ABOUT THIS BOOK
Hidden behind the much-touted success story of India’s emergence as an economic superpower is another, far more complex narrative of the nation’s recent history, one in which economic development is frequently countered by profoundly unsettling, and often violent, political movements. In Democracy against Development, Jeffrey Witsoe investigates this counter-narrative, uncovering an antagonistic relationship between recent democratic mobilization and development-oriented governance in India.
Witsoe looks at the history of colonialism in India and its role in both shaping modern caste identities and linking locally powerful caste groups to state institutions, which has effectively created a postcolonial patronage state. He then looks at the rise of lower-caste politics in one of India’s poorest and most populous states, Bihar, showing how this increase in democratic participation has radically threatened the patronage state by systematically weakening its institutions and disrupting its development projects. By depicting democracy and development as they truly are in India—in tension—Witsoe reveals crucial new empirical and theoretical insights about the long-term trajectory of democratization in the larger postcolonial world.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Democracy and the Politics of Caste
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226063508.003.0000
[Postcolonial, Democracy, Development, Hegemony]
The introduction frames the central questions that the book addresses - how should we understand lower caste politics, and what does lower caste politics reveal about Indian democracy - and, in doing so, introduces the theoretical framework that the book develops. (pages 1 - 22)
Chapter 1. State Formation, Caste Formation, and the Emergence of a Lower- Caste Politics
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226063508.003.0001
[State Formation, Caste Association, Other Backward Classes (OBC), Bihar, Lohia, Jayprakash]
Chapter 1 begins with a historical account of movements for caste empowerment that are crucial for understanding lower caste politics in contemporary India, revealing why caste identities became so important to democratic practice. This chapter begins by examining the caste movements that emerged in response to the use of caste categories within colonial administration and the salience of caste divisions within the agrarian economy. It then turns to what became known as the “backward classes” (or “backward caste”) movement that emerged as a response to contradictions within the Congress party’s ruling alliance, and that remained an understudied but pivotal undercurrent that emerged with full force from the 1990s. Unlike the more narrow aims of the late colonial caste movements to raise their own caste status without fundamentally challenging a colonial state that was perpetuating caste inequalities, the leaders of the “backward caste” movement sought to utilize caste-based democratic mobilizations in order to catalyst widespread societal transformation. In fact, the leaders of the backward caste movement saw themselves as pursuing the revolutionary aims of a democratic socialism adapted to Indian conditions, necessitating a focus on caste instead of class. (pages 23 - 50)
Chapter 2. Lalu Yadav’s Bihar: An Incomplete Revolution
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226063508.003.0002
[Lalu Yadav, Rabri Devi, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Social Justice, Corruption, Mandal]
Chapter 2 turns to the political project of caste-based “social justice” that Lalu Yadav’s and his wife’s governments in Bihar pursued for fifteen years. This chapter examines what occurred when militant lower caste leaders — who emerged from the “backward caste” movement described in the previous chapter — captured the reins of power. Lalu Yadav succeeded in mobilizing millions of lower caste people through his rhetoric of “social justice,” politicizing everyday social relations and creating the appearance for his supporters that, after centuries of upper caste hegemony, it was now their government. The incessant conflicts between the Janata Dal government and the Bihar bureaucracy, the media, the central government in Delhi, and public institutions such as the Election Commission and the Central Bureau of Investigation highlighted the ways in which the electoral success of lower caste politicians generated intense conflict between various state institutions. This continuing opposition, combined with internal contradictions that progressively emerged within Lalu’s lower-caste support base, meant that Lalu’s democratic revolution ultimately remained partial and incomplete. (pages 51 - 78)
Chapter 3. Caste in the State: Division and Conflict within the Bihar Government
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226063508.003.0003
[Bureaucracy, Reservations, The State, Cooperatives, Municipal politics]
Chapter 3 examines the particular mode of governance that resulted as politicians clashed with bureaucrats and many state institutions were systematically weakened and replaced by shadowy political networks. Drawing from interviews conducted with senior bureaucrats in Patna, and many hours that spent in government offices, this chapter explores the often-tense relationship among members of different state institutions in Bihar. The tension between a top-down vision of development largely implemented by bureaucrats and a populist democracy reflecting political change from below is highlighted. As politicians from backward caste backgrounds came increasingly to dominate the legislature as well as the political leadership of the state government, there was inevitable conflict with a postcolonial bureaucracy still dominated by officials with upper-caste backgrounds. Unable to dislodge upper caste influence, the RJD government allowed many state institutions to collapse, resulting in sharply curtailed public expenditures, the deterioration of public services, and a weakened police force unable to check a surge in criminality. (pages 79 - 108)
Chapter 4. Caste, Regional Politics, and Territoriality
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226063508.003.0004
[Elections, Bhojpur, Criminatlity, Regional Politics]
Chapter 4 explores the ways in which the larger political developments described in the first two chapters play out within sites of regional political practice. In particular, the chapter explores political practice within Koilwar, a site of block-level (a unit of approximately 100 villages) administration and center of regional politics in Bhojpur district. This chapter examines the ways in which different caste identities are used within electoral practice and relate to local struggles over control of territory. The second part of the chapter examines the events of the 2004 parliamentary elections as they played out within Koilwar and Rajnagar village as a further example of the ways in which electoral practice relates to local territorial contexts, and especially the crucial site of the polling booth. Since the practice of party politics is intertwined with relations of dominance and subordination in local sites, representation is not primarily about “representing” constituents’ interests through legislation or policy formulation, but about determining the very contours of regional and local power. This chapter shows the ways in which elections determine which groups control village and regional territorial spaces, a dynamic highlighted by the prevalence of “mafia” politicians in Bihar. (pages 109 - 139)
Chapter 5. A Multiple Village: Caste Divisions, Democratic Practice, and Territorialities
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226063508.003.0005
[Village Politics, Village Ethnography, Caste Relations]
Chapter 5 explores the crucial relationship between caste and grassroots support for political parties within the context of Rajnagar, a village where the author lived and conducted research. The author explores the ways in which this relationship is grounded within the particular spatial context of the village and how this village context is crucial for an understanding of the ways in which democratic practice plays out in Bihar. Political developments of the last fifteen years have undermined the long-standing domination of the Rajput landlords in Rajnagar, resulting in the proliferation of multiple centers of power in the village. In order to understand the local dynamics of lower caste politics, the divergent experiences of people situated in very different positions within the socio-political geography of the village are explored, providing a sense of the ways in which different people interpret the political change that has occurred. (pages 140 - 167)
Chapter 6. A Multiple Caste: Intra-caste Divisions and the Contradictions of Development
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226063508.003.0006
[Caste, Class, Development, Migration]
Chapter 6 extends the analysis of the previous chapter to examine Yadav villagers in Rajnagar, a large group of people who represent themselves to outsiders as a homogenous community, especially during elections, but that are divided into three very different groups who have rather limited social interaction with one another in day-to-day life. The chapter explores the ways in which political and economic changes of the last fifteen years have differentially affected different sections of Yadav villagers in Rajnagar. This allows an investigation of the class dimension of caste politics. In doing so, the relationship between state institutions, caste dominance and the village economy is examined, revealing the ways in which a breakdown of the institutions of state-directed development provided space for the expansion of lower caste economic activities. The chapter both demonstrates the ways in which homogenous caste identities are constructed through democratic practice, and also the ways in which the practice of democracy can have very real material impacts. (pages 168 - 185)
Chapter 7. The Fall of Lalu Yadav and the Meaning of Lower-Caste Politics
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226063508.003.0007
[Nitish Kumar, National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Lalu Yadav, Rabri Devi, Bihar Postcolonial, Democracy]
The concluding chapter briefly examines the fall of the RJD and the remarkable changes that have occurred since the fall of Lalu Yadav’s RJD government in 2005. It is argued that this electoral outcome resulted from a fragmentation of the RJD’s lower caste support, as lower caste groups that did not receive the full benefits of Lalu Yadav’s “backward caste” government were mobilized for the first time. Far from marking an end to the politics of caste, in some ways the election reflected a “deepening” of lower caste politics to previously marginalized groups – although this was accomplished through an alliance with upper castes that could be viewed as regressive. The final sections tie together the argument and reflects on what lower caste politics can teach us about the experience of democracy in India and what this means for understanding postcolonial democracy. (pages 186 - 204)
Notes
Reference List
Index
