India’s democracies ARILD ENGELSEN RUUD AND GEIR HEIERSTAD (EDS.) India’s democracies Diversity, Co-optation, Resistance Universitetsforlaget This book was first published in 2016 by Universitetsforlaget. The material in this publication is published as Open Access and is covered by copyright regu- lations and Creative Commons License CC-BY 4.0. The license Creative Commons License CC-BY 4.0 gives permission to copy, distribute and dis- seminate the work in any medium or format, and to freely adapt the material for any purpose, including commercial ones. The licensor cannot withdraw these freedoms as long as you respect the following license conditions. For such dissemination and adaptation, the following condi- tions apply: You must provide correct citations and a reference to the license, together with an indication of whether changes have been made. You can do this in any reasonable way as long as it cannot be construed that the licensor endorses you or your use of the work. 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ISBN published edition: 978-82-15-02689-3 ISBN electronic PDF edition: 978-82-15-02688-6 Enquiries about this publication may be directed to [email protected] www.universitetsforlaget.no Typeset: Laboremus Sandefjord AS Contents PREFACE . 9 Arild Engelsen Ruud and Geir Heierstad 1 ON THE DIVERSITY OF INDIA’S DEMOCRACIES . 13 Arild Engelsen Ruud and Geir Heierstad A Heterogeneous Democracy … . 15 … Or Local Democracies . 18 Vernacularizations, the Making of Democracies . 20 This Book . 25 References . 28 2 DEMOCRATIC STRUGGLES IN THE ADIVASI HEARTLAND . 30 Towards a Relational Conception of Subaltern Political Cultures and State-Society Relations in India Alf Gunvald Nilsen Towards a Relational Conception of Subalternity . 30 Democratic Struggles in the Adivasi Heartland . 36 Challenging Everyday Tyranny . 39 Quelling Subaltern Resistance . 43 Opportunities and Constraints in Encounters with the Local State . 49 Conclusion . 50 References . 52 3 CANAL IRRIGATION AND THE LIMITS TO STATE AUTHORITY . 56 The Sardar Sarovar Project in Gujarat Guro Aandahl Collapsing Canals and Angry Farmers . 57 The Corruption Discourse and Its Effects . 62 ‘We are Not Social Workers’ . 65 The Challenge of Social Engineering . 70 Sanctions, Power, and the Role of Politics . 72 Construction Challenges due to Scale . 74 Bureaucratic Balancing . 75 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 6 ENGELSEN RUUD AND HEIERSTAD (EDS.) | INDIA’S DEMOCRACIES References . 77 4 PATRIMONIAL AND PROGRAMMATIC TALKING ABOUT DEMOCRACY IN A SOUTH INDIAN VILLAGE . 79 Pamela Price and Dusi Srinivas Patrimonial Wieldings of Power . 81 General Motivations for Voting . 82 Perceptions of Leadership Failure . 84 Patrimonial-democratic Conceptions . 85 Programmatic-democratic Conceptions . 89 Some Sources of Programmatic Thinking . 92 Patrimonial Conceptions and Political Economy . 93 Intensities of Patrimonial Emphasis in Political Conceptions . 95 Conclusion . 97 References . 99 5 MAMATA BANERJEE . 101 Redefining Female Leadership Kenneth Bo Nielsen Situating Female Political Leadership: Power, Kinship, Dynasties . 105 Female Leaders beyond Dynasties . 110 Mamata Banerjee’s Political Style and Career . 112 The Grassroots Activist . 117 Mamata as Durga and Didi . 123 Conclusion . 128 References . 130 6 FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND FEDERAL ACTORS IN THE INDIAN DEMOCRACY . 135 Geir Heierstad The Centre–State Relationship and Foreign Policy . 136 Security Politics After Colonialism . 137 Deepening of Democracy and a New Federalism . 140 A Nuclear Democracy . 142 Jammu & Kashmir: Unconstitutional and Democratic . 145 West Bengal: Villains, Voters and Water . 148 The Water Disagreement . 150 CONTENTS | 7 Democratization of Security Policy . 153 References . 155 7 SYMBOLIC ENGINEERING . 158 Advani’s Swarna Jayanti Rath Yatra Lars Tore Flåten Ram Rath Yatra . 160 Transitions . 163 The National Framework . 165 Dealing with Communism:West Bengal and Kerala . 168 Reaching Out to the South . 172 The Significance of Advani’s Yatra . 177 References . 180 8 A FINE BALANCE . 183 Censoring for Respect and Social Harmony Kathinka Frøystad The Public Sphere and the Search for an Unbiased Starting Point . 185 Caste Abuse and Respect . 190 Ethno-Religious Boundaries and Social Harmony . 197 Debating the Balance . 208 Conclusion . 214 References . 216 9 INDIA AND THE TWO FACES OF POLITICAL MOBILIZATION . 223 Sten Widmalm Understanding Democratic Development in India . 225 Mobilization for Indian Democracy . 231 Democratic and Anti-democratic Mobilization in India . 237 Conclusions . 245 References . 249 EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS . 252 8 ENGELSEN RUUD AND HEIERSTAD (EDS.) | INDIA’S DEMOCRACIES Preface ARILD ENGELSEN RUUD AND GEIR HEIERSTAD India is everywhere, not least in the Nordic region. She is in the news, at the table in many boardrooms, a regular guest in ministry discussions. India’s history, soci- ety and political culture are taught at universities. In a progressively multipolar world, no one can miss that India is a force not to forget. A force that we need to know. This international volume is an indirect result of the urge for knowledge about India in Scandinavia. But it’s a delayed result, as this volume should already have been published in India. As such, the book tells an increasingly familiar story of India. And the story goes like this: We had a signed contract, typeset files and an attractive jacket cover. We hoped the volume would engage debates about Indian experiences with democracy because these are both enchanting and captivating, and India is important to a more general debate about what democracy is and how it works. With this volume we looked forward to continue our numerous and rewarding dialogues with Indian colleagues and students, intellectuals and activists, South Asian scholars and the engaged public, friends and foes. But the prevailing political climate in India made our publisher jumpy. There were formulations in the text that could be construed as critical of the current gov- ernment. To quote from what he wrote us: There is no academic freedom in India today. And that’s why Amartya Sen has decided to pack his bag and quit the VCship of Nalanda University. If a Nobel Laureate cannot withstand the pressures being brought on him by the BJP-RSS combine, do you think I have chance? Look what they have done to the judici- ary in Gujarat. Practically every Police Officer who was implicated in 2002 riot cases or in cases involving Amit Shah and Modi has been granted bail by the Gujarat High Court and is strutting on the streets of Gujarat as though he was a free man. […] Look what they did to Wendy Doniger and her Indian pub- lishers. And what they have done only recently with the author Murugan. I am not one bit in favour of censorship, nor do I want to impose it. But prudence advises us to be cautious and keep a low profile so long as Modi is in power. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. 10 ENGELSEN RUUD AND HEIERSTAD (EDS.) | INDIA’S DEMOCRACIES In the end, our publisher would not risk publishing the book. The completion of our story, to publish it as an Open Access book, is our way of showing respect to academic publishers in today’s India. India is the foremost expression of democracy in the post-colonial world and an academic encounter with it carries the possibility of deepening our general under- standing of what democracy is and can and should be. At a basic level, democracy is, of course, a form of government based on elections. At a more advanced level it is about respect for variety, certain kinds of freedom, the rule of law, freedom of speech and other such ideals. In practice, democracy finds its form in constant negotiations and innovative adaptations to a range of political forces in more or less conservative or more or less radical societies, more or less divided or conflict- ridden or united societies. And in practice, democratic practice is also influenced by sets of vague and undefined ideals about what democracy should be – about just society, for instance, or equality. It is entangled in all these ideals and practices and tensions that democracy evolves. India is one of the great laboratories of this creative process – a laboratory that we, the contributors of this volume, involun- tarily became part.