India
This paper argues that in principle there is a potential for market reforms to benefit farmers, but that the farm laws passed by the government will in practice benefit 'traders' rather than farmers. Deregulation without 'enabling preconditions' is not likely to help farmers, and may prove counterproductive.
After Pakistani repression of the 1971 East Bengali independence movement and outbreak of the India-Pakistan war, a transnational team tried with some success to take relief supplies into East Bengal. Their aim was to provide practical aid to refugees and protest against Pakistani army repression. At the same time US activists blocked arms supplies to Pakistan (see also Richard K. Taylor, Blockade: A Guide to Nonviolent Intervention (E.3. Opposing Other Wars and Occupations) ).
A large scale survey conducted in a representative sample of households throughout India. It reports that 30% percent of women aged 15-49 in India have experienced physical violence since age 15, amongst many other forms of violence or discrimination, and the social context that makes it difficult to challenge. The National Family Health Survey 2018-2019 is yet to be published.
Analysis by expert on issues of ecology, development and the role of women in conflicts over natural resources in India; includes references to Appiko protests to save forests and satyagraha against mining.
The book examines how contemporary movements are using strategic nonviolent action to promote social change, covering a range of protests including climate change, immigrant rights, gay rights, Occupy and Black Lives Matter. The authors argue that nonviolent uprisings are becoming more common than violent rebellion, and look back to twentieth century antecedents in the Indian Independence and US Civil Rights movements, examine the nature of effective strategy and discuss organizational discipline. Their analysis includes the Arab Spring, but notes its discouraging implications.
This is the second volume of massive biography by the eminent contemporary Indian historian re-evaluating Gandhi's life, ideas and role. It is published at a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi is rehabilitating the far right Hindu nationalists in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (an individual linked to the RSS assassinated Gandhi), and when Gandhi is often vilified. This volume is broadly sympathetic to Gandhi, though not uncritical, and gives weight to the influence of his secretary Mahadev Desai.
The first, widely praised, volume Gandhi Before India, which covers all of Gandhi’s life to the end of the South African campaign, was published by Penguin Random House in 2015.
See also Guha, Ramachandra, 'Remembering Vaikom satyagraha in the light of Sabarimala', The News Minute, 6 Januray 2019.
Commentary by prominent Indian public intellectual, and author of books on Gandhi, at the time of the 2019 mass protest by women in Kerala against a Hindu temple refusing to admit them. Guha responds by recalling the 1924-25 campaign (in which Gandhi played a role) to persuade the Vaikom temple to admit dalits (untouchables).
Analyzes corruption as a violation of human rights and proposes a multi-pronged approach to tackling corruption, including a greater role for civil society. A postscript takes account of the 2011 Anna Hazare movement against corruption.
pp. 375, 379-794, 471, 464, 514, 555
Includes Satyagraha in South Africa (vol. 3), as well as Gandhi’s highly personal Autobiography, published 1927 (vols 1-2), important pamphlets such as his translation of Ruskin’s Unto This Last (vol. 4 – influential on Gandhi’s socio-economic thinking), letters on key issues (vol. 5) and speeches on historic occasions (vol. 6).
First of three books by leading Gandhi scholar. Followed by:
A collection of essays by feminist scholars and activists in South Asia outlining the development of feminism in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan over the last decade with regard to the social embodiment of women, television representations, LGTB discourses, domestic violence, and the “new” feminism.
The author argues that Indian agricultural policy, devised in response to food shortages in the 1960s, relied on a mix of technological solutions to increase yields and a range of pricing measures to support farmers. These policies are out of date, but changing the overall policy is difficult as farmers believe their livelihoods are at stake. This paper considers the issues behind the protests and suggests ways forward.
Largely based on the author’s PhD thesis, this book analyses three historical approaches to civil disobedience, from conservatives and liberal philosophies to the applied theory of disobedience derived from Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
Discusses major crisis of water scarcity in India, due not only to climate change (failures of monsoons since 2012) but commercial exploitation of water sources, which leaves small farmers and citizens without water supplies and often reliant on tankers run by 'water mafia'. The government still tends to favour dams rather than localised measures to preserve water, and political pressures promote crops such as sugar cane in unsuitably environments. The author also notes an example of local good practice. The women's organization, the Mann Deshi Foundation, has in last few years promoted rehabilitation of streams and the local river in a semi-desert area of Maharashtra, before creating a reservoir which was handed over to the local village council.
Chapter 6 ‘Democracy in Asia: India and the price of peaceful change’ argues that Gandhi was ‘the spokesman of the Indian peasant and village artisan’ (p. 178) and comments critically on Gandhi’s desire to return to ‘an idealized past’ of the village community purged of untouchability, and failure to challenge interests of landed aristocracy.
This article explains the new laws which are the focus of the farmers' protest, describes the initial protest journey to Delhi and explains the spirit and organization of the protests and the building of solidarity with other groups, for example by celebrating International Women's Day and May Day to link with women’s and workers' struggles. Singh then engages in an analysis of 'disaster capitalism' including the revision of the labour laws. It concludes that the farmers' movement has become a struggle for 'a more just future for India's dispossessed'.