Biswamoy Pati

Bio: Biswamoy Pati is an academic researcher from University of Delhi. The author has contributed to research in topics: Colonialism & Social history. The author has an hindex of 8, co-authored 37 publications receiving 250 citations. Previous affiliations of Biswamoy Pati include University of Calcutta.

Understanding Communal Violence-Nizamuddin Riots

Abstract: Understanding Communal Violence Nizamuddin Riots Pradip Datta, Biswamoy Pati, Sumit Sarkar, Tanika Sarkar, Sambuddha Sen Secular and progressive forces have employed fairly well established explanations for communal violence. At the operative level it is seen as the handiwork of criminals assisted by the communalised law and order machinery. At a more generalised level it is seen as distorted class struggle. Consequently the masses and the elite are exempted from complicity and communalism is always located as an exterior force. This study of the communal tension that erupted in Nizamuddin in south Delhi on March 17 this year, extending the geographical scope of its investigation beyond the locality itself questions the adequacy of the conventional reading in comprehending the phenomenon.

A Global Perspective: Reframing the History of Health, Medicine, and Disease.

Abstract: The emergence of global history has been one of the more notable features of academic history over the past three decades. Although historians of disease were among the pioneers of one of its earlier incarnations—world history—the recent “global turn” has made relatively little impact on histories of health, disease, and medicine. Most continue to be framed by familiar entities such as the colony or nation-state or are confined to particular medical “traditions.” This article aims to show what can be gained from taking a broader perspective. Its purpose is not to replace other ways of seeing or to write a new “grand narrative” but to show how transnational and transimperial approaches are vital to understanding some of the key issues with which historians of health, disease, and medicine are concerned. Moving on from an analysis of earlier periods of integration, the article offers some reflections on our own era of globalization and on the emerging field of global health.

Class, gender and the sweatshop: on the nexus between labour commodification and exploitation

Abstract: Drawing on approaches to class emphasising the multiplicity of labour relations at work under capitalism, and from feminist insights on oppression and social reproduction, this paper illustrates the interconnection between processes of class formation and patriarchal norms in globalised production circuits. The analysis emphasises the nexus between the commodification and exploitation of women’s labour, and how it structures gendered wage differentials, labour control and the high ‘disposability’ of women’s work. The analysis develops these arguments by exploring the case of the Indian garment industry and its gendered sweatshop regime. It illustrates how commodification and exploitation interplay in factory and home-based realms, and discusses how an approach on class premised on social reproduction changes the social perimeters of what we understand as labour ‘unfreedom’ and labour struggles.