Paper, Performance, and the State: Social Change and Political Culture in Mughal India (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781316516812)

This book explores the changing socio-cultural world in early modern South Asia, and locates the agency of the Mughal state therein. The development of literacy and new forms of engagement between literacy and performance prompted the opening up of new spaces of social communication, and led to the development of a performative (and somatic) public sphere in South Asia. The work highlights the significance of legal spaces, along with the markets and coffeehouses, in shaping the emergent public sphere. While defending the case for legal pluralism, it argues that the Mughal state endured and enhanced the diversity in the legal order. Focusing on the socially embedded attributes of the state, it looks at how the state's relations with the local powers impinged on, and reproduced community identities, identity conflicts, legal pluralism, property relations, and different forms of social communication.

Author: Farhat Hasan
ISBN-10: 1316516814
ISBN-13: 9781316516812
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 02/03/2022
Pages: 168
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.07lbs
Size: 9.32h x 6.36w x 0.84d