She holds a PhD in History from the University of Warwick, an MA in Asian and African Studies from El Colegio de México (Colmex) and a Bachelor's degree in Modern English Literature and History from the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). She did a postdoctoral stay at the Center for Asian and African Studies at El Colmex. He has taught courses in history and area studies at the same school, at the Universidad de las Américas, at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM), Unidad Iztapalapa and at the Colegio de Ciencias y Humanidades. She collaborates in the media democracia Abierta with a particular focus on gender violence in India and Mexico. Other lines of research include: rise of Hindu nationalism, contemporary political culture, commissions of inquiry and Muslims as a minority in India.
More than a linear, chronological development, the reader will appreciate that this volume was built around an idea, or a set of ideas, about what India represents. It is, of course, a limited space, an invention, and for this reason the title itself shows a conscious effort, hopelessly incomplete, to organize a series of knowledge around a topic that overflows in all aspects: studies on India.
It is common that - from an academic point of view - modern India, classical India and all the other Indies are studied separately. There is usually little communication between the different types of specialists, some closer to social disciplines, others to the humanities and the arts.
However, this frequent disconnection exists only in the formal sphere, since a glance at any of the works that make up this book is enough to realize that there is a constant dialogue between them through which there is a kind of coming and going throughout history and academic disciplines.
It is a work composed of eight chapters based on the analysis of historical and ethnographic sources. The authors build an image of society and politics in contemporary India; highlights the fundamental role of culture since culture not only cuts across all fields of public and political life throughout the history of the South Asian region but is also a central element in understanding power relations in that region.
In Chapter 1, Saurabh Dube raises a question and even a proposal for the analysis of studies related to India: What is the relationship between culture and power? Chapters 2 and 3 examine the gender issue. Mrinalini Sinha addresses feminist research and the construction of an imaginary of democracy and a Nation-State closely linked to the concept and role of women in India.
For her part, Ishita Banerjee addresses the way in which democracy, equality and social justice are conceived and delves into the interaction and intersection of this with religion and gender, an intersection that is the central axis of this chapter. The last four sections turn around a common theme: current democracy.
Chapter 4 presents a contemporary analysis of the history of the barbarian in India and its various uses. Sanjay Subrahmanyam shows how recent faits-divers provide an overview of who and how the barbarian is seen in contemporary times, as well as its consequences.
In Chapter 5, Laura Carballido presents an overview of contemporary democracy in India (2011) and, through the presentation of some data, the author shows that the largest democracy in the world is located in India, as well as what this implies at 30 years of their independence Fernanda Vázquez begins chapter six wondering if being the largest democracy in the world implies being a successful and effective democracy? The author explores democracy in India to offer the reader the achievements, tensions, challenges, scope, and limits of this political structure and emphasizes how and to what extent the scope of the democratic system is limited by the social and economic inequality that persists there.
For her part, in Chapter 7 Beatriz Martínez addresses the specific issue of the 2014 electoral process and explains how and why it was marked by Narendra Modi, offers an analysis of the performance of this character, and takes up, among other elements, the accusations by handling the Gujarat riots.
Finally, through an analysis divided into 3 time periods, Mario González provides an overview of the environment in which political alternation has taken place and takes into account that the party system in India must be canalized and guarantee ideological-political pluralism, social and cultural. It is then an important contribution to the understanding of contemporary India from the Social Sciences and Humanities in Mexico.