bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Modern French Intellectual Generations
Authors: Kirwan Jon
Published: April 2018

This chapter presents a generational examination of important modern French intellectuals and will help situate the nouveaux théologiens more deeply within the context of French avant-garde life. First, the chapter briefly examines the concept of generation, by which French intellectuals identified themselves. Generational theory is a method of cultural history used successfully by French historians to analyse modern intellectual life. Second, there is a brief examination of the slow rise of generational consciousness in the nineteenth century, on which later generational theory was ultimately based. This will lead to a better understanding of an important concern: generational consciousness in the twentieth century. Third, the chapter outlines the French intellectual generations of the first half of the twentieth century, the very generations to which the nouvelle théologiens were responding or belonged. It looks at the generation of crisis and the effects of World War I.
1920s
Authors: Kirwan Jon
Published: April 2018

This chapter continues to apply generational theory to the Fourvière Jesuits by examining their years of religious and intellectual formation during the 1920s. As a preamble to the chapter, there is a discussion of their entrance into the Jesuits in 1913, as well as their formative experiences during World War I, which opened them more fully to Blondelian philosophy. Next, it surveys their initial philosophical exposure to Blondel and Rousselot, as well as the question of the desire for God. Then, the chapter outlines their theological training on Jersey and at Ore Place and their first independent intellectual projects. Finally, it examines the formation of their generational identity. This study will expose the intellectual roots of the Fourvière Jesuits more deeply and contextualize later chapters.
1930s
Authors: Kirwan Jon
Published: April 2018

This chapter provides a generational account of the wider intellectual and political French climate of the 1930s and the Great Depression, led by the non-conformistes and such figures as Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, by drawing on significant studies of the 1930s by Jean-Louis Loubet del Bayle and others, to enable us to appreciate the nouvelle théologie as a particular unit of this generation. Â First, the sense of absolute crisis, revolution, and mission of the wider generation is examined, along with its articulation by young intellectuals. The chapter also highlights three aspects of their generational programmes, namely, deeper historical thinking, concrete philosophical construction, and active engagement with the world, showing how Left Catholic thought, political initiatives, and projects of ecclesial renewal followed along comparable lines and drew inspiration from their secular peers.
The Catholic Generation of 1930
Authors: Kirwan Jon
Published: April 2018

This chapter builds on the previous one and shows how, in important respects, the project of the nouveaux théologiens mirrored the thinking that defined the wider generation of 1930. It demonstrates that the Fourvière Jesuits and Le Saulchoir Dominicans acted as a particular unit of this generation through their sense of mission to engage with the contemporary crisis, which was inspired by those formative influences on the unit which were examined earlier. In particular the chapter considers how the categories of history, phenomenology, and engagement structured their thought during these years in works such as de Lubac’s Catholicism and Chenu’s Une École de théologie. Moreover, this work is set within the context of wider Catholic thought during the period, which was dominated by thinkers such as Jacques Maritain.
1940s
Authors: Kirwan Jon
Published: April 2018

This chapter analyses the nouveaux théologiens during the years of the Second World War and the controversial post-war era when their influence peaked. First, it examines the fall of France and the Jesuits’ wartime work, which included the spearheading of the résistance spirituelle. They continued the analysis begun during the 1930s of the social and ecclesiastical crisis, ascribing to themselves a great task of regeneration. Next, the chapter sketches the intellectual atmosphere of the post-war milieu, in which Communists, existentialists, and Left Catholics emerged from the war with tremendous influence in French culture. Then, it surveys the ressourcement project to develop a new anthropology and ecclesiology according to the intellectual categories championed by the generation of 1930, historicity, modern philosophy, and engagement. Finally, the chapter discusses Daniélou’s famous 1946 manifesto, its relationship to the larger post-war landscape, and the controversy it incited with the Toulouse Dominicans.
Universal Access to Modern Energy Services
Authors: Omorogbe Yinka
Published: April 2018

This chapter examines the role that law plays in the enablement and empowerment of the world’s energy poor, with a particular focus on Africa, and in doing so, provides the rationale for the research. Against the background of contemporary measures to promote universal access to modern energy services, it critically analyses key concepts such as energy poverty, sustainable development and access to energy. The role of the law as a critical component for achieving this goal and the need for its centrality to be recognized as a necessary ingredient for success is ultimately reinforced. Further, the chapter discusses key concepts such as energy poverty, sustainable development, and access to energy, which underpin most of the contributions, and then highlights the indispensability of modern energy as an essential component of sustainable development. It highlights the need for complementary pro-energy-poor policies and critical success factors of energy planning and finance.
Disadvantage, Fairness, and Power Crises in Africa
Authors: Mostert Hanri , van Niekerk Heleen
Published: April 2018

Realizing energy justice in Africa requires targeting the difficulties that the continent faces. Energy justice is a concept emanating from three philosophical notions, namely distributive justice, procedural justice, and recognition justice. The practical challenges of achieving energy justice are illustrated well in the coal and oil industries of Africa, a continent plagued by the resource curse. Moreover, despite being energy-poor, African countries often export their mined fossil fuels, providing other parts of the world with the energy necessary to live productive and dignified lives. These considerations, in conjunction with Africa’s history of colonialism and the concomitant denial of people’s rights require distinct approaches to distributive, procedural, and recognition justice in extractive industries. This chapter outlines these approaches and explores uniquely African responses to some of the injustices that prevail in Africa’s extractive industries.
Regulation as a Catalyst for the Electrification of Africa
Authors: Corder Professor Hugh , Andzenge Dr Terhemen
Published: April 2018

Availability and access to electricity is central to the economic and social development of any nation. The state provided electricity as a social infrastructure thus expanding the role of the state as owner, manager, and regulator. This route has, however, failed given the mounting budgetary crisis triggered by global financial dislocations and oil market meltdowns which affected state revenues and impacted upon the ability of states to own, manage, and operate electricity infrastructure. The huge electricity deficits in Africa call for hitherto unexplored solutions beyond those of public sector funding. Private sector participation became inevitable and with it the imperativeness of balancing the interests of consumers, investors, and the state that are always mutually exclusive. Regulation offers itself as a veritable tool to moderate the differing interests to ensure the availability of electricity at sustainable and affordable levels.
Financing Energy Access in Africa
Authors: Oniemola Peter Kayode , Ezirigwe Jane
Published: April 2018

To achieve universal energy access will attract huge capital investments. If sub-Saharan Africa is to realize anything close to the ambitious goals set for its energy access, then new actors, innovative funding mechanisms and sustainable technologies will have to be attracted. Finance is needed for activities such as rural electrification, clean cooking facilities, diesel motors and generators, other renewable energy technologies, oil and gas infrastructures, etc. Finance is also needed in research and development of suitable technologies and funding options as well as investment in the capacity to formulate and implement sound energy policies. This chapter examines the varied financing options for energy access in sub-Saharan Africa. It argues that with appropriate laws in place and effective mechanism for implementation, African countries can significantly engage private sector financing, international financial institutions and foreign donors. The role of the law here will be in creating an enabling environment for financing.
Legal Integration in Africa and the Approach to Energy Issues
Authors: Mancuso Salvatore
Published: April 2018

This chapter deals with the issue of energy in the context of legal integration in Africa. It gives a background of the main experiences of legal integration in Africa in the area of commercial law, showing their main characteristics and outcomes so far. Considering the critical importance of energy for national and sustainable development, and how energy issues constitute one of the main subjects of international commercial transactions in Africa, it examines the pros and cons of including energy law in legal integration processes. It further emphasizes the importance of an enabling legal and regulatory environment that promotes transparent access to modern energy services and highlights possible obstacles to that inclusion.
Promoting Renewable Energy in African Countries
Authors: Glazewski Jan , Steenkamp Lee-Ann , Oniemola Peter Kayode
Published: April 2018

This chapter reviews the development and role of financial mechanisms and fiscal incentives in two African economic powerhouses, South Africa and Nigeria, and the two largest emitters of greenhouse gases on the continent. Inoutlining both countries’ financial and fiscal policy response to promoting renewable energy, the term ‘financial mechanisms or incentives’ refers to macro-economic instruments such as feed-in tariffs; while ‘fiscal incentive’ refers to narrower revenue incentives including disincentives such as a carbon tax. In South Africa, a shift from traditional carbon-based energy sources towards renewables is encouraged by both financial mechanisms and fiscal incentives . In Nigeria, fiscal incentives are promoted by focusing on measures to increase non-oil revenues, primarily through improved tax policy and administration The chapter reveals that while significant strides have been made in both countries to invoke fiscal and financial incentives to promote renewable energy many challenges remain before this ideal becomes a reality.
Energy Struggles and City Life in Africa
Authors: Salami Kabiru K , Agbaje Adigun A B
Published: April 2018

Energy struggles are a global phenomenon. In spite of this, its dimension in Africa is more pronounced for various reasons. This chapter presents the dimension of struggles along with relative responses that abound in Africa. By bringing the memories of African countries through case studies and review of grey literature from different sources on African nations, it shows that from West Africa to East Africa, Central Africa and Southern Africa, energy supply is never adequate or equitably distributed. The inadequacy is rounded off by the act of either meter-locking by the individual users or business investors; cable and or transformer resource theft; vandalization of transformer; or poor maintenance culture in most African communities. Community involvement in the monitoring of energy resources is recommended, along with adoption of alternative energy sources relative to African power and energy consumption.
South Africa’s Minerals-Energy Complex
Authors: Froestad Jan , Nøkleberg Martin , Shearing Clifford , Trollip Hilton
Published: April 2018

Concepts of ‘plural, nodal forms of governance’ and ‘constitutive regulation’ are used to analyse how an industrial policy elite spanning public and private spheres formed in conjunction with the minerals/industrial/energy core economy. Government, in collaboration with minerals industries and electricity monopoly Eskom, employed state capitalism, as well as sophisticated control and surveillance of migrant labour to structure a system to ensure cheap energy. Democratization has led to the involvement of new electricity policy actors and attempts to reform the electricity sector. An electricity supply crisis, new energy technologies, environmental policy, and renewed attempts by government and civil society to hold Eskom accountable have led to cracks in the system. Eskom has aligned itself with a new political elite. Eskom and coal mining for electricity generation continue to dominate with continuing effects on the local and global environment.
Improving Electricity Access through Policy Reform
Authors: Amadi Sam
Published: April 2018

In Nigeria, an estimated 170 million people depend on less than 4,000 megawatts of electricity from the grid for economic and social needs. Since 2000 the country has embarked on an ambitious power sector reform programme, the main objective of which is to ensure adequate, available, and reliable electricity. The power sector reform adopts a neo-liberal development model that is based on the triple strategy of liberalization, commercialization, and privatization. This strategy has relied heavily on the reform of the existing legal regime of state institutions so as to attract foreign private capital to increase capacity, expand connection, and improve reliability. This chapter reviews the incompletely theorized neo-liberal assumptions in the reform policies and shows how these assumptions have undermined the efficacy of legal reform in the electricity industry and resulted in failed expectation.
Normative Principles
Authors: Zürn Michael
Published: April 2018

The global governance system rests on three normative principles, each of which qualifies the Westphalian principle of sovereignty. The first questions the implicit notion that all political communities are territorially segmented by highlighting the notion of common goods that need to be achieved together. The second questions the idea that political authorities are absolute by noting the rights of individuals and entitlements of non-state actors that they have independent of being members of a state. The third principle questions the notion that there are no authorities other than the state by mooting the possibility of international authority. This chapter discusses these normative principles and their “empirical appropriateness.” In using the method of rational reconstruction, it is shown that the assumptions of a global governance system seem to be better suited to understand world politics in the twenty-first century than the notion of an anarchic international system or an international society.
Legitimation Problems
Authors: Zürn Michael
Published: April 2018

Political and epistemic authorities in the global governance system often restrain the freedom of constituent members and therefore need to be justified with reference to the impartial pursuit of a shared social purpose. An international authority must therefore develop a convincing legitimation narrative and display a sense of impartiality to be seen as legitimate. The thrust of the argument in this chapter is that the legitimacy of the global governance system is structurally precarious. Two legitimation problems can be identified: a technocratic bias in the justification of authority and the lack of impartiality in the exercise of authority. International institutions often have authority, but lack sufficient legitimacy beliefs.
The Theoretical Model
Authors: Zürn Michael
Published: April 2018

The authority–legitimation link states that international institutions exercising authority need to nurture the belief in their legitimacy. The authority–legitimation link points to fundamental challenges for the global governance system: with the rise of international authorities that are, at the same time, more intrusive, state consent is undermined and societies are affected directly. Consequently, legitimation problems arise, followed by processes of delegitimation, which then trigger responses by the challenged institutions. Using concepts of historical institutionalism, it is argued in this chapter that the authority–legitimation link produces reactive sequences either via the route of societal politicization or via counter-institutionalization by states. These reactive sequences may result in either a decline or a deepening of global governance depending on the responses of authority holders.
The Politicization of Authority beyond the Nation State
Authors: Zürn Michael
Published: April 2018

This chapter argues that the notion of international cooperation as a purely executive, legal, or technocratic matter misses some decisive features of world politics today. International institutions are seen not only by political, but also by societal actors as political institutions exercising public authority requiring legitimacy. Two broad claims are tested. According to the first, the politicization of international institutions can be ascribed to the patterns of authority in the global governance system. The more political authority international institutions exercise, the more attention they attract, the more actors participate in debates and the more polarization in opinions takes place. The second broad claim is that politicization is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it leads to a broadening of legitimation efforts including participatory and fairness-based narratives. On the other hand, politicization may also lead to a significant legitimacy gap that can undermine the authorities as a whole.
Counter-Institutionalization in the Global Governance System
Authors: Zürn Michael
Published: April 2018

States increasingly contest international institutions by “counter-institutionalization.” This comes in two forms. Counter-Institutionalization by Incumbent States (CMALL 4) means regime shifting and competitive regime creation. Incumbent states build and use parallel governance forums, especially when the dominant institution exercises authority on the basis of the “one-state, one-vote” principle. In that way, Western states insist on institutionalized inequality, asking for a global governance system that gives them a privileged role and allows for double standards. The costs of this strategy are significant. Rising powers also use the strategy of counter-institutionalization. They aim at changing existing, Western-biased institutions. Counter-Institutionalization by Rising Powers (CMALL 3) aims at voice—not at exit or loyalty. At the same time, there is an ongoing suspicion that stronger international institutions are instruments of Western dominance and help to prolong an unequal distribution of benefits. This tension leads to ambiguous responses, unified by the struggle against institutionalized inequality.
Are there Realistic Models of Global Governance with Cosmopolitan Intent? An Empirical Assessment
Authors: Zürn Michael
Published: April 2018

This chapter considers the development of a better global governance system, investigating the empirical viability and plausibility of four models of global order with cosmopolitan intent. Each of the four models of global order is discussed in order to identify the normative ideas and empirical premises built into each. On this basis, an empirical assessment of the feasibility of various normative theories is carried out by introducing the concept of contributory trends or door-opening dynamics. These trends may empower a model of global order in a critical juncture. In this way, the notion of contributory trends serves as a bridge between empirical observations and prescriptive ideas about global order and allows for a comparative assessment of the four models. The model of cosmopolitan pluralism turns out to be the most promising one when judging on the basis of contributory trends.
Introduction
Authors: Park Ian
Published: April 2018

The introduction sets out the broad questions to be addressed, namely: do states have right to life obligations during armed conflict; if so, what are these obligations; when do they apply, and in respect of whom; and how can states best ensure compliance with these obligations? The introduction also provides a précis of each chapter and the themes explored therein. Additionally, it makes reference to the fact that UK armed forces doctrine and procedures in respect of recent armed conflicts will be used as examples to explore the issues under consideration in the book. The aim is also to proffer a view on where the current UK procedures do not comply with the state’s right to life obligations and how this can be rectified.
How the Right to Life Applies during Armed Conflict
Authors: Park Ian
Published: April 2018

In considering how the right to life applies during armed conflict, this chapter explores the relationship between international humanitarian law and international human rights law to determine where the two bodies of law can be read harmoniously and where they cannot. The chapter then goes on to consider UK state practice during armed conflict, to assess the extent to which the UK can comply with its substantive and procedural right to life obligations based upon current doctrine and procedures. This involves a consideration of recent UK military activity in Iraq and Afghanistan and during air, land, and maritime operations. It also includes a consideration of the UK’s investigatory procedures following a death during armed conflict.
The Right to Life Obligations of States and How to Ensure Compliance
Authors: Park Ian
Published: April 2018

This final chapter provides an overall conclusion to the book. In doing so it reviews each chapter and offers a précis of the findings in each. It also offers a series of suggestions as to how states can best comply with their right to life obligations during armed conflict. Ultimately, it is submitted that where armed forces are subject to right to life obligations during armed conflict, this does not unduly constrain their ability to achieve mandated military objectives. It is submitted that a state’s substantive right to life obligations can be interpreted in line with international humanitarian law. The same cannot be said of a state’s procedural right to life obligations, yet this need not create onerous obligations for armed forces during armed conflict.
Republican Foundations: Holding Officials to Account in Criminal Law
Authors: Horder Jeremy
Published: April 2018

I explore the historical development of the misconduct offence, principally during the eighteenth century. I see in that development an emerging contrast between a ‘bottom-up’ and a ‘top-down’ understanding of the role of the misconduct offence in holding officials to account in criminal law. I also explain the way in which the offence came to be regarded as a public law remedy: one edge of a two-edged sword (the other edge being judicial review) in the hands of the courts, to deter and punish official misconduct. I find in Sir William Blackstone’s work an important theoretical justification for the offence.
MPs’ Criminal Liability: Tackling Personal Corruption
Authors: Horder Jeremy
Published: April 2018

I provide a definition of ‘corruption’, distinguishing between ‘personal corruption’ and ‘political’ corruption, and then concentrate on personal corruption, and the merits of applying the offence of misconduct in a public office to Members of Parliament when they engage in personal corruption. In that regard, it is argued that it is not sufficient for the courts to permit the application of the criminal law to Members of Parliament who engage in dishonest misuse of schemes—authorized by MPs collectively—to spend public money on private benefits. Parliamentary privilege should also be withdrawn from MPs who follow the rules governing such spending, if the (corrupt) nature of those rules is such that they would not be endorsed by an ordinary person of moral and political integrity.
Introduction
Authors: Songster E. Elena
Published: April 2018

Panda Nation examines the giant panda and its fascinating qualities as an animal while tracing the story of its rise from obscurity to global prominence as a symbol of nature and the nation of China. The book places this story in the historical and political context of the tumultuous history of the People’s Republic of China. The emergence of the giant panda as a national icon was made possible in part by its own striking natural appearance and allure, but ultimately was the result of China’s effort to define itself as a nation. As the subject of government-directed science and popular nationalism, the giant panda’s rose in tandem with the dramatic ascent of China to a position of broad global influence. As a bridge to nature, the panda also integrated urban centers with local officials and ethnic minority villagers in China’s remote regions. As a point of pride, the panda symbolized cultural and economic shifts before it was used as a diplomatic tool. It became an expression of nationalism, a tool for diplomacy, and a means for international cooperation and scientific exchange.
Obscurity, Oddity, and Icon
Authors: Songster E. Elena
Published: April 2018

With the benefit of scientific studies, popular media, and zoo displays, this chapter traces the transformation of the giant panda from an unknown animal to a national treasure. Prior to the twentieth century the giant panda was virtually absent from or forgotten in Chinese historic cultural artifacts. China’s general populace did not take a strong interest in the giant panda until after 1949. An upsurge of scientific studies on the giant panda unveiled numerous curiosities about the panda that aroused both domestic and international interest. Because of its biological peculiarities, the panda was used as a tool for teaching communist citizens scientific thought. Although the panda was first introduced to the public through science, its attractive and unique appearance inspired adoration. Increasingly the general populace was not only intrigued by the panda, but began to embrace it as a popular symbol of the nation.
Coloring the Panda with an Ethnic Touch
Authors: Songster E. Elena
Published: April 2018

Continued international integration of the post-Deng era (1990s on) transformed panda country. The specific site of the Wanglang reserve became a juncture where the local Baima villagers, international scientists, NGOs, and tourists (both foreign and domestic) competed to define the giant panda’s place in the environment and in China. Persistently pursuing its charter purposes as a scientific research base, the Wanglang reserve becomes a model and training station for wildlife monitoring and experimental conservation. One experiment, ecotourism has a dramatic impact on the area. The colorful ethnic character of the Baima people initially proved to be an asset to World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) efforts to instigate tourism. The industry took on an identity independent of panda preservation, leading reserve staff to reemphasize Wanglang’s ties to science.
Olympic Pandas, Trojan Pandas, and the Science behind Soft Diplomacy
Authors: Songster E. Elena
Published: April 2018

After China ceased its practice of giving panda pairs as state gifts, it began a short-term loan program. This evolved into long-term scientific loans. The whole time the concept of panda diplomacy persisted even as it shifted and transformed. Concerns about the giant panda as a species and the environment more generally were undercurrents to all discussions and exchanges. The environment remained present when China made a dramatic and controversial giant panda gift offer to the island of Taiwan. This chapter examines the various ways that panda diplomacy evolved and the increasing integration of environmental issues with panda politics.
Conclusion
Authors: Songster E. Elena
Published: April 2018

The panda did not become an official symbol of the PRC in a debate over worthy animal emblems, but emerged as a representation of China in various contexts by fulfilling specific needs of the nation. The giant panda became broadly relevant to human society when it was deemed a scientifically interesting animal. International research on pandas has probed most every aspect of the animal’s being. The Chinese government’s persistent endorsement of wide-ranging scientific work on the giant panda over the course of PRC history reflects the tremendous value the Chinese state has placed on the panda as an animal. What is most striking about the giant panda historically is not its curiosity as an oddity in the animal kingdom, but that it stands apart as a cute national symbol. Unlike the more commonly majestic and intimidating choices of eagle or lion, the panda elicits affection. The panda’s gentle allure has been central to its transformation into a powerful political tool. The traits that inspire anthropomorphism have enabled the panda to hold a special position as a diplomat, not only between China and the rest of the world, but also between the human and animal world.
Avenues of Hope and Optimism
Authors: Jamil Ghazala
Published: April 2018

This chapter attempts to capture and present an account of social spaces of counter-hegemony. These are actual places and institutions inside or connected to the Muslim localities in Delhi where hope and optimism is carefully being fostered. Also included are ideational spaces that encourage hope among the struggling. These are scraps of memory—real or imaginary that speak to the collective consciousness though they are rarely heard in the din of dominant discourses. I try hard in this chapter not to fall prey to insipid optimism and attempt to capture some of the trials and tribulations of these spaces too.
Coda
Authors: Jamil Ghazala
Published: April 2018

This brief chapter is an exercise in critical conjecture and is also meant to be an exercise in intellectual pessimism following Gramsci. I attempt to argue that inequality and segregation in the city not only frustrate the possibility of it becoming an ideal place, but also obstruct the vision for an alternative image of the city. The chapter traverses the difficulties of imagining the city as a truly inclusive space when it is riddled with contradictions arising out of alienating forces of commodification, fetishization, and consumption on the one hand; and impulse for survival, justice, collectivities, realization of dreams, and pursuit of happiness on the other.
Closing Gesture
Authors: Jamil Ghazala
Published: April 2018

The Ideal City is made up of the stuff of dreams. All its residents can dream of a city which they can create in their own image of happiness, and live in everyday. In the Ideal City, the worth of human life is not measured by how much an individual being can consume. In the Ideal City, the residents are aware that they do not merely consume, but they also can and do create. The Ideal City comprises of persons and collectivities who share an inalienable humanity, and not just of people marked as ‘islands’ by their ‘individuality’. In the Ideal City, differences do not need insularity and each dweller ...
Gandhi Against Caste
Authors: Kolge Nishikant
Published: April 2018

In 1909, while still in South Africa, Gandhi publicly decried the caste system for its inequalities. Shortly after his return to India though, he spoke of the generally beneficial aspects of caste. Gandhi’s writings on caste reflect contradictory views and his critics accuse him of neglecting the unequal socio-economic structure that relegated Dalits to the bottom of the caste hierarchy. So, did Gandhi endorse the fourfold division of the Indian society or was he truly against caste? In this book, Nishikant Kolge investigates the entire range of what Gandhi said or wrote about caste divisions over a period of more than three decades: from his return to India in 1915 to his death in 1948. Interestingly, Kolge also maps Gandhi’s own statements that undermined his stance against the caste system. These writings uncover the ‘strategist Gandhi’ who understood that social transformation had to be a slow process for the conservative but powerful section of Hindus who were not yet ready for radical reforms. Seven decades after it attained freedom from colonial powers, caste continues to influence the socio-political dynamics of India. And Gandhi against Caste—the battle is not over yet.
What did Gandhi stand for and what did he intend to achieve?
Authors: Kolge Nishikant
Published: April 2018

The second chapter aims to understand what, if not the caste system or varnashramadharma, was the basis of Gandhi’s ideal society and ideal form of organizing human society which he aspired to achieve. The chapter unfolds its investigation in three sections. The first section argues that Gandhi developed his basic idea about ideal society, form of ideal governance, and so on during his twenty-one year stay in South Africa and expressed them in his seminal work Hind Swaraj. The second section argues that if Hind Swaraj is studied as Gandhi’s effort to define what Swaraj is, it will be helpful to paint a comprehensive picture of Gandhi’s ideal society. As such, the third section of this chapter attempts to understand the notion of Swaraj as held by Gandhi and concludes that it was not parliamentary Swaraj based on the modern state or Hinduraj based on varnashramadharma but the self-derived autonomy of an individual that Gandhi advocated and aspired to achieve.
Gandhi’s evolving strategy to abolish the caste system: Part I
Authors: Kolge Nishikant
Published: April 2018

This chapter expounds the course of Gandhi’s evolving strategy against the caste system within its historical context. It presents a chronological account of Gandhi’s writings and life starting from 1915 (his arrival to India from South Africa) till 1932 (his epic fast unto death). It analyses Gandhi’s writings during three periods, viz., 1915 to 1920, 1920 to 1927, and 1927 to 1932 on the themes that emerge during those years on issues of untouchability, caste, varna, sanatani Hindu, inter-dining, and inter-caste marriage. Each section that studies the above-mentioned time periods is further divided into two sub-sections, the first on the historical background of the changing political context of each period, which in turn served to advance his movement against the caste system gradually, and second on how these themes themselves appear to shift in Gandhi’s writings.
Gandhi’s evolving strategy to abolish the caste system: Part II
Authors: Kolge Nishikant
Published: April 2018

This chapter expounds the course of Gandhi’s evolving strategy against the caste system within its historical context. It presents a chronological account of Gandhi’s writings and life starting from 1932 (his epic fast unto death) to 1948 (his death). It analyses Gandhi’s writings during two periods, viz., 1932 to 1945, and 1945 to 1948, on the themes that emerge during those years on issues of untouchability, caste, varna, sanatani Hindu, inter-dining, and inter-caste marriage. Each section that studies the above-mentioned time periods is further divided into two sub-sections, the first on the historical background of the changing political context of each period, which in turn served to advance his movement against the caste system gradually, and second on how these themes themselves appear to shift in Gandhi’s writings. At the end the chapter also presents an overview of Gandhi’s strategy.
The Politician
Authors: Kolge Nishikant
Published: April 2018

This paper looks closely at Arundhati Roy’s introduction entitled ‘The Doctor and the Saint’ to the annotated edition of Annihilation of Caste originally authored by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. The paper argues that the basic problem in Roy’s analysis is that from the very outset she assumes (by her own confession she has been raised on a diet of Gandhi hagiographies) Gandhi was a...
Mothers and Fathers
Authors: Majumdar Anindita
Published: April 2018

What drives the desire to be part of the commercial surrogacy arrangement in India? This chapter seeks to answer this question by looking at an important aspect of transnational commercial surrogacy: informed consent from the commissioning couple and the surrogate mother. A ‘declaration of intent’ by both participants is a mandatory document within the surrogacy contract. What does intention mean? It is not merely a willingness to participate and agree with the modalities of the commercial surrogacy contract, but also to ‘choose’ to be part of it. Within this ‘choice’ and the use of the nomenclature of the ‘intended parent’ and the ‘fertile’ surrogate are the processes of screening eligibility to be part of the arrangement. Thus, in the examination of the notion of ‘intention’, the ‘contract’, couple/individual and the surrogate mother ‘speak’ of their choice of surrogacy. In this way motherhood and fatherhood are explored in relation to ideas regarding kinship, genes, and nurturance.
Waiting with the Womb
Authors: Majumdar Anindita
Published: April 2018

In the process of making kin—which is what transnational commercial surrogacy is geared towards—the surrogate pregnancy becomes a ‘goal’ for all participants involved. However, the liminality of the pregnancy becomes both risky and transgressive when navigated through the bodies of ‘alien’ others. Both for the surrogate mother and the intended parents, the pregnant body becomes a source of ambivalence and conflict. In this chapter, the ethnography maps the role of the ‘others’—agents, relatives of the intended parents, the surrogate’s husband—in making meaning out of an ‘alien’ pregnancy’. Here, the embodied/disembodied pregnancy leads to ‘disembodied relationships’. Cross-cultural notions regarding conception, pregnancy, and birth intermingle in a conflicted narrative of ‘kinning’ a soon-to-be born child. The idea of shared bodily substances within the foetus mark out not only the intended parents and the surrogate mother—but their other relationships as well.
In the Land of Buried Tongues
Authors: Das Chaity
Published: April 2018

This work treats the events of 1971 in East Pakistan as a liberation war in order to contend with its memories, inheritances, and silences. Delving primarily into literature from Bangladesh, it also considers the tripartite site of history by bringing in responses in fiction from India and Pakistan. In addition to history and testimonial writing, fictional narratives are critical to understand the complex traces of those intense nine months in the history of the subcontinent. To facilitate this, the book takes stock of memoirs and testimonies of women and men in separate sections in order to underline the gendered nature of war. It then moves to fiction from Bangladesh and in the final chapter from Pakistan and India as well. Since the memories and representation of war is inseparable from its aftermath, these works clearly hint towards the unfinished task of memorialization, which is a process that cannot be reduced to monuments commemorating victory or rationalizing of defeat/loss. It is true that 1971 has been a casualty to nationalist historiography in all three countries. But as this reading of memoirs, testimonies, and fiction will demonstrate, it is possible to listen to the buried voices of 1971 as much in nationalist accounts as in less compliant ones. If we are to appreciate the violent, traumatic legacies of 1971 and its continued relevance to our lives, a multi-genre study involving victims of wartime rape, memoirs by combatant and non- combatant men, military accounts, and fiction from transnational sites might add to our current understanding of 1971.
Between ‘Pakistan’ and ‘Bangladesh’
Authors: Das Chaity
Published: April 2018

This chapter shifts to the memories of war in the testimonies of men involving non-combatants, guerrillas, and military accounts. While the focus is on Bangladeshi accounts of the war, there is a section where Pakistani and Indian military accounts are referred to, the former in greater detail. There is also a section on victims of violence. The memoirs by both combatant and non-combatants seek to intertwine the man with the moment of history, as if it is in the act of narration of their experiences that the nation is taking shape. These are nationalist memoirs, much like those by women, but in their emphasis and testimony, different. Here again, the attempt is to tease out the inassimilable traces of war, gender, and representation. The difference in the memories of combatant men across national boundaries is also illustrated as one of the compulsions of war and failure of humanity. Works of authors such as Nirmalendu Goon and Kader Siddiqui are examined in detail.
Postscript
Authors: Das Chaity
Published: April 2018

Can the argument for a better understanding of our histories and each other necessarily lead to a more responsible governance that does not flaunt the trauma of citizens to anoint its power with moral authority? This anxiety is at the heart of this work, one that has not left me even as the book draws to a formal conclusion. Can a better view of the contexts operating in 1971—narratives of human suffering and trauma—help us address the conflicts in the subcontinent?...
The Mikado and the Shogun (P.V. Narasimha Rao and Arjun Singh)
Authors: Ayyar R.V. Vaidyanatha
Published: April 2018

This chapter describes the personality and politics of Arjun Singh who was Minister of MHRD for about nine years in two spells (1991–95 and 2004–9), and left a deep imprint on Indian education policies. It also describes the developments during 1991–6, a watershed in Indian economic and political history which among others marked the end of Nehruvian era and the unquestioned sway of hegemony of the liberal-left ideas about nationalism, identity, and secularism which were regnant from Independence. It outlines how Arjun Singh built his political career around a fiery commitment to secularism, leftist economic ideology, and social justice, and how that commitment served him well in his battles with political rivals including the Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao. It also outlines Arjun Singh’s strategic use of MHRD to cultivate ‘progressive’ intellectuals, and further his political agenda. It elaborates the conceptual underpinnings of the perennial controversy about school history books, and offers a blow by blow account of the controversy during period 1967–1996 which includes the reign of Indira Gandhi, Janata Party, and P.V. Narasimha Rao.
Revision of National Policy on Education, 1986
Authors: Ayyar R.V. Vaidyanatha
Published: April 2018

This chapter describes the process of revising NPE, 1986, and offers an insightful account of the manner in which the Education Secretary Anil Bordia protected NPE, 1986, from the onslaught of the Ramamurti Committee which if it had its way would have done away with non-formal education, vocationalization of secondary education and total literacy campaigns, and of his outmanoeuvring the attempt made by the State Governments to divest the AICTE of its statutory regulatory powers. It elaborates the insightful analysis of educational finances by the Ramamurti Committee and its forward looking recommendations being given a short shrift in the revised NPE even though India slid ingot a deep macroeconomic crisis. It highlights the lack of policy perspective and strategic thinking in the making of NPE, 1986 and its revision as a result of which no steps were taken to stop the higher education systems in the States drifting into a deep abyss.
The Present Is a Foreign Country (Global Trends)
Authors: Ayyar R.V. Vaidyanatha
Published: April 2018

This chapter offers an overview of the global trends in education systems driven by the five inter-connected forces: democratization of the society, rise of private education, globalization, advent of new information technologies, and knowledge economy. This overview is offered so that there could be a more nuanced understanding of the gales of creative destruction which spectacularly altered the Indian education landscape. It outlines the consequences of the transition of a higher education system transits from an elite system with low levels of enrolment to a mass system with very high levels of enrolment: extraordinary diversification of the purpose of higher education, financing, student body, and content and process of higher education. It outlines the salient features of internationalization and globalization of education, of General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), the private revolution in higher education and the quality assurance mechanisms. The overview focuses on the developments in some countries like the United States, United Kingdom, France, and China.
The Last Flicker (Pallam Raju’s Stint)
Authors: Ayyar R.V. Vaidyanatha
Published: April 2018

This chapter describes how the UPA Government had reached the terminal stage when Pallam Raju assumed charge as Minister, MHRD, and how in spite of heavy odds made the best of a bad job, and attempted to salvage the failed reform agenda of Sibal as much as he could by quietly getting UGC to issue regulations. It outlines the report of the Madhava Menon Committee on Open and Distance Education Learning (ODC), and the action taken on that report. It also describes the crisis created by the Supreme Court judgment in Association of Management of Private Colleges (April 2013) virtually divesting the AICTE of power to regulate tertiary technical education. It describes the historic importance of the launch of the RMSA and RUSA, and emphasizes the imperative of the Central Government played a directional role and extending financial support for meet in transcendent national challenges such as improving quality and learning achievement at all areas and stages of education, universalizing secondary education, development of skills and competencies of all types, and rejuvenating the moribund state universities.
Innovation in the Informal Economy of Mofussil India
Authors: Harriss-White Barbara
Published: April 2018

This chapter explores innovation in the informal economy of small-town ‘mofussil’ India. Two-thirds of the urban population lives outside metropolitan cities in towns noted for their infrastructural backwardness. Ninety per cent of livelihoods and two-thirds of the economy, disproportionately in small-town India, are unregistered or unregulated and termed ‘informal’. It is the informal economy that drives growth and livelihoods. After reviewing innovation theories, a case study of the innovation activity of a small-town is developed through evidence from the presidents of the town’s many business associations. They supply an account of five types of innovation: invention, adaptive and adoptive innovation, incremental and disruptive innovation; innovation in products, process, services, contracts and information; and innovation by labour as well as capital. The chapter concludes that although innovations flourish, the intertwined and hybrid formal and informal institutions do not behave coherently enough to constitute an informal innovation system.