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Johanna Rabindran, 247

Chatterjee, Partha. Democracy and Economic Transformation in India, Economic and Political Weekly,
Vol. 43, No. 16 (Apr. 19 - 25, 2008), pp. 53-62

In the context of globalisation, Partha Chatterjee suggests that peasant agitations can no longer be
analysed in the earlier framework of peasant insurgency. With the entry of the developmental state
and electoral democracy, rural populations are no longer isolated. At the same time, the Indian state
does not depend on revenue from agriculture, so the relation between the peasants and the state is
not directly extractive. Thus, he begins to work on a new conceptual framework to understand these
relations.

In Rethinking Capitalist Development, Kalyan Sanyal discusses the primitive accumulation of capital.
With the emergence of modern capitalist industries, the peasants are dissociated from the means of
labour, leading to a crisis in peasant societies. However, Kalyan Sanyal has shown that these social
changes cannot be understood through the narrative of transition. While economic growth continues
to be considered important, it is also recognised that all must have access to certain basic conditions
of life. This leads to the displacement of primary producers from their means of livelihood and a
simultaneous reversal of the impacts of primitive accumulation through the welfare interventions of
the state.

It was possible to politically manage the peasants displaced by the initial primitive accumulation in
Europe, America and colonial territory because of the possibilities of migration and employment in
the emerging industrial sector. Today, however, the primary producers, once displaced, are left with
no viable source of livelihood. With the new normative ideas, as well as the threat of peasant violence,
the governmental agencies are obliged to rehabilitate those who are displaced (through loans,
poverty-removal programmes etc). Where they continue to own the means of production (such as in
household industries), they are connected to the market economy both for the purchase of consumer
goods and the sale of the goods they produce.

The political structure of India has been described through the ideas of ‘coalition of the dominant
classes’ and ‘passive revolution’. Partha Chatterjee, however, believes that the nature of the political
structure has changed somewhat since the 1990s. Liberalisation and the availability of new
opportunities to Indian capitalists (such as the end of the license-raj) led to some political changes.
The capitalist class has gained political ground, and the landed elites have lost some of their earlier
power. There has also been a shift in the role of the bureaucratic-managerial class, as the state is no
longer involved in large-scale autonomous interventions. The urban middle class now views the state
as corrupt and inefficient and has ideologically shifted towards the bourgeoise.

Here, Partha Chatterjee differentiates the Capitalist democracies of the West from the political
structure of India in this period. This is because India’s political system is characterised by a division
between the civil society (urban middle classes, normatively in favour of capitalism) and the political
society (the poor, who are treated differently by the government). Those in political society make their
claims on the state not through the constitution and formal laws but on the basis of temporary and
contextual arrangements. On the other hand, the civil society influences the government through
electoral mobilisation, the bureaucracy and print media. There is a degree of intolerance towards the
informal sector. Partha Chatterjee believes that the new understanding of the Passive Revolution and
the new relationship between civil and political society is based on the need (discussed earlier) to
reverse the effects of primitive accumulation.
As mentioned earlier, with the linking of subsistence production with the market, there is a single
stratified complex of interrelations which he names the Informal sector or Non-corporate sector. Like
the informal manufacturing units, peasant production in the Non-corporate sector is based on the
logic of providing for the livelihood needs of the workers (however, the owners of these units might
indeed have aspirations to join the formal sector). The Corporate sector, on the other hand, works on
the principle of maximising profit for further investment.

Street vendors or illegal squatters, for example, often violate laws or regulations. In this process, they
also constitute some form of organisation, which Partha Chatterjee recognises as both economic and
political. The state then sees them as specific populations which are the target of welfare schemes,
rather than as citizens of the civil society. The claims of the people in political society are thus
recognised as a matter of continuous political negotiation rather than as rights or the application of
administrative rules. According to Partha Chatterjee, Political society is the space for Non-corporate
capital, while Corporate capital is hegemonic in the Civil society.

Village culture, too, has undergone a transformation over the years. Rather than a general need to
reproduce itself, village life today is characterised by migration to the cities and the increasing
importance of non-agricultural production (probably a result of the primitive accumulation).
Government agencies and the provision of welfare services are now firmly integrated in village life.
Peasants, just like the informal sector in the cities, are now able to pressure the government to
negotiate for better terms. The state in turn responds by dividing the rural society into multiple target
populations in an attempt to fragment opposition. Partha Chatterjee sees the peasant movements of
today as deliberate actions to draw attention to specific grievances and seek government benefits.
However, unlike the informal sector in cities, peasants have been unable to form organisations to
negotiate with market forces on their behalf. Partha Chatterjee also recognises certain marginalised
groups who have been unable to make their demands heard despite the possibilities of electoral
mobilisation and political society.

The state is involved in the process of reversal of the effects of primitive accumulation precisely
because the dominant capitalist class (in the civil society) recognises this as a necessary political
condition to placate the displaced sections. Civil society is thus integrated with political society.
However, the distinction he makes between Civil and Political society is problematic and can be
questioned (as Pranab Bardhan did later).

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