India, the Perfidies of Power


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Articles.







Tryst with Perifdy


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Ever since its independence in 1947, Pakistan has been running away from its roots-directionless-and has consistently traversed a myopic, self-destructive path. It has been overly obsessed with its more powerful neighbour India, which singularly looms large, albeit illogically, in all its politico-strategic formulations. Constantly whipping up tensions with India has been an existential self-defeating mission for Pakistan and its Deep State. That Pakistan, over the years, has earned the dubious distinction of being the epicentre of global terror, is an outcome directly attributable to its Deep State. Tryst with Perfidy analyses the motivations and machinations of Pakistan's Deep State and unravels the reasons that propel it to adopt policies and stratagems which, by conventional wisdom, are hard to fathom. It gives a fascinating insight into the policies pursued by the Deep State and its implications for regional and global security. In this authoritative volume, Gen Davar strikes the perfect balance between surgically precise argument and a sharp writing style. It is essential reading for anyone interested in Pakistan or South Asian politics as a whole.




Not War, Not Peace?


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The Mumbai blasts of 1993, the attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001, Mumbai 26/11—cross-border terrorism has continued unabated. What can India do to motivate Pakistan to do more to prevent such attacks? In the nuclear times that we live in, where a military counter-attack could escalate to destruction beyond imagination, overt warfare is clearly not an option. But since outright peace-making seems similarly infeasible, what combination of coercive pressure and bargaining could lead to peace? The authors provide, for the first time, a comprehensive assessment of the violent and non-violent options available to India for compelling Pakistan to take concrete steps towards curbing terrorism originating in its homeland. They draw on extensive interviews with senior Indian and Pakistani officials, in service and retired, to explore the challenges involved in compellence and to show how non-violent coercion combined with clarity on the economic, social and reputational costs of terrorism can better motivate Pakistan to pacify groups involved in cross-border terrorism. Not War, Not Peace? goes beyond the much discussed theories of nuclear deterrence and counterterrorism strategy to explore a new approach to resolving old conflicts.




Malevolent Republic


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After decades of imperfect secularism, presided over by an often corrupt Congress establishment, Nehru's diverse republic has yielded to Hindu nationalism. India is collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions. Since 2014, the ruling BJP has unleashed forces that are irreversibly transforming the country. Indian democracy, honed over decades, is now the chief enabler of Hindu extremism. Bigotry has been ennobled as a healthy form of self-assertion, and anti-Muslim vitriol has deluged the mainstream, with religious minorities living in terror of a vengeful majority. Congress now mimics Modi; other parties pray for a miracle. In this blistering critique of India from Indira Gandhi to the present, Komireddi lays bare the cowardly concessions to the Hindu right, convenient distortions of India's past and demeaning bribes to minorities that led to Modi's decisive electoral victory. If secularists fail to reclaim the republic from Hindu nationalists, Komireddi argues, India will become Pakistan by another name.




The Black Hole of Empire


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When Siraj, the ruler of Bengal, overran the British settlement of Calcutta in 1756, he allegedly jailed 146 European prisoners overnight in a cramped prison. Of the group, 123 died of suffocation. While this episode was never independently confirmed, the story of "the black hole of Calcutta" was widely circulated and seen by the British public as an atrocity committed by savage colonial subjects. The Black Hole of Empire follows the ever-changing representations of this historical event and founding myth of the British Empire in India, from the eighteenth century to the present. Partha Chatterjee explores how a supposed tragedy paved the ideological foundations for the "civilizing" force of British imperial rule and territorial control in India. Chatterjee takes a close look at the justifications of modern empire by liberal thinkers, international lawyers, and conservative traditionalists, and examines the intellectual and political responses of the colonized, including those of Bengali nationalists. The two sides of empire's entwined history are brought together in the story of the Black Hole memorial: set up in Calcutta in 1760, demolished in 1821, restored by Lord Curzon in 1902, and removed in 1940 to a neglected churchyard. Challenging conventional truisms of imperial history, nationalist scholarship, and liberal visions of globalization, Chatterjee argues that empire is a necessary and continuing part of the history of the modern state.




India as an Asia Pacific Power


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The emergence of India as a regional and potentially global power is forcing us to rethink our mental map of the Asia Pacific. We are only just beginning to discern how India may alter the global economic landscape. How will the rise of India change the strategic landscape of Asia and beyond? This book provides a comprehensive assessment of India's international relations in the Asia Pacific, a region which has not traditionally been understood to include India. It examines India’s strategic thinking about the Asia Pacific, its relationships with China and the United States, and India's increasingly close security ties with other major countries in the region. It considers the consequences of India’s rise on the Asia Pacific strategic order and asks whether India is likely to join the ranks of the major powers of the Asia Pacific in coming years.




The Free Press


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A Concise History of India


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Two distinguished historians, Barbara Metcalf and Thomas Metcalf, come together to write a new and accessible account of modern India. The narrative, which charts the history of India from the Mughals, through the colonial encounter and independence, to the present day, challenges imperialist notions of an unchanging and monolithic India bounded by tradition and religious hierarchies. Instead the book reveals a complex society which is constantly transforming and reinventing itself in response to political and social challenges. The book is beautifully composed and richly illustrated. It will be essential reading for anyone who wants to understand India, her turbulent past and her present uncertainties.







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