scholarly journals Performing alternative agriculture: critique and recuperation in Zero Budget Natural Farming, South India

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 748 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Muenster
Keyword(s):  
South India ◽  
Alternative Agriculture ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Food Regime ◽  
South Indian ◽  
Indian State ◽  
Rural World ◽  
Natural Farming ◽  
Global Food ◽  
State Extension

This article explores how 'Zero Budget Natural Farming', an Indian natural farming movement centered on its founder and guru Subhash Palekar, enacts alternative agrarian worlds through the dual practices of critique and recuperation. Based on fieldwork among practitioners in the South Indian state of Kerala and on participation in teaching events held by Palekar, I describe the movement's critique of the agronomic mainstream (state extension services, agricultural universities, and scientists) and their recuperative practices of restoring small-scale cultivation based on Indian agroecological principles and biologies. Their critique combines familiar political-ecological arguments against productionism, and the injustices of the global food regime, with Hindu nationalist tropes highlighting Western conspiracies and corrupt science. For their recuperative work, these natural farmers draw, on one hand, on travelling agroecological technologies (fermentation, spacing, mulching, cow based farming) and current 'probiotic', microbiological, and symbiotic understandings of soil and agriculture. On the other hand, they use Hindu nativist tropes, insisting on the exceptional properties of agrarian species native to, and belonging to India. I use the idea of ontological politics to describe the movement's performances as enacting an alternative rural world, in which humans, other-than-human animals, plants, mycorrhizae, and microbes are doing agriculture together.Keywords: agricultural anthropology; alternative agricultures; naturecultures; critique; ontological politics; small-scale cultivators; India; Kerala; Subhash Palekar

Farmers’ Suicides as Public Death: Politics, Agency and Statistics in a Suicide-Prone District (South India)

2014 ◽  
Vol 49 (5) ◽  
pp. 1580-1605 ◽  
Author(s):  
DANIEL N. MÜNSTER
Keyword(s):  
South India ◽  
The Political ◽  
Smallholder Agriculture ◽  
The Public ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Statistical Knowledge ◽  
South Indian ◽  
State Practice ◽  
Indian State ◽  
The Media

AbstractThis paper argues that Indian farmers’ suicides may fruitfully be described as public deaths. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the South Indian district of Wayanad (Kerala), it shows that farmers’ suicides become ‘public deaths’ only via the enumerative and statistical practices of the Indian state and their scandalization in the media. The political nature of suicide as public death thus depends entirely on suicide rates and their production by the state itself. But the power of representations complicates the ethnographic critique of statistical knowledge about suicide. In a context like Wayanad, which had been declared a suicide-prone district by the Indian state, public representations of suicides have taken on a life of their own; statistical categories and the media interpretations of these statistics have had a curious feedback—mediated by development encounters—onto the situated meanings of individual suicides. Local interpretations of individual suicides mostly commented on personal failures of the suicide and on the perils of speculative smallholder agriculture. Ethnography of farmers’ suicide based on case studies alone, however, would soon encounter limitations equally grave as the limitations of statistical analysis. Not only is the meaning of suicide (intentions, causes, motives) at the actor level off limits for ethnography, but in addition to that the (public) meaning of suicide is co-determined by state practice including statistical accounting.

“Sultan among Hindu Kings”: Dress, Titles, and the Islamicization of Hindu Culture at Vijayanagara

1996 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 851-880 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phillip B. Wagoner
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
South India ◽  
The State ◽  
The South ◽  
South Indian ◽  
Indian State ◽  
Natural Result

When Robert Sewell inaugurated the modern study of the South Indian state of Vijayanagara with his classic A Forgotten Empire (1900), he characterized the state as “a Hindu bulwark against Muhammadan conquests” (Sewell [1900] 1962, 1), thereby formulating one of the enduring axioms of Vijayanagara historiography. From their capital on the banks of the Tungabhadra river, the kings of Vijayanagara ruled over a territory of more than 140,000 square miles, and their state survived three changes of dynasty to endure for a period of nearly three hundred years, from the mid-fourteenth through the mid-seventeenth centuries (Stein 1989, 1–2). According to Sewell, this achievement was to be understood as “the natural result of the persistent efforts made by the Muhammadans to conquer all India” ([1900] 1962, 1). Hindu kingdoms had exercised hegemony over South India for most of the previous millennium, but were divided among themselves when the Muslim forces of Muhammad bin Tughluq swept over the South in the early decades of the fourteenth century: “When these dreaded invaders reached the Krishna River the Hindus to their south, stricken with terror, combined, and gathered in haste to the new standard [of Vijayanagara] which alone seemed to offer some hope of protection. The decayed old states crumbled away into nothingness, and the fighting kings of Vijayanagar became the saviours of the south for two and a half centuries” (Sewell [1900] 1962, 1).

South India 1770–1840: The Colonial Transition

2004 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 479-516 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID WASHBROOK
Keyword(s):  
South India ◽  
State System ◽  
Indian Society ◽  
Indigenous Cultures ◽  
Existing Structures ◽  
British Rule ◽  
South Indian ◽  
Indian State

Readers in the historiography of colonial south India have every reason to feel puzzled by the answers available to even the most straightforward of questions. Was the colonial conquest achieved through the imposition of ‘superior’ European arms, technology and ideology or was it more in the nature of an internal subversion of the pre-existing Indian state system? Did British rule fundamentally alter the structures of South Indian society or did it rest lightly on top of pre-existing structures and serve to sustain established elites? Did it undermine the hold of ‘indigenous’ cultures on society or did it merely scratch their surface or even did it promote their revival?

scholarly journals Farmer to Labour: A Study onfarmers descending from agriculture in South Indian State

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Prasanth Kumar Munnangi
Keyword(s):  
South India ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
Rural India ◽  
Indian Agriculture ◽  
South Indian ◽  
Indian State ◽  
Cultivation Process ◽  
Recent Trends ◽  
Telangana State ◽  
Favorable Conditions

Recent trends in agriculture clearly show unprecedented things happing in Indian agriculture. Farming is the primary and largest profession in rural India, where 56% of the rural population depended on it. The socio-economic conditions of farmers apparently have complex linkages with the larger structure and pace of economic conversion. The present study conducted in Warangal District of Telangana State in South India, where multiple castes cultivating and having different landholdings. The present study discusses that, village farmers especially young farmers are moving out of agriculture due to non-favorable conditions in their cultivation process.

scholarly journals An Assessment of Skeletal Craniofacial Asymmetry in South Indian Population

2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
G Anil Kumar ◽  
Saibel Farishta ◽  
G Baiju ◽  
VK Taneja ◽  
RC Minocha ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
South India ◽  
Indian Population ◽  
Cranial Base ◽  
The Other ◽  
South Indian Population ◽  
X Rays ◽  
Base Area ◽  
South Indian ◽  
The Face

ABSTRACT The present study was undertaken to assess the skeletal craniofacial asymmetry in South Indian population by a posteroanterior cephalometric radiographic method. The skeletal craniofacial structures on one side of the face were compared with that of the other, by drawing various triangles representing different craniofacial regions. The sample consisted of 60 subjects (30 males and 30 females) aged between 18 to 25 years, who were mainly dental college students from South India. Overall 52 X-rays were obtained, with four errors each in the male and the female groups. The results revealed that the total facial structures in the South Indian population were larger on the left side (statistically insignificant). The cranial base area exhibited a greater degree of asymmetry than any other component area of the face, which might be due to the inaccuracy at the condylar point. How to cite this article Taneja VK, Kumar GA, Farishta S, Minocha RC, Baiju G, Gopal D. An Assessment of Skeletal Craniofacial Asymmetry in South Indian Population. J Contemp Dent Pract 2012;13(1):80-84.

Determinants of TB Incidence in South Indian Population: Chengalpattu BCG Trial Revisited, South India

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohan Kumar Papanna ◽  
Basilea Watson ◽  
Radhamani MP ◽  
Soumya S. Swaminathan ◽  
Manjula Datta ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South India ◽  
Indian Population ◽  
South Indian Population ◽  
South Indian

scholarly journals Class, Caste, and Gender among Cashew Workers in the South Indian State of Kerala 1930–2000

2001 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Lindberg
Keyword(s):  
Women Workers ◽  
Main Concern ◽  
Class Identity ◽  
Factory Workers ◽  
Female Workers ◽  
South Indian ◽  
Union Leaders ◽  
Indian State ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Depth Interviews

The main concern of this paper is the issue of women workers' identity and class consciousness. This investigation is principally based on in-depth interviews with three generations of female factory workers. Extremely unequal power relations between capital and labour is insufficient to explain the more pronounced exploitation of female workers over males. In spite of these women having the potential for collective power, their factory lives have been characterized by treatment in constant violation of labour laws. Low-caste female workers have gone through a process of effeminization which has acted to curb their class identity and limit their scope of action. In the process of caste and class emancipation, the question of gender has been neglected by trade union leaders and politicians. The radicalism of males is built upon women's maintaining of the families – a reality which strongly contradicts hegemonic gender discourses and confuses gender identities.

scholarly journals Crisis and retirement

Focaal ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (86) ◽  
pp. 84-96
Author(s):  
Jayaseelan Raj
Keyword(s):  
The South ◽  
Tea Industry ◽  
South Indian ◽  
Indian State ◽  
Retired Workers

AbstractThe recent crisis in the tea industry has devastated the livelihood of the Dalit workforce in the South Indian state of Kerala. Retired workers were worst affected, since the plantation companies—under the disguise of the crisis—deferred their service payout. This article seeks to understand the severe alienation of the retirees as they struggle to regain lost respect, kinship network, and everyday sociality in the plantations and beyond. I argue that the alienation produced through their dispossession as wage laborers and the discrimination as Tamil-speaking Dalit must be understood as an interrelated process, whereas the source of alienation cannot be reduced to production or categorical relations alone.

scholarly journals Legacy of draught cattle breeds of South India: Insights into population structure, genetic admixture and maternal origin

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. e0246497
Author(s):  
Vandana Manomohan ◽  
Ramasamy Saravanan ◽  
Rudolf Pichler ◽  
Nagarajan Murali ◽  
Karuppusamy Sivakumar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Population Structure ◽  
Population Size ◽  
Effective Population Size ◽  
South India ◽  
Genetic Admixture ◽  
Zebu Cattle ◽  
Effective Population ◽  
Cattle Breeds ◽  
South Indian ◽  
Indian Cattle

The present study is the first comprehensive report on diversity, population structure, genetic admixture and mitochondrial DNA variation in South Indian draught type zebu cattle. The diversity of South Indian cattle was moderately high. A significantly strong negative correlation coefficient of -0.674 (P<0.05) was observed between the effective population size of different breeds and their estimated FIS. The genetic structure analysis revealed the distinctness of Kangayam, Vechur and Punganur cattle from the rest of the zebu breeds. The results showed the influence of Hallikar breed in the development of most Mysore type cattle breeds of South India with the exception of Kangayam. Bayesian clustering analysis was performed to assess the taurine admixture in South Indian zebu cattle using purebred Jersey and Holstein-Friesian as reference genotypes. Relatively high levels of taurine admixture (>6.25%) was observed in Punganur, Vechur, Umblachery and Pulikulam cattle breeds. Two major maternal haplogroups, I1 and I2, typical of zebu cattle were observed, with the former being predominant than the later. The pairwise differences among the I2 haplotypes of South Indian cattle were relatively higher than West Indian (Indus valley site) zebu cattle. The results indicated the need for additional sampling and comprehensive analysis of mtDNA control region variations to unravel the probable location of origin and domestication of I2 zebu lineage. The present study also revealed major concerns on South Indian zebu cattle (i) risk of endangerment due to small effective population size and high rate of inbreeding (ii) lack of sufficient purebred zebu bulls for breeding and (iii) increasing level of taurine admixture in zebu cattle. Availability of purebred semen for artificial insemination, incorporation of genomic/molecular information to identify purebred animals and increased awareness among farmers will help to maintain breed purity, conserve and improve these important draught cattle germplasms of South India.

scholarly journals A Study on Jainism History, Philosophy and Traditions in Tamilnadu

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 75-79
Author(s):  
M Rajeshwari ◽  
A Amirthavalli
Keyword(s):  
Tamil Nadu ◽  
South India ◽  
Huge Amount ◽  
Indian History ◽  
South Indian ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
Made In ◽  
The Way

In Tamil Nadu Hinduism and Buddhism, Jainism is one of the three oldest Indian strict conventions still in presence and a necessary piece of South indian strict conviction and practice. While frequently utilizing ideas imparted to Hinduism and Buddhism, the consequence of a typical social and phonetic foundation, the Jain convention should be viewed as a free marvel as opposed to as a Hindu order or a Buddhist blasphemy, as some previous Western researchers accepted. In South India, Jainism is minimal in overflow of a name. Indeed, even genuine understudies of religion in India gave little consideration to it. In a populace of almost 60 crores of individuals, Jainas may establish almost nearly 3 million individuals. Jainism is the religion of the Jains who follow the way, lectured and rehearsed by the Jinas. It is a fully evolved and grounded religion and social framework that rose up out of 6 century BC .The trademark highlight of this religion is its case to all inclusiveness which it holds essentially contrary to Brahmanism. It very well may be said that throughout the previous 2500 years the Jains have contributed such a huge amount to each circle of life of Indian individuals both as a religion and a way of thinking. They contributed a lot to the regions of culture, language, exchange and agribusiness, or all in all the Jains opened up another period of human thoughts and musings. In Indian History, endeavors were made to contemplate Jainism as a religion and its commitments yet focus on the Jain movement into Tamil Nadu and its effects are restricted. An endeavor is made in this examination to investigate the recorded geology of the Jain focuses in Tamil Nadu.

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