This is an archived course. A more recent version may be available at ocw.mit.edu.

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Readings

This course emphasizes class discussion. Student groups take turns leading the discussions, which should be based on questions inspired by the readings.

Books for Required Reading

Buy at Amazon Sahgal, Nayantara. Rich Like Us. 1st ed. New York, NY: Harper Collins, 1999. ISBN: 8172233752.

Buy at Amazon Chughtai, Ismat. The Quilt and Other Stories. Translated by Tahira Nagvi and Syeda S. Hameed. 4th ed. Columbia, MO: South Asia Books, 1999. ISBN: 8185107106.

Buy at Amazon Hossain, Rokeya Sakhawat. Sultana's Dream: And Selections from the Secluded Ones. New York, NY: Feminist Press, 1988. ISBN: 0935312838.

Buy at Amazon Devi, Mahasweta. Imaginary Maps: Three Stories. Translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Oxford, UK: Routledge, 1994. ISBN: 0415904633.

Buy at Amazon Antherjanam, Lalithambika, Gita Krishnakutty. Cast Me Out If You Will: Stories and Memoirs from Kerala. 1st ed. New York, NY: Feminist Press, 1998. ISBN: 1558611886.

LEC # TOPICS READINGS
1 Introduction  
2

Quest for Freedom, Partition and Memories (1857-2004), (A Historical Approach and Personal Memoirs)

 Film: Mehta, Deepa. Earth. 1998.

Reading: Buy at Amazon Chandra, Bipan, Mridula Mukherjee, Aditya Mukherjee, K. N. Panikkar, and Sucheta Mahajan. India’s Struggle for Independence. New Delhi, India: Penguin Books, 1989. ISBN: 0670821519. (Selections from this text.)

Reading: Buy at Amazon Butalia, Urvashi. The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000. ISBN: 0822324946. (Extracts from this text.)
3 Land Reforms (1950-85): Poverty Line and Peasantry

Film: Benegal, Shyam. Ankur. 1974.

Reading: Buy at Amazon Seth, Vikram. A Suitable Boy. New York, NY: Perennial Harper Collins Publishers, Inc., 1993. ISBN: 0060925000. (Selections from this text.)

Reading: Besley, Timothy, and Robin Burgess. "Land Reform, Poverty Reduction, And Growth: Evidence From India." The Quarterly Journal of Economics 115, no. 2 (2000): 389-430.
4 "The Emergency Rule" (1975-77): Democracy or Dictatorship? Reading: Buy at Amazon Sahgal, Nayantara. Rich Like Us. 1st ed. New York, NY: Harper Collins, 1999. ISBN: 8172233752.
5 "The Emergency Rule" (1975-77): Democracy or Dictatorship? (cont.) Reading: Buy at Amazon Sahgal, Nayantara. Rich Like Us. 1st ed. New York, NY: Harper Collins, 1999. ISBN: 8172233752.
6 The Universal Civil Code Debate and the Shah Bano Case (1985 and its Aftermath): Women and Islam

Reading: Buy at Amazon Chughtai, Ismat. "The Wedding Shroud" and "Choti Apa." In The Quilt and Other Stories. Translated by Tahira Nagvi and Syeda S. Hameed. 4th ed. Columbia, MO: South Asia Books, 1999. ISBN: 8185107106.

Reading: Buy at Amazon Hossain, Rokeya Sakhawat. "Purdah Observed." In Sultana's Dream: And Selections from the Secluded Ones. New York, NY: Feminist Press, 1988. ISBN: 0935312838.
7 Mandal Commission (1990): Caste and Affirmative Action

Film: Mundhra, Jag. Bawandar. 2000.

Reading: Buy at Amazon Devi, Mahasweta. Imaginary Maps: Three Stories. Translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Oxford, UK: Routledge, 1994. ISBN: 0415904633.

Reading: Omvedt, Gail. "Introduction to Dalit Poems." Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars X, no. 3 (1978): 2-10. (Selections from this text.)

 
8 Documentary Cinema and Academic debate: Ayodhya (1992): Religious Conflict, Within and Beyond Borders

Film: Bose, Sugata. Mandir, Masjid, Mandal, and Marx: Democracy in India. 1991.

Reading: Buy at Amazon Varshney, Ashutosh. Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002. ISBN: 0300085303. (Selections from this text.)
9

Parallel Cinema and Fiction: Seventy-Third Amendment, Panchayati Raj and the Empowerment of Women (1992-2004)

Guest Speaker: Professor Esther Duflo, MIT

Film: Kapur, Shekhar. Bandit Queen. 1994.

Reading: Sen, Amartya. "More than 100 million women are missing." New York Review of Books, December 1990.

Reading: Buy at Amazon Antherjanam, Lalithambika, Gita Krishnakutty. Cast Me Out If You Will: Stories and Memoirs from Kerala. 1st ed. New York, NY: Feminist Press, 1998. ISBN: 1558611886. (Selections from this text.)
10 Popular Culture and its Critique: The World Cup and Bollywood Goes West (1983-2001): Cricket mania, Post-Colonialism and National Pride

Film: Gowariker, Ashutosh. Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India. 2001.

Reading: Majumdar, Boria. "The Empire Drives Back." outlookindia.com, July 16, 2001. (Web publication.)

Reading: Buy at Amazon Nandy, Ashis. The Tao of Cricket: On Games of Destiny and the Destiny of Games. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2001. ISBN: 0195653211. (Selections from this text.)
11

Ethnography and Pulp Magazines: Star TV arrives in India: Global or Local? (1990's - the present)

Health Care in India: guest lecture by expert from MIT-Health, followed by Q and A

Reading: Buy at Amazon Mankekar, Purnima. Screening Culture, Viewing Politics: An Ethnography of Television, Womanhood, and Nation in Postclolonial India. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999. ISBN: 0822323907. (Selections from this text.)

Reading: Stardust and Filmfare, North Indian cine magazines. (Excerpts from these texts.)
12 Press and Other Media: IT Revolutions (1990-the present): BPOs, Call Centers, Outsourcing and all that

Reading: Buy at Amazon Narayanamurthy, N. R. "Making India a significant IT player in this millennium." In India: Another Millennium? Edited by Romila Thapar. New Delhi, India: Viking and Penguin Books, 2000. ISBN: 0140298835.

(Articles by Narayanmurthy.)

Reading: Times of India, The Hindu, India Today, and Frontline, Indian newspapers and magazines. (Clips and excerpts from these texts.)
13 History and Religion in Modern Times: The Romila Thapar Controversy (2001 and Ancient History): Myth, Legends, History and National Identity

Reading: Thapar, Romila. "In Defence of History." Lecture delivered at Tiruvananthapuram, March 2, 2002.

Reading: Buy at Amazon Sen, Kshitimohan. Hinduism. New York, NY: Viking Press, 1995. ISBN: 0140136509. (Selections from this text.)
14

Politics, Documenting and Civil Society: Elections 2003-2004: Consensus and Controversies

Guest Speaker: Professor Abhijit Banerjee, MIT

Wrap up Discussion

 

Film: Banerjee and Banerjee. The Name of the Disease. (In-class screening.)

Readings: Probe Report, Indian Express and Outlook. (Excerpts from these texts.)