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With India under growing scrutiny over the erosion of its democracy since 2014, worldwide media coverage has revealed our poor grasp of it as a modern nation. In this book, Indrajit Roy sets out to understand modern Indians on their own terms. Beyond the usual polarising narratives--either pious platitudes to the 'world's largest democracy', or laments over its 'democratic backsliding'-- Roy reveals the remarkable 75-year achievement of building a democratic nation in a country weathering mass poverty, severe inequality and deep social conflict. He also exposes how this process unfolds on the ground, telling the story of a nation-state via glimpses into how Indians have thought of themselves, the world and their place in it. Indianscharts the evolution of a people's identity since the spectacle, frenzy and hope of independence in 1947, and the republican constitution introduced in 1950. This is both a high-political history and, more importantly, an account of that history's interplay with the nebulous complex of ideas and passions that go into making, unmaking and remaking a democratic nation. Roy's astute political biography of the Indian people is, ultimately, a tale of how one democracy influences, and is shaped by, its economy, society and culture.

This book challenges the ongoing scholarly debates on poor people's negotiations with democracy. It demonstrates the varied ways in which the poor engage with their elected representatives, political mediators and dominant classes in order to advance their claims. Roy explains the variations by directing attention to the dynamic interaction between the opportunity structures available to the poor and the social relations of power in which they are embedded. He analyses these intersections as 'political spaces' which both enable and constrain popular practices. Through examination of the 'political spaces' available to the poor in four different localities, Roy outlines a new analytic framework to understanding poor people's politics. Based on these observations, the book makes a strong case for an approach to democracy that appreciates people's ambivalences towards democracy. Roy urges researchers of democracy to step beyond either enthusiastic narratives - the inevitability of democracy or apocalyptic accounts of democracy's impending death.

A POWERFUL DOCUMENTATION OF INDIAN CITIZENS DEFENDING THEIR DEMOCRACY As the pillars of democracy crumble across the globe, big and small actions of resistance prop up hope and keep alive a way to rebuild. In the past few decades, ordinary folk in India have stood up to repressive state authority over and over again. Their vital acts of hope preserve the collective spirit of resistance and unwavering resilience necessary to continue the fight for democracy. Audacious Hope is a careful, rigorous archive of these struggles, including the protests that united farmers across state borders in 2020 and the national outcry following the controversial CAA legislation. From the myriad ways people came to the aid of their fellow citizens during the pandemic to the testing of free-speech boundaries by cultural activists, this book undertakes the task of documenting resistance in its many forms. Roy challenges the reader with his account of how a proud people are battling to save their beloved democracy. The question is, how can we, through individual and collective action, resist authoritarianism, casteism and majoritarianism? The answer is, of course, through the audacity of hope.

Based on diverse sorts of data and fieldwork in India, this book analyses how the poor participate in a democracy.

The second part of this well-illustrated guide is dedicated to applications in various civil engineering problems related to dynamic soil-structure interaction, machine foundation and earthquake engineering. The book presents innovative, easy-to-apply, and practical solutions to various problems and difficulties that a design engineer will encounter. The book focuses on dynamic soil-structure interaction (DSSI), the analysis and design of machine foundations, and the analytical and design concepts for earthquake engineering.

Bengal’s traditional industries, once celebrated worldwide, largely decayed under the backwash effects of the British Industrial Revolution in the first half of the nineteenth century. Although colonial ambivalence is often cited as an explanation, this study also shows that a series of new industries emerged during this period. The book reappraises the thesis of India’s deindustrialisation and discusses the development status of the traditional industries in the early nineteenth century, examines their technology, employment opportunities and marketing and, finally, analyses the underlying reasons for their decay. It offers a study of how traditional industries evolved into modern enterprises in a British colony, and contributes to the broader discussion on the global history of industrialisation. This book will be of interest to scholars of Indian economic history as well as those who seek to understand the widespread effects of industrialisation, especially in a colonial context.

Humans, over many millennia, have been intrigued with magnetism and continuously revealing its nature and association with other objects, both animate and inanimate. Started with reverence for its mystic power, the beautiful minds soon find the means to harness it. This book is an omnibus that helps one travel through time over many millennia until today while giving glimpses of human achievements in the Odyssey of human civilisation. This is a scientific essay. Nevertheless, it offers a range of flavours, such as the history of science, philosophy, social construct, the early scientific revolution, the impact of the Industrial Revolution, the growth of modern science, and discussion on scientific phenomena with no less scientific rigour, while remaining simple and intelligible. The book will be food for academic minds and a pleasant experience for general readers.

This book seeks to enlighten two grey areas of industrial historiography. Although Bengal industries were globally dominant on the eve of the industrial revolution, no detailed literature is available about their later course of development. A series of questions are involved in it. Did those industries decline during the spells of British industrial revolution? If yes, what were their reasons? If not, the general curiosity is: On which merits could those industries survive against the odds of the technological revolution? A thorough discussion on these issues also clears up another area of dispute relating to the occurrence of deindustrialization in Bengal, and the validity of two competing hypotheses on it, viz. i) the mainstream hypothesis of market failures, and ii) the neo-marxian hypothesis of imperialistic state interventions

Whether you have a stubbed toe or a stubborn case of the blues, within these pages you’ll find a cure in the form of a novel – or a combination of novels – to help ease your pain. You’ll also find advice on how to tackle common reading ailments – such as what to do when you feel overwhelmed by the number of books in the world, or if you have a tendency to give up halfway through. When read at the right moment in your life, a novel can – quite literally – change it, and The Novel Cure is a reminder of that power. Written with authority, passion and wit, here is a fresh approach to finding new books to read, and an enchanting way to revisit the books on your shelves.

Through two World Wars and the Great Depression, this book explores the turbulent history of colonial Indian industry in the period immediately prior to independence. Focusing on five major industries in Bengal - coal mining, iron-smelting, jute manufacturing, paper making and tea plantation – the book looks at the impact of the war efforts on production, employment and capital: some industries experienced rapid growth due to additional investment, others suffered due to the dislocation of markets. Moreover, by drawing lessons from the war economy (especially the dearth of various essential commodities including war materials), the colonial government took up various measures in the inter-war period to promote India’s domestic industries for the first time. Additionally, the book also argues that many of the expatriate firms in India became financially weak because of the Depression which paved the way for the ‘Indianisation’ of corporate houses. These elements were significant factors in the decline of British industrial hegemony in India and aided the de-colonisation process which followed. This book will be of interest to scholars of Indian economic history as well as those with wider interests in decolonisation, industrial history and the first half of the twentieth century.