From varna to jati : political economy of caste in Indian social formation : commemorating scholar and revolutionary martyr Yalavarthi Naveen Babu PDF
Preview From varna to jati : political economy of caste in Indian social formation : commemorating scholar and revolutionary martyr Yalavarthi Naveen Babu
Yalavarthi Naveen Babu 29-05-1964 to 18-02-2000 From Varna to Jati Political Economy of Caste in Indian Social Formation Commemorating Scholar and Revolutionary Martyr Yalavarthi Naveen Babu Edited by B. Ramesh Babu With contributions from: Yogendra Singh Manoranjan Mohanty Vara Vara Rao and many others Responsibility for contents and opinions expressed rests solely with the authors. Portions of this book may be freely reproduced or translated duly acknowledging the source From Varna to Jati: Political Economy of Caste in Indian Social Formation was fi rst published in India in September, 2008 by Daanish Books 26 B, Skylark Apartments Gazipur, Delhi-110 096 Ph.: 011-2223 0812, 22235819 E-mail: [email protected] ISBN 978-81-89654-58-6 (Hb) ISBN 978-81-89654-59-4 (Pb) Production Assistance: Pankaj Kumar Sinha Cover Design: Pravin Mishra Published by Dhruva Narayan for Daanish Books Printed at Print-Ways, Delhi, Tel: Contents Acknowledgements ix Preface xiii M. Nadarajah I. Academic Contribution of Naveen Babu Reinterpreting Caste and Social Change: A Review 1 Ramesh Babu and M. Nandarajan Conceptual and Methodological Issues 7 Yogendra Singh From Varna to Jati: Transformation from Pastoral to Agrarian Social Formation 11 Yalavarthi Naveen Babu II. Commemoration of Naveen Babu A Biography of Y. Naveen Babu 111 B. Ramesh Babu Remembering Naveen Babu 123 Manorajan Mohanty A Life Dedicated to the People’s Cause 126 Vara Vara Rao Naveen, Friendship’s Gift to Me 132 M. Nadarajah My Friend, Naveen Babu 136 S. Samuel Asir Raj Pleasant Radical: Yalavarthi Naveen Babu 139 Bhupendra Yadav V List of Contributors B. Ramesh Babu Managing Director, Targeted Cancer Therapeutics Inc., Little Rock, AR 72201, USA Bhupendra Yadav Reader, Deparment of History, M.D. University, Rohtak, Haryana. M. Nadarajah Asian Public Intellectual (API) Fellow and Independent Researcher, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Manoranjan Mohanty Professor (retd) of Political Science, University of Delhi, Delhi. Samuel Asir Raj Sociologist and Reader, SPK Centre for Environment Sciences, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Tirunelveli, Tamilnadu. Vara Vara Rao Revoultionary Writers Association, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh. Yoginder Singh Professor Emeritus, Centre for the Study of Social Systems, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. VII Silence ! Here sleeps my brother. Don’t stand by him With a pale face and a sad heart. For, he is laughter! Don’t cover his body with fl owers, What is the use of adding fl owers to a fl ower? If you can, Bury him in your heart. You will fi nd At the twitterings of the bird of the heart, Your sleeping soul has woken up. If you can, Shed some tears. And - All the blood of your body ( Written on the walls of a cell in Presidency Jail, Calcutta, probably by a student during the Naxalbari uprising) Acknowledgements Any commemorative volume such as this one, is diffi cult to put together, as it involves dealing with a lot of different people and their inputs. This is perhaps one of the reasons why it took many years to concretize, even though the idea of commemorating Naveen Babu and his contributions has been discussed by many of his contemporaries and friends off and on, ever since he was martyred in 2000. Eventually, when I fi rst fl oated the concrete idea of publishing Naveen’s M.Phil dissertation as a book among some of my closest friends — Raghu, Madhavi, Manoj and Bala, their instant support and enthusiasm convinced me to proceed. My com- plete naivety about how much work it involved was a main deciding fac- tor. I thought it would be as simple as digitising his dissertation, adding some reminiscences and sending it to print. In the end, it took almost one year of non-stop struggle with seemingly insurmountable hurdles and roadblocks. But as I went along and persisted with the project, the enthu- siastic support and involvement of many more people over the last one year made this volume possible. From the beginning, I was inundated with suggestions and offers of help from Kishore Reddy, Naveen’s child- hood friend introduced to me by Suryanarayana Reddy, Manohar Rao, Krishna Reddy, Laxminarayana and Nadarajah. In a sense, this group has been held together by a person not with us anymore, Naveen Babu him- self. All those involved in bringing out this volume have been associated with Naveen in some way or the other. The project was actually took off when Raghu obtained a copy of Naveen’s dissertation from the JNU library with the help of Srikant and passed it on to me. I depended on him for many other kinds of help and coordination thoughout this project, including suggesting IX X (cid:122) FROM VARNA TO JATI contributors and publishers. My nephew Kiran helped us in digitizing the dissertation and converting it into editable text. Then started the more difficult job of writing to various people to write their remi- niscences of Naveen for the commemorative section and coordinat- ing with them. Dr. Vara Vara Rao sent the first ever reminiscence of Naveen, a touching tribute in Telugu, which was kindly translated into English by Kolli Sambasiva Rao garu, the father of Bala. I am particularly grateful to Prof. Yogendra Singh (Naveen’s M.Phil guide) and Prof. Manoranjan Mohanty for enthusiastically supporting our project with their blessings and sending in their reminiscences. Nadarajah Manickam, Naveen’s classmate and closest friend in JNU sent us his memories, the best photograph of Naveen that anyone had and also helped us in many other ways, including editing my review and organizing the contents of the book. He was brought into this project by Samuel Asir Raj, another close friend of Naveen and a co- founder of “Students Forum.” My close friend Bhupendra Yadav also responded with his reminiscences at the shortest notice. Rona and Ritupan helped us in copyediting and compiling the photographs and images for this book. I also Manohar Rao, thank Adapa Satyanarayna, Tankasala Ashok and Haragopal for their suggestions and help regard- ing releasing the book. Many of the friends also came forward enthu- siastically with financial help, which is gratefully acknowledged. So many people provided invaluable feedback and advice, such as, Sri Meka Ravindra Babu, the maternal uncle of Naveen Babu. Most of the details of Naveen’s family background and how he conducted himself at home were obtained when I spoke to his sister Smt. Siva Parvathi, mother Smt. Satyavathi and father Sri Ram Mohan Rao. Initially, my brother Srinivas who has some experience and contacts with publishers in AP took up the project, invested a lot of time and effort to fi nd some publishers who were willing to publish it on a buy- back basis, but eventually we decided not to go through that route, as we wanted to ensure that the book reaches far and wide through a publisher with professional marketing and distribution mechanism. The enthusi- asm of Dhruva, the publisher of Daanish Books, Delhi, introduced to us by Naya, who also knew Naveen in their own way, made the publishing of this book possible at a short notice. I also thank Daanish Books for edito- rial support and printing at such short notice.
The list of books you might like
