Lalgarh and the Legend of Kishanji

Lalgarh and the Legend of Kishanji
Author: Snigdhendu Bhattacharya
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2016-11-10
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9352640950

'India is an unbroken chain of broken promises.'In 2009, Lalgarh in West Bengal exploded on to the national consciousness. A tribal upsurge against police atrocities escalated into fierce, full-fledged guerrilla warfare against the Indian state. Kishanji, the Maoist leader, who had successfully led the movement in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Bihar, was in charge. He masterminded military offensives that shook the state, supervised 'alternative development activities' and repeatedly escaped security dragnets. But what truly confounded the state were his telephonic interviews with the media, often on live television, and the frequent press conferences. Kishanji was indeed the face of the Maoist movement in India - until the tables turned.Snigdhendu Bhattacharya was on the ground in Lalgarh, meeting Kishanji, speaking to Maoists and reporting on one of the bloodiest Naxal uprisings as it unfolded, right up to its sudden, chilling end. This is an epic tale of war not only between the state and the Maoists but also between a callous state and its desperate citizens.

How People Respond to Violence

How People Respond to Violence
Author: Monica Carrer
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 286
Release: 2022-09-19
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 303111342X

This book explores the powerful role of ordinary people's agency in times of violent conflict. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and a Critical Discourse Analysis, the author draws out the motivations, drivers and strategies at individual and community levels. With a focus on people’s own voices, this research highlights rich findings showing a wide range of experiences and actions that people engaged in during the violent conflict, and dimensions that are often missed in dominant explanations of violent conflict. Therefore, while looking at peace and conflict from an everyday perspective, the question of power and the meaning of peace knowledge become central. This monograph addresses the power of people’s agency not only in shaping the politics and dynamics of violence, but also in redefining what ‘peace’ and ‘change’ ought to look like. Essential reading for researchers and students of Peace and Conflict Studies, and also International Relations, Security Studies, Resistance Studies, Anthropology, Politics, International Development.

Mission Bengal

Mission Bengal
Author: Snigdhendu Bhattacharya
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2020-09-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9353579503

From being a fringe political party in 2013 to sweeping nearly half of the state's forty-two Lok Sabha seats in 2019, the BJP has gained ground in West Bengal, aided partly by the RSS's exponential growth during Mamata Banerjee's chief ministerial tenure (2011 onwards). With a consistent and concerted criticism of the TMC, the saffron camp managed to create a strong wave of anti-incumbency. So much so that the BJP's prospects of forming the next government in Bengal in 2021 seemed to have brightened considerably, while the Left, which had ruled Bengal for over three decades, appears to have been reduced to a fringe political entity. However, the controversy over the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens, combined with Banerjee's course-correction drive, designed by strategist Prashant Kishor, indicate that she might yet script a turnaround, with Bengal turning into the laboratory of a unique political experiment. Mission Bengal documents the BJP's extraordinary rise in the state and attempts to look at these developments in the historical context of Bengal -- from the rise of Hindu nationalism and Muslim separatism in the nineteenth century, the Partition and its fallout, the impact of developments in Bangladesh, the influence of leftist ideals on the psyche of the Bengali people, to the demographic changes in the state over the past few decades.

Maoism In India

Maoism In India
Author: Arun Srivastava
Publisher: Prabhat Prakashan
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2015-01-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9351865134

Maoism in india is an attempt to study and analyse the movement. already a number of left intellectuals and scholars have studied the movement and written about it. my attempt has been to find out the difference between the naxalite and cpi (maoist) movements. is there any difference as such? though the naxalite movement took birth in naxalbari in 1967; it is still striving to find a sustainable support base. the naxalite movement got its name from naxalbari village where the first major uprising took place. also; through the merger of the people’s war and the maoist communist centre (mcc); communist party of india (maoist) was formed in 2004 which aims to overthrow the government of india through people’s war. why an organization which was perceived as the forum of the “deprived and alienated sections of the population” was described as “the single biggest internal security challenge”. usually; people confuse themselves over maoists and naxalities and cannot exactly trace the difference between the two terminologies. media simply adds to the confusion. the communist party of india (maoist) aims to overthrow the government of india through people’s war. i also tried to find out the reasons which made the maoists in recent times to focus more on arms intervention than taking to organizing mass resistance movement.

Zero Dial

Zero Dial
Author: J. Dey
Publisher: Jaico Publishing House
Total Pages: 198
Release: 2013-12-23
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 818495428X

Three informers. Murky bylanes that hold the key to deadly terror plots. The chase for India’s most wanted terrorist. The lives of three of Mumbai Police’s best informers collide in this shady underworld. It’s a bad, bad world. A world of crime, sex, drugs, murder and betrayal. He who lies, lives to see the light of another day... a day replete with even greater risks. From shady underworld dealings to switching gang loyalties, the men graduate to selling information on terrorism. Then begins the chase… to catch India’s most wanted terrorist: Riyaz Bhatkal, the man with an ominous track record of masterminding twentytwo blasts across the country since 2005. The search takes them to the most unassuming yet dangerous terror hubs across India. With trust in short supply, time ticking away and the sword of Damocles over their heads, the men can only hope that they are not on a wild goose chase.

Red Sun

Red Sun
Author: Sudeep Chakravarti
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 513
Release: 2009-04-17
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 8184758049

Spread over fifteen of the country’s twenty-eight states, India’s Maoist movement is now one of the world’s biggest and most sophisticated extreme-left movements. Hardly a week passes without people dying in strikes and counter-strikes by the Maoists—interchangeably known as the Naxalites—and the police and paramilitary forces. In this brilliant and sobering examination of the ‘Other India’, Sudeep Chakravarti combines reportage, political analysis and individual case histories as he takes us to the heart of Maoist zones in the country—areas of extreme destitution, bad governance and perpetual war.

Water

Water
Author: Brahma Chellaney
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
Total Pages: 398
Release: 2013-07-25
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1626160120

This is a pioneering study about the relationship between fresh water, peace, and security in Asia from the Middle East to Siberia but with a special focus on South and Southeast Asia. Asia is home to many of the world's great rivers and lakes, but its huge population and booming economies make it the most water-scarce continent on a per capita basis. Over extensive irrigation, pollution, and global warming add to the demographic and economic pressures on Asia's fresh water supplies. The location of the sources for much of South and Southeast Asia's fresh water is in the Chinese controlled Tibetan Plateau, and China's increasing exploitation of these water sources have created growing geopolitical tensions that could boil over into conflict. India is reliant on fresh water from Tibet, which gives the Chinese uncomfortable leverage over India and further exacerbates their unsettled border disputes. Vietnam, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and other countries of the region also find themselves in similarly vulnerable positions where water is scarce and the sources are increasingly being exploited and polluted upstream by the continent's most powerful country. Brahma Chellaney proposes strategies to avoid conflict and more equitably share and preserve Asia's water resources.

Belief and Beyond

Belief and Beyond
Author: Mukunda Rao
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 287
Release: 2019-06-25
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9353028485

Belief and Beyond delves into the realm of the mystic -- Adi Sankara, Allama Prabhu, Kabir, Nagarjuna, Gaudapada, Akka Mahadevi, Lalleshwari, Anandamayi Ma, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Sri Aurobindo, Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta Maharaj, Jiddu Krishnamurti, U.G. Krishnamurti, and the Buddha -- bringing to life their spiritual quests and the philosophical messages they left behind for humanity. The book explores the search for the non-dual state of being -- sahaja sthithi or the natural state -- which is not in the realm of experience at all, but a state of being where the borders and boundaries of the divided self have been transcended. The author also weaves in narratives from many difficult-to-access texts, including the Upanishads, the Ashtavakra Gita and the Avadhuta Gita. Written with depth and simplicity, this book is for the seeker and the curious alike.

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka
Author: Padma Rao Sundarji
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2015-11-03
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 9351770311

The thirty-year-long civil war in Sri Lanka which ended in 2009 shook the island-nation. Now there is peace, rapid development - and a new government. But questions remain. What do Tamils and Sinhalese feel about their new country? What are their dreams for the future?Sri Lanka: The New Country is insightful and unusual reportage from the dispassionate eye of a foreign correspondent who covered the bloody conflict for two decades. It is anecdotal narrative at its best: about ordinary Sri Lankans, former Tamil Tigers, meeting LTTE chief V. Prabhakaran, princes, 'secular clergymen', army generals, Tamil Buddhists, Sinhalese Tamils, politicians and sailors wary of ghosts. As the writer traverses Sri Lanka's formerly embattled north and east, internationally stereotypes about the nation are challenged. The book is a tribute to a wonderful people, as they pick up the pieces of their fragmented national identity and get on with building a new country.

Hello Bastar

Hello Bastar
Author: Rahul Pandita
Publisher: Penguin Random House India Private Limited
Total Pages: 153
Release: 2022-10-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 9354927890

With direct access to the top Maoist leadership, Rahul Pandita provides an authoritative account of how a handful of men and women, who believed in the idea of revolution, entered Bastar in Central India in 1980 and created a powerful movement that New Delhi now terms as India's biggest internal security threat. It traces the circumstances due to which the Maoist movement entrenched itself in about 10 states of India, carrying out deadly attacks against the Indian establishment in the name of the poor and the marginalised. It offers rare insight into the lives of Maoist guerillas and also of the Adivasi tribals living in the Red zone. Based on extensive on-ground reportage and exhaustive interviews with Maoist leaders including their supreme commander Ganapathi, Kobad Ghandy and others who are jailed or have been killed in police encounters, this book is a combination of firsthand storytelling and intrepid analysis.