In his essay, ‘Wealth and Welfare’, Rabindranath says, Property is [the] medium for the expression of our personality…. “Our highest social training is to make our property the richest expression of the best in us, of that which is universal, of our individuality whose greatest illumination is love. As individuals are the units that build the community, so property is the unit of wealth that makes for communal prosperity when it is alive to its function. Our wisdom lies not in destroying separateness of units, but in maintaining the spirit of unity in its full strength.’ [1]. 623- 624, 1930)
We can apply this passage to the current situation where the super-rich who possess most of the world’s wealth, are busy increasing their property and profits at the cost of the majority, oblivious to the universal human values that consolidate a society, relying on love of and concern for all humanity. This has led to the rights of the majority being eroded by a new code of practice which gnaws away at the very foundations of community, eschewing the spirit of unity that would assure a cohesive society thriving on a sense of social justice that has social welfare as not just its mission, but its core value.
In recent times, the whole idea of a just distribution of wealth and welfare that was seen as a necessary criterion to build societies in Europe after World War II, has been brushed aside as untenable for the 1% who possess and control most of the world’s assets. They are responsible for creating the fissures in society which continue to grow into unhealable gashes, as a new class of insecure workers is forced into being and their numbers continue to increase at an incredible rate, as they are affected by policies framed by employers of big manufacturing firms and business houses, having free rein under governments who work closely with finance…
[1] Rabindranath Tagore, ‘Wealth and Welfare’ (1930), in Sisir Kumar Das, Ed., The English Writings of
Rabindranath Tagore, (Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1996, rpt. 2012) Vol III, A Miscellany, 623-625, pp. 623-624.
Issue 8 – Summer 2023
Cover Page
Download
Title Page
Editorial Board and Advisory Board
Contents
Foreword
Bashabi Fraser – Precarious Lives, Uncertain Futures 1
1. Broken Lives: Politics and Affect in the Semiotics of Untouchability – Sofia Cavalcanti 8
2. Precarious Mechanisms in Ravi Subramanian’s Novel Don’t Tell the Governor – Monali Chatterjee 41
3. Precariat, Precariousness, Precarity: A Linguistic Analysis of Insecurity of Life and Employment – Laura Diamanti 60
4. Techno-Commercialism and Loss of Humanity: An Apocalyptic Vision of the Cannibalistic Future in Manjula Padmanabhan’s Play Harvest – Sachin Namdeo Gadekar 84
5. Boundaries and Belonging: A View from Athens – Vasiliki Gavra 102
6. Ecological Crises and Sociological Gesellschaft/Gemeinschaft in the Literary Representations of Migrant Pastoralist Community of the Indian Western Frontier – Yamini Anish Shah 118
Editors of the Special Issue 130
Contributors 132
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