Decoding Decency and Violence: Role of Youth in Contemporary Odisha

by Kamalakanta Roul

Introduction

The stereotypical understanding of the terms decency and violence has been brought into a comprehensive application for public discourse. Decency and violence are interlinked components whereas the youth community acts as the link-pin between them. The notion of the state has been explored in this broad paradigm of debate to show how these aforesaid components are enmeshed with the state’s structure of system as unit. The interface of decency, violence, youth and state provide a purposeful debate on the contemporary broad understanding of decency, violence and youth.

This paper primarily focuses on the ‘role of youth in violence’, ‘lack of public decency in state policies’ and ‘cultural decency’ in the context of contemporary Odisha. The paper primarily divides ‘decency’ into two types, that is, ‘personal’ and ‘public’. The central argument of the paper is that as the individual maintains ‘personal decency’ towards the authority and the legitimacy of state, similarly the state must uphold certain ‘public decency’ towards the individual and society while making any kind of policies or taking decisions because decency is reciprocal and universal by temperament.

Personal decency is the self-will of a person relating to his morality, conduct and propriety that express how he acts in society. It determines the action of a person in a specific situation inside the society whereas public decency is related to the State Government’s approach by means of sense and sensibility of decency towards the people via different plans and policies on socio-political and economic issues. This paper tries to probe the deficiency of social, economic, political, educational, and cultural decency of the Odisha State Government as well as the State’s political leaders. An attempt has been made to bring out the role of the State in the interface of decency, violence and youth because of its decency-less policies which propel youth unrest in Odisha and exemplify multiple violence.
With a theoretical interpretation of decency, violence and youth, this paper proceeds to conceptualise ‘cultural decency’ in the perspec-tive of Kumar Bhai. This paper mainly categorises five types of role of the youth in Odisha as Revolutionist, Extremist, Instrumentalist, Refor-mist and Seductionist. The notion of vio-lence has been mostly divided into two catego-ries: negative and positive. This paper argues how the deficiency of decency in the public policies of the Odisha Government becomes un-demo-cratic. Finally, the paper argues how to manage and minimise violence in the context of decency for a peaceful polity, economy and society.

Theorising Violence, Decency and Youth

Violence

Violence is the veracity in the vicinity of every society. The vacuity of study over the votary of violence veils its versatile parts in each sphere of human society and civilisation. The concept of violence is the oldest one that emerged prior to the human community. The primitive men acquired the quality of violent and aggressive manners through the perpetual process of struggle with ‘nature’ and ‘wild animals’ for their existence, security and food.

The Paleolithic period of hunting and food gathering gradually evolved into the Mesolithic phase of use of stone weapons that fostered this inherent process of violence and aggression. The climatic changes and use of stone weapons impelled them to take up violence as their means. Probably, the muscular strength of the young men was the only motive force employed to operate the elementary tools and weapons. Later on, conflict persisted among the ancient human community relating to the ‘distribution of foods’ and other similar ‘resources’. The sense of ‘command’, ‘obedience’ and ‘decency’ came in the form of the ‘tribal authority’ to manage this conflict among the individuals. Such societies have been described as the ‘pre-state societies’. This primitive form of social organisation subsequently developed into the state.

Thomas Hobbes in the ‘State of Nature’ narrated that there was a constant war of all against all. Hobbes argues that people entered into a social contract to create a ‘Leviathan’ to ensure the protection of “life, peace and security”. In the same way John Locke’s ‘The Second Trea-tise’ was signed for the “life, liberty and estate” of the individual. J.J.Rousseau also talks of the civil liberties of the individual by making a contract to maintain law and order. Kautilya too contemplated a similar contract among the people when they got weary of the law of fish (Matsyanyaya). People made a contract with ‘Manu Vaivasvata’ as their ‘Swamin’ or king. Finally the sense of “command, obedience and decency” ushered in the way towards playing down violence and conflict. So, the chaotic and violent society became decent to a large extent.

More or less, violence breeds violence and ushers in the way for peace which is not a long-term solution. It is ‘command, obedience and decency’ that make the society stable. In the same way, ‘decency’ made the primitive people disciplined within the community. Decency has played a coordinator’s role between command, obedience and violence since the time of the an-cient society. However, “in a world full of temp-tations and tempting circumstances, decency produces trust, reliability and dependability and the lack of decency makes life more unpleasant in that world”. (Nuyen 2002: 449)

Violence is an act of aggression or immoral use of force against the will or desire of others which cause injuries, pogrom, killing or des-truction. It is a universal phenomenon. Instinc-tive theorists say it is a human intuition and biological trait. There are two types of violence: (i) negative violence and (ii) positive violence. The negative violence intends to cause harm to the other in different forms. It includes all types of violence like religious, ethnic, caste, class, gender, cyber space, pornographic, linguistic, collective, symbolic and so on. The positive violence is the epitome of constructive and creative changes in the society. The treatment of a patient in a mental hospital, sexual intercourse, and “people’s democratic revolution through united front mass movements, economic, social, cultural, and ecological activities” (Mohanty 2010:1) are examples of positive violence.
Socrates denounced negative violence as loss of ‘moral integrity’ whereas he used positive violence against the Spartan Government. Mahatma Gandhi discarded any kind of violence even in thought, words or deeds but his call for “do or die” was a form of positive violence. Janine Chanteur analysed several political works of Plato to find out the Platonic notion of poli-tical violence. (1974: 34) Most of the contractua-lists rejected violence as illegal use of coercion (Murphy 1974: 15) whereas some gave the right to violence, that is, political to the people (For-migari 1974: 224) against the totalitarian state. Some of the theorists, for example, Hobbes and Kant; were inclined to define violence as the illegal use of force or coercion. (Murphy 1974: 15) Machiavelli advised his ‘Prince’ for the judicious use of despotic violence. (Wolin 1960: 223-224) Manu and Kautilya also empowered people to use violence if the ruler is not benevolent and deviates from certain ‘prescribed conducts’.

Karl Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Mao were in favour of violence against capitalism. New Marxists like George Sorel, Fanon, Sartre and Marcuse theorised violence as a creative and constructive force for durable change. Hannah Arendt denounced Sorel and gave a new inter-pretation of violence in the context of ‘power’ and ‘authority’. Gautam Buddha, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi and Dalai Lama are totally against any form of violence which is an enemy of peace, harmony and tranquillity. Post-moder-nists like Nietzsche, Focault and Derrida analysed the votaries of violence and power in a similar way.

Youth

The youth are the oomph and backbone of a society and state. Youth energy is very essential for the progress of a democratic state. The youth possess dauntless spirit and indomitable courage to play a vibrant role in the state. The state machinery must use youth power in a construc-tive and creative way. Youth energy is the big-gest asset of the state which can be used in a multifarious and dynamic way for well-being, growth and development. In India, approxi-mately more than forty per cent of the total population is the youth. But it is unfortunate that youth energy has been misused by the state machineries. Recently, actress Nandita Das conveyed the same view at a conference at Bhubaneswar that the state has failed to operate youth energy in a productive way.

The youth community can be located in between ‘decency’ and ‘violence’. The youth learn and practice the ‘value of decency’ in family and school through a proper process of socialisation. Lack of youth decency may create a chaotic situation presenting a dangerous symptom for democracy and peace of society. In recent times the youth of Odisha are turning restless. They perpetually engage in different kinds of violent activities in diverse places. What are the causes behind it? The present paper tries to find that out. So, ‘decency’, ‘violence’, and ‘youth’ are on a parallel process in Odisha. The youth are the centre around whom ‘decency’ and ‘violence’ are revolving.

Socrates prepared the Athenian youth to revolt against the political and moral degenera-tion of the government. Kautilya trained a youth, Chandra Gupta Maurya, against the invasion of Alexander and the repressive rule of the Nanda dynasty. Youth power during the colonial period posed a threat to the British Raj. Subhash Bose made a youth regiment to counter the British military establishments. Mao Zedong harnessed the youth energy for the ‘cultural revolution’ to bring about people’s democracy in China. The youth are like fire. They must be kept in an appropriate place for good purpose. Youth violence in contemporary Indian society has become a common problem. Youth violence includes the use of verbal threats for ‘thrilling someone’ or indulging in ‘violent speech-like profanity’. As against this, there are physical actions such as ‘fist fighting’, ‘kicking’, ‘stomping’ and ‘shootings’ (Yonas et al 2005:546) and often the use of the weapon.

The of study of Michael A. Yonas reveals some of the common causes for youth violence such as romantic relationships, respect, idle time, gangs and cliques, and witnessing violence. He stated that the reasons for violence unique to boys include fighting about issues related to money and illicit drugs. ‘Gossip’ was identified as a specific reason as to why girls engaged in violence. (Yonas et al 2005: 543) But the cause of youth violence in India as well as in Odisha is, to some extent, different from the Western society at large. This cause will be elaborated in the later part of this paper.

Cyclic Order

The relations of these three terms—decency, violence and youth—can be expressed through a cyclic process. These three components move in a cyclical way one after another. Their relation is relatively reflective. Failure of balance or order of one may create an unhealthy situation. Decency acts as a link-pin amid these three components. Youth decency can curb the menace of violence thus unfolding the way towards a blissful society.

Theorisation of Youth Role

The role of the youth in contemporary Odisha can be mainly categorised as Revolutionist, Extremist, Instrumentalist, Reformist and Seductionist. Revolutionist youth assimilate with the ‘people’s democratic revolutions’. These revolutions take place due to the causes of poverty, distress migration, farmers suicide, tribal land alienation, displacement and against other eco-nomic policies of the neo-liberal Odisha State. The extremist youth indulge in barbaric activities and vandalisms such as rape, murder, abusing, threatening, setting houses on fire, looting, torturing activists, violence specifically political and communal violence and propagation. Instru-mentalist role: some of the youth are being instru-mentalised by the capitalist companies, political parties, religious organisations and the State Government itself too. These youth act on behalf of the aforesaid organisations or groups for the purpose of hooliganism against various democra-tic movements of disputed sites or in the cam-pus of educational institutions, and other kinds of coercion and intimidation. Reformist youth provide basic service to the people. They follow the peaceful and gradual process for social change by resorting to charitable and humani-tarian activities. Seductionist role: some of the youth are tempting and alluring other youth for making banned and illegal pornographic CD films. The last five years have witnessed mas-sive participation of the youth who have been caught by the police. Drugs and alcoholic addiction cases have become recently rampant in Odisha.

Decency

Decency is a human quality of rational beha-viour that shows conformity to the recognised and acceptable standard of propriety or polite-ness; modesty or morality; decorum or decorous-ness; and civility or correctness. In other words, it is a kind of freedom from obscenity or inde-corum and indecency or inappropriateness within the domain of a ‘composite’ society. Deficiency of decency may lead a society towards fundamentalism and parochialism.

Decency is a process which can’t be forced or imposed upon others in the name of religion, culture, custom or tradition. It is rational, reciprocal as well as universal. As Pablo Casals says, “Each person has a basic decency and goodness. If he listens to it and acts on it, he is giving a great deal to what the world needs the most. It is not complicated but it takes courage. It takes courage for a person to listen to his own goodness and act on it.” Therefore, decency is closely related to human culture, civilisation and social interaction.

The thinkers from the West as well as from the East such as India lay emphasis on the ‘sense and sensibility’ of decency. Decency can be used as a ‘virtue’ that Socrates “transforms it from moral neutral to ethical connotations”. (Versenyi 1963: 83-86) Socrates argues “a man with a spark of decency in him ought to calculate life or death”—right or wrong and good or bad. (Warmingto and Rouse 1956:434) Decency has been reflected in the ancient Indian thought, that is, the Varna system, Ashram system, Purusharthas, Rina, Karma and Sanskaras in well-toned analyses. Manu advised his ‘Swamin’ to follow decency and modesty. Following this way, Kautilya also asks ‘Manu Vaivasvata’ to possess certain qualities of sincerity, gratitude and decency. The same argument is mirrored in the Platonic advice to the ‘Philosopher King’ in accordance with the ‘doctrine of ideas’ which consists of wisdom, truth, knowledge, beauty and beautiful things to build up an ‘ideal state’.

Marcus Tullius Cicero says: “Justice consists in doing no injuries to men; decency is giving them no offence.” Generally, we use decency in the sense of moral behaviour or cultural decency. In short, decency is considered a personal affair of the individual. But it has a public discourse which must not be ignored. In fact this paper conceptualises public decency in different spheres of society and state. Mathias Risse asserts that there has been “little systematic treatment” of decency as a moral notion and so there is a gap in our understanding of moral vocabulary. (2000:263)

“In general, ‘decency’ is a term of measure-ment. Its general meaning encompasses the notion of proportionality. The etymological root of ‘decency’ is a Latin ‘decere’, meaning something like fittingness or appropriateness.” (Nuyen 2002:499) In the circumstances. A.T. Nuyen states that the term ‘decency’ can be used in non-moral as well as moral contexts. Its uses vary from situation to situation and circumstance to circumstance acknowledging that there are moral implications in some non-moral uses.

Mithias Risse argues that “decency can be used in a description of a person’s general character”. Further, he says that “an account of decency as a general character of a person depends on an account of decency as a quality of an action, or the quality of a person who acts in a specific situation”. (Nuyen 2002:500) Risse argues ‘decency’ is not a ‘virtue’: “The morally decent person is not a person with certain virtue.” (Risse 2000: 265) He considers a decent person is just someone “with a character meriting a certain overall positive evaluation”. (Risse 2000:266) A.T. Nuyen says: “We typically benefit from people who act decently, as we benefit from people who act kindly, generally, or benevolently. The circumstances of the recipients of the benefits play a part in distinguishing decency from notions such as kindliness, generosity or benevolence, but it is the idea of proportionality that plays the main part.” (2000: 500)

The notion of ‘decency’ can be mainly divided into two types, that is, ‘personal’ and ‘public’. Decency is reciprocal and universal by nature. Personal decency is the self-will of a person relating to his morality, conduct and propriety that expresses how he acts with someone in society. It determines the action of a person in a specific situation inside the society. For example, ‘She is a decent singer.’ It is her effort to be so that is ‘proportionate’ to her capacity. In short, it is a personal endeavour to act or to behave decently toward someone. It may be or may not be a ‘virtue’ because virtue is an ‘excel of excellence’. Personal decency differs from person to person and place to place. Finally, it moves around the ‘measurement’ and ‘proportionate’.

Public decency is a group approach by means of sense and sensibility of decency towards people and society via different plans, policies and programmes. It gives benefits to people and society which is based on compassion, generosity and benevolence. There is no limit to such a thing unlike personal decency which is based on measurement and is proportionate. Risse says: “to be decent is to have ‘basic concern’ for other people, their reasons and feelings”. (Risse 2000: 269) This ‘basic concern’ manifests itself in “acting proportionality in situations involving basic human needs and concern”. (Risse 2000:269) Jane Austin’s “Sense and Sensibility” adds a new contour to the concept of public decency.

The State Government’s decisions and policy-making, peace-building, conflict-resolution and five-year planning come under the gamut of public decency. In other words, the State Government’s power and functions must be under the censorship of public decency. Because of personal decency, the individual obeys the authority and legitimacy of the state; likewise the state must uphold certain ‘public decency’ towards people and society where decency is reciprocal and universal by temperament.

In this context, public decency of the State Government can be divided into social, economic, political, cultural, educational and civil. Social decency is related to caste, ethnic, race, tribe, social discrimination, untouchability, marriage, divorce, and sexuality etc. whereas economic decency is related to subsidised rice to the poor, loan waiver, financial packages and assistance to farmers and others, land alienation, land reforms, displacement and similarly related economic issues or exploitation. Political decency refers to the political behaviour of politicians inside the Assembly and Parliament, electoral manipulation, violation of human rights, the government’s failure, fake encounters, combing operations or Operation Green Hunt, citizenship issue, corruption, violence, river waters dispute, border dispute, secessionist issues, hate speech and propaganda. Educational decency means the unethical application of the educational policy. For example, the Odisha Government’s decision to scrub out the Odia language and literature from higher education in 2005 and describe Bhagat Singh and Chandra Sekhar as ‘terrorists’ in the school syllabus in 2007 sparked a storm in the State Assembly as well as Parliament.

Kumar Bhai on Cultural Decency

Kumar Bhai’s notion of decency can be firmly contextualised as cultural decency. English anthropologist Edward B. Tylor characterises culture as “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society”. In the same way sociologist Robert Bierstedt states: “Culture is something adopted, used, believed, practised or possessed by more than one person. It depends upon group life for its existence.” Further Bhai emphasises: “Bring a blissful change in the field of education, literature, art, drama, radio, video, TV, film and all publication media. Our thinking process will change and so the society.” (Arundhati Devi: 5) Hence, Kumar Bhai stressed on the cultural aspect of decency for a serene and integrated society. He was convinced that culture meshed with the day-to-day life of the people must maintain its limpidness. Preventing indecency can help the society advance towards peace and prosperity. Because culture acts as the soul of humankind leaving a deep impress on him forever.

Cultural decency deals with day-to-day affairs of the society covering art, litera-ture, drama, radio, TV, and all print and electro-nic media. These are all public spaces where dignity must be maintained for the benefit of society. Plato advised his Philosopher King to censor the music and literature which may provoke anti-state activities. In the same way the contemporary cultural activities must be scanned or censored properly although this may raise a different debate. The vulgarity and obscenity in cultural activities have engrossed the present society of Odisha. For the healthy and purposeful youth, the state must have a liberal censorship board with respect to freedom of speech, expression and liberty. Certainly it would help develop a ‘democratic peace’. It needs to be noted that the Odisha Assembly had passed a bill to crub obscenity in public spaces; but that seems to be in cold storage now.

Hyper media sensationalisation, media trial, paid news, vulgarity and obscenity in both audio and video are the major challenges that today’s society faces. For example, songs like Choli ke pichhe kya hai, Tu cheez badi hai mast mast, Munni badnam hui, Nabama shreni jhiota, Aahe dayamaya biswabihai, Rasikia hindi mastera and Sahitya didi so on and so forth, TV serials Rakhi ki Swyambar, Emotional Otyachar and Big Boss etc. These indecent and vulgar songs and other cultural activities provoke the youth to resort to anti-social activities.

Contemporary Odisha and Youth

This part deals with the value of decency in the public space by the state machineries and youth with the arguments of Theodore Roosevelt and Caroline Kennedy. Theodore Roosevelt says: “The most practical kind of politics is the politics of decency.” And Caroline Kennedy argues: “As much as we need a prosperous economy, we also need prosperity of kindness and decency.” This value of decency can be located in the public sphere of policies via the State Government of Odisha. Contemporary Odisha witnessed a lot of violence where the youth played major role for its escalation. The ongoing violence in Kan-dhamal, proposed POSCO steel plant at Jagat-singhpur, Kalinganagar of Jajpur, Keredagada of Kendrapada, Vendatta project in Lanjigarh and Puri, Narayanapatna of Koraput is replete with the local youth. The perpetual violence in Ravenshaw, Utkal, and Berhampur University campuses and other academic institutions of Odisha emerge as an awful trend of manipula-tion of youth energy by various groups.

In this context, the destructive role of the youth has crossed all limits warranting immediate intervention of decency. But who provoked them to organise barbaric violence against whom? Before analysing this question, the role of the youth in Odisha must be conceptua-lised with a general understanding. The role of youth can be divided into five parts: (i) Revo-lutionist, (ii) Extremist, (iii) Instrumentalist, (iv) Reformist and (v) Seductionist. Some of the youth are revolutionary and organising people’s democratic movements against forcible land acquisition, Dalit atrocities, economic exploita-tion, corruption and educational causes in different places of Odisha as mentioned above. The resistances of these revolutionists is very strong and against all the planned plunder. The revolutionary acts such as the anti-POSCO movement in Ersama, anti-Vedanta movement in Puri and Lanjigarh, anti-Tata movement in Kalinganagar and Naraj, farmers’ move-ment in Hirakud and Narayanapatna, anti-UAIL movement in Kashipur, anti-Mittal movement in Keonjhar, anti-Bhusan, anti-Sterlite, anti-Reliance or anti-dam movements in Lower Sutkel area—everywhere the youth are involved in struggles.

The Maoist movement is a revolutionary movement against exploitation and atrocities while its ‘means of opposition’ cannot be condoned. The roles of most of the youth in disputed areas are instrumental in engineering repression and coercion. The youth are being instrumentalised by the capitalist companies, political parties, religious organisations and the State Government itself too. They use youth energy for the purpose of hooliganism against various democratic movements at disputed sites.

The causes of youth mobilisation by these class groups are economic backwardness, unem-ployment, illiteracy, hyper ambition and decline of humanity and social science in Odisha. The youth are being used for barbaric activities such as rape, murder, threatening people, setting fire to houses, looting, and torturing activists to crush the revolutionary struggles. The youth involvement in communal violence in Kand-hamal and Manoharpur and the slapping of Greg Chappel illustrates the extremist role of the youth in Odisha. The RSS, VHP, Bajrang Dal, and Kalinga Sena like organisations promote the youth for organising violence. Some of the youth are engaged in humanitarian service through different organisations and NGOs such as the Congress Seva Dal, Satya Sai Seva Dal, Prajapita Brahamakumari and Sovaniya Movement of Kumar Bhai. The arrest of a boy and girl from Tulasipur and CDA of Cuttack by the Cuttack Police three months ago revealed their seduc-tionist role in making pornographic CD films.

In this context, the role of the State Govern-ment is also highly complex in nature. The one and only agenda of the State Government is capitalisation of the State’s economy at any cost. The State Government too follows the same line of the the capitalist class to use the mass of local youth against the revolutionary struggles to downsize the opposition.

In the context of decoding decency, an attempt must be made to understand the social, political and economic sense of decency of the State Government relating to their policies for public good. As we have theorised, the public and personal notions of decency for this purpose a democratic government is a people’s government. So, being a people’s government it should have the public decency relating to different plans and policies for public wellbeing. The State Government has failed to solve the ‘Keredagada temple entry issue’ where even today Dalits are debarred from entry despite the repeated orders of the High Court.

At a recent youth convocation of the BJD Government and ruling party at Cuttack the code decency was violated as Naveen Patnaik wrongly informed the youth of his government’s failure on different issues relating to Vendetta on account of Central apathy. In the same way the government’s attitude and dubious stand on the Narayanapatna movement is ridiculous. The behaviour of politicians inside the Assembly, Operation Green Hunt and fight to the finish policy against the Maoists exposed the deficiency of political decency.

Providing rice at Rs 2 is a capitalist conspiracy to make the people incapable, inactive and lazy and this will help to suppress the people’s democratic revolution aimed against the totalitarianism of state. Dispossession of people from their own land and home is no economic decency. The state’s apathy not to censor the obscene and vulgar cultural activities is a kind of cultural indecency. Are these above mentioned facts not a matter of the “sense and sensibility” of the people and society?

Conclusion

As Nietzsche says, ‘Violence is everywhere’ (Polin 1974: 66), we can only choose ‘good and bad usages of violence’ (Polin 1974: 69). It is an ongoing process which happens in due course of time. Human society begins with violence and would end with violence. But violence can’t be considered as a means or an end to dichotomy. It is merely a natural system. However, for a peaceful and blissful society everybody should know how to manage and minimise it to a certain extent. It is the value of decency which would enable the human being and state to do so in a process of continuum.

The youth community must be preserved within the domain of virtue and decency. Deficiency of decency would be fatal for the human society at large. In the meantime the youth mass must be cautious, careful, optimistic and judicious in their sense of decency as its paucity may backfire on them as well.

References

 

Risse, Mathias, ‘The Morally Decent Person’, Southern Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 38, 2000, p. 263.

Nuyen, A.T., ‘Decency’, The Journal of Value Inquiry, Vol-36, 2002, p. 499.

Yonas, Michael A. et al., ‘Urban Youth Violence: Do Definition and Reasons for Violence Vary by Gender?’ Journal of Urban Health, Vol. 82, No. 04, 2005, p. 543.

Devi, Arundhati (ed.), Pujyashree Kumar Bhai and His International Decency Movement, New Delhi, p. 5.

Versenyi, Laszlo, Socratic Humanism, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1963, pp. 83-86.

Wolin, S., Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovation in Western Political Thought, Little Brown, Boston, 1960.

Warmington, E.H., and Rouse, Philip, G. (eds.), Great Dialogue of Plato, Translated by W.H.D Rouse, Mentor, New York, 1956, p. 434.

Murphy, Jeffrie G., ‘Violence and the Socratic Theory of Legal Fidelity’ in the edited book of Winener, Philip P. and Fisher, John, Violence and Aggression in History of Ideas, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, 1974, pp. 15-33.

Mohanty, Manoranjan, ‘Indian Maoist Movement: Some Theoretical Issues’, a paper presented at the national seminar of the Council for Social Development, New Delhi on “Militant Left Radicalism, State and Civil Society: The Centrality of Tribal Land Rights” on December 10, 2010 in New Delhi.

Kamalakanta Roul teaches Political Science at Miranda House, University of Delhi. (India). He can be contacted at kamalakantroul@gmail.com.