Focus:
In 2021 Bangladesh will celebrate its 50th anniversary of the Liberation War, independence from Pakistan and the foundation of its nation state. The articles in the Focus section throw fresh light on the events of 1971 as well as the way these events have been memorialised in the past and are monumentalised for the upcoming anniversary. It becomes clear that Bangladesh as a nation state - as every nation state - needs various forms of remembering and celebrating. The 50th anniversary also documents the persistence of the South Asian Subcontinent's post-colonial political order.

Forum:
This section covers various articles ranging from historical aspects like the concepts of sovereignty the East India Company developed between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries in India, or the ethnographic study on tea production and tea trade in Central Asia, to the question of Muslim voices in present-day India as well as mass migration into contemporary Dhaka, Bangladesh. The contributions reflect the journal's aim, namely to cover a variety of thematic as well as geographic aspects within South Asia and beyond.

Review Essays:
Four essays deal with the latest research results regarding the role of alcohol in British India, predominantly in the nineteenth century, the question of bonded labour in South Asia and the Indian Ocean rim, and the political dimension of archaeology and heritage sites in Pakistan and India. Finally a report on training programmes for teachers sheds some light on the latest educational initiatives in Lahore, Pakistan.

Editor (V.i.S.d.P): Prof. Dr. Michael Mann
Guest Editor FOCUS: Dr. Farhan Karim
Editorial Team: Sadia Bajwa, Domenic Teipelke, Dr. Jana Tschurenev