State of justice in India: issues of social justice Vol.1

This first volume of the series State of Justice in India: Issues of Social Justice presents a collection of insightful writings on the state of social justice in present-day West Bengal. It studies the silent disjunction between the 19th century and the early 20th century notion of enlightened politics and social justice. It was this notion of enlightened politics on which the constitutional Left in West Bengal later on thrived for several decades. The volume probes the issue of whether there is a necessary connection between enlightened politics and the attainment of social justice?

Social Justice and Enlightenment: West Bengal (Ist part of a four part set) is based on ethnographic studies, which suggest that rule of law as the main mechanism of justice makes little sense in the specific context of local demands for justice and semi-legal practices. It questions why the archaic principle and the structure of rule of law has to still remain fundamental in administering and delivering justice under the Left Front rule. As its conclusion, it maintains that the West Bengal experience demonstrates that while democracy may widen through the mass entry of workers, peasants and the rural and urban poor, and though this may facilitate long-denied political justice for them, this does not ensure social justice per se.

Pradip Kumar Bose is Professor of Sociology, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, Kolkata. A leading sociologist of the country and an expert in research methodology, his writings in English and Bengali on tribes, castes and families in Bengal are widely read.