Mediating Conflict

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sirpa Tenhunen
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Phones ◽  
Political Action ◽  
West Bengal ◽  
Political Activism ◽  
The State ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Political Work ◽  
Congress Party ◽  
Left Front ◽  
Different Levels

Chapter 6 provides an overview of the studies on new media’s role for political activism and then examines how mobile phones mediate political action by exploring activists’ use of mobile phones for their daily political work in rural West Bengal. The ethnographic fieldwork was carried out during the rise of the opposition, the Trinamul Congress Party, in West Bengal; consequently, the chapter also highlights the factors that helped bring the Trinamul Congress Party to power after decades of the Left Front Government’s rule of the state. This chapter illustrates how phone use builds on earlier political patterns and meanings, but has made politics faster, more heterogeneous, and translocal. Incidents that appear to be spontaneous reactions to the ruling party’s misdeeds often originate in communication between different levels of party hierarchies, followed by the horizontal spreading of information both within and outside the party.

A Left Front Election

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
MUKULIKA BANERJEE
Keyword(s):  
West Bengal ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Messages ◽  
Left Front

This chapter discusses the electoral ethnography of a campaign in the state of West Bengal. It presents a thick ethnographic description of the campaigning process and traces the numerous techniques used. The political messages and organisational hierarchies at every level of the state's population help in answering why incumbent governments suffer repeated electoral defeats.

scholarly journals Cacophony of Contestation: Forms of Voice and the Warsaw Taxi Market as a Field of Struggles

2016 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcin Serafin
Keyword(s):  
Field Theory ◽  
Political Action ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Market Institutions ◽  
Political Field ◽  
Political Struggles ◽  
Social Fields ◽  
Taxi Market ◽  
Different Levels

AbstractThis article analyses the political struggles in and around the Warsaw taxi market. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of social fields and incorporating Albert Hirschman’s metaphor of political action as voice, I capture the position-taking of members of the taxi field, highlighting the different levels of involvement in the struggles. By distinguishing between different forms of voice—murmuring, jeering, whispering, hissing, grunting, and shouting—I show that the struggles that shape the Warsaw taxi market take the form of struggles over classifications and struggles over opportunities for exchange. I describe how market institutions are established and contested within the political field; enforced and contested within the bureaucratic field; and interpreted and contested within the juridical field. I thus contribute a field theory that investigates the links between fields and especially between economic fields and the state. This article draws on fieldwork conducted in Warsaw between November 2012 and June 2013.

Women’s Collectives and State-Led Development in West Bengal: Reimagining Selves During Counterinsurgency

2020 ◽  
pp. 097317412096535
Author(s):  
Lipika Kamra
Keyword(s):  
Rural Women ◽  
West Bengal ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
The State ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Development Interventions ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Women's Lives ◽  
Indian State ◽  
Self Help Groups

This article examines the micropolitics of state-directed women’s collectives in India called self-help groups. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in a setting where development becomes a means of counterinsurgency for the state, it looks at how rural women in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal use these collectives to negotiate with the state and make claims on state actors. The article argues that rural women aspire to new individual selves through their membership of SHG collectives. Women reimagined their selfhoods through their access to the state-sponsored public sphere and building new roles for themselves within it. The argument is presented in conversation with research on self-help groups and microfinance initiatives for rural women, and it builds on work that examines the unintended consequences of such development interventions for women’s lives.

scholarly journals P. N. Haksar and Indira’s India: A Glimpse of the Domestic Sphere, 1967–1976

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Rakesh Ankit
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
International Politics ◽  
West Bengal ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Domestic Sphere ◽  
The Third ◽  
Congress Party ◽  
Range Of Functions

This article presents four episodes from the political period 1969 to 1976 in India, focusing on the views and actions of P. N. Haksar, Principal Secretary and Advisor to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (1967–1973). Unlike the ‘national/international politics’ hitherto under focus from then, that is, the Congress split (1969), birth of Bangladesh (1971) and the JP Movement/Emergency (1974–1975), the aspects under consideration in this article are of subterranean existence. First of these aspects is the provincial reverberations of the Congress split, the case considered here being that of the Bombay Pradesh Congress Committee. Second is the attitude of the Congress Party towards left opposition, the Communist Party of India Marxist (CPI [M]) in West Bengal, as revealed through the anxieties of Governor Shanti Dhavan. The third aspect under consideration is a glimpse of centre–states relations, as shown through New Delhi’s interactions with the EMS Namboodiripad-led and CPI (M)-dominated United Front Government of Kerala. Finally, the article looks at Haksar’s attempts at planning and development for the state of Bihar. Each of these four themes was among the ‘wider range of functions’ that Mrs Gandhi wished to be performed by her Secretariat and to allow us to test how successful each of it was. Each of these provides a context for contemporary issues.

scholarly journals Corruption and Factionalism in Contemporary Punjab: An ethnographic account from rural Malwa

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 942-970 ◽  
Author(s):  
NICOLAS MARTIN
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Village Level ◽  
Congress Party ◽  
Form Of Government ◽  
The Village ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Large Sections ◽  
Improve Service Delivery

AbstractOver the length of its current tenure, Punjab's Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has sought to become more a socially inclusive party, more responsive to popular demands, and even to improve service delivery and eradicate corruption. However, despite these lofty goals, it has also presided over what people refer to as ‘goonda raj’—a rule of thugs—and has managed to alienate large sections of the population and, in the process, fuelled the rise of the anti-corruption Aam Admi Party in the state. In this article, based on ethnographic fieldwork in rural Malwa, I attempt to shed light on the roots of this contradiction. Is it simply the case, as ordinary people allege, that the SAD's claims are empty and that its members are merely interested in looting the state? Or, alternatively, is it the case that the party merely operates in accordance with Punjab's allegedly time-honoured tradition of rival factions competing to appropriate the spoils of power? I suggest instead that much of the corruption and violence observable at the village level in Punjab has its roots in the antagonistic relationship between the Congress Party and the Shiromani Akali Dal. It is this antagonism that appears to fuel the SAD's highly partisan form of government, and it is partisan government that appears to fuel the corruption and the village-level factional conflict that is documented in this article.

The History Of Modern Vaccination In Cooch Behar State In The Nineteenth Century

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 180-190
Author(s):  
Rajkumar Bind
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Vaccination Programme ◽  
West Bengal ◽  
The State ◽  
The People ◽  
Small Pox ◽  
Preventive Method ◽  
History Of

This paper examines the development of modern vaccination programme of Cooch Behar state, a district of West Bengal of India during the nineteenth century. The study has critically analysed the modern vaccination system, which was the only preventive method against various diseases like small pox, cholera but due to neglect, superstation and religious obstacles the people of Cooch Behar state were not interested about modern vaccination. It also examines the sex wise and castes wise vaccinators of the state during the study period. The study will help us to growing conciseness about modern vaccination among the peoples of Cooch Behar district.   

Peculiarities of improving interbudgetary relations in conditions of authorities’ decentralization

2020 ◽  
pp. 46-54
Author(s):  
Zenoviy Siryk
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Social Development ◽  
Social Services ◽  
The State ◽  
Major Objective ◽  
Formal Approach ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Local Areas ◽  
And Control ◽  
Different Levels

Ukraine is a unitary state, yet historically various regions, oblasts, districts, and local areas have different levels of economic development. To secure sustainable economic and social development and provide social services guaranteed by the state for each citizen according to the Constitution, the mechanism of redistribution between revenues and expenditures of oblasts, regions, and territories through the budgets of a higher level is used. The paper aims to research the peculiarities of improving interbudgetary relations in conditions of authorities’ decentralization. The paper defines the nature of interbudgetary relations. The basic and reverse subsidies to Ukraine and Lvivska oblast are analyzed. The advantages and disadvantages the communities face at changing approaches to balancing local budgets are determined. Regulative documents that cover the interbudgetary relations in Ukraine are analyzed. Special attention is paid to the problem of local finances reforming, including the development of interbudgetary relations. The scheme of the economic interbudgetary relations system in Ukraine is developed. The ways to improve the system of interbudgetary relations in Ukraine are suggested. The negative and positive aspects, advantages, and disadvantages of the system of interbudgetary relations in Ukraine require the following improvements. 1. It is necessary to avoid the complete budget alignment in the process of budgets balancing by interbudgetary transfers as the major objective. 2. The interbudgetary transfers should be distributed based on a formal approach. 3. The changes have to be introduced to the calculation of medical and educational subsidies in terms of financial standard of budget provision to avoid the money deficit for coverage of necessary expenditures. 4. There is a need to improve interbudgetary relations at the levels of districts, villages, towns, and cities of district subordination. 5. Improvement of the mechanism of targeted benefits provision, their real evaluation, and control for the use of funds.

Repressive Religious Regulation and Political Mobilization in Central Asia

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dustin Gamza ◽  
Pauline Jones
Keyword(s):  
Political Action ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
The State ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
State Repression ◽  
Religious Persecution ◽  
Muslim Majority ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Perceived Harm

What is the relationship between state repression of religion and political mobilization in Muslim-majority states? Does religious repression increase the likelihood that Muslims will support acts of rebellion against the state? This chapter contends that the effect of repression on attitudes toward political mobilization is conditional on both the degree of enforcement and the type of religious practice that is being targeted. When enforcement is high and the repressive regulation being enforced targets communal (rather than individualistic) religious practices, Muslims expect state persecution of their religious community to increase, and that this persecution will extract a much greater toll. They are thus more willing to support taking political action against the state in order to protect their community from this perceived harm. The chapter tests this argument with two novel survey experiments conducted in Kyrgyzstan in 2019. It finds that the degree of enforcement has a significant effect on attitudes toward political mobilization, but this effect is negative (reducing support) rather than positive (increasing support). The chapter also finds that repression targeting communal practices has a stronger effect on attitudes toward political mobilization than repression targeting individualistic practices, but again, these effects are negative. The chapter’s findings suggest that the fear of collective punishment increases as the degree of enforcement increases, particularly when it comes to repression targeting communal practices. Thus, while Muslims are motivated to protect their community from harm, it may be that the certainty of financial and physical harm outweighs the expectation of increasing religious persecution.

scholarly journals "Communist" dispossession meets "reactionary" resistance

Focaal ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 2009 (54) ◽  
pp. 89-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Projit Bihari Mukharji
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
West Bengal ◽  
Present Situation ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Subjectivity ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Term Change ◽  
Communist Government ◽  
Set Up

The reflections in this article were instigated by the repeated and brutal clashes since 2007 between peasants and the state government’s militias—both official and unofficial—over the issue of industrialization. A communist government engaging peasants violently in order to acquire and transfer their lands to big business houses to set up capitalist enterprises seemed dramatically ironic. De- spite the presence of many immediate causes for the conflict, subtle long-term change to the nature of communist politics in the state was also responsible for the present situation. This article identifies two trends that, though significant, are by themselves not enough to explain what is happening in West Bengal today. First, the growth of a culture of governance where the Communist Party actively seeks to manage rather than politicize social conflicts; second, the recasting of radical political subjectivity as a matter of identity rather than an instigation for critical self-reflection and self-transformation.

Tribal Land Rights: A Situational Analysis in the Context of West Bengal

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 193-209
Author(s):  
Sudipta Biswas ◽  
Sukumar Pal
Keyword(s):  
Land Reform ◽  
West Bengal ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
The State ◽  
Situational Analysis ◽  
Tribal Population ◽  
Political Commitment ◽  
Large Section ◽  
Tribal People ◽  
Tribal Land

Tribal communities in India are most deprived. Socio-economically, they are poor and marginalised. The root cause of socio-economic marginalisation can be attributed to alienation of tribal people from their land, territory and resources. The overall situation of the tribal population of West Bengal is not better than the national average, even more deprived than the tribal population of other states. Despite progressive land reform laws and political commitment to implement such laws, issues of tribal land rights have not been addressed adequately. There is no such exclusive study to understand the situation of tribal land rights in the state of West Bengal. This article analyses the status of tribal land rights in the state context and makes some suggestions for improving the situation. It is found that despite distribution of land titles, a large section of the tribal population remains landless. A sizable portion has not received received record-of-rights. Claims of many tribal people for forest patta remain pending or stand rejected. Tribal land alienation continues to be a matter of concern. The state has not taken any concrete steps for the restoration of unlawfully alienated tribal lands. A large section of the tribal sharecroppers in the state remain unrecorded.

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