Life, Freedom and War: Twentieth Century South Asia

Description

Life as a revolutionary in a foreign country, life devoted to the struggle against social discrimination, life whose ideal as a thinker was in serious conflict with developing situation, and life trifled with by the destiny of the war. The authors of the book try to clarify how the experiences of political leaders and common people broadened their horizons, hardened their positions, or forced them to escape from the ugly reality of the people and society. Essays collected in this book use historical or sociological analysis as their methods, or take the form of personal memories. However, one thing common among these papers is that all papers seek to elucidate the less known aspects of the thoughts of prominent leaders or the less known part of the twentieth century history of South Asia.

Sho Kuwajima is Professor Emeritus of South Asian Studies, Osaka University of Foreign Studies. He studies at the Indian School of International Studies in 1962-66, and was Senior Fellow at the Indian Council of Social Science Research in 1988-90.

His original interest in the independence and partition of India later expanded the sphere of his study: the peasant movement in Bihar, Bengal famine of 1943, revolutionary movement in the Punjab freedom movement in Mysore and Jaipur princely states, trends of political thoughts in Pakistan represented by Milan Iftikharudding, Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Mazhar Ali Khan, political thoughts and actions of Abul Hashim and Kamruddin Ahmad in Bangladesh, and the end of the Rana regime in Nepal of 1950. Indian Mutiny in Singapore, 1915 has attracted his concern as a part of the freedom movement in India, and also as an incident which occurred in the area where regional history and world history crossed each other.

He was awarded Professor Sukumar Sen Memorial Gold Medal for 2003 from the Asiatic Society, Kolkata.