Passive Revolution in West Bengal 1977–2011

Cover
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Writing the History of Contemporary Bengal
Section One: Capital, Labour and Politics
1 - A Decade of Strike by Capital
2 - A Dying Metropolis
3 - Does the Left Front Favour the Urban Elite
4 - Environment and Employment: Will the Trade Unions and Greens Join Hands
5 - The Tannery Workers of Tangra
6 - Lessons of Ayodhya: Has the Left Lost Its Vision?
7 - The New Right and the New Left
8 - Party, Mass Organizations, and Mass Movements
9 - More on Party and Mass Organization
10 - Votes and Populism
Section Two: New Issues, New Perspectives
11 - Who Is Afraid of the Migrants in Bengal?
12 - A Library and an Institution
13 - Hunger and the Politics of Life
14 - Rajarhat—An Urban Dystopia
15 - Dialogue and Growth
16 - All Die, but All Do Not Die Equally
17 - Chronicles of the Ranks
18 - The Fast Emerging Power Vacuum
19 - Civil Society and the Politics of a Society
20 - Is Bengal’s Restless Spirit in Decline?
Section Three: Contentious Politics
21 - Claim Making in the Age of Bio-politics
22 - That Was Revolt, This Is Civil War
23 - Elections in the Time of a Civil War
24 - Populism and Peace
25 - Different Ways of Truth Telling
26 - The Idea of a Front
27 - Elections and Expanding Our Representative System
28 - Spring Time in Bengal
29 - Their Civil Society, Our Civil Society
30 - Stocktaking Midway through the War
Section Four: Messy Change
31 - Transitional Challenges
32 - Governing the Multitude—I
33 - Governing the Multitude—II
34 - How to Prevent a Telengana Type Situation in West Bengal
35 - The Challenge of Building a Non-corporate Path of Development
36 - A Suggestion on Bengal’s Economic Woes
37 - A Square Leading to Many Unknown Destinations
38 - Early but Inevitable Errors in Judgement
39 - A Violent History of Peace
40 - Political Change Is Never for Utopia
41 - Knight Riders in Kolkata
Section Five: Perennial Themes
42 - Eternal Bengal
43 - “It Does Not Die”—Urban Protest in Calcutta, 1987–2007
Section Six: Postscript
The Epoch of Passive Revolution
Index
About the Author