as a 'Hindu Rashtra'. It was also an act to signal the elimination of all that India's national movement against imperialism stood for. Beyond Doubt is a dossier of historical and critical documents that aims to contextualize the politics, motivations and circumstances behind the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. Attempts to legitimize the act of killing and to celebrate the killers have re-doubled since May 2014, following the coming to power of the new regime in New Delhi. The time is right, therefore, to set the record straight.The visceral hatred directed against Gandhi and the denigration of everything he stood for need to be recounted if we are to understand the political nature of that dastardly act. This book attempts to weave together archival documents from Government of India records relating to developments after the assassination, with translation of works in Marathi, Gujarati, and Hindi deconstructing the ideology responsible for the political killing. While several of the documents have appeared before in issues of Communalism Combat, this compilation presents new material on the subject. The first English translation of Jagan Phadnis's book, Mahatmyache Akher, forms part of the dossier, as do Y.D. Phadke's analysis of attempts to legitimize Gandhi's killing and Chunibhai Vaidya's analysis of Pradeep Dalvi's play on Godse. It also covers the recent controversy over the destruction of files relating to Gandhi's assassination by Government of India. A second volume of this dossier will bring to readers the Report of the Justice Kapur Commission, constituted to investigate the Gandhi assassination, with a detailed introduction and notes.

Mauryan India, as part of the People's History of India series, covers the period from about 350 bc to about 185 bc, thereby encompassing the invasion of Alexander (327¿325 bc) and the history of the Mauryan Empire (c.324¿185 bc). There is a detailed account of the inscriptions of Ashoka and their significance. A picture of the economy, society and culture of the time follows, constructed out of the varied sources available, epigraphic, textual and archaeological. An effort is made throughout to keep the reader abreast of recent discoveries, and to share with him the reasons for all conclusions and inferences. There are special notes on Mauryan chronology, the date of the Arthashastra, the science of epigraphy, and the dialects of Ashokan Prakrit. As many as fifteen excerpts from Indian and Greek sources, including ten full edicts of Ashoka, are provided. There are nine maps (five of them exceptionally detailed) and twenty illustrations (black-and-white). The volume is addressed to both the general reader and the student, and attempts to cover all topics that conventional textbooks include besides much other material that a 'people's history' needs to be concerned with, such as economic life, technology, social structure, gender relations, modes of exploitation, language, varied aspects of culture, etc. It is hoped that it will be considered a readable addition to what has so far been written on the Mauryan Empire.

Religion has been, and is, an important element in Indian society and history. It is, however, rare for the subject to be discussed with the necessary degree of detachment. This volume was, therefore, planned with the object of providing a collection of studies that would deal with the role of religion in Indian history on the basis of a rigorous application of academic criteria. The results may surprise those who are more familiar with chauvinistic or apologetic interpretations. The editor's introduction and the fifteen chapters range over an extensive period, from prehistory to the present day, and take up specific problems of crucial significance in exploring the inter- relationship between religion and social change. This volume draws on new research and is meant for academics as well as general readers, who may find here much that is of relevance to their social and intellectual concerns.

State and Diplomacy under Tipu Sultan: Documents and Essays supplements Confronting Colonialism: Resistance and Modernization under Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan, which was published in 1999 by the Indian History Congress as part of the Srirangapatnam bicentennial. The main object of this volume is not only to add fresh contributions to the papers collected in Confronting Colonialism, but also to present documentary evidence that has not received its due in studies on Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan. It is hoped that the translations of texts, commentaries on documents, and interpretive essays contained here will mark a further stage of progress in the exploration and use of source material on Tipu Sultan in both Persian and French.

This is a re-issue of Amalendu Guha's influential work on Assam and the Northeast, 30 years after its original publication, with a new introduction by the author. Guha's analysis extends from Assam in 1826, the year of the British annexation, to the post-independence conditions in 1950. The peculiar features of the region's plantation economy; the imperialism of opium cultivation; the problems of a stready influx of immigrants and the backlash of a local linguistic chauvinism; peasants' and workers' struggles; the evolution of the ryot sabhas, the Congress, trade unions and later of the Communist Party ¿ such are the themes that have received attention in this book, alongside an analysis of legislative and administrative processes.The narrative is structured chronologically within an integrated Marxist framework of historical perspective, and is based on a wide range of primary sources.