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439394 results in Area Studies

Page 52 of 21970

Independent Kashmir
  • An incomplete aspiration
  • Christopher Snedden
  • Published by:
    Manchester University Press
    Published online:
    09 January 2026
  • This book examines the topic of an independent ‘Kashmir’ and why this political aspiration to be self-governing and free from coerced subordination to another nation remains unsatisfied. It focuses on how Maharaja Hari Singh, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and Muslim Kashmiris have envisioned or sought independence for Jammu and Kashmir (J;K), or for their particular region within this disputed entity. Hari Singh and Sheikh Abdullah were the two most significant figures in J;K in the twentieth century. They also were political rivals, united briefly in 1947 by not wanting J;K to join Pakistan and by an indecisive desire for an independent J;K. After acceding to India, Singh quickly became redundant. Through a tumultuous political career, Abdullah strove for independence or maximum autonomy for J;K. In 1988, disenchanted Muslim Kashmiris surprisingly began a violent anti-India uprising seeking azadi (independence, freedom) for their region or for it to join Pakistan. Kashmiris remain severely disgruntled and this insurgency continues to pose challenges for India. By concentrating on these two men and this insurgency, the book provides a focused, in-depth history of J;K from the mid-1920s, when Hari Singh became J;K’s ruler, to the present time, when many Kashmiris still crave azadi from India. While an ‘independent Kashmir’ is a long envisioned aspiration, the book concludes that it is likely to remain incomplete while India and Pakistan exist in their current structures, while India is strong and unified, and while Kashmiris are disunified and uncertain about what status they want for their homelands.

Convict Politics
  • From Utopia to Serfdom in Early China (221 BCE – 23 CE)
  • Liang Cai
  • Published online:
    09 January 2026
    Print publication:
    19 January 2026
  • In this innovative history, Liang Cai examines newly excavated manuscripts alongside traditional sources to explore convict politics in the early Chinese empires, proposing a new framework for understanding Confucian discussions of law and legal practice. While a substantial number of convict laborers helped operate the local bureaucratic apparatus in early China, the central court re-employed numerous previously convicted men as high officials. She argues that convict politics emerged, because, while the system often criminalized individuals, including the innocent, it was simultaneously juxtaposed with redemption policies and frequent amnesties in pursuit of a crime-free utopia. This dual system paralyzed the justice system, provoking intense Confucian criticism and resulting in a deep-seated skepticism toward law in the Chinese tradition, with a long-lasting political legacy.

Sober State
  • Origins of Alcohol Prohibition in India
  • Darinee Alagirisamy
  • Published online:
    09 January 2026
    Print publication:
    31 January 2026
  • 'What happens when a democratic state—still in the process of formation—commits to banning a substance, especially one as controversial as alcohol? This book traces the origins and evolution of alcohol prohibition in India, drawing on extensive archival research and rich vernacular sources to explain its surprising resilience over time. Since its inception, prohibition has served both as an ideal and a tool of state power—a dual role that has worked to shape its shifting trajectories. Each phase of enforcement has served to reaffirm prohibition's founding logic, thereby further embedding it in the machinery of governance—even as it has constrained its future implementation. Foregrounding intersections with caste and gender, the book illuminates how diverse social responses have made prohibition a deeply contested—sobering—yet enduring project. While prohibition may be a thing of the past in the West, history helps to keep it alive in India.'

Colonial Caregivers
  • Ayahs and the Gendered History of Race and Caste in British India
  • Satya Shikha Chakraborty
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    January 2026
    Print publication:
    30 October 2025
  • Colonial Caregivers offers a compelling cultural and social history of ayahs (nannies/maids), by exploring domestic intimacy and exploitation in colonial South Asia. Working for British imperial families from the mid-1700s to the mid-1900s, South Asian ayahs, as Chakraborty shows, not only provided domestic labor, but also provided important moral labor for the British Empire. The desexualized racialized ayah archetype upheld British imperial whiteness and sexual purity, and later Indian elite 'upper' caste domestic modernity. Chakraborty argues that the pervasive cultural sentimentalization of the ayah morally legitimized British colonialism, while obscuring the vulnerabilities of caregivers in real-life. Using an archive of petitions and letters from ayahs, fairytales they told to British children, court cases, and vernacular sources, Chakraborty foregrounds the precarious lives, voices, and perspectives of these women. By placing care labor at the center of colonial history, the book decolonizes the history of South Asia and the British Empire.

  • Conclusion: to be independent, or not to be independent? That is the question

  • Christopher Snedden
  • Book:
    Independent Kashmir
    Published by:
    Manchester University Press
    Published online:
    09 January 2026, pp 311-321

  • Summary

    The conclusion briefly summarises the roles of Maharaja Hari Singh and Sheikh Abdullah, and their respective impacts. It discusses some mistakes made by India in 1947, which instigated the Kashmir dispute – and some desires by people for an independent J&K or an independent Kashmir – and the possibility that either may occur, including as a result of a ‘black swan’ event or the inevitable border changes that have long occurred in South Asia. Ultimately, the book concludes that India is most likely to retain Kashmir, partly because of its strengths, and Pakistan’s inability to force India out, but also mainly because of some weaknesses that the disgruntled Kashmiris have, particularly their disunity and inability to decide what status they actually want for Kashmir. Meanwhile, India has suppressed the Kashmiri identity, but it will again re-emerge. Also, independence might be a good thing for Kashmir as it would end the India–Pakistan struggle over it, with the result that this region could then become a bridge between both nations, not an object of contestation.

  • 6 - Sheikh Abdullah’s pursuit of independence for ‘Kashmir’, post-1953

  • Christopher Snedden
  • Book:
    Independent Kashmir
    Published by:
    Manchester University Press
    Published online:
    09 January 2026, pp 230-265

  • Summary

    This chapter discusses Sheikh Abdullah and his attitudes to independence, autonomy or self-determination for J&K between 1953 and 1982. After the Head of the State dismissed him from office in 1953, Abdullah was denied the opportunity to confirm his majority in the Constituent Assembly. Instead, he was detained. With him sidelined, other Kashmiris came to the fore, enabling New Delhi to slowly tie J&K into the Indian Union. In 1957, the new J&K Constitution reiterated that J&K was with India. In 1964, Abdullah was finally released, after which he reconciled with Nehru then visited Pakistan seeking agreement on the Kashmir dispute. Tragically, Nehru died while Abdullah was away. During brief periods of release, and certainly after his final release in 1968, Abdullah would talk of self-determination, or sometimes autonomy or independence, for J&K-ites via the Plebiscite Front, a political party. He also sought a solution to the Kashmir issue via two important People’s Conventions in 1968 and 1970. A major turning point occurred when India conclusively defeated Pakistan in their 1971 war and Bangladesh was created. This confirmed that Islam was not a monolith, that Pakistan could not liberate J&K, and that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was politically unassailable. These factors greatly moderated Abdullah’s aspirations for J&K’s international status. In 1975, he agreed the Kashmir Accord with Gandhi, which enabled him to return to power in J&K. However, he had to accept unequivocally that J&K was an integral part of India. Abdullah died in office in 1982.

  • Diligent Germans with a Thirst for Knowledge? Emil Schlagintweit, German Orientalism, and Nineteenth-Century Tibetology

  • Tom Neuhaus
  • Journal:
    Central European History , First View
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    09 January 2026, pp. 1-22
    • Article
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  • This article examines the work of Emil Schlagintweit (1835–1904), one of Germany's most prominent nineteenth-century Tibetologists in order to challenge some common assumptions regarding Orientalist scholarship and its relationship to nineteenth-century nationalism and imperialism. Schlagintweit began to work on Tibetan religion and language in the wake of an expedition led by three of his brothers in the 1850s, and his work can provide important nuances to existing understandings of German Orientalism in the second half of the nineteenth century. It demonstrates that German scholars did indeed emphasize rigorous analysis in line with the notion of Wissenschaftlichkeit, yet it also demonstrates that their work could go beyond this and rely on a wider array of methodologies and traditions. Interpretations which treat German Orientalists as fundamentally different from other European scholars should therefore be treated with caution. At the same time, the relationship between Orientalist knowledge and imperial realities remained ambivalent for scholars such as Schlagintweit.

Page 52 of 21970