Kenneth Bo Nielsen

Contesting India’s Development? Industrialisation, Land Acquisition and Protest in West Bengal

Since 2006 Singur in West Bengal has been the centre of a controversy over land acquisition for a Tata Motors car manufacturing unit. A local rural movement challenging the land acquisition soon attracted the support of various activist groups and political parties from across India, and in late 2008 it succeeded in forcing Tata Motors to abandon Singur. This article uses the Singur controversy as a prism on the contested and contentious nature of development in contemporary India. I analyse the arguments raised respectively for and against the model of development embodied in the Singur factory by five sets of actors, who have been involved in the Singur controversy: (1) West Bengal’s Left Front government; (2) economists; (3) Singur farmers opposed to the factory; (4) social activists and NGOs; and (5) and opposition political parties in West Bengal. I argue that in spite of massive public attention that the Singur controversy received, and the fierce criticism of the Left Front that it generated, the voices of those who fundamentally challenged the policy of industrialising through private capital in the name of development have been rather marginal. Rather than opposing and / or promoting alternatives to the ‘neoliberal’ post‐reform models of development pursued in India, the Singur controversy should be seen as part of a popular effort to civilise rather than substitute contemporary forms of capitalist development to ensure that some of the benefits do trickle down.

Law Struggles and Hegemonic Processes in Neoliberal India: Gramscian Reflections on Land Acquisition Legislation

Abstract This article explores how, in the context of an unfolding process of neoliberalisation in India, new terrains of resistance are crystallising for subaltern groups seeking to contest the marginalising consequences of this process. We focus particularly on the emergence of Indias ‘new rights agenda’ through a study of the making of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2013. Conceiving of the emergence of the ‘new rights agenda’ as a hegemonic process, we decipher how law-making is a complex and contradictory practice seeking to negotiate a compromise equilibrium between, on the one hand, subaltern groups vulnerable to marginalisation and capable of mobilisation; and, on the other, dominant groups whose economic interests are linked to the exploitation of the spaces of accumulation recently pried open by market-oriented reforms. The negotiation of this equilibrium, we suggest, is ultimately intended to facilitate Indias process of neoliberalisation.

Law and Larai: The (De)Judicialisation of Subaltern Resistance in West Bengal

Abstract This article examines the dynamics of judicialisation and dejudicialisation of subaltern resistance in the context of a prolonged anti-land acquisition struggle in Singur in the Indian state of West Bengal. Taking its point of departure in a detailed, chronological ethnographic account of the Singur movement and its shifting engagement with the language and institutions of law, the article demonstrates how the local resistance to a land acquisition for the purpose of setting up a new automobile factory oscillated strategically back and forth between a multitude of sites of contestation. This strategic oscillation was, in turn, highly sensitive to the broader context in which the movement was carried out, and to the shifting terrain of the local and regional political landscape in particular. The attractiveness of invoking the language and institutions of law as part of their struggle therefore significantly depended on the attractiveness of other modalities of resistance at a given moment. In conclusion, the article uses the Singur case to critically interrogate and rethink the seminal work of Partha Chatterjee on political society and the politics of the governed in post-colonial India.

Farmers’ Use of the Courts in an Anti-Land Acquisition movement in India’S West Bengal

AbstractIn 2006 Singur in West Bengal, India, was chosen as the location for a new far factory that was to produce what would ostensibly become the world’s cheapest car. To make way for the factory approximately 1,000 acres of farmland were expropriated by the state government. Farmers unwilling to relinquish their land refused to comply with the acquisition and organised politically to challenge the legitimacy, both moral and legal, of the government’s exercise of the right of eminent domain. While these farmers relied on a broad repertoire of contention during their prolonged agitation, the courts and the law provided them with perhaps the most important arena for challenging the state. This paper discusses various aspects of the Singur farmers’ use of the courts, asking: (1) How have the farmers in practice gone about accessing the courts and the legal system? (2) What has been their experience of engaging with such a complex system of procedures and institutions that rely on a language with which few ...Abstract In 2006 Singur in West Bengal, India, was chosen as the location for a new far factory that was to produce what would ostensibly become the world’s cheapest car. To make way for the factory approximately 1,000 acres of farmland were expropriated by the state government. Farmers unwilling to relinquish their land refused to comply with the acquisition and organised politically to challenge the legitimacy, both moral and legal, of the government’s exercise of the right of eminent domain. While these farmers relied on a broad repertoire of contention during their prolonged agitation, the courts and the law provided them with perhaps the most important arena for challenging the state. This paper discusses various aspects of the Singur farmers’ use of the courts, asking: (1) How have the farmers in practice gone about accessing the courts and the legal system? (2) What has been their experience of engaging with such a complex system of procedures and institutions that rely on a language with which few farmers are familiar? (3) Given that many other options have been available, why have the Singur farmers chosen to repose such faith in the courts?

Four Narratives of a Social Movement in West Bengal

Singur in West Bengal’s Hooghly district became a household name across India when in May 2006 the state’s Left Front government (LFG) announced that it would be the future location for the Tata small-car project. Here Tata Motors planned to produce the Tata Nano, the world’s cheapest car, priced at only one lakh rupees. First, though, approximately 1,000 acres of agricultural land had to be acquired in Singur under the Land Acquisition Act of 1894.

Development deadlock: aborted industrialization and blocked land restitution in West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh, India

This article examines the controversy over land transfers for two proposed but now deadlocked industrial projects in India. Both projects – one in Andhra Pradesh, the other in West Bengal – were initially presented as key to the future development of each state and given strong backing by their respective state governments. They also appeared well financed by technically competent, Indian private sector companies, indicating that swift implementation should have been expected. However, once strong opposition emerged from the potential displacees, supported by both political and civil society, both projects failed to come to fruition. Restitution of the land already acquired for these hibernating projects remains to be carried out however – the land at present lies vacant and is used neither for industrialization, nor for any other productive purpose. We characterize this stalemated form of development as ‘development deadlock’ that in effect benefits nobody. Key to explaining this outcome is, we argue, the significant uncertainty and complexity that arises when many different groups, respectively, promote and oppose a project within a fractured politico-administrative and legal system marred by considerable ambiguity. The present deadlock is seen as a combination of neglect and nurture by the actors involved in land struggles.

The rise and fall of the ‘people's car’: middle-class aspirations, status and mobile symbolism in ‘New India’

When the Indian car manufacturer Tata Motors launched its new ‘peoples car’ in 2008 it was widely predicted to revolutionise automobility in India. Yet seven years after the launch, the car has barely made an impact on the Indian car market and is widely regarded as a failure. This article offers a detailed study of the rise and fall of Indias ‘peoples car’. Based on a mapping of the changing popular representations and symbolic imaginaries that attach to the car as a means to mobility and an object of identity and social status, we suggest that the car failed neither because it was mediocre, nor because it remained economically out of reach for most Indians. Rather, we argue that its insertion into the lower ranks of a powerful status hierarchy of identity-defining objects precluded it from adequately tapping into new and hegemonic forms of consumer aspiration in ‘New India’.

Staying Cool, Looking Good, Moving Around: Consumption, Sustainability and the ‘Rise of the South’

The nature of global development has changed substantially over the past three decades in step with the intensified globalisation of capitalism and its imperatives of growth and expanding consumption. Most significant is the ongoing shift in the balance of the global economy towards the South in general and the East in particular. As the ‘Rise of the South’ materialises, a number of emerging economies are moving beyond their roles as factories of the world and are turning their focus towards expanding domestic markets. The emergence of high-consuming middle classes in these countries represents a profound challenge for global sustainability. When coupled with the as-yet unsuccessful efforts to constrain the consumption in the mature capitalist countries, rising global consumption constitutes one of the greatest challenges to sustainable development. Neither development theory nor sustainability policy has adequately acknowledged surging global consumption. How do we best understand the changes behind the dramatic increase in consumption? Drawing on social practice theory as well as the political economy of capitalist development, this article analyses the social and environmental dimensions of increasing consumption in the South, using India and Vietnam as case studies.

‘An activist can't become a politician’: social activism, leadership and the (un)making of a political career in an Indian state

This article explores the ambiguity inherent in the relationship between social activism and politics in West Bengal. I use a detailed account of the career of singer–activist turned politician Kabir Suman to examine the activists view of himself and of politics, as well of how the porous boundary between activism and politics is both blurred and crossable. The fact that activists possess a kind of political capital useful within the framework of a political party may facilitate their entry into electoral politics. Yet as this article demonstrates, the activist may sometimes only be able to retain his activist credentials by sacrificing his political career. In addition, this article seeks to conceptualise the social activist as a particular type of political figure. I do so by locating the study of Kabir Suman within an emerging body of literature on political leadership in India. I argue that while the case of Kabir Suman may not be paradigmatic, his ‘activist’ style of leadership challenges certain contemporary classifications of political leadership in India.

Land Dispossession and Everyday Politics in Rural Eastern India

List of Tables; Acknowledgements; List of Abbreviations; Introduction; Chapter 1: Situating Singur; Chapter 2: Land, Identity, and the Politics of Representation; Chapter 3: Law, Judicialisation and the Politics of Waiting; Chapter 4: Class, Caste and Community; Chapter 5: Gendered Mobilisation: Women as Activists and Symbols; Chapter 6: Activist Leadership; Chapter 7: Ma, Mati, Manush Mamata; Conclusion; Glossary; Bibliography; Index.