Journal of Social Sciences ISSN 0975-5489 Volume 11, No. 1 January-June 2009 A JOURNAL OF BANARAS HINDU UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES EDITORIAL BOARD A.K. Srivastava (Varanasi) R.P. Pathak (Varanasi) A.P.Singh (Varanasi) M.N. Karna (Shillong) P.G. Jogdand (Bombay) B.K. Nagla (Rohtak) Chandrakala Padia (Varanasi) R.R. Jha (Varanasi) Hetukar Jha (Patna) Manjeet Chaturvedi (Varanasi) R.C. Mishra (Varanasi) S. Deshpande (Delhi) A.K. Kaul (Varanasi) Virginus Xaxa (Delhi) K.K. Mishra (Varanasi) S.L. Sharma (Jaipur) Ehshanul Haq (Delhi) Laxman Rai (Varanasi) I.L. Singh (Varanasi) Gopal Guru (Delhi) Ravi Srivastava (Delhi) A.K. Sharma (Kanpur) Rajendra Rai (Varanasi) Anjoo Sharan (Varanasi) EDITOR IN CHIEF A.K. Jain (Varanasi) MANAGING EDITOR A.K. Pandey (Varanasi) ASSISTANT EDITORS Smita Verma (Lucknow) Divya Pande (Lucknow) ADVISORY BOARD Gopal Saran (Lucknow) D. Sunderam (Chennai) K.L. Sharma (Jaipur) D.N. Dhanagare (Pune) Ken Roberts (Liverpool, U.K.) P.N. Pandey (Varanasi) Raghvendra Rao (Hyderabad) S.N. Jha (Delhi) Raghuvar Dutt Pathak (Fiji Islands) Rakesh Belwal (Sultanate of Oman) Tewodros Teshome (Ethiopia) Phillipie Caden Narcuse (Paris, France) Yogendra Singh (Delhi) S.K. Srivastava (Varanasi) Jayant Lele (Kingston, Canada) Shreesh Juyal (Canada) R.K. Jain (Delhi) Journal of Social Sciences is a Bi-Annual refereed Journal, published in July and December under the Aegis of Faculty of Social Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi. Subscription Rate : Type of Membership India Overseas Individual Annual Rs. 300 US $ 50/- Individual Life Membership Rs. 2,000/- NA Institutional Annual Membership Rs. 800/- SAARC Countries : US $ 100/- Others : US $ 150/- Note : Payments are to be made only through bank drafts drawn in favour of the Managing Editor, Journal of Social Sciences, BHU, payable at Varanasi. copyright: Faculty of Social Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi. Journal of Social Sciences Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi ISSN 0975-5489 Volume-11, Number-1 January–June 2009 CONTENTS Antinomies of Social Exclusion 1 – B.S. Butola Human Security and the Responsibility to Protect: A Holistic Approach 27 to Dealing with Violent Conflict in Southeast Asia – Otto F. Von Feigenblatt Globalization: An Appraisal (Part–I) 41 – Gopal Saran Agrarian Struggles in Contemporary Bihar (1965-85) 65 – M.N. Karna From Feudalism to Democracy : Emergence of New Power 87 Elite in Rajasthan – Rajendra Sharma and Lavleena Vyas Problem of “Knowledge” in Applied Anthropology 101 – Vineetha Menon HIV/AIDS in the Framework of Medical Sociology 115 – A.K. Sharma Children’s Contributions and Entitlement Destitution among Jaunsar 131 Households of Uttarkhand – Rajiv Pandey, Dharmendra Verma and Vinod Chandra DISCUSSION Social Science in New Perspective 155 – Raghvendra Pratap Singh REVIEW ARTICLE Knowledge, Power and Culture: Towards a Critical Perspective 159 – Smita Verma and Ajit K. Pandey The Post – American World : A Critique 167 – Sanjay Srivastava BOOK REVIEW 175-192 India Social Development Report – Dev Nathan Sumit Ganguly, Larry Diamond, Marc F. Plattner (eds.) The State of India’s Democracy – Jitendra Prasad Ashok Kaul, Kashmir: Fractured Nativity (closed options, open possibilities) – Madhu Nagla D.N. Reddy and Srijit Mishra (eds.) Agrarian Crisis in India – T. Haque Atul Kohli, Democracy and Development in India: From Socialism to Pro-Business – Ashok K. Pankaj Williams, Glyn, Paula Meth and Katie Willis, Geographies of Developing Areas: The Global South in a Changing World – Ravi S. Singh Sanjiv Baruah (ed.) Beyond Counter Insurgency: Breaking the Impasse in North East India – Sanghamitra Choudhury B.S. Butola Antinomies of Social Exclusion Antinomies of Social Exclusion B.S. Butola* Abstract : The paper is an attempt to analyze some of the antinomies of social exclusion at various levels and tries to rescue it from degenerating into yet another tool of interpretation. The paper further attempts to critically evaluate the relevance and justification of the concept of ‘Social Exclusion’ at conceptual as well as at the level of social practice. Key words : Social exclusion, conceptualize, marginal, concepts It is often said that old taxes are no taxes as far as their contributions in increasing the wealth of the exchequer is concerned. Similarly, it could also be said that old concepts are no concepts as far as adding extra doses of rigour to the existing stock of knowledge is concerned. Concepts are like old clothes that loose their sheen after repeated uses. Perhaps this could be one of the many reasons that scholars are continuously engaged in an endless pursuit of finding/ coining new concepts in order to enhance their abilities to comprehend and analyze the reality and retain the luster in the proposed argument. ‘Social Exclusion’ is a relatively new entrant in the gamut of such concepts. But, despite its recent coinage, social exclusion has become a serious contender in voicing the concerns that were once articulated by concepts like exploitation, discrimination, deprivation and indignation etc. The rise and acceptance of this particular concept has been so meteoric that one could say without beings branded preposterous that social exclusion as a concept has already made substantial inroads into the discussions and writings on poverty and deprivations. There is large and rapidly growing literature on the subject (Sen, 2004) across many disciplines. It would be appropriate to mention here that circulation of ‘social exclusion’ as a concept to analyse deprivations and discriminations is not an avant-garde. Scholars in the past used various concepts like discrimination based on race, *Professor, Centre for the Study of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 1 Journal of Social Sciences, Vol. 11, No. 1 class, gender, religion, nationality and caste etc. to express their concerns about various types of injustices that are handed over to the weaker, marginalised and subalterns in most of the societies. Apparently, it is considered that there is a logical progression from the old to the new concepts mainly because most of the old concepts were exclusive in nature and these were primarily based on articulating social divisions. In certain cases such as caste, race, class and gender etc. the divisions were considered irreconcilable, antagonistic or permanent. Therefore, to redress the injustice was considered as an exclusive domain of the victims against the perpetuators, who in many cases were projected as enemies, aggressors and exploiters etc. Consequently, the identity of the group was built around the notion of an excluded and distinct group. As opposed to this, ‘social exclusion’ aims to break open the quarantine that was built by the victims of various forms of injustice and replace it with an inclusive concept, in which there is sufficient scope to accommodate the victims of various types of injustices and build some sort of consensus to fight for a common cause. Moreover, the success of three great historical events: a. The rise of democratic governance in the aftermath of the French Revolution; b. Victory of the workers and peasants struggles and taking control of the state power to decide the distribution of social produce among the masses on the basis of “from everybody according to ones ability and to everybody according to their need” in the post Bolshevik Revolution in the Former USSR, and c. Greater incorporation of scientific and technological knowledge in production processes, leading to secular empowerment of individuals and social groups. contributed in making the antagonistic social relations like class contradictions, racial discrimination, ethnic violence and colonisation etc. infructuous to a great extent. To quote American historian Francis Fukuyama, we who live in a stable, long standing liberal democracies face and unusual situation…have trouble in imagining a world that is radically better than our own or a future that is not essentially democratic and capitalist. (Fukuyama, 1992 : XII) These are perhaps the main reasons that most of the scholars have accepted ‘social exclusion’ as an inclusive concept, well suited for the purpose. But, there is a big difference between what is suitable and what is justifiable. There is no 2 B.S. Butola Antinomies of Social Exclusion doubt that most of the concepts used in the past had limited scope as these were built on exclusive premises. As opposed to this, the ‘social exclusion’ is quintessentially and inclusive concept and it has wider acceptability across disciplines. But, before one accepts it as an inclusive concept, it should be remembered that in the past, most of the concepts came into circulation only after raising fierce contestations and oppositions against the then reigning and contending concepts and their acceptance became possible only after they succeeded in replacing the old ones and emerged as ensembles. Most of those concepts were the not coined by armed chair scholars or a bureaucrat, which unfortunately is the case with ‘social exclusion’1. On the contrary those were epitomes of the concrete experiences of society. The concept such as ‘social exclusion’ is yet to pass this litmus test. In the absence of which, using ‘social exclusion’ as a generic and inclusive concept is nothing more than eclecticism at its best. It is largely due to the absence of this particularly historical force and the so-called birth pangs and short gestation period that the ‘social exclusion’ continues to float like a protean concept, amenable to multiple interpretations, most often full of antinomies. The Genesis As mentioned before, the authorship of the concept ‘social exclusion’ in its present expressions goes back to 1974, to the works of former French Secretary of state Rene Lenoir. Though, some scholars are firmly of the opinion that the concept has its genesis in the writings of Max Weber, particularly his concept of ‘social closure’, which has all the ingredients present with in it. According to him, ‘Social Closure’ is the outcome of the …. attempt of one group to secure for itself a privileged position in society at the expense of some other groups through a process of subordination.