Faculty of Asian Studies

India was one of the leading countries to implement the initial lockdown to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, but still, the lockdown failed and within a few months, India joined the list of countries most affected by the coronavirus epidemic. Why did this transpire? What were the reasons abaft this? Where did the Indian government miss? This manuscript endeavors to study the lacunae in the lockdown plans of the Indian Government and highlights the mistakes committed by the Government which caused the lockdown in India to fail and further exposed the domestic migrant laborers to unbearable difficulties. The manuscript argues that the fundamental and economic rights bestowed upon the domestic migrant workers and other laborers under labor laws and the Indian constitution were breached extensively during the lockdown and that the state’s policies during the lockdown worsened the condition of the domestic migrant workers.

India was one of the leading countries to implement the initial lockdown to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, but still, the lockdown failed and within a few months, India joined the list of countries most affected by the coro- navirus epidemic. Why did this transpire? What were the reasons abaft this? Where did the Indian government miss? This manuscript endeavors to study the lacunae in the lockdown plans of the Indian Government and highlights the mistakes committed by the Government which caused the lockdown in India to fail and further exposed the domestic migrant laborers to unbearable difficulties. The manuscript argues that the fundamental and economic rights bestowed upon the domestic migrant workers and other laborers under labor laws and the Indian constitution were breached extensively during the lockdown and that the state’s policies during the lockdown worsened the condition of the domestic migrant workers.

The politics of representation for contested space within Sikkim started much before it became a federal unit of India in 1975. Even in the monarchical era, attempts were made to accommodate various ethnic groups in the State Council with a focus on balanced policy formulation. This chapter focuses on the politics of tribalization and conflict for the contested space. The demand for the inclusion of 11 communities has been raised once again in recent times under Article 342 of the Constitution. This chapter also highlights the political dynamics of the state, the much-debated historic blunder in the decisions of the state categorizing 60 percent of the population (11 communities) as OBCs or in the General category.

This manuscript aims to provide a nuanced study of the idea of rights and duties prevalent in ancient Védic society through Védic literature and Dharmas ́a ̄stras. This manuscript delves into the exegesis of the Védas and Dharmas ́a ̄stras to accomplish this. The archaic Védic literature and Dharmas ́a ̄stra texts are the origin and backbone of Sanskrit literature. They have a plethora of ideas that, if accepted, could be quite useful for the protection of any person’s human rights. In the Védas and Dharmas ́a ̄stras, rights and duties complement each other, and rights are integrated with duties. According to these texts, rights and duties are correlated and the relationship between rights and duties leads to the core concept of dhárma (constitutional laws). Dhárma is a systematic Sanskrit concept that includes traditions, obligations, morals, laws, order, and justice. It was a unique concept of dhárma that kept checks and balances on sovereign officials and prevented them from becoming autocratic and anarchist. It also provided the common man with a protective shield against the dictatorship of sovereign officials. Ordinary citizens had more privileges and fewer responsibilities relative to the state’s highest officials. The greater the authority, the less his privileges were, and the more extensive his responsibilities became. This research is an exegetical analysis of ancient Indian Védic and later Védic literature and is primarily aimed at deciphering some of the essential ideas about rights found in these texts, which are akin to contemporary human rights. It endeavours to discern and explain the tenets of human rights obnubilated in the pristine mantras of the ancient Védic and Smr.ti texts of India. The essay further attempts to add a much-needed non-western perspective to the historiography of human rights.