E-Books →South Asia's Freedom in Global Perspective

Structured in three parts, the book examines the historical trajectory of South Asia in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in its full complexity. Contributors to the book place the momentous event of independence and partition of India in a global perspective. Resisting the triumphalist nationalist narratives - that see the present-day nation-states of India and Pakistan, and also Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Burma as the preordained goal of the anticolonial struggle - the chapters analyze the process of South Asian independence, partition, and constitution-making. The book examines the relationship between nation, partition, and federation in the aftermath of liberal imperialism. Exposing the hollowness of celebratory accounts of liberal democracy in postcolonial South Asia, this book squarely confronts the historical roots of the contemporary crisis of authoritarianism in a global context. By identifying the requirements of genuine and substantive democracy in the subcontinent, the book charts a creative way toward a better constitutional and political future.
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