Economic and Political Weekly: Table of Content

The Broken Middle

Vol - XLIX No. 43-44, November 01, 2014 | Dilip Simeon 

• Special Articles

The violent events of 1984 signify the breakdown of consensual politics and the ideal of composite Indian nationhood. When communal animosity spreads across society, it corrodes the social conscience and (directly or subliminally) produces a genocidal consensus. In the aftermath of 1984 we also witnessed the decay of a reliable criminal justice system, the effects of which are still unfolding. It is time for us to see beyond parties, and pay attention to the functions of communal ideology. The reality today is that extremism is a mainstream phenomenon.

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Wound, Waste, History

Rereading 1984

Vol - XLIX No. 43-44, November 01, 2014 | Ravinder Kaur 

• Perspectives

Wounds are expected to heal. Our very conception of victims and victimhood is based on this hopeful axiom. But not all wounds heal, some remain in a constant state of decay, degenerate, and ultimately risk turning into waste too. It is this possibility of waste that this article explores. The 1984 violence is one of those historical wounds that has neither faded from public memory nor fully healed. At the heart of this unhealing wound is the question of justice that has long been denied to the victims. The judicial affidavits prepared in early 1985 not only narrate the violence that unfolded systematically, but three decades later testify to the inability of the state apparatus to help heal its wounded citizens.

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Editorials Why This Attack on MGNREGA? One knows who will suffer if the Narendra Modi government succeeds in weakening MGNREGA. Read more	Editorials Black Money and Its Footprints High net worth entities and the banks aiding tax evasion should be the focus of the probe. Read more
Editorials Good Times Shrewd electoral management and a divided opposition help the BJP win in Maharashtra and Haryana. Read more	Commentary Maharashtra Assembly Elections Farewell to Maratha Politics? Suhas Palshikar The dominance of Maharashtra's politics by the Congress and the Maratha elite had been weakening since 1995, and the triumph of the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party in the assembly elections seems to have finally brought it to an end... Read more
Commentary Whose Cleanliness? Vivek Kumar The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Campaign) glosses over issues of caste, which is inextricably linked to sanitation work across the country, and the rights of sanitation workers. It incorrectly tries to draw legitimacy from Gandhi’s... Read more	Commentary The Forest Rights Act and Kendu Leaf Trade in Odisha Pratap Kishore Mohanty One of the main objectives of nationalisation was the elimination of private traders from the kendu leaf trade in order to reduce the exploitation of the pluckers. Unfortunately, things have not changed much for the primary collectors since the... Read more
Commentary Preserving Traditional Healing Some Political Questions Deepra Dandekar Priests and mediums associated with "healing" folk cults have also been viewed as empowered agents of alternative modernity, and outside the priest's caste or class-based social context. In reality, the healer is often poor, and... Read more	Commentary Race in Contemporary America Protest, Police and Media in Ferguson Divya Ravindranath, Maxine Davis, Beth Prusaczyk, Whitney Sewell In all spheres today, a covert institutionalised racism can be witnessed in the United States, denying the black community access to opportunities and privileges enjoyed by the white majority. The killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-yearold... Read more
Commentary A Development Manifesto Ramaswamy R Iyer Adapting Gandhi’s words on non-violence, let us proclaim that development is the first article of our faith, it is also the last article of our creed. Let us hold aloft the banner of development. Development is our birthright. People of... Read more	Book Reviews Revisiting Tranquebar Susan Visvanathan Tranquebar: Whose History? Transnational Cultural Heritage in a Former Danish Trading Colony in South India by Helle Jorgensen (New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan), 2014; pp 356, Rs 975. Beyond Tranquebar: Grappling Across Cultural Borders in South... Read more
Book Reviews The Story of CSR in India Noshir H Dadrawala Business & Community - The Story of Corporate Social Responsibility in India by Pushpa Sundar (New Delhi: Sage Response), 2013; pp 408, Rs 895. Read more	Book Reviews Debates on Colonial Social Life Aparna Balachandran The Government of Social Life in Colonial India:Liberalism, Religious Law and Women's Rights by Rachel Sturman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 2012; pp 310, $103. Read more
Book Reviews Intricacies of a Colonial Trial Shabnum Tejani Race, Religion and Law in Colonial India: Trials of an Interracial Family by Chandra Mallampalli (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 2011; pp 286, $99. Read more	Review of Women's Studies / Review Issues Women, Violence and North-East India Paula Banerjee Read more
Review of Women's Studies / Review Issues Mothers and Activists in the Hills of Assam ...shild Kolås Security experts have argued that women's organisations in north-east India are fragmented, fail to reach out across tribal identities, and lack agency independent of the militants, with whom they have links. This article will address these... Read more	Review of Women's Studies / Review Issues 'Why So Much Blood?' Violence against Women in Tripura Purna Banerjee, Krishna Banerjee, Meenakshi Sen Bandyopadhyay, Jayanto Bhattacharya To understand the nature of violence against women in Tripura, three cases from separate moments in history have been studied - the Raiabari, Gandachara, and Omanjoy Para incidents. History has left behind social tension, masculinisation... Read more
Review of Women's Studies / Review Issues New Conundrums for Women in North-East India Nagaland and Tripura Paula Banerjee This article examines how the women in Nagaland and Tripura negotiate with the government and the underground militant movement. Combating their vulnerability these women have created spaces to be heard by forging alliances with both sides. With... Read more	Review of Women's Studies / Review Issues The Woman Rebel and the State Making War, Making Peace in Assam Rakhee Kalita Moral This ethnographic study of the female insurgent and her journey back from camp to the community discusses the encounter between women rebels who get trapped between the state and the organisation. Even as these former combatants cope with the... Read more
Review of Women's Studies / Review Issues New Fault Line in Conflict? Women’s Emergence as the Subject of Peace in the North-East Ranabir Samaddar, Anjuman Ara Begum This article offers an analysis of the structure of women's emergence as the subject of peace - factors that bind, facilitate, and influence their participation in peace building and reconstruction processes in north-east India. What factors... Read more	Special Articles Publicly-Financed Health Insurance for the Poor Understanding RSBY in Maharashtra Soumitra Ghosh Evaluating the effectiveness of the "targeting" approach in the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana, the present study examines the determinants of enrolment, hospitalisation and financial protection for below the poverty line households using data... Read more
Special Articles Review of Elementary Education Policy in India Has It Upheld the Constitutional Objective of Equality? Kiran Bhatty The Right to Education Act, 2009, has received mostly negative reactions from various quarters. These reactions have raised fundamental questions about the provision of elementary education as a public good and the role of the State in it. In... Read more	Notes Nationalism, Ideology and Consensual Democracy A Study of the Kuki Zale’n-gam George T Haokip Since its inception, the Kuki National Organization's objective was the creation of a state, Zale'n-gam, in India and Myanmar. The KNO advocated a liberal democratic political system. However, in the course of the movement, the KNO... Read more
Discussion Creative Destruction Towards a National Think Tank Samar Verma, Jai Asundi, Anshu Bharadwaj Responding to three articles that appeared in the EPW (13 September 2014) by Nachane, Shah and Mehrotra, the authors call for clarity and debate on the ethos of the new "think tank" that is to be instituted in the place of the Planning... Read more	Postscript Honour and Ignore Hasan Altaf Malala Yousafzai’s Nobel Prize brings to mind the rather sorry experience of physicist Mohammad Abdus Salam, the first Pakistani to win a Nobel. Read more
Postscript No Offence Taken Avishek Parui A complex entanglement of knowledge and prohibition characterises censorship and supposed offence-giving, as countless literary examples reveal. Read more	Postscript A Vehicle of Escape Nada Faris Discerning personal cultural subjectivity might well turn out to be therapy for literary-minded individuals.