Description
Book SynopsisThis book studies the importance of North India's military labour market for state and sect formation, social change and the survival strategies of Hindustani villages, and shows how North Indian politics and decision making reflected the multiple alliances and fluid identities of the peasantry.
Trade Review""Naukar", Rajput and Sepoy challenges long-held assumptions about the nature of military power and peasant society in northern India before British ascendance. It will add to our knowledge of Indian state formation and to the growing body of scholarship questioning the historical pervasiveness of caste in Indian society." Journal of Asian History
"...the argument that military free agency, or naukari, was an important career alternative for late medieval Indian peasants is compelling and energetically sculpted, making this a welcome addition to the social and economic history of South Asia." Richard B. Barnett, The International History Review
Table of ContentsPreface; List of abbreviations; Glossary; 1. Beyond the control of the state; 2. A Warlord's fresh attempt at empire; 3. The Rajput of pre-Mughal North India; 4. Politics and entrepreneurship of a 'spurious' Rajput clan; 5. Bhojpuri soldiering and the vicissitudes of Empire; Epilogue; Bibliography; Index.
