Nullification of citizenship: negotiating authority without identity documents in coastal Odisha, India

This paper discusses the case of a community of Bengali immigrant settlers along the coast of Odisha in India at the centre of a unique citizenship controversy. Families have arrived here gradually over the years since 1947, and have generally acquired a range of identity documents from Indian state agencies. These documents certify to a range of rights that signal social and political participation within India: land ownership, voting rights and the receipt of official welfare subsidies. With little warning, a 2005 order by the state government following a high court directive led to the production of a list of 1551 persons, declaring such persons as ‘infiltrators’. The list ostensibly comprises those who have entered India illegally after 1971 or born to parents who entered illegally. While no deportation, as originally intended, has taken place, the nullification of their various documents of citizenship has created a void in their lives. This paper examines the wider politics of the case, especially focusing on how those with nullified documents negotiate the authority of the local state and actors within their own society, and what this reveals about the ever contested nature of citizenship in post-partition India

Decentralised development: State practices from India's watershed development programme.

Decentralisation is now central in the theorisation and practice of contemporary government. Within the contemporary mainstream discourse, decentralisation is projected as a policy move to localise as well as reduce the domain of state intervention. This discourse is supported by the new institutionalist, communitarian and New Political Economy (NPE) theories. However, the concept of decentralisation, as underpinned by these theories, rests on highly questionable assumptions regarding the relationships between individuals, communities, markets and states. In the process of defining decentralisation simplistically, as 'less of state', the critical relationship between decentralisation and the state remains ill theorised. This is the principal problem addressed in the thesis. The particular context of study is India. The recent restructuring of the national Watershed Development Programme (NWDP), in 1994, encompasses the key issues confronting decentralisation in India today. The major elements of such policy reform embody familiar tensions between planning, politics and participation. Moreover, they appear to skirt panchayat reform, which has been long contested. In general, the 1994 watershed guidelines mirror the broader Indian development strategy, and bear a strong thrust towards viewing development apolitically. This is of consequence given the postcolonial context of development as the principal basis of state power in India. Based on empirical research in two Indian states, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, the thesis reveals a strong association between the extent to which development can be depoliticised, and the political context of decentralisation in each state. This context is informed by the contingent relationship between panchayat reform, bureaucratic reorganisation and participatory watershed development. The analysis shows how different actors engaged in programme implementation interpret the guidelines, and their development discourse, differently. In the process, they adapt ruling development ideas according to their own interests and institutional histories. The thesis argues that these are influenced by the prevailing political context of decentralisation. The principal conclusions thus establish the important relationship between decentralisation and the state. First, decentralisation can vitally impact the use of the development discourse as the basis for state power. Moreover, decentralisation increases the interface of the development discourse with regional and local actors, who shape the discourse further in innumerable new ways. Second, decentralisation reveals and enhances the disaggregated nature of the Indian state. The blurred boundaries between 'official', 'local' and 'popular' power contribute both to the fluidity of decentralisation processes, as well as their positive potential for change. Far from being 'less of state', as dominant theoretical positions might conclude, the thesis shows that decentralisation augments the many dimensions of the state, its power, authority, effectiveness and accessibility

The political prioritisation of welfare in India:comparing the Public Distribution System in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand

The idea of state responsibility for ensuring food security has gained ground, with strong popular mobilisations for the Right to Food around the world; but important variations prevail, both in the articulation of demands around food security interventions and in political responses to these. This paper takes a close look at India’s Public Distribution System, a programme with a long history and clear national-level, legislative backing, but considerable differences in prioritisation at the subnational level. Through an empirically rich and innovative comparison of Chhattisgarh with Jharkhand – both created at the same time, in 2000 – it asks why the opportunities afforded by statehood allowed Chhattisgarh to politically prioritise the PDS, but not Jharkhand. The paper finds that the explanation lies in the interrelated dimensions of political competition, the nature of pressures exerted by electorally significant societal groups, and political enablement of bureaucratic capacity. Finally, the analytical framework at the heart of the paper contributes to the emerging literature on the political conditions that allow the deployment of state capacity for the promotion of welfar

Preparing for a just transition away from coal: Proposal for a Closed Coalfield Land Rights and Restitution Act

The dominance of coal for Indian energy security might, finally, be about to reduce as increasing demands are made for a just transition to cleaner and more community-friendly forms of energy. Possibilities for mine-affected communities to take control of the coalfield lands that will become abandoned by the inevitable closure of coal are explored

The political prioritization of welfare in India: comparing the Public Distribution System in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand

The idea of state responsibility for ensuring food security has gained ground, with strong popular mobilizations for the Right to Food around the world; but important variations prevail, both in the articulation of demands around food security interventions and in political responses to these. This paper takes a close look at India’s Public Distribution System (PDS), a program with a long history and clear national-level, legislative backing, but considerable differences in prioritization at the subnational level. We focus on the unique paired comparison of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, both amongst the poorest regions in India and the world, which share the same moment of state creation in 2000 and ask why the opportunities afforded by statehood allowed Chhattisgarh to politically prioritize the PDS, but not Jharkhand. The paper finds that the explanation lies in the interrelated dimensions of political-electoral competition, the nature of pressures exerted by influential societal groups, and the developmental orientation of the political leadership and its enablement of bureaucratic capacity. This paper contributes to the emerging literature on the political conditions that allow the deployment of state capacity for the promotion of welfare in emerging welfare states. In doing so, the paper also seeks to advance the repertoire of conceptual tools available for understanding the expansion of social policy in varied institutional contexts across the Global South

Disaster Relief and the Indian State: Lessons for Just Citizenship

What does the giving and receiving of disaster relief say about a democratic state’s engagement with justice and its responsibilities towards its citizens? This is the question that motivates the following paper, where an attempt is made to characterise the “relief state” through the example of the Indian state’s response to the super-cyclone in 1999 in Odisha on the eastern coast of India, and more recently, the devastating floods of 2008. The paper interrogates the norms that guide the state in its relief role, as well as the strategies deployed by disaster victims to access such relief. It argues that the ‘relief relationship’ between states and victims, who are also citizens, complicates the idea of the nation-state as a provider of just citizenship. Guided by contemporaneous debates about justice, rights and citizenship in India, the paper observes that the moral stance adopted by citizens is as important to the realisation of citizenship and its benefits as the formal enshrinement of rights. Through an intensive discussion of the norms and practices of disaster relief, it concludes that victimhood is the moral content of how citizens engage with the state after a disaster