{"title":"Manu S. Pillai","description":"\u003cp\u003eManu S. Pillai\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"ivory-throne-chronicles-of-the-house-of-travancore","title":"Ivory Throne  - Chronicles Of The House Of Travancore","description":"\u003cp\u003eIvory Throne  - Chronicles Of The House Of Travancore\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Oxfordbookstore","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44784475046067,"sku":"9789351776420","price":639.0,"currency_code":"INR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0718\/4164\/4723\/files\/9789351776420.jpg?v=1762789743"},{"product_id":"gods-guns-missionaries-the-making-of-the-modern-hindu-identity","title":"Gods, Guns \u0026 Missionaries: The Making Of The Modern Hindu Identity","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhen European missionaries first arrived in India in the sixteenth century, they entered a world both fascinating and bewildering. Hinduism, as they saw it, was a pagan mess: the worship of devils and monsters by a people who burned women alive, performed outlandish rites and fed children to crocodiles. But soon it became clear that Hindu ‘idolatry’ was far more complex than white men’s stereotypes allowed, and Hindus had little desire to convert.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBut then, European power began to grow in India, and under colonial rule, missionaries assumed a forbidding appearance. During the British Raj, Western frames of thinking gained ascendancy and Hindus felt pressed to reimagine their religion. This was both to fortify it against Christian attacks and to resist foreign rule. It is this encounter which has, in good measure, inspired modern Hinduism’s present shape. Indeed, Hindus subverted some of the missionaries’ own tools and strategies in the process, triggering the birth of Hindu nationalism, now so dominant in the country.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn Gods, Guns and Missionaries, Manu S. Pillai takes us through these remarkable dynamics. With an arresting cast of characters?maharajahs, poets, gun-wielding revolutionaries, politicians, polemicists, philosophers and clergymen?this book is ambitious in its scope and provocative in its position. Lucid and exhaustive, it is, at once, a political history, a review of Hindu culture and a study of the social forces that prepared the ground for Hindu nationalism. Turning away from simplistic ideas on religious evolution and European imperialism, the past as it appears here is more complicated?and infinitely richer?than popular narratives allow.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Oxfordbookstore","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45073727488179,"sku":"9780670093656","price":800.0,"currency_code":"INR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0718\/4164\/4723\/files\/91r80p8CCgL.jpg?v=1762875025"},{"product_id":"rebel-sultans-the-deccan-from-khilji-to-shivaji","title":"Rebel Sultans : The Deccan From Khilji To Shivaji","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn Rebel Sultans, Manu S. Pillai narrates the story of the Deccan from the close of the thirteenth century to the dawn of the eighteenth. Packed with riveting tales and compelling characters, this book takes us from the age of Alauddin Khilji to the ascent of Shivaji. We witness the dramatic rise and fall of the Vijayanagar empire, even as we negotiate intrigues at the courts of the Bahmani kings and the Rebel Sultans who overthrew them. From Chand Bibi, a valorous queen stabbed to death, and Ibrahim II of Bijapur, a Muslim prince who venerated Hindu gods, to Malik Ambar, the Ethiopian warlord, and Krishnadeva Raya on Vijayanagar’s Diamond Throne – they all appear in these pages as we journey through one of the most arresting sweeps of Indian history.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Oxfordbookstore","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45082176716979,"sku":"9789353451066","price":480.0,"currency_code":"INR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0718\/4164\/4723\/files\/71W11VAdSqL.jpg?v=1762893668"},{"product_id":"false-allies-india-s-maharajahs-in-the-age-of-ravi-varma","title":"False Allies : India’S Maharajahs In The Age Of Ravi Varma","description":"\u003cp\u003eIndia’s maharajahs have traditionally been cast as petty despots, consumed by lust and luxury. The British circulated the idea that brown royalty needed ‘enlightened’ white hands to guide it, and many Indians, too, bought into the stereotype. In this brilliant book, Manu S. Pillai disputes this view. Tracking the travels of the painter Ravi Varma through five princely states, he uncovers a picture far removed from this cliché. We meet maharajahs obsessed with industrialization and rulers who funded nationalists.Good governance became a spectacularly subversive act, by which maharajahs refuted claims that Indians could not rule themselves. By refocusing attention on princely India, False Allies reminds us that the maharajahs were serious political actors – essential to knowing modern India.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Oxfordbookstore","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45082176946355,"sku":"9789353452162","price":720.0,"currency_code":"INR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0718\/4164\/4723\/files\/91NCAmfcPTL.jpg?v=1762893680"}],"url":"https:\/\/oxfordbookstore.com\/collections\/manu-s-pillai.oembed","provider":"Oxfordbookstore ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}