ISSN (Print) - 0012-9976 | ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

Articles by Yogesh SnehiSubscribe to Yogesh Snehi

From Feudalism to State Developmentalism

Himachal Pradesh is often held out to be a model case of development, moving from the bottom of economic and human development indices to the top of the tables in the course of its post-independence existence. This article traces the nature of its pre-independence political economy and the social structures that sustained it and then describes the manner in which changes occurred in the post-independence phase. It marks out the successes as well as flags the continuing areas of concern.

Vicissitudes of Gurdwara Politics

The demand of the Haryana Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee to oversee the functioning of gurdwaras represents the legitimate aspirations of the Sikhs of Haryana and more significantly, inversion against almost absolute hegemony of SAD over the management of Sikh shrines through Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee.

The Entrapment of Selective Amnesia

One sociopolitical philosophy in India speaks of forgetting and the other emphasises selective remembering. Both portray a selective reading of social processes. The opportunities for social change will be limited if we allow ourselves to be convinced that development is the panacea for all ills. On the contrary, the scars of physical and emotional violence which are generational and deep-rooted will keep reproducing selective memories of victimhood and hate until we unbundle the legacy of violence in India.

Reclaiming Diversity in India

A recent seminar, “Democracy, Political Establishment and the People”, organised at Chandigarh provided a rare occasion to rethink the idea of “diversity”, which to me is one of the most crucial elements of the Indian formation.

State and Child Justice

The Juvenile Justice Act enacted by the government in 2000 sought to make the juvenile justice system more appreciative of the development needs of children and to ensure its conformity to UN guidelines. However, as narratives by juvenile delinquents reveal, the law needs to be stringently enforced and law enforcers, including the police, need to be adequately trained.

Female Infanticide and Gender in Punjab

The British claimed to have 'discovered' the heinous practice of female infanticide and identified the high caste khatris, bedis and rajputs as primarily indulging in the practice. Caste pride/hypergamy and the exorbitant expenditure on marriage/dowry were seen to be primarily responsible for the practice. Contemporary scholarly discourse has, however, shown that the social effect of colonial methods of governance may have been to produce a milieu encouraging son preference, and dowry gradually acquired the very characteristics that the British then sought to reform.

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