In the light of history

Publisher: OUP

Pages: 249 pages

Price: Rs 695

Over the last decade,Gujarat has emerged as the poster destination of neo-liberalising India. No other state in the country has,or has at least been seen to have,embraced reforms as readily as

Gujarat,whether it is in the removal of subsidies for electricity,in acquiring land for industry or in laying out the red carpet for investment with infrastructure,resources and easy clearances.

The zeal demonstrated by the flamboyant state chief minister,Narendra Modi,a leader apparently unencumbered at home by the political cost of uneven development,of aggrieved minorities and other disgruntled sections of society,has made him overwhelmingly attractive to proponents of urgent liberalisation. But,as the book under review suggests,the phenomenon may owe to causes that are far more complex and wide-ranging than individual charisma.

Nikita Sud,university lecturer at the University of Oxford,proposes that the politics of contemporary Gujarat,characterised by “centralised decision-making,conservative-to-moderate stances across party lines,and the systematic exclusion of the substantive interests of the historically,socially and economically marginalised” has a long history. It stretches back to the 19th century,when professional and industrial elites dominated the state’s rich associational life,and segues into the early 20th century with the acceptance of the concept of Sardar Patel as the sarvochcha neta (supreme leader) and a stress on consensual politics.

After its birth as an independent state in 1960,government policies in Gujarat assiduously encouraged entrepreneurial enterprise,particularly in the small scale sector,and modernised agriculture,leading to rapid urbanisation and the rise of agrarian capitalists. Even so,and the state’s periodic nods to poverty alleviation and remarkable strides in the co-operative movement notwithstanding,Gujarat’s trajectory of development,according to Sud,was skewed in favour of the dominant castes and classes and demonstrates enduring ties between the state and these dominant groups.

Economic liberalisation,then,was not only enmeshed from the very beginning with political illiberalism but was also more “business-friendly than market-friendly”,a condition that has reportedly continued and deepened in present times.

In a chapter on land liberalisation,Sud describes in vivid detail how the process,begun under a Congress government in the late 1980s,gained momentum under various coalitions of the Janata Dal,Congress and BJP,and was forcefully pushed through by a legislation introduced by the majority BJP government facilitating land acquisition for industrial use,with the state demonstrating a willingness even to adopt emergency provisions to acquire land for industry. Under the present dispensation,she claims,the process has merely continued in a more aggressive and brazen form with productive land being sold at low prices for the benefit of private industrialists.

How does the state survive the dissent that would inevitably emerge from aggrieved parties and lobbies ideologically opposed to its policies? Sud maintains that Hindutva,growing in influence in Gujarat in tandem with the socio-economic shifts of the late Eighties,has provided a potent tool for hammering home a neoliberal agenda in a variety of ways. One,it has offered the government the organisational support of the Sangh Parivar to manage opposition (for instance the farmer’s wing,the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh,was useful in diffusing anger over the hike in electricity tariffs). Two,it has mired the intelligentsia in ethno-political debates,allowing reforms to be introduced ‘by stealth’. And three,it has provided the possibility of an emotive diversion: “Today,Modi can afford to turn to his vast constituency of Hindus at key moments,while systematically working on the narrow developmental agenda with chosen economic players as a matter of state policy.”

The mutually supportive relationship between hyper-capitalism and majoritarianism has been discussed before,though not perhaps quite in these terms. The strain of conservatism and the exclusionary nature of Gujarat’s politics too have been alluded to by scholars working on aspects of recent history like the Narmada movement. But Sud’s account situates the present in light of the past and,in doing so,demonstrates both a continuity with the past and a sharp intensification.

In the third part of her book,Sud analyses the role of the state. She observes that instead of receding,the state has become significant in the new economy as a facilitator for big business,while simultaneously managing to retain its legitimacy by casting itself as the protector of the majority. She also suggests a shift in our reading of ‘communal’ and ‘secular’ as absolute terms by drawing attention to the gap between a normative commitment and actual practice. If present-day authoritarianism was facilitated by earlier experience,so was majoritarianism reflected in the actions of previous dispensations. But then,complicating her own initial assumptions,she goes on to suggest an opposite fluidity at the present time,predicting an implosion within the current monolithic regime and observing the tempering effect of secular critics,despite its avowedly majoritarian agenda.

This section,though insightful in some ways,is not strongly fleshed out and does not pull the strands together in a fittingly thought-provoking argument. Also glaringly absent,one would suggest,is a discussion on socio-economic mobility and the aspiration for it,which is a striking feature of society in Gujarat evident across classes and communities,regardless of political illiberalism.

The strongest parts of the book are the richly detailed accounts of land liberalisation,of the meteoric rise of

Hindutva in Gujarat and of the processes by which progressive measures are derailed by hegemonic groups. It is an old story. And that,perhaps,is the point.

(Amrita Shah is with the Centre for Contemporary Studies,IISc,Bangalore. Her last book was Vikram Sarabhai — A Life.)