ADIVASIS IN AND AGAINST THE STATE

Abstract

The question of the state has come to occupy a central place in recent debates on subaltern politics in contemporary India. Against those critical voices that have claimed that the emancipation of subaltern groups can only proceed by challenging and moving beyond the modern Indian state, a range of scholars and commentators have asserted that it is precisely by seeking to harness the state that social movements can hope to advance their oppositional projects. Intervening in this debate, this article argues that although these new perspectives constitute a decisive advance in terms of developing a relational understanding of subaltern politics in India, questions pertaining to the structural constraints that social movements face in advancing their oppositional projects through the institutions and discourses of the state are still neglected. The article addresses these questions through a detailed exploration of the ways in and extent to which Adivasi movements have managed to democratize local state–society relationships in western Madhya Pradesh, and discusses the conceptual and political lessons that can be drawn from these experiences. Drawing on recent advances in Marxian state theory, the article argues that it is necessary to move beyond the theoretical impasses of both anti-statism and state-centrism and toward a politically enabling engagement with contemporary Adivasi mobilization in India.

Notes

^1. The term “Adivasi,” which literally means “first inhabitant,” was coined by tribal rights activists early in the twentieth century to express their claim to being the indigenous people of India. The Indian government does not recognize Adivasis as being indigenous people, but defines Adivasi communities as belonging to the category of Scheduled Tribes as per the Fifth and Sixth Schedules of the Indian Constitution. The Fifth and Sixth Schedules—schedules are basically lists in the Constitution that categorize and tabulate bureaucratic activity and policy of the Government—provide an array of protective legislation, special entitlements and reservations for Adivasis. For a selection of perspectives on the issue of indigeneity in the Indian context, see Bétéille 1986; Singh 1986; Prasad 2003; Guha 1999; Ratnagar 2003; Bates 1995; Damodaran 2006; and Shah 2007.

^2. Singh originally made this statement in 2005, and has repeated it on several occasions since then. See Roy 2010 and Indian Express 2009.

^3. India's Red Corridor is a largely forested area, stretching from Bihar in the east to the northern fringes of Tamil Nadu in the south, incorporating some of the country's most impoverished districts, which is controlled by Maoist insurgents. Covering one-fifth of India's forest, the Red Corridor is overwhelmingly populated by Adivasis. The Maoist movement, or Naxalites as they are also known, is currently centered around the Communist Party of India (Maoist), which was formed in 2004 as a merger of various factions of what was originally the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Party Unity, People's War Group, and the Maoist Communist Centre); see Chakrabarty and Kujur 2009; Banaji 2010; Harriss 2011. The roots of the current Maoist movement stretch back to the Naxalite revolt that erupted among tribal peasants in northern West Bengal in 1967; see Banerjee 1984.

^4. An estimated 45 percent of India's Adivasis live below the country's official poverty line—a poverty line that is widely criticized for being much too low. See World Bank 2011; Mehta et al. 2011.

^5. Giri 2009.

^6. D'Souza 2009.

^7. Roy 2010.

^8. Guha 2007.

^9. Banaji 2010.

^10. Nigam 2010.

^11. Omvedt 1993; Kamat 2002; Vanaik 1990.

^12. See Kulkarni 1974, 1979; Mies 1986; Basu 1990; Kashtakari Sangathana 1986; de Silva et al. 1979.

^13. See Tiwari 2010 and Mahaprashasta 2010 on the Modi case and the arrests in Gujarat respectively.

^14. Guha 2007, 3309.

^15. Nilsen 2010.

^16. Kamat 2002.

^17. See Guha 1982 for the original founding statement of the project. See Nilsen 2009 (Autonome) and Sarkar 1998 for critical interrogations of this analytical bifurcation.

^18. Guha 1989.

^19. Guha 1989, 229.

^20. Kaviraj 1999, 2010.

^21. Ibid., 50.

^22. Ibid., 23.

^23. Ibid., 29. Similar arguments to these can also be found in the work of Inden 1995 and Nandy 1989.

^24. Chatterjee 1986, 51, 161.

^25. Chatterjee 1993, 12, 13.

^26. Chatterjee, 2004, 2008.

^27. Chatterjee 2008, 54.

^28. Chatterjee 2004, ch. 2. See Chatterjee 1997 and 2001 to trace the germination of this perspective.

^29. Chatterjee 2004, 37, 41, 50.

^30. Subramanian 2009, 20.

^31. Sinha 2012, 89. See also Corbridge, Williams, Srivastava, and Véron 2005, 250.

^32. Subramanian 2009, 4.

^33. See Heller 1999, 2000; Jaffrelot 2003; Fuller and Harriss 2001; Corbridge et al. 2005; Sharma 2008; Gupta 1998; Michelutti 2007; Sinha 2003, 2012; Desai 2007; Subramanian 2003, 2012; Shah 2010; Madhok 2003, 2007; and Corbridge and Harriss 2000.

^34. Williams, Vira and Chopra 2011, 14.

^35. Ibid., 17.

^36. Nilsen 2011.

^37. Jessop 1982, 253. In Nilsen 2011, I address how this question also remained unresolved in the work of Abrams and Foucault.

^38. Sewell 1992, 20.

^39. Thompson 1978, 50; Roseberry 1994, 356–57.

^40. Moore 1998, 347.

^41. Gramsci 1998, 181–82.

^42. Williams 1977; Nilsen 2009 (Authors).

^43. Roseberry 1994, 358.

^44. Cox 1999; Nilsen 2009 (Authors).

^45. Roseberry 1994, 360.

^46. Nilsen 2009 (Autonome) and 2009 (Authors). See also Green 2002.

^47. Poulantzas, 1978, 147.

^48. Jessop 1982, 221.

^49. Abrams 1988.

^50. Jessop 1990, 256.

^51. Ibid., 225.

^52. See Silver and Slater 1999 for a useful analysis of this trajectory.

^53. Jessop 1990, 250.

^54. Ibid., 260.

^55. Corrigan and Sayer 1985, 7.

^56. Ibid., 4.

^57. Ibid., 4, 6.

^58. Ibid., 6.

^59. Nugent and Alonso 1994, 210.

^60. This section is based on interviews with KMCS activists carried out in 2003 and 2009–2010, as well as Baviskar 1995. For an extended discussion of everyday tyranny, see Nilsen 2010.

^61. Fuller and Harriss 2001.

^62. The experience of encountering the state would be different for a small elite among the Adivasis, namely, the Patels (the village headmen) and the Patwaris (the revenue officers). These men were normally the nodes that linked the local state to the villages, and they often partook in the coercion and extortion that state officials imposed on the village communities (author's fieldnotes and interviews, August 2009–July 2010). See also Baviskar 2001, 11.

^63. Nilsen 2010, ch. 3.

^64. Interview, Alirajpur, March 2003.

^65. This is not to say that breach of forest law was the only source of state tyranny in the region. For a more detailed account of the manifold ways in which the local state imposed its regime of extortion on the Alirajpur communities, see Nilsen 2010.

^66. Gadgil and Guha 1995, 185.

^67. Prasad 2004.

^68. Baviskar 1995.

^69. Scott 1990.

^70. This should not be read as an argument to the effect that a lack of a capacity for and propensity toward resistance has been a constant feature of Adivasi relations with external social groups and forces. Rather, the history of Bhil and Bhilala Adivasis in western India “has been a chronicle of incorporation and resistance” (Baviskar 1995, 85). See, for example, Hardiman 1987.

^71. Jayal 2000, 26–27.

^72. See Corbridge and Harriss 2000, ch. 2.

^73. Nugent 1997, 20.

^74. Ibid.

^75. This section is based on interviews with KMCS activists carried out in 2003 and 2009–2010. I have also drawn on Baviskar 1995 and Banerjee n.d. (Recovering).

^76. This is the common term used to describe activists who come from an urban background, who tend to be highly educated, and who have grown up in families engaged in white-collar work. The following account of the KMCS is based on interviews carried out in 2003 and 2009–2010, as well as Baviskar 1995 and Banerjee n.d. (Sahukars).

^77. This was the Lal Topi Andolan, a socialist movement active in the 1950s and 1960s; see Nilsen 2010.

^78. A sahukar is a moneylender.

^79. Guha 2002, 227.

^80. A dharna is a sit-in demonstration.

^81. A tehsil is a sub-district administrative unit.

^82. Interviews and field notes, March 2003.

^83. Nilsen 2010, 63–68.

^84. Interview, Amit Bhatnagar, Sakad, July 2010.

^85. See Baviskar 1994, 1995.

^86. Nugent 1997, 20.

^87. Chatterjee 2004, 41.

^88. Subramaniam 2009, 19.

^89. I base this account of the Adivasi Mukti Sangathan on interviews with AMS activists carried out between August 2009 and July 2010. In reconstructing the repression of the movement, I have drawn extensively on the detailed account provided by Amita Baviskar (2001), as well as reports by Amnesty International 2000 and Adivasi Mukti Sangathan 1998.

^90. Harriss-White 2003.

^91. Sundar 2010.

^92. West Nimar was divided into Badwani and Khargone districts in 1998.

^93. Interview, Bijoy Panda, Sendwha, November 2010.

^95. Ibid.

^94. Interview, Mukesh, Sakad, November 2010.

^96. Interview, Nikunj Bhutia, Cuttack, April 2011.

^97. Baviskar, 2001, 16.

^98. Ibid.

^99. Interview, Bijoy Panda, Sendwha, November 2010.

^100. I base this account of the trajectory of the Adivasi Morcha Sangathan on several interviews with Rahul Banerjee, carried out in 2010, as well as the following written sources: Banerjee n.d. (Sahukars); Bavadam 2001; Subramaniam 2001; Jan Sangharsh Morcha 2001; and Swaminathan 2001.

^101. The Gram Sabha is a meeting of all adults who live in the area covered by a panchayat.

^102. Interview, Indore, Rahul Banerjee, May 2010.

^103. Rahul Banerjee, interview, Indore, March 2010.

^104. The sarpanch is an elected head of a village-level statutory institution of local self-government.

^105. Jessop 1982, 224.

^106. Kamat 2002, 158.

^107. Michelutti 2007, 639.

^108. Corbridge and Harriss 2000, 238.

^109. Kamat 2002.

^110. Ibid., 122.

^111. Ibid., 124.

^112. Ibid., 125–26.

^113. Poulantzas 1978, 153.

^114. Barker and Cox 2002.

^115. Geoghegan and Cox 2001.