Wendy Brown, in her piece, “Finding Man in the State”, argued while highlighting the liberal dimension of the state that in classical and contemporary liberal discourses, the familial domain has always been accorded the status of pre-political and a humane arena devoid of historicity or to be more precise, “naturally ordained”. In contrast to this, civil society is the space where rights are guaranteed by the state (“non-natural entity”) on the natural actors to maintain civi

"Zamaane ke jis daur se hum guzar rahe hain, agar aap isse naawaaqif hain to mere afsaane padhiye. Agar aap in afsaanon ko bardaasht nahi kar sakte to iska matlab hai ki ye zamaana naaqaabil-e-bardaasht hai." (If you are unacquainted with the era we are passing through, read my stories. If you cannot bear these stories, it means that the era is unbearable.) Saadat Hasan Manto, who failed his matriculation examination twice due to weak Urdu, went on to become one of its finest

A Koothu performance lasting forty-one days is being held at the Vadakkunnathan Temple in Thrissur. On stage is Ammannur Chachu Chakyar, the lead performer of the Ammannur Chakyar family, one of Kerala's most distinguished lineages of Koothu artists. In the audience is Rama Varma XV, the recently abdicated Maharaja of Cochin. Chachu Chakyar, dressed as the vidhushaka, turns to the maharaj and poses a bold question. ‘Did you abdicate the throne of your own will? Or where you m

The earliest evidence of wool-making in Kashmir dates back to the Neolithic period, as evidenced by R.C. Kak’s findings at Burzahom, sixteen kilometres from Srinagar. According to V Ganju, shawls were indeed manufactured during the epic age. Kurus were given ten thousand shawls to the Pandavas, and they are said to have found a place in Sita's trousseau as well. Kalahana in his Rajtarangini, also writes of people donning beautiful woollen fabrics on their shoulders. The produ

“He (Birbal) was possessed of a considerable amount of capacity and genius…and was honoured with the distinction of becoming the Emperor’s confidant and it became a case of ‘Thy flesh is my flesh and thy blood my blood.” 1   This is how Badayuni, a biographer and a staunch critic of Akbar’s religious eclecticism, describes the emperor’s bond with his beloved courtier, Maheshdas aka Birbal. Badayuni despised Birbal but that did not stop him from admitting that the latter was i

The drain of wealth in the colonial eve of the nineteenth  century saw a series of famines as the salt to  wounds of the economic structure of colonial India . The Famine of 1866 of Odisha marks one of the ignorant and generalized events that took place in Bengal Presidency. The advent of the English East India company began in Odisha with establishment of the first factory at Hariharpur in 1633 in Balasore district of Odisha. Soon within 200 years Odisha was too found to be

The theoretical formulation of the “Modern Prince” by Antonio Gramsci constitutes an extremely significant reconceptualization of revolutionary political agency in contemporaneity. It is a reinterpretation of Machiavelli’s infamous political tract, “The Prince”, and allocates a form of transformation, from a singular imagery of a sovereign figure to a Sorellian “myth” of political ideology which helps in constructing an embodiment of historic-political consciousness condensed

A Chinese House in Central Calcutta [Photo by Syed Shakir Ali Al Hossaini] Last time you had your cappuccino sitting in an aesthetic cafe with that extra spoon of white sugar, did you take a moment to think when was the first time that Calcutta first had its first refined sugar on the tea table? In this blog, we will explore the histories of refined sugar, the leather industry, beauty parlours, and ‘Desi Chinese’ in the City of Joy. Calcutta’s cultural history is diverse and

In India, history has always been a battleground of ideas and interpretations. It transcends the confines of academia, engaging...

*This is a transcript of the Karwaan Distinguished Lecture delivered by Professor Thomas R. Metcalf on 03 March 2024. I have been asked...

I have been among those fortunate few who have known about/to Dr. B.N. Goswamy all my life, even though my discovery of him being an art...

Most rulers, throughout the course of history, regardless of affiliation, were capable of being sophisticated and cultured, and yet equally

Renowned for his diverse talents that transcended various fields, Rabindranath Tagore was a Bengali polymath — a gift that never stopped...

The title of my work draws inspiration from Vergangenheitsbewältigung, a German term that translates to "coming to terms with the past."...

Gulbadan Banu Begum wrote the first female-authored account of life at the Mughal Court, the Humayun-nama.

Information about the book: Conversations: India’s Leading Art Historian Engages With 101 Themes And More. By Brijinder Nath Goswamy,...

During 1560-1561 the faction supporting Maham Anaga remained dominant. Vincent Smith calls this period the ignoble interval when Akbar...

INTRODUCTION Babur named all three of his daughters by Dildar Begum after the word Gul ‘rose’; (Gulrang: ‘rose colored’, Gulchihra:...

Many of us probably remember the first chapter of our history textbooks in 12th grade- Bricks, Beads, and Bones, about the Indus Valley...

Gour or Gauda used to be the capital of Ancient Bengal, located in the banks of the Ganges; this is one of the oldest residential...