![]() The point, however, is how far Guha succeeds in filling them.Īrbitrary lines My sense is it doesn't go very far in explanatory terms, though the breadth of the story Guha recounts is often breathtaking. But it is not a particularly original point that the gaps in the historiography of Indian democracy after the transfer of power are awesome. The point is well taken, especially with the caveat that some studies do exist in the area even if they can be "counted on the fingers of one hand-or, if one is more open-minded, two". Thus, 1947 remains the arbitrary watershed: the arena of history predates that year, after which sociology, political science and other disciplines take over. ![]() ![]() Ramachandra Guha's panoptic 'history' of contemporary India- India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Demo-cracy -invites other adjectives compendious is one, magisterial isn't.Īt the outset, Guha makes the point, in some ways justified, that the arbitrary way history has been categorized as an academic discipline in the Indian context has given rise to an equally arbitrary chronological construct of what the subject matter of the discipline must be. ![]()
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