Culture, History and Politics: South Asian Narratives is a collection of essays which explore the region’s shared pasts, formulative histories and its plural culture. Despite the distinctiveness of each people and nation, the spilling over of religions and languages across political borders weaves a complex web of commonalities. The contributors to this volume have discussed issues such as aesthetics, the coming into being of new faiths, encounters with outsiders as the people have journeyed through conflicts of various kinds and the need and impact of philosophies such as Sufism.

Contemporary socio-political concerns also claim attention as the writers explore histories of conflict – wars both global and local – and processes of recovery and rehabilitation. Gender issues are another area which open discourses of social oppression, art forms, creativity and cultural differences. As the writers engage with them, they bring to the discussion their own experiences, memories and perspectives. The persistence of old hostilities, the almost invisible shifts of power, the changing social and artistic concerns all find a place in these discussions, opening out new areas of insight and understanding.

The present volume’s special significance lies in the comparative perspective that these eminent scholars from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India engage with. The essays, both individually and collectively, are a valuable contribution to South Asian Studies, an area whose strategic importance has long been on the political map. As such the book will be of great interest and use to research scholars and academicians of Comparative Literature, Cultural and Interdisciplinary Studies.

1. The One, the one, the ones: Advaita and Select South Asian Poetics / Mashrur Shahid Hossain

2. South Asian Politics and Tibetan Buddhism: Changing Perceptions and Global Ramifications / Neekee Chaturvedi

3. Bulleh Shah and Kabir: Sufi and Bhakti Movements in Socio-Historical Contexts / Krishna Gopal Sharma

4. The Outsider’s Eye: The Travelogues of Pietro Della Valle and Mountstuart Elphinstone / Abhimanyu Singh Arha

5. Politics of the Rhetoric of Nation(s) before the Midnight Hour, August 1947 / Ameena Kazi Ansari

6. The Dialectics of History: Narratives of the Subcontinent’s Participation in the Empire’s Wars / Jasbir Jain

7. Competing Narratives of Partition: Voices from India and Pakistan / Sangeeta Sharma

8. Socio-Political Subversion in the Tribal Narratives of North-East India and North-West Pakistan / Chandra Mohan

9. Language of Resistance in Mujibur Rahman’s:  The Unfinished Memoirs and Benazir Bhutto’s Daughter of the East / Urmil Talwar

10. Myths of Redemption Across Faith and Culture: Sri Lanka and Pakistan / S. Asha

11. Rewriting the Nation: Drama in India and Pakistan / Manorama Trikha

12. ‘The Hopes, the Aspirations, the Guilt Embedded in Our Shaken Lives’ Romesh Gunesekera’s Noontide Toll / Senath Walter Perera

13. Religion, Ritual, Identity: Treatment of Gender Conflict in South Asian Fiction / E.V. Ramakrishnan

14. Resistance and Resilience in the Novels of South Asian Women Writers / Devika Khanna Narula

15. Re-Contextualizing Self and Language: Women Poets of South Asia / Rachel Bari

16. Exploring Multiple Realities of South-Asian Life through Cinema: With Special Focus on Gender / Tutun Mukherjee

17. The Confines of Creativity in the Subcontinent: Religion, Culture and Respectability / Bandana Chakrabarty

Jasbir Jain, Emeritus Fellow, University of Rajasthan, is an independent scholar who has researched in a wide range of areas and has worked with theoretical perspectives. Her latest publications include Subcontinental Histories (2018) and a revised edition of Beyond Postcolonialism: Dreams and Realities of a Nation (2019).

E.V. Ramakrishnan is a bilingual writer who has published poetry, criticism and translations in Malayalam and English. Among his critical books in English are: Making It New: Modernism in Malayalam, Marathi and Hindi Poetry (1995), Locating Indian Literature: Texts, Traditions,Translations (2011), and Indigenous Imaginaries: Literature, Modernity, Region (2017). He has won many awards for literary criticism in Malayalam. He has four poetry volumes in English, the most recent being Tips for Living in an Expanding Universe (2018). He is presently Professor Emeritus at Central University of Gujarat.

Chandra Mohan is the General Secretary, Comparative Literature Association of India and Chair, ICLA Standing Committee for Research on South Asian Literatures and Cultures. He is also the recipient of a Global Goodwill Ambassador Award awarded by a Foundation in Canada. His publications include Literary Culture and Translation: New Aspects of Comparative Literature (2017, co-edited with Dorothy Figueira) and Interdisciplinary Alternatives in Comparative Literature (2013, co-edited with E.V. Ramakrishnan and Harish Trivedi).