Reading Contemporary India: An Interdisciplinary Enquiry into Sociocultural Issues [Hardcover]

Acknowledgements

Introduction: The past as capital and burden

1.??? Caste, power and hierarchy

2.??? Elitism, communities and democratic politics.

3.??? Religious/political identity and conflict

4.??? Racial discrimination

5.??? State authority and justice

6.??? Poverty and income disparity

7.??? National language, link language

8.??? Higher education and global competitiveness

9.??? The inward look and its effects

10. Local languages and Modern Literature

11. Artistic/literary practice and relevance.

12. Knowledge, method and intellectual life

Afterword: Education, the crisis area

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Bibliography

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Index

This is the first ever effort to bring such a wide range of socio-cultural issues and establish interdisciplinary links between them by studying Indias past, ancient and modern. The issues include caste and hierarchy, religious and political conflict linked sharply to diverse others like literary practice and intellectual life.

The book is the first ever attempt to examine various sociocultural aspects of contemporary India, ranging from caste and hierarchy and the religious or political conflict resulting from it to literary practice and intellectual life in the public space and making interdisciplinary associations. It does this by going back to various aspects of Indias past, stretching back several millennia to those owing to public policy after independence. Many of the issues today, such as those named above, can be traced to racial mixing through centuries, which has created a multitude of conflicts that need solutions today. Thela