This study traces the expansion of the colonial and post-colonial state in Bastar, Madhya Pradesh, and popular resistance to it.

Subalterns and Sovereigns: An Anthropological History of Bastar, 1854-1996

History

Sundar, Nandini

Asia

Oxford University Press

This text traces the expansion of the colonial and post-colonial state in Bastar, Madhya Pradesh, and popular resistance to it. The central themes are the transformations in the kingship under indirect colonial rule and in independent India, and growing restrictions on access to land and forest.

Subalterns and Sovereigns

OUP India

This study, based on field work in India, brings out the multiplicity of debates, policies and practices that Joint Forest Management embodies.

Branching Out: Joint Forest Management in India (Studies in Social Ecology and Environmental History)

Business & Money

Jeffery, Roger

Thin, Neil

Economics

Subaletrns and Sovereigns traces the expansion of the colonial and the post-colonial state in Bastar, central India between 1854 and 2006. In particular, it looks at the manner in which the state was constituted, focusing on certain critical moments when the structures set into place by the colonial state were contested. The central themes include the growing restrictions on popular access to land and forest, and the changing popular notions of kingship and polity, which act as the matrix through which structures of resistance are defined.   The author's account of the region is at once the outcome of an intellectual as well as personal encounter with the "field." It is divided into three parts: section one, "Recreated Pasts," portrays the pre-colonial economy and polity. It dispels notions of dominant history that see Bastar and other such places as untouched and isolated prior to colonialism, showing instead, the degree of social and political fluidity in the region.  Section two, "Rebellious Pasts," presents accounts of both "major" and "minor" resistance to the colonizing process. It throws light on the play of multiple histories, differently constructed and differently understood by the actors involved.  The final section, "Uncertain Futures," highlights the contradictions faced by tribal society today and the processes of cultural redefinition engendered by these contradictions.   This second edition includes an afterword which discusses contemporary issues concerning the formation of the state of Chattisgarh.

Subalterns and Sovereigns: An Anthropological History of Bastar (1854-2006)

Subalterns and Sovereigns traces the expansion of the colonial and the post-colonial state in Bastar, central India between 1854-2006, In particular, it looks at the manner in which the state was constituted, focusing on certain critical moments when the structures set into place by the colonial state were contested. The central themes include the growing restrictions on popular access to land and forest, and the changing popular notions of kingship and polity, which act as the matrix through which structures of resistance are defined. The author's account of the region is at once the outcome of an intellectual as well as personal encounter with the "field'" It is divided into three parts: Section One, "Recreated Pasts", portrays the pre-colonial economy and polity. It dispels notions of dominant history that see Bastar and other such places as untouched and isolated prior to colonialism, showing instead, the degree of social and political fluidity in the region in the pre-colonial period. Section 2, "Rebellious Pasts", contains accounts of both "major" and "minor" resistance to the colonizing process. It throws light on the play of multiple histories, differently constructed and differently understood by the actors involved. The final section, "Uncertain Futures", highlights the contradictions faced by tribal society today and the processes of cultural redefinition engendered by these contradictions. The second edition includes an Afterword which discusses contemporary issues concerning the formation of the state of Chattisgarh.

Subalterns and Sovereigns: An Anthropological History of Bastar (1854-2006) (Subaltern Studies)

Legal Grounds: Natural Resources, Identity, and the law of Jhakhand, this volume discusses the ways in which natural resources are conceptualized in the law as individual property, common property, or available for commercial exploitation. Focusing primarily on issues specific to the state of Jharkhand, it raises wider questions about colonization and globalization, the difference between law and practice, customary and written laws, and interpretation based issues in rights over natural resources. Jharkhand provides an ideal location for the discussion of these issues, as it has a large tribal population, and is increasingly becoming a space where traditional/ tribal rights are in conflict with modern/ state and development based rights. Chapters 1-3 examine different aspects of land rights - the struggle to acquire land, keep it, get it restored, and cultivate it. Chapter 4 looks at the counterfeit legal methods used to grab land. Chapters 5-8 discuss laws and policies related to forests, water and mining, both conceptually and practically.

Legal Grounds: Natural Resources, Identity, and the law of Jhakhand

Environmental & Natural Resources Law

About the Author\nSundar,Nandini (External Editor) 
Nandini Sundar is professor of sociology at the Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University. Her recent publications include The Burning Forest: India's War against Maoists (2019) and several edited volumes including The Scheduled Tribes and their India (2016) and Civil Wars in South Asia: State, Sovereignty, Development (2014).\nSrinath Raghavan (External Editor) 
Srinath Raghavan is professor of international relations and history at Ashoka University. He is the author of several books, including The Most Dangerous Place: A History of the United States in South Asia (Penguin Random House India, 2018).\nIn a long and versatile career spanning thirty-five years, Ramachandra Guha has produced a vast body of work. Each time, he has broken new ground-his pioneering environmental histories of India and his still-relevant work on ecology and equity; his social histories of Indian cricket; his monumental history of the Indian republic; his biographies of Verrier Elwin and Gandhi; his anthologies of ecological, social and political thought in India; and his collections of biographical and political essays.\nSparked by Guha's wide-ranging and important work, A Functioning Anarchy is a collection of essays by historians, social scientists, ecologists and journalists.

Functioning Anarchy?

Literature & Fiction

Essays & Correspondence

India Allen Lane

An empathetic, moving account of what drives indigenous peasants to support armed struggle despite severe state repression, including lives lost, and homes and communities destroyedOver the past decade, the heavily forested, mineral-rich region of Bastar in central India has emerged as one of the most militarized sites in the country. The government calls the Maoist insurgency the “biggest security threat” to India. In 2005, a state-sponsored vigilante movement, the Salwa Judum, burned hundreds of villages, driving their inhabitants into state-controlled camps, drawing on counterinsurgency techniques developed in Malaysia, Vietnam and elsewhere. Apart from rapes and killings, hundreds of “surrendered” Maoist sympathizers were conscripted as auxiliaries. The conflict continues to this day, taking a toll on the lives of civilians, security forces and Maoist cadres. In 2007, Sundar and others took the Indian government to the Supreme Court over the human rights violations arising out of the conflict. In a landmark judgment in 2011 the court banned state support for vigilantism. The Burning Forest describes this brutal war in the heart of India, and what it tells us about the courts, media and politics of the country. The result is a fascinating critical account of Indian democracy.

The Burning Forest: India's War Against the Maoists

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Verso

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Sundar, Nandini. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Sundar, Nandini

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Sundar, Nandini. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Subalterns and Sovereigns: An Anthropological History of Bastar, 1854-1996

Subalterns and Sovereigns

Branching Out: Joint Forest Management in India (Studies in Social Ecology and Environmental History)

Subalterns and Sovereigns: An Anthropological History of Bastar (1854-2006)

Subalterns and Sovereigns: An Anthropological History of Bastar (1854-2006) (Subaltern Studies)

Legal Grounds: Natural Resources, Identity, and the law of Jhakhand

Functioning Anarchy?

The Burning Forest: India's War Against the Maoists

The Burning Forest: India's War Against the Maoists