![Sample our Social Sciences journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110822/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Social-Sciences.jpg"})
Abstract
Middlemen are largely absent from the literature and policymaking on land deals. Based on qualitative evidence from India, this paper shows a highly organised field of aggregators, brokers, touts, musclemen and others permeating the land economy. Biographical accounts provide glimpses of everyday work, career and aspirations. A high-definition narrative of middlemen as middlemen allows a shift away from instrumental analyses of bridges in global capitalist accumulation. Even as they reproduce larger structures, middlemen can be rule-makers who personalise, localise and actively shape the land economy. Global debates cannot afford to ignore these hitherto missing dimensions in land deals.
Notes
1The factor of production made by humans in society, with the aim of furthering wealth creation. Capital can comprise fixed assets such as buildings, circulating assets such as raw material, and finance.
2Here state with a small ‘s’ refers to the apparatus of government, with its attendant discourses, ideologies and politics. State with a capital ‘S’ connotes the federal units of the Indian Union, also known as regions.
3SEZs are trade and manufacturing-capacity development tools, defined by policy incentives aimed at encouraging Foreign Direct Investment, technology innovations and exports. SEZs, whether single or multi-product, tend to cover vast areas and have thus proved controversial for their use of resources, including land and water. In 2009, there were 98 operational SEZs in India; in 2012, there were 588.
4Developers are the financiers and coordinators of a building project. Builders are responsible for construction.
5Consultant, interviewed in Kolkata, 20 December 2012.
6Broker, interviewed in Kolkata, 22 December 2012.
7Broker, interviewed in Kolkata, 29 August 2013.
8At the sub-national scale, Indian administrative units are divided into villages, blocks, districts and States. Blocks are a group of villages and may include a town, districts are a group of blocks and States comprise several districts.
9Aggregator, interviewed in Chennai, 14 August 2012.
10Aggregator, interviewed in Kolkata, 23 August 2012.
11Broker, interviewed in Kolkata, 22 December 2012.
12Builder, interviewed in Kolkata, 19 December 2012.
13Builder, interviewed in Kolkata, 21 August 2012.
14Broker, interviewed in Kolkata, 22 December 2012.
15Broker, interviewed in Kolkata, 22 December 2012.
16Interviewed in Kolkata, 26 December 2011.
17Retired civil servant, interviewed in Ahmedabad, 24 December 2008.
18Builder, interviewed in Kolkata, 24 December 2011; lawyer, interviewed in Chennai, 16 August 2012.
19Aggregator, interviewed in Kolkata, 23 August 2012.
20Aggregator, interviewed in Chennai, 14 August 2012.
21Builder, interviewed in Kolkata, 20 August 2012.
22The administrative divisions mentioned in footnote 6 have a land bureaucracy attached. This comes with different terminologies across India, though in most cases the District Collector or District Magistrate is the highest administrative functionary, with various block and village land officials working under him/her.
23Interviewed in Kolkata, 29 August 2013.
24Broker, interviewed in Kolkata, 22 December 2012.
25I have kept to local currency measures and units, as that is the language spoken by interview respondents. For reference, at current rates, £1 = Indian Rupees (INR) 101.65; $1 = INR 63.18. Further, 1 crore = 10,000,000; 1 lakh = 100,000.
26Developer, interviewed in Kolkata, 22 August 2012.
27Local broker, interviewed in Kolkata, 29 August 2013.
28Interviewed in Kolkata, 22 December 2012.
29Interviewed in Kolkata, 29 August 2013.
30Interviewed in Kolkata, 29 August 2013.
31Aggregator, interviewed in Chennai, 14 August 2012.
32Developer, interviewed in Kolkata, 29 August 2013.
33Interviewed in Delhi, 8 August 2012.
Additional information
Nikita Sud is Associate Professor of Development Studies at the University of Oxford, and Governing Body Fellow of Wolfson College. She is researching the liberalisation of land in India, focusing on formal policy and legislative change as well as informal market and governance mechanisms. Her qualitative fieldwork has covered Delhi and the States of Gujarat, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.