Neoliberalism, Urbanization and Aspirations in Contemporary India

289 Pages·2022·3.478 MB·English

by  Sujata Patel (editor)

NEOLIBERALISM, URBANIZATION, AND
ASPIRATIONS IN CONTEMPORARY INDIA

Neoliberalism,
Urbanization,
and Aspirations
in Contemporary India
Edited by
SUJATA PATEL
(cid:20)
(cid:22)
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Preface and Acknowledgements
Since the early 1990s, the government in India has promoted the idea that
‘the market’ delivers benefits better than what is achieved through state pla-
nning. Termed neoliberalism, this idea has endorsed a developmental model
and an academic paradigm that promotes, in addition to economic policies,
the use of digital technologies to speed up the expansion and circulation of
commodities and of the money market in order to ensure efficiency and ra-
tionality of the system. In the last four decades, the state has introduced new
institutions while dismantling old ones, changed legal instruments, initiated
privatization of the tertiary sector, such as in electricity, roads, transport,
and communication, in construction and housing, as well as in hospitality
and tourist businesses, and the professional/s ervice sector, such as educa-
tion and health. A new economy of real estate and land market as also of
natural resources, such as water and its subsequent privatization, has been
supported.
As a cultural project, neoliberalism encourages new lifestyles for the as-
piring classes. It considers the ‘middle classes’ as key to the expansion of the
market. No wonder that it promotes urbanization and projects urbanism
as a way of being modern and global. As a consequence, social scientists
are now assessing how maps, plans, models, and architectural designs are
representing and producing space together with cultures of middle- class
modernities. They are asking questions regarding the discourses, policies,
and processes organizing the making of new towns and cities and how the
digitalization of governance of existing cities (through smart city projects)
has simultaneously promoted and disrupted lives, affected received demo-
cratic processes, displaced settled populations, created conflicts with peas-
ants and farmers, encouraged local, regional, and transnational migration,
expanded informalization of work, furthered inequalities in the distribution
of housing and urban services, disturbed the ecological balance, and consti-
tuted new forms of exclusions in urban areas. Scholars have enquired into
the recent forms of mobilization by the poor and assessed the nature of this
politics and through these queries have evaluated the nature of contempo-
rary conflicts in urban India. They have also investigated how these conflicts
in turn affect the nature of individual and collective violence in towns and
vi Preface and Acknowledgements
cities while creating demands to enhance social, cultural, and ecological
securities.
The chapters in this volume present a bird’s-eye view of the aforemen-
tioned themes. These are presented by sociologists, anthropologists and
demographers, economists and political scientists who participated in the
plenaries convened during the 43rd All Indian Sociological Conference from
9 to 12 November 2017, organized by the Indian Sociological Society (ISS) at
the University of Lucknow. The conference created an opportunity to hold an
interdisciplinary dialogue between experts on urban studies with those who
studied inequalities and exclusions and assessed cultures of power, domina-
tion, and hegemony in place in India.
I would like to take the opportunity to thank the organizing secretary
of the conference, Professor D. R. Sahu, together with Professor Sukanta
Chaudhury and colleagues in the Department of Sociology of the University
of Lucknow for their help and support during the days of conference
deliberations. Fulsome backing and institutional assistance provided by the
then Vice Chancellor and other officers of the university were important for
the conference’s success. They together with the then secretary and treasurer
of ISS, Professors Abha Chauhan and Biswajit Ghosh, the members of the ISS
Managing Committee, 2016– 17, and the staff of ISS, ensured that the confer-
ence made an intellectual contribution so that we were able to bring out this
volume.
Sujata Patel
Pune, December 2020
Contributors
Maitrayee Chaudhuri has been teaching at the Centre for the Study of Social Systems
(CSSS), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) since 1990. She has written widely on
feminism, media, academia, and pedagogy. Her key publications include The Women’s
Movement in India: Reform and Revival (1993); The Practice of Sociology (ed.) (2003);
Feminism in India (ed.) (2004); and Sociology in India: Intellectual and Institutional
Trends (ed.) (2010). Her most recent books are Refashioning India: Gender, Media and
Public Discourse (2017) and Doing Theory (co- ed) (2018).
Tanweer Fazal is Professor of Sociology at the University of Hyderabad. Earlier he
taught at the Centre for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University,
New Delhi and at Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Jamia
Millia Islamia, New Delhi. His interests lie in the history and theory of nationalism,
minority studies, and the study of state practices and collective violence. He is the
author of The Minority Conundrum: Living in Majoritarian Times (ed.) (Penguin,
2020); Nation- State’ and Minority Rights in India: Comparative Perspectives on Muslim
and Sikh Identities (Routledge, 2015); and Minority Nationalisms in South Asia (ed.)
(Routledge 2012). His forthcoming book is tentatively titled ‘Muslims, Law and
Violence: Reflections on the Practices of the State’ (Three Essays, 2020).
K. S. James is Director and Sr. Professor, International Institute for Population
Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai, India. He holds his PhD degree from Jawaharlal Nehru
University, New Delhi and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard Centre for
Population and Development Studies, Harvard University, USA. He worked exten-
sively on demographic changes with focus on population and development. He has
published widely on demographic transition and demographic dividend in India in
journals such as Science, Lancet, BMC Public Health, Ageing International, Brown
Journal of World Affairs, Maternal and Child Health Journal, Journal of Ageing and
Health, Social Science and Medicine, Economic and Political Weekly, etc. He has been
a visiting fellow in many prestigious institutes and universities including Harvard
University, USA; London School of Economics, UK; University of Southampton, UK;
University of Groningen, The Netherlands; and International Institute of Applied
System Analysis (IIASA), Austria.
Badri Narayan is a social historian and cultural anthropologist. He is Director, G.
B. Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad. His interests lie in popular culture, so-
cial and anthropological history, Dalit and subaltern issues, and the relationship be-
tween power and culture. Besides having written a number of articles in both English
x Contributors
and Hindi, he has recently authored Fractured Tales: Invisibles in Indian Democracy
(Oxford University Press, New Delhi). His other critically acclaimed books are
Kashriram (Penguin, 2014); The Making of the Dalit Public in North India: Uttar
Pradesh 1950– Present (Oxford University Press, 2011); Women Heroes and Dalit
Assertion in North India (Sage, New Delhi, 2006); Fascinating Hindutva – Saffron
Politics and Dalit Mobilisation (Sage, New Delhi, 2006).
Sudha Pai retired as Professor and Pro-V ice Chancellor (2011–1 5) at the Centre for
Political Studies of Jawaharlal Nehru University. She was National Fellow, ICSSR New
Delhi (2016– 17) and Senior Fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library Teen
Murti, New Delhi (2006–9). Currently, she is heading PRAMAN (Policy Research and
Management Network) a research institute that undertakes investigation of such areas
as Health, Agriculture, Foreign Policy, and Education at Gurgaon. Some of her well-
known books include Dalit Assertion and the Unfinished Democratic Revolution: The BSP
in Uttar Pradesh (Sage, 2002); Developmental State and the Dalit Question in Madhya
Pradesh: Congress Response (Routledge, 2010); Indian Parliament: A Critical Appraisal
(ed. with Avinash Kumar, Orient Blackswan 2014, 2017); and more recently Everyday
Communalism: Riots in Contemporary Uttar Pradesh (co-authored with Sajjan Kumar,
Oxford, 2018) and Constitutional and Democratic Institutions in India: A Critical
Analysis (ed.) (Orient Blackswan, 2019).
D. Parthasarathy is with the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian
Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay. He is also Associate Faculty of the Inter-
Disciplinary Program in Climate Studies and the Centre for Policy Studies at IIT
Bombay. He is the author of Collective Violence in a Provincial City (1997), and has
co- edited Cleavage, Connection and Conflict in Rural, Urban and Contemporary Asia
(2013). He has carried out research projects and published widely in the areas of
urban studies, law and governance, climate studies, gender and development, and dis-
aster risk and vulnerability. His current research interests include urban informality,
urban commons, transnational urbanism, legal pluralism and resource governance,
coastal conflicts, climate uncertainty, and disaster governance.
Sujata Patel is Distinguished Professor at Savitribai Phule Pune University and
Kerstin Hesselgren Visiting Professor at Umea University (2021–22). Earlier she was
National Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla and has been a
teacher of sociology at the Universities of Hyderabad, Pune, and SNDT (Shreemati
Nathibai Damodar Thackersey) Women’s University. Her work combines a histor-
ical sensibility with four perspectives— Marxism, feminism, spatial studies, and
post- structuralism. She has authored, edited, and co-e dited thirteen books and
published more than sixty-six peer reviewed papers/b ook chapters. She is Series
Editor of Oxford India Studies in Contemporary Society (Oxford, India) and Cities
and the Urban Imperative (Routledge, India) and in between 2010 and 2015 edited
Sage Studies in International Sociology and Current Sociology Monographs (Sage,
Contributors xi
London). Her latest edited text is Exploring Sociabilities in Contemporary India. New
Perspectives (Orient Blackswan, 2020). The papers in this volume were presented in
the plenaries of All India Sociological Conference which she organized as President
of the Indian Sociological Society in November 2017.
Aseem Prakash is Professor of Public Policy at School of Public Policy and
Governance, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad. His research interests in-
clude the interface between the state and markets; regulation and institutions; soci-
ology of markets; social discrimination; and human development. Currently, Aseem’s
research efforts are focused on two research projects: “Regulation of Small- Town
Capitalism” and “Cities, Social History and Muslim Entrepreneurs”. His most re-
cent books are titled Dalit Capital: State, Markets and Civil Society in Urban India
(Routledge, 2015) and The Indian Middle Class (co-a uthored with Surinder Jodhka)
(Oxford University Press, 2016).
Purendra Prasad is Professor and currently head of department of Sociology at
University of Hyderabad. His research interests include urban studies, political
economy of health, agrarian studies, development and disasters. He has published
widely in these areas. His publications include Equity and Access: Health Care Studies
in India (co-e d.) (Oxford University Press, 2018). He is on the academic and ethical
advisory boards of several universities and institutions in India.
Ravi Srivastava is Director, Centre for Employment Studies, Institute for Human
Development, Delhi. He is a former Professor of Economics, Centre for the Study
of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and a full-t ime
member of the erstwhile National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised
Sector. He has published several books and more than one hundred papers in na-
tional and international journals in the areas of agriculture, rural development and
rural poverty, the informal sector, regional development, decentralization, human
development, land reforms, social protection, labour and employment, and migra-
tion. His book (with G. K. Lieten) on decentralization and development in Uttar
Pradesh (UP) Unequal Partners (Sage, New Delhi, 1999) has been widely acclaimed.
He co- authored a book (Uncaging the Tiger: Financing Elementary Education in
India (Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2005) on the access to and financing of
Elementary Education in UP and India.
Sanjay Srivastava is British Academy Global Professor in the Department of
Geography, University College London, and Professor of Sociology, Institute of
Economic Growth, Delhi. An anthropologist by training, his research spans themes
of masculinities and sexualities, consumerism, middle-c lass cultures, and new ur-
banism in India. His publications include Constructing Post- Colonial India. National
Character and the Doon School (Routledge, 1998); Passionate Modernity. Sexuality,
Class and Consumption in India (Routledge, 2007); Entangled Urbanism: Slum, Gated
xii Contributors
Community and Shopping Mall in Delhi and Gurgaon (Oxford University Press, 2015);
Key Theme in Indian Sociology (Sage, 2019); and (Hi)stories of Desire: Sexualities and
Culture in Modern India (Cambridge University Press, 2019). He is currently com-
pleting a manuscript entitled Gender and Power in the Post-National City: Masculinity,
Consumerism and Urbanism in India (Cambridge University Press).
Carol Upadhya is Professor in the School of Social Sciences at the National Institute of
Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bangalore, India, where she leads the Urban and Mobility
Studies Programme. Prof Upadhya is currently co- director of an international col-
laborative research project, Speculative Urbanism: Land, Livelihoods, and Finance
Capital, a comparative study of real estate-l ed urbanization in Jakarta and Bangalore.
She is the author of Reengineering India: Work, Capital, and Class in an Offshore
Economy (Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2016) and co- editor of Provincial
Globalization in India: Transregional Mobilities and Development Politics (co- edited
by C. Upadhya, M. Rutten, and L. Koskimaki) (Routledge, 2018).