Join faculty author Sunil Purushotham, PhD, for a virtual book launch and discussion with Jesús F. Cháirez-Garza, PhD, lecturer in modern history at the University of Manchester on Wednesday, March 31 at 5 p.m.
Called a "brilliantly original account of India's partition" by Faisal Devji at the University of Oxford, From Raj to Republic: Sovereignty, Violence, and Democracy in India, the new book by Sunil Purushotham, PhD, associate professor of history and humanities seminar fellow, was published this past January by Stanford University Press.
From Raj to Republic presents a multifaceted history of sovereignty and democracy in India by linking together the princely state of Hyderabad's attempt to establish itself as an independent sovereign state, the partitioning of Punjab, and the communist-led revolutionary movement in the southern Indian region of Telangana.
“For the general reader, I think what they could expect from the book is an unconventional story about a highly consequential moment in the history of South Asia, and indeed world history,” noted Dr. Purushotham of the 360-page volume he penned while teaching and fathering two small children.
Dr. Purushotham described the book as having "a number of key arguments."
“One is that we need to consider the way in which sovereignty in colonial India was fragmented, layered, and parceled," he said. "I considered this question by placing significant emphasis on the institution of sovereign kingship and its place in the colonial order of things. Another [argument] is that violence during this period was not aberrational or merely an unfortunate outcome, but foundational of a new regime of sovereignty in India and speaks to the illiberal origins and character of India’s liberal democracy.”
This College of Arts and Sciences event at 5 p.m. on March 31 will take place via Zoom and is sponsored by the Humanities Institute.
