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This book explores the aesthetic forms of the political left across the borders of post-colonial, post-partition South Asia. Spanning India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the contributors study art, film, literature, poetry and cultural discourse to illuminate the ways in which political commitment has been given aesthetic form and artistic value by artists and by cultural and political activists in postcolonial South Asia. With a focused conceptualization this volume asks: Does the political left in South Asia have a recognizable aesthetic form? And if so, what political effects do left-wing artistic movements and aesthetic artefacts have in shaping movements against inequality and injustice? Reframing political aesthetics within a postcolonial and decolonised framework, the contributors detail the trajectories and transformations of left-wing cultural formations and affiliations and focus on connections and continuities across post-1947/8 India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

This volume reconsiders India's 20th century though a specific focus on the concepts, conjunctures and currency of its distinct political imaginaries. Spanning the divide between independence and partition, it highlights recent historical debates that have sought to move away from a nation-centred mode of political history to a broader history of politics that considers the complex contexts within which different political imaginaries emerged in 20th century India. Representing the first attempt to grasp the shifting modes and meanings of the 'political' in India, this book explores forms of mass protest, radical women's politics, civil rights, democracy, national wealth and mobilization against the indentured-labor system, amongst other themes. In linking 'the political' to shifts in historical temporality, Political Imaginaries in 20th century India extends beyond the interdisciplinary arena of South Asian studies to cognate late colonial and post-colonial formations in the twentieth century and contribute to the 'political turn' in scholarship.

This book connects the history of labour movements with the transformation of workplace relations in South Asia from the late 19th century to the 1930s. Contending that labour conflicts in the Bengal jute industry must be understood against the backdrop of a radical change in the organisation of work in this period, Sailer shows how this led to a rupture in worker's relations in the workplace and beyond. Moving away from polarities such as class/culture or modernity/tradition and reconsidering the context around industrial conflicts in this period, Workplace relations in Colonial Bengal offers a new framework to analyse the changing organisation of work in colonial India, and identifies the implications for worker relations both inside and outside the factory. Focusing on a major colonial era industry, this book opens up new perspectives n the history of workers and colonial capitalism in modern India.

After seventy-five years of independence, the history of Pakistan remains centered on the state, its ideology and the two-nation theory. Towards Peoples' Histories in Pakistan seeks to shift that focus away from histories of an imagined nation, to the history of its peoples. Based on the premise that the historiographical tradition in Pakistan has ignored the existence of people who actually make history, this book brings together historians, anthropologists, sociologists and political scientists to shed light on the diverse histories of the people themselves.Assembling histories of events and peoples missing from grand narratives of national history, the essays in this collection incorporate a diversity of approaches to the past as it opens the possibilities of multiple histories, the archives through which they are registered, and the various temporalities in which they persist. The volume highlights and recuperates the entangled nature of history and memory within Pakistan's social and cultural life. By critically examining both leftist and nationalist thought, Towards People's Histories in Pakistan explores competing visions of what is meant by 'the people', and charts new ground in developing the promise of people's histories both within Pakistan and beyond.

This book examines the emergence of professional advertising in western India during the interwar period. It explores the ways in which global manufacturers advanced a 'brand-name capitalism' among the Indian middle class by promoting the sale of global commodities during the 1920s and 1930s, a time when advertising was first introduced in India as a profession and underwent critical transformations. Analysing the cultural strategies, both verbal and visual, used by foreign businesses in their advertisements to capture urban consumers, Haynes argues that the promoters of various commodities crystalized their campaigns around principles of modern conjugality. He also highlights the limitations of brand-name capitalism during this period, examining both its inability to cultivate markets in the countryside or among the urban poor, and its failure to secure middle-class customers. With numerous examples of illustrated advertisements taken from Indian newspapers, the book discusses campaigns for male sex tonics and women's medicines, hot drinks such as Ovaltine and Horlicks, soaps such as Lifebuoy, Lux and Sunlight, cooking mediums such as Dalda and electrical household technologies. By examining the formation of 'brand-name capitalism' and two key structures that accompanied it- the advertising agency and the field of professional advertising- this book sheds new light on the global consumer economy in interwar India, and places developments in South Asia into a larger global history of consumer capitalism.

This book explores the history and agendas of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) through its activities in South Asia. Focusing on interactions between American 'Y' workers and the local population, representatives of the British colonial state, and a host of international actors, it assesses their impact on the making of modern India. In turn, it shows how the knowledge and experience acquired by the Y in South Asia had a significant impact on US foreign policy, diplomacy and development programs in the region from the mid-1940s. Exploring the 'secular' projects launched by the YMCA such as new forms of sport, philanthropic efforts and educational endeavours, The YMCA in Late Colonial India addresses broader issues about the persistent role of religion in global modernization processes, the accumulation of American soft power in Asia, and the entanglement of American imperialism with other colonial empires. It provides an unusually rich case study to explore how 'global civil society' emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, how it related to the prevailing imperial world order, and how cultural specificities affected the ways in which it unfolded. Offering fresh perspectives on the historical trajectories of America's 'moral empire', Christian internationalism and the history of international organizations more broadly, this book also gives an insight into the history of South Asia during an age of colonial reformism and decolonization. It shows how international actors contributed to the shaping of South Asia's modernity at this crucial point, and left a lasting legacy in the region.