Shadow Space : Suicides and the Predicament of Rural India

A.R. Vasavi

ISBN 10: 8188789828 / ISBN 13: 9788188789825

Published by Three Essays Collective, 2012

About this Item

Contents: 1. Introduction: Locating the Suicides 2. Suicides as Shadow Space 3. Ruralities and the Suicide Hotspots 4. Agriculture and the Web of Risks 5. Agricultural Individualisation and Social Entrapment 6. Retrogression of the Rural 7. Involutions and the Significance of Agrarian Suicides Why has rural, agrarian India turned into killing fields? Why are agriculturists resorting to suicide? What is the social and political significance of such deaths? These are the key questions that this book seeks to answer as a way to understand the spate of suicides, since 1997, by agriculturists. Going beyond the predominant economic reason of indebtedness, this study contextualises the suicides within the configurations of the larger political economy, rural social structures, changing agrarian practices, and the growing individualisation of agriculturists. A.R. Vasavi represents these agrarian suicides as situational acts which are the result of the vulnerable positions of marginalised agricultural households, caught in a web of risks and whose distress remains unrecognized and unresolved by an uncaring political regime. Locating the suicides as a window to understanding post 1991 rural India, the study provides a succinct summary of the complexities and involutions which mark rurality and the lives of rural citizens. The denouement and significance of the suicides are commentaries on the state of the nation as a whole.

Seller Inventory # 108250

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Shadow Space : Suicides and the Predicament of Rural India
• Publisher: Three Essays Collective
• Publication Date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 8188789828
• ISBN 13: 9788188789825
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: As New

About this title

Synopsis

Freedom remains bitterly contested in Independent India. Democracy works only for some, who thrive in its liberties, security and choice. Others are condemned to life-sentences variously of hunger, homelessness, stigma, fear, penury and neglect.

In this collection of essays, written between 2004 and 2011, we encounter many of these exiles from India s secular democracy children living on the streets, households battling hunger, communities battling the politics of hate; we encounter injustice and suffering, but also resistance and hope. These essays straddle many subjects people and policies, books and films. Within these pages, we witness a giant nation at once old and new, dark and shining, cruel and compassionate, unfree and free.

The author weaves an alternative tapestry of diverse images and voices, portraying India in the early years of the twenty-first century.

About the Author

Harsh Mander, 56, social worker and writer, is a former civil servant. He has taught at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad; St Stephen s College, Delhi; California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco; LBS National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie; and the Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi. He is Member of the National Advisory Council and Director, Centre for Equity Studies. He is the founder of the campaigns Aman Biradari (for secularism, peace and justice), Nyayagrah (for legal justice and reconciliation for the survivors of communal violence), and Dil Se (for street children, and homeless people). His books include 'Unheard Voices: Stories of Forgotten Lives' and 'Fear and Forgiveness: The Aftermath of Massacre'.