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| Neo-liberalism and Its Discontents Sirisha C Naidu | interesting account of the rise of, what is now known as, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in favour of de-regulation, de-control, de-licensing and anti-affirmative action; what he describes as the |
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Economic & Political Weekly
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India’s New Economic Policy: A Critical Analysis
edited by Waquar Ahmed, Amitabh Kundu and Richard Peet (New York: Routledge), 2011; pp xii + 321, Rs 6,360.
and influence the discourse on India’s current economic path. The varied issues considered in the book are all worthy of detailed discussion. However, I focus my attention on three dominant themes in the book: urbanisation, the processes of development and environmentalism, and resistances to economic liberalisation.
Urbanisation
This book makes a timely contribution to the debate on urbanisation in the current Indian economy. Ahmed argues that the urban bias inherent in state planning, at least since the 1980s, along with affirmative action legislated for the public sector, led to a subsequent concentration of private capital in urban centres and secured the ardent support of the urban class and caste elites. He provides a brief but
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convergence and reassertion of class (and also upper caste) power. Neo-liberal economic policies dominate the sphere of international agreements and economic policies thereby providing the framework for policies adopted in India; Utsa Patnaik’s chapter on international trade and food security, as well as Suman Sahai’s chapter on biofuels, GMO (genetically modified organisms) discuss this at length. Yet, Ahmed’s essay, along with others in the book provides credence to the claim that neo-liberalism is not necessarily imposed by external agents; the I ndian state as well as some sections of d omestic capital have been complicit in what Tickell and Peck (2003) refer to as “rollout neoliberalism”.
To what extent this economic power has translated into political power in the hands of the urban elites is still unclear and requires further reflection. On the one hand is the Bharatiya Janata Party’s loss in the 2004 elections despite their “India Shining” campaign, and the more
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recent loss of electoral power by the Left Front in West Bengal after the Nandigram debacle; on the other hand, is the Jan Lokpal Bill that is largely led by urban elites. What is clear, based on the data presented by Kundu, is that the rise of the urban sphere cannot be merely attributed to numerical dominance. Based on historical and forecasted data he argues that rates of urbanisation have been lower than predicted, and concentration of urban growth has been primarily restricted to large cities. The latter claim, however, is curious given the rise of smaller towns and cities in southern India in the last few years. Kundu’s second argument is that the benefits of growth have not percolated to all sections of urban society. The urban poor and rural migrant population have to c ontend with insecure employment, dec - reasing or stagnant real wages and un- satisfactory working conditions especially for women, or are pushed to look for work in “degenerated peripheries”. While he notes that the self-employed within the informal sector have benefited, he does not elaborate much on the class conflict unfolding in the urban areas.
Labour flexibilisation is a significant factor in attracting highly mobile capital and, at least partially, explains the push towards informal and casual employment by capital and policymakers. Each of the chapters by Swapna Banerjee-Guha, Shipra Maitra, and Ipsita Chatterjee describes or alludes to city officials and urban planners as city “entrepreneurs” operating under roll-out neo-liberalism and bent on attracting and retaining this mobile capital. This has converted the role of cities to what Banerjee-Guha describes as “incubators of neoliberal strategies”. Nevertheless, the cautions of Leitner et al (2007) are pertinent in this instance; they argue that urban policies “resonate with and are not caused by neo-liberal imaginaries and practices”. Chatterjee’s discussion on the lack of response by slum dwellers to slum removal on the banks of the river Sabarmati, for instance, is not evidence of the hegemony of neo-liberalism embodied in India’s new economic policy. Rather it should be contextualised in the sociopolitical scenario of religious violence and tension in Ahmedabad, which divides slum-dwellers and renders them unable to constitute a coherent opposition to neo-liberal policies.
Development and Environment
A second significant theme that the book deals with is that of access to the means of production and reproduction. The dual processes of what is erroneously known as “development” and “environmentalism” have proceeded to dispossess already marginalised populations, in what Harvey (2003) refers to as “accumulation by dispossession”. Patnaik and Sahai, in their respective chapters, discuss the role of international trade, and technological innovations leading to the prominence of genetically modified crops and biofuels in endangering food security in countries of the global south including India. Similarly, the process of urbanisation with its real estate sharks, market processes and legal provisions, such as the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) Act, 2005, allow the exclusion and further alienation and marginalisation
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of some sections of society from economic “development”. Rupal Oza, particularly, focuses on juridical sanction that has led to the SEZ debacles in India in places like Nandigram and Jagatsinghpur.
Simultaneously, the rise of environmental concerns has taken on an avatar whereby it is divorced from concerns about the urban poor. Chatterjee describes the skewed priorities that engage in slum removal and other forms of city beautification in Ahmedabad, but is inattentive to issues of employment creation, healthcare and food security. Negi discusses the effect of relocation of dirty industries outside of Delhi by a Supreme Court order; and Bharti Chaturvedi and Vinay Gidwani deliberate over privatisation of garbage collection in Delhi and Ghaziabad. The three chapters provide instances of “green neoliberalism” (Naidu and Manolakos 2010). While some of these environmental concerns cannot be completely discounted, the solutions and employed methods demonstrate a blatant disregard for the urban poor. While the woes of the working classes by no means originate in economic liberalisation, neoliberal policies certainly serve to accentuate existing differences in class, religion, caste and gender (though unfortunately not one chapter in the book touches on the gender aspect). Consistent with Kundu’s argument about an increasingly inhospitable metropole, these chapters provide evidence of marginalisation and dispossession of livelihoods and living spaces for some sections of urban society through the twin processes of ghettoisation for the poor, and gated communities for the bourgeoisie.
Decentring Neo-liberalism
Oza argues that dispossession through accumulation, especially under neoliberalism, is often justified as a necessary evil – a natural outcome in the quest for the greater good, but this discourse masks the renegotiations of the relationship between state and capital. In this context, therefore, it is important to investigate whether neo-liberal discourses are hegemonic. Do the discourses face contestations? What forms do such contestations assume? How might various contestations converge to constitute an overarching
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political project? Analysing these ques
tions is important to “decentering” neo
liberalism (Leitner et al 2007). Dave
Featherstone’s chapter on subaltern rural
identities formed in explicit opposition to
the neo-liberal project, Chaturvedi and
Gidwani’s essay on resistances mounted
against the loss of control of livelihoods
associated with garbage collection, and
Rohit Negi’s discussion of resistance to
the relocation of industrial activity to
Delhi’s periphery not only analyse class
conflicts but also describe or allude to
class coalitions – between landed classes
and agricultural workers in the former
case, and workers and petty bourgeoisie
in the latter two cases. The opposition
to neo-liberalism, however, appear to
be reactive to certain aspects of neo
liberalism rather than to class differentia
tion and exploitation inherent in the
capitalist system.
Further, Raju Das and Featherstone
separately analyse different aspects of
movements against capitalism and neo
liberalism. Featherstone uses the notion of
“militant particularism” to critically eval
uate place-based farmers’ movements that
constitute prominent rural opposition to
neo-liberalism. He criticises the move
ments’ adoption of a nationalist rhetoric
that is not only open to co-optation by the
Hindu Right, but also trivialises the con
cerns of certain castes and rural classes.
Das also focuses on rural struggles but
directs his attention to the Naxalite move
ment. He attributes the emergence and
continuance of the movement to the
failure of capitalist development and the
developmental state to provide succour to
the most impoverished and marginalised
people in rural India, and the ability of the
Naxalite movement to provide much
needed political and economic support in
lieu. He correctly points out the limita
tions of the movement, particularly in
their belief of widespread feudal elements
in Indian society. However, his criticism
that existence of the movement allows the
State to target all forms of dissension is
disingenuous and fails to correctly under
stand the character of an increasingly
authoritarian Indian state. The chapters,
together, raise questions about the potential
of ongoing contestations and oppositions
for sustaining a larger political agenda
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of structural change. These questions r equire further debates.
Conclusions
This book, while varied in its subject matter, focuses largely on issues pertaining to the urban sphere. At a time when the middle and upper income classes of urban Indian society are ascending in their economic power, it makes a significant contribution to the discussion on the processes of urbanisation in India and its neo-liberal turn. However, the absence of a discussion on urbanisation in the southern and eastern parts of the country is noticeable. This limitation is understandable due to space constraints and given that the book was not devoted solely to urban issues. The book, nevertheless invites a cross-comparison of urbanisation in different parts of the country with their different histories and sociopolitical processes, which would be worthy of a future research project.
This book has many elements to recommend it. Of particular note are case studies of cities to illustrate theoretical arguments, attention to the complexities of neo-liberalisation, and contestations of neo-liberal economic strategies. It would be of particular interest to economic geographers and those whose academic investigations lie in the field of urban studies. Further, the non-technical but not a-theoretic style of writing also make it a good read for anyone whose intellectual curiosity is piqued by neo-liberalism and its discontents.
Sirisha C Naidu (sirishacnaidu@gmail.com) teaches Economics at Wright State University, USA.
References
Harvey, David (2003): The New Imperialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Leitner, H, E S Sheppard, K Sziarto and A Maringanti (2007): “Contesting Urban Futures: Decentering Neoliberalism” in H Leitner, J Peck and E Sheppard (ed.), Contesting Neoliberalism: Urban Frontiers (New York: Guilford Press).
Naidu, S C and P T Manolakos (2010): “Primary Accumulation, Capitalist Nature and Sustainability”, Economic & Political Weekly, 45 (29): 39-45.
Tickell, A and J Peck (2003): “Making Global Rules: Globalisation or Neoliberalisation” in J Peck and H W Yeung (ed.), Remaking the Global Economy: Economic-Geographical Perspectives (Delhi: Sage Publications).
