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

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.

1952 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 422-437
Author(s):  
Roy Pierce

Less than six years have passed since the Constitution of the Fourth Republic was put into operation, yet every political group in France with the exception of the Communist Party, which has its own special plans for France's future, is currently participating in a movement for constitutional revision. Since July, 1950, no candidate for the post of Prime Minister has neglected to assert in his ministerial declaration the need for constitutional reform. The parties of the Third Force majority of the first legislature of the Fourth Republic set into motion for the first time, in November, 1950, the machinery for the amendment of the Constitution. The momentum which the revisionist movement had already gathered was given greater impetus by the elections of June, 1951, which reinforced markedly the political groups opposed to the Constitution at its inception. These groups had been able to muster only 106 votes in the Second Constituent Assembly of 1946. Later, in the first legislature but after the formation of a Gaullist parliamentary group, their strength rose to approximately 160 seats. And as a result of the elections of June, 1951, the same groups now command 300 seats in the second legislature.


Focaal ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 2009 (54) ◽  
pp. 89-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Projit Bihari Mukharji

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.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-36
Author(s):  
Proma Ray Chaudhury

Abstract Operating within the androcentric premises that support idealized models of populist leadership, self-representations cultivated by female populist leaders often involve precarious balancing acts, compelling them to appropriate contextualized traditionalist discourses and modes of power to qualify for conventional leadership models. This article engages with the stylistic performance of populist leadership by Mamata Banerjee of the All India Trinamool Congress in the state of West Bengal, India, focusing on her adoption of the discursive mode of political asceticism, nativist rhetoric, and religious iconography. Through an interpretive analysis of selected party documents, autobiography, and semistructured interviews with Banerjee's followers and critics, the article delineates Banerjee's populist self-fashioning as a political ascetic and explores perceptions of her leadership. The article argues that while the self-makings of female populist leaders remain fraught and contested, they contribute substantially toward redrawing the boundaries of both conventional leadership models and the broader political landscapes they inhabit.


Author(s):  
Gennadiy G. Bril’ ◽  
Leonid N. Zaytsev

The article examines the process of origin and formation of the political police of Kostroma Province in the mid-19th century. Special attention is paid to the issue of its staffi ng and the wide use of army offi cers for service in the political police. The chronological framework covers a little-studied period of activity of the political police in Kostroma Province. The authors of the article note that the Highest orders of military ranks that had a special place in the appointment of the headquarters and chief offi cers of the political police. On the basis of archival materials, the main directions of service activities of the highest ranks of the political police in the region are analysed. The article reveals the contribution of the gendarmes’ Corps chiefs to the protection of public order during the period under review. The author reveals the attitude of the authorities to literacy among the lower ranks of the gendarmerie. On the basis of historical and archival documents, it is concluded that the successful career of offi cers was promoted by conscientious performance of their offi cial duties, their «excellent-diligent and zealous service». It is concluded that special attention was paid to discipline among the gendarmes. The political police were independent of other branches of government, and were subordinate only to the headquarters of the gendarmes’ corps and the third division of His Imperial Majesty’s own offi ce. Gaps in the historical and legal coverage of the work of the state security Agency in the province of the Russian Empire at the fi rst stage of its existence are fi lled.


Author(s):  
Jonathan Preminger

Chapter 15 summarizes the chapters which addressed the third sphere, the relationship of labor to the political community. It reiterates that since Israel was established, the labor market’s borders have become ever more porous, while the borders of the national (Jewish) political community have remained firm: the Jewish nationalism which guides government policy is as strong as ever. NGOs, drawing on a discourse of human rights, are able to assist some non-citizens but this discourse also resonates with the idea of individual responsibility: the State is no longer willing to support “non-productive” populations, who are now being shoehorned into a labor market which offers few opportunities for meaningful employment, and is saturated by cheaper labor intentionally imported by the State in response to powerful employer lobbies. These trends suggest a partial reorientation of organized labor’s “battlefront”, from a face-off with capital to an appeal to the public and state.


Author(s):  
MUKULIKA BANERJEE

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.


Author(s):  
John P. McCormick

This chapter traces Carl Schmitt’s attempt, in his 1932 book The Concept of the Political, to quell the near civil war circumstances of the late Weimar Republic and to reinvigorate the sovereignty of the German state through a reappropriation of Thomas Hobbes’s political philosophy. The chapter then examines Schmitt’s reconsideration of the Hobbesian state, and his own recent reformulation of it, in light of the rise of the “Third Reich,” with particular reference to Schmitt’s 1938 book The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes.


Subject The likely strategy of the BJP's opponents. Significance The opposition to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lacks a coherent strategy at national level ahead of elections due in 2019. However, the large turnout at a public rally in Patna late last month, where Lalu Prasad Yadav brought together representatives of 18 opposition parties, suggests that there is popular support for a challenge to the BJP. Impacts States in which elections are due are more likely to see outbreaks of communal violence. Sonia Gandhi will come under increasing pressure to relinquish leadership of the Congress party. The BJP may support the creation of a separate Gorkhaland, at the risk of alienating support in the rest of West Bengal.


Subject The movement to create a separate Gorkhaland out of West Bengal state. Significance After Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government last month abrogated Jammu and Kashmir’s special constitutional status, and divided the state into two union territories, speculation grew that the Modi administration might try to hive off West Bengal state’s Gorkhaland region, currently administered by a semi-autonomous Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA). Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is aiming to strengthen its position in West Bengal, currently governed by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s All India Trinamool Congress (TMC). Impacts Agitation in Gorkhaland could set back tourism, a major source of income for the area, and India’s tea industry, a major employer there. The alleged exclusion of 100,000 Gorkhas from Assam state’s National Register of Citizens may hurt the BJP’s image in northern West Bengal. Gorkha politicians who have turned to the BJP may desert the party if higher-level officials continue to prevaricate over Gorkhaland.


Terr Plural ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 73-89
Author(s):  
Tatiellen Cristina Prudentes ◽  
Márcia Silva

We analyze the forms of urban intervention based on public policies, with resources from the federal government, in a medium-sized city in the state of Paraná, between 2013 and 2016. The results are presented in three sections. In the first, we review concepts and themes focused on public policies; In the second one, we present and discuss documentary data, from governmental and non-governmental institutions, and interviews. In the third one, we describe the covenants established between the federal government and the local government, in terms of public policies, to an intervention of the urban space. It is concluded that, in Guarapuava, the political factors are very intervening in the distribution of public policies in order to promote, enhancement and perpetuate certain groups off and in power, especially family groups and their political and party alignments.


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