Social Movements in India: Poverty, Power, and Politics

by Raka Ray (Editor)

Social movements have played a vital role in Indian politics since well before the inception of India as a new nation in . During the Nehruvian era, poverty alleviation was a foundational standard against which policy proposals and political claims were measured at this time, movement activism was directly accountable to this state discourse. In the first volume to focus on poverty and class in its analysis of social movements, a group of leading India scholars shows how social movements have had to change because poverty reduction no longer serves its earlier role as a political template. With distinctive chapters on gender, lower castes, environment, the Hindu Right, Kerala, labor, farmers, and biotechnology, Social Movements in India will be attractive to students and researchers in many different disciplines.

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Raka Ray is an American sociologist and academic. She is a full-time professor at the University of California, Berkeley in the departments of Sociology and Southeast Asian Studies. She became the Dean of Social Sciences at UC-Berkeley in January 2020.