This book deals with colonialism, political culture and nationalism in India. It examines Sati Pratha in nineteenth-century India, the plight of women in Indian society. It deals with the politics of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in retrospect. It further deals with Indira Gandhi’s style of politics and the imposition of emergency in 1975. Above all, it deals with the Ramjanmabhumi Movement and its impact on Indian society.
This is an invaluable book on social criticism as a parallel to colonial and postcolonial criticism which can be used as a tool for the interpretation of Indian English Literature and Indian literature in English translation. All in all, this book places Ashis Nandy in the company of Homi K. Bhabha and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak as postcolonial critic.
Bijay Kumar Das (1952- ) PhD, DLitt is a contributor to The Encyclopaedia of World Literature in the 20th Century (New York). He has published a number of reference books which include Critical Essays on Post-Colonial Literature (2007, 2012, 2019); Twentieth Century Literary Criticism (2010, 2012, 2014, 2018); Critical Essays on Research Methodology, Interdisciplinarity and Indian Literature (2017); Interpreting Poetry and Evaluating Criticism (2015); Perspectives on the Poetry of A.K. Ramanujan (2013); A Handbook of Translation Studies (2005, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2013); The Poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra (2009); Form and Meaning in Mahesh Dattani’s Plays (2008, 2013); Post-Modern Indian English Literature (2006, 2013); Critical Essays on Poetry (2003); A Handbook of Communication Skills and Functional English (2002, 2006, 2017); Shiv K. Kumar as a Post-Colonial Poet (2001); A Reader’s Guide to Ten Twentieth Century Indian Poets (1999); Aspects of Commonwealth Literature (1995); The Horizon of Nissim Ezekiel’s Poetry (1995); Perspectives on Indian English Poetry Criticism (1998); and Modern Indian English Poetry (1992). He has edited six reference books: Professional Lives of Ten Illustrious Teachers of English (2019); Revisiting W.B. Yeats’s World and Art (2016); Academic Lives of Fifteen Eminent Teachers of English (2014); New Readings in Indian English Literature (2011); Comparative Literature (2000, 2013); Perspective on the Poetry of R. Parthasarathy (1998) and Contemporary Indo-English Poetry (1992). He has also co-edited one reference book entitled Studies in Postcolonial Literature (2007) and several textbooks including Nineteenth Century English Poetry (OUP, 1992, 1998) and Twenty Essays (OUP, 2001). He has successfully guided 27 PhD scholars and was the Chief Editor of The Indian Journal of English Studies for three years (2007-09). He is the Editor of The Critical Endeavour since 1995. Formerly a Reader in English at Ravenshaw College, Cuttack and Professor of English at Burdwan University, Burdwan (West Bengal), Professor Das now lives in Cuttack and writes books. Currently, he is the President of the Researchers’ Association of Odisha which is devoted to the cause of English Studies in India.
