Contemporary Voice of Dalit, Ahead of Print.
Rup Kumar Barman, Migration, State Policies and Citizenship: A Historical Study on India, Bangladesh and Bhutan. New Delhi: Aayu Publication, 2021, xxviii + 242 pp., ₹1,895. ISBN: 978-93-89381-13-9 (Hardback).
Caste and Access to Education in Rural Punjab: A Case of Premarket Discrimination
Contemporary Voice of Dalit, Ahead of Print.
Education enables the growth and development of nations and individuals through multiple channels. However, everyone may not have access to education in general and to quality education in particular. This article is a modest attempt to explore the issue of caste-based premarket discrimination in rural Punjab. Caste-wise differences in access to education are analysed using the primary survey data collected in 2015–2016 from 12 villages spread across three districts—Bathinda, Jalandhar and Rupnagar—of Punjab. The analyses show that Scheduled Castes (SC) lack access to education facilities. Compared to the non-SC, a significantly larger proportion of the SC is found illiterate. It is observed that almost, at every level of education the percentage of SC possessing that level of qualification is lesser than that of the non-SC. The females are facing dual discrimination as their access to education is relatively poor in general and poorest for females belonging to the SC community in particular. Caste consciousness among the students is observed in case of their close friendship relations with peer group and seating preferences in the class.
Education enables the growth and development of nations and individuals through multiple channels. However, everyone may not have access to education in general and to quality education in particular. This article is a modest attempt to explore the issue of caste-based premarket discrimination in rural Punjab. Caste-wise differences in access to education are analysed using the primary survey data collected in 2015–2016 from 12 villages spread across three districts—Bathinda, Jalandhar and Rupnagar—of Punjab. The analyses show that Scheduled Castes (SC) lack access to education facilities. Compared to the non-SC, a significantly larger proportion of the SC is found illiterate. It is observed that almost, at every level of education the percentage of SC possessing that level of qualification is lesser than that of the non-SC. The females are facing dual discrimination as their access to education is relatively poor in general and poorest for females belonging to the SC community in particular. Caste consciousness among the students is observed in case of their close friendship relations with peer group and seating preferences in the class.
A Plan to Exclude Ethnic Groups and Implement Partial Development Programme Under ‘Pradhan Mantri Ujwala Yojana’ in the Indian Subcontinent: A Case Based on Madurai District in Tamil Nadu
Contemporary Voice of Dalit, Ahead of Print.
Madurai district in Tamil Nadu consists of three forestry regions such as Kurinji Nagar, Alagammalpuram and Mokathanparai as the residence of ethnic groups. The central scheme Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) found that it has no beneficiaries from the regions, and as usual the ethnic groups consume firewood with several difficulties. Hence, the study focuses on cooking energy consumers among ethnic groups as beneficiaries in detail under PMUY. A total of 108 households were chosen for the analysis which is the actual total number of households of ethnic groups in the district. Collected data have been tested by statistical tools, such as Chi-square and ANOVA, to know the relationship and the efficiency of factors, which influences the results that a majority of ethnic groups are expected to benefit under PMUY with free of cost, and they face climatic difficulties in traditional energy consumption.
Madurai district in Tamil Nadu consists of three forestry regions such as Kurinji Nagar, Alagammalpuram and Mokathanparai as the residence of ethnic groups. The central scheme Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) found that it has no beneficiaries from the regions, and as usual the ethnic groups consume firewood with several difficulties. Hence, the study focuses on cooking energy consumers among ethnic groups as beneficiaries in detail under PMUY. A total of 108 households were chosen for the analysis which is the actual total number of households of ethnic groups in the district. Collected data have been tested by statistical tools, such as Chi-square and ANOVA, to know the relationship and the efficiency of factors, which influences the results that a majority of ethnic groups are expected to benefit under PMUY with free of cost, and they face climatic difficulties in traditional energy consumption.
Party organisation and the party-delegate style of representation
Party Politics, Ahead of Print.
Politicians perceive their representative role in a variety of ways: as a delegate of their party, a delegate of voters, or a trustee who exercises their mandate independent of any external principal. Existing research finds that the tendency to adopt a specific style of representation depends on system-level institutions and individuals’ political experience and profile. The influence of the party organisational context remains little-understood. This study contributes to filling this gap by examining the effects of parties’ resources and intra-party distribution of power on the prevalence of party-delegates among their candidates. Drawing on data from the Comparative Candidates Survey (CCS) and the Political Party Database (PPDB) we find that party organisation shapes representation in a way that has not previously been demonstrated: parties with more resources and parties in which members have the final say in candidate selection have a higher proportion of party-delegates among their candidates. This demonstrates the centrality of party organisation to representation.
Politicians perceive their representative role in a variety of ways: as a delegate of their party, a delegate of voters, or a trustee who exercises their mandate independent of any external principal. Existing research finds that the tendency to adopt a specific style of representation depends on system-level institutions and individuals’ political experience and profile. The influence of the party organisational context remains little-understood. This study contributes to filling this gap by examining the effects of parties’ resources and intra-party distribution of power on the prevalence of party-delegates among their candidates. Drawing on data from the Comparative Candidates Survey (CCS) and the Political Party Database (PPDB) we find that party organisation shapes representation in a way that has not previously been demonstrated: parties with more resources and parties in which members have the final say in candidate selection have a higher proportion of party-delegates among their candidates. This demonstrates the centrality of party organisation to representation.
How does the government interact with citizens within an electronic governance system? Selective government responsiveness
International Review of Administrative Sciences, Ahead of Print.
Democratic governments, owing to limited resources, have no choice but to respond selectively to citizens’ preferences. This study focuses on the characteristic of selective government responsiveness and explores the influencing factors. We argue that institutional and political resources affect selective government responsiveness, and we try to prove this argument through Korea's electronic governance system: the Korean National Petition. Specifically, this article collects and analyzes a unique data set of petitions and government responses in the system between September 2017 and December 2020. The results from multinomial logistic regression showed that government response to petitions differs depending on institutional resources. In addition, in the case of political resources, the influence of the resources on selective responsiveness is different according to incentives to be responsive.Points for practitionersThis article reveals that the government shows selective government responsiveness to citizens’ preferences within the electronic governance (e-governance) system according to its resources. This result provides practical lessons for practitioners who are concerned about an e-governance system as a space for communication between the government and citizens. In addition, this article suggests a new direction for scholars by presenting empirical evidence for government responsiveness in governance, which has been primarily conceptually studied because it is difficult to measure directly.
Democratic governments, owing to limited resources, have no choice but to respond selectively to citizens’ preferences. This study focuses on the characteristic of selective government responsiveness and explores the influencing factors. We argue that institutional and political resources affect selective government responsiveness, and we try to prove this argument through Korea's electronic governance system: the Korean National Petition. Specifically, this article collects and analyzes a unique data set of petitions and government responses in the system between September 2017 and December 2020. The results from multinomial logistic regression showed that government response to petitions differs depending on institutional resources. In addition, in the case of political resources, the influence of the resources on selective responsiveness is different according to incentives to be responsive.Points for practitionersThis article reveals that the government shows selective government responsiveness to citizens’ preferences within the electronic governance (e-governance) system according to its resources. This result provides practical lessons for practitioners who are concerned about an e-governance system as a space for communication between the government and citizens. In addition, this article suggests a new direction for scholars by presenting empirical evidence for government responsiveness in governance, which has been primarily conceptually studied because it is difficult to measure directly.
The Interfacing History and Narrative Representation of Bengali Dalit Refugeehood in Jatin Bala’s Stories of Social Awakening: Reflections of Dalit Refugee Lives of Bengal
Contemporary Voice of Dalit, Ahead of Print.
Bengali Dalit refugees and refugeehood fall under the less discussed chapter in the streamlined flow of history and narratives. Often within the hegemonic macro-narratives of partition, the ‘common minimal narratives’ (Kaur, 2008, Narrative absence: An ‘Untouchable’ account of partition migration. Contributions to Indian Sociology, vol. 42, p. 286) of the Bengali Dalit refugees get suppressed and subsided. The Dalit refugee accounts contribute a significant lot to the constructing cartographies of history. The article focuses on the representation of Dalit refugees in the anthology Stories of Social Awakening: Reflections of Dalit Refugee Lives in Bengal (2017) by the refugee author Jatin Bala. While providing a vent for polyphonic refugee voices, Bala creates an interface of history and narrative representation of the existential and identity crisis of Dalit refugees with concepts of resettlement and partitioning reality, violence, trauma memory and struggle for sustenance. The study extends its inquiry to the much curious trajectory of history and narrative of Bengali Dalit refugeehood; how the lopsided relationship and crucial junctures between the objective history and the subjective narrative representations make interplay of past and present in portraying violence and memory in the lives of the Dalit refugees. The study also explores how the narrative short fictions deconstruct the ‘essential victimhood’ of the refugees who rise above the harrowing experiences of the spatiotemporal boundary of history and reconstruct the fractured identities to be the true conscious souls of the society in building solidarity.
Bengali Dalit refugees and refugeehood fall under the less discussed chapter in the streamlined flow of history and narratives. Often within the hegemonic macro-narratives of partition, the ‘common minimal narratives’ (Kaur, 2008, Narrative absence: An ‘Untouchable’ account of partition migration. Contributions to Indian Sociology, vol. 42, p. 286) of the Bengali Dalit refugees get suppressed and subsided. The Dalit refugee accounts contribute a significant lot to the constructing cartographies of history. The article focuses on the representation of Dalit refugees in the anthology Stories of Social Awakening: Reflections of Dalit Refugee Lives in Bengal (2017) by the refugee author Jatin Bala. While providing a vent for polyphonic refugee voices, Bala creates an interface of history and narrative representation of the existential and identity crisis of Dalit refugees with concepts of resettlement and partitioning reality, violence, trauma memory and struggle for sustenance. The study extends its inquiry to the much curious trajectory of history and narrative of Bengali Dalit refugeehood; how the lopsided relationship and crucial junctures between the objective history and the subjective narrative representations make interplay of past and present in portraying violence and memory in the lives of the Dalit refugees. The study also explores how the narrative short fictions deconstruct the ‘essential victimhood’ of the refugees who rise above the harrowing experiences of the spatiotemporal boundary of history and reconstruct the fractured identities to be the true conscious souls of the society in building solidarity.
Tribal Imprint on Goa’s Cultural Identity: Kunbi-Gawdaization of Goa
Contemporary Voice of Dalit, Ahead of Print.
Discussions around Goa’s unique cultural identity and debates around the need for a special status for the state of Goa within India are not new. Reasons ascribed to this have oscillated between Goa’s colonial history, the geography of being nestled in the Western Ghats with a long-indented coastline, the tourism industry and the friendliness of the local people. This article based on an ethnographic study of the Kunbi-Gawda tribal community in Goa explores the tribal contribution to the framing of Goa’s cultural identity. Using the tribal icon of dress, namely the dhentulli this article illustrates how Kunbi-Gawdaization is the current cultural identity of the State as tribal icons are used in the imaging of Goa.
Discussions around Goa’s unique cultural identity and debates around the need for a special status for the state of Goa within India are not new. Reasons ascribed to this have oscillated between Goa’s colonial history, the geography of being nestled in the Western Ghats with a long-indented coastline, the tourism industry and the friendliness of the local people. This article based on an ethnographic study of the Kunbi-Gawda tribal community in Goa explores the tribal contribution to the framing of Goa’s cultural identity. Using the tribal icon of dress, namely the dhentulli this article illustrates how Kunbi-Gawdaization is the current cultural identity of the State as tribal icons are used in the imaging of Goa.
Effects of electoral margins on party loyalty in the roll call votes: Evidence from the 20th National Assembly in South Korea
Party Politics, Ahead of Print.
In modern democratic politics, members of parliament (MPs) engage in legislative activities influenced by political parties and voters. This article examines how electoral margins within constituencies affect MPs’ party loyalty in roll call votes. We analyzed all bills of the 20th Korean National Assembly (2016–2020), providing evidence for the marginal hypothesis from the perspective of an emerging democratic country. We found MPs were more likely to deviate from the party’s position in roll call votes during their term where voting margins were greater. This relationship was heterogeneous according to MPs’ and local districts’ conditions. We found feedback effects, whereby political parties and voters reflected the MPs’ party loyalty in the subsequent election. These results suggest that in Korea, where pork-centric regionalized politics have become solidified, voters tend to perceive MPs as representatives of political parties, and MPs constrained by tight voting margins seek to follow party discipline to ensure reelection.
In modern democratic politics, members of parliament (MPs) engage in legislative activities influenced by political parties and voters. This article examines how electoral margins within constituencies affect MPs’ party loyalty in roll call votes. We analyzed all bills of the 20th Korean National Assembly (2016–2020), providing evidence for the marginal hypothesis from the perspective of an emerging democratic country. We found MPs were more likely to deviate from the party’s position in roll call votes during their term where voting margins were greater. This relationship was heterogeneous according to MPs’ and local districts’ conditions. We found feedback effects, whereby political parties and voters reflected the MPs’ party loyalty in the subsequent election. These results suggest that in Korea, where pork-centric regionalized politics have become solidified, voters tend to perceive MPs as representatives of political parties, and MPs constrained by tight voting margins seek to follow party discipline to ensure reelection.
The surrogacy question, unresolved: surrogacy policy debate as a hegemonic struggle over rights
Book review: Sunaina Arya and Aakash Singh Rathore, ed., Dalit Feminist Theory: A Reader
Contemporary Voice of Dalit, Volume 15, Issue 1_suppl, Page S190-S192, August 2023.
Sunaina Arya and Aakash Singh Rathore, ed., Dalit Feminist Theory: A Reader. New York: Routledge, 2020, 245 pp., $8,315.92 (Hardback). ISBN: 978-0-367-43841-8.
Sunaina Arya and Aakash Singh Rathore, ed., Dalit Feminist Theory: A Reader. New York: Routledge, 2020, 245 pp., $8,315.92 (Hardback). ISBN: 978-0-367-43841-8.