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 * Home
 * About Vinay
   * Lal Salaam: A Blog by Vinay Lal
   * Vinay’s Academic site
   * Vinay’s Research
   * Vinay’s Youtube
   * What’s New at MANAS…
 * Culture
   * Architecture
   * Art
   * Cinema
   * Cuisine
   * Dance
   * Festivals
   * Intellectuals
   * Literature
   * Music
   * Street Life
 * Diaspora
   * Contemporary Electoral Politics in Trinidad
   * From Masjid to Mandir: Across the Corentyne, Into Suriname
   * Gandhi in Guyana
   * Gulf Indians and the Hierarchies of NRIs
   * Hinduism in the Wild West
   * Hindus in Chicago: A Short Note
   * Indian Americans and The Spelling Bee
   * Indians in Chicago: A Brief Note
   * Indians in the Carribean
   * Indians in the US
   * Diaspora Purana: The Indic Presence in World Culture
   * Indo-Mauritians and the Innocents: A Photo Gallery
   * Jindal and America: A Marriage in Heaven
   * Joel Stein’s Edison and Desi Rage
   * Return to the Womb: The NRI in the Motherland
   * Set of 4 Articles on Vivekananda & the American Legacy
   * The California Textbook Controversy
   * The Indian Minority in Malaysia
 * History & Politics
   * Ancient India
   * British India
   * Colonial Epistemologies
   * Current Affairs
   * Mahatma Gandhi
   * Hindu Rashtra
   * Independent India
   * The Mughal Empire
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   * Avatars, Divinities
   * Gurus, Sants
   * Myths and Characters
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   * Indian States
   * Rivers
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   * Caste conflicts
   * Consumerism
   * Marriage, Family, and Romance
   * Medical care
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ndia, in the cliched observation, is not merely a country but a continent. Its
population, which is in excess of one billion and may soon exceed that of China,
presents the most extraordinary contrasts. The people of this vast country speak
nearly a thousand languages, follow several different faiths — including
Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, and Sikhism —
and are congregated in hundreds of different ethnic and caste communities. But
these are only conventional ways of describing the myriad forms of social
organization found in India, for the country also has diverse social and
ecological movements, women’s organizations, radical political parties, and
various interest groups. India is, as is commonly recognized, the world’s
largest electoral democracy, and its elections, scattered over a month,
represent a triumph of organizational skill and will; at the same time, the
country has several dozen communist parties, some of which operate outside
formal politics and rely on armed struggle while others are very much part of
the traditions of Indian parliamentary democracy. Politics is something of a
passion, and perhaps nowhere in the world is democracy so fundamentally a living
and contested thing as in India. Unlike in the United States, where political
contestation has generally been reduced to choosing between indistinguishable
candidates, and in fetishizing an absurd notion of ‘choice’, in India political
parties and formations show much more variation, and there is a good deal more
of street politics as well. Even the Indian Supreme Court has displayed
admirable judicial activism at times.

Indian landscapes are just as diverse, from the towering Himalayan peaks in the
north to the vast Gangetic plains in north-central India to the coastal regions
further south. Cows and vendors on the street, hastily scrawled political
slogans and insignia, roadside pan shops and mandirs, small children crammed
into cycle rickshaws, and huge bill boards advertising the latest dose of
violence and sex doled out by the massive film industry are just as much a part
of Indian landscapes. Architectural monuments, cultural traditions, and everyday
practices, no less than the chronicles of kings and the exploits of numerous
invaders, testify to the complexity of Indian history. To speak of Indian
culture is to speak of long (though not necessarily unbroken) traditions of
music, art, architecture, dance, sculpture, as well as traditions of
film-making; it is also to invoke India’s many cuisines, all reduced in the West
to ‘tandoori chicken’, and of course all those signs, gestures, and symbols by
means of which people create meaning and communication. Though India is usually
associated with religion, being the cradle of half the world’s major faiths,
secular and materialist traditions have at least as long and complicated a
history as Indian religions.

The social realities of India, notwithstanding the advances of recent years and
the attempt to project India as a rising global power, suggest a rather grim
picture: working conditions for the greater majority of the people are still
exceedingly poor, levels of poverty remain very high, and the oppression of
women, the poor, and other marginalized groups constitutes the most formidable
obstacle to egalitarian aspirations. This is not the India of the Indians in the
diaspora of the North, whose idea of their homeland often rests upon ossified
conceptions of Indian religion, tradition, and cultural practices. Yet it is
also in the diaspora that new art and cultural forms are emerging, and the
relation between India and its diasporic offsprings may yet alter our
understanding of Indian civilization.

This site aims at offering a scholarly yet readable narrative of some aspects of
Indian history, politics, culture, and religion. It does not in the least aspire
to be comprehensive, an objective that at any rate cannot be achieved, and
subjects, personalities, and themes have been chosen for exploration and
interpretation because they interest the creator of the site, though often they
are of intrinsic importance in understanding the history and evolution of Indian
civilization.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Web site created by: Vinay Lal
Professor of History, UCLA
We welcome comments to: vinaylal@hotmail.com

Web site designed by: Anju Relan
Associate Professor, Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA

All text on this site is by Vinay Lal, unless otherwise noted.

This page has also been translated into Portuguese by Artur Weber & Adelina
Domingos:  https://www.homeyou.com/~edu/india-e-seus-vizinhos

This page has also been translated into Slovenian by Valeria Aleksandrova:
http://www.pkwteile.de/wissen/indien-och-grannar.

This page is available in a French translation by the team at “Coupon Machine”
at http://www.couponmachine.in/socialwork/linde-et-ses-voisins/.

This page is available in a Belarussian translation by Patricia Motosan.

For a Finnish translation of this page by Elsa Jansson, go to:
http://mysciencefeel.com/2017/01/31/intia-ja-sen-naapureiden/.

For a Slovak translation of this page by Paula-Maria Niculescu, go to:
http://www.bildelarstore.se/science/indie.

For a Thai translation of this page, go to:
http://healthcareadministrationdegree.co/socialwork/india/.

For a translation of this page into Russian by Alexander Nikiforov, go to:
http://worldartsme.com/blog/archives/368.

For a Ukranian translation of this page by Anna Matesh, go to:
http://eustudiesweb.com/india-and-its-neighbors/.

For a Hungarian translation of this page by Elana Pavlet, go to:
http://sc-journal.com/india-es-szomszedai/.

For a Macedonian translation of this page by Katerina Nestiv, go to: 
http://sciencevobe.com/2016/09/29/india-its-neighbours/.

For a Greek translation of this page by Anastasios Manar as, go to: 
https://directory.net/translate/manas.html.

For an Indonesian translation of this page by ChameleonJohn.com, go to
https://www.chameleonjohn.com/translations/southasia-Indonesian.

For a Bosnian translation of this page by Amina Dugalic , go to:
http://the-sciences.com/2017/01/04/indija-i-njeni-susjedi/.

For a Punjabi translation of this page by Amaan Singh , go to:
https://www.bydiscountcodes.co.uk/translations/india-and-its-neighbors/.

This site accepts neither outside submissions nor any advertisements.
Please do not send any queries about reciprocal links, as MANAS does not
provide any outside links.

All text on this site is copyrighted by Vinay Lal, unless another author is
indicated; permission to reproduce should be sent to vinaylal@hotmail.com

Copyright for visuals is indicated where available; please do not send queries
for permission to reproduce material unless copyright is with Vinay Lal.

Copyright: Vinay Lal, 1998 – 2017


INTERESTING LINKS

Here are some interesting links for you! Enjoy your stay :)


PAGES

 * ‘Quit India’ Movement
 * “Exploring the Human Psyche”
 * “Gandhi’s Last Fast”
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 * 2nd Level Nested Sample Page
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 * A Monumental Non-event: The India’s Commonwealth Games
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 * Robert Clive
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 * Set of 4 Articles on Vivekananda & the American Legacy
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 * The Great Andamanese and the Extinction of Bo
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 * THE INDIAN DIASPORA
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 * The Love Ballad of Rehman and Todi
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 * The Politics and Ethics of Reservations
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 * The Tragedy of Komagata Maru
 * Tukaram
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 * Udham Singh: Avenger of the Amritsar Massacre
 * Uttar Pradesh
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 * Victim of stripping moves court
 * Vidyapati
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 * What’s New at MANAS…
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 * ИНДИЈА И НЕЈЗИНИТЕ СОСЕДИ
 * Індія і її Сусіди
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 * Манас: Индия и ее соседи
 * Before Vivekananda: Glimpses of Indian Spirituality in 19th Century US
 * Reflections on the Indian Diaspora
 * Freedom In Chains
 * Vivekananda at the World Parliament of Religions
 * At Home In Trinidad
 * The American Acolytes of Vivekananda
 * The Cultural Appropriation of Vivekananda by Indian Americans
 * The Future of the Indians in the Diaspora


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 * Home
 * About Vinay
   ▽
   * Lal Salaam: A Blog by Vinay Lal
   * Vinay’s Academic site
   * Vinay’s Research
   * Vinay’s Youtube
   * What’s New at MANAS…
 * Culture
   ▽
   * Architecture
   * Art
   * Cinema
   * Cuisine
   * Dance
   * Festivals
   * Intellectuals
   * Literature
   * Music
   * Street Life
 * Diaspora
   ▽
   * Contemporary Electoral Politics in Trinidad
   * From Masjid to Mandir: Across the Corentyne, Into Suriname
   * Gandhi in Guyana
   * Gulf Indians and the Hierarchies of NRIs
   * Hinduism in the Wild West
   * Hindus in Chicago: A Short Note
   * Indian Americans and The Spelling Bee
   * Indians in Chicago: A Brief Note
   * Indians in the Carribean
   * Indians in the US
   * Diaspora Purana: The Indic Presence in World Culture
   * Indo-Mauritians and the Innocents: A Photo Gallery
   * Jindal and America: A Marriage in Heaven
   * Joel Stein’s Edison and Desi Rage
   * Return to the Womb: The NRI in the Motherland
   * Set of 4 Articles on Vivekananda & the American Legacy
   * The California Textbook Controversy
   * The Indian Minority in Malaysia
 * History & Politics
   ▽
   * Ancient India
   * British India
   * Colonial Epistemologies
   * Current Affairs
   * Mahatma Gandhi
   * Hindu Rashtra
   * Independent India
   * The Mughal Empire
   * Social & Political Movements
 * Religions
   ▽
   * Avatars, Divinities
   * Gurus, Sants
   * Myths and Characters
   * Paths
   * Practices
   * Texts
 * Landscapes
   ▽
   * Indian States
   * Rivers
 * Social Issues
   ▽
   * Caste conflicts
   * Consumerism
   * Marriage, Family, and Romance
   * Medical care
   * Oppression of women
   * The Social Fabric of Life
   * Various Articles



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