Intractable Conflicts in Contemporary India ― Narratives and Social Movements

This book attempts a representation of society in contemporary India through an ethnography woven around longstanding intractable conflicts — of displacement and rehabilitation, patriarchy, insurgency and counter-insurgency operations, and climate change. Each essay in this volume offers a critical transformative narrative in response to these conflicts. It asks how social justice and equality is to be constructed and provides a fresh perspective.

It is argued that social movements can no longer be concerned only with itemizing a checklist of demand; it is now necessary to be free of the hegemony of current frames, categories, concepts and principles, and rethink the ‘promise’. The volume maintains that this effort to step out of the ‘endless waiting’ for delivery of a ‘promised value’ draws out the labour of transformative action. A valuable contribution to understanding social movements in India, this work challenges the established discourses around grassroots politics, progressive policies and legislations as well as radical mass movements.

The book will interest students and researchers of social movements, conflict and peace studies, sociology and social anthropology, political science and development studies. It will also be useful to those working in the areas of human rights, social exclusion and inclusive policies.

Savyasaachi is Professor at the Department of Sociology, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India. He works in the fields of social theory and method, political ecology, indigenous sociology, social movements, and conservation architecture.