Contributed articles presented at the National Conference organized by Department of History, Mahila College, Chaibasa on 7-8 March, 2008 sponsored by UGC Eastern Regional Office, Kolkata.

Since the 1990s, the Indigenous movement worldwide has become increasingly relevant to research in India, re-shaping the terms of engagement with Adivasi (Indigenous/tribal) peoples and their pasts. This book responds to the growing need for an inter-disciplinary re-assessment of Tribal studies in postcolonial India and defines a new agenda for Adivasi studies. It considers the existing conceptual and historical parameters of Tribal studies, as a means of addressing new approaches to histories of de-colonization and patterns of identity-formation that have become visible since national independence. Contributors address a number of important concerns, including the meaning of Indigenous studies in the context of globalised academic and political imaginaries, and the possibilities and pitfalls of constructions of indigeneity as both a foundational and a relational concept. A series of short editorial essays provide theoretical clarity to issues of representation, resistance, agency, recognition and marginality. The book is an essential read for students and scholars of Indian Sociology, Anthropology, History, Cultural Studies and Indigenous studies.

This issue of Socrates has been divided into five sections. The first section of this issue is Language & Literature- Persian. The article in this section introduces a Manuscript that highlights the 18th Century History of Awadh India. The second section of this issue is Anthropology. The article in this section provides the role of weaving activity in socio-cultural life of Oromo society in general and Macca Oromo in particular. It also highlights how weavers play a great role in perseveration of cultural heritage, employment creation, tourist attraction and environmental protection in these areas. The third section of this issue is History. The paper in this section is the excerpt of the UGC Minor Research Project under the financial help of the University Grants Commission carried out in the year 2014. This paper highlights Political identities and dilemma in Jharkhand Movement, India and raises Questions of ‘environmental revivalism' and its consequences. The fourth section of this issue is Philosophy. The first article in this section tries to demonstrate that the emergence of the Internet refutes any claims posed by neurologists on the traditional epistemological field of philosophy, proceeding from this ontological decision, the equation of human cognition to cybernetic systems. The paper also explores some social-semantic aspects of the cyberspace as a nexus of social representations of the individual identity that forms a new sphere of being, where the subjective and the objective merge in a virtual subjective objectivity with unique epistemological attributes and possibilities. The second article of this section deals with the question of how and why the civilizations of modernity construct social realities that fundamentally and institutionally are socio-politically unequal, unsustainable and that ecologically these societies reproduce unequal exchange of human, social and environmental resources and information. Moreover, it tries to position an alternative pathway for radical and democratic transformation through “the project of autonomy” influenced from the struggle for the commons as a protest against the commodification and monetarization of the whole of our existence. It aims to expand the knowledge about the struggle of social movements, as well as exposing the endless possibilities humanity have to re-imagine an autonomous present and a sustainable future. The fifth section of this issue is Politics, Law and Governance which contains an artilce that dwells on the experiences of India in the software and pharmaceutical industries to argue for the need for policy space in technology evolution.

Presenting a thorough examination of the sacred forests of Asia, this volume engages with dynamic new scholarly dialogues on the nature of sacred space, place, landscape, and ecology in the context of the sharply contested ideas of the Anthropocene. Given the vast geographic range of sacred groves in Asia, this volume discusses the diversity of associated cosmologies, ecologies, traditional local resource management practices, and environmental governance systems developed during the pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial periods. Adopting theoretical perspectives from political ecology, the book views ecology and polity as constitutive elements interacting within local, regional, and global networks. Readers will find the very first systematic comparative analysis of sacred forests that include the karchall mabhuy of the Katu people of Central Vietnam, the leuweng kolot of the Baduy people of West Java, the fengshui forests of southern China, the groves to the goddess Sarna Mata worshiped by the Oraon people of Jharkhand India, the mauelsoop and bibosoop of Korea, and many more. Comprising in-depth, field-based case studies, each chapter shows how the forest’s sacrality must not be conceptually delinked from its roles in common property regimes, resource security, spiritual matters of ultimate concern, and cultural identity. This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of indigenous studies, environmental anthropology, political ecology, geography, religion and heritage, nature conservation, environmental protection, and Asian studies.

Legal Pluralism and Governance in South Asia and the Diasporas contributes to the already heated debate about legal pluralism and the ontology of law by shifting the attention toward the relationship between what is treated as law and its impact on governance at the fora of dispute resolution. This book addresses sensitive issues such as gender rights and alternative dispute resolution in India, Hindu and Muslim personal laws in South Asia and in Europe, cross-border white violence, the change to Islamic legal traditions under Western domination, women’s inheritance in Pakistan and in the disputed territory of Gilgit Baltistan, indigenous rights and resistance at the India-Bangladesh border, and customary laws of nomadic groups in India. The authors deploy a variety of views that point at the pros and cons of legal pluralism and also integrates its opponents. They show how constructions of identity, religion, and power have historically informed the conceptualisation of secularism which may be an ideal, sometimes able to provide for perceptions of accountable governance, but also generating dividing worldviews. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Legal Pluralism and Official Law.

Adivasi movements played a very important, if not determining, role in the India’s freedom struggle. Gandhi’s idea of mass mobilization couldn’t have been successful without the active participation of all sections of the Indian society. Adivasi movements were swelled by Gandhian ideology only during the Non-Cooperation movement. Though Gandhi’s interest in the tribal problems crystallized at a later stage of his life, his influence on tribal movements was revealing. His association with Thakkar Bapa and Verrier Elwin also enriched his knowledge about tribal state of affairs. Adivasis started looking at Gandhi as saviour or a saint, who could deliver them justice and peace. But, Gandhi always supported Adivasi movements in order to give a mass character to his movements. There were some particular demands of the Adivasis that were not supported by Gandhi. Their armed struggle was also against his non-violent principles. During the latter half of the twentieth century, movements like Tana Bhagat and Hari Baba were purely influenced by the Gandhian ideology, but failed to achieve their goals. Later on, the Jharkhand movement adopted the character of a non-violent struggle; here also the fruits disappeared. The present work focuses on the first three movements of the Chota Nagpur Plateau of eastern India during Gandhi’s lifetime and the current movements against forceful displacement by POSCO, Vedanta and others, in order to comprehend his ideological impact on Adivasi movements of today. The book has critically analysed and evaluated Gandhi’s impact on the Adivasi situation in colonial and post-colonial India. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute print edition in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

The book is set in the anthropologically much-neglected multi-ethnic interior of Highland Middle India. It is the result of fieldwork done over a period of more than a decade among the Ho, an indigenous community of approximately one million people, who have shared cultural norms and the space of the hilly region of the Chota Nagpur Plateau with other aboriginal (adivasi) and artisan communities for ages. The book explores the structured tapestry of Ho people’s relations and interrelatedness within their culture-specific sociocosmic universe ensuring their social reproduction in the present and affording them the means for and the awareness of living in a world of plenty. This world of abundance – with the Ho as its conceptual centre – includes the Ho’s dead, their complex spirit world and supreme deity, and their tribal and nontribal fellow humans, and it manifests itself in manifold facets of their lives: socially, ritually, economically, and linguistically. "This is an important piece of work. The ethnographic details in it are invaluable. The fieldwork is superb. What comes across so magnificently is that unique quality of the author's human and emotional contact and shared understanding with the people." MICHAEL YORKE: University College, London; Upside Films