Journal of Political Studies

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The Journal of Political Studies is an Annual Journal of the Department of Political Science, University of North Bengal published every year in the month of March.

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    1 | P a g e Confronting the ‘Congress System’ in West Bengal: Electoral Strategies of the CPI in the 1950s1
    (University of North Bengal, 2017) Jana, Arun K
    At the time of Independence Communists support in West Bengal was highly uneven across districts and among classes. It was largely confined to the working class areas in and around the capital, Calcutta. When the CPI decided to contest the West Bengal Assembly elections in 1951 it was not the only Left party which contested. There were several other that competed like the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), the two factions of the Forward Bloc, the Bolshevik Party of India etc. In the 1957 elections however the number of Left parties that were in the electoral fray declined. The CPI clearly emerged as the leading Left party in the state by 1957. The electoral strength and support of the CPI went on increasing from 28 seats with 10.76 percent of the votes in 1951-52 to 46 seats with 17.81 percent of votes in 1957. Its performance in the parliamentary elections in the state was also remarkable. Out of the 15 seats which it won in the country as a whole in 1952, 5 were from West Bengal. In 1957 the state supplied 6 of the 27 members of the party which were elected to the Lok Sabha. This electoral as well as the social expansion of the CPI in the 1950s is remarkable considering that the Congress like elsewhere in the Country enjoyed dominance in the state in the 1950s and early 1960s. How was the CPI able to expand its social base in the state in the 1950s? What strategies it pursued to challenge the domination of the Congress in the state? These are the questions which the paper attempts to answer.
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    Balmiki Community in Darjeeling Hills: Socio- Economic Profile
    (University of North Bengal, 2013-03) Balmiki, Lekhraj
    The present attempt tries to explore the socio-economic profile of the Balmiki community which has been engaged with their traditionally assigned occupation as scavengers and sweepers/ Safai Karmcharis1in the Darjeeling hills. Being a subaltern community, the Balmikis represent a strange case of community yet to come out of the traditional fold.
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    Behind Closed Doors: Is the ‘Personal’ Political?
    (University of North Bengal, 2013-10) Gonsalves, Trijita; Gonsalves, Sushmita
    From time immemorial, Indian society is patriarchal. Women have found it impossible to go beyond the field of patriarchal power. But, since Indian independence, efforts were made to make our society more egalitarian vis-a-vis women. In this paper, we identify two areas where the Indian State has dismally failed to protect women - female foeticide and marital rape. They constitute two of the most intimate concerns of a married woman’s life, through which a husband assumes power over the most private part of her life – her body and it becomes a site of violence. This paper concludes by arguing that laws in themselves are not enough. It is time that we women fought our battles ourselves.
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    Bhutanese Refugee Imbroglio
    (University of North Bengal, 2016) Sarkar, Tuhina
    The 107,000 Nepali- speaking refugees, known as Lhotshampa, claim Bhutanese citizenship based on historical residence patterns. They have languished in refugee camps in Nepal's Terai districts since the early 1990s because of Nepal's, India's and Bhutan's inability or unwillingness to resolve their citizenship status. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), many Bhutanese refugees say they want to return to their homes in Bhutan. Despite this desire- and despite numerous high- level meetings between the governments of Bhutan and Nepal to resolve the refugee crisis over the past 20 years- Bhutan has not permitted a single refugee to return home. Local integration has not been possible for political reasons. With neither repatriation nor local integration a realistic possibility for the great majority of refugees the latter had accepted resettlement in eight Western countries: 91,713 refugees offered settlement in the US had already arrived, some noticeably malnourished and suffering from a vitamin B12 deficiency. Resettlement to a third country has emerged as the only durable solution to the problem.
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    Book Review: “Maoists and Other Armed Conflicts”, Anuradha M.Chenoy and Kamal A.Mitra Chenoy, Penguin Books, New Delhi, 2010.
    (University of North Bengal, 2012-03) Tamang, Dipti
    This book gives a very well documented and a different insight of the idea of conflicts, militarisation and security issues. It seeks to move away from the homogenised, mainstream idea of nation and to look at the different aspects of nation building that has resulted in the different parts of the country actually being in a perpetual state of conflict. It looks at the multi-dimensional aspect of conflict and the state’s approach to dealing with these aspects. The broad conclusion remains that democratic decentralisation and democratisation of the security approach is the only political solution to addressing and resolving these conflicts.
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    Caste Marginalization and Resistance: Case of Rajbanshis in North Bengal
    (University of North Bengal, 2013-03) Basistha, Nandini
    Literally the term ‘Rajbanshi’ means the lineage of the king. But, in reality, the Rajbanshis have been placed in the bottom of the caste hierarchy and have often been victims of discrimination. Starting with a movement for regaining the lost social status of the Rajbanshi community in Hindu society of Bengal, how their activism gradually developed into a more hard-core or confrontational political movement aiming at separate statehood has been discussed in this paper. In addition, the paper discusses in detail how the demands raised, and the modes of agitation, changed over time.
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    Challenge of Boko Haram Insurgency in Nigeria: Its Origin, Causes and Effects
    (University of North Bengal, 2014-03) Kaur, Sarabjit
    The origin of Boko Haram is a subject of great deal of debate and discussion. The fact is that the insurgency is posing severe challenge before the Nigerian State. It has led to numerous killings, attacks and loss of property worth billions of naira. These activities over a period of time are increasing. To understand the increasing momentum of the movement, the paper incorporates various theoretical perspectives, the study of which enables one to identify the factors-economic, political and psychological, which have created fertile ground for the emergence of the movement and also in accelerating its pace; which has serious implications both at the domestic as well as at the international level.
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    Cinematic and Iconographic Imagery of Gandhi and Public Sphere in India: Some Appreciations, Some Depreciations
    (University of North Bengal, 2012-03) Chakraborty, Anup Shekhar
    The text and sub-text of contemporary nation-building programme in India and the institutionalised nationalism that it weaves is strongly anchored on ‘the cinematic and iconographic representation’ of M.K. Gandhi. Media, films in parts, conveys or reaffirms reality, and plays a crucial role in the reproduction of the same and become visual texts embedded with messages. People’s perception of media content influences the way they understand the world and react to other people. Media largely remains a symbolic representation of power and its contesting strands in a given society. The paper first looks at the cinematic representations of Gandhi from the 1950s to 2000s and unearths the variations within the same and contrast them with Gandhian world visions. Second, the paper attempts to locate Gandhi in the Statist enterprise and in the popular imagery and construe the realities of the public sphere in India. The paper observes that in this politics of representation, vocality and audibility, media has realised the weight and effect of keeping alive the image of Gandhi in the minds of the ‘aam aadmi’ (large masses/common man) in India. Consequently media, namely print, television, cinema and the ‘new media’ (internet and the virtual spaces, and also cell/mobile communications) have systematically spun and re-spun and celebrated the image of Gandhi both as ‘Mahatma’ and as ‘Bapu’.
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    Citizenship for peace: Identity and conflicts in multiethnic Malaysia
    (University of North Bengal, 2017) Khalid Ansari
    Modern states are known as nation-states but most of the post-colonial states are made of multinational and multi-ethnic groups. It is said that the Third World States are still under the process of nation-making. Conflicts in the multi-ethnic states are often articulated on the lines of identity and culture. Identity based conflicts require proper understanding of the root causes of conflict. Basic Human Needs theory argues that there are some non-negotiable basic human needs which are distinct from the subsistence needs. Unless needs such as recognition, security, participation and redistribution are considered in the resolution process, a sustainable peace would not be achieved. On the contrary, it is bound to repeat over the time period. Citizenship is an important concept as it defines who is in and who is outside the polity. Generally, it links to the dominant majority culture of the state, consequently it excludes minority ethnic and cultural groups from the exclusive idea of the nation-state. Hence the study argues that there is a direct relationship between the notion of citizenship and identity conflicts. Liberal notion of citizenship confers on an individual a status of equal membership to the polity but it was seen that states in practice are often not able to maintain their neutral position. Thus the paper argues that articulation of demands and grievances of the different ethnic groups in a multicultural state can be addressed through a flexible liberal notion of multicultural inclusive citizenship. A case study of Malaysia is used for empirical support of the study.
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    Collective Mobilisation for Shelter: Politics of Informal Housing in Chandigarh Slums
    (University of North Bengal, 2014-03) Negi, Shashi K.
    The Major aim of the paper is to examine the patterns of collective mobilisation taking place in urban slums through a case study of grassroots mobilization around evictions and unavailability of security of tenure in selected slums of Chandigarh city. The biggest problem being faced by informal settlers in urban cities in the present times is the lack of adequate shelter and security of land tenure. Demolition drives and rehabilitation process started at large scale for the so called ‘city beautiful’ during the year 2013-2014 have compelled the slum dwellers to have more collective efforts. The paper uses an analytical narrative approach to account for patterns in collective behaviour, drawing on both quantitative and qualitative data gathered through interviews with 200 slum dwellers residing in Chandigarh city. Inferences drawn from the study reflect that dissent over demolition act and rehabilitation process for shelter gave significant rise to the collective mobilisation in the slums. Slum colonies are enjoying more exposure to outer world and support of local leaders or various grassroots organisations provide more potential for collective mobilisation. , Informal , Adequate
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    Collective Mobilisation for Shelter: Politics of Informal Housing in Chandigarh Slums
    (University of North Bengal, 2017) Negi, Shashi K.
    The Major aim of the paper is to examine the patterns of collective mobilisation taking place in urban slums through a case study of grassroots mobilization around evictions and unavailability of security of tenure in selected slums of Chandigarh city. The biggest problem being faced by informal settlers in urban cities in the present times is the lack of adequate shelter and security of land tenure. Demolition drives and rehabilitation process started at large scale for the so called ‘city beautiful’ during the year 2013-2014 have compelled the slum dwellers to have more collective efforts. The paper uses an analytical narrative approach to account for patterns in collective behaviour, drawing on both quantitative and qualitative data gathered through interviews with 200 slum dwellers residing in Chandigarh city. Inferences drawn from the study reflect that dissent over demolition act and rehabilitation process for shelter gave significant rise to the collective mobilisation in the slums. Slum colonies are enjoying more exposure to outer world and support of local leaders or various grassroots organisations provide more potential for collective mobilisation.
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    Contesting Development: Understanding the Interface between Development Discourse and Subalterns Politics in Bihar
    (University of North Bengal, 2017) Kumar, Pankaj
    Janata Dal (later on the Rashtriya Janata Dal) government under the leadership of Lalu Prasad Yadav in Bihar during its regime, attacked the hegemonic discourse of development by raising the slogan, ‘humein vikas nahin samman chahiye’ (we need dignity, not development). One should not treat this as merely slogan as the paper will show how anti-development politics has its own materiality, which can be found in concrete practices of the government. So the real issue is not whether anti-development politics is rhetorical or not but how to make sense of it. How can one imagine such a situation especially in the liberalization era, where there is tacit consensus over desirability of growth oriented development across all political spectrum and almost every state government is competing for getting maximum benefit form liberalized economy. This paper tries to contextualize these instances of complete rupture from development through the framework of post development discourses, where the issue of dignity and self-respect overshadows the desirability of development
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    Current Rehabilitation Status over the Issues of Displacement at Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Mumbai: Some Observations
    (University of North Bengal, 2013-10) Pattanaik, Sarmistha; Sen, Amrita
    The Present Status Report published by the Forest Department, Maharashtra in June, 2011 reveals the stages of resettlement to be provided to the slum dwellers settled within Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) Mumbai in two different phases and also reveals the number of pending rehabilitations to be made, in addition to the park conservation measures taken therein. The present study, on the basis of a survey conducted during March-May 2013 in SGNP, is a comment on the Report published, which intends to state that the proposed stages of rehabilitation are truly derisory and insufficient. The final comments represent the overall picture of the current issues of acute marginalization, alienation of livelihood and future uncertainty of the migrant population settled therein resulting from the fictitious rehabilitation measures and depleting livelihood opportunities of which they are doomed victims.
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    Development induced displacement and rehabilitation with reference to three states – Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal
    (University of North Bengal, 2013-03) Rajak, Pankaj; Yasin, M.
    The essay contends that the economic liberalization in India is virtually depriving the tribal and other agricultural dependent people of their traditional means of livelihood by promoting all sorts of ‘so called’ developmental projects. Such development serves the interests of the elites while it impoverishes the tribal and poor people who are dependent on the life sustaining resources of the ecosystems in which they live. The very nature of the present development paradigm does not provide for the absorption of these poor people by either developing their skills or by providing them with technical education. In light of the above statement, to understand the problem of development-induced displacement and rehabilitation in India due to several developmental projects, a study of three states has been made.