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ABSTRACT
In this article, I seek to understand the subnational variations in protests against land acqusition in India by comparing Chhattisgarh and western Uttar Pradesh (UP). Current scholarship explains these subnational variations through an analysis of subnational state policies of land acquisition. I suggest a people-centered approach that pays more attention to how the regional forms of mobilization have been shaped by the historical trajectories of engagement with the (colonial and postcolonial) state, market, and resistance movements. In Chhattisgarh, historical dispossessions and contemporary exclusions orchestrated by the state, the presence of strong civil society organizations to counter the state, and intergenerational memories of a rebellious tribal past resulted in the challenge to the market. State-driven agrarian development programs that created farmer entrepreneurs with urban longings, and a fear of loss of status resulted in the farmers’ demands for better compensation in UP. I suggest that complex and divergent historical processes might be at the root of why these mobilizations are predominantly subnational than national in scale.
KEYWORDS:
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Notes
1 Adivasis, literally the original inhabitants, is a term used in India to refer to tribal communities.
2 Economic Survey 2014–2015, http://www.indiabudget.gov.in/budget2015-2016/es2014-15/echapter-vol1.pdf, accessed in April 2016.
3 A public hearing is a key process before granting environmental clearance to a developmental project, and a venue to express the discontent of those who are adversely affected by it. The report of the public hearing is submitted to the Indian Ministry of Environment, which decides whether to grant clearance to a project.
4 Interview with Hareesh Patel (pseudonym), on 12th July 2015, Gare village, Raigarh, Chhattisgarh.
5 Interview with Hareesh Patel, on 12th July 2015, Gare village, Raigarh, Chhattisgarh.
6 Interview with Hareesh Patel, on 12th July 2015, Gare village, Raigarh, Chhattisgarh.
7 Jan Chetna Manch (People’s Awareness Forum) is a non-governmental organization (NGO) established in the early 1990sand led by Rajesh Tripathi and Savita Rath. It was inspired by activist Harsh Mander when he started his career as an officer in the Indian Administrative Services, Chhattisgarh. The Adivasi Mazdoor Kisan Sangathan (Tribe, Labour and Farmer’s Organization) is an organisation that campaigns for the rights of tribal labourers and farmers.
8 Interview with Savita Rath, on 12th July 2015, in Raigarh, Chhattisgarh.
9 Janhit (People’s Will) is a legal aid organization in Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, started by civil rights activist Sudha Bharadwaj.
10 Interview with Ramesh Agarwal, on 8 July 2015, in Raigarh, Chhattisgarh.
11 Mines, Minerals and PEOPLE is an organization that fights mining extraction and supports Dalit and Adivasi struggles for control over natural resources. https://www.mmpindia.in/.
13 Hareesh Patel, ibid.
14 Here I rely a lot on Nair (Citation2020).
15 The Jats are historically an agricultural community in Northern India. Though they are categorized as ed as an Other Backward Class (OBC) in the Indian census, a term denoting socially disadvantages, they have bee, prosperous farmers in UP, Punjab and Haryana states (Jaffrelot, Citation2010; Jenkins et al., Citation2014).
16 The DM was the bureaucrat in charge of governing administrative districts in India. They were recruited from the elite Indian Administrative Service.
17 A farmer-leader of Bhatta, Karan Pal (pseudonym), interviewed on February 4, 2016.
18 A farmer-leader of Bhatta village Bhola Ram, interviewed on January 29, 2016.
19 Interview with a Gond Adivasi, on 12th July 2015, in Village Gare, Raigarh (Chhattisgarh).
20 Interview with a Kewat Adivasi on 15th July 2015, in Kosampali, Raigarh (Chhattisgarh).
21 Chhattisgarh Census Data 2001, retrieved on 16.10.2016.
22 Unlike what Sharma (2012) observed, Adivasi consciousness is well developed in Raigarh region of Chhattisgarh now probably because of sustained influence and political consciousness raising campaigns by organizations such as Jan Chetna, Jan Hit, Chhattisgarh Bachaon Andolan and Ekta Parishad.
23 This section relies on arguments developed in Nair (Citation2020).
24 A farmer-leader, Nathuram, interviewed on February 4, 2016.
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Notes on contributors
Manjusha Nair
Manjusha Nair is Associate Professor of Sociology at George Mason University, where she is also the Director of the Global South Research hub. Nair’s work is at the intersection of globalization and political sociology. Nair has a published a book Undervalued Dissent: Informal Workers’ Politics in India (SUNY Press, 2016) and articles in journals such as Development and Change, Journal of Global South Studies, and Global Labour Journal.