Department of Sociology
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Item Open Access Drug addiction among the youths of Darjeeling District: A sociological study'(University of North Bengal, 2024) Majumdar, Pintu; Biswas, SaswatiDrug addiction has become one of the severe menaces all over the world, and India is no exception to that. In India, 26th June is celebrated as the 'Anti-Drug Abuse Day' every year, and a great awareness campaign has been organized nationally to reduce the magnitude of drug addiction. Irrespective of the government's initiatives, the extent of the behaviour is rising daily. The issue is very dynamic and complex in its existence. Thereby, a keen analysis of the subject is needed as it hampers the lives of the youth in most cases in India. The present study is an endeavor to know and understand drug addiction in the Darjeeling district from a sociological point of view. The region has been selected as a field for the study due to its vibrant activities concerning drug-related activities. The region under study is strategically significant and shares international and national boundaries which makes the region prone to cross-border smuggling and trade of illegal substances. The region is being used by the traffickers to store, traffic, and sell different drugs thereby, the region becomes prone towards drug-related activities. An attempt has been made to understand the extent and pattern of drug addiction in the region under study. The researcher has reviewed several secondary literature of the existing scholarship on drug addiction to get the basic idea of drug addiction and the way the behaviour has been perceived in society historically. A review of the literature enables the researcher to find out the specific research gap for the study. The study continues to assess the problem comparatively as the hills area and plains area of the district. To accomplish the research on the issue, the study set off some major objectives to comprehend the dynamicity of the issue in the field. The study intends to find out the specific pattern and magnitude of the behaviour based on the major causes that countenance the problem in contemporary times. Moreover, the study tries to locate the role of different factors like religious, cultural, political, and economic, as these factors were found very crucial in different research works on addiction. In drug addiction, peer groups play a vital role in the dissemination and extension of the problem, and that remains a pertinent factor which deserves a sociological analysis. The study finds causal relationships between factors that influence the problem irrespective of age, sex, and community recognition in society. Also, the study discusses the socio-economic impact of the problem on the everyday life of the respondents. The endeavor links possible theories concerning drug addiction in contemporary times. A triangulation of theories has been employed to contextualize the present situation. Durkheim’s concept of Anomie and Merton’s idea of Strain helped to perceive the ideas relating to the major causes that push individuals toward drug abuse and addiction. Moreover, the study has made use of Social Learning Theories, Social and Self Control Theories, Differential Association, Liquid Modernity, and other theories to uncover the undermining issues relating to the problem. The theoretical background of the work helped in identifying major areas of the problem and also, analyzing the major dynamic factors along with their contribution to the behaviour. Methodologically, the study has followed a qualitative approach to comprehend and to detail the issues relating to the behavior, although the quantitative approach has been considered in some ways to represent the total respondents of the study. Both, primary and secondary data have been used in accomplishing the task. For secondary data, the study has consulted different books, journals, governmental reports, news articles, and many more to get a concrete idea. Primary data has been collected empirically with the help of different methods from the field of the study. Moreover, some methods are applied to cross-check the data and to get the actual scenario of the problem. The study has collected a total of forty case histories of the respondents from the region under study. The data of the study has been distributed in tabular form comparatively as respondents of rehabilitation centres and non-rehabilitation centres (local drug hubs). The study relied on ethnomethodological and phenomenological analysis of the behaviour of the respondents regarding drug abuse and addiction. To understand the relation between region and drug addiction, how/why regions vary on social problems from one another, the researcher discusses the basic characteristics of the region (Strategic, Administrative, Economic, Educational, Religious, Cultural) and their contribution in influencing the problem independently. An attempt has been made to discover the relationship between the region and drug-related activities and also the ways in which the very problem is increasing with the participation of youth continuously. In searching the above-mentioned statement, many factors have been found that are essential to the issue and also trigger drug-related activities in the region. Socio-economic background of the respondents has been analyzed on the basis of the empirical data which were collected from the field. Also, a critical overview has been placed concerning the basic background of the respondents in relation to the existing scholarship. Moreover, the study has identified major causes that intrigue individuals to indulge themselves in drug abuse and addiction-related activities. The study has found that although causes guide people towards drug consumption initially but, eventually, drug in-takers tend to produce new causes only for their association and continuous consumption of different drugs and to justify their activity. Contextualization of the problem shows that causes push individuals to the behaviour as a gateway but concerns (pleasures) are the main urge which takes users/abusers deep into the addiction. The findings of the thesis also say that the gendered participation in drug addiction and related activities is on the rise, and the participation of girls in the drug trade extends the path for other different crimes in contemporary times. Increasing involvement in drug addiction has a direct impact on other crimes like, sex work, murder, rape, et cetera, and they are also on the rise accordingly. An attempt has been made to assess the structural and functional analysis of the problem of drug abuse and addiction in the present situation. The researcher has prepared two complementary diagrams to denote the functional and structural operations that push individuals toward drug abuse and indulge further in the process. Major and vital factors have been identified which work severely in the process of addiction. As in the existing scholarship, the process of addiction is neglected. Thereby, an attempt has been put forward by the current scholar to portray the whole operational analysis by presenting different elements along with their contribution to the behaviour. The study suggests that during COVID-19, drug addiction and related activities increase due to the participation of people in the cross-border drug trade. The pandemic was the time when non-drug abusers (students and petty traders of goods and services) also participated on a large scale to earn easy money, which made the region available onItem Open Access Crime and criminal behavior among the youth : A sociological study(University of North Bengal, 2024) Singha, Bappi; Biswas, SaswatiThe sociological approach gives a way to look at the issue of youth crime, which is distinctive from other disciplinary approaches. Considering its multidimensional character, explanations, and interpretations that have emerged from different disciplines, the present study delves further with the sociological lens and tries to interpret it accordingly. The changing ideas, values, and changes in the various formal and informal institutions have resulted in increasing crime rates worldwide. Unprecedented and unanticipated dimensions of criminality extend the extensive scope of research on youth crime and its behavioral aspects. Thus, the present study also signifies its behavioral aspect, which has a sociocultural base and deserves examination accordingly. Therefore, the definitional aspect of the phenomenon itself has emerged in several ways, and the parallel growth of the theoretical dimensions has paved the way for multifaced interpretation. Youth is a significant social category; their behavioral manifestations are based upon a distinct set of contextualizations that may not be similar to other social categories. It becomes more versatile when we are to examine their criminal behavior. However, the sociological analysis broadly examines youth crime from two aspects and all the major explanations can be categorized under it. First is the structural perspective, which emphasizes the larger social structure where youth crime occurs. It also raises the question about changes in the structure that result in crime and criminality. The other is the processual perspective, enquiring about how and why youth engage in different crimes and criminal behavior. The whole set of concerned theoretical traditions has developed accordingly. The emergence of ecological and sociological approaches has brought challenges to many conventional approaches that focus exclusively on biological and psychological factors. It was the primary turning point that directed the discourse towards social and sociological consideration. Gradually, the inception of structural explanation derived from the classical work of E.H Sutherland (1949), which attempts to illustrate the interrelation between crime and occupational framework, and the concepts of occupational crime, white collar crime, or corporate crime have evolved. It is based on a class approach to crime and criminality, reflecting the structural disposition through status and occupation. It has achieved more elaboration with the experiment of John Hagan (1988) in his work on structural criminology, which examines the existence of power in the phenomenon of crime and criminality. The control approach developed by Hirschi (1960) expresses concerns about the behavioral consequences of individuals influenced by power relationship ties with institutions. Moreover, several other experimentations developed by scholars like Brown (2018) and Muncie (2004) have opened multiple dimensions to look into the issue. However, the present study explores such orientation to understand the contextualization of youth crime and criminal behavior in Indian society. The diversity of the Indian social structure, which has multiple grounds for stratification, represents a complex existence in terms of caste, class, and gender, and the study has considered these to uncover the hidden reality. These provide specific grounds for social values, moralities, and rationalities that guide an individual's social life within the particular social structure. It results in distinct attitudes and behavioral patterns often confronting each other's interests, eventually extending and intensifying the scope of deviance, crime, and criminality. (e.g., riots, ethnic violence, etc.). The development of sociological tradition has brought the functional interpretation in examining such context, which may be understood by the work of Durkheim and Merton. Contemporarily, the conflict approach and Marxist tradition also became very significant, and the later development in modern theoretical tradition has led this into a more multidimensional character. Gradually, these classical approaches have been extended and replaced by several advancements in the field with newer approaches. The whole set of subcultural explanations developed by William F. Whyte's work Street Corner Society and Albert Cohen's work on Delinquent Boys added a distinct dimension to the issue of youth crime. Moreover, from the very interactionist perspective, the emergence of imitation, labeling, and control theories enriched the examination to another level. More specifically, the inclusion of feminist and postmodern approaches has enabled us to micro-analyze the phenomena that have become heavily significant in the present theoretical evolution dealing with the phenomena. Thus, based on the review of earlier works, the present study tries to locate the field within these theoretical rhizomes where the inclusion of multiple theories regarding both epistemology and methodology remains necessary. In categorizing the earlier works, the study finds that it majorly tries to analyze youth crime and criminal behavior as the individual outcome or the outcome of physical and social surroundings at a macro level. Such orientation overlooks many contexts that remain significant at the micro level and can heavily influence the reality that conditions youth crime. In hypothesizing and testifying the fact, the present study stresses analyzing the contextualization of power and the state's involvement in youth criminality. The outcome of such effort remains significant and helps theorize the nature and characteristics of youth criminality. In contemporary scenarios, many dimensions of youth crime are directly and indirectly influenced and conditioned by the state and its governance. The present study analyzes the role of the state in drug- related crimes, which prevail among youth in the study area. Youth's behavioral representation through illicit drug addiction and dealing provides the scope of governance and thus validates the involvement of the state in it. At the same time, the state also facilitates and sponsors many contexts that seduce youths into criminality. It results in producing the context of criminalization and deviance and criminals. The critical approach signifies the importance of class in its examination where the drug behavior, addiction, and relevant crime and criminality of youth are influenced. In such a way, we see a process of translating drugs into deviance and criminality that intensifies the political economy of the state. Thus, the state has two strands that promote youth criminality: state-facilitated and state-sponsored contexts of youth criminality. The present study has extended this framework to analyze the governmentality of the state through producing and reproducing the crime context to youth. In such circumstances, the examination of gender in youth criminality remains very crucial and necessary for the time. The study explores that the criminalization of genders in present times has become an unavoidable apparatus of the state's governance mechanism. Bringing more populations under the filtration of crime and criminality enables the inclusion of many people into control whose behavior remained liberated traditionally. Moreover, the categorization of crime and criminality materializes the masculinization and feminization of certain specific crimes that orients the contexts of youth crime socioculturally. The present study explores the contextualization of sex crime in young women's bodies, which has become normalized as well as institutionalized. It is found that the intimacy of state and patriarchy has created the ground of governing through criminality, especially through youth crime. Thus, the evolvement of 'gendered crime and criminality' and the 'criminalization of gender' takes place in contemporary times. However, the study has found a critical context in the conventional gender-based crime approach and also in the crime-based gender approach, where, in both cases, inequality persists in determining crime and criminal behavior. Moreover, it examines how the gender structure itself includes crime and criminality to establish and validate the unequal power relations in social stratification to regulate individuals. In such a context, inequality is not only executed with the male and female binary; moreover, the gender structure has also been reshaped and reformed in a way that all populations can be brought under its order. Thereby, the inclusion of LGBTQ+ (the rainbow community) people into the dominant gender structure has extended the field of power and politics and also contextualizes the scope of governing through crime and criminality (Simon 2007). In analyzing the pattern and context of cybercrime among youth, the study tries to dissect the sociocultural consideration of cyberspace. It explores the process through which such spaces have reproduced the social inequality that often conditions the context of crime and criminality. The rationalization of the cyber industry has resulted in producing the cyber surplus value where youths are being exploited. Being the prosumer, this eventually creates the ground of disappointment, frustration, anger, violence, and deviant behavior among youth. Moreover, the study explores the inmates' living conditions and the prison culture. It has examined the multifaced dimensions of prison living mates and also focuses on the understanding of victimization. After examining all issues, the present study may conclude that the analysis of youth crime, which traditionally finds youth as guilty in analyzing their criminality, is not the pertinent explanation. Instead, it is the social structure that has multiple sociocultural grounds for magnifying more and more youths in crime and criminality. The criminal behavior of youth is not innate; neither is it the result of learning circumstances through socialization as much as it claims in several theoretical approaches. Rather, it is more the outcome of sociocultural contexts that remain embedded into the social structure. Moreover, in present times, the intention of the state and operating governmentality through exercising youth crime as a means of controlling citizens has opened up another layer of youth oppression. Youth crime is a means of governance, and thus, it would not be wrong to state that doing youth crime in present times is more doing youth victimization. Therefore, it enables a fertile sociocultural context to produce and reproduce the passive citizen.Item Open Access Trafficking of women in Darjeeling hills : A sociological study(University of North Bengal, 2022) Mukhia, Persis; Bhui, UjjwalItem Open Access Bhutia (LHOPO), shamans of Sikkim : a study in change and continuity(University of North Bengal, 2021) Bhutia, Kunsang Ongmu,; Biswas, SaswatiItem Open Access Matua mahasangha in West Bengal : sociological study of religious organisation(University of North Bengal, 2020) Lahiri, Amlan; Biswas, SaswatiItem Open Access Roots and routes of tribalism: a study of the Kirati Khambu Rai community of Darjeeling Hills(University of North Bengal, 2020) Rai, Smriti; Sarkar SwatahsiddhaItem Open Access Corporate entry into the jewellery business and its socio-economic impact on the life of the traditional swarnakars and jewellery traders in Siliguri(University of North Bengal, 2020) Raha, Sylvia ,; Roy, Sanjay KumarItem Open Access Participation of women in social movements: Sociological study of the hill region of Darjeeling District(University of North Bengal, 2020) Chhetri, Kumar; Biswas, SaswatiItem Open Access Theravadi buddhists of Siliguri: study of socio- cultural distinctiveness and exchange(University of North Bengal, 2020) Chatterjee Sen, Aparna; Biswas, Saswati,Item Open Access Women in entrepreneurial and business, activities: a study in Darjeeling District in West Bengal(University of North Bengal, 2017) Roy Choudhury, Mahuya ,; Bhadra, Mita,