The Post-colonial State and Social Transformation in India and Pakistan


Book Description

The essays focus on such issues as the nature of ascendent bureaucracy, biraderi, feudalism, land reforms, development strategy, religious intolerance and women's emancipation. They provide a reasoned explanation of the continued backwardness and persistent poverty in South Asia in the midst of affluence. The book consists of more than a dozen chapters related to the themes which have been the central focus of the well-known social scientist, Professor Hamza Alavi's work on social and economic issues in post-colonial South Asia.




Production of Postcolonial India and Pakistan


Book Description

This work seeks to examine the event and concurrent transition that the inauguration of India and Pakistan as ‘postcolonial’ states in August 1947 constituted and effectuated. Analysing India and Pakistan together in a parallel and mutually dependant reading, and utilizing primary data and archival materials, Svensson offers new insights into the current literature, seeking to conceptualise independence through partition and decolonisation in terms of novelty and as a ‘restarting of time’. Through his analysis, Svensson demonstrates the constitutive and inexorable entwinement of contingency and restoration, of openness and closure, in the establishment of the postcolonial state. It is maintained that those involved in instituting the new state in a moment devoid of fixity and foundation ‘anchor’ it in preceding beginnings. The work concludes with the proposition that the novelty should not only be regarded as contained in the moment of transition. It should also be seen as contained in the pledge, in the promise and the gesturing towards a future community. Distinct from most other studies on the partition and independence the book assumes the constitutive moment as the focal point, offering a new approach to the study of partition in British India, decolonisation and the institutional of the postcolonial state. This work will be of great interest to students and scholars of international relations, South Asian studies and political and postcolonial theory.




The Post-Colonial State in the Era of Capitalist Globalization


Book Description

State formation in post-colonial societies differed greatly from the formation of the Western capitalist state. The latter has been extensively studied, while a coherent grasp of the post-colonial state has remained elusive. Amin-Khan provides a critical historical and contemporary understanding of post-colonial state formations in Asia and Africa, and suggests how this process differed from the formation of states in Latin America. In distinguishing between the post-colonial state and the Western capitalist state, the author argues that the unitary colonial state left a strong legacy on the decolonized states of Asia and Africa, reinscribing their subordination vis-à-vis Western states, transnational corporations and multilateral institutions. The indigenous elites' decision at the time of decolonization to retain colonial state structures meant the readaptation of capitalism-imperialism nexus to suit new post-colonial realities, which enabled the formation of clientelist relationships. This post-colonial reality and exploration of the contemporary context provides the basis of analyzing two post-colonial state forms, the capitalist and proto-capitalist varieties, which are examined using the case studies of India and Pakistan.




New Perspectives on Pakistan's Political Economy


Book Description

This volume makes a major intervention in the debates around the nature of the political economy of Pakistan, focusing on its contemporary social dynamics. This is the first comprehensive academic analysis of Pakistan's political economy after thirty-five years, and addresses issues of state, class and society, examining gender, the middle classes, the media, the bazaar economy, urban spaces and the new elite. The book goes beyond the contemporary obsession with terrorism and extremism, political Islam, and simple 'civilian–military relations', and looks at modern-day Pakistan through the lens of varied academic disciplines. It not only brings together new work by some emerging scholars but also formulates a new political economy for the country, reflecting the contemporary reality and diversification in the social sciences in Pakistan. The chapters dynamically and dialectically capture emergent processes and trends in framing Pakistan's political economy and invite scholars to engage with and move beyond these concerns and issues.




The Post-Colonial States of South Asia


Book Description

This text discusses the principal political and constitutional questions that have arisen in the states of Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka following fifty years of independence. In Sri Lanka the pressing problems have been around the inter-ethnic civil war, experiments with constitutional designs, widespread prevalence of corruption and the recrudescence of Buddhist militancy. In India it has been corruption, Hindu nationalism and general political instability. In Bangladesh and Pakistan it has been the role of the military, the state and religion. A general theme is an analysis of the malaise that is prevalent and how and why this was inherited, despite the colonial legacy of parliamentary democracy, the steel framework of a trained bureaucracy, the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law.




The Oxford Handbook of Citizenship


Book Description

Contrary to predictions that it would become increasingly redundant in a globalizing world, citizenship is back with a vengeance. The Oxford Handbook of Citizenship brings together leading experts in law, philosophy, political science, economics, sociology, and geography to provide a multidisciplinary, comparative discussion of different dimensions of citizenship: as legal status and political membership; as rights and obligations; as identity and belonging; as civic virtues and practices of engagement; and as a discourse of political and social equality or responsibility for a common good. The contributors engage with some of the oldest normative and substantive quandaries in the literature, dilemmas that have renewed salience in today's political climate. As well as setting an agenda for future theoretical and empirical explorations, this Handbook explores the state of citizenship today in an accessible and engaging manner that will appeal to a wide academic and non-academic audience. Chapters highlight variations in citizenship regimes practiced in different countries, from immigrant states to 'non-western' contexts, from settler societies to newly independent states, attentive to both migrants and those who never cross an international border. Topics include the 'selling' of citizenship, multilevel citizenship, in-between statuses, citizenship laws, post-colonial citizenship, the impact of technological change on citizenship, and other cutting-edge issues. This Handbook is the major reference work for those engaged with citizenship from a legal, political, and cultural perspective. Written by the most knowledgeable senior and emerging scholars in their fields, this comprehensive volume offers state-of-the-art analyses of the main challenges and prospects of citizenship in today's world of increased migration and globalization. Special emphasis is put on the question of whether inclusive and egalitarian citizenship can provide political legitimacy in a turbulent world of exploding social inequality and resurgent populism.




The Post-Colonial State in the Era of Capitalist Globalization


Book Description

State formation in post-colonial societies differed greatly from the formation of the Western capitalist state. The latter has been extensively studied, while a coherent grasp of the post-colonial state has remained elusive. Amin-Khan provides a critical historical and contemporary understanding of post-colonial state formations in Asia and Africa, and suggests how this process differed from the formation of states in Latin America. In distinguishing between the post-colonial state and the Western capitalist state, the author argues that the unitary colonial state left a strong legacy on the decolonized states of Asia and Africa, reinscribing their subordination vis-à-vis Western states, transnational corporations and multilateral institutions. The indigenous elites' decision at the time of decolonization to retain colonial state structures meant the readaptation of capitalism-imperialism nexus to suit new post-colonial realities, which enabled the formation of clientelist relationships. This post-colonial reality and exploration of the contemporary context provides the basis of analyzing two post-colonial state forms, the capitalist and proto-capitalist varieties, which are examined using the case studies of India and Pakistan.




From the Ashes of 1947


Book Description

Navigating nostalgia and trauma, dreams and laments, identity(s) and homeland(s), this book explores the partition of undivided Punjab.




From Subjects to Citizens


Book Description

The book offers a fresh and timely perspective on the broader field of early postcolonial South Asian history.




New Perspectives on Pakistan's Political Economy


Book Description

Makes a major intervention in debates around the nature of the political economy of Pakistan, focusing on its contemporary social dynamics.