The Oxford Anthology of the Modern Indian City: Volume II: Making and Unmaking the City-Politics, Culture, and Life Forms

The city has had a long history in India, from the urban civilization of the Indus Valley in 2500 BCE to the megalopolis found in contemporary India. This is the first anthology of the city in India since around 1800, with an accent on the twentieth century. Drawing on fiction, poetry, essays, travel narratives, and scholarly studies in history, anthropology, and cultural studies, this two-volume anthology presents insights into the city with a mix of readings from the most renowned writers, established scholars and authors, and younger voices. Including poems, short stories, essays, and social commentaries by 64 writers, this volume, in particular, looks at the politics and violence in the city, the social web of life in the metropolis, the dalits, labourers, slum-dwellers, and outsiders, the many ethnicities, art and culture, and the past and future of the city. With contributions from leading writers and scholars including M.J. Akbar, Thomas Blom Hansen, Amitav Ghosh, Harriet Ronken Lynton, Bhisham Sahni, Shiv Visvanathan, Martha Ann Selby, Abdul Halim Sharar, Mirza Ghalib, Tanya Marie Luhrmann, and James Manor, this volume comes with a comprehensive Introduction by Vinay Lal which sets the context for the writings and a special reader's guide for the interested reader. Contributors to this volume - Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, one of the principal figures in the Hindi film industry and a well-known journalist; Varsha Adalja, a prolific writer in Gujarati with over forty books, including nearly two dozen novels; Neera Adarkar, practicing architect and an urban researcher, is visiting faculty member in the Academy of Architecture, Mumbai; M.J. Akbar, leading Indian journalist and prolific writer on contemporary politics and history, presently Editorial Director, India Today; Sumanta Banerjee, cultural historian with research interest in popular culture, particularly of the colonial period; Doosi Rajagopala Bhoopathy, well-known writer, best known for Mathimosa Vilakkam; Chandrakanta, well-known short story writer and novelist; Garga Chatterjee, currently Post-Doctoral Fellow in Brain and Cognitive Science at MIT; Manisha Chaudhry, publisher, editor and translator, has been active in the development sector since 1986; Mangalesh Dabral, well-known poet and translator, whose work has been translated into major Indian languages and half a dozen European languages; Lal Behari Day, one of the first boys admitted to Calcutta's Scottish Church College where he studied with Alexander Duff from 1834-44, was Professor of English and Mental and Moral Philosophy in Calcutta; S.M. (Stephen Meredyth) Edwardes served in the Indian Civil Service for many years; A.H. Fox Strangways was a scholar of both Western classical and Indian music; Amitav Ghosh, renowned novelist and non-fiction writer, has been awarded honorary degrees by the Sorbonne, Paris and by Queens College, New York; Mirza Ghalib, unquestionably the most famous and popular Urdu poet of the Indian subcontinent; Shanta Gokhale, novelist, playwright, theatre critic, and a noted translator of Marathi literature into English; Daud Haider, one of the finest poets of his generation in Bangladesh, served as literary editor of the Dacca daily, Dainik Sambad; Kathryn Hansen, Professor of Asian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin; Thomas Blom Hansen, Professor of Anthropology and Reliance-Dhirubhai Ambani Professor of South Asian Studies at Stanford University; E.S. Harcourt served in the British Army in India; co-translator of Sharar's Lucknow: The Last Phase of an Oriental Culture; Fakhir Hussain, co-translated the critically acclaimed Lucknow: The Last Phase of an Oriental Culture by Sharar; Prakash Jadhav leading Marathi Dalit poet known for his collection Dastakhat; Jaidev taught English at Himachal Pradesh University, Shimla, and was a Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla; Puran Chand Joshi, General Secretary (1935-47) of the Communist Party of India, established an archive at Jawaharlal Nehru University of material related to the communist movement in India; Ruchir Joshi, filmmaker and writer; Arvind Kala, freelance journalist, with contributions in the Times of India and Business World, among other publications; Ravi Kalia, Professor of History at the City College of New York; Chandrashekhar Kambar, eminent writer, poet, playwright, and folklorist, is recipient of the Jnanpith Award; Prabha Khetan, poet and fiction writer, translated Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex into Hindi; Jayanth Kodkani, journalist, fiction writer, and translator; Vinay Lal teaches history at UCLA and also writes widely on politics, cinema, and knowledge systems; Sahir Ludhianvi was one of mainstream Indian cinema's most accomplished songwriters; Tanya Marie Luhrmann, Watkins University Professor in the Stanford Anthropology Department; Harriet Ronken Lynton served, as one of only three women, on the Harvard Business School faculty after the Second World War; James Manor, Emeka Anyaoku Professor of Commonwealth Studies Emeritus in the School of Advanced Study, University of London; Meena R. Menon, independent writer and researcher, headed the India chapter of the Asian think tank called Focus on the Global South; Amaresh Misra, historian, writer, and columnist; Premendra Mitra, fiction and science fiction writer and a prominent member of the Bengali literary avant-garde; Manoj Mitta is presently Senior Editor with the Times of India in New Delhi; Tutun Mukherjee, Professor of Comparative Literature, Women's Studies, and Theatre Development at the University of Hyderabad; Timeri N. Murari, novelist, playwright, and non-fiction writer; Ashis Nandy, leading cultural psychologist, scholar, and critic, often included in the list of the world's most influential thinkers; Priyanka Nandy, social entrepreneur, development consultant, and writer; Neelofer was into desktop publishing and ran a blog on Hindi literature for some time; Sunita Nishad has taken classes in English speaking, computer basics, multimedia, and martial arts, and also teaches children part-time; Daya Pawar, leading voice of Marathi Dalit poetry; Harvinder Singh Phoolka, senior advocate of the Delhi High Court and human rights activist; Mohini Rajan is co-author, with Harriet Ronken Lynton, of Days of the Beloved (1974); M.V. Ramana holds joint appointments with the Nuclear Futures Laboratory and the Program on Science and Global Security, both at Princeton University; Shankar Ramaswami is doctoral candidate in anthropology at the University of Chicago; Shveta Sarda works at Sarai, the media project at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi; Bhisham Sahni, novelist, playwright, short story writer, and translator, was a major figure in the intellectual and cultural life of India through much of the twentieth century; Jeremy Seabrook, independent writer and researcher; Harsh Sethi, independent writer and consulting editor at Seminar magazine, was formerly Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi; Martha Ann Selby, Associate Professor of South Asian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin; Jai Sen, an architect by training, was involved with the National Campaign for Human Rights and the NGO Unnayan in Calcutta; Vivek Shanbhag, contemporary Kannada writer with four short story collections, two novels, and two plays; Abdul Halim Sharar, prolific Urdu journalist, novelist, and chronicler; H.S. Shivaprakash, major Kannada poet, playwright, scholar, and translator; Sriram V., an entrepreneur by profession but a historian by passion, has been chronicling Carnatic music and the history of Chennai for over a decade; Narayan Gangaram Surve, well-known poet; his Majhe Vidyapeeth ('My University') is regarded as one of the great works of modern Marathi literature; Ratnakar Tripathy is a researcher and writer; R. Venkatachalapathy, Professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai; Shiv Visvanathan, currently Professor, Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information & Communication Technology, Gandhinagar, Gujarat.