Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 02:59:07 -0600
From: rahul-AT-peaches.ph.utexas.edu (Rahul Mahajan)
Subject: Re: Red Spain - and India



>You'll find an excellent historical primer in the Progress Publishers
>anthology Marx and Engels 'On Colonialism', containing a lot on India and
>China and some interesting things about Ireland. About India there are a
>lot of articles covering the Mutiny of 1857.

If you have to go to a 19th-century source, I'd rather read R.C. Dutt on
India than Marx. Some of what Marx said, e.g. the significance of the
railroad was right on, some, e.g. the nature of traditional village
society, was totally off.
Dutt gives an excellent view of the effects of colonialism from the side of
the colonized, although much of his analysis is dated.

>To get a feeling for the seething vitality of the situation in the
>subcontinent, Salman Rushdie's novels are excellent - Midnight's Children,
>Shame (most particularly), and The Moor's Last Sigh.

Shame is a phantasmagoria. Midnight's Children is the book to read.
However, without knowing the history already, you will find it very
difficult to appreciate much of it.

>An interesting book you might not have at your fingertips (I wonder how
>much of an 'iota of knowledge' it represents for our arrogant Olympian
>Rahul?) is

Instead of calling me stupid names, Hugh, why don't you do some thinking
based on this putative knowledge you have? Then maybe you can stop with
your moronic "all revolution, all the time" DJ spiel.

Rahul




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