CALL FOR PAPERS
Concept Note:
Postcolonial democracy in India started its journey with the Nehruvian ethos of development and quasi-socialist and secular credentials. Scholars have debated on the derivative and contested notion of democracy in the South Asian context and the role of the postcolonial nation-state in empowering and deepening democracy. However, the Emergency in 1975 put a severe challenge before democracy. The dismemberment of the ‘Congress system’ surfaced various regional forces. The rise of various conservative forces since the 1980s and the emergence of neo-liberal capital following the liberalization in the 1990s have led to changing democratic discourses. The advent of different governance technologies has further made the terrain more contesting and challenging. The ‘Second Democratic Upsurge’ that marked the emergence of Mandal politics in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, various social movements on issues of environment and livelihood, the anti-land grab movements, the rise of identity politics along the lines of religion, regionalism manifested in different corners of the country. Cumulatively, they galvanized democracy and opened up new horizons hitherto unthought of, unexplored. These perspectives in turn have called for newer approaches to revisit the trajectory of postcolonial democracy in India. How did the initial years of democracy address the social fault lines? Do we need to get back to the foundational ideas to remap the cartography of postcolonial democracy? How can this remapping alleviate the challenges we are facing in the contemporary? What role does science and medicine, the literary imaginations play in forging this topography of postcolonial democracy? India is currently the fourth largest economy in the world and achieved remarkable progress in the field of science and technology. Do these progress go hand in hand with democratic values or new possibilities in Indian democracy are opening up? This seminar proposes to analyze and explore the changing discourses of democracy in India. It also proposes to examine the popular ideas of the nation, and newer questions about the role of the state, the corporate houses, citizens, and the people.
Abstracts of 250-300 words are invited on topics that can engage with these broader points:
- Democracy in South Asia
- Indian Democracy in Historical Perspective
- The Changing Profile of Indian Democracy in a Globalizing World
- Populism and Dissent
- Indian Democracy and New Social Movements
- Keynote Speakers:
- Speakers:
- Dalit Politics and its impact on Indian democracy
- Indian Democracy and Identity Discourse
- Panchayati Raj and Democracy
- Constitutional Rights and the People
- Media, Capital, and Changing Public Sphere in India
- Identity Politics and its Contribution to Democracy
- Civil Society, Human Rights in Recent Socio-Political Scenario
- Civil Society-State Interface in India
- India and the Geopolitics of the Indian Ocean Region
- Inter-state relation in the South Asian Region
- Sino-India Relations and Its Implications for Indian Democracy
- Women’s Participation in Indian Democracy.
- Demos in literary imaginations.
- Indian Constitution @75
- Science, Technology, Medicine and Nation Building.
Keynote Speakers:
- Prof. Deepak Kumar, Professor (Retd.) History of Science and Education,
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. - Prof. Sobhanlal Dattagupta, (Retd.) S. N. Banerjee Chair Professor, Department
of Political Science, Calcutta University, Kolkata, West Bengal, India. - Prof. Dwaipayan Bhattacharya, Professor, Centre for Political Studies,
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.
Speakers:
- Dr. Dayabati Roy, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Sociology,
University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland - Prof. Biswanath Chakraborty, Professor, Department of Political Science,
Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata, West Bengal, India - Prof. Jitendra Sahoo, Professor, Department of Political Science, University of
Gour Banga, Malda, West Bengal, India. - Dr. Suvobrata Sarkar, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Rabindra
Bharati University, Kolkata, India