Giorgio Shani, Sikh Nationalism and Identity in a Global Age. London, New York: Routledge, 2007. ISBN: 9780415421904. List Price: $150.00 (Cloth).

Sikh Nationalism and Identity in a Global Age examines the construction of a Sikh national identity in post-colonial India and the diaspora and explores the reasons for the failure of the movement for an independent Sikh state: Khalistan. Based on a decade of research, it is argued that the failure of the movement to bring about a sovereign, Sikh state should not be interpreted as resulting from the weakness of the communal ties which bind members of the Sikh nation together, but points to the transformation of national identity under conditions of globalization. Globalization is perceived to have severed the link between nation and state and, through the proliferation and development of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs), has facilitated the articulation of a transnational diasporic Sikh identity. It is argued that this diasporic identity potentially challenges the conventional narratives of international relations and makes the imagination of a post-Westphalian community possible. Theoretically innovative and interdisciplinary in approach, it will be primarily of interest to students of South Asian studies, political science and international relations, as well as to many others trying to come to terms with the continued importance of religious and cultural identities in times of rapid political, economic, social and cultural change.

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Anindita Ghosh, Power in Print: Popular Publishing and the Politics of Language and Culture in a Colonial Society, 1778-1905.  New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.  ISBN-13: 9780195673296.  List Price: $35.00 (Hardcover)

By exploring a narrative of dissent, struggle, and conflict among various contending speech communities, this book reexamines some fundamental debates in the cultural experience of the educated middle classes in nineteenth-century colonial Bengal. More specifically, it studies power and representation in colonial Bengal through the print-language and literature and its impact on the resultant identity formations. In the nineteenth century, language and its written literature was more than anything else object of immense debate, scrutiny, and surveillance among the Bengalis and the colonial administration. But what is often less understood is that print languages and literature were also vital instruments for crafting social identities, and in a competitive environment like colonial Bengal, they offered substantial opportunities to indigenous groups to consolidate power along multiple axes of class, gender, and community. By relocating within the world of Bengali print groups previously thought to inhabit the peripheries of literate cultures, the volume also challenges the conventional understandings of social formation in the nineteenth century.

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Caterina Kinnvall, Globalization and Nationalism in India: The Search for Ontological Security.  London, New York: Routledge, 2006.  ISBN: 9780415405478.  List Price: £75.00 (Hardcover)

Exploring the effects of globalization in India and the problem of identity formation, this book contributes to the theoretical and empirical debate on identity, globalization, religious nationalism and (in)security.

The author puts forward a new approach based on political psychology, to interpret identity construction, which is seen as an individualized process where interactions of the global and the local are intimately implicated. Thereby, this book presents a psychological analysis of how increased insecurity affects individuals’ and groups’ attachments to religious nationalism in an era of globalization.

Developing an interesting angle on a recognized issue of concern in the politics of South Asia, and much more broadly in the context of the contemporary world and developing global politics, this is a valuable addition to normative critical social theory and the debate on identity and culture in political science and international relations, appealing to an inter-disciplinary audience.

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Shanti Kumar, Ghandi Meets Prime Time: Globalization and Nationalism in Indian Television.  Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006.  ISBN: 025203001X.  List Price: $45.00 (Cloth).  ISBN: 0252072448.  List Price: $25.00 (Paper)

Shanti Kumar's Ghandi Meets Primetime examines how cultural imaginations of national identity have been transformed by the rapid growth of satellite and cable television in postcolonial India. To evaluate the growing influence of foreign and domestic satellite and cable channels since 1991, the book considers a wide range of materials including contemporary television programming, historical archives, legal documents, policy statements, academic writings and journalistic accounts.

Kumar argues that India's hybrid national identity is manifested in the discourses found in this variety of empirical sources. He deconstructs representations of Mahatma Gandhi as the Father of the Nation on the state-sponsored network Doordarshan and those found on Rupert Murdoch's STAR TV network. The book closely analyzes print advertisements to trace the changing status of the television set as a cultural commodity in postcolonial India and examines publicity brochures, promotional materials and programming schedules of Indian-language networks to outline the role of vernacular media in the discourse of electronic capitalism. The empirical evidence is illuminated by theoretical analyses that combine diverse approaches such as cultural studies, poststructuralism and postcolonial criticism.

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John McGuire, Hindu Nationalism and Governance.  New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. ISBN-13: 97801956779229.  List Price: $45.00

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This volume assembles some of the best thinkers and actors in Indian politics, especially Hindu nationalist politics, to focus on governance under the BJP government in Indian across sectors, including its political alliances, performance in elections, economic reforms, and privatization, food security, ideology, revisionist histories, religion, nationalism, and the media. In short, this constitutes a very comprehensive coverage of various important issues that engaged the BJP government in India earlier. The volume will renew interest in the core ideas of Hindutva and politics and how these came to be articulated across institutions and policies.

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Aditya Nigam, The Insurrection of Little Selves: The Crisis of Secular-Nationalism in India.  New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.  ISBN-13: 9780195676068.  List Price: $35.00 (Hardcover)

The book explores the crisis that secular-nationalism went through with the emergence of what is loosely called identity politics. With the rise of new political assertions on the one hand and sectarian tendencies on the other, the fundamentally Hindu assumptions of Nehruvian secular-nationalism were revealed. Its search for a homogeneous national culture has led it to produce the dominant culture as the norm and marginalize the minority. It also looks at the opportunism of minority cultures and suggests this might be the result of nationalism, especially post-colonial. The book suggests that only by looking beyond the nation state can India conceive of a modern political community.