Download or read book Sources of Indian Tradition written by Rachel Fell McDermott and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2014-12-05 with total page 1024 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sources of Indian Tradition is an indispensable and essential selection of primary readings on the social, intellectual, and religious history of India from the decline of Mughal rule in the eighteenth century to today. It details the advent of the East India Company, British colonization, the struggle for liberation, the partition of 1947, and the creation of Pakistan, Bangladesh, and contemporary India. Divided thematically, it begins with a chapter on eighteenth-century intellectual and religious trends that set the stage for India’s modern development. Nineteenth-century debates over social reform, featuring the leaders of reform and revival movements, follow. Chapters on Gandhi and his reception both nationally and abroad, and different perspectives on and approaches to partition, precede a section devoted to the drafting of the Indian constitution, the rise of nationalism, the influence of Western thought, the conflict in Kashmir, nuclear proliferation, minority religions, secularism, and the role of the Indian political left. The last two sections portray Pakistan and its struggle for national identity, and Bangladesh and the controversies over the fruits of freedom.