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

Abstract

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

Key Words:

• Resistance
• land acquisition
• India
• judicialisation
• political society
• Tata Motors

Acknowledgements

Earlier versions of this article were presented at two consecutive workshops on “Rethinking Resistance: Subalternity and the State in Contemporary India” at the Law and Social Sciences Research Network Conference at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, December 14–16, 2012; and at the Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference in San Diego, USA, March 21–24, 2013. A later version was presented at the workshop on “Neoliberal Development and Indian Democracy: The Politics of Rights, Rebellions and Reforms” at Stockholm University, Sweden, October 10–12, 2013. The author would like to thank the conference participants for their comments. Specials thanks also to Uday Chandra and Kevin Hewison. The comments of the two anonymous reviewers were gratefully received.

Notes

¹ The initial bifurcation of the project-affected land owners into “willing” and “unwilling” did not, however, neatly follow caste, class or party political lines.

² Sections of the empirical material that follow are drawn from Nielsen (2008, 2009).

³ Although recent critiques of the Supreme Court’s response to public interest litigation have argued that the court now to a much lesser extent than before adopts a pro-poor stance, the public interest litigation system has generally been credited with bringing courts closer to the disadvantaged sections of society (Deva 2009; Robinson 2010; Bhushan, n.d.).

⁴ This section builds on Nielsen (2009, 132–134). The names of the residents of Singur and the leaders of the SKJRC are pseudonyms, barring Rabindranath Bhattacharya and Becharam Manna who are both well-known TMC politicians.

⁵ There exists considerable inter-state variation with regard to the technical aspects of land acquisition proceedings in India. I here rely on the Land Acquisition Act as it was applicable in West Bengal at the time of the hearing of the Singur case, basing my analysis on Sarkar (2007).

⁶ It is, however, debated whether the Act in question qualifies as “an exception” within Chatterjee’s framework. See Chatterjee (2011b) for a point of view different from that articulated here.

⁷ The schedule has two parts. The first concerns those awardees whose cases have been referred to the court to determine ownership of acquired land. Part two concerns the unwilling farmers. It lists them by name along with other details regarding the land acquired from them, including the area, the compensation, field index and registry numbers (Ghosh 2012, 14).