This book looks at the history of Indian migrants in Australia and New Zealand over a period of two and a half centuries. It looks at the history of their migration, settlement and encounter with racism. However, this book is not just about the diaspora, it is also about circulation of ideas between the Antipodes and India, both being parts of the British Empire and the Commonwealth.
Analyzing movement by low-caste Hindu groups and their struggles for social and political recognition, this text focuses on the Namasudras of Bengal, the largest Hindu caste in Eastern Bengal before Partition and their apparent lack of a single, shared identity before the late 19th century.
This reader provides a broad historical outline of the nationalist movement, highlighting its various complexities and internal contradictions, and discussing the historiographical debates.
Through a series of case studies taken from everyday experiences of people following a variety of religions, this book interrogates the supposed epistemological dualism between modernity and religion in India. Through a study of oral and textual traditions, examining the perspectives of women and other marginal social and regional groups, as well as the diaspora, the book presents dynamically interacting textures of society-historically and in...
