Negotiating Postcoloniality: History and Politics of Independent India
| Module title | Negotiating Postcoloniality: History and Politics of Independent India |
|---|---|
| Module code | POC3105 |
| Academic year | 2024/5 |
| Credits | 15 |
| Module staff | Dr Shubranshu Mishra (Convenor) |
| Duration: Term | 1 | 2 | 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duration: Weeks | 10 |
| Number students taking module (anticipated) | 10 |
|---|
Module description
The module provides you with an in-depth understanding of modern India, tracing its journey from colonisation to a rising power. Regarded as the world’s largest democracy, India has faced several challenges on many fronts: social, cultural, political and economic. The module follows those challenges through scholarly debates, visual representations and empirical material to engender critical inquiry into understanding India as a postcolonial nation-state. Topics include Independence and the trauma of Partition, democracy and diversity, secularism, casteism and communalism, social movements and insurgencies, foreign relations and diaspora, cricket and cultural productions.
The module encourages you to look critically at the processes of state and nation building in India since it achieved Independence in 1947. Through everyday experiences of different groups and within the many socio-cultural, political and economic contexts, the module introduces you to the deep diversities (ethnic, caste, linguistic and religious) within the Indian model of democracy and secularism. Studying specific events shaping identities, hierarchies and resistance, the module will attempt to go beyond the official and dominant historiography to raise critical questions regarding security and militarisation, representation and inequality, economic liberalisation and exploitation, development and displacement.
You will acquire analytical and methodological training to evaluate policy debates with respect to India, undertake research on India and gain a perspective into the postcolonial order and the global South. The module thinks seriously about what the decolonising movement means in the India/South Asian context.
Although no prior knowledge is required, you are recommended to follow events in India through news, literature or popular culture. The module is suitable for non-specialist and specialist students studying Politics, Sociology, History and Human Geography who are interested in non-Western, inter-disciplinary approaches.
Module aims - intentions of the module
The aim of this module is to enable you to develop a critical perspective of the postcolonial Indian nation-state, understand its multiple realities, complexities and the responses to it from different interest groups, both within and beyond. The module will widen the understanding of contemporary India, its history and post-Independence growth, socio-political and cultural evolution, and foreign policy from locally situated regional knowledges.
Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
ILO: Module-specific skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 1. Demonstrate in-depth regional knowledge about the social, political and economic realities of India through oral presentations and writing assignments.
- 2. Demonstrate analytical skills and critical awareness of the Indian model of democracy, secularism and multiculturalism and distinguish it from more dominant Western models.
ILO: Discipline-specific skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 3. Understand the multifaceted and inter-disciplinary nature of Area Studies and critically engage with various interdisciplinary approaches including politics and international relations, sociology, history, culture studies, anthropology, film studies etc.
- 4. Apply empirical evidence to theoretical approaches in the form of written and oral presentations.
ILO: Personal and key skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 5. Develop flexibility in thinking and researching about contexts, local knowledge, cultures and societies.
- 6. Communicate political arguments comprehensively and effectively
Syllabus plan
Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover some or all of the following topics:
- ‘The Imaginary Institution of India’: Whose history and by whom?
- ‘Tryst with destiny’: Independence and Partition
- ‘The Unnatural Nation’: Constructing postcolonial India
- The Indian Model: Contextualising democracy and secularism
- ‘Gandhiji, I have no homeland’: Understanding caste and inequality
- ‘The Violence of Normal Times’: Gender and Minorities
- ‘Everybody Loves a Good Drought’: Development and endangered livelihoods
- Contesting the State: Terror and counter-terror
- ‘Self-fashioning and worlding’: India and the World
- Diaspora, Cinema and Cricket
Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | Guided independent study | Placement / study abroad |
|---|---|---|
| 20 | 130 | 0 |
Details of learning activities and teaching methods
| Category | Hours of study time | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | 20 | 10 x 2 hour seminars |
| Guided Independent Study | 50 | Seminar preparation through directed reading. |
| Guided Independent Study | 10 | Preparation for essay |
| Guided independent study | 48 | Preparation for term paper |
| Guided independent study | 22 | Seminar presentation preparation. |
Formative assessment
| Form of assessment | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|
| Presentation | 8-10 minutes | 1-6 | Oral |
Summative assessment (% of credit)
| Coursework | Written exams | Practical exams |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | 0 | 0 |
Details of summative assessment
| Form of assessment | % of credit | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cinema Essay and Presentations (in-class/Online/Recordings) | 35 | 1,500 words + 15 minutes | 1-6 | Written |
| Term Paper | 65 | 2,000 words | 1-6 | Written |
Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)
| Original form of assessment | Form of re-assessment | ILOs re-assessed | Timescale for re-assessment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cinema Essay and Presentations (recordings) | Cinema Essay (1,500 words) and Presentations (15 minutes) | 1-6 | August/September reassessment period |
| Term Paper | Term Paper (2,000 words) | 1-6 | August/September reassessment period |
Re-assessment notes
Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.
Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.
Indicative learning resources - Basic reading
Basic reading:
Prakash, Gyan. "Writing post-orientalist histories of the Third World: perspectives from Indian historiography." Comparative studies in society and history 32, no. 2 (1990): 383-408.
Kaviraj, Sudipta. "The imaginary institution of India." Occasional Paper 5 (2014): 41-64.
Zamindar, Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali. The long Partition and the making of modern South Asia: refugees, boundaries, histories. Columbia University Press, 2007. (selections)
Butalia, Urvashi. The other side of silence: Voices from the partition of India. Duke University Press, 2000. (selections)
Manto, Saadat Hasan. Toba Tek Singh. Penguin Random House India Private Limited, 2017.
Guha, Ramachandra. India after Gandhi: The history of the world's largest democracy. Pan Macmillan, 2017 (selections).
Roy, Srirupa. Beyond belief: India and the politics of postcolonial nationalism. Duke University Press, 2007 (selections).
Stepan, Alfred, Juan J. Linz, and Yogendra Yadav. Crafting state-nations: India and other multinational democracies. JHU Press, 2011 (Selections).
Bhargava, Rajeev. "The distinctiveness of Indian secularism." The Future of Secularism, Oxford University Press, New York (2007).
Devji, Faisal Fatehali. "Hindu/Muslim/Indian." Public Culture 5, no. 1 (1992): 1-18.
Jayal, Niraja Gopal. "The state and democracy in India, or what happened to welfare, secularism and development?'." Democracy in India (2001): 193-223.
Ambedkar, Bhimrao Ramji. Annihilation of caste: an undelivered speech. Arnold Publishers, 1990.
Ray, Raka, and Mary Fainsod Katzenstein, eds. Social movements in India: Poverty, power, and politics. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005 (selections).
Kakar, Sudhir. The colours of violence. Penguin Books India, 1996 (selections).
Khan, Yasmin. "South Asia: From Colonial Categories to a Crisis of Faith?." The Blackwell Companion to Religion and Violence, The (2011): 367-378.
Kannabiran, Kalpana. "The Violence of normal times: Essays on women’s lived realities." Women Unlimited, New Delhi (2005) (selections).
Menon, Nivedita. "Sexuality, caste, governmentality: contests over ‘gender’ in India." Feminist Review 91, no. 1 (2009): 94-112.
Peer, Basharat. Curfewed night. Random House India, 2011.
Sundar, Nandini. "Insurgency, counter-insurgency, and democracy in central India." More than Maoism: Politics, policies and insurgencies in South Asia. New Delhi: Manohar Publishers (2012).
Akoijam, A. Bimol. "Another 9/11, another Act of Terror: the Embedded Disorder of the AFSPA." Sarai Reader 2005: Bare Acts (2005): 481-91.
Krishna, Sankaran. Postcolonial insecurities: India, Sri Lanka, and the question of nationhood. Vol. 15. U of Minnesota Press, 1999. (Chapter 1)
Chacko, Priya. "The new geo-economics of a “rising” India: state transformation and the recasting of foreign policy." Journal of Contemporary Asia 45, no. 2 (2015): 326-344.
Abraham, Itty. "From Bandung to NAM: Non-Alignment and Indian Foreign Policy, 1947–65." Commonwealth & Comparative Politics 46, no. 2 (2008): 195-219.
Varadarajan, Latha. The domestic abroad: Diasporas in international relations. Oxford University Press, 2010 (selections).
Krishna, Sankaran. "Queering the pitch: race, class, gender and nation in the Indo-Australian encounter." Postcolonial Studies 18, no. 2 (2015): 161-173.
Chakraborty, Chandrima. "Subaltern Studies, Bollywood and" Lagaan"." Economic and Political Weekly (2003): 1879-1884.
Mannathukkaren, Nissim. "Subalterns, Cricket and the 'Nation': The Silences of 'Lagaan'." Economic and Political Weekly (2001): 4580-4588.
Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources
Suggested Films
Khamosh Pani. directed by Sabiha Sumar. (2004).
Parzania. directed by Rahul Dholakia. (2007).
Nero’s Guests. directed by Deepa Bhatia (2009).
Kashmir’s Torture Trail. UK Channel 4 Documentary (2012).
Lagaan. directed by Ashutosh Gowarikar. (2001).
| Credit value | 15 |
|---|---|
| Module ECTS | 7.5 |
| Module pre-requisites | None |
| Module co-requisites | None |
| NQF level (module) | 6 |
| Available as distance learning? | No |
| Origin date | 23/01/2018 |
| Last revision date | 07/01/2022 |
