Paper short abstract:

This paper addresses the madrasa custodians’—the Islamic scholars (ulama) indistinguishable primarily for their scholarly tradition in seminary-types Islamic schools—religio-political activism and discourses on the imaginaries and boundaries of being Muslim in Bangladesh.

Paper long abstract:

With essential similarities to elsewhere in the Muslim world, a cross-cutting relationship between piety and politics has been visible in the Indian subcontinent including Bengal, at least, since the late nineteenth century. Historical and political trajectories—colonial modernity, emergence of new nation-states, massification of knowledge (Islamic knowledge), fragmentation of religious authority, rise of “new communal activities”, and global cultural penetration—made deep inroads into the Bengali-speaking ulama’s reformist roles. The ulama, the custodians of madrasas who are indistinguishable for their religious training in early Islamic scholarly traditions, were primarily concerned about and occupied with the proliferation and promotion of Islamic teachings and thereby, aimed to shape the collective religious consciousness on what Muslims should be aware of. Now the locus and focus of ulama’s activities are not coterminous with piety-based activism. Rather, they are increasingly visible as political agitators and negotiators. The shifting and extended roles of the ulama and their discourses on being Muslim are to be unfolded in this paper in relation to their engagements and disengagements with the Bangladeshi state. What causes them to target the state as a central force not just for altering the political ideology but for structuralization of certain norms, customs, and practices they endorse and recognize as “Islamic” are to be analytically deciphered in the paper. The discourses, narratives, and rhetoric the ulama promote in the process of bargaining and negotiating with the state are, I submit, the collective articulations of an agency—Islamic identity. Such agency has continuously been endorsed in relation to the historical reflexivity, a process by which the ulama connect to the roles of their predecessors and mirror themselves to the modeled past of Islam. However, the contemporary ulama are seen as contested and argumentative on the question of being proper Muslim both within and outside their circles.

Paper short abstract:

In post-independence Timor-Leste, an emergence of local elites has been accompanied by not only a call for local dispute mediation but also compensation schemes for veterans. A case analysis for this thesis may suggest an interdependent relationship between territorialisation and ethno-territorialisation.

Paper long abstract:

In post-independence Timor-Leste, the new-born state, quite understandably, has been expected to serve as an engine of development. However, under the circumstances characterised by complex legal pluralism, both territorialisation and ethno-territorialisation seem to be taking place simultaneously. Indeed, these two, seemingly contradictory, processes has been relying inherently on one another. On the one hand, international aid organisations have emphasised the importance to incorporate traditional mechanisms of dispute mediation into formal justice system. Since formal justice system is simply unavailable for the majority of rural dwellers, it seems to be fairly reasonable to combine customary mediations with still immature formal legal institutions. On the other hand, this situation may risk being deployed as a tool of forum-shopping by local elites to pursue personal gains. The issue of how to compensate veterans who fought for independence has further complicated the situation. An emphasis on traditional leadership in customary dispute mediation constitutes an opportunity for local elites to forge their power basis through a series of state-led programs, an important element of which has been compensation for veterans. At the same time, the very combination of customary mediation with formal justice may fundamentally undermine the legitimacy of traditional leaders. These two different mechanisms, relying on one another, should have been observed in post-conflict state-formation in Timor-Leste. This thesis will be illustrated through a case study of western mountainous district where coffee production has been economically salient.

Paper short abstract:

The state of affairs of marginalized sections of society and communities like an indigenous Tribes and Dalits are in the vulnerable conditions since the time immemorial according to the view of social justice in the period of climate change and during the so-called process of development.

Paper long abstract:

The question of social justice has been at the center of discourse during climate change in which process of development, displacement and poverty are mutually inclusive in nature. It proved that climate change is directly or indirectly attributed to anthropogenic activities. But, the social justice arises concurrently with climate change, right from the issue of equitable distribution of limited resources and opportunities, sharing responsibilities and burden of global pollutions/emissions among the nations. In one side of society, the industrial developed countries are mindlessly exploiting nature to fulfill their greed, and polluting environment for centuries; on other side the people are dying like insects without getting basic needs. Like this, in country like India, the fruits of development have not been distributed properly and only a few are benefited and most of the sections of society are neglected and left out from benefits of developmental process. The purport of this paper is to find out the state of affairs of marginalized people' conditions in the view of social justice in the process of development and climate change. This paper would like to address following questions: why social justice is important in this present climate changing era? Development for whom and at what costs? Why is the weaker sections like indigenous Tribes and Dalits are displaced from their land and livelihood and have not got benefited or ameliorated? What are the moral and ethical tragedy climate change and this kind of developmental process?

Key Words: Social Justice, Climate Change, Global Warming, Social Warming, Development, Displacement, Displacement and Poverty.

Paper short abstract:

The Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in 2011 generated huge domestic refugees. This man-made disaster shows a victim of the socio-economic development. How various large-scale social forces were translated into personal trauma and suffering is discussed.

Paper long abstract:

More than 160,000 people were displaced losing their home-land by the nuclear disaster in Fukushima after the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011. It is necessary to understand them as the first huge domestic and developmental refugees in Japan after World War Two. Tracing back to the origin of this huge amount of refugees and severe environmental destruction by radiation contamination, we reach to the important development projects of building nuclear power energy in Japan, and it is also related to national security. Historically, all the nuclear power plants were built in the poor economic municipalities in the countryside into which lots of investment rushed. However, twenty to thirty years later, most of the cities suffered severe financial difficulties and fell into dependency on the nuclear energy. This disaster is regarded as a human-made disaster. By our quantitative and qualitative research, the refugees suffer severe Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms and socio-economic issues, which are related to their concern over compensation or reparation. Although most of the refugees were provided with temporary houses, a lot of people lost jobs and incomes, and families and communities were split up and social ties or bonds were lost. According to our research, many narratives were recorded about a large amount of harassment, discrimination and stigma because of their radiation exposure and migration. Many issues of human rights are coming out. In this presentation, how various large-scale social forces were translated into personal trauma and social suffering is discussed.

Paper short abstract:

Development, displacement and poverty in Odisha, India against the establishment of mining industry and dams in India revolve around Jal, Jamin and Jangal (water land, and forests). These natural resources are the only source of the livelihood of the indigenous people of India.

Paper long abstract:

Most of the people in India depend directly or indirectly on the land, water, forest and other natural resources for their livelihood. There is a mismatch between the nationalistic perspective of development and tribal development and these projects are marginalizing the already marginalized section of our society.

The tribals people, the women, the dalits, and the poor people who have been directly affected by these projects are not getting social justice. They fear to lose of livelihood, dignity, lose of land, forest and water sources, and the imminent threat to their traditional culture. The project affected people are no longer in a mood to suffer displacement along with its parallel attributes like occupational degeneration, social disorientation, pauperization, loss of dignity and often getting cheated of the compensation amount, which serve to make the experience a suffering. The people are losing their basic rights on social, cultural life due to the process of industrialization and development projects.

Paper short abstract:

This paper analyses the background of the secularism principle being inserted into the Constitution of Bangladesh, enacted in 1972, through analysing the political relationship between the provisional government of Bangladesh and the Indian government during the liberation war period.

Paper long abstract:

This paper analyses the background of the secularism principle being inserted into the Constitution of Bangladesh, enacted in 1972, through analysing the political relationship between the provisional government of Bangladesh and the Indian government during the liberation war period. It is well known that the 1972 Constitution of Bangladesh incorporated secularism as a state principle, but only two years after the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the secularism principle was removed and the principle of “absolute faith and trust in Allah” was inserted by the Fifth Amendment in 1977, which was again declared as invalid by the Supreme Court of Bangladesh in 2010. This paper sheds light on the situation within the provisional government during the liberation struggle, and clarifies its influence on the religious policies of Bangladesh during and after the liberation war.

Firstly, the transitions and commonality of religious provisions in the constitutions between the former Pakistan era and the Bangladesh period are examined; subsequently, the religious policies of Bangladesh, based on the speeches by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, are discussed. Finally, the process of political negotiations between Prime Minister Tajuddin Ahmad of the provisional government and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is examined.