Key Texts on Social Justice in India

Editors:   Roohi, Sanam  Samaddar, Ranabir                 
ISBN: 978 81 321 0064 5
Format: Hardback
Pages: 1116
List price(s): 150.00 GBP   
Publication date: 30 May 2009

Short description

A compendium of key texts on social justice. It brings out the relational nature of justice as well as the fragmented nature of its existence. It explores how law fares in delivering justice, how violence becomes an essential part of the popular notion of justice and how the dynamics of justice is linked with the emergence of marginal situations.

Full description

Volume I: Social Justice and Enlightenment: West Bengal is edited by Pradip Kumar Bose, Professor of Sociology, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, Kolkata and Samir Kumar Das, Professor of Political Science, Calcutta University, Kolkata. This first volume of the series The State of Justice in India: Issues of Social Justice is a collection of writings on the state of social justice in the present-day West Bengal. It studies the strong disjunction between the notion of enlightened politics, on which the constitutional Left in West Bengal has thrived for several decades, and social justice. The articles probe the question: is there a necessary connection between the politics of communism and attainment of social justice? Social Justice and Enlightenment: West Bengal is based on ethnographic studies which suggest that while there is a general regime of justice in West Bengal, the rule of law as the main mechanism of justice makes little sense in the presence of specific local judicial practices. It questions why the archaic rule of law still remains fundamental in the state governance and concludes that the West Bengal experience demonstrates that while democracy may widen through the mass entry of workers, peasants and the rural and urban poor, and though this may facilitate long-denied political justice for them, this does not ensure social justice per se. Volume II: Justice and Law: The Limits of the Deliverables of Law is edited by Ashok Agrwaal, Lawyer, researcher and civil rights activist and Bharat Bhushan, Editor of the Daily Mail Newspaper . This second volume of the series The State of Justice in India: Issues of Social Justice brings together the tension that brews between law and justice in India. It begins with how our legislators had engaged in the discourse on justice at the time of the making of the constitution. The articles highlight the way law has created dichotomies in its attempt to be the guardian for justice. The authors have coined the idea of 'justice gap', which unveils the gap between the claims for justice and governmental regime of justice. Justice and Law: The Limits of the Deliverables of Law also deals extensively with the issue of reservation. It has one article documenting the history of reservations in India, in the background of political contentions, elections, and judicial activism. The other article traces how the 'policy game' goes on in the language of courts and law. Both the articles indicate how the issue of justice is closely linked to the issue of expansion of democracy. Another article measures the success of the legal system in providing justice to those in the margins. This one-of-its-kind book will be an invaluable resource for academics and researchers studying sociology, law, social justice, political theory and Indian democracy. It will also be useful for human rights activists, policy makers, policy analysts and NGOs. Volume III: Marginalities and Justice is edited by Paula Banerjee, Head of the Department of South and South East Asian Studies, University of Calcutta, Kolkata and Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group, Kolkata and Sanjay Chaturvedi, Professor of Political Science at the Centre for the Study of Geopolitics and Honorary Director, Centre for the Study of Mid-West and Central Asia, Panjab University, Chandigarh. This third volume of the series The State of Justice in India: Issues of Social Justice shows how marginalities in social spaces marked by power raise the issue of justice. It deals with the situation of people living in the margins of the society and their relationship with communities that enjoy enough material well being to secure their rights. It reveals how effective governance unintentionally uses strategies of inclusion, exclusion, differential exclusion, and, most importantly, techniques of turning spaces into 'marginal enclaves', giving rise to injustice, and thereby, the demand for justice. Marginalities and Justice demonstrates that justice may emanate from the dynamics of marginality. The same governmental techniques that to some extent address issues of social justice, may produce marginal positions too. Thus, this collection suggests the existence of a remainder; it demonstrates what remains outside the operations of governmentality and explores the arrangement of social spaces. Volume IV: Key Texts on Social Justice in India is edited by Sanam Roohi, Programme Associate, Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group, Kolkata and Ranabir Samaddar, Director, Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group, Kolkata. This fourth volume of the series The State of Justice in India: Issues of Social Justice is a compendium of key texts on social justice. It brings out the relational nature of justice as well as the fragmented nature of its existence. Key Texts on Social Justice in India explores how law fares in delivering justice, how violence becomes an essential part of the popular notion of justice and how the dynamics of justice is linked with the emergence of marginal situations. Each article is, on one hand, an appeal for justice, and, on the other, a manifesto that state actions fall short of ensuring justice. This compilation is meant for the students and researchers working in the fields of justice, sociology and law. It will serve as supplementary text in law as well as a source book that gives a comprehensive analysis of justice in the Indian scenario.

Table of contents

VOLUME I: SOCIAL JUSTICE AND ENLIGHTENMENT: WEST BENGAL - Pradip Kumar Bose and Samir Kumar Das Series Acknowledgement - Ranabir Samaddar Series Introduction - Ranabir Samaddar Introduction - Pradip Kumar Bose and Samir Kumar Das Land Acquisition Act and Social Justice: A Study on Development and Displacement - Ratan Khasnabis Two Leaves and a Bud: Tea and Social Justice in Darjeeling - Roshan Rai and Subhas Ranjan Chakrabarty Deprivation and Social Injustice in a Rural Context: An Ethnographic Account - Kumar Rana with Amrit Paira and Ila Paira On the Wrong Side of the Fence: Embankment, People and Social Justice in the Sundarbans - Amites Mukhopadhyay Prescribed, Tolerated, & Forbidden Forms of Claim Making - Ranabir Samaddar VOLUME II: JUSTICE AND LAW: THE LIMITS OF THE DELIVERABLES OF LAW - Ashok Agrwaal and Bharat Bhushan Series Acknowledgement - Ranabir Samaddar Series Introduction - Ranabir Samaddar Introduction - Ashok Agrwaal and Bharat Bhushan Justice in the Time of Transition: Select Indian Experiences - Sabyasachi Basu and Ray Chaudhury The Founding Moment: Social Justice in the Constitutional Mirror - Samir Kumar Das Indexing Social Justice in India-A Story of Commissions, Reports and Popular Responses - Bharat Bhushan Trivializing Justice: Reservation Under Rule of Law - Ashok Agrawaal The Fallacy of Equality: 'Anti-Citizens', Sexual Justice and the Law in India - Oishik Sircar VOLUME III: MARGINALITIES AND JUSTICE - Paula Banerjee and Sanjay Chaturvedi Series Acknowledgement - Ranabir Samaddar Series Introduction - Ranabir Samaddar Introduction - Paula Banertjee and Sanjay Chaturvedi Gulamiya Ab Hum Nahi Bajeibo: Peoples' Expressions for Justice in Jehanabad - Manish K Jha Ethnography of Social Justice in Dalit Pattis (Hamlets) of Rural UP - Badri Narayan Tiwari Rights and Social Justice for Tribal Population in India - Amit Prakash AIDS, Marginality and Women - Paula Banerjee Towards Environmental Justice Movement in India? Spatiality, Hierarchies and Inequalities - Sanjay Chaturvedi VOLUME IV: KEY TEXTS ON SOCIAL JUSTICE IN INDIA - Sanam Roohi and Ranabir Samaddar Series Acknowledgement - Ranabir Samaddar Series Introduction - Ranabir Samaddar PART I. DEVELOPMENT AND DISCONTENT: THE QUESTION OF INJUSTICE Section Introduction Ethnic Politics and Land Use: Genesis of Conflicts in India's North-East - Sanjay Barbora Contexts and Constructions of Water Scarcity - Lyla Mehta Karnataka: Kudremukh: Of Mining and Environment - Muzaffar Assadi Report of Investigation into Nandigram Mass Killing - Sanhati Eroded Lives: Riverbank Erosion and Displacement of Women in West Bengal - Krishna Bandyopadhyay, Soma Ghosh and Nilanjan Dutta PART II. SOCIAL JUSTICE: THE STATE AND ITS PERCEPTIONS Section introduction The Communal Violence (Prevention, Control and Rehabilitation of Victims) - Bill The National Trust for Welfare of Persons with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Mental Retardation and Multiple Disabilities Act, 1999 The Right to Information Act, 2005 The National Rehabilitation and Resettlement Policy, 2007 The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 PART III. JUSTICE: LAW AND BEYOND Section Introduction Illegality and Exclusion: Law in the Lives of Slum Dwellers - Usha Ramanathan Illegal Coal Mining in Eastern India: Rethinking Legitimacy and Limits of Justice - Kuntala Lahiri Dutt Verdict on an HIV case, Supreme Court of India Reproduced in Medhina - Laya, Dipika Jain and Colin Gonzalves An Indian Charter for Minority Rights - Sabyasachi Basu and Ray Chaudhury PART IV. WOMEN AND MARGINALITY: An Issue of Gender Justice Section Introduction Gender: Women and HIV - Medhini, Laya, Dipika Jain and Colin Gonzalves National Policy for the Empowerment of Women (2001) Women, Trafficking and Statelessness in South Asia - Paula Banerjee PART V. JUSTICE: Marginal Positions and Alternative Notions Section Introduction Voices From Folk School of Dalit Bahujan & Marginalised to Policy Makers - Peoples Vigilance Committee on Human Rights Social Assessment of HIV/AIDS among Tribal People in India - NACP III Planning Team Caste is Dead, Long Live Caste - G P Deshpande Tehelka Debate: Beyond Caste - Puroshottam Agarwal Report from the Flaming Fields of Bihar PART VI. FREEDOM AND EQUALITY, RIGHTS AND SOCIAL SECURITY: BUILDING BLOCKS OF JUSTICE Section Introduction Jungle Book: Tribal Forest Rights Recognised For First Time - Nandini Sundar Informal Sector in India: Approaches for Social Security Arguments, Protests, Strikes and Free Speech: The Career and Prospects of the Right to Strike in India - Rajeev Dhavan Democracy and Right to Food - Jean Dreze

first « previous  • India •  next » last