Department of Sociology

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The present Department of Sociology was established as a combined Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology by the University of North Bengal in 1976. Professor Niren Ch. Choudhury, eminent anthropologist, was the first Professor and Head of the Department who provided the leadership in the formative years of the Department.Professor R.K.Bhadra and Dr.Namita Choudhury were associated with him since inception of this department and helped in the process of its development. The bifurcation between sociology and anthropology took place in 2001 and thus the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology was renamed Department of Sociology and a separate Department of Anthropology was established under the Science Faculty. From its beginning the Department of Sociology has been training students for three courses: M.A., M. Phil. and Ph.D. The Department has produced more than 30 Ph.Ds and more than one thousand Masters. Besides the two main programmes the Department invites visiting faculty, from the reputed national and international universities and the faculty of this department visit the universities abroad on visiting faculty programme and for attending seminars/conferences. The teachers of the Department encourage students to take part in academic discussions outside the class-room interaction and encourage them to present papers in seminars/conferences. In recognition of the good work done by the Department the University Grants’ Commission (UGC) has granted the Special Assistance Programme (DRS – 1) in 2007 which has facilitated undertaking a good number of research projects on issues relating to gender question and the problem of ethnicity in the North Bengal region. The Department has been organizing a national level seminar every year on the gender and ethnicity related issues, which constitute the focal theme of the SAP. As a part of the programme the Department publishes Occasional Papers and edited volumes based on the research articles that are produced under different SAP related programs.

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    Foraging the Nationalist Movement through Women’s Education: Decoding Savitribai Phule and the Cultural-reformist Critique of Caste
    (University of North Bengal, 31-03-2021) Ghosh, Anamitra
    Savitribai Phule is regarded as one of the towering figures of the nationalist movement for her pioneering role in women’s education which set the stage for the cultural renaissance of our motherland. Her passionate struggle for women’s empowerment, to build up the equality for men and women made possible for the growth of nationalist movement against the colonial rule. Savitribai dedicated her entire life to fight against the rigid patriarchal structures of the caste system with the help of her husband Jyotirao Phule through the establishment of the Satysodhak Samaj in Maharashtra that initiated the progress of women hailing from diverse corners of the society. The seed for social equality sowed against the practice of untouchability and cultural deprivation marked a ‘paradigm shift’ of such alternative principles with respect to tradition that brought women into the mainstream society. Sociologists interested in social movements have often conveyed about the guidelines of this “truth seeking” program as facilitating the creation a counter- ideological rubric of humanity that could be achieved only through the total annihilation of the Brahaminacal system. The present article intends to reflect upon Savitribai’s role in the work of this culturally homogenous and pluralist organization whose novel character helped in inducing a political upheaval replacing the patriarchal hegemony of caste by a new secure tradition.
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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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    (Re)Looking at “Dalit” Conceptualization
    (University of North Bengal, 2019-03) Ray, Antara
    In the post-colonial India, the ex-untouchables and the other marginalized castes of Indian social order has re-created their identity in the form of ‘Dalits’. This discourse of Dalits is not only present in the form of actionmovements but also in the academic discourse of literary movements. The present paper will, thereby, try to look into the conceptualization of ‘Dalit’ within the Dalit discourse and would try to locate the theoretical underpinnings. In this quest of unraveling the problematic of Dalit conceptualization, the paper will delve into the theoretical approaches of specifically Ambedkar and will compare it with the standpoint of Harijan discourse as propounded by Gandhi. The present paper will also try to look into the various Dalit literatures and the conceptualization of Dalit there in, to critically analyze it.
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    Comment on the gurkha’s daughter
    (University of North Bengal, 2015-03) Chhetri, Kumar
    Although the British colonizers, anthropologist and administrators have produced a bulk of ethnographic accounts, travelogues, military accounts, and research papers there is no sufficient English literary work which centers on the life of the Nepalis. The earlier available works were either based on the life of Nepalis in Darjeeling or on the Himalayan kingdom (Nepal), whereas the present work The Gurkha’s Daughter by Prajwal Parajuly is unique in the sense that it engulfs the life of the Nepalis both in Nepal and its Diasporas around the world in eight short stories. Despite being fiction the stories carry the social reality of everyday life experiences of the Nepali people and its Diasporas.