Social Trends, Vol. 04

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://ir.nbu.ac.in/handle/123456789/3584

EDITORIAL NOTE

It is indeed gratifying that the fourth volume of Social Trends is being published on time. This year, an important landmark has been reached and that is the journal has been approved by the UGC. This recognition has already motivated the young scholars to write for the otherwise young journal.

The developments guide me to approach my task with greater vigour. I can see the young minds inching towards maturity, ready to take on new challenges. I thoroughly enjoy passing on the editorial tips out of my experience to the scholars who are not my direct students. In a way, thus, I get an opportunity to dialogue with a larger body of inquisitive minds. I enjoy doing this meager service to the growth of the discipline.

The journal offers an opportunity for the young and established scholars to write experimental papers. One can see that the papers by Pinaki Roy, Jhuma Chakraborty and Sritama Basu, and Sanjay K. Roy in this volume have been written applying auto ethnography, in line with the tradition set by scholars like S. C. Dube, M. N. Srinivas, C. Wright Mills, to mention only a few. The idea is to explore the rich reserve of our personal experiences, reflect on them dialogically, objectify them and draw discourses, which would give us some idea about how people in general organize their everyday life, coordinating consciousness and actions.

Since we published the last volume of Social Trends, we have lost our beloved Prof. Sharit Kr. Bhowmik, a member of the Advisory Committee of the journal, a former faculty of the Department of Sociology, NBU, and a leading sociologist in the country. We have included an obituary on Prof. Bhowmik, in this volume.

Prof. Rajatsubhra Mukhopadhyay, a faculty of the Department of Sociology and a member of the editorial team of the journal, has retired on 9 November 2016 after serving the Department for 31 years. We have included in this volume a note of appreciation, which was accepted in his farewell meeting, held on 16 December 2016 in the Department of Sociology.

I would thank the members of the Advisory Committee, my colleagues on the Editorial Board, the contributors and the reviewers for their kind help and suggestions in bringing out the fourth volume of the journal.

Sanjay K. Roy
31 March 2017
North Bengal University




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    Sharit K. Bhowmik : teacher, my friend
    (University of North Bengal, 31-03-2017) Roy, Sanjay K.
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    Discourse formation and praxis in everyday life
    (University of North Bengal, 31-03-2017) Roy, Sanjay K.
    In sociology, and in other social sciences, we generally talk about others, while keeping absolutely mum about ourselves. The result is so called “objective” (in most cases manipulated) “scientific” dispassionate “texts”1 which obscure the reality and do not help enriching our collective wisdom. Subjective knowledge (in Weberian sense), drawn by applying reflexive or autobiographical method, which is usually given no respect in the so-called scientific tradition, could be an alternative mode of doing sociology. Discourses in sociology and other social sciences could be drawn from lived experiences, with high degree of embeddedness, which would help understand the dynamics of everyday life social praxis better.
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    Everyday life of the jewellery karigars in siliguri : case study
    (University of North Bengal, 31-03-2017) Raha, Sylvia
    The conventional predominance of the Bengali Swarnakars in jewellery making is on the wane as the non-Bengali karigars are taking their place. Making jewellery is no longer a caste occupation in the Hindu social order as non-swarnakars are also finding a place in the craft. Counted in the informal sector the karigars are subjected to the crudest form of exploitation which leads to their alienation at work place. The elements of estrangement pervade their family and social life.
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    Vulnerability of the aged in india and their rights
    (University of North Bengal, 31-03-2017) Roy, Sinjini
    The aged constitute a vulnerable section of society, since they lose authority, live alone losing their spouses, often materially dependent, ailing and no more physically active. Frail health, ailments, loss of spouse, dispersal of family members, loss of economic independence and authority make the elderly “dependent”, “burden” and insecure. Atrocities, in the form of ill-treatment, cheating, robbing of property, infringement of rights, physical and mental harm, murder, and other forms of crime against the elderly by the family members and kin and by the larger society is common all over the world; India is no exception. When the families are smaller in size and the younger members disperse because of professional compulsions the elderly are left alone as the family support system grows weaker. The atrocities against the elderly, whose contribution to the society can hardly be overstated, and are rich in human resources, are being documented and reported in the “texts”. The global and national bodies, the academia and policy makers, are coming out with innovative ideas to address these problems. Drawing from the available studies I have, in the present paper, highlighted the nature of atrocities that are done to the elderly members in India and have reviewed the policies that have been put in place to address their problems and protect their rights. What matters in the present-day context is to give them their due and to protect their rights.
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    Sociological view of management of health of the migrant workers in kolkata nibedita bayen
    (University of North Bengal, 31-03-2017) Bayen, Nibedita
    Kolkata, the economic capital of eastern India, attracts skilled and semi-skilled labourers, who migrate for a living. The migrants include sex workers, taxi drivers, shoemakers, porters, rickshaw pullers and child labourers. They migrate from Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and different regions of West Bengal. Migrants, who migrate by taking the help of a village migration network, usually take shelter in slum areas. Such places are identified by the city administration as places of extra attention to prevent outbreak of diseases. The municipal corporation puts in place a robust malaria control plan in the city. The present paper would analyse how migrant labourers are governed by the city administration as a part of its malaria-control drive and how the perceptions of health and illness of these migrant labourers change in the process.
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    Lower caste movement and the idea of social equality under the raj : jyotirao phule and maratha renaissance
    (University of North Bengal, 31-03-2017) Sengupta, Shilajit
    Post-Colonial Indian state was fraught with high level of caste discrimination, illiteracy, agricultural failures and many such grimy situations which now partially have been addressed by systematic and strategic planning since 1951. Considering the vastness and incredibly heterogeneous demography of the nation bringing in social equality by eradicating caste hierarchy, education for all and agricultural development policies are the key areas where India has been performing well unlike other South Asian countries of third world. The seed of the idea behind many such policies especially in development of mass education was sown by great Indian thinker Jyotirao Govindrao Phule. In primary and higher education for masses, right to the farmers and the true realization of a just and egalitarian society which would be neither caged under the clutches of foreign rulers nor dominated by hierarchically structured class and caste based Hindu society this erudite Marathi Activist-Writer- Thinker has made commendable contribution. Phule’s work brought an era of renaissance which gave voice to the lower caste marginalized population unlike the mainstream upper caste-bourgeois led nationalist movement which failed to include the age old cultural and social deprivation of sudras and untouchables of the land. This article will focus on Phule’s view on social reform during mid and late 19th century colonial India which later influenced emancipatory movements of lower caste people and their struggle for social equality in Independent India.
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    Lepcha dress : marker of cultural identity
    (University of North Bengal, 31-03-2017) Roy, D. C.
    The unique and typical Lepcha dress is one of the important markers of their cultural identity. The pattern or design of Lepcha dress is sober and elegant.The length and style are gentle and weather friendly. The accessories are simple and need based. All materials and accessories of Lepcha dress are locally available and eco-friendly. Weaving and dying are done most systematically and scientifically. Lepcha women are good weavers and they acquire the skill of weaving all parts of both male and female dress as part of their socialization.
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    Culture shock at universities : suburban students and their experience of marginality
    (University of North Bengal, 31-03-2017) Bhowmick, Arunima
    Marginality is a condition of disadvantaged individuals and communities that arises due to unfavourable environmental, cultural, social, political and economic factors. The vulnerable situation that they confront can be either societal or spatial, very often, both. This paper seeks to understand predicaments and vulnerabilities of students coming to universities in metropolitan Kolkata from the margins of the city, more often referred to as the “suburbs”. The study is an attempt to relook marginality in the face of globalisation and dissect the context of regionalism in this light. The study has gathered strength from case studies of students coming to universities from these regions and an account of their conditions and sense of discrimination has been recorded. Their sense of marginality finds manifestation in difference of language, more precisely their speech and diction, fashion and most importantly lifestyle. Tracing the origin of the concept of marginality back to the one who coined it, Robert Ezra Park (1928), young students were found placed between multiple cultures and their negotiations give rise to a “hybrid” personality or the marginal man. Students from suburbs might not necessarily have pronounced class differences with the local residential students, but their possession of “cultural capital” and further access to it in the universities often become a ripe condition for furthering marginalization. Finally, the paper engages in addressing the vital question — whether to uphold “affirmative action” and support the marginal status, or create a collective of poorly privileged?
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    Tuberculosis in India : is it just a medical problem?
    (University of North Bengal, 31-03-2017) Barman, Paramita
    India features among the 30 High Tuberculosis (TB) Burden Countries that together accounted for 87 per cent of the global TB burden in 2015 in terms of the highest estimated number of incident TB cases (Global TB Report, WHO 2016), despite the prolonged operation of a disease-specific, focused national health program in the country to address TB and considerable expansion of TB care services. The disease is believed to be strongly correlated to socioeconomic gradients of the population. Also, the contagious nature of pulmonary TB coupled with misconceptions is often the source of strong social stigma that impacts health-seeking behaviour of individuals. This paper tries to track down from literature factors that might be partially offsetting the success of the conventional “diagnosis and treatment” based efforts to curb the disease in India.
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    Rabindranath’s idea of alienation : interpretation of raktakarabi
    (University of North Bengal, 31-03-2017) Ghosh, Sayantan
    Pen of the social thinker Rabindranath Tagore reflects the pain of human beings in any social order that is exploitative and alienating, be it industrial capitalism or traditional religious order. He was in favour of cooperation - cooperation in production, cooperation in consumption and cooperation in celebration. He advocated reaching the state of “Ananda”/happiness – creative happiness and collective happiness. He criticised any social order that alienates man from the product he produces, from other human beings and from his own creative self. He emphasised on the role of senses in alienation. This paper would try to outline Tagore’s idea of alienation and the process of liberation of an alienated self to humane self. This concept is reflected in many of his writings but this paper would particularly focus on Raktakarabi. Regarding the idea of alienation, there are certain similarities between Tagore and Marx but there also exists significant uniqueness in Rabindrik philosophy.