Nirupam Sen who passed away on 2 July 2017, was a phenomenon even in his college days. We were in the same college (St. Stephen’s) and he was two years my junior. But already in his very first year as…
Basudev Chatterji – Robi to his legion of friends and admirers – was certainly not an ordinary person. Rather, we are talking here of someone extraordinary: exceptional not only for his remarkable mind, irresistible charm and many other positive qualities,…
It was some time towards the end of August 1967. The assembly hall of Delhi’s Hansraj College was packed with excited teachers. The Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) was holding its routine biannual general body meeting. But this one was…
Jasodhara Bagchi, Interrogating Motherhood, Sage and Stree, 2017, 140 pages,Rs 295 This posthumous book revives grief over the untimely death, on 9 January 2015, of its author, Jasodhara Bagchi. However, it is also a matter of great happiness for her…
The lead article by K.M. Shrimali in the current issue of Social Scientist traces the development of religious identities in India over a long span of nearly four millennia. It explores the material conditions underlying this development, such as for…
Historians are always concerned about identifying elements of change and continuity, and points of disjunctures, in outlining and explaining historical processes. Further, the need to locate them within temporal and spatial contexts is also a sine qua non for them.…
Everybody knows Fidel Castro as a great revolutionary. Along with Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh, he represents the radical revolutionary spirit of the late twentieth century. In the current paper I will primarily be concerned with Castro as a…
Let us begin by paying homage to the labour leaders in whose memory this annual lecture has been instituted. I have personally had the honour of working with Comrade A.D. Shastri, who was a leader of my union CITU. He…
The geographical impact of the disaster, being uneven showed that a majority of the coastal communities living in the northern, eastern and southern provinces were most affected. Described as the biggest global media event subsequent to the ‘09/11’ attacks (Lund…
Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, The Colonial State: Theory and Practice, Primus, Delhi, 2016, 228 pages, Rs 1495 Professor Sabyasachi Bhattacharya investigates the concept ‘colonial’ and the definition of ‘colonial state’ in this book. He explores various aspects of state sovereignty and subjecthood…