ISSN (Print) - 0012-9976 | ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

Articles by Anand ChakravartiSubscribe to Anand Chakravarti

Revisiting Swami Sahajanand

A response to “Peasants and Their Interlocutors: Swami Sahajanand, Walter Hauser and the Kisan Sabha” (EPW, 16 May 2020) by Manish Thakur and Nabanipa Bhattacharjee argues for a more nuanced understanding of agrarian class relations by incorporating the significance of caste, without underestimating the significance of the struggles of the Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha against zamindari oppression. A need for a degree of moderation in judging the transformative impact of Sahajanand and the BPKS is thereby highlighted.

 

'Patriarchy' under the Scanner

This is with reference to Geetika Bapna’s review of Conjugality Unbound: Sexual Economies, State Regulation and the Marital Form in India edited by Srimati Basu and Lucinda Ramberg (“Intimate Connections,” EPW, 5 September 2015).

On the Legitimacy of the Indian State

Among the concerns of C P Bhambri’s response (“Revolutionary Armed Struggle in India,” EPW, 14 February 2015) to Sumanta Banerjee’s article titled “Hanoi (1965–68), Gaza (2014): Continuity and Divergence over Half a Century” (EPW, 6 September 2014) is to critique the Naxalite/Maoist (henceforth s

Conscience of the Constitution and Violence of the Indian State

The conscience of the wielders of state power fails to resonate with the conscience of the Constitution.This is evident in the Indian state's criminal disregard of the constitutional rights of large segments of its citizens in (i) confl icts over the acquisition and use of natural resources, (ii) capital's overriding infl uence over the terms of employment of labour, (iii) struggles for national self-determination, (iv) religious-communal pogroms, and (v) atrocities perpetrated against the "underclass".

Lost Legitimacy

Your editorial “Development with Brutality” (EPW, 15 October 2011), written in the context of an act of state terror against the opposition to the Dibang hydroelectric project in Arunachal Pradesh, raises a fundamental question concerning the legitimacy of the Indian state.

'Victims of the Home Ministry'?

The advertisement of the Union Home Ministry, captioned “Look at These Innocent People – Victims of Naxal Violence”, that was carried in The Indian Express, The Hindu, and The Times of India on 20 September is not only vicious and vindictive, it is also easily the most irresponsible in recent tim

State Captive to Private Interests

This is a personal response to the arrest of Binayak Sen, a committed medical practitioner and civil rights activist, by the Chhattisgarh state government under specific sections of the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, 2005 and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 2004.

CPI(M) and the Agrarian Underclass

We would like to follow up on Sumanta Banerjee’s commentary ‘Peasant Hares and Capitalist Hounds of Singur’ (December 30, 2006) and further the argument that the Left Front government in West Bengal is indulging in a massive betrayal of the agrarian underclass in Singur.

Crackdown in Faizabad

The crackdown by the UP government on the participants in a programme in Faizabad-Ayodhya scheduled for May 10 and 11 to commemorate the anniversary of the 1857 revolt against British rule is further evidence that in states where the BJP forms the government, or where the party is a constituent element in the government, it is the voice of Hindutva rather than the Constitution of India that is the guiding principle of state policy.

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