India & Cambridge - Cambridge University Press India

POLITICSIndia Since 1980Sumit Ganguly &Rahul MukherjiThis book considers theremarkable transformations thathave taken place in India since1980, a period that began with theassassination of the formidablePrime Minister Indira Gandhi. Herdeath, and that of her son Rajivseven years later, marked the endof the Nehru-Gandhi era. Althoughthe country remains one of the fewdemocracies in the developingworld, many of the policies instigated by these earlierregimes have been swept away to make room for dramaticalterations in the political, economic and social landscape.Sumit Ganguly and Rahul Mukherji, two leading politicalscientists of South Asia, chart these developments withparticular reference to social and political mobilization, therise of the BJP and its challenge to Nehruvian secularismand the changes to foreign policy that, in combination withits meteoric economic development, have ensured India asignificant place on the world stage.Sumit Ganguly is Professor of Political Science and theRabindranath Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures andCivilizations at Indiana University, Bloomington.Rahul Mukherji is Associate Professor of South Asianstudies at the National University of Singapore.9781107020276 200pp HB ` 595.00Timepass: Youth, Class,and the Politics of Waitingin IndiaCraig JeffreySocial and economic changesaround the globe have propelledincreasing numbers of people intosituations of chronic waiting,where promised access to politicalfreedoms, social goods, oreconomic resources is delayed,often indefinitely. But there havebeen few efforts to reflect on thesignificance of “waiting” in the contemporary world.Timepass fills this gap by offering a captivating ethnographyof the student politics and youth activism that lower middleclass young men in India have undertaken in response topervasive underemployment. It highlights the importanceof waiting as a social experience and basis for politicalmobilization, the micro-politics of class power in north India,and the socio-economic strategies of lower middle classes.The book also explores how this north Indian story relatesto practices of waiting occurring in multiple other contexts,making the book of interest to scholars and students ofglobalization, youth studies, and class across the socialsciences.Craig Jeffrey is a Fellow, Tutor, and University Lecturer inGeography at Oxford University.9788175969261 232pp HB ` 795.00Adjudication in ReligiousFamily Laws: CulturalAccommodation, LegalPluralism, and GenderEquality in IndiaGopika SolankiThis book argues that the sharedadjudication model in which thestate splits its adjudicativeauthority with religious groupsand other societal sources in theregulation of marriage canpotentially balance cultural rights and gender equality. Inthis model the civic and religious sources of legal authorityconstruct, transmit and communicate heterogeneousnotions of the conjugal family, gender relations andreligious membership within the interstices of state andsociety. In so doing, they fracture the homogenized religiousidentities grounded in hierarchical gender relations withinthe conjugal family. The shared adjudication modelfacilitates diversity as it allows the construction of hybridreligious identities, creates fissures in ossified groupboundaries and provides institutional spaces for ongoingintersocietal dialogue. This pluralized legal sphere, governedby ideologically diverse legal actors, can thus increasegender equality and individual and collective legalmobilization by women effects institutional change.Gopika Solanki is assistant professor of political science atCarleton University in Canada.4 B&W illustrations 4 tables9781107023895 438pp HB ` 1495.00The Rise of China:Implications for IndiaHarsh V. Pant (ed)The rise of China as an emergingpower and as the most likelychallenger to the globalpreponderance of the US is alreadyhaving a significant impact acrossthe globe. This phenomenon isbeing debated and analysed atvarious levels. In India too, it isgenerating a lot of excitement. Onthe one hand, it is considered to bean opportunity and on the other, a challenge.This book is an attempt at exploring the multi-dimensionalnature of the rise of China and its implications for India. Thecontributors in this volume have examined various aspectsof China’s rise such as domestic developments, foreignpolicy agenda, and its position on issues related to Indiafrom an Indian perspective. The book will appeal toundergraduate and graduate students of InternationalRelations across the world. Foreign policy experts, andanyone interested in China-India relations should also findthe book to be of interest.Harsh V. Pant is a Reader in the Department of DefenceStudies at King’s College London.9788175968950 272pp HB ` 795.00order online at www.cambridgeindia.org27