Dwaipayan Bhattacharyya Explained

Dwaipayan Bhattacharyya
Notable Works:	Government as Practice: Democratic Left in a Transforming India

Dwaipayan Bhattacharyya is an Indian political scientist.^[1] He is a professor at Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.^[2]

Education

Dwaipayan did his PhD on Agrarian reforms and the politics of the left in West Bengal from University of Cambridge.^{[3] [4]}

Career

Dwaipayan Bhattacharyya taught political science at Jawaharlal Nehru University (from1994-2002 and 2016–present) and at Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta (2002-2015). He specialises in Indian politics, Left politics, analysis of power and institutions, and social hierarchies. He has held visiting positions at Claremont University, USA; Massey University, New Zealand; and Göttingen University, Germany.

He had collaborated with various projects including, ‘Democracy and Social Capital in Segmented Societies’ with SIDA and Uppsala University, Sweden during 1996–99, ‘Political Ethnography of West Bengal Villages’, ‘Understanding Political Changes in Rural West Bengal’ with Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata and Boston University, USA during 2005 and 2012–13, ‘Embedding Poor People’s Voices in Local Governance’, with University of Sheffield, United Kingdom and Centre for Development Studies, Kerala during 2008–09. From 2016 onwards, he is the member of the International Centre for Advanced Studies ‘Metamorphoses of the Political’ (ICAS:MP), a consortium of seven Indian and German partners, funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

He theorised West Bengal's unique history of affiliation to political parties and polarisation along party lines. He coined the term “party society” in this context^{[5] [6] [7] [8]} He argues that politics in west Bengal spins not on caste, religious or ethnic associations, but on their absorption within this or that political party.

Awards and honours

• Nehru Trust for Cambridge University Fellowship^[9]
• Fulbright Fellowship (Scholar-in-Residence)
• British Chevening Fellowship
• Churchill College Honorary Fellowship
• DAAD Fellowship

Key Publications

Books

1) Government as Practice: Democratic Left in a Transforming India (New Delhi: Cambridge University Press) 2016.^[10]

2) Interrogating Social Capital: The Indian Experience (edited with Niraja Gopal Jayal, Sudha Pai and Bishnu N. Mohapatra), (New Delhi, Sage), 2004.^[11]

Book chapters

• 'Left in the Lurch: The Demise of the World's Longest Elected Regime? (with an Epilogue)', in Sudha Pai (ed.) Handbook of Politics in Indian States: Region, Parties and Economic Reforms, (New Delhi: Oxford University Press), 2013.^[12]
• ‘Party-society, its Consolidation and Crisis: Understanding Political Change in West Bengal’, in Anjan Ghosh, Tapati Guha-Thakurta and Janaki Nair (ed.), Theorizing the Present: Essays for Partha Chatterjee (New Delhi: Oxford University Press), 2011, 226- 250.^[13]
• ‘West Bengal: Permanent Incumbency and Political Stability’ in Sandeep Shastri, K C Suri and Yogendra Yadav (ed.), Electoral Politics in Indian States: Lok Sabha Elections in 2004 and Beyond (New Delhi: Oxford University Press), 2009, 326–45.^[14]
• ‘Politics of middleness: the changing character of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in Rural West Bengal (1977-1990)’ in Sugata Bose, Barbara Harriss, Ben Rogaly (eds), Sonar Bangla? Agricultural Growth and Agrarian Change in West Bengal and Bangladesh (New Delhi: Sage),1999.
• ‘How to Govern the Poor? The Role of Social Policies in Economic Transformation’, in Nandini Gooptu and Jonathan Parry (ed.s), Persistence of Poverty in India, Social Science Press, New Delhi, 2014, 370–431.^[15]
• Social Policy in India: Education Reform and Employment Guarantee in a Rapidly Changing Economy’, in Samir Kumar Das (ed.) ICSSR Research Surveys and Explorations: Political Science: Volume – 1 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press), 2012, 111–144.
• Strengthening Rural Decentralisation, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta (with Partha Chatterjee, Pranab Kumar Das, Dhrubajyoti Ghosh, Manabi Majumdar and Surajit Mukhopadhyay) 2006.
• ‘Writers’ Buildings and the reality of decentralised rural power: some paradoxes in West Bengal’ in Niraja Gopal Jayal, Amit Prakash & Pradeep Sharma, ed., Local Governance in India: Decentralisation and Beyond (New Delhi: Oxford University Press), 2006.^[16]
• ‘Agrarian reforms and panchayati raj in West Bengal’ in Ashish Ghosh and Neera Chandhoke (eds.), Grassroots movement and social change (DCRC, Delhi University Press), 1995, 117–123.

Journal articles

He has multiple publications in peer reviewed international and national journals including Journal of Development Studies, Economic and Political Weekly, Calcutta Historical Review etc.^{[17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23]}

Notes and References

1. 5 June 2015. Dwaipayan Bhattacharyya. 11 May 2021. Economic and Political Weekly. 7–8. en.
2. Web site: Dwaipayan Bhattacharyya. live. 10 May 2021. Jawaharlal Nehru University. https://web.archive.org/web/20190403014415/http://www.jnu.ac.in:80/content/dwaipayan . 3 April 2019 .
3. Agrarian reforms and the policts of the left in West Bengal.. University of Cambridge. 1993. Ph.D.. Dwaipayan. Bhattacharyya.
4. Web site: 5 May 2021. Bhattacharyya, Dwaipayan. 11 May 2021. SAGE Publications Inc. en.
5. 5 June 2015. Whither West Bengal?. Economic and Political Weekly. en. 56. 6. 7–8.
6. Web site: West Bengal: The BJP's New Frontier. 11 May 2021. www.asiamediacentre.org.nz.
7. Web site: Mukherjee. Ishan. 11 May 2021. Bengal woke up and chose violence at birth. TMC is no exception to that norm. 11 May 2021. ThePrint. en-US.
8. Web site: West Bengal's Landscape Is Shifting from 'Party Society' to 'Caste Politics'. 11 May 2021. The Wire.
9. Book: Bhattacharyya, Dwaipayan. Government as Practice: Democratic Left in a Transforming India. 5 March 2016. Cambridge University Press. 978-1-316-18252-9. en.
10. Book: Bhattacharyya, Dwaipayan. Government as Practice: Democratic Left in a Transforming India. 2016. Cambridge University Press. 978-1-107-10226-2. South Asia in the Social Sciences. Cambridge.
11. Web site: 5 May 2021. Interrogating Social Capital. 11 May 2021. SAGE Publications Inc. en.
12. 5 June 2015. Left in the Lurch: The Demise of the World's Longest Elected Regime?. Economic and Political Weekly. en. 7–8.
13. Web site: Theorizing the Present Essays for Partha Chatterjee. 11 May 2021. india.oup.com.
14. Book: Shastri. Sandeep. Electoral Politics in Indian States: Lok Sabha Elections in 2004 and Beyond. Suri. K. C.. Yadav. Yogendra. 2009. Oxford University Press. 978-0-19-806329-2. en.
15. Web site: Persistence of Poverty in India. 11 May 2021. Routledge & CRC Press. en.
16. Book: Jayal. Niraja Gopal. Local Governance in India: Decentralization and Beyond. Prakash. Amit. Sharma. Pradeep K.. 6 December 2007. Oxford University Press. 978-0-19-569296-9. Oxford India Paperbacks. Oxford, New York.
17. 5 June 2015. ORISSA-Tribal-Dalit Conflict-Electoral Politics in Phulbani. Economic and Political Weekly. en. 31. –1. 7–8.
18. 5 June 2015. Making and Unmaking of Trinamul Congress. Economic and Political Weekly. en. 7–8.
19. 5 June 2015. West Bengal : Permanent Incumbency and Political Stability. Economic and Political Weekly. en. 7–8.
20. 5 June 2015. Politics of PDS Anger in West Bengal. Economic and Political Weekly. en. 7–8.
21. 5 June 2015. Of Control and Factions: The Changing 'Party-Society' in Rural West Bengal. Economic and Political Weekly. en. 7–8.
22. 5 June 2015. West Bengal Panchayat Elections. Economic and Political Weekly. en. 48. 37. 7–8.
23. 5 June 2015. The Singur Movement. Economic and Political Weekly. en. 55. 45. 7–8.