Re-framing Democracy and Agency in India

Description

A critical unpacking of the concept of political society, illustrated by case studies from across India.

‘Re-framing Democracy and Agency in India: Interrogating Political Society’ critically unpacks the concept of ‘political society’, which was formulated as a response to the idea of civil society in the postcolonial context. The volume’s case studies, drawn from across India and combined with a sharp focus on the concept of political society, provide those interested in Indian democracy and its changing patterns with an indispensable collection of works, brought together in their common pursuit of highlighting the limitations of different core concepts as formulated by Chatterjee. Centred around five themes – the relation between the civil and the political; the role of middlemen and their impact on the mobility of subaltern groups; elites and leadership; the fragmentation and intra-subaltern conflicts and their implications for subaltern agency; and the idea of moral claims and moral community – this volume re-frames issues of democracy and agency in India within a wider scope than has ever been published before, and gathers ideas from some of the foremost scholars in the field. The volume concludes with a rejoinder from Partha Chatterjee.

1. Introduction: Why Interrogate Political Society? – Ajay Gudavarthy; Part I: Political Society and Protest Politics; 2. Political Society in a Capitalist World – Swagato Sarkar; 3. Antinomies of Political Society – Implications of Uncivil Development – Ajay Gudavarthy and G. Vijay; 4. Civil Society and the Urban Poor – Supriya RoyChowdhury; 5. Contentious Politics and Civil Society in Varanasi – Jolie M. F. Wood; 6. The Politics of a Political Society – Ranabir Samaddar; Part II: Political Society, Middlemen and Mobility; 7. The Pyraveekar: The ‘Fixer’ in Rural India – G. Ram Reddy and G. Haragopal; 8. Politics of Middlemen and Political Society – Stuart Corbridge, Glyn Williams, Manoj Srivastava and René Véron; 9. Widows’ Organizations in Kerala State, India: Seeking Citizenship amidst the Decline of Political Society – J. Devika and A. K. Rajasree; Part III: Civil Society and/or Political Society; 10. Clubbing Together: Village Clubs, Local NGOs and the Mediations of Political Society – Tom Harrison; 11. Civic Anxieties and Dalit Democratic Culture: Balmikis in Delhi – Omar Kutty; 12. The Habits of the Political Heart: Recovering Politics from Governmentality – Aparna Sundar and Nandini Sundar; 13. Civil Society in the East and Some Dark Thoughts about the Prospects of Political Society – Sanjeeb Mukherjee; Part IV: Rejoinder; 14. The Debate over Political Society – Partha Chatterjee

Subjects

• Books
• Actualité et débat de société
• Politics

Informations

• Published by: Anthem Press
• Published: 01 March 2012
• Reads: 0
• EAN13: 9780857289469
• Language: English
• Document size: 1 MB

Exrait

Re-framing Democracy and Agency in India

Re-framing Democracy and Agency in India

Interrogating Political Society

Edited by Ajay Gudavarthy

Anthem Press An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company www.anthempress.com

This edition rst published in UK and USA 2012 by ANTHEM PRESS 75-76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK and 244 Madison Ave. #116, New York, NY 10016, USA

© 2012 Ajay Gudavarthy editorial matter and selection; individual chapters © individual contributors

The moral right of the authors has been asserted.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

British Library CataloguinginPublication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data Re-framing democracy and agency in India : interrogating political society / edited by Ajay Gudavarthy. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-85728-350-4 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. DemocracyIndia. 2. Political participationIndia. 3. Civil societyIndia. 4. PostcolonialismIndia. I. Gudavarthy, Ajay. JQ281.R43 2012 320.954dc23 2012000946

ISBN-13: 978 0 85728 350 4 (Hbk) ISBN-10: 0 85728 350 2 (Hbk)

This title is also available as an eBook.

To K. Balagopal, in remembrance of his extraordinary life

Preface and Acknowledgements List of Tables

C

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TEN

TS

Chapter 1 Introduction: Why Interrogate Political Society?  Ajay Gudavarthy

Part I: Political Society and Protest Politics Chapter 2 Political Society in a Capitalist World  Swagato Sarkar Chapter 3 Antinomies of Political Society  Implications of Uncivil Development Ajay Gudavarthy and G. Vijay Chapter 4 Civil Society and the Urban Poor Supriya RoyChowdhury Chapter 5 Contentious Politics and Civil Society in Varanasi  Jolie M. F. Wood Chapter 6 The Politics of a Political Society  Ranabir Samaddar

Part II: Political Society, Middlemen and Mobility Chapter 7 ThePyraveekar: The Fixer in Rural India  G. Ram Reddy and G. Haragopal Chapter 8 Politics of Middlemen and Political Society  Stuart Corbridge, Glyn Williams, Manoj Srivastava and René Véron Chapter 9 Widows Organizations in Kerala State, India: Seeking Citizenship amidst the Decline of Political Society  J. Devika and A. K. Rajasree

ix xi

1

31

49

73

93

125

155

171

201

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RE-FRAMING DEMOCRACY AND AGENCY IN INDIA

Part III: Civil Society and/or Political Society Chapter 10 Clubbing Together: Village Clubs, Local NGOs and the Mediations of Political Society  Tom Harrison Chapter 11 Civic Anxieties and Dalit Democratic Culture: Balmikis in Delhi  Omar Kutty Chapter 12 The Habits of the Political Heart: Recovering Politics from Governmentality Aparna SundarandNandini Sundar Chapter 13 Civil Society in the East and Some Dark Thoughts about the Prospects of Political Society  Sanjeeb Mukherjee

Part IV: Rejoinder

Chapter 14

The Debate over Political Society Partha Chatterjee

List of Contributors

235

253

269

289

305

323

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Political society, as formulated by Partha Chatterjee, has undoubtedly been a very inuential concept which scholars across continents have found useful for framing issues of power and politics, in post-colonial contexts. My initial thoughts on reading the subtitle of Chatterjees Reections on Popular Politics in Most of the World was to regard its claims to represent most of the world as rather exaggerated. I must confess, h owever, that I have hence revised my opinion after having discovered that scholars in Africa and Latin America were nding it extremely instructive and were carrying out intense eldwork based on the insights and formulations by Chatterjee. Given that the nature of debate in India too has been both engaging and critical of the idea of political society, I decided to put together a selection of articles by scholars who have been part of this debate. These articles, as the reader will realize, cover theoretical aspects, both implicit and explicit, and test the concept empirically with their bases in intensive eldwork. The articles also cover a diverse range of regions, bringing into relief the diversity and complexity of the political processes in India. This complexity, I hope, will enable the readers to better comprehend the process of democratization in post-colonial contexts, in general, and in India, in particular. This volume would not have been possible without the support of my colleagues, who willingly contributed to the volume. I am thankful to each of them for sparing me the experience of endlessly chasing authors and trying to exhibit patience in the process! Putting together the papers has been a thoroughly enjoyable and academically ful lling journey. I owe a special thanks to my colleague, Gurpreet Mahajan, who took special interest in the project. Apart from bene ting from her many engaging discussions, I also found her close reading of the introduction and suggestions extremely useful. My deep-felt thanks to Partha Chatterjee for accepting to contribute to the volume and so generously taking out time for it. His academic spirit and deep belief in opening and nurturing a dialogue is quintessentially a political act (increasingly a rarity), which appreciates and has a foresight for common concerns, even when there is disagreement in the immediate context.

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RE-FRAMING DEMOCRACY AND AGENCY IN INDIA

Acknowledgement of volume:

earlier publications that have been reprinted in this

1.Ajay Gudavarthy and G. Vijay, Antinomies of Political Society  Implications of Uncivil Development. Reprinted from theEconomic and Political Weekly42, no. 29 (2007): 305160. 2. Ranabir Samaddar, The Politics of a Political Society. Originally published as chapter 3 of his bookThe Materiality of Politics: Volume 2, Subject Positions in Politics(Delhi: Anthem Press, 2007), 10739. 3. G. Ram Reddy and G. Haragopal, ThePyraveekar: The Fixer in Rural India. Reprinted fromAsian Survey25, no. 11 (1985): 114862. 4. Stuart Corbridge, Glyn Williams, Manoj Srivastava and René Véron, Politics of Middlemen and Political Society. Originally published as Political Society (chapter 6) in their bookSeeing the State: Governance and Governmentality in India(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 188217. 5. Sanjeeb Mukherjee, Civil Society in the East, and Some Dark Thoughts about the Prospects of Political Society. Originally published as Civil Society in the East and the Prospects of Political Society inEconomic and Political Weekly45, no. 5 (2010): 5764.