From The Margins Of Political Society
Hilal Ahmed
Jangal Ki Haqdari: Rajniti aur sangharsh by Kamal Nayan Chaubey Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi & Vani Prakashan, 2015, 441 pp., 750
March 2017, volume 41, No 3

There are two intrinsic aspects that characterize the newness of this study. The book establishes a serious engagement between political theorization and everyday world of tribal communities in contemporary India. It evokes the notion of law as a determining reference point to understand the changing political world of tribal communities. The discourse of tribal rights is not introduced to the reader as rhetoric; rather the author systematically unpacks the connection between law and tribal agitation historically for cultivating empirically imbedded and theoretically informed arguments.

At the same time, the book also underlines a strong intellectual adherence to Indian languages. The author makes a courageous attempt to bring out an original research-based monograph in Hindi. He carefully follows the technicalities of social science research for innovating terms, producing concepts and expressing nuanced arguments. Avoiding the trap of literal translation to make his expressions simpler and clearer, the author intentionally stays away from linguistic jargons of Sanskritized Hindi.

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