Suchergebnisse

D. V. Kumar (Ed.), The Idea of University: Possibilities and Contestations. London and New York: Routledge, 2022, 189 pp., ₹995 (South Asia Edition). ISBN: 978-1-032-33276-5.

This article critically examines how human life today is faced with issues of dishonesty and deception. Using the concept of post-truth in analyzing and understanding the context of change in a global society under neo-liberalism, it focuses on the way powerful people, groups, political parties, and media now take recourse to strategies such as falsification, manipulation, or deception to influence and control the human mind. Those involved in doing this use nostalgic narratives, idealize a fictional past and generate conspiracy theories to create false consciousness and thereby colonize the life world. Such colonization not only promotes social pathologies but also limits the democratic, secular, and plural spirits of multicultural nations like India. The article ends by arguing that there are limits to such politics and the best alternative to the conundrum is the assertion of human subjectivity and agency, and alternative media can play a major role in this endeavor.

R. Raj Rao. Criminal Love? Queer Theory, Culture and Politics in India. Los Angeles, London & New Delhi: Sage Publications India Private Limited, 2017, xxviii + 163 pp., ₹450 (hardback). ISBN: 978-93-864-4649-7.

The problem of early marriage of girls constitutes a part of India's social tradition since time immemorial and it continues to prevail due to a combination of traditional and modern factors. In West Bengal too, the complicity to child marriage continues silently even though the issue drew the attention of Bengal social reformers in the 19th Century. Despite legal and administrative interventions, rural stakeholders remain authoritarian and patriarchal in appreciating the desires of adolescent girls. This article, based on field data from the Malda district of North Bengal, tries to analyse the gravity, causes and consequences of child marriage. It also attempts to suggest possible strategies and role model to tackle the social evil.

Contemporary globalization has produced many changes in our economy, society, culture, and politics. To many, the quality of resilience that Indian culture had shown earlier is slowly diminishing now. But, this article argues that globalization is not a unidirectional process and there are several contrary trajectories, which have generated opposite reactions. Hence, along with homogenization of certain aspects of Indian culture, globalization has also helped in accelerating the growth of self-consciousness and cultural identities. The growing disparities among different segments of Indian population and the resultant unevenness in the spread of a global culture also proliferates diversity. As a corollary, several aspects of our custom and tradition continue to exist side by side as there is both adoption and rejection. The process of globalization is, therefore, much broader, complex, and multifaceted. The challenge today for us is to recognize and respect plurality and multiplicity as a better model of globalized social life.

The decline or retreat of the state as well as the triumph of the market today is accompanied by increasing attention to Civil Society Organizations. There is a newfound expectation that NGOs or the 'third' sector is better placed as compared to the other stakeholders to provide leadership for social reconstruction in the developing world in particular. This article seeks to critically review the role of the NGO sector in India using empirical evidences collected from secondary sources. It argues that NGOs are not an alternative to the state and the public sector. NGO-ization is also neither a means to correct market failures. In spite of the relevance of this sector, we need to look for other viable alternatives.