Arthaniti

Arthaniti

Architect of A Philosophy

Deendayal Upadhyaya was the rare combination of an activist, a thinker philosopher and an ideologue. The concept of 'Integral Humanism' propounded by Deendayal Upadhyaya embodies the essence of human unity and development. The entire political history of Post Independence period needs to be properly recorded. Whenever such a history is written it would further raise the contribution of Deendayal Upadhyaya. What makes us proud as an Indian is Pt Deendayal's philosophy of Ekatma Manavwad or integral humanism and the same is evident in his political, social and cultural ideology. As a political ideologue he had firm belief in the slogan of Janasangh- Ek Desh Me Do Vidhan - Nahi Chalega Ek Desh Me Do Pradhan - Nahi Chalega Ek Desh Me Do Nishan - Nahi Chalega He advocated unitary form of government which envisages one centre but he always favoured decentralisation to the lowest unit of administration. His idea of infinite spiral unitary State put centre at the top and province, Janapad, Block, Village and Panchayat below it. Similarly distribution of financial powers should be such that the lowest tier of administration, viz. village Panchayat must have some autonomy.

The Sociology of Greed

The Sociology of Greed examines crises in financial institutions such as banks from the vantage point of the greed of the people at their helm. It offers an intensive analysis of the banking crises under the conditions of colonial capitalism in early twentieth-century Bengal that led to institutional and social collapse. Breaking new ground, the book looks at the moral economy of capitalism and money culture by focusing on the victims of banking crises, hitherto unexplored in Western empirical research. Through sociological analyses of political economy, it seamlessly combines archival records, survey and statistical data with literary narratives, realist fiction and performing arts to recount how the greed of bank owners and managers ruined their institutions as well as common people. It argues that greed turns perilous when the state and the market facilitate its agency, and it examines the contexts and histories, the indifference of the fledgling colonial state, feeble political response, and the consequences for those who were impacted and the losses, especially the refugees, the lower-middle class and women. The volume also re-composes relevant elements of Western sociological scholarship from classical theories to early twenty-first-century financial sociology. An insightful account of the social history of banking in India, this book will greatly interest researchers and scholars in sociology, economics, history and cultural studies.