Preface; Introduction; The Kashmir Imbroglio; The Sindh Question in Pakistan's Polity; Conclusion; Select Bibliography; Index
A ground-breaking book on nation-building, ethnicity and regional politics in South Asia.
Suranjan Das is Professor of History at the University of Calcutta and the Director of the Netaji Institute for Asian Studies, Calcutta.
"Das (Univ. of Calcutta, Communal Riots in Bengal, 1905-1947, 1991) is renowned for his studies of the rise of Muslim ethnic identity in Bengal. That is, how class struggle between Muslim peasants and Hindu landlords and moneylenders turned into conflict along communal lines. His study of Kashmir and Sindh is based on the analytical model "which relates ethnic politics to the non-convergence of state and nation." Das first looks at Kashmir, arguing that the crux of the problem lies in the failure of reconciliation between the continuing "centrist and negative postures of the Indian government" and Kashmiri ethnonationalism. Kashmiris, like Sindhis in Pakistan, are fighting for a restoration of powers they have lost. Das supports greater regional autonomy within federal units in both India and Pakistan to ameliorate ethnic feelings. In Sindh, he not only looks at Sindhi nationalism, but also at the clash between the Urdu-speaking Muhajir community and Sindhi-speaking Sindhis. The strong centrist bias of the government, he believes, exacerbates the problem. This useful survey could have been enriched with a greater emphasis on the crippling population growth and its attendant grinding poverty, which is really the heart of the problem. General readers and upper-division undergraduates and above." -- R. D. Long, Eastern Michigan University in CHOICE
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