APRIL 4, 2020 Vol LV No 14 ` 110 A SAMEEKSHA TRUST PUBLICATION www.epw.in EDITORIALS Fighting COVID-19 India’s Public Health System on Trial? The long-term effects of the COVID-19 outbreak will not Survival and Mobility in the Midst only require political will and decisive actions of the of a Pandemic government for economic stimulus, but also the fostering FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK of social solidarity for community resilience. pages 10, 16 COVID-19 and the Question of Taming Social Anxiety Goal of Higher Education COMMENTARY Is the massification of higher education in India aimed Impact of COVID-19 and What Needs at providing knowledge for its sake, or to facilitate the to Be Done training of minds in a neo-liberal nationalist agenda of Fighting Fires: Migrant Workers in Mumbai economic development? page 21 Reducing the Spread of COVID-19 Politics of Scheduled Tribe Status in Assam Dynamics of Folk Music The Idea of a University in India An exploration of Assam’s Goalpariya folk form reveals BOOK REVIEWS that the dynamism in folk music is rendered through its A Shot of Justice: Priority-Setting for linkages with the themes of identity assertion, tradition, Addressing Child Mortality authenticity, and contexts of appropriation. page 30 A Multilingual Nation: Translation and Language Dynamic in India PERSPECTIVES Devolution vs Reforms Gender, Space and Identity in Goalpariya When economic reforms triumph over democratic Folk Music of Assam decentralisation, as evidenced in Gujarat, there arises a SPECIAL ARTICLES need for a minimum constitutionally guaranteed The Troubled Ascent of a Marine Ring Seine devolution to local governments to safeguard against Fishery in Tamil Nadu the vicissitudes of state-level politics. page 44 Have Economic Reforms Trumped Democratic Decentralisation? Right Approach for Adivasi Rights The Fate of the Adivasi Collective Rights in Telangana With the rights-based approach failing to amend the historical injustice of exclusion of Adivasis from their forest CURRENT STATISTICS lands and resources, it is high time to think of their POSTSCRIPT collective rights beyond mere legal frameworks. page 53 SUBSCRIBE NOW! 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EDITORIALS 7 A decentralised public health system that socialises the cost of healthcare India’s Public Health System On Trial? ...............7 is required. Survival and Mobility in the Midst of a Pandemic ......................................................... 8 Survival and Mobility in the Midst of a Pandemic FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK 8 The working poor disproportionately bear the adverse impacts of the Covid-19 and the Question of pandemic amidst the economic slowdown. Taming Social Anxiety ........................................9 From 50 years ago ..............................................9 Impact of COVID-19 and What Needs to Be Done 10 Tackling the COVID-19 outbreak will require political will and decisive COMMENTARY actions from the government, which should not constrain expenditures in Impact of Covid-19 and What Needs to Be Done view of maintaining the permissible limit of fi scal defi cit. — Arun Kumar —Arun Kumar....................................................10 Fighting Fires: Migrant Workers in Mumbai Fighting Fires: Migrant Workers in Mumbai —Maansi Parpiani ............................................. 13 13 The causes and aftermaths of fi res in Mumbai’s most industrially dense areas Reducing the Spread of Covid-19: and how the migrant workers cope with them even as their skills and knowledge Need for Creative and Long-term Measures prevent bigger accidents are examined. — Maansi Parpiani —Vikalp Sangam Core Group .............................16 Politics of Scheduled Tribe Status in Assam Reducing the Spread of COVID-19 —Jayanta Krishna Sarmah, Joyjit Hazarika...................................................18 16 Long-term measures are needed to reduce the possibility of the disastrous spread of diseases like COVID-19 and to enhance the ability of communities to The Idea of a University in India deal with such eventualities. — Vikalp Sangam Core Group —Swatahsiddha Sarkar ..................................... 21 BOOK REVIEWS Politics of Scheduled Tribe Status in Assam A Shot of Justice: Priority-Setting for Addressing 18 The trajectory of six communities of Assam in demanding the Scheduled Child Mortality—The Injustice of Child Mortality Tribe status and the operations of the various government committees that —Ankur Verma ..................................................25 were formed to look into the matter are traced. — Jayanta Krishna Sarmah, A Multilingual Nation: Translation and Language Joyjit Hazarika Dynamic in India—Language and Translation in a Multilingual Nation The Idea of a University in India —Mithilesh Kumar Jha ......................................27 21 Are universities producing knowledge for knowledge’s sake, or training PERSPECTIVES individuals to fall in line with a neo-liberal nationalist agenda of economic Interrogating the Politics of Folk: Gender, Space development? — Swatahsiddha Sarkar and Identity in Goalpariya Folk Music of Assam —Simona Sarma ............................................... 30 Interrogating the Politics of Folk SPECIAL ARTICLES 30 The analysis of Goalpariya folk music of Assam and its various facets helps The Troubled Ascent of a Marine Ring Seine deconstruct the conventional notion of “folk” as a neutral, static, historically Fishery in Tamil Nadu continuous, and an unproblematic concept. — Simona Sarma —Maarten Bavinck ............................................36 Have Economic Reforms Trumped Democratic The Troubled Ascent of a Marine Ring Seine Fishery Decentralisation? The Experience of Gujarat 36 Fieldwork in Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu suggests that regimes function as arenas in India for deliberating and battling alternative futures in fi shing and mask deep —H S Shylendra .................................................44 sociolegal divides. — Maarten Bavinck The Lost Ground: The Fate of the Adivasi Collective Rights in Telangana under the Have Economic Reforms Trumped Democratic Decentralisation? Regimes of Property Rights —Bhangya Bhukya.............................................53 44 Based on a critical analysis of the interrelationship between the nature of devolution and economic reforms, it is argued that the latter seems to have CURRENT STATISTICS.......................................... 60 triumphed over democratic decentralisation in Gujarat. — H S Shylendra POSTSCRIPT The Lost Ground: The Fate of the Adivasi Collective Rights Bong Joon-ho and Cinephilia—Nandana Bose (62), Who Did It?—Maaz Bin Bilal (63), 53 We need to think about Adivasi collective rights beyond the state legal Delayed Recognition: framework which can ensure for them the free use of resources in forests South Korean Cinephilia and the Oscars and hills. — Bhangya Bhukya —Rena S Kulkarni (64), Last Lines (65) Postscript APPOINTMENTS/programmes 62 Nandana Bose on the long-overdue recognition of the South Korean fi lm announcements ................................................66 industry; a poem by Maaz Bin Bilal; Rena S Kulkarni on effecting