Bhagavan on Sharma

Aradhana Sharma. Logics of Empowerment: Development, Gender, and Governance in Neoliberal India. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008. xxxvii + 260 pp. $25.00, paper, ISBN 978-0-8166-5453-6. Reviewed by Manu Bhagavan Published on H-Asia (February, 2010) Commissioned by Sumit Guha (The University of Texas at Austin) Beginning in the 1980s, India began a ie-cutter copies of Western modernity. Aradhana decades-long process of transformation, a “liberal‐ Sharma positions her book in between these op‐ ization" of the economy during which the govern‐ posing camps, arguing that both have missed ment began to divest from many aspects of the much of the nuance of what is actually transpir‐ formal sector. This change accelerated in the ing on the ground. 1990s under the initial leadership of then-Fi‐ Logics of Empowerment is based on twenty nance-now-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, as months of ethnographic research in the north In‐ the Indian state began to dismantle much of the dian state of Uttar Pradesh, focusing on the three developmental architecture put in place by its adjacent blocks of Seelampur, Chandpur, and Niz‐ first elected leader, Jawaharlal Nehru. Simultane‐ abad. Sharma’s focus is on the Mahila Samakhya ously, much of the urban middle class read the re‐ program, an innovative part-government, part- forms as a long-overdue dismantling of structures NGO initiative to uplift, or rather, “to empower,” that had produced what was perceived as anemic low-caste (Dalit) rural women. “MS,” as Sharma economic growth and widespread corruption. The refers to it throughout her book, is the fagship primary narrative ever since then has been of a program in the Indian education department. country on the rise, entrepreneurial energy un‐ Over the course of six chapters, plus an introduc‐ leashed, a development success story. But what tion and conclusion, Sharma attempts to illustrate exactly does development mean? And for whom? how MS, despite its aim of gender equality and so‐ Some critics have used these questions as a point cial justice, is caught in the larger web of “neolib‐ of departure to dislodge “development in India” eralism,” and therefore produces paradoxical re‐ from its celebratory trajectory, claiming instead sults, in some ways contributing to greater de‐ that development has ultimately been a tool of re‐ mocratization and in some ways reinforcing ele‐ pression, a discursive construct for creating cook‐ H-Net Reviews ments of the very system that is oppressing several Dalit residents of target village communi‐ groups targeted for “empowerment.” ties. Sharma argues that subaltern interaction Part of the introduction and the entire frst with and demands on development agencies and chapter are devoted to providing a methodologi‐ staff articulate a new language and understand‐ cal lens in which to understand the rest of study. ing of “rights.” In this, “subaltern actors send a Sharma lays out a series of overlapping frames in powerful message that a meaningful enactment of which she claims MS functions: Gender and De‐ citizenship and social justice require a different velopment (GAD) feminist discourse; praxis based kind of state: not a privatized 'minimal' state of on the path-breaking Pedagogy of the Oppressed neoliberalism, or a 'withering' state of classic (1970) by Paulo Freire; Gandhian ideology and Marxism, or a 'no state' of anarchism, but a redis‐ strategy; and neoliberalism, a concept exemplified tributive, caretaking, and, indeed, ethical state, by the World Bank and designed to bring “all hu‐ that plays an active role in undoing the inequali‐ man action into the domain of the market” (p. ties spread by capitalism and other dominant so‐ 16).Together, these four frames provide the “logics cial and political forces” (p. 148). With this in of empowerment” that guide contemporary devel‐ mind, Sharma concludes in the fnal chapter by opment in the subcontinent. interrogating the construct of gender, to look at the ways in which development discourse rever‐ Chapters 2 and 3 are primarily devoted to ex‐ berates with masculinist assumptions--“women” plaining the conceptual premise of the Govern‐ are not one monolithic entity, but rather are in‐ ment-Organized Nongovernmental Organization flected by caste, class, and kinship. These nuances (GONGO), the special category of institution to impact the performance of women’s actions and which MS belongs, and to discursively locating the determine their overall agency. structural organization of MS within this general context. Here, Sharma teases out the relationship There are many fascinating aspects to this between welfare and empowerment approaches, study, but it is not without some considerable arguing that while neoliberal demands call for a shortcomings. For one thing, “neoliberalism” is retrenchment of the state and of state services the unquestionable villain of the story, and yet and guarantees, new governmental bodies with this concept receives the scantest of analytical at‐ more loosely defined connections to the state tention. Instead, the World Bank is meant to stand have sprung up to shoulder these responsibilities. in for the larger notion and the institution is ulti‐ mately used as a straw man meant to embody the Chapter 4, the best of the book, locates devel‐ nefariousness of neoliberalism. While there is lit‐ opment in the discourse of performativity, à la Ju‐ tle doubt that many World Bank programs have, dith Butler. Sharma’s focus is on the question of in practice, had negative impacts on the very soci‐ agency, and she seeks, in discussing in mock the‐ eties they were designed to help, the institution it‐ atrical fashion a semi-staged encounter between self represents a significantly disparate array of World Bank officials, MS staff, and village partici‐ views and intentions. There is a wide gap, for in‐ pants, to show that “developmentalist identities stance, between the ideas of Joseph Stiglitz, who (and indeed development itself) are not static served as chief economist and senior vice presi‐ essences but are continuously shifting products of dent of the bank in the mid 1990s (the period im‐ encounters and practices” (p. 98). mediately preceding Sharma’s ethnographic re‐ In chapter 5, Sharma spends some time fesh‐ search) but whom Sharma neither names nor ing out the lives of the various actors involved in cites, and Paul Wolfowitz, the bank’s president in the development/empowerment process--a Block the mid 2000s, whom Sharma does mention. In Development Officer (BDO), a civil servant, and parts of the book, Sharma seems to hint at these 2 H-Net Reviews complexities, as in the stage play in the fourth treatments, especially when compared with the chapter, but these references stand in contradic‐ much more rigorous analysis to which gender is tion to the bogeyman she paints with broad subjected in the following chapter. Most signifi‐ brushstrokes everywhere else, making it difficult cantly, Sharma never goes beyond the term to discern Sharma’s precise stance. “Dalit” to really discuss the sociological contours Another problem lies in the four frames of the caste communities she is studying. through which Sharma derives the logics of em‐ Taken together, these concerns represent not powerment. It is never really clear why these four insignificant limitations on the methodology and frames are chosen, for they can hardly be the only arguments of the book. Nonetheless, Logics of Em‐ frames in which empowerment or development powerment is stimulating, thought-provoking or rights discourse functions in India. Karl Marx, reading. In shedding light on the workings of MS, for instance, is widely read and understood by the book provides an important service for all many an activist and intellectual. Sharma’s obser‐ concerned with social justice and sustainable de‐ vations on the need for a redistributive, ethical velopment. state certainly ring of Nehruvianism. But, perhaps most critically of all, Sharma’s repeated use of Mo‐ handas Gandhi seems jarringly out of synch with the subjects of her study: Dalit women. Why is there no mention or discussion of B. R. Ambedkar, the Dalit champion and renowned constitutional lawyer, save for a tangential reference in an end‐ note, particularly given Sharma’s references to the Indian Constitution and rights discourse? Surely Ambedkar is at least as critical as Gandhi in understanding empowerment in Dalit commu‐ nities. In the same vein, the narrative takes place in a strikingly depoliticized space, with no men‐ tion (again save for a tangential reference in an endnote) of important Dalit political actors like Kanshi Ram and Mayawati, or their party the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), this too despite the fact that Sharma’s research is taking place in their home base of Uttar Pradesh. And it is this larger engagement with the en‐ tire concept of caste that is the book’s most glaring omission. For while Sharma spends admirable time deconstructing the category of gender and problematizing other notional classifications, she is strikingly silent on “the caste question,” to bor‐ row a phrase from Anupama Rao. While she does spend several pages in chapter 5 narrating the stories of various Dalits, and she does highlight “Dalit-ness” to an extent, these are minimalist 3 H-Net Reviews If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at https://networks.h-net.org/h-asia Citation: Manu Bhagavan. Review of Sharma, Aradhana. Logics of Empowerment: Development, Gender, and Governance in Neoliberal India. H-Asia, H-Net Reviews. February, 2010. URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=25086 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 4.

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