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Sociology

Unstable Populations, Anxious States: Mixed and Massive Flows in South Asia

By: Edited by Paula Banerjee

In South Asia, political liberation resulted in the partition of states, leading to huge flows of refugees who faced horrific, indescribable violence. In addition there are the internally displaced people (IDPs), religious and ethnic minorities, indigenous people, dalits and the urban poor who get displaced many times over.
Persecution and discrimination occur together. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) responded with a Ten-Point Plan of Action for Refugee Protection and Mixed Migration. This was the focus of a two-day dialogue on ‘Protection Strategies in South Asia’ organized by Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group (MCRG), resulting in this comprehensive collection, compiled by social scientists, media analysts and activists. It offers an analysis of the principles of protection, their inadequate implementation; the disparity between economic growth and human development indices that leads to massive human flows: refugees, IDPs or economic migrants.

Published by: Samya

Publication Date: January, 2013

ISBN Code: 978-93-81345-06-1

Price: Rs 575.00

Pages: 368

Cultural Studies / History / Politics / Sociology

Sketches by Hootum the Owl: A Satirist's View of Colonial Calcutta

By: Hootum (Kali Prasanna Sinha). Translated and with a critical introduction by Chitralekha Basu. Foreword by Amit Chaudhuri

Calcutta’s extraordinary ability to be obsessed with itself, the marvellous tension between its cosmopolitan features and inherent provincial character that contemporary writers find engaging, were probably explored for the first time in Hootum Pyanchar Noksha (literally, Sketches by Hootum). This book, primarily a series of lampoons on the manners and morals of its citizens, cutting across all classes, was written by Kali Prasanna Sinha between 1861 and 1868. Sinha uses comedy and scatology as agents of subversion: The potpourri of street lingo and Calcutta cockney, peppered with Sanskrit, Urdu and English, Hootum's language is an anachronistic milestone in the time of Victorian sensibilities that no one has dared emulate.
Urban Tales presents the rise of a new social class. An uncensored portrait of its sleazy backstreets and vibrant inner courtyards that excite, entice and also threaten their occupants.

Published by: Samya

Publication Date: September, 2012

Translated from: Hootum Pyanchar Noksha

ISBN Code: 978-81-85604-86-2

Price: Rs 800.00

Fiction

Untouchable God: A Novel on Caste and Race

By: Kancha Ilaiah

This witty, tongue-in-cheek novel laughs at the foibles and hypocrisies of Brahmins and upper castes across (as the erstwhile untouchables prefer to be called today). A group of important men get together to celebrate the death of an untouchable for the alleged crime of thinking about God , which they have ‘arranged’, because they see themselves as the guardians of the right way of living, namely, upholding the caste system. Thinking about God might lead to thoughts of equality and then all hell breaks loose.
These six men represent the remarkable Brahmins of India. Rich with moments of wry humour and insight, the novel rips off the liberals’ denial of crime when it concerns caste. Taking a deeply human stance and written by one of the most respected commentators on caste issues in India today, Ilaiah presents a view from below, of the sorrows and the trials of the weak, a part of the fabric of India itself, with a deceptive lightness that is devastating.

Published by: Samya

Publication Date: May, 2011

ISBN Code: 978-81-85604-33-6

Price: Rs 250.00

Pages: 175

Contemporary Issues / Cultural Studies / Gender Studies / History / Sociology

Reconstructing the Bengal Partition: The Psyche Under a Different Violence

By: Jayanti Basu

Jayanti Basu’s book is a product of the dialogue between two minds’––the interviewee and herself. Basu says, ‘My focus is on the ‘subjective history’––I wanted top peep into the inner world that they possessed. It was difficult and risky. And it was fascinating . . . [but] I sailed into their subjective space with my own subjectivity. Indeed, the target persons of her study were those who did not undergo the bloody brutalities of the partition violence, but were forced by the circumstances of partition to migrate to India.
Compared to the partition of Punjab, the violence had been less . . . did it mean that the pain was less? During the interviews, it has occurred to me that this is a different kind of trauma––I called it ‘soft violence’. A large portion of this book would be devoted to unfurling the psychological processes involved in soft violence.

Published by: Stree

Publication Date: May, 2013

ISBN Code: 978-81 906760-9-0

Price: Rs 400.00

Pages: 248

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