Review essay: Agrarian transformation,agrarian struggles,and Marxist analyses of the peasantry

Abstract

After some years of living in an Indian village, on family land that by the standards of most Marxist scholars puts us in the category of “capitalist farmers” or “kulaks,” I find myself taking scholarly discussion of “agrarian transformation” and “agrarian class structure” quite personally. There is something that jars against the reality of a daily life that includes hauling water for household use in the morning, enduring frequent blackouts or “load sheddings,” trying to decide whether to purchase first a TV or a refrigerator or a washing machine and not really being able to afford any of them, to be told that in moving from a salaried position in a U.S. university to an Indian village one has made a class jump upwards, from a section of the “expanded working class” or at worst “petty bourgeoisie” to membership among the capitalists and even (according to some scholars) participation in India's “ruling bloc.”     

China Crisis? Indian Strategy,Political Realism,and the Chinese Challenge

Abstract

China's rise has provoked a substantial debate about its possible consequences for Indian security and its implications for Indian strategy. This review essay examines the parameters of this debate, concentrating especially on the rise of a new American-derived political realism in Indian thinking about China. It argues that in urging India to abandon its longstanding posture of strategic restraint, the new realists overestimate India's political military capabilities and run the risk for driving India toward a costly and dangerous confrontation with China.     

China’s rising naval ambitions in the Indian Ocean: aligning ends,ways and means

ABSTRACT

China’s naval footprint in the Indian Ocean has expanded considerably over the last decade. This growing presence has led to significant debates about China’s goals and capabilities in the region. This article argues that China’s trajectory over the last ten years reflects an alignment of ends, ways and means in the Indian Ocean. The main driver behind China’s ambitions in the region is the need for Beijing to secure pivotal maritime lines of communications that carry a large share of Chinese oil imports and a sizable part of Chinese exports. Fulfilling this mission has required a significant adjustment of China’s naval strategy, and the addition of ‘open seas protection’ to the core missions of the PLA Navy. This strategy has, in turn, been supported by the development of a navy with increased sea control capabilities and overseas basing plans that have started to materialize in Djibouti.     

Burma,China and the Myth of Military Bases

Abstract

Since the advent of a new, more outward-looking military government in 1988, Burma has come to occupy a position of considerable importance in the Asia-Pacific strategic environment. Burma's burgeoning relationship with China has attracted particular attention, not least because of the stream of reports in the news media and, to a lesser extent, academic literature, claiming that China has established several naval bases and intelligence collection stations in Burma. This apparent intrusion by China into the northeast Indian Ocean has strongly influenced the strategic perceptions and policies of Burma's regional neighbors, notably India. The reported facilities have also been cited as evidence that Burma has become a client state of China, and as proof of Beijing's expansionist designs in South and Southeast Asia. A close examination of the available evidence, however, suggests that there are no Chinese military bases on Burmese soil, a fact conceded by senior Indian officials in 2005. China still has a strong strategic interest in developing its bilateral relations with Burma but, based on this analysis, it would appear that China's presence in Burma, and its current influence over Burma's military regime, have been greatly exaggerated.     

The Prisoner Dilemma: Britain,Germany, and the Repatriation of Indian Prisoners of War

Abstract

Between October 1914 and December 1915, nearly 135,000 Indian riflemen—known as sepoys—fought in the trenches of France and Belgium at the battles of Ypres, Festubert, Givenchy, Neuve Chapelle, Second Ypres and Loos, suffering some 34,252 casualties. At a prisoner of war camp outside Berlin, Indian revolutionaries and emissaries from the Ottoman Empire attempted to convert the allegiances of the sepoys in their custody with a combination of pan-Islamic and nationalist appeals. Although this campaign ultimately failed, it profoundly shaped British repatriation policy at the end of the war when, cautioned Secretary of State for India Austen Chamberlain, the British could not allow men who had been exposed to ‘strongly hostile influences’ to return home unmonitored. The 1918 armistice and British repatriation policy therefore presented a host of new challenges to Britain’s colonial subjects from South Asia as they navigated the post-war imperial landscape and secured what was most important to them—safe transportation home.     

Book reviews: General

Gandhi's Rise to Power: Indian Politics 1915–1922. By Judith N. Brown. Cambridge University Press, 1972. Pp. 360. Index. £6.40.     

Diego Garcia and the United States' Emerging Indian Ocean Strategy

Abstract

As the world's economic and strategic “center of gravity” shifts from the Euro-Atlantic area to the Asia-Pacific, the Indian Ocean is emerging as an increasingly critical trade and energy conduit. This region has long been a strategic backwater for the United States. Moreover, unlike in other critical subregions of Asia, the United States lacks significant host-nation bases and is unlikely to acquire them. The British territory of Diego Garcia, whose location and political reliability give it significant strategic utility, is thus central to US power projection in the Indian Ocean littoral region. The US military's approach to Diego Garcia reflects an implicit Indian Ocean strategy that seeks to establish a flexible and enduring presence within a critical and contested space. However, Washington needs to move toward an explicit Indian Ocean policy that views the region holistically rather than narrowly viewing separate US Pacific Command, US Central Command, and US Africa Command theaters.     

Bhopal revisited: The view from below

Abstract

The night of 2–3 December 1994 will mark the tenth anniversary of the world's largest industrial disaster. Over the years the attention Bhopal has attracted has centered on the extended legal negotiations between the Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) and the Indian government. What is less known is that despite a settlement in 1989 and a review in 1991, the gas survivors continue to suffer untold misery. Indeed their lives are more insecure today than they were in 1984.     

Ambush at Kamikaze Pass

Abstract

“I was visiting an Indian school and a movie was being shown in the auditorium about the cavalry and the Indians. The cavalry was, of course, outnumbered and holding an impossible position where the Indians had chased them into the rocks. The Indians, attempting to sneak up on the cavalry, were being killed, one every shot. When it finally appeared that the Indians were going to overrun the army position the ubiquitous cavalry appeared on the far horizon with their bugle blowing, and charged to save the beleaguered few. The whole auditorium full of Indian students cheered.” Our Brother's Keeper: The Indian in White America.     

Ravaging India's Bihar Plateau

Abstract

In the name of “tribal development” another huge project has been launched by the World Bank in the Indian state of Bihar. The Bihar Plateau Development Project (BPDP) calls for radical transformation of agricultural practices, construction of roads, and massive new irrigation and drinking-water schemes. Eighty percent of the funds provided by the World Bank for the project are targeted for the development of infrastructure and maintenance of services.     

Review essay

Abstract

The increased emphasis being placed upon investments by multinational corporations in India, as a central feature of the economic policy of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, raises serious concerns in the wake of the December 1984 Union Carbide pesticide plant disaster. The Indian government has launched an ambitious program to acquire new technology from the West, based upon a memorandum of understanding concluded with the United States in 1985 which provides for the transfer of selected high technology. Many of these new industries will produce massive amounts of highly toxic chemicals. The critical question is whether multinationals and the Indian government will act in the future to insure public safety, especially for workers and their families.     

Political Ideology,Public Policy and Human Development in India: Explaining the Gap Between Gujarat and Tamil Nadu

Abstract

Four decades ago the Indian states of Gujarat and Tamil Nadu had identical scores on the human development index. Both states have since experienced similar rates of economic growth and Gujarat has received more foreign investment, but Tamil Nadu has witnessed much stronger advances in human development. What explains this divergence? Through comparative historical, statistical and public policy analysis and interviews, we conclude that the implementation of government policies as a manifestation of political ideology and the quality of public administration have played a defining role in explaining Gujarat’s more lopsided and Tamil Nadu’s more balanced human development trajectories. Our findings suggest that a more egalitarian ideology and higher quality of public administration have been crucial to Tamil Nadu’s success in simultaneously improving human and economic development.     

Operation Lal Dora: India's Aborted Military Intervention in Mauritius

Abstract

As India expands its strategic reach in the Indian Ocean, it will need friends that it can count on. The island state of Mauritius has long been one of India's closest allies in the region. This article discusses India's plans for a military intervention in Mauritius in 1983 to prevent a feared coup that may have threatened India's interests. A naval task force was readied, but the intervention did not proceed because of disagreements in India's leadership. Instead New Delhi facilitated a political solution to the crisis that firmly consolidated its special role. This previously undisclosed episode sheds light on India's thinking about the Indian Ocean, the alignment of India's interests with the United States, and India's military capabilities.     

A trip to Alamut,Lahijan and Rasht

Middle East

Arab Political Memoirs and Other Studies. By Elie Kedourie. London, Frank Cass, 1974. Pp. 327. Bibliog. Index. £5.95.

Arabian Assignment. By David Smiley. London, Leo Cooper, 1975. Pp. 248. Illus. Index. £6.75.

From Encroachment to Involvement. A Documentary Study of Soviet Policy in the Middle East, 1945–1973. By Yaacov Ro'i. Jerusalem, Israel Universities Press, 1974; distributed in the UK by John Wiley &; Sons. Pp. 616. Indices.

Nasserist Ideology: Its Exponents and Critics. By Nissim Rejwan. Jerusalem, Israel Universities Press, 1974. Pp. 271. Appendix. Index. £6.75.

The Modern History of Israel. By Noah Lucas. London, Weidenfeld and Nicol‐son, 1975. Pp. 500. Maps. Bibliog. Index. £6.00.

The Moors in Spain and Portugal. By Jan Read. London, Faber &; Faber, 1974. Pp. 268. Illus. Bibliog. Index. £4.95.

Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean and the Threat to the West. Four Studies in Global Strategy. Edited by Patrick Wall. London, Stacey International, 1975. Pp. 198. Maps. Illus. Index. £3.50 (paper £2.00).

South Asia

China, Pakistan and Bangladesh. By J. P. Jain. New Delhi, Radiant Publishers, 1974. Pp. vi+232. Notes. Appendices. Bibliog. Index. Rs. 55.

Soviet Policy towards Pakistan and Bangladesh. By J. P. Jain. New Delhi, Radiant Publishers, 1974. Pp. 212. Notes. Appendices. Bibliog. Index. Rs. 50.

Soviet Policy toward India: Ideology and Strategy. By Robert H. Donaldson. Cambridge, Mass., and London, Harvard University Press, 1974. Pp. x+264. Notes. Appendix. Bibliog. Index. £7.50.

Minorities in Madras State. Group Interests in Modern Politics. By S. Saras‐wathi. Delhi, Impex India, 1974. Pp. 247. Tables. Bibliog. Index. Rs. 50.

India ‐ Development and Experience. By Sardar Tarlok Singh. Madras and London, Macmillan, 1975. Pp. xx+458. Index. £8.00.

British Economic Thought and India 1600–1858. A study in the history of development economics. By William J. Barber. Clarendon Press; London, Oxford University Press, 1975. Pp. 243. Bibliog. Index. £6.00.

Marriage, Religion and Society. Pattern of change in an Indian village. By Giri Raj Gupta. London, Curzon Press, 1974. Pp. 180. Glossary. Bibliog. Index. £3.00.

The Lion River. The Indus. By Jean Fairley. London, Allen Lane, 1975. Pp. xv+290. Maps. Illus. Bibliog. Index. £4.95.

An Indian Summer. By James Cameron. London, Macmillan, 1974. Pp. 224. £3.50.

Sources for the History of British India in the Seventeenth Century. By Shafaat Ahmad Khan. London, Curzon Press, 1975. Pp. 395. Index. £4.50.

Political Relations between India and Nepal, 1877–1923. By Kanchanmoy Mojumdar. Delhi, Munshiram Manoharlal, 1973. Pp. xv+331. Maps. Appendix. Bibliog. Index. Rs. 30.

Himalayan Traders. Life in Highland Nepal. By Christoph von Fürer‐Haimen‐dorf. London, John Murray, 1975. Pp. 316. Maps. Illus. Bibliog. Index. £7.50.

Pakistan Under Challenge. By L. F. Rushbrook Williams. London, Stacey International, 1975. Pp. 224. Maps. Illus. Index. £3.90 (paper £2.20).

South‐East Asia

Southeast Asia Under the New Balance of Power. Edited by Sudershan Chawla, Melvin Gurtov and Alain‐Gerard Marsot. New York, Praeger; London, Pall Mall Press, 1974. Pp. 196. Bibliog. Index. £2.25.

U Nu: Saturday's Son. By U Nu; translated by U Law Yone and edited by U Kyaw Win. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1975. Pp. xv+358. Index. £7.50.

Economic Growth and Development in West Malaysia 1947–1970. By David Lim. London, Oxford University Press, 1974. Pp. xx+346. Tables. Bibliog. Index. £9.95.

Far East

China's Foreign Relations since 1949. By Alan Lawrance. London, Routledge &; Kegan Paul (World Studies Series), 1975. Pp. 261. Maps. Biblog. Index. £5.95.

East Asia &; U.S. Security. By Ralph N. Clough. Washington, The Brookings Institution, 1975. Pp. 248. Index. $8–95 (paper $3.50).

The Logic of “Maoism”: Critiques and Explication. Edited by James Chieh Hsiung. New York, Praeger; London, Pall Mall Press, 1975. Pp. 227. Bibliog. Index. £8.00.

The Pattern of Sino‐American Crises. Political‐Military Interactions in the 1950s. By J. H. Kalicki. London, Cambridge University Press, 1975. Pp. 279. Illus. Bibliog. Index. £7.50.

China's Economic Aid. By Wolfgang Bartke. London, C. Hurst &; Co., 1975. Pp. 215. £5.00.

Russia and the Roots of the Chinese Revolution, 1896–1911. By Don C. Price. Cambridge, Mass., and London, Harvard University Press, 1975. Pp. 301. Glossary. Bibliog. Index. £8.00.

Mirror to the Son of Heaven: Wei Cheng at the Court of T'ang T'ai‐tsung. By Howard J. Wechsler. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1975. Pp. xii+259. Appendices. Glossary. Bibliog. Index. £7.50.

Between Tradition and Modernity: Wang T'ao and Reform in Late Ch'ing China. By Paul A. Cohen. Cambridge, Mass., and London, Harvard University Press, 1974. Pp. x+357. Notes. Glossary. Bibliog. Index. £8.00.

Some Remarks on the Relationship between China and Mongolia. By C. R. Bawden. London, The China Society, 1974. China Society Occasional Papers. No. 17.

United States‐Japanese Relations: The Seventies. Edited by Priscilla Clapp and Morton H. Halperin. Cambridge, Mass., and London, Harvard University Press, 1975. Pp. 234. £4.00.

Japanese Radicals Revisited: Student protest in postwar Japan. By Ellis S. Krauss. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, University of California Press, 1974. Pp. xiv+192. Bibliog. Index. £6.60.

The Samurai. By Paul Varley with Ivan and Nobuko Morris. First published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1970; London, Penguin Books, 1974. Pp. 106. Map. Illus. Index.

Warrior Government in Early Medieval Japan: A Study of the Kamakura Bakufu, Shugo and Jito. By Jeffrey P. Mass. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1975. Pp. 257. Glossary. Map. Bibliog. Index. £6.25.

Ishiwara Kanji and Japan's Confrontation with the West. By Mark R. Peattie. Princeton and London, Princeton University Press, 1975. Pp. 430. Glossary (Romaji/Kanji). Bibliog. Index. £870.

The Kuril Islands. Russo‐Japanese Frontiers in the Pacific. By John J. Stephan. Clarendon Press; London, Oxford University Press, 1975. Pp. 279. Maps. Illus. Bibliog. Index. £6.25.     

Political Mobilisation,the Poor and Democratisation in Neo-liberal India

Abstract

Globalisation has had far-reaching implications for the dynamics of liberal democracy and governance in India. With the opening of the Indian economy in the 1990s, global market forces and private sector organisations have played an increasingly significant role in the political life of the nation. Given this background, several central questions are addressed. How has globalisation affected the way that state and civil society relations in India are constituted? In particular, what are its political implications for the poor who had previously relied on the services provided by the post-colonial state that carried out significant welfare-orientated functions? The paper argues that the contradictions of globalisation have transformed the dependent identity of the poor and marginalised toward a greater propensity for collective mobilisation. While the longer-term outcomes of such mobilisation remains unclear, the hegemonic position of entrenched elites is more clearly being challenged by the emergence of new agendas of inclusion, welfare rights and social justice appearing under conditions of neo-liberal globalisation.     

Loss and Longing: Emotional Responses to West Indian Soldiers during the First World War

Abstract

This article traces the place of black soldiers within British military history from the 18th century to the eve of the First World War. It shows how during the war, attitudes to and representations of West Indian volunteers reflected anxieties surrounding white male efficiency.     

Review: India's political economy

Abstract

Though this is an extremely important study from one of the most perceptive of U.S. scholars of India, it is not, despite its title, a study of India's “political economy.” That would require a much fuller analysis of Indian relations of production and their contradictions-including those of class, caste, gender, and nationality—within the framework of the world capitalist system. Instead, it is basically a detailed analysis of Indian government economic policy since independence, with a discussion of economic dilemmas and rural class-caste contradictions as a backdrop.     

Clash of the Titans?

Abstract

Asia's strategic evolutions during the next two decades or so will put major theories about great-power behavior to the test. A trio of new books about the Sino–Indian rivalry help sketch out a timely research agenda.     

Showing Character: Nehru,Reputation, and the Sino-Indian Dispute, 1957–1962

Abstract

In the approach to the Sino-Indian war of 1962, the Indian government made some surprising policy choices. Most significant was Nehru’s decision to contest what was viewed by him and his officials as unimportant territory in the western sector, rejecting in the process Chou en-Lai’s 1960 “package” offer. Instead, Delhi chose to initiate in 1961 the Forward Policy, in full awareness of the severely disadvantageous position of the Indian military in the disputed border areas. Using Indian primary documents, this article makes the case that reputational considerations—particularly Nehru’s fear that any concessions to China would be viewed as weakness and provoke further aggression—help explain the puzzling aspects of India’s intransigence on the Sino-Indian territorial dispute during this period.     

Notes on South Asia in Crisis

Abstract

Louis Dumont has argued persuasively that the concept of caste is not simply a form of social stratification, but a way of looking at society as a whole. Dumont argues that the “Western mind” sees society as the relationship between individuals and the mass, but that the “Indian mind” sees relationships between groups (castes) and social unity. This holistic concept of Indian society is essentially religious, for it is based on beliefs and values which reflect a sacred order, undergird religious institutions, and are the subjects of religious texts. At the heart of these beliefs and values are the Hindu concepts of purity/pollution, and the karmic cycle of birth and rebirth. Both of these concepts are intimately related to the notion of Untouchability; and without them, the caste system would lose its religious legitimacy. The question, then, is whether the Untouchables accept this logic, or whether it is forced upon them.