Abhijit Guha

Researches on the history of anthropological studies in India, unlike in western countries, has not yet been an established tradition, despite the fact that courses on the growth and de­velopment of anthropology in India are being taught at the graduate and postgraduate levels in the Indian universities and are strongly recommended by the University Grants Commission. Indian anthropologists, however, in the early decades after the independence made inspiring and solid research contributions on the major problems encountered by the new nation, which has been described and analysed in detail in this book. These problems include rehabilitation of refugees after the 1947 Partition; and displacement of people from their homes and land caused by the big dams, industrialization and famines. This book, result of years of painstaking research by the author, critically reviews the existing works and their gaps in the history of Indian anthropology and makes a new and valuable addition in the field of the history of academic disciplines in the context of nation building. It should be read not only as a text by the students of anthropology and sociology, but also as a reference work for researchers interested in the history of social sciences and development studies in India.

Researches on the history of anthropological studies in India, unlike in western countries, has not yet been an established tradition, despite the fact that courses on the growth and de­velopment of anthropology in India are being taught at the graduate and postgraduate levels in the Indian universities and are strongly recommended by the University Grants Commission. Indian anthropologists, however, in the early decades after the independence made inspiring and solid research contributions on the major problems encountered by the new nation, which has been described and analysed in detail in this book. These problems include rehabilitation of refugees after the 1947 Partition; and displacement of people from their homes and land caused by the big dams, industrialization and famines. This book, result of years of painstaking research by the author, critically reviews the existing works and their gaps in the history of Indian anthropology and makes a new and valuable addition in the field of the history of academic disciplines in the context of nation building. It should be read not only as a text by the students of anthropology and sociology, but also as a reference work for researchers interested in the history of social sciences and development studies in India.

Taking possession of private land for ‘public purpose’ by the eminent domain of the state is a global phenomenon, but it displaces and marginalizes the people at the local-level. The researchers have mainly dealt with this phenomenon either from the field, or from the archive. In this book, the author has studied the observable fact of land grab, or acquisition for industries in a particular locale of the West Bengal State by combining the field and archive in a unique mode through a multi-sited ethnographic ‘journey’. Unlike the traditional anthropological ethnographies consisting of single ‘tribes’ or ‘multi-caste villages’, this vertical ethnographic voyage of the author led him to come across a group of dispossessed peasants in the villages, a bunch of files in the district land acquisition department, a rich text of proceedings in the West Bengal Assembly Library, the growing global literature on land grab, and also to reflect on his dialogues with the elected members of the parliamentary standing committee at New Delhi. Ethnography, for the author was the road map, which guided his journey in these apparently separate existential domains of land acquisition and throws new light on how development policies are made, and how they failed, and what were the lessons learnt. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

the book is a collection of short-stories. science-fiction, ghost-story, love-story and the stories of our daily lives all in a single book.