`The Social and Political of People’s Movement” - Dr Anshuman Behera

The Department of Sociology and Social Work organized a guest lecture by Dr. Anshuman

Behera on the topic ``The Social and Political of People’s Movement” on 7th February 2020. Dr. Behera is an Associate Professor at the School of Conflict and Security Studies, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore. His research areas include conflict resolution, internal conflicts in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh, terrorism in South Asia, and religious radicalization.

The lecture gave interesting insights into some of the important aspects of people’s movements

in contemporary India. Beginning from the problematization of the idea, Dr. Behra explained the

changing paradigms and the politics of people’s movements. The current political scenario is

marked by extreme levels of partisan hostility and polarization. The politics of attribution thus

becomes an important topic for discussion.

The culture of name-calling is dividing society into more and more hostile groups. Dr. Behra

discussed how the politics of attribution has shaped the face of contemporary people's movement. For long, the power dynamics and the political agenda behind people’s movements were ignored by the scholarly world. For example; The tribal and peasant uprisings were often discussed as subaltern movements and were never discussed under the larger context of people’s movements. It is clear that a hegemonic power relationship exists in the way people’s movements are

conceptualized and studied. Thus Dr. Behra calls for a reconceptualization of people’s

movements to unravel the existing structures of social domination.

The lecture was followed by a question-answer session. Students raised questions concerning the

anti-CAA protest, tribal uprisings, Maoist insurgency, national security, and so on. The lecture

was very informative as it successfully laid the foundation for further research and discussion on

the topic discussed earlier.  The session was inspiring, informative, and wonderfully delivered.