Articles by Paramjit S Judge

The assembly elections are going to be held in Punjab in February 2022. All political parties are gearing up for it. The Congress party is facing internal conflicts, whereas the Akalis are making a new alliance with Bahujan Samaj Party after breaking their alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party due to the farmers’ agitation. The incumbent Congress government has failed to deliver in terms of its promises and development. Both the Akalis and the Congress will be heavily relying on their mass base. However, a big challenge has emerged in the form of the farmers’ agitation. The Aam Aadmi Party is still struggling with its agenda and organisational basis despite being the main opposition party. The standard parameters of prediction of an election result seem to be non-functional at this moment.

The paper attempts to understand the two competing models of postcolonial modernity on the issue of the village, that is, one representing a Gandhian perspective and the other a liberal Western perspective led by B R Ambedkar. M K Gandhi’s idea of the village was developed through his imagination of an ideal state that had an appeal from the masses and was also sought as the rightful response to the British colonial rule, whereas Ambedkar’s idea of the village was derived from his existential experience of living in Western countries as well as in Mumbai. The idea of modernity as comprehended by Ambedkar envisioned the end of community and emergence of a society where anonymity of the individual’s birth-based status would be the dominant feature of social life. These contrasting models of postcolonial modernity on the status of the village were apprehended and expressed by the members of the Constituent Assembly from 9 December 1946 to 26 November 1949.

Dalit castes in Punjab such as the Chamars have been attempting to create a counterculture to take on the Dalit castes in Punjab such as the Chamars have been attempting to create a counterculture to take on the dominant Jat caste. This attempt is mostly in the virtual world. In the real world the Jats and the Chamars live without any ostensible conflict. This article examines the various elements of this virtual war between the two castes, which often takes vulgar and bitter proportions.

A tribute to the life and times of comrade Satyapal Dang, which brings to light his tireless involvement with the workers' movement over the better part of the 20th century. Comrade Dang worked for most of his life around Amritsar, and was also known for his strong stand against the Khalistani movement through the 1970s and 1980s.

Social movements are often labelled "people's movements" though the analytical value of the expression is ambiguous in a context where the word "people" is never all-inclusive and signifies different things to different people. It would be better if we stick to a classification that situates the subject of a movement at the centre of the discourse than an umbrella term that is loosely used to cover almost anything.