Articles by Biswamoy Pati

This article explores the nature of popular tribal resistance in colonial Orissa, highlighting a wide range of features. It emphasises the importance of locating cultures of resistance within the paradigms of social history. Alongside, it stresses the importance of seeing resistance as an interactive process involving a host of complexities. While highlighting the importance of the way the oppressed invented survival strategies, the article discusses the interrogations and contestations through which the marginal sections challenged the colonialist and the internal exploiting classes. It argues that these features need to be seen holistically in order to grasp the diversities of popular resistance.

Two major tribal resistance movements in colonial Orissa - the Mahima movement and the Munda rebellion - are discussed in this paper. Critical of the elitist approach of the Subaltern Studies group which depicts tribal/peasant revolts as "autonomous" and marked by "territoriality", this paper argues how these two movements transgressed the boundaries ascribed to them. Both the movements strategically employed a discourse of equality to fight their immediate oppressors. The Mahima movement represented an anti-caste, monotheistic order that sought to delegitimise the rajas and the brahmins. Similarly, the Munda protest (that was led by the Mundas who had converted to Christianity) in 1939 opposed the princely state of Gangpur and also confronted colonialism. In discussing these movements, the essay aims to delineate the fascinating aspects of popular imagination even as it highlights some of the limitations of the two uprisings.

Aruna Asaf Ali's life and career were conditioned by her exposure to a political context which reflected diversity, secularism and anti-colonialism. Her political activism as a freedom fighter and a woman activist encompassed these strands of anti-colonialism and radicalism. It finally culminated in a clear support for socialism - marking her transition from being a member of the Congress to joining the Communist Party of India after independence.

The many interpretations of the events of 1857 since the 150 years of its occurrence need to be seen in their historiographical context. This explains the narrow religious focus that contemporary observers bestowed on it as well as the nationalist aspirations that were seen to characterise 1857, as historians in the years immediately following independence in 1947 sought to establish. The important presence of 1857 in the creation of an Indian history and identity explains the many "myths" traced to it by various communities and groups, as well as the abiding interest of historians in the various facets of that special event. These are all aspects of 1857 that this special issue seeks to explore.

The Lok Sabha election results stunned the ruling NDA alliance. It was an election where neither the Sangh parivar's Hindutva campaign nor the hi-tech 'India shining' campaign triumphed. Rather it signalled a victory for the ordinary voter and for the politics that stands for a plural, diverse, welfare-oriented society.