Articles by Arup Kumar Sen

On the occasion of the centenary celebration of B R Ambedkar’s birth anniversary, the eminent scholar of jurisprudence, Upendra Baxi, had warned us: “Centenary celebrations are organised political events having distinctive ideologies of recall and distinctive modes of appropriating a historical...

The Party Plenum of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] held in Kolkata at the end of December 2015 gives an idea of the recent trajectory of its politics. On the eve of the plenum, the party organised a big public rally. The party leaders strongly criticised the Trinamool Congress (TMC...

The landslide victory of the Lalu Prasad Yadav–Nitish Kumar coalition in the assembly elections in Bihar has posed a big challenge to the Narendra Modi–Amit Shah brand of politics of monolithic Hinduism. It is significant that this happened in a state which is “backward” in terms of mainstream...

The spectre of Emergency has returned to public memory thanks to renewed writings and reminiscences in our media on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the event. The stories being recounted highlight the fact that the Emergency was not a “state of exception,” but an event which can recur in...

This is with reference to the EPW editorial “Salwa Judum, Version 2.0?” (16 May 2015). It bears testimony to developmental violence in the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh. The relaunching of the state-sponsored movement , jan jagaran abhiyan , to fight Maoists under the leadership of Chhavindra Karma...