A short announcement for a book about which I can find almost no information: Shankar Gopalakrishnan, "A Mass Movement Against Democracy: The Threat of the Sangh Parivar" (New Delhi, India: Aakar Books, 2009):
http://aakarbooks.com/bookdetail.php?book_id=304
According to the publisher's website, "Shankar Gopalakrishnan is an activist of the Campaign for Survival and Dignity, a national platform of tribal and forest dweller mass organizations struggling for the rights of forest communities. He has written on forest policy, tribal rights, law development, communalism, Special Economic Zones and neoliberal economic policies. His academic training is in development studies and mathematics".
The book was published in association with the Society for Rural, Urban and Tribal Initiative (SRUTI) in New Delhi, on whose website I found only one reference to it: "Shankar Gopal has finalised the booklet [77 pages] on understanding the functioning of the Sangha parivar and its fascist programs". On the website of a university library in the US which acquired the book, it is described thus: "On the ideology of Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh, sociopolitical organization".
According to a quick online search, Rashtriya Swayam Sevak [or: Swayamsevak] Sangh (RSS) is a Hindu nationalist volunteer organization. Sangh Parivar denotes the family of more than thirty organizations, with millions of members, associated with the RSS, among them national unions of labourers, farmers, fishermen, teachers, students, artists, lawyers, and financial consultants, and the World Hindu Council, but also the BJP, the political party that led the National Democratic Alliance coalition government which ruled India between 1998 and 2004.
24 February 2010
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Hi, I tried to post earlier, but it did not go through for some reason. I am the author of this book. What would you like to know further about it? Many thanks,
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As there is no description or review to be found online regarding the content/argument of this book, feel free to share any information that may be useful for someone who is not from India to understand the context. Cheers
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