Review

Reviewed Work(s): Minorities in India by Anil Bhuimali

Review by: Harihar Sahoo
Source: Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 44, No. 2 (Oct., 2008), pp. 318-320
Published by: Shri Ram Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27768200
Accessed: 16-10-2017 11:30 UTC

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 The Indian Journal of Industrial Relations

an effective strategy for women not done justice to the theme, primarily,
empowerment. Mohan Kunder argues because of two reasons: First, they are
that active participation of women in based on a few field studies in selected
PRIs is the key to usher in an era of areas and as such are not comprehensive
equity and prosperity in the rural areas. and are not amenable to generalization.
Vanita, B and C.K. Veeranna present Second, social justice concerns of many
field evidence to demonstrate that other categories of persons like the
employment programmes like the following have been left out:
S warn aj ayant i Gram Swarozgar Yojana
(SGSY) implemented with the help of > Migrant Workers
SHGs ensure that women are more
> Bonded Labour
deeply and consistently empowered.
> Child Labour
Anil Anand Sagar analyses field
evidences to establish that social work > Deserted Women
interventions have proved to be another > Street Children
major strategy for micro level inter
ventions to promote effective women In such a publication, one would
empowerment. B.T. Lalwani advocates look for an editorial note linking all the
social work intervention as an effective papers logically to the theme of the book
instrument in organizing awareness and editor's observations. This is
through street plays and corner meetings, missing. Further, many of the papers
and in motivating and orienting common need to be edited properly and placed in
mass in attaining social justice and a logical sequence.
empowerment.
M.S. Ramanujam
Selection of papers focusing on Senior Fellow
social justice, on the other hand, have Shri Ram Centre for IR&HR
New Delhi 110001

MINORITIES IN INDIA by Anil Bhuimali (ed.), Serials

Publications, New Delhi, 2008 pp. 220, Rs. 650

Muslims in particular and minorities important dimensions and issues of

in general have been enriched by the
chapters in Minorities in India. A
collection of 16 essays, the strength of
the book lies in its no-nonsense approach
that takes minority rights issues to
uncover some of the intractable
problems. The volume highlights the
human rights in the context of Muslim
population in India. In the first essay,
Benjamin and Sreenivasulu provided a
detailed analysis of minority rights in
India, emphasizing they are special
rights to minority groups to conserve
their culture, ethnicity and language.

318 UIR, Vol. 44, No. 2, October 2008

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 Book Reviews
Roy analyzed a case of Dzongu of
north district of Sikkim and presented
the historical account of development
induced displacement and its conse
quences in the tribal concentrated areas.
Again Sreenivasulu and Benjamin well
presented the need for reservation for
weaker sections, downtrodden and
underprivileged class in the educational
institutions. The essay on Muslim
women in armed conflict in Jammu and
Kashmir by Sarkar and Bhuimali
observed that the armed conflict has
broken down the social structures,
community protection networks and
legal protection mechanism and has
fostered an environment where sexual
violence and exploitation increase.
Besides, millennium review would be an
exercise of further entrenching a model
of development which is disempowering
and threatens realization of human
rights. Sekhawat and Mahapatra showed
how displacement of Kashmir Pundits
from Kashmir valley is unprecedented
in the history of independent India,
wherein virtually the entire community
has been forced into exile. This has
brought change in many aspects of life
which needs immediate attention.
Review of educational status of Muslims
in the light of high power committee
report on socio-economic and edu
cational status of Muslim community by
justice Rajeninder Sachar forms the core
of Bagchi's paper who argued that
educational marginalization of Muslims
has resulted from the backwardness of
the girl children. Das highlighted the
prevalence of caste system in India in
spite of modern globalized economy,
technological revolution, immigration of
UIR, Vol 44, No. 2, October 2008 319
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Indian Hindus. Solomon conceptualized
human rights and presented the Indian
perspective of cultural and educational
rights of minorities by viewing that
secularism is highly necessary for the
survival of the nation.
Mamta Rao highlighted the contri
bution of United Nations in human rights
and emphasized on the cultural and
ethical strategy which is needed to
uproot the very deep structures of
discrimination and address invisibility
and silence of minority groups. The
national and international endeavours
for protecting the rights of the minorities
have been reviewed by Baruah who
lucidly presented recommendations for
safeguarding the rights of minorities.
Demographic characteristics of Gujjar
women have been narrated in Jan's
paper, which also highlighted the role of
Gujjar women in decision making
process. Sugirtha's work on reservation
policy in India illuminates the need for
effective machinery for the imple
mentation of reservation policy.
Mavoothu and Arunachalm examined
the problems of minority entrepreneurs
and argued for better measures in
improving the entrepreneurial skills
among the minority groups. Sanjeevayya
and Kumar exemplify the perils of
Muslim women of Andhra University
and maintained that there are many cases
of violation of human rights of Muslim
women but they do not perceive them as
violations of their rights. Chinnammai
described the status of Muslim women
and argued for the introduction of text
books which include Muslim history and
cultural perspective in order to promote
 The Indian Journal of Industrial Relations

communal harmony. In a similar vein, evolving strategies to protect their rights.

Mathur and Khanam reviewed the status Overall, it will serve as an important
of Muslim women in India and stated compendium for readers interested in the
that Muslims are a minority community study of minorities in India.
in India which suffers from minority
complex and identity crisis. Harihar Sahoo
Lecturer,
In the final analysis these essays are Department of Sociology,
essential readings not only for Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada
understanding the dynamics of human University,
rights of Muslim population but for Aurangabad-431004.

DALIT CHRISTIANS OF ANDHRA (UNDER THE IMPACT OF

MISSIONARIES) byK.E. Rajpramukh, Serials Publications, New
Delhi, 2008,101 pp. Rs. 395

This book consisting of seven missionaries is logically explained. This

chapters starts with some account of the
concepts relating to mobility of dalits
and their background. In addition, it
gives a detailed account of historical
development of the terms relating to
dalits and their conditions. The second
chapter, though titled as Dalits of
Andhra, continues to describe the status
of dalits across the nation. In fact, till
the end of the second chapter, the reader
has still to look for some material linking
with the title of the book. Different
versions and stories regarding right and
left division, mala and madiga respect
ively, are clearly prevalent across the
nation, of course with different names in
different regions but depicting the same
structure. The author slowly goes on to
describe the conditions of dalits both
from the conceptual point of view as well
as the precarious conditions within
which they live. Given the conditions of
dalits in the country, the entry of
book is the extract of the data collected
around 70's. However, the data present
ed is very valuable. It gains more
importance especially where there is
already sufficient tension regarding
conversions.
The main strength of this book is the
detailed account of systematic
conversion that took place in Andhra
Pradesh area. The author also logically
builds the situation of dalits wherein
they were left with no other option but
conversion. Another plus point of this
book is the meticulousness of the author
for collecting the data by the name of
missionary personnel along with the
specific year and providing a clear cut
database. After explaining the pheno
menon of conversion the author
systematically builds the case for the
converted dalits for specific privileges.
This book is also an eye opener for many

320 UIR, Vol. 44, No. 2, October 2008

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