Prof. Manish K Jha

Through delineating the struggles and challenges of Dalits in making of the Dalit middle class, this article seeks to argue that the struggle and aspiration of Dalits to live a dignified life and urban as a space of ‘liberation from caste’ represents a high point in making of the new Dalit middle class. However, existing literature about the Dalit middle class revolves around identity, provision of reservation in education, employment and cultural assertion, but many unfolded narratives of the Dalit middle class exist. This article attempts to reveal the struggle and challenges of the new Dalit middle class to achieve the status of the middle class. Keeping this in mind further, this article aims to explore the transformations in everyday life of the new Dalit middle class regarding consumer behaviour and lifestyle. Besides this, the article provides a detailed narrative of the new Dalit middle class and about their experience of caste and class in the city.

Disasters and crisis are becoming more complex with deadly cascading effects. The current coronavirus pandemic is viewed as the newest form of health and socio-economic crisis that has disrupted the flow of normal life for millions. Viewing the pandemic as a unique or unpredictable occurrence shifts responsibility and accountability from a host of institutional actors to those who were unable to protect themselves from the direct and indirect effects of the pandemic and incurred heavy losses. Situating the pandemic within the well-established policy debates around disasters enables us to understand how the novel coronavirus rapidly transformed into a humanitarian crisis in India. Successful disaster risk reduction involves the creation of a “culture of resilience” but resilience thinking has been criticized as lacking in “moral compass”, showing a poor understanding of power relations and as governance that emphasizes individual responsibility. Chronically poor people can be “resili...

Based on the author’s engagement with humanitarian response after massive floods in the Kosi region in Bihar, this article highlights that the disaster caused by floods is not an accidental interruption but is linked to the socio-political structure of the state. Through an examination of the processes of social exclusion in times of disaster, the article situates the role of state and society in the context of recent floods. This article deals with the discrimination and exclusion of weaker sections of the society during rescue, relief and rehabilitation process. Individual and communities’ powerlessness, as was encountered immediately after floods, were put in the perspective of the structural situation in the region.

Everyday spaces for urban poor, informal workers and less privileged minority communities in the city of Mumbai portray that right to the city is differentially constituted for different people and communities. The chapter employs Foucault’s notions of governmentality and biopolitics to elucidate the complex manner in which the government and affluent sections of the society ensure that the urban poor continue to provide services for them amidst persistent insecurity, informality and anxiety. The chapter draws from three different, yet interlinked, cases mentioned above to establish and demonstrate the exercise of biopower in governing the city of Mumbai and its people. It explains the use of biopolitical strategies, such as statistical enquiries, censuses and programmes for enhancement or curtailment of benefits and services through which social lives get regulated, disciplined and marginalized.

As countries shore up existing safeguards to address the social and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, India faces a humanitarian disaster of unprecedented proportions. Ninety per cent of the Indian workforce is employed in the unorganised sector; uncounted millions work in urban areas at great distances from rural homes. When the Government of India (GOI) announced the sudden ‘lockdown’ in March to contain the spread of the pandemic, migrant informal workers were mired in a survival crisis, through income loss, hunger, destitution and persecution from authorities policing containment and fearful communities maintaining ‘social distance’. In this context, the article analyses how poverty, informality and inequality are accentuated by the COVID-19 pandemic experiences of ‘locked down’ migrant workers. The article examines the nature and scope of existing social policy, designed under changing political regimes and a fluctuating economic climate, to protect this vulnerable gro...

Social Policy is concerned with minimising poverty and inequality through redistribution of goods and services. In the twentieth century, after the Second World War, European parliamentary democracies enlarged its ambit by making social policy an important instrument to create equality setting the benchmark for other countries. For the new independent countries in the global South, such as India, social policy followed different trajectories. In the aftermath of independence, India relied on preventive instruments to address the effects of famine, de-industrialisation and high levels of deprivation. Despite achieving high economic growth and rapid poverty reduction in the following decades, its dependence on targeted poverty reduction programme has remained. Recently, there has been some attempt to replace these strategies by rights-based programmes supported by legal framework advocated by civil society groups. Through a case study of The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Fore...

The notion of two Indias has become increasingly more visible and finding entry into the debates on expanding social and economic inequalities as the country marches into the club of middle income countries. While India continues to be home to the: largest number of $1.25 a day poor, highest number of malnutrioned children in the world with dismal child and maternal mortality figures, it is also home to the world’s sixth largest number of billionaires. In between these two distinct categories is positioned an amorphous category the heterogeneous middle class that can be characterized in terms of aspiration and distancing. Aspiration to achieve more, consume more, live a privileged life and move ahead; distancing from the poor and underprivileged. At one level one observes sporadic mobilization and collectivization of a section of middle class around specific issues and concerns; and on the other, this group is mostly characterized as a complacent class that is generally apathetic to...

This article explains the contemporary context that influences the policies and practices of community work in India. The transformation in the policy arena and welfare approach underlines the influence of neoliberal governmentality. We observe that neoliberalism as a political–economic approach is persuading socio-economic decisions and increasing market influence. Precisely, we are tracing the policy trajectory vis-à-vis informal sector workers who have adverse implications for their social security and social protection. By illustrating the current policy and legislative approach, we explain an uneasy relationship between neoliberalism, governmentality and welfare. The changes through new labour codes have restrained the minimal protection that was available to the workers. By granting significant flexibility to the employers at the cost of workers, neoliberal policies accentuate the predicament of precarity. Besides, recent policy changes have impacted community engagement with ...

... presented my buffalo to the boatman in exchange for a place in his boat since I don't have any money," Shambhoo Yadav, a rescued villager said. http://in.reuters.com/ article/topNews/idINIndia-35254220080831?sp=true Page 20. 20 ...

Disasters and crisis are becoming more complex with deadly cascading e ects. The current coronavirus pandemic is viewed as the newest form of health and socioeconomic crisis that has disrupted the ow of normal life for millions. Viewing the pandemic as a unique or unpredictable occurrence shifts responsibility and accountability from a host of institutional actors to those who were unable to protect themselves from the direct and indirect e ects of the pandemic and incurred heavy losses. Situating the pandemic within the well-established policy debates around disasters enables us to understand how the novel coronavirus rapidly transformed into a humanitarian crisis in India. Successful disaster risk reduction involves the creation of a "culture of resilience" but resilience thinking has been criticized as lacking in "moral compass", showing a poor understanding of power relations and as governance that emphasizes individual responsibility. Chronically poor people can be "resilient" at the expense of their long-term wellbeing. Drawing on the moral, political and philosophical debates about the shift toward "resilience" in global disaster policy, this article examines the rhetoric of "self-reliance" to address COVID-19 dislocation. We nd that disaster policies that rely mainly on resilience and compliance increase state power while absolving them of responsibility.

As countries shore up existing safeguards to address the social and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, India faces a humanitarian disaster of unprecedented proportions. Ninety per cent of the Indian workforce is employed in the unorganised sector; uncounted millions work in urban areas at great distances from rural homes. When the Government of India (GOI) announced the sudden 'lockdown' in March to contain the spread of the pandemic, migrant informal workers were mired in a survival crisis, through income loss, hunger, destitution and persecution from authorities policing containment and fearful communities maintaining 'social distance'. In this context, the article analyses how poverty, informality and inequality are accentuated by the COVID-19 pandemic experiences of 'locked down' migrant workers. The article examines the nature and scope of existing social policy, designed under changing political regimes and a fluctuating economic climate, to protect this vulnerable group and mitigate dislocation, discrimination and destitution at this moment and in future.