The present study titled 'Measure for Measure" portraying a social survey on lynching deaths in West Bengal was carried out by availing assistance from the University Grants Commission, Eastern Regional Office.
The study was the first of its kind when the menace of ghastly lynching deaths in West Bengal was examined from a sociological perspective. The adoption of this particular perspective was felt to be important as lynching deaths were happening within the matrix of societal framework.
Studies on lynching deaths are not very uncommon. But most of such studies were conducted from such perspectives which were neither social nor holistic. As a researcher in sociology, I perceived that such studies perhaps failed to touch the impact of a large number of cross-cutting societal issues behind each and every case of lynching death.
I feel that this humble effort may be able to go a long way in the realm of studies on the sociology of rural violence and related areas, a sphere more pronouncedly hitherto dominated by the social psychologists.
The present study, being a sociological one, claims a uniqueness from this perspective and thereby seeks to provide a new direction of thought and perception to the fraternity of our discipline.
Regarding the content of the present effort, a brief perusal may be instructive.
The Introduction of the book unfolds the universal phenomenon of violence and contradiction around the world and the state of West Bengal where the rate of lynching deaths are alarmingly mounting up. As a result, this trend was found to operate at the local, regional, national and internationl level.
The first, second and third chapters provide the background of the study, the theoretical backdrop of the present initiative and the social history of West Bengal.
The fourth chapter discusses the nature of caste system in West Bengal in order to ascertain the dynamics of rural society where the caste system is still a force to reckon with.
The prevailing social world has been marked by a growth of individualism, breakdown of social ethos, rise in consumerism, egotism, competitiveness, lust for a prosperous life, which, in turn, has made the social milieu in the contemporary world-a haven of turmoil, stress and antithetical social relations, either in latent or manifest form. Rise in terrorism, genocide, war, perceivable global threats in various guise have been gaining ground rapidly. The aftermath of September 11, 2001 has made this threat more discernible at the global level. The objective of this present study is to state that such threats persist not only at the global level but also at the regional and local level, too.
In the case of India, social unrest at the national level was marked by growing Hindu-Muslim antagonism, which found a new lease of life in the wake of Mandir-Masjid tangle. This has also led to a large number of deaths owing to recurrent riots in the various parts of the country. According to available reports, the number of deaths owing to communal tension have crossed 1000. At the regional level, West Bengal, a state of the federal polity of India, has been noticing a very large number of lynching deaths, mostly in the countryside.
In this way, social tension either in latent or manifest form, is on the rise at the global, national and regional level around the world, This is not a matter of little significance in an age of modernity when brotherhood of men and equality and peace has been the guiding tenet of global governance and societal formations.
2 The Global Scenario
The collective power of people to share the future is greater now than ever before and the need to exercise it is more compelling Mobilising that power to make life in the twenty first century more democratic, more secure and more sustainable is the foremost challenge to this generation. The world needs a new vision that can galvanise the opportunities available everywhere to achieve higher levels of co-operation in areas of common concern and shared destiny. Fifty years ago, international co-operation, collective security and international law were powerful concepts. In 1945, world leaders met in San Francisco to sign the United Nations Charter, a document expressing the universal hope that a new era in international behaviour and governance was about to begin. The onset of the cold war did not entirely smother that hope, but it greatly diminished its fulfillment. As the cold war ended in 1989, revolution in Central and Eastern Europe extended the movement towards democratisation and economic transformation, raising the prospect of a strengthened commitment to the pursuit of common objects through multilateralism. The world community seemed to be revolving around by the idea that it should assume greater collective responsibility in a wide range of areas, including security, not only in a military sense but in eco-nomic and social terms as well sustainable development, the pro-motion of economic democracy, equity and human rights and humanitarian action.
But the global concern for creating a sustainable and peaceful world has not been always equally felt and what more, there has been a constant latent tension among the overacting state actors. apparent in tension-free world. The reasons are many: New super-powers, totally vanquished in the yesteryears are coming up, degradation of the spirit of society is supreme, the failure to fulfill the basic aspirations, rat race to face the stiff challenge of the new world-all these have been able to create a social ambience not in consonance with the spirit of society to live in amity and unity.
Therefore, the present-day social reality has been marked by intolerance, hatred, restlessness at least to a certain extent at the global level, having equal parallels at the national, regional and local plane. The case of India, where, mounting communal tension as a result of age-old Hindu-Muslim tangle deserve mention, found a new lease of life from the early 1990's or so after the Mandir-Masjid tangle in Ayodhya came to the fore in the event of demolition of he Babri Masjid on 6 December, 1992.
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