Images of Maharashtra: A Regional Profile of India

First published in 1980, Images of Maharashtra presents the authors’ academic interests in defining the multifaceted personality of Maharashtra. All the papers were presented at the Annual Conferences of Maharashtra Studies Group of the Association for Asian Studies. They range over history, politics, agriculture, sociology, and religion.

Milton Israel discusses M.R. Jayakar’s use of English language newspaper of Bombay for the Nationalist cause; Mary Katzenstein examines the government’s response to migration; B.G. Gokhale stresses on the importance of Urban commercial centres of Western Deccan in the 17th century; and Donald Innis’ paper is a tribute to creative efforts of the ‘peasant scientists’. Jayant Lele explores the class, caste and hegemony in rural Maharashtra and Jayshree Gokhale-Turner focuses on the importance of Maharashtra region as a structural unit of study. L.W. Preston presents a historical analysis of the subregional religious centres and N.K. Wagle examines the dilemma of early 19th century British administrators in coping with the problem of social rank. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of Asian studies.

N.K. Wagle is Professor Emeritus at the Department of History, University of Toronto, Canada.