Full project work done under the Guidance of Sir Arnab Das and Sir Suman Nath. And written material were made with help from sir ...

2. An ethnography of hope and resistance
against accumulation by dispossession
in rural West Bengal
ROLL NO- 91/ANT/121023
REGISTRATION NO- 142-1121-0067-09
EXAMINATION- M.SC. 2nd SEMESTER EXAMINATION 2013 IN ANTHROPOLOGY
DEPT. OF ANTHROPOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF CALCUTTA

3. An ethnography of hope and resistance
against accumulation by dispossession
in rural West Bengal
(Report submitted in connection with M.SC. 2ND semester examination,
2013)
Coarse no. - 9
Work done under the supervision of
Dr. Arnab Das
ROLL NO- 91/ANT/121007
REGISTRATION NO- 142-1121-0067-09
EXAMINATION- M.SC. 2nd SEMESTER EXAMINATION 2013 IN ANTHROPOLOGY
DEPT. OF ANTHROPOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF CALCUTTA

4. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I have the pleasure to express my sincere gratefulness, indebtedness and
heartfelt thanks to my most respected teachers Dr. Arnab Das, Dr. Subrata
Sankar Bagchi of Department of Anthropology, University Of Calcutta
and Mr. Suman Nath of Department of Anthropology, Haldia Govt.
College, under whose guidance this work has been prepared.
Cooperation from all professors of our Department and the non-teaching
staffs of our college are too remembered with gratitude.
Last but not the least; warmest thanks are also due to my classmates for
their co-operation in the field and to my parents for their active cooperation and assistance.
Date
Signature

5. CONTENTS
Page No.
Acknowledgements
INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................. 6
The Critical Framework of Theories, Discourses and Methodology ............................................ 6
Objectives and Techniques ......................................................................................................... 9
Ethnographic Strategy ............................................................................................................... 11
Critique and Reviews of Theories, Concepts and Discourses ....................................................... 17
On Industrialisation in West Bengal ....................................................................................... 18
SEZ and Industrialisation in India........................................................................................... 21
The main objectives of the SEZ Act in India are: ................................................................................... 22
The Problem .......................................................................................................................................... 22
The Theories .................................................................................................................................. 23
Basic Model of Structural Transformation ............................................................................... 23
Present Failure of Structural Change Development Theory .................................................... 25
Turning to Neoliberalism and Indian Practices of Development ............................................. 27
Introducing Neoliberalism ........................................................................................................ 29
Why the Neoliberal Turn? ........................................................................................................ 34
Introducing “Double Movement” of Karl Polanyi in Neoliberal Era ...................................... 38
Accumulation by Dispossession ............................................................................................... 43
Underconsumption or Overaccumulation?.................................................................................... 44
Land Seizure and Land Denial ......................................................................................... 53
Movements against Accumulation by Dispossession ............................................................... 54
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6. Resistance to land alienation and primitive accumulation: forms and modalities... 57
Economic Liberalization in India .............................................................................................. 59
The Distributive Effects of Liberalization, Privatization, Globalization .................... 66
The Emerging Oligopolies: India ..................................................................................... 68
INNOVATIVE ....................................................................................................................... 75
GLOBAL ................................................................................................................................. 75
RESPONSIBLE ...................................................................................................................... 76
The Construction of Consent .................................................................................................... 77
Consent to Neoliberal Economy: India and West Bengal ......................................................... 80
The Problem of Land Acquisition in India................................................................................ 83
Successful land acquisition model ................................................................................... 88
Chapter Two
The Villages ............................................................. 90
Villages around Jindal Steel Works ............................................................................................. 91
The setting ................................................................................................................................... 91
Area Map: .................................................................................................................................... 92
Institutions .................................................................................................................................. 92
Description of villages ............................................................................................................... 93
I PATHORCHATI .................................................................................................................. 93
II JAMBEDIA .......................................................................................................................... 95
III KULFENI ............................................................................................................................ 95
IV ASNASULI ....................................................................................................................... 100
V SRIKRISNAPUR ............................................................................................................... 102
VI NATUNDIH .................................................................................................................... 102
VII RAMRAIDIH.................................................................................................................. 103
VIII BASKOPNA .................................................................................................................. 103
Villages around Orissa Cement Limited .................................................................................. 105
2|Page

7. Area Map: ................................................................................................................................... 106
The setting ................................................................................................................................. 106
I KULIPARA ......................................................................................................................... 107
II BEUNCHA ........................................................................................................................ 109
III KAMARMURI ................................................................................................................. 110
IV KULAPACHURIYA ....................................................................................................... 111
V BEUNCHA ........................................................................................................................ 111
Chapter Three
The dispossession ................................................. 114
Contact, Deal and Agents: JSW .................................................................................................. 115
Contact, Deal and Agents: OCL ................................................................................................. 122
Techniques of Power and Persuasion: JSW .............................................................................. 124
Techniques of Power and persuasion: OCL ............................................................................. 127
Consent and submission: Rumours, Make belief, Expectations and Pressures—JSW ....... 128
Consent and submission: Rumours, Make belief, Expectations and Pressures—OCL ...... 132
Experiences of Land seizure and Land Denial: Resistance and Pain-JSW ........................... 133
Dispossession and Loss: JSW ..................................................................................................... 140
Dispossession and Loss: OCL .................................................................................................... 145
The Establishment: JSW .............................................................................................................. 146
The Establishment: OCL ............................................................................................................. 147
Chapter four
Experiences
Extra-local Political Opponents and Local
Maoists/Jangal Bahini and Shanti Rakkha Committee/Harmads ................. 148
Trauma and Memories of Fear and Humiliation: Maoists and Harmads ........................... 149
JSW ............................................................................................................................................. 149
OCL ............................................................................................................................................ 171
Local Governance (Panchayat and Political Parties) ............................................................... 174
JSW ............................................................................................................................................. 174
3|Page

8. OCL ............................................................................................................................................ 179
Chapter Five ........................................................................................................................................ 182
Local Consequences and Assessments of the Dispossessed ...................................................... 182
Promises of Power and State of Delay ...................................................................................... 183
JSW ............................................................................................................................................. 183
OCL ............................................................................................................................................ 188
Perception of Environment ......................................................................................................... 189
JSW ............................................................................................................................................. 189
OCL ............................................................................................................................................ 190
Chapter Six ......................................................................................................................................... 191
The Open Reportier of Experience ................................................................................................ 191
Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 193
Elementary... ............................................................................................................................. 193
Way to Ocl ................................................................................................................................. 195
Political situation ...................................................................................................................... 197
Their plight................................................................................................................................ 198
Way to JSW ............................................................................................................................... 198
Their Plight................................................................................................................................ 200
Conclusion: ............................................................................................................................... 200
Chapter Seven ..................................................................................................................................... 202
The Theory Contributed and Conclusion ..................................................................................... 202
References............................................................................................................................................ 209
4|Page

9. Table of Figures
Figure 1 OCL building ............................................................................................................ 73
Figure 2 Map showing the Acquired area by JSW project and how the villages are scattered
around the perifery of the project. and also in extreem left National highway can be seen
which is their connection with outside world. ......................................................................... 92
Figure 3 Show the lands and how dry it is due to absence of needed water to irregate it. ...... 94
Figure 4 a peasent cultivating land in front of JSW project. Previously who had land inside
the JSW. ................................................................................................................................... 95
Figure 5 Board of OCL in fornt of gate, with it’s its full address.......................................... 105
Figure 6 the map of the village beauch drawn with the help of a villager. And in the right side
showing the OCL. .................................................................................................................. 106
Figure 7 Agricultural land in Gobru where potatto and paddy was being cultivated. ......... 107
Figure 8 showing the school that is present in the villager which now have classes upto
standerd 8............................................................................................................................... 109
Figure 9 non metaled road toward pathorchati, road was surrounded by forest and the trees
seen the pictures are eucalyptus tree. .................................................................................... 135
Figure 10 villagers demolised the wall so that they could enter the premises of jsw where they
left their cattel to feed and they also bring fuel wood from there. .......................................... 137
Figure 11 Places where villagers wasent been able to demolish the wall they have put ladder
in the wall to cross the gaurd wall. ........................................................................................ 138
5|Page

10. INTRODUCTION
The Critical Framework of Theories, Discourses and
Methodology
6|Page

11. Methodology
Approach, Objectives and Strategy
My abhorrence of neoliberalism helps to explain my legitimate
anger when I speak of the injustices to which the ragpickers
among humanity are condemned. It also explains my total lack
of interest in any pretension of impartiality, I am not impartial,
or objective . . . [this] does not prevent me from holding always
a rigorously ethical position. (Freire, 1998, p. 22)
While it was our mission to get underneath the surface of the neoliberal efforts of
new industrialisation in India, and here in West Bengal, through corporate capitals,
as anthropologists we selected to go native not for both the corporate capital and
those dispossessed by the capital, but seeing things as aligned to the dispossessed,
voiceless, poor and powerless farmers, engaged in the fray and compromise with the
power centres at will of running industries and giving employments to the
7|Page

12. thousands of needy and suitable locals and outsiders. Our position was critically
affiliated to the dispossessed, the remaining farmers, their voices, stories, narratives
of emotion and reasoning and so on, thus making a road not stopping us to be at one
with the villagers, but to turning toward the interpretive reflexivity of our
involvement in the issues already built up with some earlier theories on similar
issues done by ethnographers and other scholars majorly on the theories and cases of
“accumulation by dispossession” and Polanyi’s “double movement” (like Adnan,
2013; Amanor-Wilks, 2006; Bo Nielsen, 2010; Dunn, 2007; Ganguly-Scrase and Scrase,
2005; Kakani, Raghu Ram, & Tigga 2010; Kendall, 2003; Kumar, 2011; Levien, 2006;
2011, 2012; Levien and Paret, 2012; Muukkonen, 2006; Sarcar, 2007; Shani, 2004;
Springer, 2011; Stewart, 2010; Thorsen, 2009) Thus some kind of objectivity to
envisage the reality of the farmers around two industrial efforts of OCL and JSW
was pre-destined. But we kept it clear that theories should not master us, but
theories are to master over reality for knowledge making. Our ethnography is
neither solely critical nor solely interpretive, but their mixes help us taking side of
the dispossessed, yet the picture beyond and beneath interpretive construction is
sent not out of sight. What we obtained from the villagers by our cautious and
sensitive exploration of facts of hope, trust-making and breaking of trust, fear,
trauma, helplessness, insecurity, sense of loss, confusion and mistrust to the
outsiders, like us are kept alive to give the alternative picture of land grabbing in
Salboni, not as win-win case, but as a not-so-successful suppression of the
dispossessed. The hegemonic power brokers, like the government, political parties
and their agents were produced by the discourse of modernisation and
development, which has played a one-eyed motivation, persuasion and pressure to
the villagers to welcome industries, but failed to erase the traces of resistance against
it, similar to all the cases of dispossession by neoliberal force across the world. It
was post-dispossession period that the fieldwork took place. Thus, it was all about
memory and experience of effects of the past time, which we could get from the
people of that area. It rendered the whole issue of dispossession more tangible
8|Page

13. because the villagers had passed the time for coping with the loss, pain, insecurity
and hope. Moreover, the industrialisation was temporally associated with the shift of
power from one political party (CPIM) to the other (TMC) through a long session of
bitter political rivalry locally centred on the state-political resistance to Maoist
penetration implicitly against the industrialisation and explicitly against CPI(M)
with the implicit support of TMC in that area. The issue of dispossession, thus, can
neither be untangled from such political conflict. For all the reasons the direction of
our study acquired a multifaceted reality of exploration and investigation.
Interviews could be used in a copybook situation, rather more sensible and
situational application of varied types of interviews and observation had to
accompany every step of fieldwork which spanned the short duration of twelve (12)
days of February and March in Salboni block of Paschim Medinipore district of West
Bengal. The team was composed of twenty four students and two supervisors.
Objectives and Techniques
Finally the objectives and associated techniques of the study turned out to be
(a) To prepare ourselves with the necessary sensitivity of the three major theories
in order to relate and obtain the narratives and other data from the villagers
by interviews and observation. The three theories are
i.
Development by Structural transformation from agriculture to industry
pioneered by Arthur Lewis’
ii.
Double movement theory of Karl Polanyi’ and
iii.
Critique of Accumulation by dispossession of neoliberal economy
proposed by David Harvey;
(b) It was necessary to get the critical analysis of discourse of Industrialisation in
West Bengal presented by Buddhdeb Bhattacharyya, the erstwhile Chief
9|Page

14. Minister of West Bengal, to look for the consent of people and hegemonies the
subjective positions of people in and looking for power;
(c) The selection of an area of West Bengal, which has gone through the
operation of such industrialisation finally culminated in the selection of
Salbani of Paschim Medinipore district of West Bengal as suitable for a shortterm fieldwork to obtain data for examining the compatibility of the theories;
(d) The ethnographic plan to cover the all the villages around the two industries
for collection, verification and intensification of the data with the effort of
twenty four students, who are already trained to participate in fieldwork in
rural areas, supervised by two teachers;
(e) Except ethnography (intuiting a mix of critical and interpretive ones), the
methodological shape was not pre-fixed, but let to emerge from the actual
contact, rapport and suitability of situations of the villagers. Therefore the
sample of research participants and informants was of purposive, snowball
and availability types;
(f) While the students beginning to collect data from the villages adjoining the
National Highway 6, the supervisor advanced to link all the near and far
villages and the available respondents ahead of the students, thus facilitating
the work onwards to entangle all the villages in the period of twelve days;
and
(g) Finally the ethnography is an articulation of
i.
the composition and location of the villages,
ii.
the issues of experiencing dispossession of land and dis-embedding life
in the habitus of the villagers,
iii.
the aspects of struggle/resistance and coping against the events,
iv.
the experience and perception of the political agents of the localities,
v.
the rise of new subjective positions of the villagers,
vi.
the rise of the techniques of control by the industries,
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15. vii.
the rise of new political subjects connecting the old and new settings of
politics in the area, and
viii.
critical, interpretive, reflexively objective evaluation of the theories and
experiences of the fieldworkers.
Ethnographic Strategy
The era of critical ethnography commenced in the late 1950s and early 1960s and was
initiated by the dominant social and cultural reality of the time. This is the time of the
demise of colonialism and of the inward turn of classical ethnography to explore
marginalised groups. This shift emanated from the realisation that researching marginalised,
oppressed and deviant groups using classical ethnography was, ironically, not the solution,
but rather the problem to the social status of these groups. The marginalisation, oppression
and deviation of such groups primarily resulted from the fact that they either had no voice
or words of their own to comprehensibly express themselves or that the looking glass under
which the researcher gazed at these groups was distorted by the male, white, middle class
lens (Denzin, 1997; Faubion, 2001; Skeggs, 2001; Gubrium and Holstein, 2002; Lecompte,
2002).
Thus, classical ethnography for these researchers seemed to miss its core aim of
genuine and true representation and instead represented the dominant images and spoke
the words of the prevalent culture. Therefore, not only was there a lack of understanding of
these groups, but most importantly the theories developed via classical ethnography
perpetuated their marginalised and oppressed status (Faubion, 2001; Skeggs, 2001; Prior,
2007). This is the time that academia in both America and Europe opens its doors to ‘nonmainstream’ researchers that were not ‘of white European-American male’ orientation
(Lecompte, 2002: 285) and who were eager to explore via ethnography the experiences and
origins of their own misrepresentation. Furthermore, these views were blended initially with
Marxist, Neo-Marxist and Weberian theories and consequently with feminist, critical theory,
race and political theory (Lecompte, 2002) to develop a genre termed as critical ethnography,
which, as classical ethnography, acquired momentum and is still in use today, but is
distinguished from classical ethnography by a set of features and aims that are not only
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16. different but at some points opposing. The aim of critical ethnography is not to represent the
participant’s world as a linear, definitive and conclusive reality, but to disclose the
underlying synergies that actually create that reality. It is an analytic procedure, rather than
a descriptive one, where the culture is conceived as a historically bounded formation
(Faubion, 2001) and people’s views are anticipated to emerge not from ‘nowhere’, but are
always views from ‘somewhere’ in particular (Spencer, 2001). The ethnographer’s role is to
untangle the historical contingencies and reveal the cultural substratum or habitus that
artfully, albeit invisibly, influences and even creates specific world views and cultures
(Pollner and Emerson, 2001; Lecompte, 2002).
Thus, critical ethnography veers from the epistemology of a value-free and objective
social reality to an epistemology aiming at unpacking, interpreting and eventually giving
voice to the muted, exploited and powerless groups of people (Gordon et al., 2001;
Macdonald, 2001; Skeggs, 2001; Smith, 2001). The aim of critical ethnography is to uncover
the patronising, patriarchal, gendered, racial, dominant, hegemonic and authorial voices and
languages that are incorporated within the culture and determine the positionality of
individuals in society by shaping both thought and reality (Rolfe, 1999; Gordon et al., 2001;
Smith, 2001). Hence, the mantra of ‘telling it as it is’ that summed up the epistemology of
classical ethnography is now replaced by the mantra of ‘giving voice’.
Whilst critical ethnography is sceptical of the objective and value-free research that
can capture the real, nonetheless it does not denounce the fact that such a reality may
actually exist. In a sense, critical ethnography accepts that there probably is some ‘true’ and
‘real’ reality, it is just that this reality is blurred, distorted and manipulated and therefore we
do not have direct access to it. However, in a quite unyieldingly fashion, the representation
of this reality is the secondary feature of critical ethnography and what constitutes the
foreground of such a research is the dialogue developed between researcher and participant,
the emancipation and empowerment of both, and the eventual transformation of the lived
reality (Gordon et al., 2001; Lecompte, 2002). Thus the scope of such research is not to
discover what is true or real, but to discover what or who is blurring, distorting and
manipulating reality.
Therefore critical ethnography in a last twist becomes more of a political adventure
of change, where knowledge, politics, ideology, discourse and action all merge. The
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17. prominent feature of critical ethnography is not to discover what is good or bad, right or
wrong in any absolute sense, but what is useful and practical and how, through the process
of praxis, daily reality can be transformed (Denzin, 1997; Smith and Deemer, 2000; Spencer,
2001). This is accomplished via a dialectic spiral of empathic and egalitarian interaction,
which goes beyond direct participant observations so as to include methods of data
collection, such as interviewing and analysis of historical documentation (Heyl, 2001; Rock,
2001).
One of the limitations of critical ethnography is the over-emphasis on marginalised
groups and potentially missing out on important data as to how others that are not
conceived as marginalised view these groups of people (Thupayagale-Tshweneagae, 2008).
Inherent in all critical ethnographic studies is the assumption that contemporary societies
have systematic inequalities complexly maintained and reproduced by cultures that
constrain human existence (Thomas, 1993; Cook, 2005). Hence, critical ethnography aims to
go beneath the surface world of accepted appearances so as to reveal the darker, oppressive
side of social life (Thomas, 1993; Carspecken, 2001). Furthermore, the critical ethnographic
topic is something the researcher is passionate about and is able to relate to personally, as a
kind of a slice of the researcher’s social existence (Thomas, 1993). This assumes that the
researcher is not a stranger or naive to the research topic, but on the contrary is subjectively
related to the topic and presents this subjectivity using reflection (Thomas, 1993; Hardcastle
et al., 2006).
In addition, the participants are purposefully selected for what they know, rather
than what they randomly observed to capture the mundane (Hardcastle et al., 2006; Green
and Thorogood, 2009). Hence, whilst observations are not excluded, nonetheless interviews
are considered as the hallmark of critical ethnography since they open realms of meaning
that permeate beyond rote information or finding the ‘truth’ to analysing and synthesising
ideas so as to discover specific systems relationships and reveal hidden meanings
(Carspecken, 2001; Cook, 2005). The interviews take a dialogical and reflective form, and the
research questions are more confrontational and prodding than classical ethnography in
order to dig below surface appearance and overcome the parroting of cultural or
disciplinary rhetoric so as to expose personal, cultural and political aspects of decision
making (Thomas, 1993; Hardcastle et al., 2006). Eventually, data are interpreted by invoking
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18. sociological and reflective imagination, rather than merely presented the findings, so as to
create images and metaphors in order to re-frame the familiar in a new social light (Thomas,
1993). Finally, critical ethnography concludes by challenging the status quo, providing some
form of change for existing social structures, and adding an explicit political purpose and
social activism element to the research project so as to empower people and transform their
political and social status (Cook, 2005; Hardcastle et al., 2006).
The interpretive ethnographic genre takes a post-modernist and post-structuralist
turn, maintaining that truth cannot merely be out there, because it cannot exist
independently of the human mind and that, simply because sentences cannot exist or be out
there on their own, sentences are always the product of humans. This is what Rorty (1989: 5)
argued in a different context when he purported that ‘the world is out there, but
descriptions of the world are not’. For interpretive ethnographers, the main argument is that
the text cannot ever impeccably represent in any formal, linear and absolute order the
researched context (Geertz, 1973; Denzin, 1997). For interpretive ethnography language is
not a mere medium between the self and the world that can accurately represent either the
world or the self, rather language is a construct of humans that is used as a tool to construct,
create and fabricate both the self and the world (Rorty, 1989; Plummer, 2001).
The aim of interpretive ethnography is not to produce a great amount of undigested
information, but to provide accounts that possess depth, detail, emotionality, nuance and
imagination of the participants’ worlds. The eventual aim of interpretive ethnography is to
provide clarifying, inventive and creative tellings of old stories in new ways, once these old
stories no longer speak to us (Denzin, 2000; Spencer, 2001). In essence interpretive
ethnography is a set of stories that are crafted by the researcher and shaped by literary
convention (Daly, 1997). These ethnographic stories frame the researcher’s experiences and
interpretations, and are used as a tool by the researcher to understand others in relation to
the researcher, hence excavating the meaningfulness of sites (Daly, 1993; Bryant, 2003). For
interpretive ethnography there is no problem to be solved, but rather a mystery to be
personally and culturally engaged. The interpretive ethnographic study produces stories
that join together at least two disparate storylines – the story of the self who has the stake,
asks the questions and does the interpreting, and the stories of others who help us find or
create meanings (Goodall, 2003). Therefore, ethnographic stories become a constructed
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19. understanding of the constructed participant’s constructed point of view (Plummer,
2001).Furthermore, Ricoeur (1971) maintains that the loss of context seems to be an
inevitable result of the process of textualisation and Denzin (1999) suggests that the ideal
correspondence of context and text is not only a futile impossibility, but at the same time a
debilitating limitation that impedes more creative, evocative and imaginative ways of telling
peoples’ tales and making sense of their world. Thus interpretive ethnography blurs the
boundaries between the factual and fictional, where real research and real lives are written
in fictional form with the intention not to explain reality and the world, but to evoke it, not
to represent it but to perform it (Denzin, 1997; Plummer, 2001). What the interpretive
ethnographer can only do is to produce works that speak clearly and powerfully of the
immediacy and intensity about the researched worlds (Denzin, 2000; Cortazzi, 2001;
Emerson et al., 2001).
The process of data collection in interpretive ethnography begins with a personal
moment, a narrative or a confession of the researcher (Bryant, 2006). This brings the author
(researcher) firmly into the text and the text becomes personalised signal that the researcher
is now engaged in a reflexive project (Plummer, 2001; Bryant, 2006). It is asserted that
researchers cannot write interpretive ethnographies without informants, but more
importantly, researchers could not write interpretive ethnographic texts without themselves.
Hence, the two crucial elements of interpretive ethnography are, firstly, the inclusion of the
researcher’s reflective and reflexive accounts in the interpretive ethnographic text, and
secondly the omniscient third person writing of research is abandoned in favour of first
person writing with the ‘I’ creeping into the researcher’s ethnographic text (Daly, 1997;
Plummer, 2001; Goodall, 2003).
Data collection in interpretive ethnography is multi-sited and multi-level with the
researcher focusing on specific moments of experience in order to extrapolate meaning, for
example on a rare moment or moments of conflict or struggle (Bryant, 2006; Wing- Chung,
2008). This approach suggests that data collection must look beyond the single context or
geographical area to which the community belongs. Data collection in interpretive
ethnography diffuses to multiple contexts where social and cultural activities, such as
relationships, discourses and power relations, produce themselves, and as such they are
pertinent not to one site, but usually overlap with other sites. In addition, there are different
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20. levels of connectedness and relationships between sites and individuals that the interpretive
ethnographer seeks to enact, understand and interpret (Wing-Chung, 2008).
Thus, data collection is selective, cross-sectional, and diverse. The end result of such
a project is a multi-vocal composite assemblage of a compelling and well-plotted story,
evoking,
provoking
and
providing
imaginative,
creative,
insightful
and
artful
understandings of processes and performances by criticising how things are and imagining
how things can be (Denzin, 2000; Faubion, 2001; Plummer, 2001). The interpretive
ethnographic text rejects linguistic norms or ideals and experiments with scholarly methods
and forms of expression (King, 1999; Goodall, 2003). The interpretive ethnographic text is
typified as a pastiche or montage, which includes successive layering of seemingly unrelated
images that the researcher manages to cohere in some fashion. In the data analysis section
the researcher juxtaposes sites and relationships, comparing emergent issues or objects of
study that were not known before hand, and contributes in constructing an account of
different, complexly connected real-world sites of investigation (Wing-Chung, 2008). The
researcher in the analysis process traverses back-and-forth between the everyday world of
the actor and the world of the observer, acquiring the task of the translator in order to
construct and produce an echo of the original, but not the originality of the original (WingChung, 2008). In other words, the analysis inevitably is a textual construct containing the
authorial authority of the researcher.
In our study we took the side of the dispossessed villages, low in position to wield
power over their conditions of livelihood contrary to the power brokers like the corporate,
government and the political parties. Thus it is the explicit critical ethnographic stand that
sutures interpretively the cross-sectional data of the villagers over time and the villages and
varied sections of them. The writing goes on how Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992) advocate
an epistemologically reflexive sociology and ethnography grounded in everyday cultural
practices. We work back and forth between field experience and theory, cultivating a
theoretical reflexivity that produces a detached, objective, authoritative account of the world
being studied (Foley, 2002, p. 476).
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21. Critique and Reviews of Theories, Concepts and Discourses
17 | P a g e

22. On Industrialisation in West Bengal
Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee:
The Marxist, Vol. XXIII, 1, January to March, 2007
EXCERPTS and CRITIQUE
“I would like to discuss our overall outlook on the development of West Bengal’s economy after the formation of the Left
Front Government on the issues of agriculture, industry and services. Some differences have been expressed regarding our
purpose and objectives.
It is generally acknowledged that we have no ‘model’ [but even the construction is a model. Later it can also be shown that
how the whole construct of industrialisation is based on classical modernisation theory] in front of us to emulate and
follow. It will indeed be a mistake to follow a specific model [It does not clarify why. Is it indicating the uniqueness of West
Bengal as non-comparable to application of any model a priori] . We have closely observed and seen the changes in and the
development of the Chinese economy and the Vietnamese economy. We are trying to ascertain facts there. In Latin America,
a kind of new leftism has appeared and changes have occurred. We have gone through an interesting book called Dispatches
from Latin America. We have gathered from the book the thoughts and ideas of the Brazilian president Lula, of the
Venezuelan head of state Chavez, and of the Chilean Socialist Party. We are trying to understand and realise the purport of
the changes taking place [There is no concern over the development models of other developing countries]. However, the
fact is that we have to determine our own path, taking into account the reality of the situation in India and the constraints of
the Left forces in the state within the present framework [Absence of any comparable situation in the rest of the world] .
We have to offer a workable alternative. ..... With regard to the agricultural situation, we must look back to the 1960s when
a strong peasant movement started. During the two short-lived United Front Governments of 1967 (9 months) and 1969 (13
months) the movement got accentuated. That movement saw economic and political changes taking place in rural West
Bengal in a remarkable way. The zamindari system received a severe blow [the capitalist turn]. Land was transferred to the
kisans through a struggle for possession. Politically, the influence of the Congress based on the zamindari system was curbed,
resulting in change in the political correlation in favour of the Left.
...... After the installation of the Left Front Government in 1977 the land movement gathered further momentum and the
transfer of land from the zamindars to the poor and marginal farmers was given administrative recognition. This was done
through the granting of ‘patta’ rights to the kisans in possession of what was previously zamindari land parcels. The Left Front
Government has distributed ‘patta’ rights for 1.3 million acres of land—the bulk of the agricultural land, in fact, of this state.
83% of the agricultural land is in the possession of the poor and marginal kisans [maximum utilisation and engagement
agricultural labour power]. We have won several court cases relating to land. Recently we have got possession of 30,000
acres of land after winning court cases. 800 acres of land have been distributed at Khejuri in Midnapore East amongst 1200
poor farmers.
The process of distribution of ‘patta’ rights has been accompanied by ‘Operation Barga’ (recognition of the right of sharecroppers) [embedding of intensive agriculture for food security and embedding of state] —something that is new and
unique, a process that has received high praise from those who are engaged in research in agrarian relations and matters
related to agriculture. It is important to recall here that without the surge of kisan struggles, the distribution of barga rights
would not have been possible...... A part of the process of redistributive land reforms, the recording of barga rights has
covered 1.5 million in number. Meanwhile, with the three-tier Panchayati system in place, the poor of the rural sector
started to become assertive. It is noteworthy that in our state both the bulk of the agricultural land and the majority of the
panchayats are in the hands of the rural poor. This is the consequence of the process of land reforms. ....
......[indicating a deeply entrenched emotional attachment of the peasants with their own land has been created over the
three decades in West Bengal and the party in power actually acted as a facilitator for that process].
A direct result of the land reforms programme is the increase in agricultural production. Against the disastrous all-India
agricultural growth rate of less than 2 per cent, West Bengal has been able maintain a sustainable growth rate of 4 per cent
for more than last ten years. With massive aman and boro paddy production this year, the food grain production itself will
exceed 15 million metric tones (MT). We have been self-sufficient in the production of paddy for the last three years. There
have been difficulties in crop diversification. Besides paddy production, we are trying to concentrate on pulses and oil
seeds—but not with notable success. We were able to procure 1.7 million MT of paddy last year. This year the target is 2.1
lakh MT. Excerpts and Critiques of theproducing the of Industrialisation in West Bengal since last year
he ..... We have also been successful in discourse highest quantity of vegetables in the country
18 | P a g e
(despite the paucity of land).
Contd..

23. Page3 & 4
We could produce 11.6 million MT of vegetables on 5.4 million hectares of land [gaining food security]. Paddy production
this year will exceed 11.6 million MT. We also hold the top position in the production of fish. Our fish production is 1.4
million MT. ......
Our success is reflected in the increased purchasing power of the kisans in the villages [more than subsistence economy,
but not industrialised]. Our kisans possess the highest purchasing power of industrial goods in the whole of the country
today in the retail sector, be it cement, radio, cycle, motorcycle, or apparel. No other state has 8 per cent growth rate. Only
Punjab and Haryana are slightly ahead of us in terms of productivity. ....... A few negative tendencies were mentioned in the
primary report that we received on the eve of the Assembly elections last year. The fragmentation of land in the wake of
the land reforms among the successors of the original owners have contributed to the reduction of the produce
[producing surplus labour in traditional sector]. This fragmentation of land is a major problem.
Owing to the country’s economic policies, the prices of all inputs such as irrigation, water, seeds, pesticide, and fertiliser
have increased manifold [traditional sector becoming counter-productive]. It is becoming difficult for farmers to get
minimum procurement prices for their products. The question of remunerative prices does not arise. With expenditure
rising high, the cost of agricultural production has gone up. There are other specific problems. Because of lack of viable
marketing mechanism, many vegetables produced are left to rot in the fields—tomatoes in Coochbehar or cabbage in
Murshidabad, for example. Of the total production of 11.6 million MT, 10-15 per cent is spoilt in the field because we do not
have adequate means of preservation [problem of industrialisation of agriculture]. Another problem is value addition.
Currently, we can fix added value for 3 percent of the produce only.
Another problem concerns the society and the mind-set. The members of a kisan family till the land through generations.
The first generation, despite having received education, may yet be willing to accompany the father to the field. The second
generation does not. They are not willing to go back to the fields after passing out from schools and colleges. We must
ponder whether this is a progressive or a regressive frame of mind. We must preserve the success of the agricultural
production and ensure our food security. Any deviation will harm us [following Lewis’s emphasis on both the traditional
and modern sector].
Then if the success in vegetable production can be conserved through a marketing mechanism and value is added to the
produce, the scope for employment in the food processing industry will increase. A few important facts need to be
mentioned at this point. The greatest amount of investment in the state is in the iron and steel sector. The next in line are
chemicals, petrochemicals, and food processing. Among the big companies, Frito-lay, Dabur in North Bengal is functioning.
Dabur went for processing mangoes and pineapple. Later, they are going to undertake processing of tomatoes. In the food
processing industry, ....... . We do believe that if we try to stay in place and enjoy the success we have achieved we will
stagnate and drift backwards. What then is the alternative? We have to note certain facts before dealing with the issue of
industrialisation. In the economy of West Bengal, the share of agriculture is 26 per cent, industry 24 per cent, and services
50 per cent [central logic of structural transformation from traditional to modern sector and indicator of market being
partially embedded]. This is better than the situation in other states. The service sector includes education, health,
entertainment, hotel, tourism, telecom and software, call centers, etc. The trend of the service sector occupying a 50 per
cent share of the economy is in keeping with that in the rest of the world.
Look at the relative figures of the agricultural sector and the industrial sector. It is not correct to hold that this is the end of
the road and the end of history. We must bring about changes gradually, and I use the word with deliberation. We must
maintain food security but increase the share of the industrial sector, gradually reducing that of agriculture [central logic
of structural transformation from traditional to modern sector].. This is the general trend of the economy. Marxists hold
that development is from agriculture to industry. We reiterate that we do not have a model to follow. ....... However, the
transition from agriculture to industry is an inevitable phenomenon both in capitalism and in socialism. A few facts can be
cited to bolster this line of argument. 65 per cent of the population of this state is involved with economic activities. They
are involved with agriculture and allied activities like animal resources and fisheries [labour surplus, but market logic is
still not embedded for this 65%]. Is this a picture depicting high standards? We cannot agree with the postulate that
agriculture is the last and final stage of development and that we have to stay at the place that we have reached. 63 per cent
of land in this state is agricultural. [central logic of structural transformation from traditional to modern sector]
19 | P a g e
Contd..

24. Page5 & 6
This includes, as in Purulia and Bankura, 4 per cent rain-fed land where agriculture depends on rainfall for irrigation. Fallow
land amounts to just 1 per cent. The all-India figure here is 17 per cent. We have started to experiment in fallow land to grow
plants and a variety of fruits. 13 per cent of land is under forest cover, which we are trying to increase further to improve the
environment, keeping in view the issue of global warming. Thus, we are left with 23 per cent of land that is urban and
industrial. The opposition asks us not to go beyond that 23 per cent and stay in place with 126 municipalities and
corporations—and with no more urbanisation and industrialisation. This is a position, which is not acceptable [core logic of
development through the transition from rural to urban].
Under capitalism, in India, the expropriation of the land of the peasantry is taking place in a brutal manner. In our drive for
industrialisation in West Bengal, we will not proceed this way. We are committed to protect the interests of the farmers. If
land needs to be taken, it will be done by providing those owning and dependent on land a fair deal, without coercion [not
detailed the fair deal and the way to consensus with the farmers]. We have ascertained facts through a land survey, and I
have kept the Left Front informed. We have received detailed report of vested land, and nonagricultural land district-wise,
mouza-wise and block-wise. ..... We can tell investors and entrepreneurs about the locational alternatives that are there and
they can choose. In a market economy, we can hardly ignore their priorities [silent about the negotiation and control over
the market]. The priorities have a practical basis. Iron and steel industries cannot be set up away from coalmines. IT
industries require airport facilities. .....
Now I would like to concentrate my discussion on some specific industries. The State Government’s industrial policy was
declared by former Chief Minister Jyoti Basu in 1994 [almost at par with the time of Indian liberalisation policy of 1991].
During visits abroad, the attempt was made to convince investors about the investment-friendly role of our Government. It
was stressed that investment would be made on the basis of mutually advantageous terms. They would earn profits and at
the same time create employment opportunities [privatisation of land, cheap labour and other dictates of liberal market is
not critically mentioned] . They would come here for the purposes of capitalist development. The opposition accuses us of
having agreed to capitalist development. Is it possible to talk of socialist development in one state of our country? What we
can do at the most in this structure is to bring in some alternative Left policies. This comprises land reforms, protecting public
sector, some initiatives in education and health, and so on [state protection and intervention]. The Party Congress and the
Central Committee have said that this means there is no need for foreign investment where we have the technology. We are
not to allow FDI in retail trade.
..... IBM, Cognizant, and GE Capital have evinced interest in investing in the IT sector and we need their units. We will await
the final denouement of the software debate. We must do something about our young men and women who are computerliterate and know English [Direct incorporation of neoliberal policy of industrialisation]. Mitsubishi Chemicals invested Rs.
1.7 billion at Haldia, and they are willing to open a second unit there—we really cannot refuse them. .... Jindals have chosen
to set up a Rs. 35.5 billion steel plant at Salboni in Midnapore West . The message that we would like to send to
entrepreneurs abroad is that we need private capital. The Party Programme has been changed. Earlier it talked about state
takeover of all monopoly and foreign capital. We do not really hold that position now. The last Party Congress resolved that
there would be no FDI in the retail trade. .....
The opposition is of the view (and a few Left Front partners) that the foreign capitalists are rushing in on their own to exploit
us. The actual picture is different. There is tough competition all around. We cannot discourage investment. Had there been
an alternative to the present form of investment we would have opted for it. The idea is that we do need private capital,
with limits set, and not everywhere [The exposure to neoliberal market is proposed with caution, but not mentioning the
nature of caution and the role of the state].
...... The young men and women of West Bengal are also at the forefront of IT. We have 68,000 primary schools, 16,000
secondary schools, 450 colleges, 68 engineering colleges and 18 universities. Agriculture and villages are important but they
alone cannot comprise the Left alternative for the torch-bearers of the 21st century.
We cannot deny the viability of IT and bio-technology. We have set up a bio-technology park in association with Kharagpur
IIT. The emphasis is on small, medium, and manufacturing industry. The chemical hub once set up will produce employment
in the ancillary and downstream units as they have done at Haldia. We are also going in for clusters—foundries in Howrah for
20 | P a g e
example, and also plastic manufacturing clusters and apparel manufacturing clusters. The manufacturing and IT industries
would absorb vocationally trained students and science graduates. .....
Contd.

25. Page 7 and 8
SEZ and
Industrialisation in
India
S
pecial Economic Zones
(SEZs) have, over the
past five years, become
synonymous
in
India
with
grabbing land from farmers. In
March 2007, 14 people were
killed and many more raped
and injured by police and partythugs
in
Nandigram,
West
Bengal, for refusing to give their
land for a petrochemical SEZ
promoted by an
company.
The
Indonesian
uproar
that
followed shook the state and
central
governments
(contributing to the eventual
downfall of the former) and led
to a cancellation of the project, a
temporary moratorium on SEZs
and
a
reduction
maximum
in
allowed
their
size.
Nandigram was the tip of the
iceberg, as farmers across the
country
were
21 | P a g e
resisting
the
Then there is the Singur issue. .... For the small car project the Tatas
would get a concession of Rs. 18,000 per 0.1 million rupees. First, we
had to persuade the Tatas to come to West Bengal with the small car
project (. They were shown locations in Kharagpur and in some other
places. .... The alternative was to tell the Tatas to go away to
Uttarakhand. The unit once set up will create many employment
opportunities in the ancillary and downstream sectors. The land that
was identified for the production unit at Singur was single crop and
double-crop. We calculated and found that the motor car factory at
Singur would create large job opportunities and improve the quality
of life there [The mathematics of compensation and the possibility of
the marginalisation of the farmers not alluded]. Mandays produced
will be much more. The work of setting up the boundary wall for the
factory itself has created jobs for 3,000 people. By 2008, the
production will take off. The Tatas will set up primary schools and
health services and they have started training local people. ... It is the
moral responsibility of the Government to ensure that the affected
people benefit from the economic opportunities, which will be created
by the motor car factory.
There has been a kind of unbalanced zeal about Special Economic
Zones (SEZs) in Delhi. Is the SEZ for industry or is it for real estate
development? This is a crucial question. Proposals for SEZs are
coming. Tamil Nadu alone has submitted proposals for 86 SEZs. In
China SEZs have been set up for technology-transfer in which the
people of China are very efficient. They started with six SEZs. We
have started with 450 in India. The Left has sent important
amendments to the SEZ Act and rules [No radical proposal for the
control over the SEZ or embedding of the neoliberal capital growth is
mentioned] .
....
There is no need to hurry. Let the debate over SEZ come to a
conclusion and then we can look at the project again. I have asked the
Party to see that the SEZ debate is brought to a conclusion. We do
need the chemical hub where the Indian Oil Corporation is the primary
investor. The downstream units will produce textiles from polymer,
and rubber from butadiene. This is needed for economic development
of the area and the state. The opposition has brought hoodlums from
outside of Nandigram and engaged in sheer violence. We did commit
the initial error and we need to proceed with great caution. The land
issue is a very sensitive issue. The unrecorded bargadars of
Nandigram and Singur feel deprived and they have turned violent.
They are poor people. We must carry them with us. If we fail to do
that, the distinction between us and the Governments in states like
Maharashtra and Gujarat will be gone [Yet the zeal of revolt of the
farmers not properly addressed or seems to be understood]. The
Left always looks after the interests of the poor. With agriculture as
the basis, we shall build industry. This process must be well planned
and the interests of the poor must be safeguarded. .....”
.
Contd.

26. A Special Economic Zone (SEZ) covers a broad range of more specific
zone types, like Free Trade Zones (FTZ), Export Processing Zones
government’s
use
of
eminent
domain to acquire and transfer
(EPZ), Free Zones (FZ), Industrial Estates (IE), Free Ports, Urban
Enterprise Zones and others. A single SEZ can contain multiple
‘specific’ zones within its boundaries. SEZs have been implemented
their land to private companies for
using a variety of institutional structures across the world ranging
the development of these hyper-
from fully public (government operator, government developer,
liberalized enclaves. These ‘land
government regulator) to ‘fully’ private (private operator, private
wars’ have led to the cancellation,
developer, public regulator).
delay and downsizing of projects
across the country, including two
massive
SEZs
for
Reliance
As of 31st October 2011, 583 formal approvals have been granted for
setting up SEZs, of
which 381 have been notified and 143 are exporting
Industries outside of Mumbai and
Gurgaon,
the
South
Korean
The main objectives of the SEZ Act in India are:
Orissa
(a)
Generation of additional economic activity.
(supposed to be India’s largest
(b)
Promotion of exports of goods and services.
(c)
Promotion of investment from domestic and foreign sources.
(d)
Creation of employment opportunities.
(e)
Development of infrastructure facilities.
POSCO
steel
SEZ
in
ever foreign direct investment)
and all the SEZs approved in the
state of Goa. In places such as
Kalinganagar and Jagatsinghpur
The Problem
in Orissa, Raigad in Maharashtra,
This process of planning and development of SEZ is under question,
Nandagudi
as the states in which the SEZs have been approved are facing
in
Karnataka,
Satankulam in Tamil Nadu, local
protest movements or outright
resistance to land acquisition have
intense protests, from the farming community, accusing the
Government of forcibly snatching fertile land from them, at heavily
discounted prices as against the prevailing prices in the commercial
real estate industry.
emerged. These conflicts and the
stoppage or stalling of high-profile investments have created great concern within the state
and capitalist class that farmers will be the largest obstacle to India’s emergence as a ‘world
class’ economic power.
O
ur t ethnographic study is on two such private industries, non-SEZ one of OCL
(Orissa Cement Limited) and SEZ of JSW (Jindal Steel Works). Both are regarded
as cases of successful land acquisition. Our Question is whether it is so and how
and why it took place with which consequences.
22 | P a g e

27. The Theories
The present study of the villages of Salboni block in Paschim Medinipur district is about the
process of contemporary industrialisation in India during the neoliberal, globalising era of
the World. It is a time when the developing countries like India is integrating its economy
with the global economy and thus embedding neoliberal market economy in the society,
especially in agricultural society not enough exposed to neoliberal market and facing the
dilemma of state regarding development and growth.
We have considered three main theoretical strands to address the issue of industrialisation
in a specific rural site of an Indian province of West Bengal. The issue is nonetheless is
linked to every major economic question of India.
(a) At first, the issue of development is understood in terms of principle of modernisation or
structural transformation of agriculture to industry. The impetus matches with the local idea
of industrialisation and the classical political economic strand of modernisation by W.
Arthur Lewis, Harvard economist Hollis B. Chenery and his colleagues;
(b) Next the studied phenomenon of industrialisation is further compatible with the political
economic critique of neoliberalism of geographer-anthropologist David Harvey by means of
his concept of “accumulation by dispossession” (ABD)
(c) Finally, in order to relate the responses of the farmers to the said dispossession and
resistance to the economic order of the neoliberal market the concept of “double movement”
of economic historian Karl Polanyi is also examined along with the similar idea of David
Harvey.
Basic Model of Structural Transformation
One of the best-known early theoretical models of development that focused on the
structural transformation of a primarily subsistence economy was that formulated by Nobel
23 | P a g e

28. laureate W. Arthur Lewis in the mid-1950s and later modified, formalized, and extended by
John Fei and Gustav Ranis. The Lewis two-sector model became the general theory of the
development process in surplus-labour Third World nations during most of the 1960s and
early 1970s. It still has many adherents today, especially among American development
economists.
In the Lewis model, the underdeveloped economy consists of two sectors: a
traditional, overpopulated rural subsistence sector characterized by zero marginal la bor
productivity—a situation that permits Lewis to classify this as surplus labour in the sense
that it can be withdrawn from the agricultural sector without any loss of output—and a
high-productivity modern urban industrial sector into which labour from the subsistence
sector is gradually transferred. The primary focus of the model is on both the process of
labour transfer and the growth of output and employment in the modern sector. Both labour
transfer and modern-sector employment growth are brought about by output expansion in
that sector. The speed with which this expansion occurs is determined by the rate of
industrial investment and capital accumulation in the modern sector. Such investment is
made possible by the excess of modern-sector profits over wages on the assumption that
capitalists reinvest all their profits. Finally, the level of wages in the urban industrial sector
is assumed to be constant and determined as a given premium over a fixed average
subsistence level of wages in the traditional agricultural sector. (Lewis assumed that urban
wages would have to be at least 30% higher than average rural income to induce workers to
migrate from their home areas.) At the constant urban wage, the supply curve of rural
labour to the modern sector is considered to be perfectly elastic.
The best-known model of structural change is the one based largely on the empirical
work of the late Harvard economist Hollis B. Chenery and his colleagues, who examined
patterns of development for numerous developing countries during the postwar period.
Their empirical studies, both cross-sectional (among countries at a given point in time) and
time-series (over long periods of time), of countries at different levels of per capita income
led to the identification of several characteristic features of the development process. These
included the shift from agricultural to industrial production, the steady accumulation of
physical and human capital, the change in consumer demands from emphasis on food and
basic necessities to desires for diverse manufactured goods and services, the growth of cities
24 | P a g e

29. and urban industries as people migrate from farms and small towns, and the decline in
family size and overall population growth as children lose their economic value and parents
substitute child quality (education) for quantity, with population growth first increasing,
then decreasing in the process of development. Proponents of this school often call for
development specialists to “let the facts speak for themselves,” rather than get bogged down
in the arcane of theories such as the stages of growth. This is a valuable counterbalance to
empty theorizing, but it also has its own limits.
The structural changes that we have described are the “average” patterns of
development Chenery and colleagues observed among countries in time-series and crosssectional analyses. The major hypothesis of the structural-change model is that development
is an identifiable process of growth and change whose main features are similar in all
countries. However, as mentioned earlier, the model does recognize that differences can
arise among countries in the pace and pattern of development, depending on their particular
set of circumstances.
Factors influencing the development process include a country’s resource
endowment and size, its government’s policies and objectives, the availability of external
capital and technology, and the international trade environment. Empirical studies on the
process of structural change lead to the conclusion that the pace and pattern of development
can vary according to both domestic and international factors, many of which lie beyond the
control of an individual developing nation. Yet despite this variation, structural-change
economists argue that one can identify certain patterns occurring in almost all countries
during the development process. And these patterns, they argue, may be affected by the
choice of development policies pursued by governments as well as the international trade
and foreign-assistance policies of developed nations. Hence structural-change analysts are
basically optimistic that the “correct” mix of economic policies will generate beneficial
patterns of self-sustaining growth.
Present Failure of Structural Change Development Theory
First, the model implicitly assumes that the rate of labour transfer and employment creation
in the modern sector is proportional to the rate of modern-sector capital accumulation. The
25 | P a g e

30. faster the rate of capital accumulation, the higher the growth rate of the modern sector and
the faster the rate of new job creation. But what if capitalist profits are reinvested in more
sophisticated labour-saving capital equipment rather than just duplicating the existing
capital as is implicitly assumed in the Lewis model? In fact this is little left to oppose this
possibility.
The second questionable assumption of the Lewis model is the notion that surplus
labour exists in rural areas while there is full employment in the urban areas.
Most
contemporary research indicates that there is little general surplus labour in rural locations.
True, there are both seasonal and geographic exceptions to this rule (e.g., parts of China and
the Asian subcontinent, some Carribean islands, and isolated regions of Latin America
where land ownership is very unequal), but by and large, development economists today
agree that Lewis’s assumption of rural surplus labour is generally not valid.
The third unreal assumption is the notion of a competitive modern-sector labour
market that guarantees the continued existence of constant real urban wages up to the point
where the supply of rural surplus labour is exhausted. Prior to the 1980s, a striking feature of
urban labour markets and wage determination in almost all developing countries was the
tendency for these wages to rise substantially over time, both in absolute terms and relative
to average rural incomes, even in the presence of rising levels of open modern-sector
unemployment and low or zero marginal productivity in agriculture. Institutional factors
such as union bargaining power, civil service wage scales, and multinational corporations’
hiring practices tend to negate competitive forces in LDC modern-sector labour markets.
We conclude, therefore, that when one takes into account the laboursaving bias of
most modern technological transfer, the existence of substantial capital flight, the
widespread nonexistence of rural surplus labour, the growing prevalence of urban surplus
labour, and the tendency for modern-sector wages to rise rapidly even where substantial
open unemployment exists, the Lewis two-sector model—though extremely valuable as an
early conceptual portrayal of the development process of sectoral interaction and structural
change—requires considerable modification in assumptions and analysis to fit the reality of
contemporary developing nations.
26 | P a g e

31. Turning to Neoliberalism and Indian Practices of Development
In the absence of real practice of development by structural dual-sector transformation we
first focus on what happened in India in the name of development practices. It is commonly
accepted that India has since the 1980s pursued a pro-business growth strategy (Kohli, 2009)
and a piecemeal process of liberalisation which, however ‘half-hearted’ at first (Harriss,
1987), entailed the gradual dismantling of the Nehru–Mahalanobis strategy of development
that had marked the first few decades of post-independence Indian economic growth. The
Nehru–Mahalanobis development model, in many respects rooted in the nationalist struggle
for independence, aimed inter alia at creating self-sufficiency and an economy free from
external and metropolitan domination, and in this venture planning became the
handmaiden of government. The Indian state actively intervened in the planning framework
by setting up a planning commission that determined national development interests,
ostensibly in relatively splendid isolation from the partisan squabbles and conflicts of
politics (Chatterjee, 1993: 202). The state also assumed a central role in the supply side of the
economy by actively pursuing a strategy of rapid import-substitution industrialisation that
focused on self-sufficiency and the building up of state-owned industries producing capital
goods; and by passing laws such as the Industries (Development and Regulation) Act in
1951 which prohibited the setting up of new units, or the substantial expansion of existing
ones, without a license from the state1. In crucial spheres, the state occupied the
commanding heights of the Indian economy. While this development pattern was executed
with full force only between 1956 and 1965 it can be considered to have lasted in its broader
dimensions, at times in intensified form and at others in attenuated form, until 1991 (Nayar,
2007: 162).
In retrospect the result of the Nehruvian model was a mixed economy with a mixed
record (Ghosh, 1999: 166) that included both successes and failures. However, as the state in
India oftentimes took on the form of a regulatory state and not a developmental state
(Corbridge and Harriss, 2000: 103), the state-led model came under increasing pressure in
the 1980s. On the one hand popular movements against state-led development induced
displacement – most notably the Narmada Bachao Andolan’s struggle against the building
1
Other important acts introduced to the same effect were the Monopoly and Restrictive Trade Practices Act, and the
Foreign Exchange Regulation Act.
27 | P a g e

32. of large dams in North India – heralded the coming of a new zeitgeist that brought an
increased awareness about environmental and human rights issues to bear on development
related questions (Aandahl, 2009); while on the other neo-liberal critics such as Jagdish
Bhagwati (in Corbridge and Harriss, 2000: 102) began arguing that Indian planning as we
knew it was bound to promote an economic system that was not only over-licensed and
bureaucratised, but also inefficient and corrupt. As is well known, India’s fiscal crisis in 1991
marked an important point of transition, as the liberalisation of the Indian economy
gathered speed in the wake of the implementation of a package of structural and economic
reforms, which meant that the Indian state had to redefine its role in the development
process.2 Post-1991 the Indian state adopted a new and more pro-business model of
development (Kohli, 2009) and dismantled much of its industrial licensing system. It
allowed private sector companies to trade in industries that had once been arrogated to
state-owned enterprises, and offered tax concessions, and there is little doubt that the broad
thrust of the reforms has been to increase the powers of private capital. Moreover, there is
now a virtual consensus among all major political parties about the priorities of rapid
economic growth led by private investment, both domestic and foreign (Chatterjee, 2008:
57). As a corollary, more and more activities have been brought under the purview of
‘development’, including the acquisition and allocation of land by governments to profitmaking private companies (Reddy and Reddy, 2007: 3235) and the setting up of special
economic zones. Proponents of the transition to a new ‘India model’ ascribe its apparent
economic success to the unshackling of the Indian people from the confines of a mixed
economy, one that combined the worst features of capitalism and socialism (Das, 2006). They
point to India’s impressive rates of economic growth post-1991, which made India one of the
world’s best performing economies in recent years. Critics, on the other hand, point out that
while it cannot be denied that significant economic growth has taken place, it has done so to
the detriment of the poor. The policy of prioritising rapid growth led by private capital,
critics argue, involves an illicit collusion between big capital and the state, where the latter
facilitates the penetration of the former by dispossessing and displacing subaltern groups.
To such critics – some of whom became active in the Singur movement – the land acquisition
2
There exists a vast body of literature debating whether the 1991 economic reforms proceeded gradually or
erratically; and whether they were a necessary and inevitable step or implemented by stealth by or on behalf of social
elites. For an overview, see Corbridge and Harriss (2000: 143–172).
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33. in Singur was thus symptomatic of the new forms of accumulation by dispossession
inherent in neoliberal forms of development (see e.g. Da Costa, 2007), carried out through
brute state power and oppression. Accordingly, to some the Singur protests became
symbolic of a new wave of emergent grassroots resistance to neo-liberal development and
the general ills of global capitalism.
Introducing Neoliberalism
“Neoliberalism” is a revival of “liberalism”. This definition suggests that liberalism, as a
political ideology, has been absent from political discussions and policy-making for a period
of time, only to emerge in more recent times in a reincarnated form. It suggests, in other
words, that liberalism has undergone a process of initial growth, intermediary decline, and
finally a recent rejuvenation. Alternatively, neoliberalism might be perceived of as a distinct
ideology, descending from, but not identical to liberalism “proper”. Under this
interpretation, neoliberalism would share some historical roots and some of the basic
vocabulary with liberalism in general.
Liberalism
The concept of neoliberalism suggests a particular account of the development of liberal
thought. It suggests that liberalism was at one point in time an influential political ideology,
but that it at some point lost some of its significance, only to revive itself in more recent
times in a new form. As it turns out, however, liberalism has dominated normative political
thought as well as practical politics in the West for the past sixty years, up to the point in
which it has become a shared inheritance among political theorists, professional politicians,
and nearly all significant political movements in its native countries. This is attested by the
fact that hardly anyone speaks out against freedom or democracy anymore, which are the
primary values of liberalism.
Neoliberalism could therefore scarcely be understood as the recovery of a lost
tradition of liberal, political thought. It should, in our view, instead be seen as an ideology
different from, and often opposed to, what is more commonly described as “liberalism”.
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34. The word “liberal” took on a specifically political meaning with the establishment of
liberal parliamentary caucuses in Sweden and Spain, and later on throughout Europe, in the
first decades of the nineteenth century (Gray 1995). When these embryonic political parties
coined the term “liberal”, they wanted to signal their favourable assessment of the emerging
democratic systems in Britain and especially the United States, as opposed to their
conservative opponents, who wanted to return to pre-revolutionary forms of government
(cf. Sartori 1987:367f).
Partly because of its relatively long history, the term “liberalism” has become a
rather nebulous concept, and usage has tended vary quite considerably over time, and in
accordance with varying regional experiences. The opening sentences of one entry in a
reference book should suffice to describe the lexicographer’s headache:
“Anyone trying to give a brief account of liberalism is immediately faced with an
embarrassing question: are we dealing with liberalism or liberalisms? It is easy to list
famous liberals; it is harder to say what they have in common. John Locke, Adam
Smith, Montesquieu, Thomas Jefferson, John Stuart Mill, Lord Acton, T. H. Green,
John Dewey and contemporaries such as Isaiah Berlin and John Rawls are certainly
liberals – but they do not agree about the boundaries of toleration, the legitimacy of
the welfare state, and the virtues of democracy, to take three rather central political
issues” (Ryan 1993:291)
One could more easily identify, however, some of the common varieties of liberalism and
liberal thought. One frequently encountered distinction goes between “classical” and
“modern” types of liberalism (Ryan 1993:293-296). Classical liberalism is, under Ryan’s
understanding, associated with earlier liberals such as the already mentioned John Locke
and Adam Smith. In addition, he names Alexis de Tocqueville from the nineteenth century,
and Friedrich von Hayek from the twentieth, as belonging to the tradition of classical
liberalism.
Classical liberalism is often associated with the belief that the state ought to be
minimal, which means that practically everything except armed forces, law enforcement and
other “non-excludable goods” ought to be left to the free dealings of its citizens, and the
organisations they freely choose to establish and take part in. This kind of state is sometimes
described as a “night-watchman state”, as the sole purpose of the minimal state is to uphold
the most fundamental aspects of public order. Some of these authors, especially John Locke
([1689/90] 1823), even consider the state to be a freely established association between
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35. individuals, where its members have a justified cause for rebellion if the state seizes more
power than what has been originally ceded to it by its citizens. Classical liberalism has thus
much common ground with what we described above as “economic liberalism”. And it is
often the case that classical liberals are, with their tendency to favour laissez-faire economic
policies, portrayed as leading proponents of “neoliberalism”.
Modern liberalism is, on the other hand, characterised by a greater willingness to let
the state become an active participant in the economy. This has often issued in a pronounced
tendency to regulate the marketplace, and to have the state supply essential goods and
services to everyone. Modern liberalism is therefore, for all intents and purposes, a profound
revision of liberalism, especially of the economic policies traditionally associated with it.
Whereas “classical” or “economic” liberals favour laissez-faire (let go or free market)
economic policies because it is thought that they lead to more freedom and real democracy,
modern liberals tend to claim that this analysis is inadequate and misleading, and that the
state must play a significant role in the economy, if the most basic liberal goals and purposes
are to be made into reality. Such “modern” views could be associated with nineteenthcentury theorists such as Benjamin Constant and John Stuart Mill. More recently, John
Dewey, William Beveridge, and John Rawls have articulated similar ideas. Modern
liberalism could generally be thought of as being situated politically to the left of classical
liberalism, because of its willingness to employ the state as an instrument to redistribute
wealth and power – in order to create a society deemed to be more decent or equitable (cf.
Beveridge 1944; 1945; Rawls 1993).
The Critical Reader is in many ways a typical representative of a recent wave of
“critical literature” whose main goal it is to denounce a powerful tendency which goes
under the name of “neoliberalism” (cf. e.g. Blomgren 1997; Bourdieu 1998; 1998a; 2001;
Giddens 1998; Chomsky 1999; Campbell and Pedersen 2001; Touraine 2001; Marsdal and
Wold 2004; Rapley 2004; Harvey 2005; Hagen 2006; Plehwe et al. 2006). Several of these
works accord neoliberalism an overwhelming significance, while they at the same time seem
quite happy to leave the concept of “neoliberalism” completely undefined, claiming, along
with Saad-Filho and Johnston, that it defies definition. One might therefore easily begin to
suspect that the concept has become, in some quarters at least, a generic term of deprecation
describing almost any economic and political development deemed to be undesirable.
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36. Neoliberalism: A Conceptual History
The first book-length work we have been able to discover, employing the term
“neoliberalism” in its title, is Jacques Cros’ doctoral thesis, (Cros 1950). To Cros,
neoliberalism is the political ideology which resulted from a few efforts at reinvigorating
classical liberalism in the period immediately before and during World War II, by political
theorists such as Wilhelm Röpke (1944; 1945) and Friedrich von Hayek (1944; Hayek et al.
1935). Cros” main argument is, basically, that these “neoliberals” have sought to redefine
liberalism by reverting to a more right-wing or laissez-faire stance on economic policy
issues, compared to the modern, egalitarian liberalism of Beveridge and Keynes. Cros
generally applaud these “neoliberals” for speaking out against totalitarianism at a time
when only few people did so, especially among intellectuals. He remains sceptical, however,
to their central thesis, common to most classical liberals, that individual liberty depends on
there being a free-market economy, where the state has voluntarily given up its ability to
control the economy for the good of society as a whole, or the interests of its own citizens.
Cros and Nawroth’s concept of neoliberalism was slowly and gradually exported to
the rest of the world, where it during the 1990”s gained the prevalence it now has. Under
ver Eecke”s understanding, neoliberalism is not a description of any kind of recent
contributions to liberal theory, but rather a concept reserved for a particular kind of
liberalism, which is marked by a radical commitment to laissez-faire economic policies.
Among the proponents of such policies one finds some of the more uncompromising
classical liberals such as Mises and Hayek, monetarists and other economists bent on
establishing and preserving what they perceive of as “free markets” such as Friedman, and
finally also those libertarians whose much-repeated insistence on individual liberty issues in
a demand for a minimal or practically non-existent state, like Nozick and Rothbard.
Neoliberalism Defined
In light of the body of literature partially presented above, as well as the other parts of this
present study, we therefore propose a definition which directly builds on the more moderate
voices of the “critical literature”, primarily Blomgren and Harvey. We believe, however, that
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37. our proposed definition is more to the point, and better able to function within the
framework of a more disinterested analysis of the phenomenon of neoliberalism, and the
conditions for politics in the contemporary world:
Neoliberalism is, as we see it, a loosely demarcated set of political beliefs which most
prominently and prototypically include the conviction that the only legitimate purpose of
the state is to safeguard individual, especially commercial, liberty, as well as strong private
property rights (cf. especially Mises 1962; Nozick 1974; Hayek 1979). This conviction usually
issues, in turn, in a belief that the state ought to be minimal or at least drastically reduced in
strength and size, and that any transgression by the state beyond its sole legitimate purpose
is unacceptable (ibid.). These beliefs could apply to the international level as well, where a
system of free markets and free trade ought to be implemented as well; the only acceptable
reason for regulating international trade is to safeguard the same kind of commercial liberty
and the same kinds of strong property rights which ought to be realised on a national level
(Norberg 2001; Friedman 2006).
Neoliberalism generally also includes the belief that freely adopted market
mechanisms is the optimal way of organising all exchanges of goods and services (Friedman
1962; 1980; Norberg 2001). Free markets and free trade will, it is believed, set free the
creative potential and the entrepreneurial spirit which is built into the spontaneous order of
any human society, and thereby lead to more individual liberty and well-being, and a more
efficient allocation of resources (Hayek 1973; Rothbard [1962/1970] 2004).
Neoliberalism could also include a perspective on moral virtue: the good and
virtuous person is one who is able to access the relevant markets and function as a
competent actor in these markets. He or she is willing to accept the risks associated with
participating in free markets, and to adapt to rapid changes arising from such participation
(Friedman 1980). Individuals are also seen as being solely responsible for the consequences
of the choices and decisions they freely make: instances of inequality and glaring social
injustice are morally acceptable, at least to the degree in which they could be seen as the
result of freely made decisions (Nozick 1974; Hayek 1976). If a person demands that the state
should regulate the market or make reparations to the unfortunate who has been caught at
the losing end of a freely initiated market transaction, this is viewed as an indication that the
person in question is morally depraved and underdeveloped, and scarcely different from a
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38. proponent of a totalitarian state (Mises 1962). Thus understood and defined, neoliberalism
becomes a loose set of ideas of how the relationship between the state and its external
environment ought to be organised, and not a complete political philosophy or ideology
(Blomgren 1997; Malnes 1998). In fact, it is not understood as a theory about how political
processes ought to be organised at all.
Neoliberalism is for instance silent on the issue of whether or not there ought to
be democracy and free exchanges of political ideas. This means, as Harvey (2005)
indicates, that policies inspired by neoliberalism could be implemented under the
auspices of autocrats as well as within liberal democracies. In fact, neoliberals merely
claim, in effect, that as much as possible ought to be left to the market or other processes
which individuals freely choose to take part in, and consequently that as little as
possible ought to be subjected to genuinely political processes. Proponents of
neoliberalism are therefore often in the “critical literature” portrayed as sceptics of
democracy: if the democratic process slows down neoliberal reforms, or threatens
individual and commercial liberty, which it sometimes does, then democracy ought to
be sidestepped and replaced by the rule of experts or legal instruments designed for that
purpose. The practical implementation of neoliberal policies will, therefore, lead to a
relocation of power from political to economic processes, from the state to markets and
individuals, and finally from the legislature and executives authorities to the judiciary
(cf. Østerud et al. 2003; Trollstøl and Stensrud 2005; Tranøy 2006).
Why the Neoliberal Turn?
The restructuring of state forms and of international relations after the Second World War
was designed to prevent a return to the catastrophic conditions that had so threatened the
capitalist order in the great slump of the 1930s. It was also supposed to prevent the reemergence of inter-state geopolitical rivalries that had led to the war. To ensure domestic
peace and tranquillity, some sort of class compromise between capital and labour had to be
constructed. The thinking at the time is perhaps best represented by an influential text by
two eminent social scientists, Robert Dahl and Charles Lindblom, published in 1953. Both
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39. capitalism and communism in their raw forms had failed, they argued. The only way ahead
was to construct the right blend of state, market, and democratic institutions to guarantee
peace, inclusion, well-being, and stability. Internationally, a new world order was
constructed through the Bretton Woods agreements, and various institutions, such as the
United Nations, the World Bank, the IMF, and the Bank of International Settlements in Basle,
were set up to help stabilize international relations. Free trade in goods was encouraged
under a system of fixed exchange rates anchored by the US dollar’s convertibility into gold
at a fixed price. Fixed exchange rates were incompatible with free flows of capital that had to
be controlled, but the US had to allow the free flow of the dollar beyond its borders if the
dollar was to function as the global reserve currency. This system existed under the
umbrella protection of US military power. Only the Soviet Union and the Cold War placed
limits on its global reach.
A variety of social democratic, Christian democratic and dirigiste (directed by a
central authority) states emerged in Europe after the Second World War. The US itself
turned towards a liberal democratic state form, and Japan, under the close supervision of the
US, built a nominally democratic but in practice highly bureaucratic state apparatus
empowered to oversee the reconstruction of that country. What all of these various state
forms had in common was an acceptance that the state should focus on full employment,
economic growth, and the welfare of its citizens, and that state power should be freely
deployed, alongside of or, if necessary, intervening in or even substituting for market
processes to achieve these ends. Fiscal and monetary policies usually dubbed ‘Keynesian’
were widely deployed to dampen business cycles and to ensure reasonably full
employment. A ‘class compromise’ between capital and labour was generally advocated as
the key guarantor of domestic peace and tranquillity. States actively intervened in industrial
policy and moved to set standards for the social wage by constructing a variety of welfare
systems (health care, education, and the like). This form of political-economic organization
is now usually referred to as ‘embedded liberalism’ to signal how market processes and
entrepreneurial and corporate activities were surrounded by a web of social and political
constraints and a regulatory environment that sometimes restrained but in other instances
led the way in economic and industrial strategy. State-led planning and in some instances
state ownership of key sectors (coal, steel, automobiles) were not uncommon (for example in
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40. Britain, France, and Italy). The neoliberal project is to disembed capital from these
constraints.
Embedded liberalism delivered high rates of economic growth in the advanced
capitalist countries during the 1950s and 1960s. In part this depended on the largesse of the
US in being prepared to run deficits with the rest of the world and to absorb any excess
product within its borders. This system conferred benefits such as expanding export markets
(most obviously for Japan but also unevenly across South America and to some other
countries of South-East Asia), but attempts to export ‘development’ to much of the rest of
the world largely stalled. For much of the Third World, particularly Africa, embedded
liberalism remained a pipe dream. The subsequent drive towards neoliberalization after
1980 entailed little material change in their impoverished condition. In the advanced
capitalist countries, redistributive politics (including some degree of political integration of
working-class trade union power and support for collective bargaining), controls over the
free mobility of capital (some degree of financial repression through capital controls in
particular), expanded public expenditures and welfare state-building, active state
interventions in the economy, and some degree of planning of development went hand in
hand with relatively high rates of growth. The business cycle was successfully controlled
through the application of Keynesian fiscal and monetary policies. A social and moral
economy (sometimes supported by a strong sense of national identity) was fostered through
the activities of an interventionist state. The state in effect became a force field that
internalized class relations. Working-class institutions such as labour unions and political
parties of the left had a very real influence within the state apparatus.
By the end of the 1960s embedded liberalism began to break down, both
internationally and within domestic economies. Signs of a serious crisis of capital
accumulation were everywhere apparent. Unemployment and inflation were both surging
everywhere, ushering in a global phase of ‘stagflation’ that lasted throughout much of the
1970s. Fiscal crises of various states (Britain, for example, had to be bailed out by the IMF in
1975–6) resulted as tax revenues plunged and social expenditures soared. Keynesian policies
were no longer working. Even before the Arab-Israeli War and the OPEC oil embargo of
1973, the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates backed by gold reserves had fallen
into disarray. The porosity of state boundaries with respect to capital flows put stress on the
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41. system of fixed exchange rates. US dollars had flooded the world and escaped US controls
by being deposited in European banks. Fixed exchange rates were therefore abandoned in
1971. Gold could no longer function as the metallic base of international money; exchange
rates were allowed to float, and attempts to control the float were soon abandoned. The
embedded liberalism that had delivered high rates of growth to at least the advanced
capitalist countries after 1945 was clearly exhausted and was no longer working. Some
alternative was called for if the crisis was to be overcome.
One answer was to deepen state control and regulation of the economy through
corporatist strategies (including, if necessary, curbing the aspirations of labour and popular
movements through austerity measures, incomes policies, and even wage and price
controls). This answer was advanced by socialist and communist parties in Europe, with
hopes pinned on innovative experiments in governance in places such as communistcontrolled ‘Red Bologna’ in Italy, on the revolutionary transformation of Portugal in the
wake of the collapse of fascism, on the turn towards a more open market socialism and ideas
of ‘Eurocommunism’, particularly in Italy (under the leadership of Berlinguer) and in Spain
(under the influence of Carrillo), or on the expansion of the strong social democratic welfare
state tradition in Scandinavia. The left assembled considerable popular power behind such
programmes, coming close to power in Italy and actually acquiring state power in Portugal,
France, Spain, and Britain, while retaining power in Scandinavia. Even in the United States,
a Congress controlled by the Democratic Party legislated a huge wave of regulatory reform
in the early 1970s (signed into law by Richard Nixon, a Republican president, who in the
process even went so far as to remark that ‘we are all Keynesians now’), governing
everything from environmental protection to occupational safety and health, civil rights, and
consumer protection. But the left failed to go much beyond traditional social democratic and
corporatist solutions and these had by the mid-1970s proven inconsistent with the
requirements of capital accumulation. The effect was to polarize debate between those
ranged behind social democracy and central planning on the one hand (who, when in
power, as in the case of the British Labour Party, often ended up trying to curb, usually for
pragmatic reasons, the aspirations of their own constituencies), and the interests of all those
concerned with liberating corporate and business power and re-establishing market
freedoms on the other. By the mid-1970s, the interests of the latter group came to the fore.
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