Madhulagna Halder | Jawaharlal Nehru University (original) (raw)

Madhulagna Halder

Address: New Delhi, India

less

Related Authors

Nandini Sundar

Shantha  Sinha

Arnab RoyChowdhury

srila  roy

Subir Rana

Dhruv Jain

Alpa Shah

Alpa Shah

London School of Economics and Political Science

N Venugopal Rao

Uploads

Papers by Madhulagna Halder

Research paper thumbnail of Cultures of Violence: Calcutta in the Times of Naxalbari 1970-75  (PROFESSOR PAPIYA GHOSH MEMORIAL PRIZE)

Proceedings of the Indian History Congress (78th Session, Jadavpur University, Kolkata), 2018

The paper explores the tensions between the CPI(ML) and the police force in Calcutta between the ... more The paper explores the tensions between the CPI(ML) and the police force in Calcutta between the years 1970-75. In doing so it sympathetically analyses a number of documents of the following periodicals, the Calcutta Police Gazette, newspapers reports, Liberation and PUCL Bulletin to chart out the growing culture of violence at this time. In arguing for this, the paper makes a study of encounter killings of political activists and murdering of policemen, both of which was happening simultaneously. The evolving trend of violence can be traced from an acute sense of anxiety that led to both the parties attacking each other. This anxiety further led to a process of “branding”, where the naxal was seen as a notorious criminal and the police was hated by the CPI(ML) as agents of the state, which further established a perpetrator/victim relationship between the two. However, interestingly in mapping of violence, the binary of the perpetrator/victim is often left fluid, where both the parties take up the roles alternately. This paper tries to address the nuanced nature of violence.

Research paper thumbnail of Cultures of Violence: Calcutta in the Times of Naxalbari 1970-75  (PROFESSOR PAPIYA GHOSH MEMORIAL PRIZE)

Proceedings of the Indian History Congress (78th Session, Jadavpur University, Kolkata), 2018

The paper explores the tensions between the CPI(ML) and the police force in Calcutta between the ... more The paper explores the tensions between the CPI(ML) and the police force in Calcutta between the years 1970-75. In doing so it sympathetically analyses a number of documents of the following periodicals, the Calcutta Police Gazette, newspapers reports, Liberation and PUCL Bulletin to chart out the growing culture of violence at this time. In arguing for this, the paper makes a study of encounter killings of political activists and murdering of policemen, both of which was happening simultaneously. The evolving trend of violence can be traced from an acute sense of anxiety that led to both the parties attacking each other. This anxiety further led to a process of “branding”, where the naxal was seen as a notorious criminal and the police was hated by the CPI(ML) as agents of the state, which further established a perpetrator/victim relationship between the two. However, interestingly in mapping of violence, the binary of the perpetrator/victim is often left fluid, where both the parties take up the roles alternately. This paper tries to address the nuanced nature of violence.

Log In