1857 : Essays From Economic and Political Weekly

Contents: Preface. 1. Eighteen fifty seven and its many histories/Sekhar Bandyopadhyay. Overview: 2. Historians and historiography: situating 1857/Biswamoy Pati. 3. Remembering 1857: an introductory note/Dipesh Chakrabarty. Then and now: 4. On the rebellion of 1857: A brief history of an idea/Peter Robb. 5. Multiple meanings of 1857 for Indians in Britain/Michael H. Fisher. 6. New lamps for old: colonial experiments with vernacular education, pre- and post-1857/Anu Kumar. 7. History as revenge and retaliation: rereading Savarkar's The War of Independence of 1857/Jyotiramaya Sharma. Sepoys and soldiers: 8. The beginning of 'people's war' in India/Kaushik Roy. 9. The rebel army in 1857: at the vanguard of the war of independence or a tyranny of arms?/Sabyasachi Dasgupta. The Margins: 10. Reactivating the past: Dalits and memories of 1857/Badri Narayan. 11. Dalit 'Viranganas' and reinvention of 1857/Charu Gupta. 12. In search of alternative histories of 1857: Witch-hunts, Adivasis, and the uprising in Chhotanagpur/Shashank Sinha. Fictional representations: 13. The mutiny novel: creating the domestic body of the empire/Aishwarya Lakshmi. 14. Inscribing the Rani of Jhansi in colonial 'Mutiny' fiction/Indrani Sen. The Arts and 1857: 15. 1857 and ideas about nationhood in Bengal: nuances and themes/Swarupa Gupta. 16. Mangal Pandey: film and history/Rochona Majumdar, Dipesh Chakrabarty. 17. 1857: Visibilising the 'other' in history courtesans and the revolt/Lata Singh. 18. Music and society in North India: from the Mughals to the Mutiny/Jon Barlow and Lakshmi Subramanian.

"This volume marks the sesquicentennial of the events of 1857, in which multi-pronged, widespread and in many instances, organised resistance broke out against the British across North India. The contributions in this volume look at several aspect of 1857, and asses its events not merely in terms of their immediacy, but in the repercussions that they had politically, socially, and militarily. The essays look at how historiography has accorded its own interpretation to 1857 and its effects, an interpretation that is changing even today.

The collection has been grouped into five sections, each of which explores diverse aspects of 1857. The first section looks at historical perspectives and is titled "Then and Now"; the second "Sepoys and Soliders" looks at the military aspects; the third, "The Margins" is from the point of view of Dalits; the fourth, "Fictional Representations" studies how 1857 has been depicted in literature; and the fifth, "The Arts and 1857" looks at 1857 as it has inspired films, music, and fine art.

Held together with a preface by Sekhar Bandyopadhyay, the essays in this volume--that range in theme and subject from historiography and military engagements, to the Dalit Viranganas idealised in traditional songs and the "unconventional protagonists" in mutiny novels--converge on one common goal: to enrich the existing national debates on the 1857 uprising." (jacket)