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Trysts with democracy: political practice in South Asia

postcolonialism, postcolonial studies and postcolonial theory. In the second chapter, Sethi questions the very existence of the nation and nationhood in the era of globalisation and capitalist hegemony. Tracing the connections between postcolonialism, nationalism and globalisation, the book provides an incisive analysis of the nation-state in the context of a transnational global world, the rise of the new US empire, and local resistance across Asia, Africa and Latin America. In the next chapter, she discusses at length the idea of protest in the context of globalisation and how postcolonial theory has engaged with these two. Sethi maps the entire genre of protest movements in the whole postcolonial world of Africa, South America and Asia. She refers to the cases of the Tehri Dam, Chipko and the Zapatistas in Mexico. In the second part of this chapter, she questions the hegemonic character of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, examining the nature of the US relationship with the rest of the world. This is something so central to her concern that she stretches the relationship between the US and the world to the next chapter. The final chapter concludes with a call to combine elements of postcolonialism and Marxism, to help understand and challenge oppression. She further argues that ‘with their guard lowered and hostilities downscaled, both methodologies should acknowledge each other’ (124). Sethi considers such an exercise will enrich both approaches. Despite raising such crucial issues with regard to postcolonialism and globalisation, this book does not offer any alternative methodologies to postcolonialism and Marxism. With growing crises in the wide realm of human existence and many unresolved injustices, existing concepts and categories do not provide a backbone to transformational politics. However, Rumina Sethi definitely jostles postcolonial theorists and challenges them to undertake new tasks.