Margins of Citizenship is an interestingly written account of the everydayness of life in Kolkata’s predominantly Muslim area of Park Circus. It is a sympathetically written ethnography by one who is an outsider in two senses, the first being that she is not a resident of the area and second that she is not a Muslim.
Over the last decade, the country has witnessed one after another resistance movements bursting on to the political map. These movements, largely located in rural India have unsettled the comfortable dream of ‘shining’ India. In issues involved in studying such movements are certain connections which must be delinked only to link; certain qualifications must be made with respect to categories such as ‘rural’ or ‘resistance movements’.
Dalit politics in contemporary India is going through a reflective phase. From the demand at sub-categorizing in reservations to the critical questioning of some Dalits caste groups and individuals who dominate and usurp all the resources meant for Dalits in general. There is now in the academia a significant number of Dalits who are challenging the old Brahmanical hegemony that has entrenched itself into various ideological guises.
N Ram clarifies at the outset that if corruption in India ‘in its pervasiveness, its omnipresence and its multifariousness’ is to be properly understood, it needs to be conceptualized as a problem not just of politics but as an ‘integral part of an unjust and exploitative system of political economy’; and, hence, the most suitable approach to make sense of corruption in India is provided by the theoretical perspectives and lived experience that Marxism brings to the subject.
Manjari Katju’s second treatise on the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), is a sort of sequel to her previous publication entitled The Vishva Hindu Parishad and Indian Politics (2003), a pioneering and comprehensive study on the ideology and politics of the VHP. While the first volume traced VHP’s rise to power through the Ramjanmabhoomi Movement (RJM)
Psephologists and political analysts have attempted to elaborate the ‘hows’ and the ‘whys’ of the BJP winning more than half of the State elections held subsequent to the 2014 Lok Sabha win. There have been many attempts to uncover the mystery during each election, but the actual answer has remained beyond the terms of ‘anti-incumbency’, ‘promise of development’, ‘promises of achhe din’ etc.