A. Gupta u.a. (Hrsg.): The State in India after Liberalization

Cover
Titel
The State In India after Liberalization. Interdisciplinary Perspectives


Herausgeber
Gupta, Akhil; Sivaramakrishnan, Kalyanakrishnan
Reihe
Routledge Contemporary South Asia Series
Erschienen
London 2010: Routledge
Anzahl Seiten
240 S.
Preis
€ 107,65
Rezensiert für H-Soz-Kult von
Dietmar Rothermund, Heidelberg

Most of the authors of this volume are social anthropologists, there are two political scientists among them and no economist. Therefore this volume does not highlight the agenda of economic growth but rather concentrates on the impact of neo-liberal reforms on the role of the state in a rapidly changing society. In the first essay Sudipta Kaviraj discusses „the enchantment of the state“ as it affects different sections of Indian society. The elite is attached to the state because it ensures its control of society, but the masses of the poor are also attached to it, because they look to it for the improvement of their situation. The persistent legitimacy of the state is to a large extent due to this paradox. The second essay, contributed by Aseema Sinha, surveys the institutions of the post-liberalization state. She is dissatisfied with earlier discussions of the soft and the strong state or the „failed development state“ and wants to build a relational model of the state in the policy process. She selects industrial policy in this context. Whereas under Nehru industrial policy was centralized, liberalization has increased the influence of the federal states, the more so as coalition governments included ministers representing regional parties.

The second part of the book on „Citizens, sociality and association“ contains contributions by Aradhana Sharma and John Harris. Sharma discusses the empowerment of women’s organizations and Harris deals with associations in Chennai. The third part is devoted to the experience of poverty. Anirudh Krishna deals with „poverty knowledge“ in terms of a stages-of-progress methodology, tracing step by step in which way people are able to get out of poverty but also documenting the stages of „falling into poverty“. The study is based on a large sample and ends with the sobering conclusion that over a period of 25 years there is a positive balance of only 3 per cent. For those „falling into poverty“ the hazard of illness is the most important cause for becoming poor. This is confirmed by the field research of Patricia and Roger Jefferry in Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh. They show that due to liberalization the state has withdrawn from providing health care which is left to private entrepreneurs who charge high fees but do not always provide reliable treatment as official supervision has also declined.

In the fourth part which deals with „law, identity and rights“ Narendra Subramanian discusses Muslim law reform and Nandini Sundar reports on law-struggles concerning landed property and land acquisition procedures. With the establishment of Special Economic Zones after liberalization this has become a burning issue. Both essays highlight „legal mobilization“. This mobilization is due to a convergence of agitation by those concerned and the response of the judiciary. Laws may not always reflect this mobilization, but their interpretation by the judges often shows surprising adjustments. The payment of alimony to divorced Muslim women is a case in point. Conservative Muslim opinion had insisted that in Islamic law the provision of dower (meher) takes care of the claims of divorced women. Judgments concerning the provision of alimony based on secular laws were therefore rejected. However, meher settled at the time of marriage is usually only of symbolic significance. After acrimonious debates even conservative Muslims seem to have asquiesced in more equitable provisions of permanent alimony under the pressure of „legal mobilization“. In Nandini Sundar’s contribution „legal mobilization“ manifests itself in a „rights-based refashioning of the public sphere from below“. She refers to struggles concerning land rights in Jharkhand as well as forest rights claimed by tribal people. She concludes that „law-struggles“ are becoming an increasingly important part of Indian democracy in the post-liberalized phase.

The last part of the book includes two essays on rather different phenomena. Under the headline „The terms of trade“ Kriti Kapila discusses the fate of the Gaddis, a community of nomadic shepherds in Himachal Pradesh, whereas Purnima Mankekar describes the process of „Becoming entrepreneurial subjects“ by portraying the behaviour of young people in the call centers of Indian cities. The Gaddis used to sell their wool mostly to the Khadi Bhandar in Jalandhar, following a „Gandhian commodity-chain“ as Kapila calls it. Under WTO-rules India had to open its borders and import foreign wool. When a disease in New Zealand led to the culling of sheep and a surge of cheap wool imports in India ruined the Gaddis, they suffered a blow from which they could not recover. They then intensified their campaign for being recognized as a Schedule Tribe. In this they were successful. But this meant that they changed from entrepreneurs to people who claimed government support for their maintenance – an odd consequence of liberalization. The young people studied by Mankekar are by contrast rather resourceful in the new world opened up by liberalization. They flock to the call centers in increasing numbers and are adept at „impersonation“ – mimicking an American accent, adopting new names and trying to make their customers believe that they answer their call from a nearby town. Mankekar is interested in this new life style of shifting identities and finds evidence for it also in a Hindi film „Bunty aur Babbli“ which shows the exploits of two young people who leave their small hometown and embark on a career of impersonation and makebelief.

The contributions to this volume provide a colourful panorama of life in „liberalized“ India. The state is not always directly visible in these contributions, but the changed conditions of political life in the „new“ India are well illustrated by all those who have summed up their interesting field work in this publication.