<p>We cannot think of a better way to spend the Sunday that precedes the 75th Independence Day than picking up books that sift through the many histories, thoughts, emotions, eccentricities and glories of a country that everyone loves to call a mind-numbing miracle. So here’s a curated list (in no particular order) of the latest books that explore the elusive and the esoteric as well as the everyday and the bygone — not exhaustive as it can never be, but just the ones that caught our imagination (and the eye).</p>.<p class="ListingGrey">Memsahibs</p>.<p>Ipshita Nath</p>.<p>HarperCollins</p>.<p>For young Englishwomen stepping off the steamer, the sights and sounds of humid colonial India were like nothing they’d ever experienced. For many, this was the ultimate destination to find a perfect civil servant husband. For still more, however, India offered a chance to fling off the shackles of Victorian social mores. From the hill stations to the capital, this promises to be a vivid anthology of colonial women’s lives across British India.</p>.<p class="ListingGrey"><span class="bold">Hul! Hul! </span></p>.<p>Peter Stanley</p>.<p>Bloomsbury</p>.<p>If not for the famous Indian mutiny-rebellion of 1857, the Santal ‘Hul’ (rebellion) of 1855 would today be remembered as the most serious uprising that the East India Company ever faced. Instead, this rebellion — to which 10 per cent of the Bengal Army’s infantry was committed and in which at least 10,000 Santals died — has been forgotten.</p>.<p>Drawing on a variety of relevant and unexploited sources for the first time, the author has produced the first comprehensive interpretation of the Hul, investigating why it occurred, how it was fought and why it ended as it did.</p>.<p class="ListingGrey"><span class="bold">Saffron Republic </span></p>.<p>Thomas Blom Hansen and Srirupa Roy (Eds) CUP</p>.<p>This book examines the phenomenon of contemporary Hindu nationalism or ‘new Hindutva’ that is presently the dominant ideological and political electoral formation in India. There is a rich body of work on Hindu nationalism, but its main focus is on an earlier moment of insurgent movement politics in the 1980s and 1990s.</p>.<p class="ListingGrey">Anchoring Change: 75 Years of Grassroots Interventions That Made a Difference</p>.<p>Vikram Singh Mehta, Neelima Khetan and Jayapadma R V (Eds)</p>.<p>HarperCollins</p>.<p>This is an unusual book that celebrates positive change through grassroots interventions spanning the 75 years since Independence and explores their relevance for the future of India. It shifts the conversation from failures to successes and distils from these successes relevant design principles that might have wide relevance to creating alternative, grassroots-based, sustainable development models.</p>.<p class="ListingGrey"><span class="bold">Her Name Was Freedom</span></p>.<p>Anu Kumar</p>.<p>Hachette India</p>.<p>These extraordinary Indian women and others like them featured in this book shared one common goal: to stand up against the British and fight for India’s freedom from colonial rule. Bringing together the inspiring stories of the lives of more than 25 remarkable women, this is a tribute to these feisty torchbearers of India’s Independence movement.</p>.<p class="ListingGrey">Writer, Rebel, Soldier, Lover: The Many Lives Of Agyeya</p>.<p>Akshaya Mukul</p>.<p>Penguin</p>.<p>Sachchidanand Hirananda Vatsyayan ‘Agyeya’ is unarguably one of the most remarkable figures of Indian literature. From his revolutionary youth to acquiring the mantle of a (highly controversial) patron saint of Hindi literature, Agyeya’s turbulent life also tells a history of the Hindi literary world and of a new nation —spanning as it does two world wars, Independence and Partition, and the building and fraying of the Nehruvian state. This biography is a journey into Agyeya’s public, private and secret lives.</p>.<p>Compiled by Rashmi Vasudeva</p>
<p>We cannot think of a better way to spend the Sunday that precedes the 75th Independence Day than picking up books that sift through the many histories, thoughts, emotions, eccentricities and glories of a country that everyone loves to call a mind-numbing miracle. So here’s a curated list (in no particular order) of the latest books that explore the elusive and the esoteric as well as the everyday and the bygone — not exhaustive as it can never be, but just the ones that caught our imagination (and the eye).</p>.<p class="ListingGrey">Memsahibs</p>.<p>Ipshita Nath</p>.<p>HarperCollins</p>.<p>For young Englishwomen stepping off the steamer, the sights and sounds of humid colonial India were like nothing they’d ever experienced. For many, this was the ultimate destination to find a perfect civil servant husband. For still more, however, India offered a chance to fling off the shackles of Victorian social mores. From the hill stations to the capital, this promises to be a vivid anthology of colonial women’s lives across British India.</p>.<p class="ListingGrey"><span class="bold">Hul! Hul! </span></p>.<p>Peter Stanley</p>.<p>Bloomsbury</p>.<p>If not for the famous Indian mutiny-rebellion of 1857, the Santal ‘Hul’ (rebellion) of 1855 would today be remembered as the most serious uprising that the East India Company ever faced. Instead, this rebellion — to which 10 per cent of the Bengal Army’s infantry was committed and in which at least 10,000 Santals died — has been forgotten.</p>.<p>Drawing on a variety of relevant and unexploited sources for the first time, the author has produced the first comprehensive interpretation of the Hul, investigating why it occurred, how it was fought and why it ended as it did.</p>.<p class="ListingGrey"><span class="bold">Saffron Republic </span></p>.<p>Thomas Blom Hansen and Srirupa Roy (Eds) CUP</p>.<p>This book examines the phenomenon of contemporary Hindu nationalism or ‘new Hindutva’ that is presently the dominant ideological and political electoral formation in India. There is a rich body of work on Hindu nationalism, but its main focus is on an earlier moment of insurgent movement politics in the 1980s and 1990s.</p>.<p class="ListingGrey">Anchoring Change: 75 Years of Grassroots Interventions That Made a Difference</p>.<p>Vikram Singh Mehta, Neelima Khetan and Jayapadma R V (Eds)</p>.<p>HarperCollins</p>.<p>This is an unusual book that celebrates positive change through grassroots interventions spanning the 75 years since Independence and explores their relevance for the future of India. It shifts the conversation from failures to successes and distils from these successes relevant design principles that might have wide relevance to creating alternative, grassroots-based, sustainable development models.</p>.<p class="ListingGrey"><span class="bold">Her Name Was Freedom</span></p>.<p>Anu Kumar</p>.<p>Hachette India</p>.<p>These extraordinary Indian women and others like them featured in this book shared one common goal: to stand up against the British and fight for India’s freedom from colonial rule. Bringing together the inspiring stories of the lives of more than 25 remarkable women, this is a tribute to these feisty torchbearers of India’s Independence movement.</p>.<p class="ListingGrey">Writer, Rebel, Soldier, Lover: The Many Lives Of Agyeya</p>.<p>Akshaya Mukul</p>.<p>Penguin</p>.<p>Sachchidanand Hirananda Vatsyayan ‘Agyeya’ is unarguably one of the most remarkable figures of Indian literature. From his revolutionary youth to acquiring the mantle of a (highly controversial) patron saint of Hindi literature, Agyeya’s turbulent life also tells a history of the Hindi literary world and of a new nation —spanning as it does two world wars, Independence and Partition, and the building and fraying of the Nehruvian state. This biography is a journey into Agyeya’s public, private and secret lives.</p>.<p>Compiled by Rashmi Vasudeva</p>
