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The girl who loved cycling along the tree-lined avenues of a brand new Lutyens' Delhi could never have dreamt that five decades later she would govern, and transform, Delhi as its chief minister – not once, but thrice consecutively. When a politician like Sheila Dikshit, with a career spanning over three decades, chooses to let the reader get a glimpse of her life's journey, the opportunity brings along an element of surprise. In a fascinating account of her life, contoured along the life of the nation and her political party at critical junctures, she creates a richly patterned universe with deft touches, seamlessly moving between the home and the world, the past and the present. Be it encounters with politics, which she terms 'life at its barest' or the ups and downs of a household, what shines through is the portrait of a modern woman determined to face any eventuality with fortitude, and a deep sense of duty. Interestingly, she never wanted to be in politics, but destiny willed otherwise – a destiny shaped by her liberal upbringing in a Punjabi household. Brought up to be independent, she chose her life partner from another part of India. And that started it all. As the wife of an IAS officer and daughter-in-law of well-known freedom fighter and politician, Uma Shankar Dikshit, with his long association with the Nehru–Gandhi family, she saw governance from both ends. When she began assisting her father-in-law from 1969, her up-close view of politics eventually became a springboard for her own entry into the arena in December 1984, inaugurating a 30-year-long career in politics. The narrative foregrounds a question that the author considers crucial for democracy – how does one deal with the constant tussle between the dictates of governance and the here-and-now preoccupations of party politics?
Explores how refugees were used as agents of nation-building in India, leading to gendered and caste-ridden policies of rehabilitation.
From ‘People’ to ‘Citizen’ brings together social theory with policy practice to enlarge our understanding of the difference that democracy makes to the life of a nation. Unlike nationalism, democracy takes our attention away from the past to the future by focusing on the specific concerns of ‘citizenship’. Historical victories or defeats, blood and soil are now nowhere as relevant as the creation of a foundational base where individuals have equal, and quality, access to health, education, and even urban services. The primary consideration, therefore, is on empowering ‘citizens’ as a common category and not ‘people’ of any specific community or class. When citizens precede all other considerations, the notion of the ‘public’ too gets its fullest expression. Differences between citizens are not denied, in fact encouraged, but only after achieving a basic unity first. This book argues that the call of citizenship not only advances democracy, but social science as well. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka
Roughly 200 million today, Indian Muslims are greater than the population of Britain and France or Germany put together. According to the Indian Constitution, Indian Muslims are treated as political equals, which is what India’s secular polity promised after its independence, encouraging more than 35 million Indian Muslims at the time of Partition to choose India as their motherland over Pakistan. However, the supposed relationship of equality between Hindus and Muslims as scripted in the constitution is being increasingly replaced by the domineering tendencies of a Hindu majority in India today. The author describes the current state and position of Indian Muslims (the seeds for which were sown when the BJP came to power in 2014) as the thirdpolitical moment; the second he believes was in 1947 when the community was given equal status in the Indian Constitution; and the first, was in 1857 when Indian Muslims learnt to live under the British colonial state. As he states, there is no denying that political circumstances for Indian Muslims were not completely ideal or full of democratic energy prior to the rise of the Hindu Right since the late 1980s. With numerous layers defined by language, ethnicity, region, etc., Muslims have the most heterogeneous identity, representing India’s quintessential diversity. And yet, Muslims are perceived as the most enduring well-grounded threat to the majoritarian project of the Hindu Rashtra. Indian Muslims are perceived or presented as perpetrators of violence and violators of law, even if they are at the receiving end. They are viewed as an internal enemy, who need to be dealt with for political, social, historical, and ideological reasons. Going forward, the community must formulate the language of democratic rights of Indian Muslims as equal citizens and define the ethics of human dignity in their struggle to reassert their place in India’s political power structures at all levels: from panchayat to Parliament. While the economic future or cultural rights of Indian Muslims have been debated since 1947, it is the political future that demands attention because only as an equal and participatory community in the politics of the nation, can economic and cultural futures be addressed. This book explores the political future of Indian Muslims in this context. From Shaheen Bagh to Hindu-Muslim riots, from the unique position of Muslim women in India to the Sachar Report and the Muslim backwardness debate, Mujibur Rehman analyses, confronts and discusses the urgent concerns of Indian Muslims in a manner that is nuanced and globally relevant.
In many non-Western contexts, modernization has tended to be equated with Westernization, and hence with an abandonment of authentic indigenous identities and values. This is evident in the recent history of many Asian societies, where efforts to modernize – spurred on by the spectre of foreign domination – have often been accompanied by determined attempts to stamp national variants of modernity with the brand of local authenticity: ‘Asian values’, ‘Chinese characteristics’, a Japanese cultural ‘essence’ and so forth. Highlighting (or exaggerating) associations between the more unsettling consequences of modernization and alien influence has thus formed part of a strategy whereby elites in many Asian societies have sought to construct new forms of legitimacy for old patterns of dominance over the masses. The apparatus of modern systems of mass education, often inherited from colonial rulers, has been just one instrument in such campaigns of state legitimation. This book presents analyses of a range of contemporary projects of citizenship formation across Asia in order to identify those issues and concerns most central to Asian debates over the construction of modern identities. Its main focus is on schooling, but also examines other vehicles for citizenship-formation, such as museums and the internet; the role of religion (in particular Islam) in debates over citizenship and identity in certain Asian societies; and the relationship between state-centred identity discourses and the experience of increasingly ‘globalized’ elites. With chapters from an international team of contributors, this interdisciplinary volume will appeal to students and scholars of Asian culture and society, Asian education, comparative education and citizenship.
Shadows at Noon is an ambitious synthesis of decades of research and scholarship which explores the key strands of South Asian history in the twentieth century with clarity and authority. Unlike other narrative histories of the subcontinent that concentrate exclusively on politics, here food, leisure and the household are given equal importance to discussions of nationhood, the development of the state and patterns of migration. While it tells the subcontinent's story from the British Raj to independence and partition and on to the forging of the modern nations of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the book's structure is thematic rather than chronological. Each of the chapters illuminates on overarching theme or sphere that has shaped South Asia over the course of the century. This format allows the reader to explore particular issues such as the changing character of nationalism or food consumption over time and in depth. Shadows at Noon is a bold, innovative and personal work that pushes back against standard narratives of 'inherent' differences between India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Its purpose is to make contemporary South Asia intelligible to readers who are fascinated by the subcontinent's cultural vibrancy and diversity but are often perplexed by its social and political makeup. And it illuminates the many aspects that its people have in common rather than what divides them.
Successive amendments in the citizenship law in India have spawned distinct regimes of citizenship. The idea of citizenship regimes is crucial for making the argument that law must be seen not simply as bare provisions but also examined for the ideological practices that validate it and lay claims to its enforceability. While citizenship regime in India can be distinguished from one another on the basis on their distinct political and legal rationalities, cumulatively they present a movement from jus soli to jus sanguinis. The movement towards jus sanguinis has been a complex process of entrenchment of exclusionary nationhood under the veneer of liberal citizenship. This work argues that the contemporary landscape of citizenship in India is dominated by the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) 2019 and the National Register of Citizens (NRC). The CAA 2019 and the NRC emerged as distinct tendencies from the amendment in the citizenship law in 2003. These tendencies subsequently become conjoined in an ideological alignment to make citizenship dependent on lineage, spelling out ideas of belonging which are tied to descent and blood ties. The NRC has invoked the spectre of 'crisis' in citizenship generated by indiscriminate immigration and the risks presented by 'illegal migrants', to justify an extraordinary regime of citizenship. The CAA provides for the exemption of some migrants from this regime by making religion the criterion of distinguishability. The CAA 2019 and NRC have generated a regime of 'bounded citizenship' based on the assumption that citizenship can be passed on as a legacy of ancestry making it a natural and constitutive identity. The politics of Hindutva serves as an ideological apparatus buttressing the regime and propelling the movement away from the foundational principles of secular-constitutionalism that characterised Indian citizenship in 1949.
Makiguchi and Gandhi explores ideas about Japanese educator Tsunesaburo Makiguchi (1871-1944) and Indian political leader Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) as examples of inspiration for large mass movements in the 20th century. Based on research done in Japan, India, Hawai'i, and the United Kingdom, this book breaks new ground by examining and theorizing the fate of dissident thinkers and raises the question often asked by both Gandihan and Soka scholars alike- were they truly radical thinkers?
Citizen Lobbyists explores how U.S. citizens participate in local government. Although many commentators have lamented the apathy of the American citizenry, Brian Adams focuses on what makes ordinary Americans become involved in and attempt to influence public policy issues that concern them. It connects theory and empirical data in a new and revealing way, providing both a thorough review of the relevant scholarly discussions and a detailed case study of citizen engagement in the politics of Santa Ana, a mid-sized Southern California city. After interviewing more than fifty residents, Adams found that they can be best described as "lobbyists" who identify issues of personal importance and then lobby their local government bodies. Through his research, he discovered that public meetings and social networks emerged as essential elements in citizens' efforts to influence local policy. By testing theory against reality, this work fills a void in our understanding of the actual participatory practices of "civically engaged" citizens.