Postcolonial moment in South and Southeast Asia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

"False truth": disillusionment and hope in the decade after independence / Rotem Geva -- The enemy within: communism and the new Pakistani State / Kamran Asdar Ali -- Contested meanings of post-colonialism and independence in Burma / Mandy Sadan -- The marginal state: practicing Islamic statehood in independent Indonesia / Chiara Formichi -- Evacuee property and the management of economic life in postcolonial India / Rohit De -- Struggles for citizenship around the Bay of Bengal / Sunil Amrith -- The postwar returnee: Tamil culture, and the Bay of Bengal / Bhavani Raman -- Anxious constitution-making / Gyan Prakash -- Making universal franchise and democratic citizenship in the postcolonial moment / Ornit Shani -- Towards mass education or an "aristocracy of talents": non-alignment and the making of a strong India / Neeti Nair -- "The world has changed": development, land reform, and the ethical work of India's independence / Benjamin Siegel -- "Help the plan, help yourself": making Indian plan-conscious / Nikhil Menon -- The past, and future, of the Muslim post-colonial moment: Islamic economy and social justice in South Asia / Julia Stephens -- Straight from Mecca: Medan, Hamka, and the coming of Islam to Indonesia / Michael Laffan.

"By exploring themes of fragility, mobility and turmoil, anxieties and agency, and pedagogy, The Postcolonial Moment in South and Southeast Asia shows how colonialism shaped postcolonial projects in South Asia including Burma, Indonesia and Pakistan. Through fascinating and original chapters, it unearths the contingency and contention that accompanied the establishment of nation-states and their claim to be postcolonial heirs. Key postcolonial moments - a struggle for citizenship, anxious constitution making, mass education and land reform - are placed against the aftermath of the Second World War and discussed within a global framework, relating them to the global transformation in political geography from Empire to Nation. The chapters analyse how futures and ideals envisioned by anticolonial activists were made reality, whilst others were discarded. Drawing on the expertise of eminent contributors, this is an excellent compilation of ground-breaking research on postcolonial South and Southeast Asia"--