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Begin New Search Political Geography India Content Type Working Paper Publishing Institution Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research Publication Year within 5 Years

1. Indian Women on an Arduous Road to Equality

Author:
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Publication Date:
10-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Abstract:
Despite the constraints that their socioeconomic conditions impose on them time and again, Indian women have found their collective voice to fight for their rights. A vibrant women’s movement in various parts of India has fought against the apathy of the state towards the condition of women, attaining big and small victories in asserting the constitutional rights of women as citizens and workers.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Women, Feminism, Social Order, Socioeconomics, and Mobilization
Political Geography:
India and Asia

2. The Farmers’ Revolt in India

Author:
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Publication Date:
06-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Abstract:
Despite India’s achievement of a certain level of self-sufficiency in food production over the decades, the chronic agrarian crisis, often manifested in the suicides of farmers, persists. This dossier traces the causes of this crisis, which go back to the days of British colonial rule and to the choices made by the Indian state at various points since independence.
Topic:
Agriculture, Food, Food Security, Colonialism, and Farming
Political Geography:
India and Asia

3. CoronaShock and Socialism

Author:
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Publication Date:
02-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Abstract:
In late December 2019, the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in central China’s Hubei Province detected cases of pneumonia of an unknown cause. In the first few days of January 2020, Chinese authorities were regularly informing the World Health Organisation (WHO) as well as other major countries and regions with close ties to China’s mainland, such as Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan about the outbreak. On 5 January, the WHO released its first briefing on a ‘pneumonia of unknown cause’ in Wuhan. Little was known about the virus, neither how to properly understand it nor whether transmission could occur between humans. The genome sequence for the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) was published by the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID) on 12 January. Dr. Zhong Nanshan, a leading Chinese pulmonologist who is advising the Chinese government on this pandemic, confirmed human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus on 20 January. As soon as it was clear that this virus could be transmitted between humans, the Chinese authorities acted. Wuhan, a city of 11 million people, was shut down, the scientific establishment in China – and its collaborators around the world – went to work to understand the virus and the disease (COVID-19), and medical personnel in China rushed to be trained and to help break the chain of the infection. Inside Wuhan, the neighbourhood committees, which include members of a range of other associations, Communist Party cadres, and volunteers of all kinds, hastened to assist with temperature checks, food and medicine distribution, and assistance in hospitals. After ten weeks in lockdown, Wuhan opened once more on 8 April. On 15 May, the authorities started to test all the residents of Wuhan once again in order to protect public health and to resume social and economic activities (China shared the results of this test to aid with studies on the feasibility of the herd immunity theory). On 30 January, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared that the outbreak constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). From its Geneva headquarters, the WHO sent up a flare which effectively read: a highly contagious virus has been detected that requires stringent measures of tests, physical distance, and aggressive sanitation. At this point, in the aftermath of 20 January, a gulf opened between the capitalist states and the socialist states. Our analysis shows four main areas of differentiation between the socialist and capitalist approach to the virus. The socialist approach is based on: Science-based government action Public sector production of essential materials Public action mobilised to facilitate social life Internationalism In the capitalist states (such as the United States, Brazil, and India), the governments have instead operated in a hallucinatory manner, pretending that the virus is either not real or not contagious and hoping that some extraneous factor would protect their citizens from its dangers. For-profit sector firms have failed to provide the necessary equipment, while public action has been hard to galvanise in atomised societies that lack the habit of organisation and struggle. Finally, to cover up their incompetence, the ruling political class in these states has resorted to stigmatisation and jingoism, using – in this case – the lethal combination of racism and anti-communism to blame China. In this report, we look at three countries (Cuba, Venezuela, and Vietnam) as well as one state (Kerala, India) to investigate how these socialist parts of the world have been able to handle the virus more effectively.
Topic:
Governance, Capitalism, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Socialism
Political Geography:
India, Asia, Brazil, Vietnam, South America, Cuba, Caribbean, Venezuela, North America, and United States of America

4. One Hundred Years of the Communist Movement in India

Author:
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Publication Date:
09-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Abstract:
Dossier no. 32 provides a brief introduction to the history of the communist movement in India, which turns one hundred years old on 17 October 2020. Founded by a handful of Indian freedom fighters who were inspired by the October Revolution, the Indian communist movement has a history of glorious struggles and significant achievements. The communists in India have tirelessly worked to advance the rights of the working people, and to demonstrate the possibility of a future without the exploitation of human beings by human beings.
Topic:
Communism, Social Movement, Radicalization, and Activim
Political Geography:
India and Asia

5. People’s Polyclinics: The Initiative of the Telugu Communist Movement.

Author:
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Publication Date:
02-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Abstract:
The Indian Communist movement has experimented with various forms of people’s polyclinics, which provide free or reduced-cost health care to anyone. The epicentre of this initiative has been in the Telugu-speaking region of India, where the Nellore People’s Polyclinic alone treats 1,000 patients per day at rates 40% lower than corporate hospitals and has trained over five hundred doctors who now provide health care across the region. Our Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research Dossier no. 25 focuses on the history of the polyclinics in this region.
Topic:
Communism, Health, Community, and Medicine
Political Geography:
India and Asia

6. The Neoliberal Attack on Rural India

Author:
P. Sainath
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Abstract:
This dossier features two stories on India’s agrarian crisis. The first story is about the harsh impact of the changing climate on top of an already battered rural economy in Andhra Pradesh, where farmers are growing for seed companies in the most adverse conditions. The second story takes us to Kerala, where we find the Kudumbashree women’s cooperative, which has resiliently resisted the devastation of the worst floods in the state in nearly a century.
Topic:
Agriculture, Climate Change, Farming, and Agribusiness
Political Geography:
India and Asia

7. The Only Answer is to Mobilise the Workers. An Interview with K. Hemalata, President of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions.

Author:
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Abstract:
In the face of increasing neoliberal policies, the working-class movement in India has seen several major general strikes. Our eighteenth dossier – an interview with K Hemalata, President of the Centre of India Trade Unions – discusses the challenges and struggles facing the Indian working class and how they are able to organise workers who initially were apprehensive and afraid to join working class movement.
Topic:
Labor Issues, Class, Unions, and Mobilization
Political Geography:
India and Asia

8. India’s Communists and the Elections of 2019. Only an Alternative Agenda Can Defeat the Right-Wing.

Author:
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Abstract:
Ahead of the 2019 elections in India — the largest exercise of electoral democracy in the world– Brinda Karat of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) discusses the current political context in the country and the left-led resistance to the deepening assault on basic human rights led by India’s right-wing.
Topic:
Communism, Elections, Political Parties, and Leftist Politics
Political Geography:
India and Asia