Remembering India’s Villages

Book excerpt: In the time of agrarian crisis and movement, Remembering India’s Villages centralises the rural India—examining its stubborn past and dynamic present. Departing from the myth of little republics, it sees villages in cinema, development discourses, and debates among the founders of modern India like Gandhi, Nehru, Tagore and Ambedkar. Empirical research, multidisciplinary perspective, and cross-cultural insights are useful aids in this book toward understanding the reality of the rural that comprises structural anomalies and social possibilities. The book remembers India’s villages under the trope of reconstitution rather than disappearance. The book adds to the renewed interest in village studies, rural sociology, development studies, and intellectual history. This book is co-published with Aakar Books. Print edition not for sale in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Bhutan)