This volume brings together scholars, practitioners, activists, and students to reflect on socio-political transitions taking place in countries across South Asia and their implications for democracy and education. It provides an important intervention for comparative education in South Asia by looking at the kind of ideological tensions that exist within the education systems, and how these competing agendas are visible at different levels. At a time when students have been protesting for their rights across educational institutions in South Asia, where the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated inequalities with learning losses, and job losses, this collection creates a space to reflect on the limitations and possibilities of education in democracies across South Asia.

Today education is a key factor for further development of most of the countries in South Asia, which after decades of independence are still lacking in literacy. The book focuses on the relationship between the state and society of South Asian countries, especially in the field of primary education. After dealing with developments under colonial rule, the major part of the contributions is devoted to the educational policy in South Asian countries post-independence. The papers reveal the relevance and crucial role of culture, religion, and ethnicity for imparting basic education on a nation-wide scale. Taking into consideration the complexity of societies of South Asian countries, the book looks at the social and political implications arising out of the educational policy of the state for the process of nation building. The book is a specific contribution from a South Asian context to the ongoing debate about the relevance of language, culture, and religion in the educational policy of a majority population and its impact on minority communities.

Title first published in 2003. Chowdhury looks at the problems of democratization and development as it relates to building democratic institutions in the newly democratizing countries such as Bangladesh, India and Pakistan.

This book brings ethnographies of everyday power and ritual into dialogue with intellectual studies of theology and political theory. It underscores the importance of academic collaboration between scholars of religion, anthropology, and history in uncovering the structures of thinking and action that make politics work. The volume weaves important discussions around sovereignty in modern South Asian history with debates elsewhere on the world map. South Asia’s colonial history – especially India’s twentieth-century emergence as the world’s largest democracy – has made the subcontinent a critical arena for thinking about how transformations and continuities in conceptions of sovereignty provide a vital frame for tracking shifts in political order. The chapters deal with themes such as sovereignty, kingship, democracy, governance, reason, people, nation, colonialism, rule of law, courts, autonomy, and authority, especially within the context of India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. The book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers in politics, ideology, religion, sociology, history, and political culture, as well as the informed reader interested in South Asian studies.

This edited volume offers new analytical and methodological approaches to the study of education in the post-pandemic educational context, through case studies from countries in South Asia such as Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Crossing disciplinary and national boundaries to advance collaborative knowledge production in South Asian education, the book explores how different colonial legacies, religious orientations, and positions in the global economy are played out in regional education systems. In doing so, this volume focuses on the educational challenges faced by the region to better understand South Asian society and the existing societal inequalities in the wake of COVID-19. The book highlights how the pandemic invites a re-thinking of current ways of approaching educational research in hybrid forms, and also opens up new areas of research ranging from pedagogical innovations to the well-being of teachers and students. Offering interdisciplinary perspectives on education in this unique context, this timely book will be highly relevant to students, researchers, and academics in the fields of international and comparative education, South Asian studies, teacher education, and education policy and politics.

This volume looks at the politics of communication and culture in contemporary South Asia. It explores languages, signs and symbols reflective of current mythologies that underpin instances of performance in present-day India and its neighbouring countries. From gender performances and stage depictions to protest movements, folk songs to cinematic reconstructions and elections to war-torn regions, the chapters in the book bring the multiple voices embedded within the grand theatre of popular performance and the cultural landscape of the region to the fore. Breaking new ground, this work will prove useful to students and researchers in sociology and social anthropology, art and performance studies, political studies and international relations, communication and media studies and culture studies.