Indian Political Thought, 2nd Edition

The pre-colonial arena remained largely untouched and disassociated with the mainstream Indian political thought except for Kautilya. In the past half decade or more, new thinkers of mainly pre-colonial years, who were earlier read as part of the discipline of history, literature and theology with their disciplinary matrices has been included with the focus on their political ideas. Buddha, Manu, Zia Barani, Abul Fazal, Kabir are representatives of this emerging trend. In the second edition, we have focused on this genre by incorporating eight new political thinkers of which six are of pre-colonial years whose political social ideas are reflected here in their works. Buddha, Thiruvalluvar, Basava, Kabir, Vemana and Tulsi are part of this endeavour. The other two, Narayan Guru and Tilak, are of late 19th and early 20th century. They were social-political activists who deeply impacted the people of their regions. Many of them are known today as saint-poets, social reformers or religious gods.