Nile Green's Islam and the Army in Colonial India is one of those rare works that inspires both admiration and envy. It is a study that cannot fail to impress its readers with its erudition and innovation, especially when reconciling seemingly incompatible official accounts preserved in the colonial archive with subaltern memories preserved in oral traditions.

This book is a study of the cultural world of the Muslim soldiers of colonial India, set in Hyderabad in the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and focuses on the soldiers' relationships with the faqir holy men who protected them and the British officers they served.

Islam and the Army in Colonial India contests the widely held belief that Islam was incompatible with the goals and operations of the colonial army, which was a dangerous and ultimately subversive force that sapped the morale and discipline of the Raj's armies. This Orientalist stereotype of Islam as being anti-military discipline persists, as evidenced by the numerous newspaper articles and editorials covering any aspect of Muslim life.

Tune into the episode with Dr Nile Green, exploring the extraordinary lives of Muslims sepoys and the ways in which the colonial army helped promote the sepoy religion while at the same time attempting to control and suppress certain aspects of it.

In this episode of Guftagu, we've with us Dr Jessica Namakkal, author of the book, "Unsettling Utopia: The Making and Unmaking of French India"

In this episode of Guftagu, we've with us Dr Jessica Namakkal, author of the book, "Unsettling Utopia: The Making and Unmaking of French India"

Dr Jessica Namakkal is an assistant professor of the practice in international comparative studies; gender, sexuality, and feminist studies; and history at Duke University.

Jessica Namakkal's Unsettling Utopia gives a new version of twentieth-century French India's history. It demonstrates how colonial developments persisted even after official decolonization kicked in. The book analyses the colonial histories of the Aurobindo Ashram and Auroville, demonstrating how state-sponsored decolonization is rarely associated with local demands. She suggests that their ongoing growth reveals how decolonization, unfortunately, resulted in new settling spaces which preserve colonial control.

This book puts into question the long-held scholarly argument on the time and place of decolonization. Unsettling Utopia puts the spotlight on colonialism's legacies and provides striking thoughts on what decolonization might yet involve.

This interview explores and examines such provided stances in the book along with other broader perspectives on decolonisation.

In this episode of Guftagu, we've with us Dr Sana Haroon, author of the book, "The Mosques of Colonial South Asia: A Social and Legal History of Muslim Worship"

Dr Sana Haroon is Associate Professor of History and Asian Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston. She is a social historian with a particular interest in Muslim religious organizations in colonial north India. Her research, including her monograph Frontier of Faith, engages with theory on borderlands, religious reformism, urban, spatial history and governance to provide an alternative to theories of political Islam which have dominated understandings of Islam in South Asia.

In this book, Dr Haroon examines the dilemmas of public worship in a colonial secular state. By showing how mosques became spaces of social influence and control, she traces the ascent of prayer-leaders and mosque custodians as these lesser-known counterparts to Sufis.

Through the use of legal records, archives and multiple case studies Sana Haroon ties a series of narrative threads stretching across multiple regions in Colonial South Asia. Ranging from the late-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth, and from Rangoon to Lahore, the book centres on the mosque as a site of social change, sectarian debate, and legal regulation. The result is a highly original take on a crucial aspect of Muslim public life, the mosque, that historians have mostly overlooked.

This interview explores and examines such provided stances in the book along with other broader perspectives on colonial secularism.

There is a series of such amazingly curated interactions with authors and scholars on the history of the subcontinent. Check out our website www.indiacolonised.com  for more blogs and podcasts exploring the tales of India's contemporary history. Do follow us on our social media sites for more exciting updates.  Until next time. Stay Safe and Stay Curious.