The Fuming Forest

The development paradigm of our country has always ignored the concerns of tribal dominated areas, looking upon them as resource zones for earning revenue through minerals, timbers and forest produces etc. Lalgarh- Junglemahal is one of such areas where the marginalized peasant entity does not only suffer from poverty but also from apathy of the state administration which in the long-run sparked off social unrest.The ethnic disturbances in our country are not mere manifestation of the sense of alienation suffered by the so-called marginalized people; they also speak primarily of the political and economic failures in term of developmental programme of the government. Overall, in the genesis of any social unrest there lays some reasons like deprivation in various socio-economic spheres, irregular distribution of wealth or irregular development programme, exploitation and tyranny etc. Due to spark of globalization when a section of people is getting all sorts of benefits like security of food, shelter, health, education and occupational opportunities, the other half of the same society is totally in dark, deprived, live on hands to mouth and fight with their destiny for survival.At this juncture at Junglemahal, the Maoist got a place among the tribal people of this area often called as ‘adivasi-moolvasi’ people express their solidarity through symbolically expressed identity. Under this backdrop a multi-disciplinary team of Social scientists from Anthropological Survey of India carried out an empirical study at Lalgarh- Junglemahal-area to find out the reason of social unrest. The study becomes a milestone approach in understanding a social reality from grass-root level. The administrators, planners and concerned NGOs will get an insight view of a social reality which will enable them in refining their approach of implementation of any developmental programmes in a forest clad, tribal dominated area.

All the authors are Professional Social Scientists. Among these Dr. Amitabha Sarkar (b. 1952) M.Sc, Ph.D and Dr. (Mrs.) Samira Dasgupta, (b. 1953)  M.Sc, Ph.D are  Cultural Anthropologist. Dr.  N.C. Sarkar, (b. 1953) M.Sc, Ph.D, Sri Niloy Bagchi, (b. 1959) M.Sc, and C.R. Mandal, (b. 1970) M.Sc are Biological Anthropologists, while Sri, Samir Biswas (b. 1961), M.Sc. is a Geographer and Miss, Sanghamitra Panja (b. 1975), M.Sc, is a Psychologist. All the authors possess a deep-rooted field work experience in varied field situation of the country for collection of empirical first hand data which are presented in seminars/workshops and are published. Dr.  Amitabha Sarkar published more than 90 research papers and 12 books of which two are edited. Dr. Samira Dasgupta published more than 85 research papers and 10 published books in her credit. Dr. N.C. Sarkar published more than 60 research papers and 1 published book in his credit. While, Sri, Niloy Bagchi, Sri, C.R. Mandal, Sri, Samir Biswas and Miss, Sanghamitra Panja published number of research papers in reputed journals.