The Indian State in a Liberalising Landscape

There has been much discussion recently on the 'great Indian land grab', i.e., the acquisition of fertile land by the government, and the handing over of this to large-scale industry. What do these ongoing land transfers tell us about the nature of the Indian state? To engage with prevalent views about state withdrawal from the economic sphere, or its reconstitution as a regulatory entity, this paper builds a picture of the state in a liberalising landscape based on empirical evidence. It outlines the role of the state in Gujarat province, during a transfer of 30 square kilometres of forest and coastal land to a cement manufacturing and exporting operation 'Karkhana Ltd'. The case of land liberalisation illustrated by the experience of Karkhana does not evince a state in withdrawal. Nor do we witness a regulatory state that watches a changing economy from the legal and coercive sidelines. As the normative legitimator of liberalisation, a buffer in the contentious politics of land, and as an institutional promoter of and manoeuvrer through the new land regime, India's state is central to the liberalising landscape.

Secularism and the Gujarat state: 1960-2005

Secularism has been a defining norm for the modern, liberal Indian state. The constitutionally secular Gujarat state is believed to have undergone a paradigmatic shift in 2002, when it supported a massacre of Muslim citizens. This essay investigates the empirical as well as normative state in situations of inter-religious violence. It traces the journey of the secular norm over a 45-year period, in the context of contests over identity, political ideology and socio-political dominance. The picture that emerges is much more nuanced than that projected by stark pronouncements of paradigm shifts and the inauguration of a Hindu rashtra.

Narrowing possibilities of stateness: The case of land in Gujarat

This paper investigates the transformation of the Indian state from a stance of developmental interventionism towards increasing support for economic liberalisation. The definitional dilemma of 'the state' is resolved by constructing a conceptual map. This portrays the state as an idea, a system of government and as embedded in politics. The map forms the template for undertaking an empirical exploration. Ongoing changes in land policy in Gujarat provide a case study. Ostensibly, the state's position has shifted from the active promotion of 'land to the tiller' to an ongoing disengagement from a liberalising landscape. However, re-evaluating this scenario against a multi-layered conceptual map leads to conclusions against the grain of existing perceptions. State ideas of land serving the greater common good have continued into the post-liberalisation era, as has the petty land administration's proprietariness, expressed in reluctance to fast track land transactions. At the same time powerful, alternative sets of ideas and institutional actions have come to the fore. These urge rapid land liberalisation to foster industrialisation, and have been promoted by the highest bureaucratic and political echelons. While the high state - big business alliance is neither new nor the only feature of the state today, it is perhaps the one with the most significant politico-economic consequences. This alliance represents not a homogenised pro liberalisation or pro big business state but one in which other possibilities of stateness have narrowed. The narrowing of the possibilities of action within the still interventionist and dynamic state mark the liberalising landscape.

Land-making as state-making

The relationship between land and the state is co-productive. As the state makes the land, it is also shaped by this land-making in turn. In the recent history of the global South, land-making as state-making implicated the colonial state. This state controlled land and made the inhabitants of the land its subjects. Later, the postcolonial modernizing state sought to transform land in keeping with its developmental vision, in tandem with societal elites. The elite appropriation of the development project was furthered under economic liberalization, with global capital being promoted in zoned development on once-sovereign land. Yet, land-making as state-making cannot be read only from the perspective of the formal, high state. Thus, the chapter also highlights land-making as state-making from below. It shows aspirational intermediaries in land inserting themselves in contemporary land-making projects in field sites in western India. In the process, these middlemen who are on the edges of informalized authority broaden the domains of the state, and also of access to land. They assert their subjecthood through the continual making and re-making of the socially embedded state via multi-dimensional land. Amid the climate crisis, this is an argument for appreciating mutuality between humans and nature across space, scales, and time

Gurjarat : From developmental state to Hindu Rashtra

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Constructing and Contesting a Gujarati-Hindu Ethno-religious Identity Through Development Programmes in an Indian Province

Through a case study of Hindu nationalism in India, this paper explores how development programmes serve as the site of construction of, as well as contestation over, religious identity. The participation of low-caste Dalits and tribal Adivasis in the mass violence perpetrated against Muslims in the Indian province of Gujarat in 2002 conveyed the impression that Hindu nationalists had achieved one of their key objectives of creating “Hindu unity”. Cutting across social and status divisions in the local Hindu population, the Hindu nationalist party's constituency today includes its traditional upper-caste supporters, as well as lower castes. While “the other” in the Hindu nationalist conception of community included Dalits and Adivasis as well as Muslims and Christians until the mid-1980s, the recent “Hindu unity” agenda has seen the boundaries of “the other” closing in around Muslims and Christians only. Despite these developments, this paper argues, continuing attempts at the construction of a unified ethno-religious identity are circumscribed and complicated by processes of contestation. Through village-level research, it shows how government actors are involved in simultaneous processes of construction as well as contestation over a Gujarati-Hindu identity through development programmes.

Governing India's land

Under conditions of market-orientation and globalization, land is being transferred from agriculture and common property uses, to corporate farming, private industry, and the service sector. How are intra- and international land transactions governed? Using the case of India, this paper emphasizes the sub-national scale. Fieldwork in Gujarat, West Bengal, and Tamil Nadu reveals States to be competing with each other to attract private investment. Yet, given institutional and political variation, their land provision ranges from attempted market-friendly policy change, to narrower state–business alliances. It is time for scholarship and resultant policy recommendations to look beyond the national and global scales.Copyright 2014 Elsevier Ltd. This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in World Development. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in World Development, VOL 60, (August 2014) which may be available through the publisher's copy link on this page

Governing India's land

Under conditions of market-orientation and globalization, land is being transferred from agriculture and common property uses, to corporate farming, private industry, and the service sector. How are intra- and international land transactions governed? Using the case of India, this paper emphasizes the sub-national scale. Fieldwork in Gujarat, West Bengal, and Tamil Nadu reveals States to be competing with each other to attract private investment. Yet, given institutional and political variation, their land provision ranges from attempted market-friendly policy change, to narrower state–business alliances. It is time for scholarship and resultant policy recommendations to look beyond the national and global scales.</p