People-Party-Policy Interplay in India: Micro-dynamics of Everyday Politics in West Bengal, c. 2008 – 2016 9781138615434, 9780429320255

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People-Party-Policy Interplay in India

This book analyses the political transition in West Bengal, India, which witnessed the longest democratically elected Left regime of the world. It examines and compares micro-dynamics of political practices in India and delineates underlying political themes of state politics. The author explores the politics of land reform and the anti-land-acquisition movements which were critical points in the contemporary history of Bengal in independent India. The volume further delves into the caste and communal politics which had been latent until the Left Front’s loss in the state, as well as what sets apart politics in West Bengal from other Indian states. Based on thorough ethnographic research, this volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of South Asian studies, politics and political processes, sociology and social anthropology. Suman Nath teaches anthropology as Assistant Professor at Dr A. P. J. Abdul Kalam Government College, Kolkata, India. Since 2007, he has been researching on issues of politics of resource allocation, which includes a stint as Research Associate at Public Policy and Management Group, Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, India. He has published in international journals, including The Economic and Political Weekly, Journal of Human Values, Review of Development and Change,  Commonwealth Journal of Local Governance on issues of politics, corruption and governance. He has also participated in different research programmes organised by the UNDP, Planning Commission and SaciWATERs. Apart from his academic publications, Dr. Nath runs a couple of internationally recognised blogs and writes popular articles in Little Magazines and Bengali dailies, including Anandabazar Patrika.

People-Party-Policy Interplay in India Micro-dynamics of Everyday Politics in West Bengal, c. 2008–2016 Suman Nath

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Suman Nath The right of Suman Nath to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-61543-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-32025-5 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC

In the memory of my father

Contents

List of figuresviii List of tablesx Prefacexi Acknowledgementsxiv Abbreviationsxvi 1 Introduction: left regime, discontent and change in West Bengal

1

2 Dynamics and dialectics of people’s participation

28

3 Farming, industrialisation and the politics of land-water-debt network

73

4 Violence, counterpublics and the rise of cultural misrecognitions129 5 Indian political terrain and the location of West Bengal

173

6 Theorising Bengal at a crucial juncture

189

References202 Index220

Figures

1.1 1.2

Cultural capital and its different tenets 14 Organisational structure of different levels of officials of the Panchayat system 17 2.1 Percentage of vote polled and percentage of increase in the 2006 and 2011 assembly elections in the districts under study 30 2.2 Percentage of votes polled in Panchayat elections in the four GPs under study. 31 2.3 Over the year increase in the gap between quorum and attendance in Gram Sabha participation 33 2.4 Voters’ turnout in contrast to people’s participation in the Gram Sabha meetings 34 2.5 Frequency of different issues discussed in the Gram Sabha meetings from 2008 to 2013 40 2.6 A typical sitting arrangement in the Gram Sabha meeting 41 2.7 An under-attended Gram Sabha meeting in progress in GP 1 in December 2009 42 2.8 Frequency of party propaganda (per minute) in Gram Sabha meetings of the four GPs during 2008–2013 44 2.9 Essential themes, structural and interactional components of the Gram Sabha meetings 63 2.10 Motivations to become GUS member 68 3.1 Local power hierarchy based on affiliation with cold storage and rice mills during CPIM as well as TMC regimes 82 3.2 A lump of roots collected from the JSW area to be used as firewood101 3.3 A man returns with his cows from the JSW area; fodder crunch is now a big issue for the tribals and many have sold their livestock 101 3.4 The newly constructed Jaher than102 3.5 How Vijay Murmu loses his compensation money within a year 104 3.6 A bamboo shaft used for crossing over 106

Figures ix 4.1

MGNREGS fund, wage payment and extortion from wage in 2008–2009 and 2009–2010 financial years in GP 4 (in rupees) 140 4.2 The party office which was turned into a Harmad camp was attacked by the villagers in 2011 near GP 4. Just behind the party office the mud-walled hut is the TMC office which was constructed in 2013 after the Panchayat election was over 142 4.3 Allocation of mass-benefiting resources in 2008–2009 financial year (in percentage) 150 4.4 Allocation of individual-benefiting schemes among the tribe and non-tribe predominated Sansads in 2008–2009 financial year (in numbers) 150 4.5 Village women and children going for the feast organised by the CPIM in January 2009. They also carried utensils for taking away the surplus amount for the dinner 153 4.6 Two MGNREGS worker are clearing up debris and food wastes after election day in 2009 154 4.7 The elaborate gate-keeping mechanism followed by the CPIM in their regime 155 4.8 Allocation of fund (in rupees) in GP 1 in 2012–2013 financial year 159 4.9 A moment of intensive discussion regarding the villagelevel political system and TMC’s intrusion. Sitting in front of me is the oldest Majhi of the region and standing is another experienced Majhi 161 4.10 Tribal dancers in their traditional outfit in January 2011 to attend the extended Sholo Aana; behind them there is a TMC banner featuring Ms. Mamata Banerjee 164 4.11 The grand tribal fair organised by TMC in GP 1 in 2014. Note: (a) the blue-white combination of the clothes used in the decoration of the space, which is actively projected as the favourite colour of TMC Supreme Mamata Banerjee, and (b) the person taking a movie clip with his mobile 167 phone from the stage (extreme left on the stage) is S. Hansda 4.12 The traditional Santal political hierarchy and TMC’s intrusion167 5.1 The Lenin Statue in Haldia before it was removed 174 5.2 Percentage of vote shares by major parties in West Bengal 174 5.3 Number of communal violence in India since 2008 181 5.4 Number of communal violence in West Bengal since 2008 182 6.1 Over the year budgetary allocations (in crore rupees) in agriculture and allied sectors by Government of West Bengal 200 6.2 Budget allocation to the Department of Information and Culture Affairs, Government of West Bengal over the years 200

Tables

2.1 Quorum requirements and number of people attended in the Gram Sabha meetings in four GPs studied 2.2 Core themes of Gram Sabha meetings from four GPs (each unit is average from the four GPs) 2.3 Meeting initiation by persons 2.4 Issues/organisations against whom threat-filled messages were delivered from 2008–2013 in the four GPs studied 2.5 Major issues of Gram Sabha meetings of the four GPs 4.1 Diversion of schemes by TMC after gaining control over GP 1 in 2009–2010 financial year 4.2 Allocation of fund (in rupees) in GP 1 in 2012–2013 financial year 5.1 Core issues from the five cases 6.1 A summary of findings from different GPs

32 39 46 60 65 158 159 185 196

Preface

2011 West Bengal has seen an end to the longest democratically elected communist regime of the world. 2016 marks another milestone as the Trinamool Congress (TMC), the party which defeated the Left Front in 2011, secures a massive second term with absolute majority and penetrates most of the traditional Left and Indian National Congress bastions in the state. This book is the first full-length study to explain the dynamics of this political transition of West Bengal. It uses intense and long-term ethnography on micro-dynamics of politics in transition to conceptualise alternatives to existing analytical tools, including “political society” and “party society”. While the focus of this book is primarily on people-party-Panchayat interplay in a changing political context of West Bengal from 2006 to 2017, the methodology adopted and the theorisation offered have a much wider potential to the study of everyday popular politics around the world. The book explores and compares micro-dynamics of political practices in four districts viz. Bardhaman, Bankura, Purba Medinipur and Paschim Medinipur and conceptualizes several compelling political themes of the state during the end of the left regime and beginning and continuation of the new regime. While the common explanation of political change is often linked to grand social movements related to land acquisition in places like Singur and Nandigram, this book provides an alternative to such grand theorization of political change. Instead, I present local and micro-dimensions of political change based on a series of participatory ethnographies carried out for more than a decade. This book is occupying a critical position between variablebased studies and case-based studies to unearth some of the hitherto unaddressed issues of local politics which revolves around political economy of everyday peasantry, popular forums of deliberative democracy like Gram Sabha, practices of corruption, violence and counter violence in forested districts and finally the popular mode of cultural expressions. Although much emphasis is given to studying the nature of everyday politics and its dynamicity with political change in the state, the book to a significant extent provides an enhanced understanding of the mechanisms of decision-making in the local governance institution (Gram Panchayat) and its interface with such everyday village politics.

xii  Preface Broadly, I focus on the role of different agencies and their nature of impact on the Gram Panchayat-based decision-making process of the state. Theoretically, I support the earlier contention about the elite capture and political mediation, but I also criticise them because of their overreliance on structural explanations with an exclusive focus on the single-party rule. I show empirical evidences to prove that local politics is a contested terrain of political consciousness where different agencies and their interests are in constant dialectics. I explore Gram Panchayat-based local politics with a focus on the dialectics of political control and subtle mechanisms of power subversion by the weaker sections. While the book formulates several conceptual tools on people-party interface from local and micro-level ethnographies, it also maps them in the broad terrain of the politics in India. Theoretically speaking, I try to bring the much-needed agency perspectives which are somewhat lacking in previous studies that primarily analyse the structure of the local party and its domination. I conceptualise power and domination in a dialectical form. It is considerably more complex than earlier conceptualisations of party society and political society. I show that the resulting Gram Panchayat decisions are the outcome of a complex interplay between different sources of power, both overt and covert. Therefore, even during the regime continuity of the Left Front Government, I argue politics at the local level has always been contested with the complex interplay of competing political forces. During the political changeover, these forces in some cases have collated and escalated the process of change. I use theories of political culture with a special emphasis on the theories of political participation, power-hegemony-clientelism, and field-capital interactions in the context of politics and local governance to explore the micro-dynamics of people-party-administration interplay in a period of political transition. To address the intricate nexus between people-party-administration, I focus on two things: first, the decisions related to the delivery of public services, and second, the significant activities of the local leaders circling the Gram Panchayat. Therefore, to understand dialectical relations between different agencies, I consider local political activities related to (a) decisions of public service delivery, (b) corrupt practices, (c) local economy and (d) popular power constructs i.e. power-culture interaction as my units of analysis. This book contests two widely prevalent theorisations of West Bengal’s politics: (a) It adds to the class analysis approach by looking at the dimensions of land-water-debt network which has long been unaddressed, and (b) it rejects the structural and deterministic explanations of party society and brings the notions of systemic and cultural misrecognitions and claims that a Gramscian hegemonic approach needs a revision. I argue that the problematic nature of the political consciousness shaped by systemic forces was ingrained in party society and later there is an increasing use of cultural apparatus. West Bengal is no longer under the control of party grid, but there is a rise of local and individualistic power centres, and the use of cultural apparatuses. It is not subalternisation of politics, as noted by some scholars, but instead

Preface xiii is a systematic use of identity and cultural expression-based politics aided with quickened and visible delivery of public services. Empirically, it gives extensive longitudinal details of village forums, everydayness of political practices through intensive participatory study of concrete cases. Methodologically, the book provides a reliable guide for using hardcore qualitative method such as phenomenology and advocates a casebased overall design. It critically assesses selected existing policies and compares them with the policies in the last few years of the left regime. Before concluding, the book makes an attempt to map West Bengal in the political landscape of India to show how the left defeat is linked to their coalition politics at the centre and in what ways the state even today remains politically significant to the national politics. Broadly, I attempt to make sense of what was happening during the political change in 2011 and how that instigated political change at the grassroots. I explore what enabled TMC to gain an even greater mandate in 2016. And how state and centre politics is changing in recent times with the rise of identity issues in the state and in the country at large. These are not easy questions to answer. With this book, I hope to show there are more stories than straight-jacketed narratives of political change and everyday politics in any state, including West Bengal. Suman Nath Kolkata January 21, 2019

Acknowledgements

This book is partly based on my PhD work at the department of Anthropology, University of Calcutta jointly with a faculty of Public Policy and Management Group, Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIMC). The book is my tribute to my beloved supervisor Prof. Bhaskar Chakrabarti of Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIMC) and joint supervisor Dr. Arnab Das of Department of Anthropology, University of Calcutta. Their constant support, guidance, love and care have made this work possible. I have learnt a lot even before mounting on this particular research when I was a master’s student at University of Calcutta and also when I worked as a Research Associate at IIMC. I extend my sincere thanks to Prof. Raghabendra Chattaopadhyay, Prof. Annapurna Shaw and Prof. Priya Seetharaman of IIMC. Their encouragement means a lot to me. I am really thankful to Prof. Gopalkrishna Chakrabarti, Prof. Subha Ray and Prof. Asit Baran Das Chaudhury of University of Calcutta and Prof. Abhijit Guha of Vidyasagar University. Their valuable suggestions have helped me in many ways throughout my career. I am grateful to Prof. Kumar Ravipriya (IITK), Subratashankar Bagchi, Priyadarsini Sengupta, Tathagata Bandyopadhyay (Bangabasi College) for their constant support and encouragement. I am grateful to all my research participants. They extended unconditional help during my fieldwork. Without their help it would not have been possible for me to continue my work during the period of violent conflict in the region. I am really grateful to all the Panchayat members and officials who have provided me necessary information and also guarded me from numerous troubles during the field sessions. I am really thankful to group of friends from Young Scholars’ Programme at Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR) back in 2007. Arnab Roy Chowdhury of National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Ajanta Akhuly of Tata Sons have been a constant source of encouragements and perennial supply of research articles. Writing is often a lonely endeavour. It would not have been possible without a gang of wonderful friends in Teachers’ Hostel of Haldia Government College. Arabinda Mondal, Uday Das, Krishnendu Polley, Atreya Paul, Sarbeswar Haldar and Gopal Hembram have added colour to this writing

Acknowledgements xv exercise. I express my sincere gratitude to Ananya Chatterjee of Haldia Government College and Samata Biswas of Sanskrit College & University for giving critical inputs to my work and for encouraging me constantly. Arguments with them have enriched this work in many ways. I am indebted to Mr. Gourishankar Jana and Mr. Bablu Kumar Mondal, gate keepers of Haldia Government College for allowing me to use department staff room after the college hours so that I could write. I am indebted to Dr. Pranabesh Bhattacharyya, Sootrisa Basak, Urbi Mukherjee of Dr. APJ. Abdul Kalam Govt College for making the alien space familiar. I am indebted to Mr. Dilip Ghosh, IAS, formerly Special Secretary, P&RD, GoWB, for the secondary materials, and constant encouragements to write a book on West Bengal in transition. A special thanks goes to Mr. Debraj Bhattacharya of Sigma Foundations, Kolkata for all those emotion filled special moments both on and off the field. I am grateful to AAMRA team members for their support and encouragement especially in studying riots in West Bengal. This book would not have been written so swiftly if it was not Dr. Sreejith K, my colleague turned friend at Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam Government College, encouraging me and reading all my draft manuscripts giving critical inputs. Writing a book often requires a secluded space, better still if the space is filled with books. National Library, Kolkata provided me with that space. I am extremely indebted to IIMC library, Ramkrishna Mission library, Kolkata, and IGIDR library staff for extending their help whenever I needed. I express my heartiest thanks to my wife Anwita for being there as an intellectually stimulating friend from the beginning of my career in anthropology and tolerating my tantrums. I am grateful to my father-in-law, for the encouragements I am receiving from him. Last but not the least a loving thanks to my parents for supporting me in whatever I have done with my life. This book is dedicated to my father who left us in January 2018 after battling with cancer creating a permanent void in my life. Your sitar will always set the tune of many people’s lives!

Abbreviations

AAP: AAP: AIADMK: AIFB: AIKS: BDO: BJP: BPL: BSP: BUPC: CITU: CM: CMP: CPIM: CPR: CRPF: CSR: DFID: EVM: GIS: GP: GPS: GSRB: GUS: HDR: IAEA: IAS: IAY: IGNOAPS: IIMC: ISGPP JFM: JMM:

Annual Action Plan Annual Action Plan All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam All Indian Forward Bloc All India Krishak Sabha Block Development Officer Bharatiya Janata Party Below Poverty Line Bahujan Samaj Party Bhoomi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee Centre of Indian Trade Unions Chief Minister Common Minimum Programme Communist Party of Indian Marxist Common Property Resource Central Reserve Police Force Corporate Social Responsibility Department for International Development Electronic Voting Machine Geographical Information System Gram Panchayat Global Positioning System Gram Shanti Raksha Bahini Gram Unnayan Samiti Human Development Report International Atomic Energy Agency Indian Administrative Service Indira Awas Yojna Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme Indian Institute of Management Calcutta Institutional Strengthening of Gram Panchayat Programme Joint Forest Management Jharkhand Mukti Morcha

Abbreviations xvii JNU: JSW: LC: LDF: LF: LFG: MLA: MP: NDA: NGO: NH: NS: NSSO: PCPA: PDS: PHE: PROFLAL:  PUP: PWD: RGGY: RSS: SC: SEZ: SHG: SP: SP: SRD: ST: TDP: TMC: TRS: UK: UP: UPA: WBCS:

Jawaharlal Nehru University Jindal Steel Works Local Committee Left Democratic Front Left Front Left Front Government Member of Legislative Assembly Member of Parliament National Democratic Alliance Non-Governmental Organisation National Highway Nirman Sahayak National Sample Survey Organisation People’s Committee against Police Atrocities Public Distribution System Public Health Engineering Provident Fund for Land less Agriculture Labour Paschimanchal Unnayan Parishad Public Works Department Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojna Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Scheduled Caste Special Economic Zone Self Help Group Samajwadi Party Superintendent of Police Strengthening Rural Decentralisation Scheduled Tribe Telegu Desam Party Trinamool Congress Telangana Rashtra Samithi United Kingdom Uttar Pradesh United Progressive Alliance West Bengal Civil Service

1 Introduction Left regime, discontent and change in West Bengal

ONE The beginning of an end There is always a beginning of an end. It is often difficult to “locate” precisely such beginning within the “map” of time, especially when it is a regime of three decades – perhaps “the longest ruling democratically elected Communist government in world history” (Mallick, 1993, p. 1). Bengalis who live in West Bengal has a single connotation for the word “34 years” – it is the experience of a regime of CPIM (Communist Part of India Marxist) led Left Front Government (LFG). There is a generation of youngsters who have never seen other parties than the LFG – I do belong to that generation –until 2011. Throughout my school, college and university life, I have seen and participated in activities by organisations either directly or indirectly linked to the Left Front (LF) parties. The machineries of CPIM appeared so robust that it was difficult to comprehend that so quickly they will become virtually insignificant in the state politics. If we talk about 2011, it was a political change in the Assembly Election when All India Trinamool Congress (popularly known as TMC) and Indian National Congress (popularly, the Congress) alliance gained majority by securing 184 seats out of 294. It was a massive victory if we consider that the loser was the longest democratically elected left regime of the world. Another milestone was set in 2016. In the assembly election of that year, TMC independently secured more than two hundred Assembly Constituencies (211 out of 294). For the first time in decades a single political party managed to secure the victory in the state. One of the crucial aspects of the 2016 election was TMC’s unprecedented popularity among the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Tribes (ST), as they managed to secure victory in almost all the reserved constituencies (Ei Samay, 2016). Keeping an eye towards these two massive mandates and an end to the regime, this book looks at two issues: (a) What was happening during the political change in 2011 and how that instigated political change at the grassroots; (b) what enabled TMC to gain even

2  Introduction greater mandate in 2016? Time and again these two questions would be addressed by looking at the ethnographic nuances from the difficult beginning of the end, through the end itself and finally in its aftermath. Coming back to the question of the beginning of an end, I will focus on three consecutive incidents that have reflected the rapid decline of popular support of LF: (a) Land acquisition and the related agitation in Singur which started from 2006 onwards and concluded in 2016 as the Supreme Court ordered the Government to return the land to the owners (Rajagopal, 2016); (b) land-related conflicts and killing of villagers in Nandigram, Purba Medinipur on March 14th, 2007; and (c) a failed attempt to kill Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, the then-Chief Minister (CM) and Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan and Jitin Prasad while they were returning after laying the founding stone of Jindal Steel Works (JSW) Factory in Salboni, Paschim Medinipur in November 2008 (Ganguly and Mahato, 2008). While the first two incidents indicate mass protest against the LFG in their hurried attempt of industrialisation, the third one reflects the symptoms of CPIM led LFG losing its ground from the tribal base. It often becomes easier to map incidents once we see such events from a distance. We get an aerial view over the past and this brings an inevitable trap of looking at the past as a series of important events with straight-jacketed conclusions arranged in a cause-and-effect sequence. If we look at the series of incidents that followed the three major events just mentioned we can easily get linear stories. For example, we can think of the police atrocities following the Salboni blast, formation of Peoples’ Committee against Police Atrocities (PCPA) and eventually the Netai incident which revealed that CPIM had kept armed mercenaries to protect their local leaders allegedly from the Communist Party of India Maoist (or the Maoist) attacks as reasons for political change in the region. This book will not make such linear claims in explaining Left defeat in West Bengal rather it attempts to explore the dimensions and nature of people-party-government interplay at the grassroots during the political transition. The possible political transition was sensed by scholars. Economic and Political Weekly started publishing a few articles in late 2000s predicting a crisis for the Left in Bengal, of which the most comprehensive one was by Partha Chatterjee (2009). Thirty-four years of political stability according to Chatterjee (2009) is linked to the institutional effectiveness of LFG, especially the CPIM. He finds a system of clientelism politics, which started facing disruption after 2006. Commonly cited reasons behind this political change include TMC-led land-related movements at Singur (Hooghly district) and Nandigram (Purba Medinipur district), and renewed agitations demanding Gorkha Land in North Bengal as well as the tribal agitations in Paschim Medinipur (as predicted by Chatterjee, 2009). However, in a sample survey, Bardhan, Mitra, Mookherjee, and Nath (2014) argue that such movements had only partial impact on the political change of the state. Rather, there are several micro-issues related to the organisational failure of

Introduction 3 left parties. They point towards factionalism, poor-quality leadership and corruption as some of the major reasons responsible for the change. One should remember that – apart from the land reform, which virtually turned the rural economic equations upside down – the institutional strengthening of the rural local governance, i.e. Panchayat system is seen as one of the major pillars of LFG’s success (Lieten, 1996a, 1996b; Bhattacharyya, 2002; Bardhan, Mitra, Mookherjee, and Sarkar, 2009). A quick glance at the publications which addressed the rural governance system during this phase of LFG reveals the weakening of the Gram Panchayat (GP). The decay, in fact, had started a decade earlier. Harihar Bhattacharyya in 1998 showed how the Panchayat decisions were made by the party and not by the people through their participation, something which, ten years earlier, Atul Kohli (1987) had pointed out. Bhattacharyya reported that about 60 percent to 90 percent of respondents he interacted with stated that decisions were taken by the party and not even the elected representatives. In my study with Raghabendra Chattopadhyay and Bhaskar Chakrabari, we found that Gram Sabha meetings in Birbhum, where actual decisions related to the delivery of public services were supposed to be made, became paralysed by the interference of the party (Chattopadhyay, Chakrabarti, and Nath, 2010).

TWO The regime and its discontent If we can ground our feet somewhere during 2006–2008 as the inception for the political change, it becomes important to comprehend the continuity. Since Kohli as early as in 1987 finds CPIM party undermining democratic potentials at GPs, what allowed CPIM-led LFG to continue in power for 24 more years? Does it mean people at the grassroots do not resort to democratic practices? Even if we accept it as a fact, then what makes people cast their vote at such a high percentage that it became a matter of discussion?1 One of the explanations of regime continuity is rooted in the post-­independence political history of the state. Before LFG came to power, the state went through political disturbances and chaos. The Congress Party failed to reduce the high rates of poverty, famine and communal riots immediately after independence, resulting from the partition of the country to East Bengal (now Bangladesh) and West Bengal. In 1967 a peasant uprising and radical leftist movement in Naxalbari and also in the city of Kolkata was violently repressed by a Congress-led government that included the CPIM in its coalition (Singh, 1995; Roy, 2010; Pal, 2017). There were spells of presidential rule in 1968, 1970 and 1971 because of the repeated failure of the state governments. In 1977 the CPIM-led LFG came to power primarily because of people’s disgust with earlier governments. Since then,

4  Introduction there was a significant political stability till 2011 (Bidwai, 2015). In contrast to the history of instability, LFG promised to increase social justice. They initiated radical change through land reform and decentralised governance with regularised election, better construction and maintenance of public goods, particularly during the early years of its rule (Lieten, 1996b; Biju, 1998; Rawal and Swaminathan, 1998; Mathew, 2001; Sengupta and Gazder, 1997; Mookherjee, 1998). If such initiatives explain the stability of government in the initial decades of LFG rule, its continuity despite the state’s mediocre performance remains a puzzle. A quick look at several performance indicators during the last few years of the LF rule indicates mediocrity. National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) shows, the state is still low in poverty alleviation efforts, nutrition, health and education (Harriss-White, 2008). The state has a high level of nutritional deprivation, alarming poverty head count, stagnation in Human Development Ranking and low female participation (Sengupta and Gazder, 1997; Sen, 2002; Ghosh, 2002; Macroscan, 2003). HDR (2004) shows one of the highest differences lies in rural–urban consumption rates in West Bengal. People’s participation is low in politicised village meetings (Chattopadhyay et al., 2010). Bardhan and Mookherjee (2000, p. 701) argue that problems are derived from “weaknesses in the functioning of a fair electoral process at the local level, lower levels of political awareness of the poor, and the tendency for wealthier groups to form special interest groups”. Scholars conceptualised some essentially institutional and structural mechanisms to be the key factor of this continuity. Structural determination of functioning of the LFG especially with the organisation strength of the CPIM is seen as an essential feature of West Bengal. Kohli (1987), Crook and Manor (1998) introduce the notion of party ideology. They argue that ideologically pro-poor LFG had the advantage of addressing the issues of poverty and social justice through instruments of local governance. It partially explains the regime continuity, but then it becomes puzzling to explain the mediocrity in delivery of public services. Scholars like Bhattacharyya (1998, 2002), Dasgupta (2009), Bardhan and Mookherjee (2004), Kundu (2009) and Bhattacharyya (2009) through their in-depth study, show that CPIM and other left parties had virtually established complete control over the mechanisms of decision-making related to every sphere of village life. Chatterjee (2009, p. 42, italics original) stresses two issues: First, the “institutional effectiveness of the structures of rural government and mobilisation of political support built by the Left Front (LF), and in particular its principal constituent, the CPI(M), that has been able to respond to some of the key demands of large sections of the middle, poor and landless sections of rural people”. Second point is “a form of clientelism in which the Left parties hold their supporters under some sort of permanent dependence by making various governmental and other benefits conditional upon their continued electoral support”. Such explanations of the political continuity have a strong resonance towards the structural issues of politics at the

Introduction 5 expense of agency perspectives. Questions such as the role of opposition, role of factions within the ruling party, disagreements between political leaders, elected representatives and GP bureaucratic leaders and power subversion by the weaker section largely remain unanswered. While viewing power from its situational dimension (as advocated by Foucault, 1980) the lack of agency perspective in earlier studies demands serious attention. This book is an attempt to unearth some of these aspects of politics and everyday life during the political transition through ethnography. While most of the studies on regime continuity in West Bengal focus on a monopolistic impact of politics in everyday life, the micro-dynamism of different agencies working along with politics is virtually unknown.

THREE Politics, control and continuity By now, it must be adequately clear that I intend to bring up questions from each of the sections of this chapter at the very beginning of the book. Readers must also have understood that such questions usually come near the end of each section. Here I begin with a question, but before that let’s have a quick recapitulation. I have posed some questions: (a) What allowed the TMC raise its popularity before and after the 2011 election, especially among the SCs and STs? b) What caused LFG to continue even after its mediocre performance and reports of undermining democratic spirit at local governance? c) How to look at the non-linear pattern of politics of West Bengal? In this section I begin by asking what are the theoretical dimensions that can help explain the questions b and c? For question a, you have to read most of this book. I To begin with the word politics, on a personal note, I must clarify that I belong to a generation where our parents have tried hard to make us believe that the word “politics” is filthy. I can clearly remember whenever a student strike was called for; my parents would panic and not allow me to go and see for myself what actually was happening at school. I was always curious, but then knew that none of my friends came to school to actually see what happened. I came to know much later that nothing happens at all, the school remained closed because of low attendance of students! When I joined Bangabasi College, I was told not to mingle with the CP (Chhatra Parishad – students’ wing of the Congress party) people. My mother’s elder brother went further, teaching me tricks to avoid being gunned down by the police. Being an ex-Naxal sympathizer he told me to always stick to the gang, as police usually fire on someone who is isolated! Thankfully, there

6  Introduction was no affordable mobile phone available during 2001–2004, and I could do what I wanted to do without being under surveillance! Yes, I checked with my friends; they too had similar experiences. Hence, I am reasonably sure of belonging to a generation where politics is something that needs to be ridiculed over a cup of coffee or beer, but never practiced. The scenario was little different at the university, but even there, only a few participated in active politics. Of course, there are exceptions, with colleges like Presidency (now Presidency University) or Jadavpur University. This anecdote is necessary to distinguish the very word politics in its popular meaning (as some kind of movement, protest, boycott and factionalism) from politics as something to with policies and decisions. In this book, I use the word politics both as process and practice. On the one hand, it is the process of control, allocation, production, and use of resources and the values and ideas underlying those activities (Ball, 1993; Leftwich, 1984; Miller, 1993; Stoker, 1995). Conceptually, the resources can include anything which is finite and scarce both tangible (like goods and services) and intangible (e.g. power, prestige, etc.). The practices regarding production, distribution and uses of such resources range from cooperation and collaboration to discussions and debates. People bargain, compromise and also engage in conflicts and violence to exercise their choice and control. Hence, if we use politics as an analytical tool, the study of resource allocation takes a dialectical turn. Therefore, each of the decisions related to allocation of resources and services has untold stories. Participants in political practices include individuals, groups, organisations and governments. As political behaviour when seen as groups (or even as class) forms political culture, in democratic governance, it eventually plays an important role in the delivery of public services (Bielefeld and Corbin, 1996; Mansuri and Rao, 2004). Hence, apparently whoever controls the office controls the allocation of resources. Until one goes into the policy details, this appears to be the case. However, as we go into the details of policies, we tend to comprehend the nature of complexity. At least three levels of complexities in assuming control can be imagined; first, how to build up consensus for policy decisions? If consensus is not attained, what are the ways in which it becomes possible to legitimise such decisions? Second, how to handle competing interests of different stakeholders aiming for the same scarce resources? Third, how to deal with the competing demands within and between parties and manage the mandates prescribed by the policy? If we assume that attaining consensus is not always possible then some of the answers to the second and third questions would be found in notions of clientelism, hegemony and false consciousness. II West Bengal with the Left Front at its helm for 34 long years has experienced a dominant party system. It can be assumed that such dominance is an undefined position between democracy and authoritarianism. Low degree

Introduction 7 of contestability or inclusive hegemony is one of the mechanisms of dominant party system. It is a situation where a dominant party does not block political participation of other parties, yet manages to exercise dominance. Inclusive hegemony represents a state of condition when a party system faces low degree of contestability, where democracy becomes polyarchy (Dahl, 1971). Such condition arises with participation and contestation. Another dimension is the freedom to speak and publish dissenting views, freedom to form and join organisations and access to alternative sources of information. However, in practice, such ideal situations are often absent. Studies along this line formulate concepts such as “electoral authoritarianism”, “hegemonic regimes”, “guided democracies” and “managed democracies” (Schedler, 2002; Diamond, 2002; Colton and McFaul, 2003; McFaul, 2005; Konitzer and Wegren, 2006). We should not expect that one can explain dynamics of West Bengal politics through any single conceptual frame of dominant party system. Rather we can expect to find different forms of authoritarianism. In practice, dominant party systems uses authoritarian controls, banning of candidates, use of secret police, corruption and clientelism (Sartori, 1976; Cox, 1997; Groseclose, 2001). Usually dominant party systems in democracies develop from a centrist/median-voter political position, electoral law arrangements (Greene, 2007), socio-economic coalitions (Pempel, 1990) and various sources of incumbency advantages (Levitsky and Way, 2010). However, once such dominance is established clientelism and various hegemonic apparatuses help it survive as proposed by several empirical and analytical works (Greene, 2007, 2010a, 2010b; Levitsky and Way, 2010). Clientelism in this context needs special attention. It should be seen as a form of coalition generically termed as “vertical dyadic alliance . . . between two persons of unequal status in power or resources, each of whom finds it useful to have an ally with someone superior or inferior to himself” (Lande, 1977, p. xx). This rather old definition is useful to explain the coalition between different forces that plays a role in local politics at a particular locale. While the majority of the literature on clientelism endorses it as an abuse of state power and incompatible with democracy, empirically it is quite ubiquitous in any democratic system (see for example studies by Clapham, 1982; Eisenstadt and Roniger, 1984; Piattoni, 2001). Furthermore, pragmatically speaking clientelism is associated with rational behaviour in the context of competitive politics with allocation of resources. While the resource to be allocated by the government is limited (scarce) and there is competition, clientelism is a form of exchange between resources to be allocated by the government and continuity as well as incentivisation for political support. We can see clientelism as an interplay between government’s capacity to distribute economic resources (quite like the market) and gaining political incentives, since resource allocation is performed via politics. Robinson and Verdier (2002) find clientelism to be an exchange of a public-sector job for political support – which might be called patronage. In a more recent article, Robinson and Verdier (2013, p. 261) argue that

8  Introduction any politician whether in power or in opposition offers policies in exchange for political support primarily “because law cannot be used to enforce such political exchanges, they must be self-enforcing”. The central theme, therefore, becomes a mode of exchange where “citizens must indeed deliver their support, and politicians, once in power, must pay for the support with the policies that they promised” (Robinson and Verdier, 2013, p. 261). Scholars like Scott (1972) and Lemarchand (1977) puts similar emphasis on studying clientelism as exchange relationships. Therefore, inclusive hegemony – is not to be seen as a “natural” outcome of a low degree of political competition. Rather there is every possibility of hidden strategies and understanding between different political forces. I take clientelism as one such strategy to reflect on the findings of West Bengal. How it changes during the time of transition is another important issue that demands serious introspection. Clientelist mode of politics also requires an exercise of power by legitimising decisions at the local level. Legitimisation becomes important especially when such decisions go against the interest of a significant number of people. Addressing the question of such legitimisation brings us closer to Gramsci. For Gramsci (2009, p. 244) “state. . . [as] entire complex of practical and theoretical activities with which ruling class not only justifies and maintains its dominance, but manages to win the active consent of those over whom it rules”. For Day (2008) the most significant aspect of domination in hegemony is the presence of consensus based on “life across full range of human activities – social, educational, religious, recreational, economic – encompassing public and private spheres” (Kymlicka, 1998, p. 27). This calls for an attention towards the understanding of consciousness in such consensus. Scholars working with the issues of hegemonic relationship and power tend to focus on (a) institutional bias in facilitating/hindering certain decisions at the expense of others (Bachrach and Baratz, 1962), (b) socially structured and culturally patterned nature of behaviours in such bias and (c) ultimate form of power in false consciousness (Lukes, 1974). However, the ethnocentric nature of the concept of false consciousness makes such explanations deeply problematic (Lukes, 2005). Rather concrete study of the thought and action as two dimensions of power becomes important. Gramsci (2009, p. 326) advocates “thought and action, i.e. the co-existence of two conceptions of the world, one affirmed in words and other displayed in effective action”. Conceptually, there is a departure from power as exercised (Dahl, 1957) to the exertion of power through social structure and cultural patterning. Such a departure makes the notion of power more open-ended. It asserts that power includes each and every aspect of socialisation that may hinder/ promote actors’ ability to identify and act upon their “real interests”. While Gramsci already mentions two dimensions, viz. thought and action, for Lukes (2005) there is a third dimension of hegemony and domination – i.e.

Introduction 9 the false consciousness. If we keep aside the cultural relativism which problematises the very notion of “false” or “true” and accept that false consciousness makes social agents relatively less free “to live as their nature and judgment dictate” (Lukes, 2005, p. 114), the very notion of false consciousness would open up fresh perspective to understand the working of power in everyday life. I think it is worth taking the risk to violate the academic template of being “non-judgemental” in using the loaded term false consciousness. Even if academia brands you as elitist, essentialist and ethnocentrically loaded, it is better to accept and explore the mechanisms by which a section of people gains and uses their “power to mislead” others from their “real” interests (Lukes, 2005, p. 149). Here it is also important to understand that any actor who is subject to this power is a consenting actor. Similar views are also found in writings by Weber (1978), Mann (1986) and Poggi (2000). While Dahl and Lukes both took an idea of hegemonic power as “power over” (something), Arendt (1970) initiates the positive and virtuous dimension of hegemony as “power to” (do something) as she claims power is the “capacity [or power] to act in concert” (1970, p. 44). Ives (2004) significantly bridges the “power over” and “power to” dimensions. He posits that hegemony is both the source of domination and, because it is based on consent, it is also a form of collective will. While Lukes (1974, 2005) puts emphasis on social structure and cultural pattern, it ignores the obvious other dimension, i.e. the dimension of agency. Here we can follow Giddens with a possibility of bridging “structure” and “agency” dichotomy. According to Giddens (1984), in reality social structures do not exist externally to social action but are reproduced in the moment of social action. He integrates the “power over” with “power to” as he defines power as a capacity for action derived from aspects of social structure and that “power over” is a subset of “power to”, entailing domination (Giddens, 1982). While Giddens finds consenting power rooted in general, tacit, social knowledge, for Bourdieu it is habitus – an outcome of conflict, that makes ordered interaction possible. The conflict is between relatively powerful and powerless groups. Both of them are reproduced in a continuous struggle for social and cultural capitals. Elias (2000) sees habitus as a struggle between classes over the use of culture as a mode of distinction and exclusion, where dominant group defines their culture as civilised. Through the concept of Symbolic Capital, Bourdieu (1984) shows that bourgeoisie reifies their particular manners as natural and defines the “correct” socialisation practices for those of the upper echelons of society. This way one habitus is defined as superior to the habitus of the others. Eventually it constitutes “cultural capital” that becomes another resource beyond economic and coercive capital that people constantly try to acquire. Foucault (1980, 1983) does not find it as important as Bourdieu to reinforce such an essentialist concept of orthodox Marxism such as class and economy. He notes that the very categories of meaning through which social actors make sense

10  Introduction of the world are relationally constituted. Therefore, hegemonic dimension of power becomes situation dependent and relational. III If we accept some form of symbolic domination in action that percolates power and control over people, it is important to understand the interface between powerful and powerless. However, Foucault (1980, p. 98) brings a dilemma in the dichotomy of power between haves and havenots. He argues “Power must be analysed as something which circulates, or as something which only functions in the form of a chain . . . Power is employed and exercised through a netlike organisation . . . Individuals are the vehicles of power, not its points of application.” Therefore, power should be treated as a generic concept with a central focus on studying the relevant mechanisms by which power is put into action. Contrary to the notion of power as something which is possessed by a handful of people and which is concerned only with oppression, Foucault further argues that even in its most constraining and oppressive measures, power is productive which gives rise to new forms of behaviour (Foucault, 1978). Therefore, the weaker section also has the capacity to resist the domination which is exercised on them. The weaker section academically assumes a popular term: subaltern. According to Guha (1988) the subaltern exists in an “autonomous domain” which is at complete disjuncture from elite politics. It is often seen as static category that participates in a rebellion only in exceptional cases. Otherwise they negotiate and manage encounters with the state through everyday politics (Sarkar, 2000). However, it is also seen that subaltern consciousness is formed within specific configuration of power which is historical; therefore, it changes with time (Chatterjee, 2010). The subaltern consciousness, therefore, requires some form of discursive sphere. Habermas’s (1989) theorization of “public sphere” is a democratic and non-coercive sphere in social life. Being a discursive space, issues of mutual interest and difference can be solved by deliberation and rational dialogue. Civil society according to Habermas is grounded in this sphere, where the “public” is an autonomous authority separate from the state and the private sphere of civil society. Although public sphere is accorded with high democratic principles of citizenship and equality, Habermas, nevertheless, questions the nature of “public” involvement in the public sphere, which is already structured by power relations and hierarchy. Therefore, on the one hand there is obvious outcome of (subaltern?) resistance, and on the other hand, we have power which is circular with no beginning and no end (as advocated by Foucault). Perhaps the continuity of politics and control invites us to study the nature of micro-conflicts within the dominant party system. If not the whole research, at least, a significant

Introduction 11 part of it would then attempt to study local decisions, their legitimisation strategies and nuances of conflicts. This question is aptly addressed by Gramsci (1971) where he finds civil society as a buffer of the state where hegemony of the bourgeoisie prevails. It helps to understand the impediments, which prevent a Habermasian open dialogue in the public sphere (Gramsci, 1971). The sphere of civil society is already biased towards those who have the social and cultural capital to hegemonise this sphere. Language and culture of the weaker sections (subalterns) experience a defeat because of their unequal status of “lower” social and cultural capital. Moreover, the symbolic capital of the higher classes in civil society tends to keep subaltern voices unheard. This is done by forming a particularistic interest of the public sphere which results in lack of common interest, in consequence when the subaltern speaks they are either simply ignored or silenced and therefore they are never “audible” (Chandhoke, 2003). How could people organise protesting voices? Does it mean that people accept whatever power is exerted on them? The concept of counterpublics is developed primarily to address such issues. Historical analysis shows the limitations of bourgeois public sphere and the existence of proletariat public sphere. Such studies carry a subaltern angle. Such a public sphere is something that pre-exists in a constant process of production (Negt and Kluge, 1993). Fraser (1990, 1997) finds that in actually existing democracy there are many public spheres emerging in relation to the state, as well as bourgeois public sphere. In a democratic system, the radical democratic scholars argue the nature of counterpublics is associated with a constant struggle between opposing hegemonic political projects. Negt and Kluge (1993) argue that there are sudden unplanned activities primarily because the people from below do not want to be regulated. There is a creative fusion of various ideological layers and expressions of their anger. Such movements have the potential for leading towards a dangerous outcome as well as democratic possibilities. I find the notion of subaltern counterpublics along with the theoretical development of protest politics effective to explain the nature of dialectics between the public sphere and local governance, in different parts of the state. Therefore, theoretically, in any political terrain there is a dialectics of consciousness put into action. The most primary form of dialectics in context of decision-making in a local governance institution is between those relatively powerful people (political leaders, economic elites and the like) who try to rationalise their position through a variety of means and those of the weaker sections who try to subvert the domination exercised on them. Again, one needs to be reminded that such broader categories are never mutually exclusive and neatly bound. In such a dialectics, for Gramsci, the role of “organic intellectual” becomes important. Organic intellectuals – organically connected to a

12  Introduction class have two functions: (a) to contest the ideologies of the dominant classes by revealing their arbitrary nature and b) to elaborate the good sense, a form of consciousness of the oppressed class. They are supposed to turn the consciousness into a theoretical knowledge. It can only be achieved when organic intellectuals are embedded in an organisation. In Fraser’s (1990, p. 67) view, it has to be the counterpublics, which is “parallel discursive arenas where members of subordinated social groups invent and circulate counter-discourses”. Such a conception, for Bourdieu (1984), has some fundamental flaws. He finds that all classes suffer from a fundamental misrecognition of their place in the world. They follow a logic of their own, a logic of practice, but they do not have the capacity and conditions to make that logic the object of analysis, to move from the logic of practice to the logic of theory. He argues: It is not a question of the truth or falsity of the unsupportable image of the working-class world that the intellectual produces when, putting himself in the place of a worker without having the habitus of a worker, he apprehends the working-class condition through schemes of perception and appreciation which are not those that the members of the working class themselves use to apprehend it. It is truly the experience that an intellectual can obtain of the working-class world by putting himself provisionally and deliberately into the working-class condition, and it may become less and less improbable if, as is beginning to happen, an increasing number of individuals are thrown into the working-class condition without having the habitus that is the product of the conditionings “normally” imposed on those who are condemned to this condition. Populism is never anything other than an inverted ethnocentrism. (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 374) Gramsci is confident about the good sense that lies within the workingclass consciousness of organic intellectuals, while Bourdieu denies there can be any such good sense, and so for him dialogue has to be artificial and thus dangerous. Therefore, addressing domination has two dimensions. On the one side, we have Gramsci’s hegemony which is based on consent; and on the other side, we have Bourdieu’s symbolic violence which is based on misrecognition. With the consenting nature of the concept, hegemony is not based on an unconscious foundation. Rather it is protected by coercion no matter what subtle means it adopts. Therefore, to explain existing inequality and domination there are parallels between hegemony and symbolic power. Nevertheless, their differences are fundamental. For Bourdieu, domination is primarily based on a symbolic universe that defines the categories of distinction and thereby mystifies the underlying reality. Who then will fight the classification struggle, or the dialectics in the present context? In Bourdieu’s world, the invisibility of domination is

Introduction 13 founded on the concordance of a social structure with a habitus inculcated by the same social structure. At the same time, the durability of habitus, the permanence of its dispositions, inevitably brings about discordance between habitus and specific fields, what Bourdieu calls hysteresis. In sum, the significant point of difference between hegemony and symbolic violence is that “hegemony is explicit and overt and, thus, can be subverted by the organic intellectual [as they are embedded in their class positions] while the symbolic violence is deep and unconscious, appreciated by the sociologist . . .” (Burawoy, 2008). Let us have a second look at the notion of “false consciousness” in Lukes’s (2005) sense once again. What do we get about the two notions of power? For both Gramsci and Bourdieu, it is necessary to explain the reasons for which the weaker sections (subalterns) often consent their own domination. Here lies the importance of false consciousness. As we will see hegemony and misrecognition in Gramsci and Bourdieu have two unique explanations of false consciousness. If we narrow down the notions of power in a democratic system, two issues need special attention: (a) legitimacy and (b) consent. More specifically there are two questions: (a) In what ways decisions/ election/selection/continuation of a party/ideology/individual/decision gets legitimised? (b) In what ways consensus regarding decisions are achieved? There are two different perspectives towards false consciousness in Gramsci and Bourdieu. For Gramsci, the questionable part of false consciousness is its “falseness”. For Bourdieu, the problem is not with the “falseness” but with “consciousness” itself which cannot address the depth of symbolic domination (Burawoy, 2012). Bourdieu finds that symbolic domination settles within the unconscious because people accumulate sedimentations of social structure. Therefore, consent is too weak to explain the nature of domination which is the idea of “misrecognition” embedded within the habitus (Bourdieu, 2000). For Bourdieu, instead of direct violence, symbolic violence is what contemporary society experiences. To explore the ways in which such misrecognition and symbolic violence is generated it is important to look at habitus (Bourdieu, 1984). Here habitus is seen as an outcome of conflict between relatively powerful and relatively powerless for prestige and status to form a tacit knowledge. Bourgeois reifies their particular manners as “natural” and thus manages to define what constitutes the “correct” socialisation. Once a particular habitus is “naturalised”, as superior to habitus of others, it constitutes “cultural capital” which is another resource for the constitution of power hierarchy. Hence, the objective hierarchy within a society formed by people’s everydayness (habitus) produces and authorises standard (often superior) discourses and activities. This entire everydayness rests on “cultural capital”. It carries meaning through the conflicting interaction of what constitutes capital and how is it distributed (Figure 1.1). If we consider Gramsci’s (1971) idea of a capitalist system as having endless fortifications and ditches, cultural capital constitutes some of such ditches.

The

Source: Author’s own

Conflict

Zone

Produce and Authorise

C A P I T A L

Figure 1.1  Cultural capital and its different tenets

What constutes capital?

Appointment

Designaon

Categories

Convenons

Rituals

Rules

Instuons

OBJECTIVE HIERARCHY

How the capital is distributed?

Discourses and acvies

Introduction 15

FOUR Party, Panchayat and people If you ever want to talk anything about rural West Bengal especially after LF’s rule you have to reflect on at least two things: (a) the land reform and (b) the decentralisation initiative – famously known as the Panchayat system. If you want to discuss politics and (to a certain extent) people’s everyday lives, you have to focus on Panchayats, as people’s lives revolve around Panchayat. I have considered studying Panchayats as a methodology in itself, but more about that later. With decentralisation and people’s increasing access to governance vis-à-vis party, Panchayat-linked village politics becomes the crucible and latest ground for doing political ethnography (Ruud, 2003; Roy and Banerjee, 2005, 2006). I The LFG in West Bengal had a concrete agenda for decentralisation which started even before the related constitutional amendment of 1992. It is found that Panchayat initiative yielded positive results with economic turnaround through land reform, regularised election, better construction and maintenance of public goods (Biju, 1998; Rawal and Swaminathan, 1998; Mathew, 2001; Sengupta and Gazder, 1997; Mookherjee, 1998). Panchayats as formal local units of the government flourish under LFG under the leadership of CPIM with significant left-wing groups like Communist Party of India (CPI), Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) and All India Forward Bloc (AIFB). Perhaps the most dramatic impact of the Panchayat system is rural people’s access to governmental instruments through Panchayats at village, block, district and even at booth level. Panchayats have two stated aims: (a) decentralisation of power and (2) encouragement of people’s participation in development and development-related decision making. The Village Panchayat (or GP) usually covers 10–12 villages. Each of the villages within a GP is represented by at least one member. The GP is headed by Panchayat Pradhan (chief) chosen by the winning political party from the democratically elected members. Official work is carried out by the office staff – the government employees who work under the leadership of the GP Pradhan. There are several Upa Samiti (standing committees at GP level) formed by the office staff and elected members to execute development-related programmes. The programmes are approved beforehand by the villagers of voting age at annual Gram Sabha and biannual Sansad Sabha, formulated in the Annual Action Plan (AAP) at village level. On top of the GP, there is a block-level Panchayat Samiti covering all the Village Panchayats in a particular block. Panchayat Samiti is also formed by elected representatives and headed by the Sabhapati (Panchayat Samiti chief) who works parallel with the Block Development Officer (BDO) – a group “A” gazetted officer

16  Introduction appointed through West Bengal Civil Service (WBCS) examination. Usually two separate offices are formed within the block administrative building: (a) the Panchayat Samiti headed by the Sabhapati and (b) the block development office headed by the BDO. Office staffs are supposed to follow the orders given in a coordinated way by the BDO and Sabhapati through the meetings of Sthayee Samiti (standing committees at block level) formed to look after different sectors of development. This is the intermediate level of the Panchayat system between the villages and the district. Above the Panchayat Samiti, there is a Zilla Parishad, or the district-level Panchayat body representing all Panchayat Samitis in a district. Similar to the Panchayat Samiti, a Zilla Parishad is also headed by elected Sabhadhipati (district chief), often referred to as the chief minister of the district, and a senior WBCS executivelevel officer or an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer (Figure 2.2), known as District Magistrate (DM). A voter elects their representative to all three tiers in a single election. Different specialised departments like Public Works, Irrigation and Animal Husbandry are referred to as line departments which are attached in an undefined way to the Panchayat system to carry out development programmes (Chakrabarti, Chattopadhyay, and Nath, 2011). If one inspects the architecture (Figure 1.2, for example) of Panchayat system, there is hardly any space for people’s direct participation. People’s direct participation is ensured at the GP level. In policy, the decision-making at GP to a great extent should depend on Gram Sabha – the general body of villagers of voting age functioning alongside the GP. It is the decisionmaking body at the local level. There is another forum of local democracy at the Sansad (ward) level: the Gram Sansad. Voters are members of both the Gram Sabha and the Gram Sansad. While the Sansad is expected to meet the villagers twice in a year, Gram Sabha is supposed to meet at least once. To ensure people’s participation, GP informs all the villagers of voting age at least one week before the meeting. Five percent of the total voters make the quorum. If a GP fails to hold such meetings, it cannot formulate the Annual Action Plan (AAP), and therefore, its activities would not be approved and a higher authority may suspend the Panchayat. Ideally, the Gram Sabha meetings are opportunities for the common people to (a) discuss, approve, disapprove and prioritise future plans of action; (b) identify and include people-in-need for poverty alleviation projects; and (c) perform social audits (Planning Commission of India, n.d.). The Planning Commission of India (n.d.) emphasises the importance of Gram Sabha: The 73rd amendment thus envisages the Gram Sabha as a foundation of the Panchayat Raj system. “Gram Sabha” means a body consisting of persons registered in the electoral rolls comprised within the area of Panchayat at the village level. In the Panchayati Raj system Gram Sabha is the only permanent unit. Mukhiyas [Pradhans or Heads] and other members of Panchayat continue for 5 years only from the date appointed for the first meeting, but the villagers do not change.

Introduction 17 Empowerment of Gram Sabha means strengthening of the Panchayat Raj Institution (PRIs). Success or failure of this system depends upon the strength of the Gram Sabha (Planning Commission, n.d, p. 91)

Legislative Assembly

Central Government

Chief Minister Cabinet

Ministers in Charge

State Party Units Upa Samitis

Gram Sansad

PRDD

District Collectorate

Zilla Parishad

District Level

DPRDO

Block Level

Community Development Block

Panchayat Samiti

Standing Committees/ Sthayee Samitis Standing Committees/ Sthayee Samitis

Line Departments

Department HQs

State Level

Gram Panchayat

EOP/I(P&E)/Joint BDO

Ex.Asst/Job Asst/Sahayak

Gram Panchayat Level

Gram Sansad

Community Organizations (Village Education Committees, Self Help Groups etc.)

Figure 1.2 Organisational structure of different levels of officials of the Panchayat system Source: P&RD, Unpublished, Organisational Issues for Strengthening Rural Decentralisation in West Bengal PRI Review, courtesy of Mr. Dilip Ghosh, IAS, Special Secretary, Panchayat & Rural Development Department

18  Introduction In West Bengal, Gram Sabha is supposed to be held in the month of December after the completion of half-yearly meeting of Gram Sansads. Ideally the ward-based needs assessments should be reflected in a Gram Sabha meeting (GoWB, 2004). The West Bengal Panchayat Act (GoWB, 2004, p. 28) stresses: one twentieth of the total members shall form a quorum . . . Gram Panchayat shall at least seven days before the date of holding the meeting . . . give public notice of such meetings by beat of drums as widely as possible. . . [Meeting] shall be presided by the Pradhan . . . all questions . . . shall be discussed and points raised there shall be referred to the Gram Panchayat for its consideration. The budget, latest report of the audit, inclusion or other amendments in the beneficiary lists, future plan and prioritisation of such plans are all supposed to be discussed in such meetings. Additionally, any matter related to the functioning of the Panchayat can be discussed and the Panchayat is supposed to note down each of the issues. Gram Sabha is aided with a capacity for being watchdog of the Panchayat: objection to any action of the Pradhan, or any member of the Gram Panchayat for failure to implement any development scheme properly or without active participation of the people of that area. (GoWB, 2004, p. 27) The Gram Sabha is given so much of importance that in the budget speech the Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha declared 1999–2000 as the “year of Gram Sabha”. (GoI, 1999). Mathew (2007, p. 313) notes that “the relationship between Gram Sabha and Panchayat is dialectical in nature. The Panchayats in the rural areas will be effective if Gram Sabhas meet regularly with maximum participation of the people”. II While the stated aims of Panchayat are (a) decentralisation of power and (b) encouragement of people’s participation, there is also a third factor that makes Panchayat in West Bengal so important. The third factor, as one can easily predict, is politics. If we go back to the “beginning of an end” section, we can recall that even though scholars have attempted to explain LFG’s continuity, it nevertheless remains a puzzle. Successful implementation of Panchayat is one of the important factors. Bhattacharyya (2004) indicates three macro-factors of the continuity; first, locality based political contact forming strong grassroots network; second, continuous attempt at creating a political space different from and critical of the national mainstream; and third, uninterrupted cultural hegemony of the urban middle

Introduction 19 classes. The first among the three directly links Panchayat with politics. The coupling of these three, according to him, creates a “brand”. Chatterjee’s (2009) explanation of political continuity has something to do with local network-based clientelism and institutional effectiveness of CPIM and LFG. Through a field-based study, Dasgupta (2009) reflected on local mechanisms which have successfully used decentralisation to strengthen their hegemony in the countryside. From two cases of Left Front politics he argues that Left Front’s political mechanism is context specific. Factions with left and political adjustment depend on collaboration between left partners and strength of opposition. Majumdar (2009) through a study of non-left GPs found that ineffective political participation is the reason for skewed development. She argues reconfiguration of existing party-society relationship will make democratic participation effective. The party–Panchayat interface started to appear prominently in the scholarly literature in the late 1980s with Kohli (1987). He mentioned that Panchayat decisions are taken in consultation with party. Bhattacharyya (2006) mentions the party–Panchayat interface while exploring realities of decentralisation. Similarly, Bhattacharyya (2002) through her field study shows that decisions are taken by the party leaders and not even the elected members. Because of the party influence the minor disagreements almost always remain unheard. CSSSC (2006) in a report submitted to DFID, UK mentions the invisible hand of the party in making decisions. As part of the IIMC team to evaluate the institutional effectiveness of GPs in West Bengal, I have experienced the nature and extent of party influence (IIMC, 2010). The CPIM party documents report the existence of party-controlled “parichalan samiti” (committee for guidance) to be the decision-maker of the Panchayat system in West Bengal (Bhattacharyya, 1998). Bhattacharyya (1998, p. 110) have quoted from the document that “it means the activation of Panchayats in accordance with the principles and ideals of party”. While there is a general consensus among the scholars about the party-mediated decisions of the Panchayat, Bhattacharyya (2002) reflects on its impact. She noted that the party made Panchayat a space for politics and, therefore, people started to avoid participation in the decision-making forums. She concluded there has been a transformation of Panchayat from a movement orientation to a space for institutionalised politics. Bhattacharyya’s (2009, 2010, 2016) conceptualisation of “party society” also echoes the mediating role of political parties in Panchayat-based politics. Party society, as he sees it, is effective in democratisation of rural politics. The impact of such politicisation has been assessed by Bardhan et al. (2009). They argue that there are clear associations of left vote with marginal people, distribution of recurring benefits from development-related schemes of the Panchayat and improvement in agriculture. They also mention that left leaders treat weaker sections with dignity and that is also an important reason for people to vote for them. Therefore, it is clear that factors include both economic and policy issues coupled with intangible issues like dignity – which is of cultural value. There

20  Introduction isn’t any comprehensive picture for depicting the factors and their relative impact on LFG’s continuity. The potential for such an unsure but close relationship between Panchayats and politics at the local level is also an important and hitherto understudied issue. There is little disagreement about the fact that village politics in the state is closely linked to Panchayats. In this context, attempts are made to study the dynamics of participation and participatory planning through Panchayats. III Let me narrate another story before I go into the politics and Panchayat interface and theorisation of West Bengal politics. I started doing extensive fieldwork on development-related issues in 2007, immediately after completing my masters in anthropology. At IIM Calcutta, I started exploring books and journals, and was also making field visits every now and then in West Bengal, as well as to different other places in the country. I was of the notion that decisions related to public services are made by the powerful leaders, and then are implemented by the Panchayat members and Pradhans. Incidentally the Panchayat member of our locality was my nearest neighbour and I have seen him working for people by following instructions from party. From the ages of eight to ten years, I used to sit for hours in his room watching people discussing what needed to be done. My prime interest was, of course, watching the older people talk and the food that used to be served at intervals. As I grew up, I started to recognise the faces of Marx and Lenin kept inside his home. At IIMC, the much-matured me, a fresh graduate, for the first time in his life, confronted a reality. My PhD supervisor (then an important research teammate) Prof. Bhaskar Chakrabarti gave me a copy of Panchayat legislations. I first came to know that according to law, decisions are actually the outcome of Gram Sabha and Sansad Sabha meetings where people can and should directly participate in decision making. These are not something decided by the party. That time Prof. Raghabendra Chattopadhyay asked to see the Gram Sabha meeting minutes at Birbhum (Chattopadhyay et al., 2010). While doing the serious analysis of Gram Sabha meetings, I could recall such meetings used to take place during my childhood as well. Although, now my area comes under a municipality, I have good contacts with the ex-Panchayat Pradhan of our region. He is a respected, well-read, veteran CPIM leader involved in publication business. His daughter is my childhood friend, I used to participate in his book fair stalls and it was easier for me to get a homely and personal response to the dynamics of party and Gram Sabha. I narrated to him the false notions that I had. He listened to me, allowed me to settle down with my excitement, and then slowly argued that: Decisions through gram sabha exist only in paper. These decisions are party decisions and hence party will decide what is good for people.

Introduction 21 Party will decide what would be implemented and how would be implemented! People here cannot even decide what to eat together in the evening, let alone make serious development decisions. Therefore, if you take my story and analyse the perceptions about Panchayat, you can clearly see that people like me are unaware about legal provisions and accept party decisions as the mechanisms for making political decision. On the other hand, local leaders legitimise their decisions through a variety of means – which needs a thorough study. This book would reflect on some of these mechanisms as well. Studies on politics and local governance in West Bengal represent a mix of achievements and disappointments in terms of efforts to alleviate poverty. The main dynamics of development initiatives revolve around the well-organised political regime (Kohli, 1987; Mallick, 1993; Harriss, 1994; Corbridge, Willams, Srivastava, and Veron, 2005). Village development as Banerjee et al. (2002) suggest with the land reform has been more inclusive than other parts of the country. Ghatak and Ghatak (2002) argue that over time political control of Bengali communists in the countryside depended on the small landowners and not on the landless. It is seen that, “Over time, new stakeholders developed – school teachers, party functionaries, a variety of white-collar employees, small landholders and tenant farmers, whose security depended on the regime; all became part of West Bengal’s ‘new class’ ” (Kohli, 2011, pp. 506–507). A variety of new stakeholders, especially the school teachers, consolidated the party grid on local economy and politics (Bhattacharyya, 2001). This conceptualisation calls for subsequent studies based on class analysis of the rural economy and impact of local politics on it. Because of land reform, the state has experienced an upsurge of a distinct (new) middle class. This class element consists of medium land owners, rich and middle peasants, merchants of rural and semi-rural townships, small-scale manufacturers, retailers and a group of white-collar professionals like school teachers. Harriss-White (2003, p. 53) argues that this group “consolidate themselves above all in the informal and black economies”, which account for at least 88 percent of the Indian economy as a whole. Their operations are not based on concretisation of class identity; rather, they rely on particularistic tactics. Often these are based on cold storage networks. In her Rural commercial capital: Agricultural markets in West Bengal, Harriss-White (2008) noted local and complex history of cold storage formation and their mode of operation. The complexity makes it near impossible to generalize and present grand narratives of cold storages. Similarly, in our extensive field-based study, we noted the oligopoly of cold storage networks in controlling the pricing of potato and exploiting small and marginal farmers in Bardhaman (Nath and Chakrabarti, 2011). Kaviraj (1991) argued that entire democratic aspiration of the country to a large extent is mediated by the local elites and middle class. Frankel as early as in 1978 noted the ability of dominant peasants to resist reform initiatives is

22  Introduction formidable. Similarly, Bardhan (1984), Frankel (1978) and Chibber (2003) argued that rich peasants/farmers represent the dominant class interest of rural India. Bhattacharyya (2016) notes such a wide variety of professionals strongly connected with the party in West Bengal provides anchor to the formation of “party society” – a concept I will discuss shortly. Apart from such class analysis there are macro-studies that have attempted to use Gramsci’s (1971) notion of passive revolution. It is argued that Nehruvian modernisation project is at odds with India’s indigenous values and implemented in a top-down manner. Such state-led technocratic (hence passive) considerations cannot substitute politics and class conflict (active) revolutions. Shiva (1991) and Nandy (2003) therefore saw the forcible land capture and ethnocentric revolution to be inherently violent and often leading to internal cultural clashes within the country (Chatterjee, 1986, 1993). Chatterjee (1993) found that hegemonic movement in nationalism tried to resist the sway of modern institutions. In a more recent publication based primarily on his work in the city of Kolkata, Chatterjee (2009) suggested that Indian citizens in post-independent India are not citizens in the Western sense. For him citizens of India, as well as in most of the world, inhabit a terrain of political society, where their access to state machinery is largely mediated by a variety of political bosses. It is one of the crucial theorisations of political practices in West Bengal. Perhaps the political scenario of the rural part of the state in recent years is best theorised by Bhattacharyya in a couple of EPW publications in 2009 and 2010, and then in a book in 2016. He brought the theoretical construct of party society, as a modified version of Chatterjee’s (2004) political society to explain how – unlike other states in India – political parties in West Bengal transcend caste, religion or ethnically based organisations. As a result, all disputes, familial, social or cultural, take very little time to become partisan. This party society has over the last three decades displaced the older patron-client form of relationships. Bhattacharyya (2009, p. 68) argued: Land reform legislations and local government bodies (the Panchayats) were the tools and the CPI (M) (as well as its peasant wing, the Krishak Sabha) was the primary agent to bring about this change. The new politics set new norms of transaction to which every political outfit – the ruling side as well as the opposition – had to conform, willingly or unwillingly. In this organizational grid. . . [the] political party was largely accepted as the chief mediator, the central conduit, in the settling of every village matter: private or public, individual or collective, familial or associational. He did not put party society in negative terms; rather he found that it has played a vital role in democratising rural politics in early decades of LFG. While it is generally agreed that caste-based clientelism is not an important feature in West Bengal, and that party plays an important role, perhaps,

Introduction 23 studying lucrative presence of political domination in the state is theoretically as well as methodologically important. Later on, his book (2016, p. x) speaks more vividly on the interface of ideology and practice: “governmental projects of agrarian reforms and administrative decentralisation in the late 1970s . . . required a disciplined party and a complex structure of mass organisations for blending social democracy’s ideological commitments with the everyday compulsions of post-colonial democracy”. He also noted (2016, p. 126) several unique characteristics of politics in West Bengal viz. (a) absence of “other channels of public transactions”, (b) lack of political focus on caste, religion or ethnically based social divisions [an issue which is recently getting immense importance with the rise of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state, more about it later], (c) partisan forms of conflicts, (d) accepted position of party as “moral guardians” of social life, and finally, (e) party’s exclusive control over the Panchayat system. Bhattacharyya (2009, 2010, 2016, see also Chatterjee, 2004) quite effectively relate these unique features with the long legacy of CPIM-led LFG rule of the state. However, little information is available about the fate of the party control over society in the countryside of the state, especially during political change. It is also important to study in what ways party society is affected with the advent of TMC. Bhattacharyya (2010, p. 53) notes the evolution of such party society is rooted from the “violent class-based movements of the poor peasants as they fought against the domination of the landlords . . . These movements – facilitated by the left parties – for food, land, security of tenure, and freedom for ‘the intrusion of the excluded’ ”. Eventually, the domination adopted what Ruud (2003) notes as a form of symbolic capital in Bourdieu’s sense of the term. Bhattacharyya (2010, p. 55) further argues that “this enabled the communities to use political parties as conduits to pose their demands to the institutions of government, and allowed the party, in return, to transfer policies to the society by dissemination within the communities”. He hints towards a clientelist mode of political operation, which is beyond formal institutions where political negotiations are held. Scholars like Kohli (1990), Krishna (2002) and Mooji (2005) note that neither government nor party bureaucracy, but rather Panchayat-based politics reach the villages. Therefore, for a comprehensive idea of village politics, especially in West Bengal, it is important to have a significant idea about the operations of the Panchayats.

FIVE Why another book So, here I arrive at the fundamental question: Why another book on Panchayat and politics in West Bengal? One reason obviously is that this book will explore the mechanisms of political transformation and its effects at the local

24  Introduction level and the micro-level. This book actually supports and gives ethnographic evidence to the contention that macro-factors actually have less significance in the political transformation of the state (as already contended by Bardhan et al. (2014). Moreover, this book is also an attempt to explain the TMC’s mechanisms for governance and how it differs from the long regime of LF. It is well known that local politics of West Bengal gets considerable scholarly attention from different disciplines. However, in general, there is a serious lack of ethnographic and qualitative studies explaining the dynamics of local politics in West Bengal. Most of the studies which appear in journals and periodicals either do not reveal much about the methodology, or depend significantly on the secondary sources of quantitative data and a variety of indicators. Most of the studies which I have just discussed have used largescale sample survey, which results in a focus on degree or extent of a phenomena (be it poverty, utilisation of public money, etc.) and a lack of focus on the nature of phenomena as causes behind the state’s overall sluggish performance. A few scholars like Dasgupta (2009) and Majumdar (2009) try to comprehend politics in its contextual richness. Bardhan and Mookherjee (2000), and Bardhan et al. (2009) attempt to explain the dynamism of local politics, but because of their questionnaire-based sample survey method, their analysis is opinion analysis. Therefore, there is a lack of contextual richness. These studies fail to address causal factors. Empirically, there is a lack of understanding of the mechanisms by which GPs make the decisions by handling multiple agencies. Theoretically, recent attempts at explaining the political dynamics of West Bengal have relied on structural apparatus of elite capture through clientelism (Harriss-White, 2008), architecture of political parties, negotiation skills of weaker sections (political society by Chatterjee, 2004) and mediating role of party machinery (party society by Bhattacharyya, 2009, 2010). The over-reliance on the conception of clientelism and structural determinism of political parties overlooks the actual mechanism of politics and decision making. Such people-politics-governance interplay cannot be explained by elite capture and structural determinism only. In this book, I try to address this gap by using ethnographic sensibility to explore the processes and factors that facilitate/hinder the uneasy traffic between people, politics and governance at the grassroots. More specifically in this book I try to address the following research questions: 1 Why dialectics is formed between Panchayat and people? In what ways do people, party and administration interact? To address the issue, I explore the decisions taken by the GP and uncover factors that contribute to the dialectics. 2 Why is people’s participation in the decision-making forum of Gram Sabha falling over time? Instead of asking people about the reasons for their lack of participation, I address hitherto understudied dimensions of meeting space and

Introduction 25

3 4 5 6

nature of meeting discourses to find out causes and consequences of people’s lack of participation. Why people tend to support political parties and their decisions which often go against their interests? I explore constructs of misrecognition and symbolic violence in contrast to hegemony as mechanisms of political consciousness rooted in the dimensions of single-party rule and tribal cultural expressions. In what ways people exercise power subversion even within structural mechanism of elite capture? I bring the notions of field-habitus interaction as a counterpart of hegemonic relationships based on economic inequality to explain the continuation and change in the nature of political domination and resistance to it. How counterpublic resistance is formed? Why such movements are formed? I explore dimensions of political violence and people’s resistance against it during political turmoil and its impact on the GP-based decision-­ making process. What does West Bengal political practices reflect about India? To address the question, I map West Bengal’s politics within India and show how both of them influence each other through a variety of means.

Broadly, I focus on the role of different agencies and their nature of impact on the GP-based decision-making process of the state. Theoretically, I support the earlier contention about the elite capture and political mediation, but I also criticise them because of their overreliance on structural explanations with an exclusive focus on the single-party rule. I argue that local politics is a contested terrain of political consciousness where different agencies and their interests are in constant dialectics. I explore GP-based local politics with a focus on the dialectics of political control and subtle mechanisms of power subversion by the weaker sections. The book is divided into six parts. Chapter 1 introduces the central argument of the book. It touches upon the existing perspectives on local politics in India at large and in West Bengal in particular. Chapter 2 deals with the issues of participation and politics interface. This section discusses the hallmark of LF-led decentralisation initiatives and its symbolic and structural interface with local politics. It also describes the phenomenological analysis of Gram Sabha meetings for six consecutive years (2008 to 2013) which reveals underlying power dynamics in four GPs from Bankura, Bardhaman, Purba Medinipur and Paschim Medinipur districts of the state and states what happens in Gram Sabha and what does it reflect about the everyday village politics. Here I touch upon the initiative to further devolution of power through Gram Unnayan Samiti (GUS) and reflect on the reasons for its failure. This section also deals with the policy initiatives of Strengthening Rural Decentralisation (SRD) and of late Institutional Strengthening of Gram Panchayat (ISGP) and explains

26  Introduction what happens to the participatory agenda of decentralisation with such initiatives. Chapter 3 represents three concrete cases of politics linked with land. The first case from Bardhaman2 deals with elite spillover effects on the small and marginal farmers and shows in what ways local storage and rice-mill-based networks of local elites have effectively withstood the disruption with political change to continue to capitalise on the existing land-water-debt network and the role of GP. The second case focuses on the livelihood issues of local tribal people near the proposed but now abandoned 5,000-acre Jindal Steel Works, Salboni, Paschim Medinipur. It shows the impact of large-scale land acquisition even when the large section of the land officially is vested. The third case deals with the nexus of corrupt practices between local politics, GP and a section of local land mafias in Purba Medinipur. Chapter 4 represents the second series of ethnographies conduced in two of the forested and Maoist-effected districts of the state. The first case presents my ethnographic findings from a GP from Paschim Medinipur district to explain the politics of Maoists and its informal and formal counterpart which has left a significant effect in the political fate of the forested region of western part of West Bengal, popularly known as the Junglemahal. Here I show the ways in which protest politics have given rise to a distinct form of political practices along with the rise of “organic intellectuals” which is otherwise missing in other well-known political movements famously associated with the political change of the state. A distinct feature of local governance institutions and role democratic potential is reflected. The second case shows how traditional cultural expressions are used as invented traditions to legitimise political decisions. By doing intensive ethnography in a GP region at Khatra block of Bankura district, I formulate the concept of systemic and cultural misrecognitions to explain the dynamics of politics with traditions as something ontologically different from Left Front-promoted party society. I attempt to link West Bengal’s political practices in broad spectrum in Chapter 5. I show in what ways issues of Singur and Nandigram have affected LF partnership at centre and sped up the process of political change. I explore the potentials of the concepts developed from my ethnographies to other places as well. Citing more recent ethnographic examples on religious polarisations, I map the location of West Bengal in the broad, increasingly intolerant Indian politics. In Chapter 6, I conclude and deal extensively with conceptions of protest politics, corruption, power subversion and cultural misrecognition as features of the politics of West Bengal. In this chapter, I also reflect on my ongoing research on increasing religious polarisation of the state as a new form of political practice which is rooted in TMC’s cultural misrecognition. Here I give a summary of the findings so far, and tease out perennial issues and new trends in Bengal politics. I reflect on the potential future of politics of the state, which is moving from party grid to a series of misrecognitions and towards an unpredictable future.

Introduction 27

Notes 1 See Chapter 2, for detailed discussion. 2 At present the district of Bardhaman is divided in to two halves, viz. east and west. Here the older connotation Bardhaman is used. Readers should keep in mind that the work was done at places which at present falls within East Bardhaman.

2 Dynamics and dialectics of people’s participation

ONE Participation – do you find politics within? We Bengalis usually have a desher bari, which simply means a person’s native place. Most of the people I have interacted with usually have a desher bari either in Bangladesh or in some rural counterpart. I used to get confused regarding desher bari. Should I call Barishal district of Bangladesh from where my grandfather had migrated during the 1930s my desher bari? Or should it be Nabadwip, where my grandfather first settled before migrating again to Kolkata? Since most of the people with whom I interacted carried a vivid description of the big ponds, miles of farmlands and big houses in their desher bari, I decided to make Nabadwip my desher bari. Partly because I could give some description about that place since I used to make yearly visits there, as my mother came from the same village. My first encounter with people’s participation came from an answer regarding the job profile of one of my maternal aunt’s prospective grooms from Nabadwip. It used to be the first question that one asked about any prospective groom after one is done with the enquiries of caste identity. The answer to that question was that the prospective groom used to “write on a notebook” at some office – in Bengali the phrase was “Samitite Khata Lekha”. The prospective groom was also a known face to my uncle from my desher bari from the same village. At the age of 12, I was curious and went to my uncle and asked him about his job profile. That was in 1996. My uncle with a serious tone said, “it is more important to understand that he works for party (which simply meant CPIM party). He writes the meeting minutes at Gram Sabha.” So, that gentleman had a job profile of being an active party cadre who is allowed to write up the minutes. Today, with some understanding of party machinery in West Bengal, I can guess that job profile was envious to many! Although, the marriage did not take place, that gentleman later became an important CPIM local leader and now a local player in the cold storagebased business. The important thing is that I asked the same question to my mother, to my grandmother (mother’s mother) and several aunts. They

Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation 29 could not clearly explain his job profile. The very word Samiti was confusing to them; they didn’t know whether it was Panchayat Samiti (block Panchayat) or a Samabay Samiti (co-operative). They had no idea about Gram Sabha, but they knew about some yearly meeting at the playground adjacent to the BDO office. Having three generations living in the same compound with 16 maternal uncles and 15 aunts, you can imagine that I had no shortage of brothers, sisters and their friends at Nabadwip. None of them – even those who came to voting age – had any idea about Gram Sabha. On the other hand, that prospective groom was not only marriageable, but also made a career out of it – and was now quite well settled. I guess you can identify the dilemma; it’s the time to revisit the old questions: participation by whom, for whom and for what? Do they even know it exists? Political participation is commonly seen as an essential feature of functioning democracy.1 Voter turnout in elections is often considered an indication of people’s engagement in democracy. LF showcased West Bengal’s voting trend as their success. While Western scholars express great concerns for the falling rate of voters’ turnouts in elections, the CPIM led LFG publicises its success in making people politically conscious. Dr. Surya Kanta Mishra, Minister in Charge for Panchayats and Rural Development during the LFG, writes that while in the “bourgeois” countries it is rare to see even 50 percent voter turnout in their election, in case of the Panchayat elections of 1993 and 1998, the voter turnout has been more than 80 percent (Mishra, 1998). Kumar and Ghosh (1996) also support the fact that voters turnout in Panchayat elections is considerably high. However, the fairness of the election process has always been under suspicion, with rigging and violence in elections being a constant feature of the state (Sarkar, 2006; Bardhan et al., 2009; Business Standard, 2013). Therefore, any measure of people’s engagement must also consider the people’s genuine eagerness to vote.

Voters and Gram Sabha participants – a paradox In the 2011 Assembly Election, the voter turnout was 84.72 percent (ECI, 2014a). The state witnessed a 7.96 percentage increase in voters turnout between the 2006 and 2011 assembly elections (ECI, 2014b). In 2016, the voting percentage has also been quite high (82.66 percent), which is slightly less (2.06 percent) than the 2011 election (ECI, 2016). Since this book primarily deals with the transitional phase of the state, I have worked on the 2006–2011 data only. The slight downfall in 2016 indicates that the highest voters turnout in 2011 was a result of the eagerness of people to vote for a change in 2011, which was not there in 2016. As I have already discussed, I locate my ethnographic findings in four districts, viz. Bankura, Bardhaman, Purba Medinipur and Paschim Medinipur. The analysis of voter turnout indicates a considerable increase in these four districts as well, except for Purba Medinipur, where poll percentage was already high (Figure 2.1).

30  Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation % votes polled

% increase 0.39 89.65

4.4 86.71

90.04

2.72

88.19

5.57 85.94

85.47

82.31 80.37

2006

2011

Bankura

2006

2011

Bardhaman

2006

2011

Purba Medinipur

2006

2011

Paschim Medinipur

Figure 2.1 Percentage of vote polled and percentage of increase in the 2006 and 2011 assembly elections in the districts under study Source: Compiled from ECI 2014, accessed from http://eci.nic.in/eci_main1/SVEEP/statesweep plan2014/WEST%20BENGAL.pdf on September 14, 2014

Let us have a quick look at voter turnout in the last couple of Panchayat elections, which show a high percentage of voting (Figure 2.2). Although there are instances of booth capture and false voting at different polling stations in West Bengal, this general trend of high percentage of poll nevertheless is an important feature. Whether we agree with CPIM leader, exminister Dr. Mishra or not, this feature speaks something about people’s vibrant presence in the political sphere. What does it say about people in rural Bengal, or at least people in the four GPs where I have worked for so long? Yes, let me guess; we would love to imagine a public sphere which is politically conscious. They are conscious enough to register their vote in scorching heat in the months of May/ June – the usual voting time to ensure longest daylight, but don’t forget the issues of temperature and humidity. Having been a presiding officer a few times during my tenure at Haldia Govt. College, I know how difficult it is to stand in the long queue for casting one’s vote, and people actually do that without complaining much. With my own experience and through numerous conversations with many veteran polling officers during the painful two-day long process of conducting election, I have learned that political parties in power either try to create an ambience of fear among the voters

Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation 31 % of votes polled 91.84 86.75

88.7

89.55

90.45

86.65

80.72

2008

2013

GP 1 in Bankura

2008

2013

GP 2 in Bardhaman

2008

2013

GP 3 in Purba Medinipur

2008

2013

GP 4 in Paschim Medinipur

Figure 2.2 Percentage of votes polled in Panchayat elections in the four GPs under study Source: Compiled from West Bengal State Election Commission data, accessed from http:// wbsec.gov.in/%28S%28armgruftbixo0wjnxygsla55%29%29/Home.aspx on August 29, 2014, data for GP 4, 2013 is not available

from opposition so that they do not come for voting, or they try to capture polling booths.2 There are thousands of instances of booth capture that are never reported because of “complications”. A lot depends on the nature of security forces deployed at the polling stations: If it is Central Reserve Police Forces (CRPF), the incidents of booth capture are reduced significantly. Whatever, the situation is, all of them agree that people do take voting seriously in the state. I have even seen aged and sick persons coming and tendering their votes. Since there usually is a long queue, booths also attract ice-candy sellers and the like – all of which indicate one thing, i.e. people take voting very seriously, and they do turn up. There are several interesting experiences with the conscious public sphere, but I would like to narrate one here. In Nandigram’s 2016 assembly election, a middle-aged person came and, after fulfilling all the necessary formalities, went to the polling chamber near the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) and stood there for a while. As a presiding officer, I was supposed to show him a dummy EVM machine to make him understand how to press the button. I showed it to him but he, speaking in a local dialect, said “I know how to cast vote sir.” This was curious and so I said, “then do it. People are standing outside in the queue!” He replied, “But I forgot my party symbol and I think I have also forgotten who sponsored my whisky last night!” So, you know, West Bengal has its uniqueness when it comes to political consciousness! In the next section (Chapter 3), I will narrate a few ethnographic findings of how Election Day is celebrated with chicken and beer!

32  Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation However, on a serious note, while the voters’ turnout data looks impressive, especially in comparison to western democracies,3 my six years of field data on people’s participation in the Gram Sabha meeting shows the people’s participation in this crucial decision-making forum is alarmingly low. Furthermore, it is steadily declining over the years. In policy, a presence of five percent of the total voters is essential to validate a meeting (GoWB, 2004). It appears that none of the GPs in the last six years could ever fulfil this essential criterion. The average number of people required to fulfil the quorum is 621.98, while only 82.09 people attended these meetings creating, on average, a shortage of 539.90 to even fulfil the primary requirement (Table 2.1). In order to keep the registration and Table 2.1 Quorum requirements and number of people attended in the Gram Sabha meetings in four GPs studied GPs

Years No. of Quorum voters

GP 1 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Total

7117 7290 7290 7612 7612 8105

GP 2 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Total

355.85 364.5 364.5 380.6 380.6 405.25 2251.3

Average Actual Average Gap quorum atten­ atten­ require­ dance dance ments

375.22

112 69 46 62 58 47 394

23231 20996 20996 21665 21665 21985

1161.55 1049.8 1049.8 1083.25 1083.25 1099.25 6526.9 1087.82

123 142 78 65 23 69 500

GP 3 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Total

10193 10327 10327 10836 10836 11560

509.65 516.35 516.35 541.8 541.8 578 3203.95

123 28 18 32 22 39 262

GP 4 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Total Grand total

8857 8993 8993 9813 9813 9813

442.85 449.65 449.65 490.65 490.65 490.65 2323.45 14305.6

533.99

65.67

243.85 295.5 318.5 318.6 322.6 358.25 1857.3

83.33

1038.55 907.8 971.8 1018.25 1060.25 1030.25 6026.9 1004.48

43.67

386.65 488.35 498.35 509.8 519.8 539 2941.95

353 232 68 47 32 464.69 732 621.98 1888

Source: Data collected by author during 2008 to 2013

Average gap

309.55

490.33

89.85 217.65 381.65 443.65 458.65 146.4 82.09

1591.45 12417.6

318.29 539.90

Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation 33 paperwork intact the political parties usually collect signatures from the villagers afterwards. Since the data is longitudinal, I have tried to explore whether there is any significant change in people’s participation over time. The following figure (Figure 2.3) shows that over the year there is a slow but steady increase in the gap between the number of people required to fulfil the quorum and actual participants. The gap in the case of GP 2 initially shows a stark decline because of the realignment of its constituencies, which then follows the trend of increasing. The striking increase in the gap in the case of GP 4 is related to its violent political environment instigated by the conflicts between Maoists and armed mercenaries4 and CRPF. It continued throughout the period of 2009–2010 when people simply avoided participating in any state-sponsored activities, including attending Gram Sabha. The trend continued to increase even after the political change and significant decrease in violent incidents after the 2011 assembly election. A comparative study of the voter turnout vis-a-vis people’s participation in decision-making forums represents a puzzle when explaining what makes the same people vote actively, and then remain reluctant to attend the Gram Sabha meeting (Figure 2.4). It is even more enigmatic to note that the steady decline in people’s participation parallels the steady increase in GP 1

1038 907.8

GP 2

971.8

498.35

488.35 386.65

381.65

243.85

295.5

318.5

GP 3

1018.25

509.8 443.65 318.6

GP 4

1060.25 1030.25

539

519.8 458.65 322.6

358.25

217.65 89.85 2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

Figure 2.3 Over the year increase in the gap between quorum and attendance in Gram Sabha participation Source: Data collected by researcher during 2008 to 2013

2008

355.85112

6174

GP 1

8105

2013

405.25 47

7189

2008

1161.55 123

GP 2

2013

1099.25 69

19049

21985

No. of votes polled

2008

509.65123

10193 9361

Quorum Requirement

GP 3

578 2013

11560 10456 8857

2008

442.85353

7149

GP 4

2013

Source: Compiled from West Bengal State Election Commission data, accessed from http://wbsec.gov.in/%28S%28armgruftbixo0wjnxygsla55%29 %29/Home.aspx on July 12, 2014 and data collected by researcher during 2008 to 2013

39

Actual Aendance

Figure 2.4  Voters’ turnout in contrast to people’s participation in the Gram Sabha meetings

7117

20804

23231

No. of electors

Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation 35 voting percentages (Figure 2.2 and 2.3). It is difficult to comprehend the fact that the same people who overwhelmingly participate in elections show reluctance to even attend the Gram Sabha meetings. These figures do not fit with the theoretical proposition which argues that declining social capital gets manifested in voter turnout. They do not give any conclusive picture on the nature of political engagements of the people, for which a detailed ethnographic work is required. Often the high rate of polling is linked to citizens’ democratic engagement and also “an indication of systemic unrest, protest, and disaffection” (Kaase, 2007, p. 786). West Bengal has seen a regime change by the systematic defeat of LFG and rise of TMC and, of late, a very palpable growth in the fortunes of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) (Chapter 5 discusses this in detail) over the years of this study. This has manifested in the parliamentary elections of 2009 and 2014, Panchayat elections of 2008 and 2013 and assembly election of 2011. For the 2016 assembly election (as also argued by Bhutia, 2014), the high polling percentage can be seen as a symptom of people’s eagerness to change the regime. Even if we accept this proposition, it still remains important to identify reasons that make people reluctant to attend the forums of popular participation, even after their desired political change has taken place. In fact, this is more crucial in the context of the political change in the Panchayat election, as GP 2 and GP 3 have observed a political change in 2008 and 2003 respectively from CPIM to TMC. GP 1 and GP 4 has seen political changeover only in 2013. If not democratic engagement, then what instigates the change? If it is so, then why does that engagement end after voting and not continue? Or do we need a completely different understanding when it comes to people and party interface? Moreover, it is important to explore, whether change in the ruling party makes any significant alteration in the democratic performance of the Panchayats.

TWO Participation – the Gram Sabha Let us look at the participation issues from the literature to understand the questions that I have just raised. First of all, who constitute the Panchayat? The Human Development Report (HDR, 2004) shows that poor peasants and the landless constitute about 43 percent of the elected representatives in West Bengal, which is in contrast to the rest of the country, where the elite capture of the Panchayat institution is a frequent phenomenon. However, before we could conclude anything, a similar study by CSSSC (2006) reports a much more complicated picture in the 2003 and 2008 Panchayat elections. They note that in different districts there are differences in the class position of the elected representatives. In many places, as the study shows, there are businessmen and government employees working as elected representatives.

36  Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation Hence there is a significant chance of elite capture of the Panchayat institutions in West Bengal. Chattopadhyay and Duflo (2004) report that although women’s participation is significant, about 43 percent of their sample size argue that they are being helped by their husbands or other male members of their family. If we try to understand who participates and to what extent, we can refer to HDR (2004), Ghatak and Ghatak (2002) and one of my co-authored articles (Chattopadhyay et al., 2010). These studies reflect the complex nature of participation issues in West Bengal. There are political, gender and class dynamics among several others. It is commonly seen that the attendance in planning-related meetings such as Gram Sabha and Gram Sansad Sabha is low. Almost always the beneficiary lists for different schemes are prepared beforehand (CSSSC, 2006; Chattopadhyay et al., 2010). Sengupta and Ghosh (2012) argue that even in cases where people are able to place certain demands these are almost never taken up in the Upasamiti (standing committee meeting at GP) meetings and hence are not reflected in the participatory planning. What happens in Gram Sabha? A crucial question in this context is what happens in Gram Sabha? There is a serious lack of ethnographic study on what actually happens there. It has never been a popular debate anywhere, not even in the popular electronic media, unless something like Niyamgiri hills happens! There are a few reasons for this: First of all, what happens in Gram Sabha remains beyond the researchers’ control and there lies a methodological challenge, secondly, unless you do it longitudinally (like this study) or you cover a whole district (earlier study Chattopadhaya, Chakarabarti, and Nath, 2010) it does not say much about Panchayat. Finally, understanding Gram Sabha requires a constant engagement with the context, i.e. the Panchayat. It is difficult for a researcher or a team to acquire funding, or the required human resources to meet these three challenges. The nature of the data is also problematic. As I mentioned, Gram Sabha meetings go beyond the control of the researcher. You cannot stop the procedure and ask questions. At the end of the “field” you have a bunch of conversations and you are faced with methodological problems of processing them. Methodological considerations Since I try to understand the nature of activities at Gram Sabha meetings through an analysis of meeting recordings and its embeddedness within the space where such meetings take place, the data includes bundles of freeflowing conversations along with a spatial understanding, both of which required a method which would allow me to process conversations within the meeting. At the end of the fieldwork on such meetings, following Gergen (2000), I had a bundle of conversations, including some detailing of the expressions, with a reference to the spatial arrangements, in situated

Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation 37 description. I find it as a suitable project under empirical phenomenology, primarily because it was an attempt to understand the essence and nature of phenomena without theorising it (hence not grounded theory or a simple narrative analysis). Such a methodology is inspired by Husserl’s (1970) notion of “phenomenological reduction” to grasp the essence of things through people’s “natural attitude”. I think the very problem of researchers not being able influence the free-flowing conversation is actually an advantage. Since, the Gram Sabha meetings provided no opportunity for me to even remotely influence the nature of discourses, it represents Husserlian (1989) “lifeworld” and “natural attitude” (1989). This is because, the data of such meeting represents the taken-for-granted nature of people’s everyday life or everyday practices in such meetings. Schutz argues that the researcher should start with the lifeworld, where people act within the natural attitude and taken-for-grantedness (Schutz, 1975, pp. 5, 51). With Schutz, I follow the major break with phenomenological philosophy “as we proceed to our study of the social world, we abandon the strictly phenomenological method . . . the object we should be studying, therefore, is the human being who is looking at the world from within the natural attitude” (Schutz, 1976, pp. 97–98). The best guidance that I receive in matters of applicability is from Devenish (2002), Giorgi (1970, 1975, 1985, 1992a, 1992b, 1994), and Schweitzer (2002). At the level of application Devenish’s (2002) publication helps in understanding Giorgi’s insightful development of the six-step analysis of the phenomenological approach to the study of psychology, and also Schweitzer’s (1983) dissertation concerning the four-step procedure, both of which essentially talk about gaining a sense of the whole transcript, followed by a discrimination of meaning units to discern the Natural Meaning Unit, and ultimately leading to a synthesis of transformed meaning. With these ideas, I started handling the data, which contains the transcripts of a variety of free-flowing conversations in the Gram Sabha meetings for six years from 2008 to 2013. I chose Moustakas’s (1994) empirical phenomenology which draws primarily from Giorgi’s (1985) propositions. I follow this approach primarily because first, as a method it focuses more on descriptions rather than interpretations; second, it provides suitable guideline to assemble textual and structural descriptions; and finally, this methodology enables the researcher to understand shared experiences of a phenomenon. Moreover, according to van Manen (1990) this approach is suitable for analysing taped conversations and formally written accounts. For the present purpose I have followed a three-step procedure which is a slightly modified version of my co-authored work in 2010 (Chattopadhyay et al., 2010): 1 Giving a structural description of the phenomenon along with some contextual references 2 Coding by identification of significant statements from the textual descriptions that characterise the situation 3 Finding out the essential nature of the phenomena from the structural and textual description

38  Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation I started reading phenomenology as part of my masters’ dissertation work on death and dying. As a qualitative method the current use of phenomenology is heavily influenced by my experiences with terminally ill cancer patients, where in a different context I was faced with similar challenge of not being able to do interviews in the strict sense of the term (Nath, Chakrabarti, and Sengupta, 2009; Nath, Das, and Chakrabarti, 2011; Nath, 2015). Here, in contrast to Moustakas’s (1994) conception I have rather been brief on the issues of self-reflection because self-reflection is essential for a nomothetic mode where the researcher focuses on their “embodied experience” to find out the abstract principles (Grbich, 2007, p. 89). Here, I have no hesitation to say, despite of years of experiences at the four GPs, I have hardly ever embodied the place or the people. I was involved with their life, I rented a home within the village, and borrowed cycles from the villagers to roam around the villages, but I have always been a researcher babu or researcher sahib and very often simply Suman from Kolkata. I have stayed there, ate what they offered, sometimes cooked food for a few village friends, attended village ceremonies, and participated in hunting expeditions, but I always knew that I was an outsider. Hence, self-reflection in the true sense of the term is an impossibility here. While I state this, I must also clarify that the present analysis of Gram Sabha meetings is primarily an ideographic one. I search for closely connected ideas and concepts that emerge from a space where my complete emersion as well as embodiment is not possible. My primary aim in this analysis is to find out the essence but not to formulate abstract and non-contingent categories. Hence, for greater clarity of the phenomenon I also make quantifications of the codes as they appear in the second step of analysis before formulating natural meaning units. While exploring the structural dimension of the phenomenon of Gram Sabha meetings, I borrow the idea of Production of Space (Lefebvre, 1991) to show how the three dimensions of space, i.e. conceived, or the ideas related to the designing of the space; perceived, or the functional patterns of spatial use; and lived, or the symbolic values associated – are actually moulded in power clusters. I argue the arrangement of meeting space itself exercises considerable power and domination apart from the interactions in the meetings. This analysis can be seen as part of several anthropological literatures, which is increasingly devoted to ethnographic location of voice (Appadurai, 1988), politicized, culturally relative, historically specific, local and multiple socially constructive nature of space (Rodman, 1992), self and body in space (Richardson, 1982), and gendered space (Ardener, 1993; Bourdieu, 1973; Massey, 1994; Rosaldo, 1974, 1980). Soja’s (1996) third space, echoing Lefebvre’s lived space, can be used as a tool to understand the constructs, symbols and cognition of contemporary people. Summary of issues discussed in the Gram Sabha I attempt to comprehend how far and in what ways these meetings hold policy significance. Apart from the meeting duration which required simply

Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation 39 noting down the time, quantification of other themes is based on the first step of coding where their frequencies are noted. It is important to remember that these issues are averages for each year (2008 to 2013) collected from the four GPs under study. Following table (Table 2.2) is the summary of the issues that have come up at the Gram Sabha meetings. The average duration of meeting is 38.58 minutes, which is insufficient even for inspection of the budget. Budget-related discussions have only taken place 0.38 times. Instead, a large amount of time is spent doing political propaganda. While people’s grievances were being heard in 3.21 instances on average, examples of voice suppression, 2.92 instances on average, were also notable. Other issues such as preparation and prioritisation of plans, presentation of the audit report, selection of beneficiaries, etc. have remained unaddressed. If we compare the frequencies of different issues discussed in Gram Sabha meeting (Figure 2.5) we would see that in each of the year party propaganda occupies the most important position. Rest of the issues are often completely absent in different years. Such quantifications give an indication that Gram Sabha meetings have a significant stake in popularising political agendas. It is, therefore, important to explore, even if it’s purely political, what the discourse suggests. What does it revolve around? Structural description: spatio-ritualistic functions Hope you can recall the story of the prospective groom who was employed to write the Gram Sabha meeting minutes and how women and younger folk didn’t know about Gram Sabha. As I showed interest in being present in the Gram Sabhas of the four GPs where I already had good contact through my work with IIMC, I was faced with resistance. The CPIM-ruled

Table 2.2 Core themes of Gram Sabha meetings from four GPs (each unit is average from the four GPs) Year

Meeting Party Duration propa­­ (in mins) ganda (in average No.)

Budget read out (in average No.)

Beneficiary selection (in average No.)

Hearing Suppression Information grievances of voice (in dissemi­ (in average No.) nation (in average average No.) No.)

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Total Avg

46.5 40.5 50.75 31.75 30.5 31.5 231.5 38.58

0.75 0.75 0 0.25 0 0.5 2.25 0.38

0.25 0.75 0.5 0 0 0 1.5 0.25

0.5 1 3 4.25 9.75 0.75 19.25 3.21

14.75 19.25 13 12.25 14 18 91.25 15.21

Source: Data collected by the author during 2008 to 2013

4 3 1.75 5 3.75 0 17.5 2.92

0.75 0.25 1 0.5 0 0.5 3 0.50

40  Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation Informaon disseminaon

2013

Beneficiary selecon 0.5 0 0.75 0 0.5 0

2012

3.75

0 0

2010

0

0.5

Budget read out

Party propaganda

18 9.75

5 4.25

0 0.25 1

Hearing grievances

14

0.5 2011

Suppression of voice

12.25 1.75

2009

0.25 1 0.75 0.75

2008

0.75 0.5 0.25 0.75

3 13 3 19.25 4 14.75

Figure 2.5 Frequency of different issues discussed in the Gram Sabha meetings from 2008 to 2013 Source: Field data collected by the author

GP1 Pradhan told me “those are nasty meetings, people use slang, half of them would be drunk in the evening, it’s better for you not to go there.” The TMC-ruled GP 2 Pradhan asked me to stay back at the office and said that he would give me all the data after the meeting is over. In GP 3 one of the local TMC leaders was of the opinion that those places are restricted for outsiders. In fact, he was right, since I was not a voter. An important CPIM leader from GP4 told me that I was risking my life by participating in a Gram Sabha meeting as I was an outsider who came to the village and was now participating in the government affairs. “Maoists would not like you to study the Gram Sabha, Suman”, I was told. Frankly, Maoists have never told me not to attend or not to go anywhere. Yes, I have encountered a few intoxicated people, but nothing exceptional than any given evening at those places, and I enjoyed their company with some of them being brutally frank about me, party and village life. The important aspect is that those stereotypes, along with several others, are quite popular and drive people away from attending Gram Sabha meetings. No wonder my brothers, sisters and their friends just like my mother, aunts and grandmothers did not know what Gram Sabha is.

Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation 41 One of my older informants from GP 4 reports that canvassing through a small car equipped with microphones, distributing hand bills or beating drums to invite voters to participate in Gram Sabha meetings is increasingly disappearing. Out of the four GPs, only GP 1 continues to do this over the years. Others hang a notice in the GP office and paste a few handbills on the walls of the houses nearby a few days before the meeting. The entire meeting roughly follows three temporal divisions: Phase I, the ritual reception of the political personnel present in the meeting and delivery of short speeches by these personnel, phase II, the meeting-related discussions, and phase III, cultural programmes (often enthusiastically attended by the villagers who actually failed to attend phase I and II). Although canvassing of the meeting date and place is advertised a few days before, on the day of the meeting usually a member of GP starts microphone announcements at the meeting place, very similar to the way in which political parties publicise their agendas before elections. One of the most prominent structural features that sustain the party-controlled nature of this democratic forum is that of the very spatial arrangement of the meeting. Each of the Gram Sabha meetings I have attended roughly follows the patterns of arrangements schematically presented in the Figure 2.6. Figure 2.7 represents a photograph of Gram Sabha meeting in progress in GP 1 in 2009.

Figure 2.6  A typical sitting arrangement in the Gram Sabha meeting Source: Based on data collected by researcher during 2008 to 2013

42  Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation

Figure 2.7  An under-attended Gram Sabha meeting in progress in GP 1 in December 2009 Source: Photograph taken by the researcher

Taking a Lefebvrian (1991) notion, the meeting space can be seen as a site of ongoing interactions of social relations, which is part of a process of production and reproduction of social relations. Lefebvre’s triad spatial model (a) the conceived dimension – which is the material manifestation of ideas associated with designing of a space, (b) perceived dimension – the functional association of space or the patterns of space use, and (c) lived space – symbolic values associated with spatial practice, can be extended to explore the dynamics of power associated with the meeting space. The Gram Sabha meeting in its patterned and recurring arrangement is the location of a top-down flow of power. Among the three layers (Figure 2.6 and 2.7), layer I – a higher platform and/or a space aided with chairs and tables, ritualistic reception of the personnel usually dressed in traditional outfit symbolizes the highest centre of the power structure. Layer II is the power mediation as well as gate-keeping space filled with party followers who initiate, control and continue the interaction procedure. Indeed, it is notable that because of this layer Gram Sabha meetings are staged in a politicised way and not in a democratic way – more

Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation 43 about that in the discussion of phenomenological themes. Finally, layer III; officially outside the meeting procedure is filled with marginalised, often poverty stricken, people coming from the farming fields, who do not show (or are made not to show) any active engagement with the meeting procedure. Most of them leave moments before the end of the meeting, and then come back during the cultural programme. They commonly refuse to sign until they are forced or pursued by political personnel from the layer II to do so. It is difficult to discern whether to consider the conglomeration of womenfolk as another layer. They are somewhat merged with layer III in terms of their lack of active engagement. However, such conglomeration definitely indicates some gendered nature of the space. However, this broad tripartite division embodies the entire lived dimension of the flow of power which incorporates not only the absolute materialistic arrangements (perceived space) and absolute functional dimension, i.e. the conduct of the meeting (conceived space), but something beyond, something lived that embodies the entire power structure (as advocated by Elden, 2004). This system is radically open, as at any time a person from the layer III can occupy a position in layer II simply by actively joining the ruling party, but reaching at layer I requires serious political engagements, money and leadership skills. Therefore, even with the porous nature of the walls between the layers, the power structure remains largely unchanged and gets reproduced each year. As Foucault (1980, p. 98) advocates, power is “something which circulates, or rather something that functions in the form of a chain,” any individual is simultaneously undergoing and exercising this power. In this formulation no one, even the person standing at the margins, not participating and refusing to sign, is exercising power, since “power is employed and exercised through a net-like organisation.” Foucault sees different directions through which power is (re)produced, and therefore, power requires disciplined persuasion to convince those constructed as powerless of their powerlessness and those construed as powerful of their powerfulness. In the following section such mechanisms are described that shows how systematically the democratic forum is politicised, hindering the original participatory agenda of the Gram Sabha. Interaction components: the politicised nature of Gram Sabha meetings The analysis of the Gram Sabha meetings over the period of six years indicates a single core theme of politicisation of the popular participation forum. Each of the meaning units that emerges out of the analysis are intricately linked to this core theme. Before describing each of the meaning units, it is important to note the nature of direct political functions that these meetings play. In Bankura, I have a friend, Chandan Hembram, who never attends Gram Sabha meetings. Chandan is about my age, an excellent hunter and active participant of their traditional Santali Sholo Aana5 meetings within the village. Once in 2011, before the dusk after an hour-long cycle ride over one

44  Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation of the local dams, he said “I know if I go there my father will scold me! We are not supposed to do “party politics” – it’s a strict instruction from my father!” I asked him whether he knows Gram Sabha is not for the party, it’s for the people. His reply seems to be an authentic summation of the whole thing. He said after taking a cigarette from me “Party . . . no party – it’s the same! You know rules. I know the practice!” The sun was setting on the river; I saw the silhouettes of the fishing boats where he had to go for placing nets to catch freshwater fish – his occupation. Back in Kolkata, when I prepared this figure (Figure 2.8) I could hear Chandan saying, “it’s the same.” Let’s get back to the data; if we see Figure 2.8, which is a calculation of the number of times party propaganda has been made during actual meeting procedure, we can understand party issues are omnipresent in such meeting. In order to reduce the meeting duration bias of the data – as the longer the meeting duration is, the more mentions of political agenda would take place – the frequency is calculated by dividing the number of times party propaganda is made by the meeting’s duration in minutes; hence, the unit in the figure represents frequency per minute. The figure shows that the tendency of canvassing party ideology and propaganda in Gram Sabha meetings is increasing over time. The frequency increased – considerably before and after the assembly election in 2011 when political change took place at the state level, as well as at the GPs. It indicates a rise in the endeavour to percolate TMC’s visions among the villagers. MEANING UNIT I – DOMINANCE AND SUB-ORDINATION: MEETING RITUALS

The actual meeting procedure is associated with a particular nature of the dominance sub-ordination. In both TMC- and LFG-ruled GPs, the GP chief or the Pradhan is found to be a person ranked at a middle or lower tier GP1

GP2

0.25 0.39 0.23 0.33

0.67

0.81 0.17 0.50

2008

0.44 0.34

0.45 2009

GP4

0.17

0.23 0.43

GP3

0.22 0.21 2010

0.43 2011

0.55 0.21

0.23 0.82

0.61

2012

2013

Figure 2.8 Frequency of party propaganda (per minute) in Gram Sabha meetings of the four GPs during 2008–2013. Source: Data collected by researcher during 2008 to 2013

Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation 45 of the local party hierarchy. During the meeting they share the dais with their political mentors and, therefore, they are often left with no choice but to accept the domination which is reflected through the nature of verbal communication as well as the body language. Understandably, this domination has a considerable influence on the spectators. The Pradhan, as well as other elected representatives of the GP, are directly dominated by the Local Committee secretaries (CPIM’s local level organisation), and Anchal Samiti chief (TMC’s local level organisation). Whenever the GP Pradhan addresses the audience, they are supposed to address first these leaders and receive ritual and customary permission. This popular form of decorum immediately reinforces the political hierarchy. It immediately gives some form of orderliness to the meeting procedure. People stop talking to each other and give their attention towards the dais. Quite like arranging icons on your desktop, such ritual beginning of meetings brings random movement and talking to a halt. Suddenly, the people from tier II start looking serious. I could see a person taking signature of people present in a book even before the beginning of the meeting. I knew it was that prospective groom! I have seen that the party leaders almost always refer to the elected representatives, including the Pradhan by their names without adding any honorary suffix.6 The booth-level (which is the lowest level political hierarchy for both the parties) party cadres and their friends who occupy at the second layer of the spatial arrangements are addressed similarly. I argue that this form of addressing necessarily reinforces the powerful position of these local leaders and relatively weaker position of the booth-level workers and Panchayat representatives. Therefore, the Panchayat representatives, even though they hold a position in the GP, are equated with booth party cadres. This mode of communication results in a display of authority relations towards both the second and third layers. While the common people in their everyday life often express gratitude and consult booth-level party workers who play a crucial role in bridging the gap between common people and local leaders, their subordinate status in the meeting creates a greater amount of admiration/fear (or sometimes indignation too) about the local leaders. In Murshidabad, while doing an impact assessment from IIM Calcutta, one of the Pradhans invited me to a dinner at his place. It was a hot and humid premonsoon July. After dinner we went for a walk around the river Jalangi and he was talking freely. I don’t know if it was the last day of my field, or Jalangi effect, he said many things including details of party influence on GP decisions. Amongst many things, he repeated about his uncertain position in the local politics: “You know, we are the most unfortunate ones. People give us respect but leaders disrespect us. Our decisions are overruled. We belong to nowhere. You would never find any Pradhan who has become an important person in the party after he has left the GP office!” There are gender roles in each of these meetings. Village women or girls give the token of appreciation to the meeting participants at the beginning. Meeting initiation is always followed by proposing the name of the Pradhan

46  Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation to preside over the meeting by one of the members, which is then supported by another member of the same political party. In GP 1, Bankura the Executive Secretary K. Mohanty reads out the same sentences from 2008 to 2011: “Paying due respect to all the villagers of this Panchayat, all members who are present and to the Pradhan and UpaPradhan, I, Shri Mohanty, the executive secretary of this Gram Panchayat, would like to propose the name of our Pradhan Smt. Sardar to preside over the Sabha. . . ” From 2011 onwards this role is assumed by one of the elected members of the Panchayat. More or less the same pattern of the meeting initiation is noted in each of the other GPs. The only variation found is in the person responsible for such meeting initiation. The following table (Table 2.3) represents the persons who have initiated the meeting procedure in each of the GPs for the last six years. While in GP 1 and GP 4, the meeting initiation was done by the officials of the GP. Later meetings, like GP 2 and GP 3, also initiated the meeting with political personnel. In the GP 3 from 2012, an outsider, but a strong political personnel nonetheless, initiated the meeting. The table is symptomatic of the fact that there is an increasing party intrusion in the democratic forum. Remember Chandan’s statement again. After the initiation process is complete, Pradhan delivers a small speech and invites one of the most influential political personalities of the region to give a little detail on the party agenda and how it is linked with Panchayat. Eventually budgetary discussions and other issues such as planning, selection of beneficiary, etc. are done in few cases (see Table 2.3, and Figure 2.5). Even in those few cases such discussions are done ritualistically. When one of the officials from the GP office read out the budget statement or the list of

Table 2.3  Meeting initiation by persons GPs

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

GP 1 Exe. Exe. Exe. Member Member Member Secretary Secretary Secretary GP 2 Member Member Member Member Member Member Local GP 3 UpaUpaMember Member Local political Pradhan Pradhan political leader leader termed as termed as a social a social worker worker in the in the region region GP4 Exe. Exe. Member Member No meeting takes place Secretary Secretary Source: Data collected by researcher during 2008 to 2013

Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation 47 beneficiaries, before any further discussions could take place, a few men and women serially spoke out “on behalf of wo/men, we accept the budget/plan/ the beneficiary list.” These men and women are the party followers and exclusively occupy the second layer of the meeting. No further discussion on the planning, budget or the beneficiary selection takes place. In the few instances where some voices have been raised, they are systematically suppressed. MEANING UNIT II – TALE OF ORIGINS: PERSUASION EFFORTS

In our university days, many of us fell for Foucault. Believe it or not, one of the reasons was his radical-looking appearance. We were almost certain that social scientists should grow a beard. Many amongst the future social anthropologists said no to the practice of shaving for months. A Che Guevara printed t-shirt goes well with a bearded face, we all knew that. It is a tradition still quite alive, I guess. With no hair or beard Foucault was different. However, to bring things in perspective, growing a beard had some link with looking serious, thoughtful – characteristics of a social scientist. We grew up looking at Marx and Rabindranath Tagore wondering about their intellect and, of course, their beards (typical male, hush hush!). Our unconscious linkage between having a beard and intellect prowess has something to do with the “collective unconscious”. Now, if you look at Foucault’s Power/Knowledge (Foucault, 1980), you would find that he argues power requires disciplined persuasion to convince those constructed as powerless of their powerlessness and those construed as powerful of their powerfulness. I have mentioned it earlier. What Foucault said in his book is actually quite prominently practiced in Gram Sabha meetings. You know the collective unconscious linkage that I have previously discussed actually plays a role if you see the ways in which local leaders exercise power by a display of authority relations. I have noted that the speech delivered before the formal commencement of Gram Sabha meetings is filled with detailed narratives of the origin of particular political parties. The reinforcement of the origin of particular political parties reflects their effort to legitimise their position in the local power structure. Such efforts include focus both on the ideological roots as well as their connections to the local issues. A careful study of the speech delivered before the formal commencement of Gram Sabha meetings reveals an attempt to focus on the origin of particular political parties. It is also an attempt to justify the ruling position of the particular parties. It is also part of the reinforcement of ideological constructs, their connection with local issues and an indirect way of asking people to continue their patronage. GP 1, in 2008, 2009 and 2011, CPIM continued to emphasise LFG’s propoor policy, land reform, and decentralisation: [O]nly the LFG soon after coming to power during 1970s decided not to govern from the Writers’ Building, Kolkata. They snatched land

48  Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation from the bourgeois landlords and allotted it to you . . . even the central government followed us . . . we have been constantly fighting against the rich. (in 2008) Left Front Government came to Power . . . Panchayati system came for the swift development of the rural people. (in 2009)  . . . without the co-operation and empowerment of the villagers it is not possible to develop the villages. (recorded in 2011) Each of these narratives represents a constant effort to link LFG with their declared pro-poor position as a political position. Agenda for participation, party network and land reform; all are systematically touched upon repeatedly in order to justify LFG’s success. After the unprecedented victory of TMC in assembly election 2011, aided with TMC’s rising base of support base in the region, the GP came under TMC’s control. Officially, it was ruled by CPIM, but TMC started to control each and every activity of the GP from backstage. TMC’s control from backstage started in November 2010 and continued until the party officially won in 2013. Since 2011, Gram Sabha meetings have become a place for TMC’s persuasion. TMC leaders attempted to establish linkage between their experiences of GP level corruption with CPIM: On behalf of TMC, I want Pradhan, or any of the members to show us the document regarding the tender for renting out Panchayat Guest House! CPIM is a corrupt party . . . our leader Smt Mamata Banerjee is the icon of loyalty. (recorded in 2011) The land related movements initiated by our leader have surpassed all expectations; people have voted us simply because we are for the poor and not like the CPIM, who have forgotten their ideologies . . . I know you; my fellow villagers will never forget Singur and Nandigram. (recorded in 2012) In 2013, after securing their position in the GP election, TMC capitalised on the charismatic characteristic of their party supreme: remember our leader’s simple way of life or lifestyle . . . she is always with us . . . whoever is in trouble she would be there . . . we will worship her and continue to concentrate on development initiatives in the region. The question of corruption was systematically emphasised by the TMC. A significant difference between the persuasion efforts made by the two

Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation 49 parties is CPIM’s reference to its remote history of land reform and TMC’s relatively fresh land-related movements in Singur and Nandigram. Interestingly, in places where TMC is already in a position of power, such as in GP 2, speeches were mostly delivered initially on the possible result of 2011 assembly election. The focus was on CPIM-led violence: Change is inevitable . . . the amount of atrocities that you people have suffered from CPIM will not be repeated. (recorded in 2008) Later on, local issues related to farming and storage politics and its association with CPIM appeared as one of the major issues: By following Mamata Banerjee’s ideology we will bring out your rights from the cold-storage owners . . . our leader is fighting against all the atrocities of CPIM. (recorded in 2009) Clearly, these deliberations show a similar trend to the projection of a propoor stance as the essential nature of the TMC party. The pro-poor stance is then added to the popular image of the party supreme. Later on, there has been repeated emphasis on TMC’s pro-poor position as manifested in land-related movements. Local leaders also speak about the possibilities of abolishing storage-based atrocities and the superior leadership skill of Mamata Banerjee. Leaders not only linked the domains of the pro-poor position of the party, but also connected the local issues to the issues of the assembly election. Persuasion in a state-level election, as it appears, starts from the Gram Sabha itself. GP 3, already in its second term, TMC focused more on the role people in making a change in the state-level politics in assembly elections. Because of a substantive Congress support base in the region, local leaders clarified their position against both CPIM and Congress: People across the state are extremely disappointed with CPIM, Congress is nothing, and we need a fighter like Mamata Banerjee . . . she will bring the change we need . . . she has been fighting against CPIM single handed . . . Congress has its ally with CPIM at the centre they cannot strongly oppose them. We need someone who is consistently protesting against them. (recorded in 2008) Mamata Banerjee is fighting for the poor and as common men we will continue to provide support and patronage to her leadership . . . for 2011 [assembly election] when we seriously need a leader and not a party-controlled person. (recorded in December 2009)

50  Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation Some reference to the Member of Parliament (MP)-led initiative is also noted in 2010: Friends . . . Under Mamata Banerjee’s leadership our MP, Subhendu Adhikari is constructing new roads . . . this is the development that looks at the benefit of the poor villagers. (recorded in November 2010) The village-centric approach of TMC was in focus. With the approaching election there was a renewed interest among the leaders to present their party as an alternative. In 2011, 2012 and 2013 leaders repeatedly referred to the land-related movement in Nandigram, of the district. The party supreme is given a cult status: Mamata Banerjee’s victory in the Assembly Election is the victory of the poor people . . . victory of the people who joined in Nandigram. (recorded in November 2011) No one thought that CPIM could ever be defeated . . . this is the victory of our own elder sister, our mother figure, our only hope Mamata Banerjee. (recorded in December 2012) Ours is a party that does not speak loud by referring to some foreign movements . . . we have our real experiences . . . the movement that started with Singur and Nandigram has blown away all the barriers . . . today we stand united. (recorded in December 2013). The assembly election victory was linked to poor people’s movements and sacrifices of the participants of the land-related issues. CPIM was framed as an enemy and TMC supreme was represented as a saviour mother figure. This idolisation was equated with liberation. Finally, TMC focused on the differences between people’s movement about which CPIM talks often and how TMC’s movement was much more apt for the villagers. With roughly similar political history like GP 1, in GP 4, CPIM canvasses the worldwide recognition of the benefits of Panchayat system and the rapid change in addressing poverty after Congress led an unstable government in the state: Before we came, there was a congress-led government. They appointed a president from the Block, he used to direct the local panchayat system. But the present system of Panchayat established by the LFG of West Bengal is the best of all; this has been approved by all. Not only our country but people and governments throughout the world have accepted

Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation 51 this system as the best of all. People from different countries, different state(s), have started research work on this system. So, we have to sustain this Panchayat system . . . no matter what TMC and Maoists say. The tale of origin for CPIM here is linked to the centralised and decentralised debate. It seems that CPIM was comfortable with their support base and decentralisation policies in 2008, but they did not fail to mention and equate the Maoists with TMC. Such a comfortable position began to change in 2009 with an increasing popularity of TMC in the state and Maoist threat in the region: TMC is a party of opportunists . . . Maoists are fakes in their view of communism . . . we have given you real power . . . real freedom. (recorded in 2009) In 2010, the popular connotation of “change” or “paribartan,” which meant the political changeover in the state, was equated by CPIM as a potential threat to the process of devolution of power. “Change” was equated with a reversal of decentralisation by the CPIM leaders: The change to which several people is now subscribing will cease the functions of the panchayats . . . it will take away our hard-earned freedom . . . our dream of an equal society . . . you should not allow TMCMaoist illegal alliance to take away your freedom. (recorded in November 2010) SUMMARY OF MEANING UNIT I & II

LFG continued to place emphasis on their pro-poor stance, and the way in which they visualised a world of equality through “snatch[ing] land from the bourgeois landlords and allotment to [poor]” and Panchayats. There were repetition of issues, such as LFG’s widely recognised policies of decentralisation and empowerment as “people and Governments throughout the world have accepted this [Panchayat] system as the best of all.” In response to the challenge posed by opposition as well as by Maoists, the CPIM-led LFG focused on the differences between their ideology and TMC’s ideologies when they say “TMC is a party of opportunists . . . Maoists are fakes in their view of communism. . . ” and represented a romanticised dream of an equal society. In GP 1, where CPIM remained in power until 2013, TMC took the leading role in organising Gram Sabha from 2011 onwards. Here corruption occupied the prime focus of the TMC in pursuing people to support them instead of CPIM. This was parallel to the changeover that took place in the assembly election that year, which indicated direct influence of state-level politics in local governance. It was significant to note that 2011 was also the year when GP 4 stopped organising such meetings.

52  Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation TMC leaders in their persuasion efforts continued to promote an antiCPIM mood. While TMC, like LFG, also publicised their pro-poor stance, they cited more concrete and tangible example of relatively recent social movements against CPIM in Singur and Nandigram. In each of the Gram Sabhas, TMC constantly promoted Party Supreme Mamata Banerjee’s cult status. She was upheld as a universal elder sister, who leads a simple and honest life, speaks for the poor, consistent in her position and will continue to fight against any atrocities against the common people. Over the six year period, a change in the nature of such persuasion effort in the TMC controlled GP 3 is noted. The initial arguments like “we need a fighter like Mamata Banerjee” through “Mamata Banerjee is fighting for the poor and common man” and “this is the development . . . benefit of the poor” to “this is the victory of our own elder sister, our mother figure.” The transformation started with a portrayal of Mamata Banerjee through the visions of development to formation of a cult status. GP 3 where the political change took place in 2008, represented an emphasis on the local issues, however, here too, anti-CPIM sentiment was used by putting emphasis on the concepts of change, taking “rights from the cold-storage owners,” and new ideals. To sum up the origin tale, as well as the persuasion effort, includes: 1 LFG’s pro-poor stance exemplified by Panchayat which was equated with development and empowerment 2 In an environment of political competition, LFG focused on the opportunism and fake ideological position of the TMC and Maoists respectively and cited their long last fight for the poor. Often the wide recognition of the success in Panchayat system was used to legitimise their persuasion. 3 TMC used their pro-poor stance by constructing LFG’s contemporary initiatives in taking away poor people’s land and Mamata Banerjee’s fight against them. More tangible examples of Singur and Nandigram were cited repeatedly, which not only added to the cult status of their leader, but also helped in giving indirect threat to the farmers as to the potential danger of the CPIM and the TMC as the only alternative, to protect their land and livelihoods. 4 Fight against CPIM was one of the main propaganda targets of these deliveries. Consistencies in the fight for the farmers was emphasised in comparison to the party that once made land reforms, but now was snatching land. 5 Excepting in GP 2, local issues were never mentioned while emphasising the tale of origins. 6 Both parties have used their romantic dreams, either with the achievable communism through mechanisms such as decentralisation or by strengthening the support base of Mamata Banerjee because she was consistent, honest and fought for the poor.

Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation 53 7 For LFG, the system, e.g. Panchayat system, was emphasised; and for TMC, the charismatic character of their chief was portrayed. LFG blended historical narrative with systemic issues as the prime reasons for their right to rule. TMC focused on the cult status of their party supreme. These two reflected different and contesting political strategies. It is important to note that while Gram Sabha essentially becomes a space to display and exercise power, it is also a space where party ideology is in contest. Interestingly, even though there are numerous instances of local issues of political interference in everyday life, party faction and violence (we will see them in the next section), there is hardly any mention of such incidents in Gram Sabha. The fact certainly indicates a consideration of Gram Sabha as something different from the party politics and political violence in everyday life. Meaning unit III – hate speech and threat of violence I can recall, in the post-Nandigram period, West Bengal has seen a depiction of violence in printed flex everywhere in the state. Once, along with Prof. Bhaskar Chakrabarti and Mr. Debraj Bhattacharyya, I went to Khejuri – the adjacent block of Nandigram as part of a consultancy project for the government of West Bengal. On our way back we wanted to halt at one of the important crossings where flex depicting Nandigram violence was depicted in a bamboo-made structure. It appeared that the structure is made in such a way so as to keep it there for quite some time, at least for some months. We wanted to do some photography, but our driver did not want to stop. He said there were conflicts between CPIM and TMC every now and then. Even if they spare us, he might face several other consequences as he belongs to the locality. I have no hesitation to say, I was a bit scared too, to get down from the car and take snaps. There has been a continuation of such depiction even during municipal elections. We have witnessed one of the most violent times of the state since our conscious early childhood. Similarly, one of the most conspicuous dimensions of the Gram Sabha meetings is the delivery of hate speech. These speeches fall into three broad categories: (a) delivered in response to the challenges from the opposition, (b) addressed to a politico-militant threat and (c) delivered to manage party factions. In 2009, when TMC arrived at an unprecedented success in the parliamentary election, the CPIM local committee secretary in GP 1 delivered a direct threat to the TMC workers and party organisers: TMC workers in the region must not think that because we lost one MP seat in Purba Medinipur we are weak . . . this is a place where we have ruled for years . . . if a TMC worker creates problem in development works he must be punished . . . TMC is now allied with Maoists, but don’t worry, we have our armed forces too [Harmad Bahini]  . . . they are working in

54  Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation the neighbouring Paschim Medinipur district, they will help us as well. If anyone thinks of joining TMC, we can’t guarantee his security. (recorded in December 2009) GP 1 is a different place all together . . . media will not reach here to rescue you . . . people who are shouting against CPIM in Kolkata will not even think what is happening here . . . joining TMC is not a solution for you . . . you must convey the message to your sons and brothers that our fighters are working full-fledged nearby and they will not spare any of you . . . we consider TMC and Maoist to be the same! (recorded in 2010) Supporting the local oppositions entailed a strong threat from CPIM. The choice of word is important. I repeat, here it was said, “we can’t guarantee his security.” Such words were a strong example of the percolation of political polarisation and hatred. The potential threat from opposition was equated with hindrance to development – a popular mechanism of labelling opposition as anti-development forces. Opposition is labelled as the enemy of the state. Insecurity and threat perception was stressed upon by highlighting tangible threats from the armed men of the CPIM. The speech also linked the statewide anti-CPIM mood with the GP-based politics in the region. While the local CPIM leaders stated that, neither media nor the elites of Kolkata would know what was happening, it also gave recognition to the anti-CPIM mood of the region. From 2011 onwards a reverse process was noted when TMC virtually gained control over the GP 1. In the first TMC-controlled meeting, the Anchal Sabhapati delivered the following message: Look at the comrades [popular term in rural Bengal to refer to a CPIM or LF worker] of this region . . . they now have no place to hide . . . those days are gone . . . most of them are now absconded; not because of us, but because of the fear of the power that rests with you! My suggestion is run comrade run before your faces are smashed under the feet of people who are liberated. This alarming deliberation needs contextualisation. With the rising support base of TMC and withdrawal of forces [Harmad Bahini] ensuring the safety of CPIM leaders, most of the local CPIM leaders and cadres fled from the GP 1 region. The direct threat in the name of “people’s power” was used to reinforce and remind the popular support base of the TMC. With the passage of time, the hate speech was directed towards factions within the TMC. In the 2013 GP election, a couple of sansads in GP 1 were won by independents. They later became associated with the CPIM. Both of them being former TMC workers in revolt, the situation exposed the party faction. In the

Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation 55 December 2012, sensing the party faction months before election, a TMC leader said: Those who think they can challenge TMC, are challenging our chief Mamata Banerjee . . . I must remind you people, either you come back to us and follow party orders or your families will suffer. . . The nature of the threat-filled speech imitates earlier regimes, as it involved the threat of potential harm to the family members of those who were preparing to fight against the TMC. In GP 4 in 2008, immediately after the Panchayat election one of the local CPIM party leaders took on the issue of the rising popularity of TMC and violence of Maoists in the region: TMC and Maoists do not want development, they are killing our workers. Should we sit back and watch them murdering our comrades? No! That is why we have formed Gram Shanti Raksha Bahini . . . we need to answer bullet with bullet . . . each of you must serve these Gram Shanti Raksha Bahini comrades . . . they are here to protect us. CRPF cannot protect you, they do not know who is a Maoist and who is not . . . whoever found supporting Maoists or TMC will be judged in the Panchayat and will be forced to leave this place. A combination of threat and protection from the same force, i.e. Gram Shanti Raksha Bahini, is popularised. The mention of answering “bullet with bullet” indicated tangible armed violence. By equating Maoists and TMC as an anti-democratic force, CPIM bracketed the entire opposition forces together to legitimise the Gram Shanti Raksha Bahini movements, which were installed informally to contend Maoists. In 2009, direct threat on villagers was noted: We know exactly who are working for the TMC and Maoists . . . people who refuse to provide services to the Shanti Raksha Bahini are being enlisted . . . they [Gram Shanti Raksha Bahini] are giving you protection from the jungle party [CPI Maoists] . . . in exchange we want you to wash their clothes, provide them with food, do you think it is a big demand? This meeting is the last reminder to those who are still avoiding our initiatives . . . when word fails bullet speaks! The choice of words which equated refusal of services to GSRB with Maoist sympathy was a major source of percolating hatred. The nature of such speech was an indication of the failure of the CPIM party to involve villagers in the GSRB movement; instead they continued to exert force to get these acts sanctioned. It is notable, therefore, that service extraction for the

56  Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation sustenance of violence was parallel to the continuation of exercising party control over a large section of the villagers. In GP 2, under the leadership of TMC since 2003, a potential threat towards CPIM and LFG was delivered. Here, CPIM is shown as a hindrance towards development: CPIM is a history here . . . they are silent and must be made silent again and again . . . if they create any hindrance to the development agenda of our chief, inform us . . . we will meet them in open field . . . we have had enough! (recorded in 2008) An attempt was made to totally alienate CPIM as a weak and nonexistent political alternative. Moreover, this statement is roughly parallel to what CPIM said in GP 1. It is important to note that there is a popular way of isolating and marginalising the opposition forces in Bengali villages by labelling them as doing something which is anti-development. In a discussion regarding the distribution of the tube wells, the Pradhan replied in the same meeting, “They [CPIM] are spared their life, is not it enough! Now they want tube wells and you [looking at the TMC GP member who raised the question] are putting their reference, and demanding for them, strange!” The nature of such conversation is important. It not only shows the possible bias in resource allocation, but also indicates the constant threat on the opposition even when the issue related to the distribution of development input is coming from TMC party members. In 2009, months after the considerable electoral success of TMC in the parliamentary election, one of the TMC workers cited instances where MGNREGS work was stopped because of a farmer who was unwilling to provide soil from his land to the construction of the road. Before anyone could respond one of the local leaders sitting on the dais spoke, “Whoever is against development work is actually CPIM minded . . . beat them to get the work done.” Such instances indicate labelling even the slightest of resistances as part of opposition conspiracy. In a similar situation in 2010 such issues were responded to in the following way: Either you are with us, or you are with the CPIM, it is certain that they will lose in the coming [Assembly] election. It is perhaps high time for those who still have sympathies for CPIM to leave them. CPIM’s backbone is now broken to pieces, they cannot stand, but remember one should not take rest until his “dharma shatru” is eliminated (khatam). The democratic opposition is equated as a religious enemy (dharma shatru) to be annihilated. Quite plausibly, the role of democratic opposition was reduced to a mere conglomeration of enemies.

Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation 57 GP 3 came under TMC leadership in 2003. Again, they managed a massive victory in 2008 with a second term in the GP office. It is interesting to note the ways in which political agenda is percolated within the popular forum of people’s participation: We need to show them our strength . . . by holding their position in the Bazaar associations and fisheries they still think that they have mass support . . . we can squeeze them like ants . . . we have our associations here as well, and I suggest we avoid election in those committees, they have been winning elections by arms and muscles let us repeat the same. (recorded in 2008) To contextualise this deliberation we need to know that even though the GP 3 came under TMC rule, local informal sector organisations continued to be affiliated with the CPIM. Local TMC leaders attempted to bring them under their political control. Use of arms and muscles in winning elections at the grassroots organisations indicated the nature of hatred that these two parties developed over the years. In the 2009 Gram Sabha meeting, messages filled with threats were delivered to declare TMC’s capture of informal economy organisations: we have successfully captured the fishermen’s market . . . we are able to replace those CPIM followers by our followers . . . never think that they are powerless . . . we are preparing ourselves with arms . . . CPIM followers must remember this, we have won both the Parliamentary positions of this district . . . people are with us, it is better that they change themselves and leave their positions from different committees. The threat of violence as a means of establishing political capture on grassroots organisation was emphasised. It is interesting to note that despite winning both the parliamentary seats of the region, and already having significant power in the local governance institution, TMC continued to expand the agenda of party capture of grassroots organisations through violence. As they managed to have stronger positions in local political hierarchy the threat towards the oppositions consolidated. The Gram Sabha meetings continued to remain a space for the expansion of hatred. Eventually in 2010, 2011 and 2012 speeches filled with threat and hatred was primarily aimed at managing the fissures within TMC which became increasingly prominent. In 2010 a leader from the local party threatened those who criticised local leadership and the decisions they made: There is no division within our party . . . we are not newcomer-TMC, neither there is anyone who is original-TMC, there are only TMC and non-TMC . . . those who are working against our leaders are working

58  Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation against our party . . . we can assume any means to make you disappear from this world . . . we are not punishing you simply because Assembly Election 2011 is knocking at our doors . . . but we won’t wait any further after the election is over. Factions which started to crop up by 2010 in GP 4, were equated consciously with the opposition. Attempt was made to clarify that there were no party faction working in the region, and people who were against the dominant TMC group were groups of non-TMC or anti-TMC people. While the issues of punishment came, it not only directed towards the faction, but also indicated the conscious attempt to spread the fear within the common villagers in an attempt to prevent further strengthening of the opposition factions. SUMMARY OF MEANING UNIT III

In GP 1 and 4 the political transformation from CPIM to TMC took place during this study period, i.e. in 2013. It is seen that both of the GPs have felt the vibration of Maoist and counter-Maoist movements. As a consequence, there was constant anti-Maoist propaganda by the leaders in Gram Sabha. With the rising popularity of TMC in the state, local leaders of CPIM-controlled GPs equated TMC with Maoists as they said, “TMC is now allied with Maoists, but don’t worry, we have our armed forces too”. More desperation is noticed in CPIM’s voice when they delivered “media will not reach here to rescue you . . . people who are shouting against CPIM in Kolkata will not even think what is happening here . . . joining TMC is not a solution for you”. The violent (re)action towards the Maoists as well as TMC was legitimised by referring to the killing of CPIM workers by Maoists when they say, “we need to answer bullet with bullet”. As the CPIM brought outsiders to form anti-Maoist armed watchmen, villagers were asked to provide whatever service these men needed. Gram Sabha meetings were used to remind villagers about the need for their continuing patronage and potential threat if they fail to patronise. TMC, after gaining political control over GP 1 from backstage, began to expose CPIM’s corrupt practices in the GP. They kept exerting pressure on the CPIM leaders in the office, vowing they “will make these people die every day in their own office”. It indicates nature and extent of political polarisation and hatred between competing political parties. However, eventually the increasingly weakened organisation and loss of support base have made CPIM disappear from the democratic space. The new point of threat-filled speech was directed towards factions within the TMC. In both GP 2 and 3 where CPIM was defeated early in 2003, TMC continued to attack local CPIM supporters and workers to ensure their rising support base for parliamentary and assembly elections. CPIM was equated with (a) an almost religious enemy, whose elimination was necessary, (b) hindrance of development and (c) people for whom no sympathy or no

Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation 59 development input should be given. In each of these portrayals, threat of violence was added. The village-level political polarisation and lack of space for democratic opposition was noted in the words as “either you are with us, or you are with the CPIM”. Taking control over the grassroots organisations which continued to remain CPIM-affiliated was a major focus in GP 3 as prominently manifested in the threat-filled messages. Instead of democratic means, the constant threat of the use of violent means for capturing those organisations was given emphasis. Eventually like GP 1, the hate speech was aimed at the party faction and conflicts between old and new TMC groups: “We are not newcomer-TMC, neither there is anyone who is original-TMC, there are only TMC and non-TMC.” Eventually there was an emphasis on the clubbing of the oppositions as it was said that “there will be no anti-TMC activity here . . . I must instruct you to identify and isolate those who were acting against our party”. In sum, the issue of hate speech included: 1 Direct and tangible threats to a large audience regarding the political choice they were supposed to make in order to live. Often conveying messages by involving families or mentioning the security issues were used as strategies to exercise control through hate speech. 2 Political polarisation in democratic forums was a persistent feature. Both the political parties identified people who did not support their cause and were then projected as the oppositions. An entire village, a part of it or a family was identified as CPIM and/or TMC, i.e. as supporters or oppositions. 3 Hate speech quite clearly represents political intolerance within the democratic forum. Whether party faction, or the opposition party, both were projected as being the same and their existence was seen as a threat to the political control of the dominant party. Handling of this delicate situation involved exclusive use of threat-filled words and use or potential use of violent means. 4 Gram Sabha meetings were used to instruct people: (a) about their role in organised violence against the oppositions and (b) about the political stance expected from them. The following table (Table 2.4) is a summary of the core issues of the hate speech in different GPs over the years. Meaning unit IV – hearing grievances and suppressions of voices If we can recall Foucault here again, we would question whether the Gram Sabha meetings remain such a one-way flow of power and display of authority relations. Why would people listen to the leaders and not say anything against them? Well, there isn’t any easy answer to this question. Even if the villagers find many of these issues weird, it is possible that people could

60  Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation Table 2.4 Issues/organisations against whom threat-filled messages were delivered from 2008–2013 in the four GPs studied GP/ Year 2008 GP 1

2009

2010 2011

TMC/Maoist alliance CPIM-controlled

GP 4

TMC/Maoist alliance = nondemocratic force Service extraction for CPIM’s armed forces CPIM controlled

GP2

Anti-CPIM Polarisation & anti-CPIM TMC controlled GP Anti-CPIM, especially against grassroots organisations TMC-controlled GP

GP 3

2012

2013

CPIMTMC faction corruption CPIM officially in control TMCbut steered by TMC controlled No hate No Gram Sabha speech meeting takes place has been recorded TMC’s control over the activities but officially under CPIM control

Against TMC Equating TMC faction faction as anti-TMC conspiracy

Source: Data collected by researcher during 2008 to 2013

show their dissent in other spaces – in their everyday political encounters. My next ethnographic sections actually speak about many such events. However, if we see power in a Foucauldian sense, an individual is simultaneously undergoing and exercising power. In this formulation no one, even the person standing at the margins, not participating and refusing to sign, is exercising power, since “power is employed and exercised through a net-like organisation.” The nature of expressions of dissenting views ranges from saying things among the spectators themselves – which is a frequent event, to the shouting of people and challenging the whole authority structure and display of power. Most of the expressions of grievances were related to the nature of public works being undertaken. While the Gram Sabha ideally should accumulate existing social capital and the power lies in individual voices, contrary to the policy proposition, rather these grievances were systematically suppressed in each of the instances. In GP 3, for example, a TMC worker questioned the TMC Anchal Samiti president: TMC WORKER:  Why

our Sansad has not got anything in the last financial year? We are noticing new roads being constructed in the southern part, why don’t you just repair our main road that connects to the southern part? TMC ANCHAL SAMITI PRESIDENT:  You must win that seat to get your work done. Your people did not vote [for] us and hence, your place is not our priority.

Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation 61 TMC WORKER:  Sir,

but . . . if you do not provide us with development benefits how can we ask people to vote for us? TMC ANCHAL PRESIDENT:  You will tell them to vote us first and then their place will also resemble the southern part! Please no more argument on this. (recorded in January 2009) The skewed allocation of resource was legitimised as an exchange to the lack of political support. Even questions which came from within the same political party on issues related to skewed allocation of resources were suppressed. Similarly, in GP 4, women’s voices were suppressed and ignored: WOMAN 1: ­ We

approve your every activity here but please empanel us for bardhakya bhata [Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme or IGNOAPS] otherwise we, the poor widows will die of starvation. CPIM LOCAL LEADER:  This year’s empanelment has been done by the party. We cannot do anything right now. WOMAN 2:  I can name many who are economically well off, still getting it! CPIM LOCAL LEADER:  This is a forum for collective issues; please do not put questions for your individual benefits. [Others supported and asked these women to stop. Possibly a gender issue subtly.] (recorded in January 2009). Two things are notable. Firstly, the empanelment was decided by the party and secondly to make it look like their demands were not suitable to be discussed in the Gram Sabha meeting. The entire questions of politicisation with faulty Below Power Line (BPL) list and issues related to gender and old age are ignored. Another popular mechanism of avoidance and voice suppression is to ask people to mention their names in the meeting, and them note them down. I have heard that often these people are “gently” told not to raise such issues in public forum, but to consult with the party representatives. This phenomenon is quite common in both the political regimes. For example, one of my very close field friends in GP 2 was desperate to get a response regarding MGNREGS work allotment. He first discussed that issue with me over the phone a few weeks before the Gram Sabha. He had two sources of scepticism. First, whether these issues can actually be raised and discussed in Gram Sabha. Second, he was not sure what would be the reaction from the local political players on whom he had to depend in his everyday life.7 I said, legally, he could always ask things related to the development programmes undertaken by a GP and that he could always say things in a submissive tone without challenging the existing authority relations. During the end of the Gram Sabha in 2009 my friend could articulate three words “NREGA kobe diben?” [when will you allot MGNREGA work?] Interestingly, immediately several others participated in a discussion

62  Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation related to MGNREGA among themselves. It seemed many had the question, but did not raise them in the meeting. Without giving such questions any attention, Pradhan asked for their names. I could see the person in charge of writing down the minutes instead of noting down their demands, quickly jotted down their names. They were simply told “thank you.” On that night, I asked my friend for the reasons that he didn’t pursue the question. His reply is worth mentioning. He said, “when political leaders say thanks and note down the name, it ritualistically concludes the discussion and demands you to prepare for some other consequences.” I knew the other consequences. He was called up by the party office and one of the leaders directly threatened him, saying, “don’t cross your limit, you might have to face consequences!” Another age-old leader told him to say whatever he has in his mind in the party office and not in the Gram Sabha, because it doesn’t create a good “image” of him towards the party. If we attempt to summarise the dimensions of voice suppression, we would find two important points: 1 The voice which came from within the party was ignored in the name electoral defeat. Often the questions were ignored and the person was instructed to put up those in their party meetings and not in an open forum as that would send “wrong message” to others. 2 Whenever, although in a very few cases, local people articulated grievances they were simply ignored in the name of “not in original meeting agenda” or as not something of importance to be spoken in Gram Sabha, etc. Furthermore, there were instances of calling up the voice raiser and threatening him.

The essential nature of the Gram Sabha meeting It should not be seen as a phenomenological compulsion to find out the essential theme of such a vivid and exhaustive data. In fact, to be honest even with my years of experiences with phenomenology, and repeated reading of the data, I am not sure whether I have been able to do justice to the data which I have collected in all those years. However, one thing that kept coming back, which is quite broad but essentially true in the Gram Sabhas of the state, is that such forums have become an alternative space for exercising party dominance. We usually know that propagation of party agenda goes on in different mediums – most conspicuous among them is the street meetings organised by different parties especially before election. Gram Sabha has become another platform to (a) display and reinforce authority relations, (b) legitimise decisions, (c) spread of hatred vis-à-vis consolidation of political identities, and (d) voice suppression. There are several nuanced dimensions and mechanisms as noted in the summary section of the each of the meaning units. Interestingly, even the spatial attributes also speak for the same issue of compartmentalisation and consolidation of party identity,

Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation 63 display of authority and reinforce power relations. The following figure (Figure 2.9) shows the nexus between the structural and interaction components that construct existing power relations, which actually has a significant impact on GP-based politics. It is quite clear that the politicisation of a democratic forum is being used as a mechanism to reinforce the local power relations. It should be seen as a

Gram Sabha – a space for reproduction of existing power relations

Significant statements

...we have been constantly fighting against the rich

Themes and meaning units

Structural description

Tale of Origin

Mamata Banerjee has stopped land acquisition. We have our armed forces too... We need to answer bullet with bullet Those who think they can challenge TMC, are challenging our chief Mamata Banerjee You must win that seat to get your work done. Your people did not vote us and hence, your place is not our priority.

Hate speech and violent political ambience

Ritualistic and three layered spatial production of power relations and inequality

Voice suppression

Figure 2.9 Essential themes, structural and interactional components of the Gram Sabha meetings Source: Phenomenological analysis of the field narratives collected by the researcher during 2008–2013

64  Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation serious challenge towards the implementation of decentralisation. The falling rate of people’s participation in this forum is also alarming. While the Panchayati Raj institution dramatically increases people’s access to government, it simultaneously promotes an uneasy but unavoidable interaction between the party and people’s everyday lives. During ethnographic fieldwork in different villages which fall within the periphery of these four GPs I found that there are two major reasons for people’s reluctance to participate in these forums. These are: (a) the politicised nature of such meetings, (b) people wish to avoid direct political engagements unless they were compelled otherwise. I have also found that the affluent section of the GP 1, GP 2 and GP 3 commonly said that they were not interested in attending such meetings because of other important engagements. The tribal people from GP 1 and GP 4 commonly argued that they knew that they had no place in such meetings and it was organised and carried out by the powerful people. Interestingly, a section of the tribal people reflected that they already knew the decisions from their village headman even before it was declared in the Gram Sabha. Women from each of the GPs commonly identified the space to be a masculine one. The following table (Table 2.5) represents issues which are commonly found in the Gram Sabha meetings of the four GPs in the last six years.

THREE An experiment beyond the template – Gram Unnayan Samiti I still remember it was in summer 2009 at IIM Calcutta, when I first came to know Gram Unnayan Samiti (GUS). It was the much-anticipated vacation time. Professors were relatively free and research work, including consultancy, were running at pace. I was reading West Bengal Panchayat legislations at the library when I met Prof. Bhaskar Chakrabarti. He was carrying a book in Bengali, Gram Unnayan Samiti’r Hathboi [Handbook of Gram Unnayan Samiti]. I was curious and he gave me the copy with a note: “This is new in the policy market would you make a few field visits?” Visiting field is always more exciting than staying inside the library and in the computer laboratory, but you know it was summer. Indian summer can kill you in field, literally. Prof. Chakrabarti himself fell sick with heatstroke in his Orissa field. Once I experienced a strong impact of heat in the form of nose bleeding and high fever, after which I decided that fieldwork would be “only when it’s raining!” However, I started reading Gram Unnayan Samiti’r hathboi and was preparing for field visits. With much relief, there were a few days of depression, cooling off the heat, and I set off for the field. I have met several SRD field officials who have directly worked with GUS and they till today hold a special attachment for the initiative.

GP 2

GP 1

Weakness of the CPIM violent means against them

Opposition = enemy

Insecurity issues

TMC-controlled GP

Continues

(Continued)

Continues

CPIM= Antidevelopment Violent means required

Questioning Development = CPIM – should be punished

Continues

TMC-controlled, officially GP under CPIM rule TMC= land-related movement CPIM= Ideology paralysed

Need for leadership

Pro-poor TMC

CPIM = Like religious enemy to be eliminated

People’s expectation on TMC Mamata Banerjee’s cult status

2013

Hatred towards the factions within the TMC

TMC= Propoor CPIM= Ideology failure

2012

CPIM-Controlled

TMC’s Honesty and LFG’s corruption

Opposition as Antidemocratic Insecurity in becoming opposition

Decentralisation and empowerment

Decentralisation and empowerment of LFG

2011

LFG’s pro-poor policy and decentralisation

2010

2009

2008

Table 2.5  Major issues of Gram Sabha meetings of the four GPs

Hate-speech Legitimacy issue

Legitimacy issue

Hate-Speech

Organised violence against TMC = Maoist Disobeying CPIM’s order = TMC/ Maoist

Threat and protection from the same armed mercenaries acting against TMC and Maoist

CPIM-controlled GP

Ideology competition

Decentralisation as widely recognised policy of LFG

TMC-controlled GP

Arms and muscles against CPIM to capture grassroots organisations

2012

Cult status of Mamata Banerjee

2011

No such issues are present

TMC-controlled, officially GP under CPIM rule

No such deliberations

TMC = Taking away hard-earned freedom in decentralisation

TMC faction = Numerically weak are anti-TMC elements to be eliminated

Pro-poor TMC Need for leadership of Mamata Banerjee

Consistency in fight against LFG

Source: Data collected by the researcher from 2008–2013

GP 4

GP 3

2010

2009

2008

Table 2.5 (Continued)

Hate speech Legitimacy issue

Legitimacy issue

Hate speech

No meeting held

No meeting held

Use of armed men to eliminate anti-TMC

TMC’s root in local issues of West Bengal

2013

Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation 67 GUS was supposed to be a body of people in each of the Samsads (wards) of a GP. The constitution is extremely important. It was supposed to be formed by the winning member, the nearest opposition, representatives from a local non-governmental organisation (NGO), self-help groups (SHG), one local government employee (retired or working), one school teacher and a few others elected directly from within the village. Election of members was supposedly done by raising hands by all the electorates in a Samsad area. The functions of GUS was a ten-point agenda, which primarily revolved around four major issues: (a) prepare a five-year plan, (b) prioritise needs, (c) help GP in revenue generation and (d) mobilise existing resources (GoWB, 2006). I did a few exhaustive fieldworks to find out the nature of problems related to GUS. A few points are worth mentioning here: A I have kept the section heading as an “experiment beyond the template” to reflect on the importance of power template in rural West Bengal. The template is so strong that even after the political change it has managed to remain largely unchanged. The CPIM-led LFG through its three decades of rule has successfully installed a pattern of political practice. Most prominent issues related to such practices include display of authority relations, dominance-subordination and propagation of hatred about oppositions. This template essentially excludes the opposition forces and propagates hatred among the opposing political forces. The new policy of GUS formation actually challenged this template in a couple of aspects. First, GUS attempted to include the nearest opposition, which is actually impossible for the wining party cadres to accept. I have recorded reactions like: “Why should we involve the defeated member? What is the point of fighting election then?” (in Purba Medinipur 2009); “GUS undermines the capacity of a winning GP member” (in Paschim Medinipur 2009); “How can I even think of working with a person about whom I have said so many things during election, villagers will think there is some kind of illegal coalition between us, my party cadres would misunderstand me!” (in Bardhaman 2009). Consequently, formation of GUS underwent massive conflict at different places in West Bengal. My work on GUS was not restricted to the four GPs; rather I have also done fieldwork in Murshidabad, North and South 24 pgs., and Purulia. In most of the places I had visited, the selection of GUS was done by placing two panels by two political parties. In Murshidabad, it was by Congress and CPIM and, in the rest of the cases, it was between CPIM and TMC. It is important to understand that if you go through the voting pattern at different GPs of West Bengal for the last three elections you would find a substantive portion of votes actually go to the opposition. While in most of the GPs, the number of sits show a strong political inclination towards one political party or the other, but the oppositions do hold a significant importance in village politics. In such a context, after placement of such panels, villagers

68  Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation were asked to select between the two. Raising of hands through an open voting system for any of the two would clearly reveal a person’s political inclination. Such a massive revelation of political identity through GUS panel placement had several consequences including violent conflict between competing political forces, social boycott and village-level exclusion. B It seems that there was a consensus on withdrawal of GUS between different political parties who are otherwise in constant conflict with each other. However, I have tried to understand what makes them afraid of GUS. Through my ethnographic fieldwork I have found out that GUS in SRD GPs with the help of SRD field personnel started to plan independently. Biannual Gram Samsad Sabha became more regular. In fact, in different group discussions it was clear that GUS was able to plan independently. GUS members started exerting pressure on GP to implement plans that are prioritised in their Samsad-based planning. Rapidly, the political players took GUS as an alternative space for power accumulation. In several group discussions members from GP and Panchayat Samiti commonly expressed that they perceived GUS as an alternative pillar, almost like a “fourth tier.” C I have tried to understand the motivations behind the participation of different GUS members. The number of members I have interviewed is 153. The following figure (Figure 2.10) after computation shows that more than 50 percent of the respondent became member because of party request or pressure. A substantive number (23 percent) of members has argued that they wanted to do something for the village through GUS. This does not show any conclusive picture, but we can gain an understanding of the way in which GUS has been perceived by the participants themselves. Party request/pressure

Doing for village

Economic gain

Power gain 11%

15% 51% 23% Figure 2.10  Motivations to become GUS member Source: Author

Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation 69 There seems to be a substantive gap of understanding/perception of the intention of the GUS experiment as advocated in policy. By 2010, GUS experiment was virtually stopped, but SRD continued until the programme was adopted by the World Bank, remaking it as the Institutional Strengthening of Gram Panchayats (ISGP). I have found it repeatedly that local leaders and elected representatives found GUS as an alternative power centre to the existing Panchayat system which needs to be captured politically. I have seen people enthusiastically participating in GUS planning and when the forum was made defunct many of them were disheartened. Most strong supporters of GUS are the SRD officials who worked with villagers in planning operations. Those who have experience of working with SRD and Institutional Strengthening of Gram Panchayat Programme (ISGPP) strongly argue that in ISGPP, villagers’ participation is made mandatory for doing the photographs and actual planning process. Technological input along with a shift in power from Pradhan to Executive Officer have a potential to take away the participatory agenda of planning to make Gram Panchayat more technocentric and bureaucracy determined institution (Ray and Dutta, 2017). A few issues to re-emphasise It is impossible to make any streamlined conclusion out of the Chapter 2, but there are a few points that need re-emphasis here. Before beginning my next section of my ethnographic experience, I would like you to keep a few things in mind. First: The idea of a high percentage of voting as one of the indicators of people’s participation is not applicable in rural West Bengal. The findings discussed previously supports the contention of Williams, Veron, Corbridge and Srivastava (2003). They have argued that there is a strong role of the power brokers in local GP-based politics. As suggested by Bardhan and Mookherjee (2004), Sengupta and Ghosh (2012), and Chattopadhyay et al. (2010), it is true that local political condition and not decentralisation per se determines effective service delivery. The chapter reflects on the fact that the trend of a falling rate of people’s participation in the Gram Sabha and rise in voter turnout is a puzzle that demands careful attention to the nature of such meetings. Earlier studies on Gram Sabha reveal a falling rate of people’s participation over the years (HDR, 2004). Ghatak and Ghatak (2002) through their study on 20 Sansads from three districts show that people’s attendance is as low as 12 percent. CSSSC (2006) argues lack of publicisation and inconvenient timings of such meetings as major reasons for such a fall. Chattopadhyay et al. (2010) argue that falling rate of people’s participation is linked with politicisation of Gram Sabha meetings. Apart from these few studies there is a serious lack of scholarly articles on the nature of Gram Sabha meetings. I have found that that while voter

70  Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation turnout is increasing over the years, people’s participation in the Gram Sabha meeting is steadily decreasing. Second: I think instead of asking people about the reasons for which they avoid attending such meetings it is more important to explore exactly what happens in the meeting. I show the structural arrangement of the meeting, i.e. the three-layered space embodies a top-down power structure. The meeting place displays the structured hierarchy which is simultaneously closed and open. Any individual can occupy a position in the second and third layers of the space based on their contacts with the political parties. However, the layer I, which represents the topmost position of the local hierarchy, is distinct and nearly inaccessible to the weaker sections. Therefore, the structured feature of the meeting displays some negotiation between party cadres and people where they can interchange their positions without affecting much of the topmost tier of local hierarchy. People’s negotiations, however, never overthrow the structure as a whole. It is seen that each of such meetings follow the same structural form of the display of local hierarchy, which continues even after political changeover. When I focus on the interaction components of Gram Sabha meetings through phenomenology, the “lived” dimension of the space becomes prominent. Three major dimensions of “lived space” viz. dominance and subordination, persuasion efforts and hate speech are found. Each of these themes resonates and reinforces existing hierarchy. It is important to note that these are highly contextual in nature. For instance, as the Maoist threat was increasing in GP 1 and 4, there was more emphasis on the Maoist violence. When opposition started gaining some momentum, direct and tangible threat of violence occupied a significant space in the meeting interactions. It is seen that Pradhans take ritual and customary permission before starting their speech; Pradhan and other members are called up by the leaders with their names without adding any honorary suffix. The elected representatives are equated with booth-level party cadres as they are being referred to by their names in a similar tone in which leaders call their subordinate cadres. This indicates their subordinate position in the local hierarchy. Issues of pro-poor position of CPIM, clean image of TMC supreme, etc. are used by both the parties to justify their position as a ruler. Once a party legitimises its position as a ruler through a variety of means, it successfully overrules any articulations being made against their decision in such meetings through suppression of voices. Third: At a theoretical level, I argue that legitimacy is inherently a cultural phenomenon. Hence, whatever appears in the meeting has a complicated background, nested within the village politics. There are hints of Weberian (Weber, 1978) traditional authority as CPIM claims their position as a ruler because they fought against a Congress-based, topdown decision-making system. TMC claims such position because they put up resistance against CPIM’s misdeeds. There are “non-rational”

Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation 71 sources as well (Bourdieu, 1996) rooted in the subtle mechanisms inherently associated to the mode of addressing Pradhan and other members by the political leaders, amount of time allotted to the elaborate speech by the local leaders and so on. Fourth: It appears that political parties have formulated several reified and normative constructs. First, and foremost, is the acceptance or tolerance of “political intolerance” at the local level. While people tend to avoid direct political engagements, they nevertheless remain spectators of the display of party authority that speaks the language of political intolerance. One of the major reasons for the paralysed condition of the Gram Sabha is the “oppositionlessness”. The political oppositions in a GP area either do not bother or are forced not to interfere in everyday matters of Panchayat. This lack of involvement results in the lack of democratic performance of these grassroots organisations. Interestingly, in Panchayat elections oppositions could secure on average about 45 percent of the votes, yet there is no strong opposition voice reflected in these popular forums. Clearly, the political minority, i.e. the oppositions do not get access to canvass their positions or criticise GP decisions in forums like Gram Sabha. The extent of threat, deliberately being canvassed in the Gram Sabha meeting, enhances the political intolerance. This fear-filled situation takes Gram Sabha away from its intended functions (as Gibson and Gouws, 2000; Davis and Silver, 2004 suggests from their studies elsewhere). Second, there is recurring “ritualistic performance” of the actual meeting procedure where questioning the authority is tabooed. This ritualistic pattern of meetings is made a popular construct. These meetings operate in a patterned way and as a learned discourse (Foucault, 1963) that reifies and reinforces existing power relations each time the meeting is performed, like a ritual. Following Collins (2004) this patterned functioning of the meeting just like poetry, rhythm, music and dance reinforce relationships, more specifically the existing power relationships. It never allows questioning the authority relationships which operate at the grassroots. The chief concern becomes presenting the “right elements in the right way” (Alexander, 2004). The definition of the “right way” necessarily legitimises the voice suppression, lack of discussions regarding issues of development and spread of party agenda through these meetings. Third, and a related issue, is the continual and often ever-dwindling nature of the functioning of Gram Sabha. Even after the regime change, over the extent of a period of six years, there is no significant change in the patterns of Gram Sabha meetings except for the dreadful falling rate of people’s participation. It appears that these forums operate in a “political template” which functions like the ritual set by the LFG regime. The fourth and most obvious outcome of these popular constructs is that Gram Sabha is a space for the party men and not for women or common people or weaker sections. The display of “authority relations”

72  Dynamics / dialectics of people’s participation in communication can be seen as a stylised process with strong narrative components resembling dramas on stage (as advocated by Turner, 1974). There is a (re)production of spatial arrangements of the meeting. Both the structural arrangements and interaction components reinforce such popular constructs of the association of party with these democratic forums. The common people therefore, are the spectators – occupying the third layer, look at the spectacular display of authority relations that operates and determines to a significant extent their fate in getting public services.

Notes 1 Scholars around the world have put emphasis on people’s participation after the publication of Putnam, Leonardi and Nanetti’s (1993) analysis of democracy with an Italian example. It is seen as a milestone in democracy research that virtually makes civic engagement one of the predeterminants of effective democracy (Tarrow, 1996). For a good overview see Kaase (2007). 2 In a 2017 movie “Newton,” Amit V. Masurkar captures some of the nuances of election at villages. You can read my reflections on the movie and whole process of voting at my blog, url: http://sumanparole.blogspot.in/2017/09/newton-fromanthropologist-cum.html 3 In the context of Western democracies it is debated whether the level of political participation is changing. Scholars have found out that with the dramatic increase in affluence and educational attainment since the 1960s, there is a decrease in turnout (Brody, 1978; Rosenstone and Hansen, 1993). Putnam (2000) argues that this decline is part of a broader trend he puts symbolically as “Bowling Alone.” 4 As a counter to the Maoist movement in the Maoist affected districts of Paschim Medinipur, Bankura and Purulia the CPIM-led Left Front have hired and posted their armed mercenaries, later on named as “Harmad Bahini” by the media. In Chapter 4 I have discussed it in details. 5 More about it in Chapter 4. 6 In standard Bengali conversation, we call people by their name with adding suffix like da/dada, di/didi which means elder brother and elder sister respectively. We always use babu, to refer to a person occupying an important position whom we cannot call da/dada because of uncertain age-grade. Women are often added with di/didi even when there is such uncertainty, or sometimes one adds madam after using their name. The use of such suffixes speaks a lot about the person’s relative position in the society and the relative importance that one gives to them. 7 Nature of such dependence is discussed in Chapter 3. After reading Chapter 3, especially the case on GP 2, you might start admiring the courage of such people who could actually articulate some voice in Gram Sabha meetings.

3 Farming, industrialisation and the politics of land-waterdebt network

Living with ethnography everyday I have faced a single question several times in my academic life. People in anthropology, including some of the professors are keen to know what makes my work anthropological. Although, I have never claimed my work to be anthropological, since I belong to the core discipline of social-cultural anthropology, I had to answer this question over and again. In this chapter, I would like to give some answers to these questions. Broadly, I would say a few words about the reasons for which anthropologists must make serious focus in the arena of the interplay between people-policy-politics. Let me start by narrating my experience as a team member of the undergraduate fieldwork from Bangabasi College in 2004. We went to Galudihi, Jharkhand to do a fifteen-day-long fieldwork in a multi-ethnic village, named Barbil. In the beginning, we were given a blank census form where we were supposed to jot down certain basic information about the families on which we undertook the work. We were mesmerised by the hillocks, trees and the river Subarnarekha and often collected information not so meticulously. One of the columns demanded that we note down the caste/tribe status of the people we visited. Those who went to Santal villages entered them in their column as ST, while I noted them as SC because I was doing my work among Bhumijs. We wrote as they told us. Later on, our professors asked us to identify the name of their caste or tribe identity and not simply the administrative categories. Interestingly, none of the young people could confidently say which caste or tribe they belonged to. They could only say their surnames: “We belong to hansda”. Similarly, I have found people readily identifying themselves as belonging to BPL (Below Poverty Line) status, etc. Those who do research on village people must have gathered similar experiences. Now, what do these categories like ST, SC and BPL signify? They signify the policy as an organising principle of society. Virtually every aspect of human everyday life is now shaped by policy. Shore and Wright (1997) have argued that modernity itself is nothing but an outcome of policy. Three points need to be given attention here. First, policy is working in the same way in which myth worked for so-called “traditional” societies by providing a charter

74  Politics of land-water-debt network for action. Second, policies serve to form new categories like “tax payers”, “citizens”, “criminals”, “immigrants”, etc. Third, policies are instruments to analyse power as policies are inherently political. In each of these three aspects ethnography is a suitable method of doing research. I have seen that “mainstream” studies of politics have a tendency to embrace quantification (Green and Shapiro, 1996; Schatz, 2009). Even those who use ethnography are usually of the opinion that the raw data must be quantified and subjected to statistical tests (Brady and Collier, 2004; King, Keohane, and Verba, 1994). This book however, posits a methodological shift from such overwhelming embracement of quantification in the study of politics. Many political phenomena cannot be dealt with using quantification (as advocated by Kaza, 2001). Because of the heterogeneity of the variables used in studying politics, often findings based on such heterogeneous variables and quantification are misleading (Pierson, 2004; Ragin, 2000; Schram, 2004). Those who are in favour of using qualitative method of studying politics like Scott (1985, 1990), find it necessary to look at the complexity of human life and embeddedness of politics within society. They argue that there are “hidden transcripts” that needed to be unearthed. The embeddedness of politics in other spheres of everyday life is traced quite early by several anthropologists such as Fortes and Evans-Pritchard (1950) in their classic African political system and also by Leach (1969) in his ethnography on Highland Burma. Whenever ethnographic endeavour is made to study politics it has yielded to the complex nature of people’s interface with everyday politics. It would not be an overstatement if I say that long before the introduction of Foucauldian concepts of power and governmentality, ethnographers have tracked down the exercise of power within official structures and also in apparently apolitical domains (e.g. Bailey, 1983; Fortes and Evans-Pritchard, 1950). Ethnography is used to locate power in policy making (Wedel, Shore, Feldman, and Lathrop, 2005), organisations such as European Parliament (Abélès, 1992) and European Commission (Abélès, 2004), functioning of Israeli Labour Party (Aronoff, 1989). Blee and Currier (2006) have argued that no method is more apt than ethnographic study of the early stages of mobilisation that results in social movements. Fenno (1990, p. 56) in his Watching politicians emphasises that participant observation vis-a-vis ethnography remains one of the most important techniques of addressing politics. He writes: As long as political scientists continue to study politicians, some of us certainly will want to collect data through repeated interaction with these politicians in their natural habitats. However, most of the studies are snapshot studies, i.e. they capture the richness of a particular moment of time through case-study analysis. Instead of snapshot studies, I have done what may be termed as a longitudinal study of the four GPs in West Bengal over a period of six years (2008 to 2013). Within this six-year period I have made repeated field visits. I spend as much

Politics of land-water-debt network 75 time as possible in the “field”. Apart from months’ long continuous stays on different occasions I have also made weekend visits at different GPs and have kept constant communication over mobile phone to track different phenomena that are significant for my study. It is difficult to term this work as a classic example of participant observation in the Malinowskian sense1; rather I believe that my work belongs to the realm of ethnographic sensibility that goes beyond face-to-face contact (Schatz, 2009). I have used ethnography as a sensibility to understand (not to objectify, or to even interpret) people’s sense of meaning-making out of political scenarios. Therefore, interactions with the people through structured and semi-structured interviews, group discussions, and conversations with local and regional political players, agribusinessmen, Panchayat officials and elected representatives and villagers represent key mechanisms of data collection. Each of the Panchayat offices has been generous enough to share data regarding development initiatives taken. Sometimes I simply listened to the ongoing conversations at the evening chit-chat centres like street-side tea stalls to collect rich data related to contested decision-making terrain. I have also considered studying the spatial arrangements of the village meetings as a mechanism to display and reinforce existing inequality (as detailed in Chapter 2). I have thoroughly studied apparently apolitical phenomena such as cultural expressions of the tribal festivals to unravel people’s attribution to meaning and attachments (or detachments) which contribute much to the formation of local hierarchy and also influence decisions. In this sense, this work becomes closer to the approach of Scott’s (1998) Seeing like a state. Scott does not use participant observation per se, but his work carries ethnographic sensibility in detailing with the inner logic that guides modern states in their efforts to remake physical and social space and thereby exercise control through an apparently apolitical sphere.2 Earlier anthropologists have documented the interconnectedness of so-called local cultures with the rest of world. This approach poses a methodological challenge to the so-called functionalist (Malinowskian) era of doing ethnography. However, in today’s world this is much more important. At present, people are exposed to an unprecedented growth of mass media, television networks, mobile phones and the internet. Therefore, participant observation is either increasingly becoming impossible to practice because of the transient nature of contemporary world, or in contradiction, today’s world is giving rise to a new possibility as we are much more connected than earlier generations of anthropologists. Many of my “informants” are in my Facebook and WhatsApp list! They go through, the stuff that I post, and they are as updated as I am about the state of affairs of the world and hence conceptually I can say that we inhabit the same virtual world. I think fieldwork ethics needs a revision right now with the unprecedented growth of social media. Let me narrate a story of my experience with living in the same world. In 2009, I was doing fieldwork in Murshidabad. I usually used to spend my evening chatting with a handful of party members at nearby tea stalls. There I met

76  Politics of land-water-debt network Chandan Chaudhury, who was famous for his habit of drinking in the evenings. He used to ask me for a drink every once in a while. He wanted me to share a glass or two with him and then listen to his painful life stories. I have participated in those evening sessions thrice, but refused to drink saying I don’t drink. He was sceptical, but didn’t say anything more. With the advent of Facebook, we became friends online as well, and soon Chandan found me sharing a drink with a group of my city friends. He called me up and accused me of lying to him. Realising that he was hurt, I explained to him that being an outsider in their place, if I had drank with him, it might have harmed my image as a researcher among the villagers. He laughed at that, and, starting in 2010, I shared drinks with him once in a while just to compensate. You know, we are all connected in our unique ways with each other. In this sense, I am always doing a participant observation with them, and in a different sense participant observation is impossible, because nothing today constructs as local. Perhaps this is the situation which Comaroff and Comaroff (2003, p. 151) have referred to as post-anthropological. Therefore, I request you keep it in mind that none of the chapters in this book will represent any classical ethnographic text seemingly covering everything under the sky. Rather, I have dealt with different cases from different places of the state to address different issues. I have presented two series of ethnographies in this book. This chapter deals with series-I, which exclusively looks at the issues related to land. I have tried to address three broad research questions: (A) In what ways land relationships continue and have spill-over effect in other spheres of people’s everyday lives in rural West Bengal? (B) How large-scale land acquisition, even the most “successful” one, adversely affects neighbouring people in terms of resource depletion and vanishing assets? (C) In what ways land-related, small-scale corrupt practices are interlaced with local politics? The first and third cases are GP-based cases and the second is a projectbased case. Here I take the GP and the Jindal Steel Work projects as my units of analysis.

ONE Oligopoly and clientelism in action: dialectics of agro-economy and politics in GP 2, Bardhaman: ethnography series I West Bengal has never seen politics with primordial identity be it caste identity or religion (Bhattacharyya, 2016), at least not for the three decades of LF rule and during the first five years of TMC’s rule. I remember as early

Politics of land-water-debt network 77 as 2005, Dipankar Gupta, in his article published in Economic and Political Weekly (Gupta, 2005), argued that Indian villages are changing both economically and culturally. He finds people’s disinterest in farming and the related rise of rural non-farm employment, the changing caste system and assertion of caste identity as major factors for such a change. The article appears to be true in many parts of India and because of its significance it is also included in Surinder S. Jodhka’s edited volume, Village Society (Jodhka, 2012). Gupta (2005) argues that with the alteration of caste relations, issues of distribution of resources come into play. Most prominent among them is the conflicting relationship between medium landholders and marginal farmers and farm labours. West Bengal, because of land reform, represents one such classic example. Scholars like Ghatak and Ghatak (2002), Kohli (2011) and Bhattacharyya (2001, 2003) report that such equations of politics and economics developed and were sustained by medium landowners and people belonging to white-collar professions. Two issues are important here; first, the change in rural agrarian economy and, second, the impact on it. If we consider Gupta’s contention to be true, then there must be some changes in the older clientelist mode of exchange. In this section, I will elaborate such issues in detail. I hope my readers remember the prospective groom who became an important player in the local cold storage-based economy of the region. This chapter deals with those people and how they managed to maintain control over local politics and economics, even during the political transition. I show the ways in which local coalitions, based on the partnerships between agro-industrial elites, money traders in sectors like cold storage, rice mills and comparatively big landowners influence GPbased political decisions. I extend the notion of social capital to explain the dynamics of clientelist mode of political operations in action. I argue that social network-based operations of local elites are dialectically related to the relatively weaker sections and that the weaker sections sometimes were able to carve out decisions in their favour. Habitus, capital and clientelism and the present concern On the way to one of the marriage ceremonies in Dhatrigram, where part of this study was conducted, I took a mini-truck (known as a metadoor) along with my relatives in 2006. It was shortly before the assembly election, and many of my brothers and sisters were preparing to cast their votes for the first time. The wind blew as the truck started to pick up some speed, many of my relatives started shouting, “vote for Trinamool”. At first, I listened to them shouting, and then I joined in with them. It was the marriage ceremonies of one of my aunties and we were going as bride’s party. Just imagine a group of men, women and children in extravagant (but affordable) fancy dress going for a marriage ceremony – shouting “vote for TMC!” One of the elders then shouted, “don’t bring the names of political parties; we might be crossing a CPIM region!” Then all of us shouted something that can be

78  Politics of land-water-debt network roughly translated as, “vote for vote!” Hope my readers remember the discussion over massive voter turnout in Chapter 2. Yes, people were – and still are – election enthusiasts. More importantly, people often do not care to reveal their inclination towards a particular political party. I later came to know that one of my mother’s brothers, who almost became the head of the joint family after my grandfather grew elderly and dependent, was contesting the election on behalf of TMC and hence everyone thought it would be wise to do some canvassing on the go! You know, people easily identify their interest with family or with the person on whom you depend. You can extend such “we” feelings a little with regard to caste, religion and so on. Now imagine what would happen if the well-being of your family depended on someone else! Yes, you guessed it right, let’s talk about clientelism and dependency in a context like this. I conceptualise clientelism as a form of personal, dyadic and primarily obligatory form of exchange. It essentially involves an imbalance of power between those involved in the exchange (Eisenstadt and Roniger, 1984). This is precisely linked to the hierarchical patron-client relationships in traditional rural societies (Piattoni, 2001). This pattern of relationships includes “the patron providing clients with access to the basic means of subsistence and the clients reciprocating with a combination of economic goods and services (such as rent, labour and portions of their crops) and social acts of deference and loyalty” (Mason, 1986 p. 489). Clientelist politics is widely found in a democratic system (Eisenstadt and Roniger, 1984; Piattoni, 2001). In a political exchange, clientelism is found when a politician (i.e., a “patron”) gives patronage in exchange for vote or support of a “client”. Robinson and Verdier (2013, p. 261) argue that any politician whether in power or in opposition offers policies in exchange for political support primarily “because law cannot be used to enforce such political exchanges, they must be self-enforcing”. They further argue that “citizens must indeed deliver their support, and politicians, once in power, must pay for the support with the policies that they promised” Robinson and Verdier (2013, p. 261). My ethnography reveals that the clientelist politics in GP 2 has a structural predisposition where social networks play an important role. I will show the ways in which politicians build partnerships with an existing clientelist mode of operation to expand their political base. The nature of structural arrangements of the power inequality is linked with the differences between and interdependence of existing hierarchic positions primarily endowed with social connections (social capital) and economic attainments. Turner and Young (1985, p. 158) argue that “formation of a patron-client relationship is based not only on reciprocal advantage, but on some principle of affinity which supplies a social logic to the network. Kinship and ethnic affinity are the most frequent bases for network formation”. Herring and Agarwala (2006) note different groups of people broadly share particular matrices according to their positions in the structural arrangements of production and distributions. Both the production and distribution reproduce the class relationships. As a result, with particular experiences

Politics of land-water-debt network 79 of an agent coming from his/her position in a matrix of society makes him/ her aware about the class position based on commonalities. Such awareness for Marx is “class in itself”, that makes people organise for their common interests. Harriss (1994) emphasises that class relationships are culturally embedded. Such embedded nature often influences the legitimacy of hierarchy and hence the class struggle. Often it is argued that violent conflicts carry an agrarian backdrop (Bandyopadhyay, 2001). I have studied the ways in which relatively big landowners, rich and middle peasants function as significant agents in local politics, and how it is embedded in existing social system. It is important to note that these groups according to Harris-White (2003), consolidated in the informal and black economy, account for about 88 percent of the Indian economy. Of course, this huge percentage includes other sector players, but it is nevertheless playing a significant role in the Indian economy. She argues that they rely on particularistic tactics and mass mobilisation. This class coalition forms a generalised characteristic of their politics. She defines this class coalition as “local capital” that has the capacity to reorient the state’s official development projects through an exercise of power. Now, what happens when that power is in transition? I explored and attempt to answer this question. I show the ways in which the class-based social network of relatively powerful players withstands the disruption resulting from political changeover and continues the existing clientelist political practices. However, I also show that the hegemonic mechanisms by which such clientelist modes of political practices take place are in constant dialectics with the strategies of weaker sections. To comprehend such a deep-rooted dialectics, I find it important to look at the subtle tactics of existing social networks which produce structures (in Giddens’ sense (1984)) or form habitus (as we find in Bourdieu (1984)). The dialectics is important as Harriss (2010) notes that poor people in West Bengal and also in Kerala loosen their dependence on the local elites. Chatterjee (2004) emphasises the fact that the “governed” section achieves the capacity to choose their political mediators through a variety of ways. Both of these conceptualisations of the local exchange relationships indicate an empowered weaker section. In fact, Gupta’s article, as I mentioned earlier, gives a significant emphasis on this very changing nature of Indian villages in the last decade or so. Therefore, it is expected that the nature of rural politics would increasingly become more convoluted with the interplay of multiple factors rooted in structural constraints and agency preferences. To comprehend such convoluted dialectics there is a need to see the interplay of different forms of capital. Bourdieu (2006, 105–106) finds it essential to “reintroduce capital in all its forms and not solely in the one form recognised by economic theory . . . toward the maximisation of profit. . . [and that] those which are economic in the restricted sense – can present themselves in the immaterial form of cultural capital or social capital and vice versa”. There are subtle mechanisms by which capital plays a role in maintaining the hierarchic power relations. These mechanisms

80  Politics of land-water-debt network are based on the acquisition of embodied cultural capital which ultimately forms a tacit knowledge. Bourdieu terms it as habitus. Habitus represents an integration of mind and body adapted to specialised habitats (field), which is then transposable beyond them. It places emphasis on the mechanisms by which the “outer” (the social) becomes “inner” (the social self) (Moore, 2004). Therefore, for Bourdieu (1977) we need to focus on “practice” which is a dialectical relationship between structure and agency. Practices are not objectively determined nor are they product of free will. Hence, to understand the political transition and its interface with local clientelist mode of exchange, I explore the nature of everyday practices of three major agents, viz. the economic elites, the political leaders and the weaker sections (marginal farmers and the like) in GP 2. I show that over the years, people’s (agent) positions in the local hierarchy have formulated different habitus (of a particular class). In consequence, people create different practices which simultaneously reinforce and are guided by the habitus (Bourdieu, 1990) to determine much of the GP-based decisions. I show that there are instances of reshuffling of people’s positions in local hierarchy parallel to the political change in the region. Following Myles (1999) I argue that even though habitus is an internalised structure that constrains thought and choice of action, it is not deterministic in nature. This lack of determinism helps explain the characteristics of agriculture-based politics of the region. The political hierarchy in transition I started my fieldwork in GP 2 in January 2008, a few months before the Panchayat election. With one of my key informants Ronnie, a handloom owner who by 2008 had become a TMC-elected GP member, I roamed and studied the canvassing mechanisms of TMC leading up to the election. Ronnie was looking for a second term in the GP office. I could readily identify two distinct sections of people working for the GP election: (a) an economically strong group who donated wisely to the canvassing of TMC, and (b) party cadres who worked and provided leadership at the grassroots. The second group, as I was told, played an important role in bringing about the political changeover in GP 2 in 2003, at a time when CPIM had a strong hold in the state as well as in the district. The first section of the people who funded TMC’s political canvassing in 2008 used to be the backbone of the CPIM party. However, sensing the changing local political dynamics, they covertly began to fund TMC’s campaigns. According to Ronnie, the fundraising mechanism earlier was decided by their regional leader: We know they were with CPIM, and that is why today they are not allowed to attend open party meetings . . . we are imposing levy on them to sustain our anti-CPIM movements here. Our regional leader, Mr. Debnath is arranging such fund-raising mechanism. Since he has won

Politics of land-water-debt network 81 in last Assembly Election he will mobilise party support. But money is important to contend CPIM’s regimentation. (In January 2008) My intensive fieldwork revealed the nexus of such fund-givers in the agribusiness. The agribusiness is so pervasive, even the party cadres – who participated actively in organising rallies, making posters and so on – occupy different positions in the cold storage industry and rice mills. There is a hierarchical relationship between rice-mill and cold storage owners and investors in the region. Roughly three interconnected tiers (Figure 3.1) exist in the cold storage as well as in the rice mill organisations. The topmost tier belongs to the owners and large shareholders of the storage and mills, which often include the political elites of the region. Most of the key political personnel, including the local committee (LC) secretaries (for CPIM during their regime) and Anchal Samiti Sabhapati (for TMC), Panchayat Samiti and Zilla Parishad representatives are connected with this section. Even the member of legislative assembly (MLA) and member of parliament (MP) have significant participation in the first tier through a variety of informal channels. The most powerful decision-making body is the governing body, which is closely linked to the politically affiliated associations attached to each of the mills and storages. Over a crop cycle (most importantly, potato cultivation) usually this section gains immense control over the entire produce, and then they manufacture the rules of the game to decide over time, and quantity of release which then influences the price of the product. The middle tier belongs to that of mediators, who negotiate the price of potatoes with the farmers. They manage the transportation cost, give loans to the farmers and purchase the potato bond, often on behalf of the topmost tier. At the end of the crop cycle, they convince a farmer to sell off the rice bran in exchange for husking price. Although the topmost tier has the maximum economic strength and it is filled with local political elites, they tend to depend on the middle tier to execute each of their actions. The tier II, therefore, is filled with executors who also control the local hooligans and gundas to form the main power grid of the system that regulates the agro-based resources of the region. The bottom-most tier belongs to the farmers who find their ways to negotiate the price or loan amount and rate of interest with the top tier through the middle tier. The bottom-most tier consists exclusively of the mass of marginal farmers who are excluded from the actual dynamics of systematic control over agro-products in the region. However, the dynamic exists due to the fact that establishment of command over their farm product is essential to the functioning of the entire hierarchy.

82  Politics of land-water-debt network

Tier I

Owners, Large share holders/investors, political elites (ZP, PS, LC representatives).

Tier II

Mediators

Tier III

Local gundas, dadas

Small farmers and investors

= flow of control Figure 3.1 Local power hierarchy based on affiliation with cold storage and rice mills during CPIM as well as TMC regimes Source: Field data collected by the author during 2008 to 2016

It is important to note, as I will show, that even after a political changeover, existing political and economic compositions as well as involvement of the power group in the local hierarchy to a great extent remain the same. While there is replacement of political personnel belonging to the CPIM as a result of political change, participation of politicians of similar profile in the topmost tier continues. While the topmost tier provided funding for TMC’s election canvassing since 2008, people from the middle tier tried to hold on to their position by combating TMC followers. In consequence, they fought against the people whom their bosses (from the tier I) actually funded. There was a steady decline in the CPIM support base throughout this study period. It was reflected by a steady decline in CPIM’s vote share from 39.99 percent in 2008 to 34.47 percent in the 2013 Panchayat elections.3 It appears that the lowest of the three tiers, which was numerically the largest section, eventually extended its patronage to the TMC in an endeavour to replace the existing CPIM regime. The TMC workers, on the other hand, expected that a reshuffling of the existing hierarchy would enable them to infiltrate the second tier, which would open up an avenue for them to participate in agribusiness and make more money than the lower tier can make.

Politics of land-water-debt network 83 Friendship, kinship and big men networks Figure 3.1 might appear to be a “structural” predisposition and giving an analysis by beginning with such a structural arrangement would easily earn this section as too structure dependent to completely forget the perspective of “agency”. However, at least in this case the structure and agency are convoluted with each other and mechanism of such convolutions can only be understood through ethnographic experiences. I have tried to explore the existing social networks to understand the nature of the structure and its mechanisms of operations. I began by interviewing a coal-manufacturing unit owner turned rice-mill owner, S. Saha, who resides in the southern part of the GP 2. I learnt that he was a local committee member of the CPIM; the president of the CPIM-­ affiliated Rice Mill Owners’ Association. The association was undergoing a power struggle between 2007 and 2008. Another rice-mill owner, D. Saha and his friend S. Debnath, both of them local TMC leaders, were trying to establish TMC domination over the association. I have also met K. Debnath, one of the big investors in the nearby Kalna-based cold storages. He had more than ten acres of fertile land located near a natural water body, known as Barokobla Bandhshall, K. Debnath was put under pressure as his CPIM-affiliated Cold Storage Owners’ and Investors’ Association was facing challenges from the TMC. Several big investors belonging to the association were of the opinion that people from TMC should occupy key positions in the association to continue getting (unfair) “advantages” from the police and local administrations. While the CPIM-oriented, but officially non-political associations, were facing challenges from the TMC followers, interestingly, local TMC leaders continued to amass funding from CPIM-affiliated people like D. Saha and K. Debnath. It appears that people close to the CPIM funded TMC to maintain the status quo. They wanted to continue their position in the local storage and rice mill associations even after political changeover. To understand how this strategy actually operated, it required a closer association with the key players, and their social networks. I started exploring local economic elites and their networks to find out the background factors that went beyond the political boundaries and polarisations, and continued to determine much of the local political decisions even after political change. By doing so, I also found out that the actual power struggle was taking place between the middle and lower tiers of the hierarchy, which by virtue of their numerical strength ultimately determined the fate of local parties through election. In the following section, I show the ways in which two wealthy families established and continued their clientelist mode of relationships with the weaker sections of the region, which would speak a lot about the nature of dependence and why this structural apparatus remains unchanged.

84  Politics of land-water-debt network The Saha family S. Saha, the president of the CPIM-affiliated Rice Mill Owners Association, a 70-year-old resident of GP 2, has a two-storey building in the region; it’s one of a kind, with highly raised plinth to combat the flood situation caused by the river Bhagirathi. I have seen this house from my early childhood in my regular visits to the area because of that desher bari (as I mentioned in Chapter 2 of the book). I have always been taught that they are barolok – the rich – and we could only get entry during some festivals. Such festivals represent one of the few yearly occasions when S. Saha could invite his fellow villagers and display his generosity and wealth. He also has an apartment in South City, one of the poshest residential complexes in Kolkata. Since he does not have any other source of income, it is quite clear that such properties are the outcome of his business. Being the owner of a couple of rice mills, and having substantive investments in the nearby cold storage industry, S. Saha has made a considerable amount of money. Throughout this work, I noticed that he had a strong influence over the TMC-controlled GP 2. After each flood, the road approaching his house was repaired with utmost priority. Even though he was a super-merchant of the region, he was accessible and talked politely to whoever called him over phone or talked to him directly. In a hot and humid summer of 2008, he offered me a glass of buttermilk and some sweets when I first met him formally for this work. He reported the fact that they were in business for generations: You know about my property, but this is something we have accumulated over generations. My grandfather left Bangladesh and sold off his huge property. Unlike many others he managed to save and invested it to lucrative business. We are by caste businessmen, business runs in our blood. We had more than 20 acres of land here. With water being available from the Bhagirathi and its canal system, farming was good. We employed several shared-croppers. My father started coal business and I transformed it into a rice-mill. With the advent of Liquid Petroleum Gas for cooking Coal business is no longer profitable. (S. Saha in May 2008) My first impression was that the local economic elites belonged to an elite class, which appeared to be true. They had an economic base in agribusiness and ancestral property. In the same interview, S. Saha reported that his coldstorage investment was handled by one of his childhood friends, K. Chakarabarti. Chakarabarti’s initiative was the main reason for his investment in the potato-storage business. Saha was not interested in keeping constant track of the market prices, which was necessary to reap maximum benefits out of the potato business. He quite enthusiastically told me about their friendship: We practically grew up together. We were batch mates in our school. His father was a good friend of my father. His father had acres of land.

Politics of land-water-debt network 85 During [land] reform period his father willingly donated lands. He was an important CPIM leader of the region, a member of the panchayat samiti. My friend Chakrabarti is also an active party member. My political affiliation has lot to do with my friendship with him . . . we manage to get some time to sit together over a cup of tea every evening. Either he comes to my place or I go to him. Now we have become family, since I have married off my daughter to his elder son. It appears that S. Saha not only inherited a handsome property, but also managed to expand his business. He reflected on the fact that his friendship with K. Chakrabarti became a business partnership and then affinal kinship, which consolidated their relationship. The nature of friendship with economic parameters hints towards the fact that there is a strong influence of social capital on politics and economy of the region. If you closely observe you can readily understand the role of “social capital” here. It was the social capital of S. Saha that brought him towards K. Chakrabarti and, ultimately, it has benefitted both of them through the investment in cold storage. In early 2009, I could meet Saha and Chakrabarti for a group discussion a few months after the complete transformation of the cold storage organisation from CPIM to TMC. By then, I knew that S. Saha and K. Chakrabarti have lost their position in the storage and rice mills and new names – D. Saha and S. Debnath – had started to emerge in the agribusiness of the region. Over several cups of tea and snacks we discussed how TMC had actually gained a majority in the cold storage association: K. CHAKRABARTI:  should

I tell him about the cold storage thing? [looking at S. Saha, who nods positively with a smile] K. CHAKRABARTI:  [continues] look my boy, until and unless you allow someone to get into your home he cannot enter. ME:  I do not get it. S. SAHA:  This is why you people from the city will never understand village business! He meant that TMC could infiltrate our storage association because we allowed them to do so. ME: And what about the clashes that your workers and managers have faced! I have seen people [middlemen] being admitted to the hospital because of TMC and CPIM fight! K. CHAKARABARTI.:  Yes! There were fights . . . fights are supposed to take place, because both of CPIM and TMC followers are under constant threat about the loss of their livelihoods from the storage and rice mills. S. SAHA:  Did you see any of us, or our children hurt? ME: No! K. CHAKRABARTI:  You have the answer. ME:  You mean to say that all these fights were eyewash, and that there were covert understandings between you and TMC affiliated D. Saha and S. Debnath who took over the association under the banner of TMC? K. CHAKRABARTI:  Do you know who D. Saha is?

86  Politics of land-water-debt network S. SAHA: He

is my maternal cousin [mother’s brother’s son]. We did not allow any outsider to capture our business. My cousin-brother is a TMC leader, and he will run the organisation and our system will not be disrupted!

I remember, I was quite disturbed with the violence between the two tiers. One of my very good friends from a village was admitted to the hospital and almost lost one eye. However, the reluctance with which they reported the violent fights indicates callousness towards such conflicts. It appears that the fight took place between TMC and CPIM followers at the bottom tiers did not directly bring a change in the party affiliation, rather, there were covert agreements of transfer of the political affiliation of the cold storage from CPIM to TMC to a close kin. Such covert agreements indicate the ability of social networks to sustain authority relations even during the political change. Therefore, while there was a violent struggle between the middle and lower tier workers of the cold storage, people from the highest tier could retain control over the entire structure and system. They have continued to dominate the entire chain of command through their ­network of personal relationships. Clearly, the underlying friendship and kinship ties are stronger than the political boundaries and polarisations. One of the significant factors to be noted is the inter-caste marriage between S. Saha’s daughter and K. Chakrabarti’s son. It clearly reflects the economic and friendship value over caste division. However, it does not signify dissolution of hierarchies; rather it indicates the importance of class identity and the extent to which people can go to preserve it. First, we have an example of hidden agreement between people belonging to the same class position to make a political alteration while people from the bottom tiers have fought and believed the change has everything to do with their fight. We have the second example where caste identity is superseded by the class identity and consolidation of class boundaries and accumulation of social capital. The Debnath family and its friends Let me give another ethnographic example of the accumulation and use of social capital in the region. There is another influential family of the region, known as the Debnath family. K. Debnath, the family head, is a middle-aged person. As I have already mentioned the family has ten acres of land surrounding the Barokobla Bandhsaal water body4, which is the chief source of irrigation water in the region, especially during the dry season. He has a three-story building with a marble floor, aided by all modern amenities. On the ground floor, I have seen several diesel and electricity run pump sets. Several people during different phases of cultivation come to borrow the pump sets. I have made several visits to his place often just to talk to his son, who is about my age. I never saw him taking money from the people who borrowed the pump sets, nor even the cost of the diesel. I came to know

Politics of land-water-debt network 87 that people usually hire pump sets on loan. K. Debnath was the secretary of the local Cold Storage Owners’ and Investors’ Association during CPIM regime. With the change in local politics he became the assistant secretary of the now TMC-controlled association. I could understand that people’s economic dependence on him allowed him to remain influential even after the political change. Much of his economic control actually starts with hiring of pump sets on loan by small and marginal farmers. When there were conflicts between CPIM and TMC, he remained unhurt simply because those who were fighting had economic dependencies on K. Debnath: I am talking about those poor farmers, investors and storage workers who have violently fought a battle with TMC. They depend on party for their livelihoods. Most of them run their entire economic activities on loan and after harvesting they repay and take new loans to cultivate in the next season. They have only changed their political identities after there was a change at the highest level of local party hierarchy! We changed our political affiliations as the storage required political stability. We do not want disagreements about the time of bulk potato discharge from storage. If there are political differences within the association it can result in indecision, incurring loss to each of the investors. (As told by K, Debnath in March 2012) The marginal farmers belonging to the middle and lower tier were dependent on K. Debnath to access the irrigation facility. In consequence, they could not disobey his authority. Since there were changes in key political personnel in the local politics, a parallel change in the political affiliation of the storage association became necessary. As a result, there was a change in political affiliation from CPIM to TMC. Although, the political affiliation has changed, the economic dependence of weaker sections remained the same and they continued to remain a part of the existing clientelist relationship. It was this dependence, now capitalised by the TMC to strengthen their party base. The violent conflict between lower and middle tier took place primarily to accommodate a few TMC followers from lower tier into the middle, which inevitably resulted in the removal of a few CPIM followers from the middle tier. These CPIM followers continue to remain a part of the hierarchy but at best at the lowest tier. People of the middle tier, by virtue of their position, could assume the role of middlemen. The middlemen quite clearly have more earning opportunities. Hence, the regular fights between those who wanted to retain their position in the middle tier and those who wanted to climb up from the lowest tier were inevitable. A few alterations or reshuffling of agents between these two happens regularly. For example, in a given year an individual may choose to invest in potatoes as middleman and another year they might not. However, the large-scale reshuffling and forceful removal happened only during the political transition of these associations. As already discussed, the political change at the top tier was made as

88  Politics of land-water-debt network a deliberate attempt to forestall the disagreements which could potentially harm the economic interests of the owners and investors. Connections with middle tier I have seen several cold-storage and rice-mill workers paying visit to S. Saha and his elder son to discuss issues related to the storage and potato business. Before TMC’s takeover of the association most of their discussions focused on the political disturbances created by the local TMC workers. The TMC workers already imposed a levy on the total yield of the mill. The main source of conflict was on the extraction of money per truck of rice bran transported from the rice mills to the oil-extraction factories. In 2008 and 2009 there were numerous conflicts between CPIM and TMC followers to determine the shares of extraction money. In April 2008, a violent conflict between the two took place. On that day I was having a conversation with the elder son of S. Saha. A group of young men came in and reported TMC’s plan to stop the trucks carrying the rice bran at the mill gate. S. Saha instructed his followers to stop TMC from doing that by every means possible: This is your livelihood issue. You take your money according to the amount of rice you bring to this factory. They have already imposed a levy and now they want more money. I think it is high time that you stop this thing from happening. An immediate conflict between the two resulted in injuries to many from both the sides. Eventually as they have lost the support of their leaders and there was a shift in affiliation at the highest tier, the CPIM supporters surrendered. To continue getting the economic benefits from the rice mills most of them eventually changed their camps from CPIM to TMC. In my subsequent fieldwork among these supporters, I found out these people are dreadfully dependent on the wealthier section of the upper tier of cold storages as well as rice mills. The nature of their dependence is primarily of three kinds: First, as already discussed, because of advantageous location of K. Debnath’s farm lands, every time a small farmer needs water to irrigate his land, it either flows through Debnath’s land or the farmer has to place water pipes over it. You know, simply because of this you feel obligated. Moreover, the pump sets, which are required to take out water from the Baro Kobla Bandhshaal water body are available with him. Debnath often gave discounts or loans for the use of such pump sets. In exchange, he asked for either cash, labour or a certain amount of rice. As Debnath embodies the local elite class, backed by the CPIM party and later on by TMC, the small and marginal farmers who work in the

Politics of land-water-debt network 89 cold storage or rice mills are not in a position to disobey him. One of the marginal farmers, G. Giri reflected his dependence: How can you oppose the person who feeds you? If I need water, I have to talk to him and place my request to borrow his pump-sets; there is no alternative to this . . . I could invest in the cold storage because of him. He has given me money when my wife was pregnant . . . I know that during the conflict with the TMC I could have been killed, but if he stops providing me such help I am dead otherwise . . . he has negotiated with TMC now, and things are fine! (recorded in April 2010) We can see that the economic dependence of marginal farmers over the local elites has a spatial and credit base. The dependence is then used as a political advantage in the region. The economic dependence is the primary reason for which the structure of cold-storage-based politics does not go through much change. Second, just remember that K. Chakrabarti’s father allotted land to several landless labourers. Their second generation became associated with rice mill and cold storage. The second generation continued their patronage to the family. Moreover, Chakrabarti embodies himself as a person from whom one can seek help during any emergency. He is a key mediator to people in getting access to several public services from the Panchayat. He helps people in empanelling their names for the Indira Awas Yojna (IAY), or in getting rice and wheat at discounted price from the Public Distribution System (PDS). He also has an important role to play in deciding the location of road construction or empanelment of names in the MGNREGS. Even after the GIS-based planning, he has a lot to say for GP planning. One of the older informants remembered Mr. Chakrabarti’s father: I was a share-cropper. During the reform period, it was his [Mr. Chakrabarti’s] father who gave away most of his lands for us. He was a genuine gentle man. His son too is always helpful. Like father, like son! He has given my son a job in his cold-storage. It is because of this relationship that we have got an IAY home. If he hadn’t recommended, we would never have a concrete house of our own . . . you know us, we are poor . . . if I need money in an emergency, I know he will never refuse me. (as told in December 2010) Third, there is a section of people who earns considerable amount just by arranging the transportation of potato or rice. They bought machine vans by themselves, or they had it on hire. These people persuade the small and marginal farmers to bring rice to S. Saha’s mill. The rice mill pays such

90  Politics of land-water-debt network transportation costs. If they can convince a farmer not to take the rice bran, they are given a percentage from the money earned from the rice bran. One of the primary conditions to participate in such a business is the affiliation to the CPIM party, and later on TMC. Since, Saha, Chakrabarti and Debnath are close associates, people from the middle tier know that these people control much of their fate, not only in earning livelihoods, but also in getting public services. One of such workers reflected: I know him [S. Saha] since my birth. When they had coal factory I worked there as a labour, now I earn considerable amount of money simply by transporting the rice to his mill. There are other mills here as well, but he gives the highest dividend from whatever he earns. He also gave me loan to buy this machine van. When the rice transportation is over, I carry passengers and continue to earn money . . . I have to repay the loan he has given me to purchase this vehicle. (recorded in December 2010) It is quite clear that economic relations in rural places have extra-economic parameters. A combination of economic as well as extra-economic controls by the tier I over the tier II and III is quite clear. The exercise of control over people of the middle and lower tiers is maintained by some form of oligopoly. The social network maintaining such oligopoly is a combination of kinship and friendship networks of the tier I. Because of the shared nature of such control over a large section of the people, the elite group of tier I cannot afford to have conflicting relationships between themselves. If their network is affected, they will clearly lose a significant amount of control over the lower tiers. This is precisely the reason for which the exchange and economic relations in rural places requires a glance to the social relations. It is important to incorporate the perspectives of substantivism in studying rural and non-formal economic relationships. It’s worth remembering Marcel Mauss and Bronislaw Malinowski, whose writings have given enough material for Karl Polanyi (1944, 1957), (also Polanyi and Pearson, 1977) to contend the mainstream neoclassical economic theory of formalism, which says economic exchange mediated with utility maximisation is a universal pattern. In contrast, the substantivists find utility maximisation as a feature of market exchange and that there are other forms of exchange available, especially in rural counterparts. While Polanyi classified them, anthropologists gave evidence. Before discussing the ways in which such clientelism infiltrates in the politico-administrative spheres, I would like to share a story of identifying the difference between formalism and substantivism, a story which I share with my students quite often. It first came to my mind during my master’s degree fieldwork in Khunti district, about 50 km from Ranchi, Jharkhand. The place where we set up our camp had no electricity, no telephone and only one small bus plied twice a day, in 2004. I was amongst a team of friends who never had any exposure to such a remote place. The

Politics of land-water-debt network 91 villagers used to procure their necessary goods through a cycle of weekly markets, known as haat. Although, we had exposure to haats, visiting them to see cock fight and drink handia – the country liquor – regular for them, exotic and romantic for us, in Galudih, Jharkhand two years back, but this was quite different. While noting down whatever was available and listing their prices as part of the exercise given by our professors, I could see there were two distinct groups of people. One group, who were not giving much attention to counting money; they were keeping whatever were given by the customers, barely looking at it. Then there were the others, who were quite particular about the money they were earning. I was distracted on my first day as one of my friends was calling me to drink some mahua, another exotic country liquor. Not a disclaimer, but we had done these things secretly so that our professors did not notice them. On the next haat day, I gave it a special attention to find out that it was true. Moreover, the first group belonged to the villagers themselves coming from nearby villages and the second group came from outside, carrying fancy items including spices, clothes and toys. The haat was actually an interface between formalism and substantivism juxtaposed on each other. The first group has extra-economic social relations of mutual trust and dependence, which the second group lacked. It is this feeling I variously termed as “we feeling,” community sentiment or the value of face-to-face relationships. It is this social capital that often can be seen as exploitative, but all the same, it actually helps people survive several disruptions, be it personal, policy or political.5 Decisions of public services and the role power hierarchy We can recall that people’s participation in the Gram Sabha was low in GP 2 just like the overall trend. The question is how do the decisions get made? The straight answer is that the actual decisions are made in informal meetings between the local political leaders who are closely connected to the economically powerful groups such as Saha family or the Debnath family and their associates. If we roam around GP 2, we will find a clear northsouth divide within the GP in terms of patterns of the distribution of public resources. The southern side of the GP 2 clearly gets better resources. It is clear from the quality of roads and availability of drinking water on the southern side, which is absent in the north. On the northern side, most of the small and marginal farmers stay. There is also a substantive number of scheduled tribes and a Muslim population in the north. In fact, it would be difficult to accept the fact that both the north and south portions of KalnaKatwa Highway actually belong to the same GP. One of the aged informants from the northern side argued: CPIM was reluctant to do anything for us simply because we stopped voting them, now TMC is also not doing anything because they are also involved with people who have money. No one is going to challenge the

92  Politics of land-water-debt network authority that the merchants and land-lords have. TMC has taken money from them to fight the election, now they are constructing roads for them. Although we have fought to bring the political change, but we will continue to suffer with wretched roads and arsenic contaminated water! (recorded in January 2010) Reflections such as this one, while triangulated with the nature of the nexus between the local economic elites and political leaders, it appears that the economic compulsions of the political players have remained important and considerably powerful. It is this compulsion that forces GP to allocate more public services to the southern side of the GP. In consequence, the skewed allocation of resources continues to follow a similar pattern even after the political change. It is seen that the most popular demand among a variety of public resources is the construction of roads and a demand for safe drinking water. I have seen that while the southern part of the GP already had pipelines installed for filtered and arsenic-free water with high flow, the northern side continue to suffer from possible arsenic contamination in several tube wells. No provision for filtered water was made by the GP here until 2012. Even today, the availability of filtered water is restricted. The question is what makes this stark contrast? Why people remain silent with the skewed allocation of public services? To know that it is important to address the question already asked, i.e., in what ways the GP decisions are made? I have witnessed several informal meetings being held at the local TMC party office and also in the houses of the local elites. These informal meetings are the spaces where these decisions are actually taken. These informal meetings, known as gharoa baithak (lit. homely informal meeting, in contrast to para baithak, which is the ward meeting), provides the space for bargaining related to the development decisions. Quite clearly, these meetings too have multiple actors with conflicting interests, and it is important to understand the mechanism for making decisions. I have seen that the prioritisation of demands is primarily based on the nature and extent of control that bargainers (usually the Panchayat member or a booth-level political leader) have over the mass. I could attend ten such meetings: three in 2011, two in 2012 and one in 2013 and 2014 and three in 2016. These meetings always have gate-keeping mechanisms. Only the powerful elected members close allied with the TMC’s Anchal Committee leaderships and/ or with people like Saha or Debnath as well as a party representative per Sansad (ward) are allowed to attend. The number of attendee ranges from 15 to 25. Usually these meetings are held in the evening and often remain unresolved. Immediately, another meeting is called for the next day. Decisions related to the following aspects are usually taken at these meetings: 1 What plans are to be taken up in the Panchayat’s Annual Action Plans (AAP)? 2 Which project is to be taken up?

Politics of land-water-debt network 93 3 Where is the project to be implemented? 4 Who are the beneficiaries for individual-benefiting schemes such as IAY or MGNREGS? 5 Which agency would be given the work? At which rate? How much money should be levied on that contractor? Whether a proposal is overruled or sanctioned by the political bosses depends on the interplay of several issues: first, the extent the proposer pursues the proposal; second, how much mass support the proposer carries; third, whether it creates any hindrance or whether it is criss-crossing the interests of the top political or economic personnel of the region; and finally, if any monetary transaction is possible (e.g. in IAY) – whether the proposer (or the person for whom it is proposed) is willing to pay. I noted that these meetings are held in a large room, or at the courtyard. The TMC Anchal Samiti Sabhapati, along with one or two of his close allies frequently enters from a separate room, popularly known as an antechamber, to make their “secret” understandings and then declared the final decision. I was present at one of these decision-making sessions related to road construction and provisioning for piped water. Both of the projects were pursued by the relatively weaker political cadres. They successfully forced local leaders to make the decision in their favour by involving Anchal Samiti Secretary and his friends, including the economically powerful Saha and Debnath. It began in 2009 as three Panchayat members from the northern side of the GP decided to pursue the issue of filtered water. S. Sarkar, a female member of the GP took the initiative. She narrated: I knew that to make my project a priority, I am supposed to convince at least three people, our Anchal Samiti Sabhapati, Mr. Saha and also Mr. Debnath . . . I knew that it would be impossible for me, especially being a woman, to convince these three influential figures single handed. So, I started convincing another Panchayat members’ wife, who had good relationship with our Anchal Samiti Sabhapati . . . It took one year for me just to initiate the discussion with Mr. Saha and Mr. Debnath. Finally, they were convinced in 2011. I had to show them enough support for the cause by making a signature campaign and finally the work was done in 2012. (recorded in March 2012) In one of the 2011 meetings I saw S. Sarkar as well as three other members emphasizing the urgent need of filtered water in their Sansads. Initially their proposition was dismissed citing the paucity of funds. However, in later meetings their constant emphasis on the same issue finally approved their project. Coalition among the members, convincing the party boss as well as economic players, became necessary to implement relatively bigger projects.

94  Politics of land-water-debt network Quite clearly, even within the strict structural arrangements of the political economic coalition, people, even the weaker sections were able to formulate strategies to make their demands addressed. When S. Sarkar was trying to convince her political bosses for supply of filtered water, Ronnie, my initial contact, was working hard for the construction of roads which would connect his Sansad to the main road. Ronnie stated: My demand was ignored primarily because I could not win with a big margin. There was substantive scepticism about my chances of winning in the future elections. In my constituency there were many people who got benefits from the CPIM and they were loyal to their party. I started having face to face conversations with my fellow villagers. It was a felt need and people started discussing the issue openly. I have convinced my leaders to initiate road construction to sustain political control. Finally it was done simply because I argued that if it was not done there will be no TMC support in my sansad. (as told in March 2012) I have seen that in those informal meetings Ronnie used to remain silent. He never gave opinions on anything until he was directly asked for one. While he remained silent in the meetings, he was quite vocal for the local causes among his fellow villagers as well as TMC booth-level workers. In a 2011 meeting, when the issue of piped water was hotly debated, TMC Anchal Samiti Sabhapati voluntarily asked Ronnie to reflect on his recent initiatives on the roads. His statement was rather brief. He argued:  . . . it is an urgent need. I have discussed it with my voters as well as my fellow party men. We feel that if it is not done we will lose our credibility. People have elected me with high expectation. I know, and you know it as well, even supporters of CPIM have voted me! (as recorded in November 2011) That was all he could say. I could see the immense impact of his background work. The project was approved almost instantly, and by 2013 most of the alleyways were concreted. Later on Ronnie argued: I know that if I directly put any demand they will not listen . . . there is no real Gram Sabha where people can ask for what they need. Therefore, I had to take an indirect option to put pressure on the local political leaders. I knew this is the only option with which this work could be done . . . we are mere position holders, Panchayat members do not have any administrative or other power . . . we are supposed to use the people and party workers. (as told in November 2011)

Politics of land-water-debt network 95 Ronnie’s reflection showed a systematic use of people’s voices in an alternative forum in absence of the functioning of the Gram Sabha. When the structural arrangements within which a Panchayat is supposed to work fail and they functions strictly under political guidance, the excluded section from within the ruling political party adopts different strategies and tactics to get the work done. In Ronnie’s case, the tactics involved the formation of a coalition among the ignored section to put an indirect pressure on key local political players. Clientelism and its interface with the marginals The clientelist mode of political process in GP 2 is framed by the existing economic hierarchy. Although it is a micro-study of a single GP, this mode can be generalised in places where people are heavily dependent on farming. Although I concentrate on a single GP, it is needless to mention that the cold storages, rice mills and the impact of the powerful elites go well beyond the GP boundary. If you read scholars like Ghatak and Ghatak (2002) or Kohli (2011) you would find similar arguments. They have also noted that political control in places like GP 2 is dependent on small landowners and a new class of stakeholders. The irrigation water relationship, economic dependency and political compulsions of the weaker sections make them dependent on a distinct elite group of the local hierarchy who can best be termed as quasi zamindars. These local elites through their steadfast command over the local politics influence the decisions related to the distribution of public services. What appears as the party’s decisions, are actually consents of the local elites in several informal meetings (baithaks) which take place months before the formation of AAP. We can see the dialectics between the middle and lower tier as a parallel form of dialectics between the elites and the poor as manifested in meetings. These represent dimensions of dialectics of social capital rooted in different habitus having a considerable stake in GP-based politics of the region. There are three major dimensions of the case that needs to be re-­ emphasised. First, the social network should be seen as a resource in itself. It often determines an individual’s access to other resources, both economic and development related. The local elites, closely networked through friendship and kinship ties, form the highest tier of the local hierarchy and constitute a dominant class. Local politics tends to be submissive towards this dominant class. Such submission indicates the political vis-à-vis the state’s failure to regulate the dominant classes. The influence of the dominant class results in a detrimental effect on the implementation of development projects. The strategies that this class adopt to influence the decision-making process of the local government are linked with, but not limited to, their strong economic and social partnerships within local politics. They exercise dominance and control in a variety of ways. Most prominent among them is their control over the local agroeconomic exchange relationships (cold storage, rice mill and irrigation water in the present case).

96  Politics of land-water-debt network Second, there is a tendency of the rural poor and relatively weaker sections in a local hierarchy to go beyond land dependency. Although the marginal farmers continue to depend on the elite groups to access irrigation and credit facilities, their involvement in the cold-storage and rice-mill-based informal economy provides them alternatively risky but lucrative livelihoods opportunities. The fight between middle and lower tiers ratifies the alternative livelihood’s formidable attraction to the weaker section. The elite section is quite aware of such alternative livelihood opportunities. To continue their dominance, they form an oligopoly in agro-industries through the cold storage and rice mill owners’ and investors’ associations. Their investments in the storage and rice mills represent an endeavour to hold their position in the local hierarchy. Social network also plays a crucial role as we can see one of the local economic elites pushes another to invest in the potato business. Quite clearly, social network provides the motion and efficacy to tap resources and capitalise them. Finally, there is a clear indication that the poor section effectively subverts the domination put on them by the structural arrangement of the hierarchy. They too are using their social network to put pressure on the elites and GP. This is part of the broad trend of breaking or at least loosening of existing clientelist ties. People have formulated a variety of different strategies to carve out decisions in their favour. It represents a situation which makes the entire purview of decision-making much more dialectical than what appears on the surface. To explain this dynamics, we can bring the notion of habitus to argue: (a) People’s practices are characterised by regularities; (b) such regularities are rooted in the structure of power hierarchy; and (c) the structural hierarchy effectively adjusts itself with the change in the local political composition. The reshuffling of actors at the second and third tiers of the local hierarchy through CPIM-TMC fights and the subversion of power through the persuasion of decisions related to the delivery of public services hints towards the complex interplay of Bourdieu’s habitus, capital and field. While the dominant section of the local hierarchy exercises their dominance through the oligopoly of social network, the weaker section does the same. The weaker section also forms coalitions among them, using mass mobilisation to counter the dominance and top-down flow of decisions. Theoretically speaking, GP 2 represents a variety of different channels through which different forces (conceptually: field, capital and habitus) are making complex interplay. For Bourdieu, habitus, capital and field are necessarily interrelated, both conceptually and empirically (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992). Therefore, we have to look at the situation as a complex hole. The structured nature of the local hierarchy should be seen as an interplay of habitus and field which carries a capacity to shape one’s present and, hence, can influence the future (as suggested by Bourdieu (1994)). The ultimate empirical outcome of the combination of the three “thinking tools” (habitus, capital and field) is the “practice” (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1989, p. 50). Once we focus on the practice in its everydayness, we encounter the lack of determined nature of habitus, and therefore, a complex dialectics

Politics of land-water-debt network 97 of decisions (Myles, 1999). In consequence, the findings as discussed previously not only indicate the impossibility of the existence of a streamlined structural parameter, even during LF-led party grid-based decision making. Therefore, the reshuffling of people in the middle and bottom tiers, constant strategies of the elites to exercise domination over the weaker sections and dynamics of Panchayat decision making, represent the complex interplay of different habitus. In the context of West Bengal, there is ample evidence of elite capture of GP decisions, but of course, such a capture is not a streamlined mechanism. Rather it is this dynamism that keeps the apparent structure and hierarchy intact even during the political changeover. Therefore, we can think about a spectrum where at one end we are seeing the continuation of same structural apparatus local politics and at another end the very nature of structure is dialectical, and hence cases like GP 2 should not be seen as an outcome of the simple exercise of power in a top-down manner.

TWO Land: corruption and livelihoods In 2004 when I was a student of Ballygunge Science College, University of Calcutta, I was attacked by some unknown men in the night. They threw a bulb, which hit my forehead, and my entire family was terrorised. My parents knew that it was done by someone pretty close to us, as my extended family wanted to sell off a portion of our ancestral property and my father was against it. Who threw the bulb? Surely none of the extended family members, because they do not live anywhere near us, and it was not that they were engaged in some kind of war against us. It definitely was done by some local goons who wanted to make easy money by making my father ready to give his consent. Since 1999, I have seen several unknown faces regularly making visits to ask my father to give his consent. They threatened us through subtle ways, and today most of the people in Bengal know being middlemen in land deals is one of the most lucrative business opportunities of the state. Land remains the single most important word for the state and it has complex roots in the reform movement. I personally believe, after doing years of fieldwork, that if we study land and water relationships most of the issues of rural West Bengal will come alive. Since 2011, land-related issues have become even more sensitive as many people believe – and quite rightly so – that land-related movements have escalated the political change. Present Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee has a rich history of participating in land-related movements where she has gone for a 25-day-long hunger strike, blocked the National Highway and even vandalised the Assembly House of the state in 2006 as a movement against the LF government’s proposed Special Economic Zone (SEZ), project Singur (Zee News, 2006; The Hindu, 2006).

98  Politics of land-water-debt network Finally, the Supreme Court of India in 2016 asked the state government to return the land to the farmers (The Hindu, 2016). Similarly, she successfully made the land-related Nandigram movement into an international issue, which actually made the TMC-linked movement even more popular (India Today, 2009). Therefore, quite clearly TMC’s declared political stance is not to take away land from its owners. We have witnessed several projects, including widening of some of the most important roads being stuck because state government didn’t intervene. There were complexities regarding removal of several families for Kolkata Metro Railway projects. On my way to Barasat, the district headquarters of North 24 Parganas, I have seen illegal occupants at both sides of the railway tracks have a TMC flag attached with their houses. If you have read Partha Chatterjee’s (2004) Politics of the Governed, you would be able to understand the underlying story. Yes, there are mechanisms by which the “governed” section is using political leaders and parties not only to mediate and mobilise their demands, but to even legitimise illegitimate issues. The most prominent issue of the state as expected is definitely land. In this section, I have dealt with two concrete land-related issues of West Bengal. One is part of an industrialisation project in Salboni, Paschim Medinipur district and another is small-scale, land-related politics in Purba Medinipur, at GP 3. The first case, of course, is not a GP-based study and the exclusive focus is on livelihood issues and explains in what ways even the so-called “vested land” becomes a resource and makes people dependent on it. “Our forest disappeared and industry didn’t come / we are counting dark nights, industry Zhandu Balm”: livelihood issues in Salboni Post-Singur there was scepticism about the future of West Bengal’s industrialisation (Banerjee at al., 2007). However, TMC was getting overwhelming response in their land-related movements throughout this period. Meanwhile a relatively unknown thing was happening in Salboni, Paschim Medinipur. Most of the people in West Bengal came to know about the place because of an alleged attempt to kill the then-Chief Minister of Bengal Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan and Jitin Prasad as they were returning from laying the founding stone of Jindal Steel Works (JSW) Factory in November 2008 (Ganguly and Mahato, 2008). However, the amount of acquired land was about five times more than Singur, but no such movement was organised. I was curious. Didn’t the people of the region have any attachment and sentiment with the land? In March 2010, I made a visit to Salboni. My primary aim was to do photography of the palas flower, which blooms only during spring in the Chhotanagpur plateau region – typically a dry and sandy/rocky place. I nevertheless became interested in talking and spending time with people at different villages adjacent to the proposed steel plants. Most of the people I met in 2010 had no idea about what shape the place will take in near

Politics of land-water-debt network 99 future, but they were happy to know that some industry would be set up, a feeling that was completely changed in 2012, 2013 and 2014. In 2013, I made a revisit to the place along with one of my university professors, Dr. Arnab Das, and we encountered the following two lines sung by one of the village children: Jungle gyalo, jamin gyalo/ hate nai kono kaam/ aandhar ratri gunchhi bose/ shilpo Zhandu Balm. Which roughly translates like this: “Our forest disappeared and industry didn’t come / we are counting dark nights, industry Zhandu Balm.” Zhandu Balm is a popular medicine used by people to handle headaches. The two lines reflect the pain of losing access to the forest, and then a halt in industry. In 2014, JSW declares that they will return 294 acres of land to the owners because of indefinite delay in the work (Indian Express, 2014). The CM, Mamata Banerjee appreciated the move; however, the rest of the land is still under JSW’s control and is left unutilized, with high erected walls and guards protecting nothing, excepting a few houses and a defunct health centre which they started as part of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Programme.6 What is the total amount of the rest of the land? It’s about 4,706 acres, i.e. JSW have returned only about five percent of the total land acquired. Industry in the villages Striking a balance between industrial needs for land acquisition and at the same time preserving local interests in such a way that it results in a winwin situation is hotly debated and a big challenge for everywhere. It is not only an issue for West Bengal. In this context, the JSW project, unlike the Singur project, is commonly believed to be a successful case of land acquisition which did not result in major unrest. LFG promoted JSW as one of the major milestones of West Bengal’s industrial development. The amount of land acquired is a little less than 5,000 acres, of which only about 500 acres is taken from the villagers, and the rest is part of an existing animal farm and vested land. There is a geo-climatic reason behind the lack of protest, which is seen as lack of dependence. The Salboni region has an arid climate. Farming has never been profitable because of the lack of irrigation facilities and hard, rocky lateritic soil. Hence, giving away land with considerably high monetary and other incentives (Rs. 600,000 per acre of which 50 percent in cash and rest as share to the company and one job per family) for large-scale industrialisation is understandably a rational choice. I present here what happens in the aftermath of land acquisition and why? In doing so, I reflect on what makes people even in arid regions so deeply attached to the land and why it is easier for a political party to gather mass support with movements around the land. I also re-emphasise the fact that not having legal right to a land does not necessarily mean there is no connection between the land and people.

100  Politics of land-water-debt network I did my ethnographic work in twelve villages surrounding the present boundary of the JSW, approachable from the National Highway – 60 (NH60) through the farm road (named after the pre-existing animal farm) in different phases of 2013, 2014 and 2015. Among these, four are completely tribal villages inhabited by Santals and are located at a considerable distance from the NH-60. Tribal villages are actually inaccessible. Only recently there is a morram alleyway constructed by JSW. I was mesmerised to find several traditions in practice, which I have never found anywhere else other than in the pages of books written about 50 years ago. Other villages are multiethnic and have a significant number of Santal and SC families. I could see that tribal villages depend heavily on the forest and domestic animals – a dependence which has been supported by the now-obsolete animal farm and newly acquired vested land. The multi-caste villages perform agriculture and people from every village work as labourers to the neighbouring town of Medinipur. Each of the villagers depends on forest for firewood – a much needed and now recurrent constraint. Impact of land acquisition in villages Villages like Kulfeni, Jambeda, Asnashuli, Srikrishnapur, Jamdargarh, Beucha, Kamarmuri have given some amount of the land for the construction of JSW. The construction activity which has been quite vigorous before the assembly election 2011 was slowed down considerably by 2013 and the people here were facing the uncertainty of whether they would be able to get the jobs and other benefits that could only come if the factory starts its production. Through interviews I have seen that people who have given up their farmland already exhausted a significant amount of the money that was allotted to them. They were already seeking employment opportunities as construction workers in the project area. There are continuous instances of politicisation of work allotment, which often results in conflicts and protests within the construction area. Despite political differences and preelection political violence between Maoist allies and Harmads7, for which even today several CPIM-supporting families are absconded, people of these villages commonly reflect on the need for the beginning of the project, which many accept will bring far reaching changes in the region. Ramraydihi, Natundihi, Kashijora, Chatibandh and Banskobla are tribal villages I have visited. Although the amount of land they have given is not high, people are on the edge of losing their valuable Common Property Resources (CPR), which is located in the vested land of about 4000 acres. Since most of the tribal people in the region tend to depend on animal husbandry, they require considerably high amount of fodder. They used to access fodder from the vested land for generations (Figure 3.3). Moreover, the forest which grows over the land is the most important resource for fuel wood. In fact, during the fieldwork we have repeatedly seen that people are brining tree roots and digging out the base of tree trunks from underground in order to compensate for the growing fuel crunch (Figure 3.2).

Figure 3.2  A lump of roots collected from the JSW area to be used as firewood Photo credit: Author in 2013

Figure 3.3 A man returns with his cows from the JSW area; fodder crunch is now a big issue for the tribals and many have sold their livestock. Photo credit: Author in 2013

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Figure 3.4  The newly constructed Jaher than Photo credit: Author in 2014

Apart from the fuel crunch, several issues linked to people’s everyday lives with CPR are compromised: A In 2012, one of the villages experiences a violent conflict during the construction of the boundary wall. A football ground was falling under the JSW area and JSW refused to shift its boundary demarcation. In consequence, a conflict between JSW supporters and tribal sympathisers took place, injuring several tribal youths of the region. The conflict was ultimately settled by the creation of an alternative playground within the village. B In another village, the place for the village deity, sacred grove – Jaher than, an extremely important aspect of tribal lifeworld was removed (Fig. 4). This removal has severely affected tribal sentiments with their local deity whom they have worshipped since time immemorial. In yet another place, tribal people have strongly refused to remove the Jaher than and JSW was compelled to construct a gate allowing the villagers access to it. C Joint Forest Management (JFM) was quite active in the region. Several villagers have maintained cashew nut trees, earning a significant cash support for their family. With the construction of the JSW wall, their

Politics of land-water-debt network 103 access to these resources has also been stopped. As part of the clearing of the forest, these trees were removed. D Since the wall incorporates about 5,000 acres of land, the adjacent farm land is suffering from lack of water for cultivation as the water which used to flow over the land is now stuck. Since these villages do not have toilets, and there is no initiative for a Total Sanitation Programme, people, especially the tribal, express their serious problem with the lack of space for open defecation after the construction of the JSW wall. It is now quite clear that neither state nor any other players are interested to know what happens to the people who lose land for industrial development. I have tried to explore the fact that even if I consider the compensation to be adequate, then what happens to the money? Let us have a careful look at it. While JSW gave a good compensation package to the people, during the fieldwork most of the villagers expressed their inability to hold onto the money that they got from JSW. There are several ways in which they have lost their money. First, many of the villagers immediately disposed a large amount of money purchasing consumer goods – like motorcycles and televisions. A significant proportion of the money has been spent on the celebration of occasions. It reflects that people often have long-term plans, which they tend to materialise whenever they get extra money. Second, people report of fake police cases to the beneficiaries for which they had to pay bribe to the police and local money sharks. In one instance, the death of a person was identified as a result of sorcery, presumably practiced by one of the beneficiaries. In consequence, the family had to pay off a significant amount. Third, after the distribution of compensation numerous unauthorised agencies, including Sarada agency, which is famous for money laundering, took away the money and some people were brainwashed to invest in mutual funds. It is seen that several villagers have invested a significant amount of money to such organisations and in mutual funds without knowing the market and other risks which these funds entails. Moreover, these people, needless to mention, cannot track the market to take out the money that is invested in mutual funds. In several instances, it is seen that after a few months of investments the communication from these agencies stopped, which makes many uncertain about their money. Interestingly, each of the investors has invested their money because someone else has. When these people received money from JSW, several known and unknown agents from both unorganised sectors and mutual funds came to convince them. When one of them is convinced, convincing the other is a lot easier. In consequence, it is seen that the patterns of investments has a kinship and friendship base. Lack of accessible banks in the nearby region and difficulties in banking makes it easier for the agents to take money from these people.

104  Politics of land-water-debt network Let me give you the concrete example of Mr. Vijoy Murmu. He got a compensation of Rs. 2,95,000/-. See the following figure to see what happened to his money within a year. In Vijoy’s words: After getting the money, I was told by local BDO to make a fixed deposit but I knew I won’t be able to save. I had to pay Rs. 50,000/which I promised to pay to my daughter’s in-laws during her marriage. I thought I had to pay that now, otherwise they would start teasing her. Suddenly my elder son thought of starting a new business and my younger son demanded a motorcycle. Actually, many of his age bought motorcycles after getting the compensation. Then my wife and my daughter in law thought of investing in Sarada agency which was giving huge dividend. I could only make a fixed deposit of Rs. 99,000/- . . . this is why people in Singur didn’t want to give away their land . . . no one knows when the industry will absorb one of my sons. (as told in March 2013) In my repeated field visits I could understand that a feeling of insecurity and uncertainty started to seep in. With compensation and a considerable amount of cash in hand they started purchasing consumer goods and paid for certain outstanding social obligations. This exclusive focus on consumer goods by the relatively poor people is studied by Banerjee and Duflo (2011) in their book Poor Economics. The pattern of expenditure actually supports their arguments that sudden money input almost always fails to create substantive assets among the “poor”. 295000

99000 50000

45000

48000

40000 13000

Total amount Paid as Elder son for Younger son received pending dowry business for motor cycle

Sarada

Celebration

In Bank

Figure 3.5  How Vijay Murmu loses his compensation money within a year Source: Data collected by author in 2013 and 2014

Politics of land-water-debt network 105 JSW and village rights: conflicts and compromises I could see people faced crisis because of three reasons: First, the available CPR base is a serious constraint. Tribal people could estimate that with the available fuel resources, which they were digging up from underground, they could sustain a little more than a year in 2013. In 2015, I found many of them buying woods at nearby weekly markets at Rs. 10/- per pack. Second, the cash they have received from JSW compensation is fast finishing. Even those few families who could make some fixed deposits to banks are uncertain as exhausting that money would mean exhausting their last resources. Those who could not save are already in crisis. Third, there is a stark fall in the pace of work inside the JSW site and no one knows when the project will start functioning. People from different villages commonly argue that these families can sustain themselves here only if JSW immediately starts operating; otherwise, they will have to leave the village and seek wage-earning means outside. Tribal people reflected on their inability to visualise what actually would happen after the construction of the boundary wall. Since JSW left the land open for a considerably long period of time before the construction of the wall in 2009–2010, adjacent villagers could not feel any change in their existing setting. The real effect of land acquisition was felt only when these people were barred from accessing the land. There are several instances of forceful entrance to the JSW area by breaking down portions of the wall or putting up bamboo for crossing the wall (Figure 3.6). Eventually after several futile efforts to reconstruct the broken wall, JSW installed a few gates allowing people to access the land. In order to gain support and maintain peace, JSW also runs a CSR project of a mobile medical camp within the villages. They have constructed a private hospital, which is accessible to the local people at a marginal cost. They have taken several villagers to show the positive effects of CSR in other places like Karnataka, which has a mixed impact on the villagers. Many of them are quite impressed and expect a sea change in the quality of their life if JSW starts functioning. The question of when they would start operating, however, remains. I have met many villagers who are sceptical whether the same operation is possible in Salboni, as the place is different and the context is different. With a high percentage of vested land, a strategic location in non-fertile land and attractive compensation package, JSW’s Salboni model is often portrayed as one of the best models of land acquisition. However, it is important to ask, from whose perspective should it be considered one of the best models? If it is from the perspective of the corporate and ­corporate-state nexus, which is an obvious outcome of neoliberal economy, then this is perhaps the best model as there is no strong protest or

106  Politics of land-water-debt network

Figure 3.6  A bamboo shaft used for crossing over Photo credit: Author in 2014

agitation and thereby no media coverage of the actual phenomenon. However, the model has failed to look at the intricate nexus and bonding which the people have with the forest and land even if it is vested in paper. Even if we consider industrialisation at the expense of extra-economic issues like sentiments to the village deity, playground, etc., Salboni shows largescale industrialisation undeniably bringing livelihood crisis to the adjacent people. Furthermore, while one corporation portrays CSR, other sectors might encourage people to lose whatever assets they could create from the compensation package. We can always recall the problems of investments and loss of money – look at Vijay’s case once again. Perhaps, here a policy intervention is needed. Giving monetary compensation, and then allowing people to do whatever they want to with the money should not be practiced. It is more important to guide people towards more secure investments. Moreover, it is important to note that even in a small region, villages are heterogeneous as there are differences in lifeways, resource dependencies between tribal members and others; therefore, adopting a policy with a notion that “one size fits all” would surely push us towards more pitfalls.

Politics of land-water-debt network 107 Now, let us take a few minutes break after reading the following points: 1 Think about the nature of dependency (from food to fodder to space to open defecation) which is ignored in the name of vested land. 2 Think about the mechanisms of loss of money and assets. 3 Think about the uncertainty and return of five percent of land by JSW as I discussed in the beginning.

*** I don’t want to say more about the large-scale land acquisition and industrialisation since I am not an expert in this field. However, the Salboni case would definitely show the pitfalls and genuine issues which are seldom addressed. I don’t subscribe to the position of the TMC government regarding land, rather I do have ample evidence to prove that even though the state does not want to acquire land for industry there is a substantive development of a section of people who acquire land through a variety of means and make money by playing the role of middle man which problematises the issue of land to a great extent. It also shows how land and other aspects of politics are deeply connected. I will discuss them through another ethnographic case study which I have done in GP 3, Purba Medinipur, near Digha – the popular seashore destination of the state.

Local politics, corruption and political change in GP 3, Purba Medinipur There is an intricate nexus between politics and corruption in West Bengal. It is so intricately ingrained that people hardly care and often accept the mode of corrupt practice till their demands are fulfilled. In the 2016 assembly election, LF and Congress formed an alliance against TMC and their main issue was corruption. No doubt there are serious allegations of corruption charges against key TMC leaders in the Sarada bankruptcy case brought forth by Narada news agency. Even with these serious charges, the opposition has failed and TMC secured a decisive victory (Nath, 2017). In the previous two sections I have shown (a) how dependency at the microlevel works and why it is dialectically connected to the strategies of weaker sections, and (b) in what ways people are attached to land and the multiple consequences of large-scale land acquisition. However, the second case, i.e., the Salboni, is an extreme example and not directly linked to everydayness of people’s lives in the state and first case definitely indicates people’s everyday life in places where there is a dependency on farming. Here, I will discuss how land-related corrupt practices are linked to the local GP-based politics and in what ways it determines much of the local politics and decisions. Before going into the case, let me identify some unique features of GP 3. This GP is very close to Digha, a popular sea-based tourist destination at the border

108  Politics of land-water-debt network between West Bengal and Orissa. When I used to return from Haldia for the weekends, I used to board Digha buses from Nandakumar crossing. I almost never got a seat and there are hundreds of buses plying every day. Additionally, there are train services available. All are crowded. If you are not from Bengal, let me cite an example to give some idea about people’s craze for going Digha. In Bengal, there is a phrase regarding tour, people would ask you did you complete DiPuDa. If you are not aware about the phrase you would think it is the name of a person. The phrase actually represents Digha, Puri and Darjeeling – the three most favoured tourist spots for average Bengali people. Now you can understand the demand and cost of a place there. Yes, Digha is very famous for its sea foods, beach, wine and sex. The beginning of land-related issues started before Digha gained the popularity which it now has. Through interviews with the key CPIM party leaders, I could unravel that CPIM continued to allocate lands to the immigrants from Orissa in exchange for money and undermined the issues related to the delivery of essential public services to the people. I argue that it is one of the reasons for which the political transformation in the GP took place years before TMC’s vibrant movement related to land acquisition in the state. I show in what ways the land-related corrupt practices went beyond the illegal distribution of vested land – the thing exclusively done by CPIM during the early 1980s, and incorporated businessmen who were interested in making new hotels in the region. I argue that while the issues of land-related corruption and lack of delivery of public services instigated a political change from CPIM to TMC, corrupt practices continued and infiltrated in the delivery of public services as well. Within a short span of TMC’s rule, local leaders began to expand their political control by using violent means at the expense of developmentrelated initiatives through the Panchayat. The rulers as it is found were strongly associated with land-related corrupt practices. Corruption, local government and the present concern In its broadest sense corruption is conceptualised as an abuse of power by a public agent. Lambsdorff (2007) defines it as the misuse of public power for private benefits. There is a difficulty in deciding the standards against which this violation can be assessed. Della Porta and Vannucci (2012) report that corruption can adopt a variety of forms including embezzlement, favouritism, nepotism, clientelism, vote-buying, fraud, extortion or maladministration. However, here I am not referring to such an all-encompassing definition of corruption. Following della Porta and Vannucci (2012), I focus on corruption as a mode of exchange where money is used to attain private ends by political means. The means are usually criminal or at least illegal. This definition calls for a principal-agent approach that involves a hidden violation of explicit or implicit contract. Corruption occurs when an agent having been delegated the responsibility from a principal, exchanges resources

Politics of land-water-debt network 109 in a corrupt transaction with a client. In the present context, principal is the state and the corrupted actor is a public agent of local governance and also a partnership between local political leaders, public agent and middlemen. I show that this entire nexus is linked with the corrupt practices related to distribution of land. Such forms of corruption are seen as closely linked with political factions and parties (della Porta and Vannucci, 1999; Heidenheimer, Johnston, and Le Vine, 1989). Scholars like Leff (1964), Huntington (1968), Montinola and Jackman (2002) find corruption as anti-normative and having a functional role in political systems. There is an increasing recognition of the fact that corruption is closely linked with democracy, civil society and development (Bardhan, 1997; Rose-Ackerman, 1999; Doig and Theobald, 2000; Johnston, 2005a, 2005b). In context of democratic decentralisation, it is debated whether decentralisation promotes or combats corruption. Bardhan and Mookherjee (2000) and Prud’homme (1995) find that decentralisation leads to more corruption, while Fisman and Gatti (2002), World Bank (2000) claim that it leads to less corruption. Most of the studies, nevertheless, accept the fact that corruption is a pervasive phenomenon of present times. A lot of emphasis is given on social capital to combat corruption. In the context of decentralised local governance Warner (2003, p. 26) argues that “for decentralisation not to be accompanied by an increase in corruption, citizens do need to become local government watchdogs”. If we look at the studies of corruption in India, the research shows that a crucial role is played by the “street level bureaucrats.” Koch (1986), Bhattacharyya (1994) and Oldenburg (1987) show that at the lowest levels of the bureaucracy local leaders meet the citizens, the middlemen, the political entrepreneurs and all other sorts of power brokers. Here the character of the state gets moulded. This is largely the interface between the state and citizen. Therefore, a citizen’s perception of the state depends a lot on such a crucial juncture. In India, most of the studies on corruption focus on education and the health sector to report the existence of corrupt activities at the grassroots (Varadarajan, 2005). Studies focusing on corruption related to the delivery of public services at local governance are relatively few in number. Sainath (1996) makes references to address such issues of corruption with the functioning of local governance. Dreze and Sen (1996) documents rent-seeking behaviour of the leaders, absenteeism and poor performance, lack of trust and hence, lack of partnership between state and civil society and finally the culture of corruption within the public sector are the key features of corruptions at the local level administration. Empirical studies document power inequality, elite capture and skewed resource allocation as major features of corruption at the local and micro-level. Scholars like Pandey (2010) focuses on the schooling and local politics interface resulting in promotion of corrupt practices. Kochhar (2008) reports the detrimental role of landed elites to stop village children from going to school. Anderson, Francois, and Kotwal (2011) add a caste dimension with local level corruption in Maharashtra. Bardhan and

110  Politics of land-water-debt network Mookherjee (2006) relate a skewed allocation of resources with the form of corrupt practices and elite capture of the local democracy, something close to what we observe in Bardhaman. However, apart from Dreze and Sen (1996) there is no comprehensive and near conclusive study on the nature of corrupt practices especially at local and micro-level democracy. I conceptualise corruption in local government as a complex chain of principal agent relationships between electorate, elected officials and local leaders in their functional and hierarchical attribution of roles and functions. In this section, I focus exclusively on the role played by the political leaders. I have studied exclusively corruption as a mechanism in which the corrupted obtains money in return for their services to make favourable decisions (della Porta and Vannucci, 1999). Looking at the local governance level, in this section I focus on two things. First, I explore the ways in which the land-related corrupt practices of local political players became entangled with the local governance. Second, I show the nature of corrupt practices associated with the implementation of development-related programmes at the GP. Extended reform: CPIM’s corrupt practices I arrived at GP 3 in February 2008 when the TMC leaders were preparing for the coming election. They had a confidence that they would increase their margin at least more than five percent than that of the previous election. I met Rajen, a local football star and a college student. Rajen’s family offered me a room for a nominal rent to stay during the fieldwork. Rajen’s mother often gave me delicious foods and saved me occasionally from my cooking endeavours. Because of his football skill, Rajen had access to both the CPIM and TMC leaders of the region. He played on the district football team and was commonly seen as an icon of their local TMC-controlled club. I could find two categories of people residing in the region: first, the insiders who were residing there for generations; and second, the outsiders who settled there over the last twenty years. Pardon me for this blatant binary distinction, because people there do not always think of each other in this binary, but, nevertheless, a sense of distinction exists and local politics often revolves around it. I met Harishwa Shounda, a 48-year-old man who migrated from Orissa. He settled in the region in 1998, and became involved in the fish trade. Subhasis, his elder son, had a motor van. The family owned a concrete house, a dish-connected television and a refrigerator. Harishwa and Subrata were busy men; the best time to talk to them was after eight p.m. Harishwa was a fisherman in Orissa. During monsoon, when sea fishing was extremely risky, he worked as a wage labourer in one of the brick kilns. His wife Sabita pushed him for migration. Sabita narrated: He was not willing to come. The money he used to earn was insufficient for our family. I knew several people who settled in Bengal. Job

Politics of land-water-debt network 111 opportunity is good here. One can earn thousands simply by taking tourists to right hotels. (in February 2008) Informal sector earning opportunity was the primary cause of migration. The family was in contact with several others who had already migrated to Bengal. In 1991, Harishwa was contacted by a khechor – the local name of middlemen responsible for bringing in outsiders. The khechor helped him contact Param Mukherjee, a local CPIM leader. Harishwa sold his property in Orissa, and paid Mukherjee Rs. 35,000/- along with ten percent of his monthly income for years. His income enabled him to construct a temporary shelter on the seashore where several others were living: It was nice. As my income doubled, I could think of saving money for a new business. Initially, Mukherjee babu gave me a van-rickshaw to take tourists to the hotels . . . eventually I joined the fish trade. I purchase fish from fishermen and then send them to bigger markets. In our community fishing is highly valued, but it is not worth taking that risk for such a small amount of money, the wholesalers exploit us. (as told by Harishwa Shouda in January 2009) Finally, in 1998, Harishwa got four cottahs of land to construct a permanent building. While Harishwa’s earning was increasing, Mukherjee’s CPIM party was getting more funds: It was not easy to be entitled for permanent settlement. I had to pay strictly 10% of my earning every month . . . had to say ‘yes’ to whatever they decided, but I must say this system changed my life. My six years of hardship was paid off. (Harishwa Shouda in January 2009) The incremental increase in income brought joy to the family. CPIM helped Harishwa venture into the fish trade. After the party’s defeat in the assembly election, he stopped paying the ten percent of his income as party levy. The chance he took yielded positive results. However, others were not as lucky. Kalicharan Shyamal, a 53-year-old migrant, was living in a temporary shelter near the seacoast. Having abandoned his traditional occupation of fishing, Kalicharan came to Digha in 1993, in a similar process. He did not have the cash to dispense to the local party, but he paid in instalments for his shanty. He kept paying instalments for years, participated in CPIM rallies, supported the party, prepared and pasted posters during elections. Yet, he was not given a place to settle down. Kalicharan reluctantly took me to his hut once in January 2009: You city people will not like the place . . . its dirty, dark and may seem inhabitable to you.

112  Politics of land-water-debt network I went there in late afternoon to find 25 such constructions. Those were mud-floored, grass-thatched and bamboo-supported shacks. Kalicharan’s son ranted about the party’s failure in allotting land to these people. The village Panchayat constructed community latrines – as part of the Total Sanitation Programme: They did not have enough land to accommodate us. They promised hundreds to give land for permanent settlement, but only five-cottah of land was available. How could you feed so many from such a small cake? They [CPIM party cadres] told my father not to speak about the land they promised. We remained silent. Later on we found out that they made similar promises to several others. The local party cadres’ promises led all of them to support and work for the party, with the hope of getting permanent settlement. The failure to accommodate these people created unrest not only among the immigrants, but also among the other settlers. Each of the immigrants had close connection to other recent settlers. In other words, the settlers played an active role in bringing more immigrants. Most often they were their relatives, friends and neighbours. It appears that while CPIM had some vested land available, they allowed many to settle down in the shanty. Eventually, based on unconditional following of party instructions and the amount of money given, a handful could go for permanent settlement. Clearly, these people continued to work and vote for the party over decades. CPIM leaders and their political disappointments I met Subrata Sounda, a 53-year-old CPIM leader who was a respected figure in the area. He was a voracious reader and a regular visitor to the public library. He even followed my blogs on which he commented regularly for years. When I went to his house, I noticed the walls were stacked with piles of books. He was visibly disappointed with the party’s existing leaders. Subrata was one of the prominent figures who helped several outsiders settle down in the region. It was difficult to discuss politics with him. Rajen warned me about the possibility of Subrata falling completely silent about political matters. Since the 2003 election he was keeping himself away from politics, irrespective of the significant status of his past leadership. Initially Subrata tried to avoid the political issues in our conversation. His reluctance was the source of interest in meeting him occasionally. I decided to have a conversation with him privately. However, as we used to meet in the tea stalls it was difficult to talk to him privately, I eventually decided to make a visit to his house. I thought that the defeat of Subrata’s party might be a source of shame and embarrassment for him to open up about in public. In any public social

Politics of land-water-debt network 113 interaction, what is at stake is the image of self. Often the self is judged in public interaction, and a defeated party worker may thus feel vanquished.8 “Stage fright”9 indicates the anxieties of individuals about their “onstage” behaviour. This often makes people avoid encounters that might lead to embarrassment (see Scheff and Retzinger, 2000). In order to avoid these difficulties of talking in public, I made a visit to Subrata’s home on a winter morning in 2010. I had already spoken to his wife Paramita several times. His brother ran a cottage trade from home. I purchased several souvenirs and gift items from him. Then I began my conversation with Subrata. The informal atmosphere created a space for him to open up. Subrata joined CPIM in 1980s, and since then played a significant role in creating and strengthening the party’s political base in the region. Immigration started in the late 1980s. At that time, Subrata arranged for shelters for these poor people. It had twin advantages. First, involving them in the fish trade and local transport strengthened the party base; and second, their contribution to the party fund was a chief source of revenue. However, the situation began to change in 1990s especially with the rapidly growing tourism industry in the region: Several party cadres transformed themselves into middlemen . . . They began to purchase lands from villagers and sold it to outsiders, especially to the hotels. They formed syndicate to become building material suppliers and labour contractors. They grew ties with the police, local administration and hooligans. To retain power at the grassroots they started to bully people during elections. (as told in November 2009) Subrata highlighted the failure of the party machinery to retain control over the village-level cadres. As leaders like Subrata retreated, money was flowing in from outsiders who were willing to invest in the rising tourism industry of the region. CPIM began to lose its ground. When senior leaders pointed out to the local committee members and Panchayat members the possibility of an election defeat, the latter were reluctant to accept the fact. Later on, in March 2010, Subrata took me to two other senior CPIM party workers who bore similar grudges to the party for its inability to control money-hungry cadres. One of them, Sangram10 Jana, pointed at the basic human nature of reaping dividends from a common pool in order to satisfy self-interest: It is quite natural. Once a person sees easy money he loses his ideology and you know ideological training has stopped for quite long. Party leaders no longer take classes, read books or think for an equal society. When the ideological crisis became apparent, institutional mechanism could not regulate the activities of its cadres.

114  Politics of land-water-debt network However, knowing the exact mechanism through which CPIM party functioned apart from the allocation of land to the immigrants became important as well as challenging because of two reasons. First, it was hard to locate people who functioned as CPIM machinery, and second, it was risky to search for CPIM-minded people because of the sharp fulcrum and hatred between CPIM and TMC in the region. It required participation which I did primarily through repeated visits in the region from 2008 till 2016. Party workers, hooligan controllers and middlemen The land-related disputes were rooted in the CPIM-led LFG’s land reform movement which led to vesting of a significant amount of land originally aimed at redistribution. Subrata and three of his friends found a development of corrupt practices with vested land as Digha started gaining more tourist attention and new investors in hotel business were stepping in: In the name of revenue earning for the party, cadres continued to earn lakhs from the hotels and little portion was coming to the party fund . . . it was also the time when we started keeping a distance from the party . . . Subrata, because of his continuous reliance on the party, remained attached with CPIM and I must admit he was successful to allot some land to the landless and the poor immigrants . . . Of course, in exchange of money for the party. (as told by Amalendu Mukherjee, one of Subrata’s friends in January 2009) With my initial understanding about the nature of party involvement in land trade I started searching for people who were directly involved in such trades during the CPIM regime. Subrata as well as his friends helped me contact one of such local CPIM workers Saubhik Hazra, who by 2008 changed camp to become associated with the local TMC leaders D. Jana and M. Bar. Under their leadership the GP underwent a political change in 2003. Saubhik was a person in his early forties, a fish stockist and distributor. He was a local football player in his early adulthood. His interest in football helped him get involved in the land trade. In different conversations, he gradually revealed his involvement in the land-related corruptions: It all started with my football team. When we grew up, there was no television, no mobile phone, so we had time to play; in fact my friends at the playground were my best friends. During 1980s I started working for the CPIM party, in fact, we hardly had a choice. There was only one party which could command and rule over the common

Politics of land-water-debt network 115 people . . . they wanted youngsters like us to work along the party line. We filled their rallies, prepared posters for the party, eventually during my early twenties for the first time I thought about my own future. I had no career, I was a school drop-out and no one was ready to give me a job. (March 2009) The group of local youth was systematically brought under party control in such a way that people like Saubhik were compelled to make politics as a stepping stone for making money through different illegal ventures. My continuous association with Saubhik for next several field visits helped me observe his activities under TMC leadership closely. I ended up having more contacts with his friends and associates in the fish markets who dealt with the land and controlled local hooligans. They also had connections to developers and investors who were willing to invest in the hotel business. In several intensive informal group discussions during my evening sessions with Saubhik and his friends I began to understand the nature of local politics operated during the CPIM regime. They gave examples of several cases related to their involvement with the entire process of corrupt activities during the LFG regime. In the following section I present two cases that reflect the nature of operations with land and the use of hooligans in local politics. Forced displacement and the political game Souvik and his friends mentioned an incident in which a family conflict related to property was turned into a partisan one. It took place from 2003 onwards and the ultimate deal was made in 2005. Saubhik along with his friends argued that their role was to resolve the dispute between three brothers and two sisters on their rights over ten kottahs of land near the Digha Orissa main road. Only one of the five shareholders stayed at the place and others moved out because of occupational and marital compulsions. Excepting the elder brother Kartik Sounda who was the resident, others wanted to sell off the land. Kartik disagreed on such proposal. When these brothers and sisters failed to convince Kartik they contacted the local political leaders. Saubhik reflected: We wanted to convince Kartik to take money or take his share and move on, but he was adamant with his stance. So we started sending him our friends and agents with different monetary offers. Ultimately he agreed to take his portion, i.e., about two kottahs of land, but then he demanded the best location of the land. Promoters and investors disagreed on the proposal and we had to pressurise him. (told in February 2009)

116  Politics of land-water-debt network I thought I should meet Kartik Sounda and in 2011 I could finally trace him. I found him living in a concrete house in Tamluk – the district headquarters. He blamed the local CPIM party for his displacement: I wanted to have my plot located near the road. I have two sons. I could construct two stationary shops and they could run the family. However, the party did not agree to my proposal. None of my family members ever visited us; instead I had to face offers from party goons and I was afraid. Kartik Sounda’s wife Mira Sounda reflected on the day-to-day problems which the party created throughout those years: [T]here was no peace at all . . . local goons were coming every day and convincing us to leave the place. It was a terror-filled situation. I thought it was better to leave than to fight these people. However, Kartik Sounda did not think it was a right decision to quit: I should have fought till the end to save the property. The money we got was nothing compared to the location of our land. I know the party boys have taken a considerable amount and I also know even if I could fight, my peace of mind would have completely shattered. The strategy was to create a fearful atmosphere. Sending a gang of people was a local form of exerting pressure. Saubhik found it effective, in his words, “it makes the work done”. Although in group discussions he legitimised his stance simply because it was the “best deal”. He argued that even if Kartik Shounda could manage to stay within his two kottahs of land that, “he [kartik] had to face severe problems with the hotel . . . sex trade is lucrative business here. Digha is also famous for alcohol tourism”. However, in isolated conversations Saubhik accepted what they did was wrong. He argued that: Everyone was purchased; the investor already had a couple of hotels here. He had significant influence over local administration. The police were already bribed; even district level CPIM leaders were also involved. We were asked to make the deal smoother. We imposed five lakhs on the investor and the money came from the investor’s pocket. When I asked about Subrata’s involvement he replied that Subrata and his friends were “real communists” and they simply faded away from the party. Use of hooligans in extending political control As there was a constant use of hooligans in land-related corrupt practices, these people were also involved in using violent means to extend political

Politics of land-water-debt network 117 control both by CPIM and TMC. In the 2003 election, when political changeover took place, one of the TMC supporters was killed because of an armed fight between CPIM and TMC. In the 2008 election, another fight took place between two groups of hooligans. One group was associated with TMC and another with CPIM. The fight took place because there was strict instruction from the TMC top leadership to increase the percentage of the TMC vote, to ensure TMC’s win in the Panchayat Samiti which was under CPIM leadership until 2008. Saubhik took me to Sahabuddin in 2009. He is one of the most notorious personalities of the region. Sahabuddin was in close contact with Saubhik and his friends from the very beginning. On the day of election, Sahabuddin with his gang stood at the main entrance, i.e., the Digha bypass to prevent any intrusion of armed hooligans from CPIM. They successfully prevented CPIM’s intrusion. There were exchanges of bullets and bomb blasts, which resulted in severe injury of a Sahabuddin’s gang member. One of CPIM’s gang members was also injured and taken away in their vehicle. The entire event was covered by an important Bengali electronic media houses. Sahabuddin argued that it would have been more damaging if the media was not with them. Because of the instruction from the highest leadership of TMC and CPIM the news, however, was not aired: I was walking on the bridge with my gun. They were the first to fire and then I shoot back. There was no bullet injury. It was the peto [locally made hand held bombs carrying pieces of iron and glass] that hit one of their men. They drifted away because behind our vehicle we had a popular media house covering the event. Saubhik and his friends argue that people like Sahabuddin would work for any political party, through any mechanism if paid well: [T]hey need money, wine and women. We provide them whatever they ask for. You need to gain control over these people in order to ensure election process goes in your favour. During my fieldwork, I witnessed that TMC used Sahabuddin to gain control over several local and grassroots informal sector organisations which were under CPIM’s control. After Nandigram incident which resulted in massive protests against LFG, this snatching of grassroots organisations became smoother, but not without violence. Sahabuddin and Saubhik reflected on their involvement with CPIM earlier and then with the TMC party. Saubhik concluded: Use of violence is important to continue the fight against CPIM’s regimentation . . . these people help us to win over CPIM’s gunmen, otherwise it is true that we already had the majority. There were several failed attempts from CPIM’s part to convince villagers to vote for them . . . it is important in village politics to show the strength of arms and muscles.

118  Politics of land-water-debt network Otherwise, people tend to underestimate the strength of a particular political party. We organise procession of bike riders to roam around villages to show our strength. It also makes the opposition fear us. I have seen even during my subsequent field visits, although the Digha main road and tourist spots are calm and quiet, but villages a few kilometres from the main centres experience regular conflict and violence. Constant use of violence continued to be an important feature of the election in the region. The strength of a political party was equated with their ability to create and sustain such ambiance throughout the year which increased as the day of election approached. Procession with a gang of bikers carrying the TMC flag was a frequent phenomenon before the 2008 election. Slogans, accelerating sounds of motorbikes and air filled with dust resulted in a mix of fear and awe among the villagers. I could sense the feeling of fear deep inside. Organising such rallies was as important as preventing others from organising similar rallies. This initiatives and prevention went on for months. Canvassing through posters on different walls and organising small-scale street meetings were other mechanisms to show the strength of a party. Several conflicts occurred months before the actual election. Villagers were made aware of the nature of organisational – as well as gun and muscle –strength that each of the political parties had. In Saubhik’s words: If this is done successfully, any political party can win the election. Election is nothing but a result of the entire activities that you organise for maintaining your power. It is true that we do prevent opposition voters from coming to the polling station but that is not the entire story. You really cannot gain that strength if you do not constantly contest with the oppositions and successfully prevent them from letting people know about their strength. This is precisely the reason any political party requires people like Sahabuddin . . . Since, Sahabuddin is under my control, so I am favoured by the TMC, just like CPIM favoured me earlier. Frequent conflicts were taking place before the 2008 and 2009 elections. Eventually, I found that several CPIM grassroots organisations came under TMC’s dictation and the extent of violence lessened to a significant extent. There were incidents of conflicts within factions of TMC but the interparty clashes reduced, if not totally stopped, by 2010. TMC’s use of violence I started my work by tapping CPIM workers who already lost their command over the people. However, I already knew the nature of TMC’s political activities in the region from some of the TMC cadres. I frequently visited local tea stalls where people used to talk for hours. I could listen to the details of regular clashes between CPIM and TMC, especially during election

Politics of land-water-debt network 119 period or during the period when there were changes of political affiliations in any of the grassroots organisations. Interestingly, political division was invisible at least within the villages in everyday village life. TMC and the CPIM followers despite of their political differences talked for hours in the tea stalls, played card regularly. They even discussed politics with fun. Several CPIM supporters even after their defeat in 2011 sportingly accepted teasing comments made by TMC supporters. Often they threw back similar comments regarding TMC. However, I could sense the village level polarisation when I tried to communicate with prominent faces of TMC. Local middlemen like Saubhik refused to help me establish contact with these leaders. They were not allowed to be openly associated with TMC, until the 2009 parliamentary election. However, there were several erstwhile CPIM cadres reporting their disgust with the party. I started communicating with them. One such booth-level TMC workers Sudeb Shyamal said: Our family gave everything for CPIM party. My father paid a good part of his earning to the party for years. They did nothing in exchange. In the 2003 Panchayat Election, they tried to capture the booth. We have witnessed bomb explosions. One of the villagers died. You city people will never know . . . the media did not care! (in January 2009) Since I showed interest to know further, Sudeb took me to M. Bar, a TMC leader of the region. M. Bar agreed to give us an appointment in the evening at the local fish-stocking centre. We were asked to sit in the now-TMC-­controlled fish traders’ association office. After 2009, the association transformed its political identity from CPIM to TMC. M. Bar, along with others, focused on accumulated disgust of local men over the CPIM’s rules. I could not probe deeper as they kept harping on CPIM’s failure in understanding people’s pulse, the party’s involvement in the money-making game, the people’s trust in the TMC supreme, as the reasons for the political changeover. On my return I decided to talk to M. Bar personally to know their mechanisms of extending political control over the region. I also decided to speak with other TMC workers and leaders to know what happened there, apart from the hooligan-dominated politics with which I was already quite familiar. On the very next day, in our evening tea session with Sudeb and many other TMC workers, I met D. Jana, another well-known TMC leader of the region. He believed that local grievances were responsible for the political change in the region. The TMC’s mass rally and their increased communication with common people also contributed to their victory. While coming back from the tea stall, I decided to have intensive discussion with Sudeb and others who were key players at the grassroots level. My eventual association with Sudeb gave me enough room to have more intimate and personal discussions about their political strategies. Whenever I asked direct questions Sudeb’s concise replies were restricted to his

120  Politics of land-water-debt network admiration for the local leaders. Once I asked him to reflect on the grassroots party workers and not about the leaders. With a smile Sudeb projected himself as a rule-obeying worker under his leader M. Bar. Sudeb was a footballer. M. Bar used to be a good player himself. He organised many matches, cultural programmes and trained many including Sudeb. So, he believed that whenever M. Bar asked for something, it ought to be for good. In late 2009 Sudeb took me to the local akhra – a place where he and his friends did physical exercises. I called M. Bar to join us for the evening get-together. He came and we started to discuss issues related to GP-based local politics. Local and regional issues after 2000 added to people’s disappointment with the CPIM leadership in GP 3. At that time, existing Congress leaders were confused about their stance. Congress had an alliance with CPIM to form United Progressive Alliance (UPA) to form the central government. The Congress “High Command” instructed them to remain modest in their reaction against the CPIM. While the situation in GP 3 and the adjacent region demanded a strong anti-CPIM movement, the Congress senior leadership remained inactive. In early 2001, a TMC central committee member contacted M. Bar. He was then a disgruntled Congress worker with considerable command over young adults of the region. He mentioned his initial confusion of whether to join the TMC. However, he made up his mind as in his words “the situation demanded”. TMC was the only available option to fight against the CPIM. M. Bar recalled his initial estimation of the possible ways to gain more support. He started organising rallies against CPIM under TMC banner. In the beginning, people like Sudeb participated. Bar was threatened by both the CPIM and the Congress. However, the situation changed rapidly as the small group of young men led by him started to communicate with each villager: soon, I found overwhelming support from the local people . . . and slowly we understood we could win the 2003 Panchayat Election. While I conveyed this perception to our district leaders, I started getting more funds to better organise these rallies. When you have the funds you are able to seize powerful groups. (in February 2011) The coupling of support base creation and use of power groups were TMC’s strategies for the election. Funding was not a constraint. M. Bar and his team started to stand by everyone in need. They formed a team of young people who would combat and intervene in personal crises of the villagers: We knew we did not have power to do public works, but we could help people to meet their personal needs. For example, we helped people in medical emergency, property related conflicts and we stood beside women in need. (in February 2011)

Politics of land-water-debt network 121 They effectively utilised individual requirements to strengthen their support base in the region. In early 2002, they began to organise meetings and public rallies. They gave speeches for hours without microphones. Several young people, not directly attached to any political parties, began to discuss the CPIM’s mistakes openly. In May 2002, M. Bar was invited in a meeting with district-level TMC leaders. Other Panchayat leaders in Purba Medinipur participated to discuss their political strategies. M. Bar and his fellow party worker D. Jana expressed their fear about possible booth capture by the CPIM in GP 3: One of the senior party members assured us that no matter what it took we must stop every illegal activity in our booth. The party was ready to provide us with adequate funds to prepare for possible action. (in February 2011) Accordingly, Jana and Bar tried to acquire men with “arms and muscles” to prepare for clashes in the region. However, it was difficult to acquire men from the area where the CPIM had a stronghold. District-level leaders provided external aid by sending men from outside. This was also the time when they managed to buy a few people who had control over the local hooligans primarily because of their business needs: External help was not enough and we needed help from local groups to sustain our political control over the region. You know there is nothing called ideology. It is all about money and we were successful to involve some of the local power groups. They were not party workers but we needed them during election. (in February 2011) Taking external help and involving some of the local hooligans in exchange for money indicate the prominent use of violence in the elections. Later on, D. Jana told me that they were confident about winning the election, but it was necessary to ensure proper voting. They continued to keep in contact with local power groups. GP 3 was not declared as politically sensitive in 2003. Security arrangement, therefore, was moderate. On the day of the election at 10:30 a.m., a group of outsiders first started to gather around one of the booths, near Digha Bypass. This group was sent by the CPIM. Another group of similar character was called by TMC. Within minutes the second group appeared near the school. Two groups started to fight with each other. Four handheld bombs were charged and one of the villagers died on the spot. M. Jana suffered from serious head injury. As already discussed, similar fights took place in the 2008 Panchayat election as well. However, 2009, 2011, 2013 and 2014 elections were peaceful.

122  Politics of land-water-debt network Local politics and Panchayat decisions In GP 3, I could not directly observe and participate in development-related decisions taken by the CPIM and in consequence I had to depend on the memories of the people whom I interviewed. During my initial phases of fieldwork I could find thee major demands of the local people viz. electrification, roads and drainage and proper distribution of MGNREGS work. The demand for electrification was there since the CPIM regime. In fact, one of the major sources of grievances of villagers was the misbehaviour of GP members when they demanded electrification. There was a stark difference in the distribution of public works in terms of the number of concrete roads, electrification and availability of drinking water between different Sansads. There were two approaching roads towards the GP office. The one that came from the Digha bypass was lateritic and partly concreted and the other was earthen. Subrata, on behalf of CPIM, argued that “the shortage of fund, emphasis on making effective connectivity with the main road, conflicting demands because of factions within the party” were the main reason for such discrepancies. During the left regime, most of the public services were distributed by making two primary divisions between two factions within CPIM: This division was a result of the disagreements which we had with Local committee members . . . the other group became more powerful because of their involvement in fish business and land dealings. They had their representatives in three out of ten Sansads and therefore we had to give them more or less 30% of the total development initiatives. We did not have any control over how they allocate their portion of the resource, and of course they have bypassed local demands . . . this is also the group which quickly allied with the TMC after the political changeover. (Subrata in March 2009) While villagers reflected on the lack of initiatives from Panchayat’s end in delivery of public services, discussions with party cadres indicated political factions resulted in skewed allocation of public services. The local political cadres, most notably booth party workers of CPIM, in several group discussions reflected on two steps being followed for making decisions related to delivery of public services. First, whatever fund or work is sanctioned, 30% of it went to the weaker faction and the rest remained with the stronger faction of the CPIM: It was an instruction from the top level leaders. We have heard that the instruction came directly from district secretary. The weaker faction had enough influence over the district level leaders. There were several instances where Panchayat decisions were overruled by the district

Politics of land-water-debt network 123 committee. There were regular tensions between us. Finally in 2002 it was decided that entire resource whichever comes to the Panchayat will be divided following that 70:30 rule. (a CPIM cadre in a group discussion on January 2009) In the second step, resource allocation was done according to the “felt need”: Earlier decisions were made after intensive discussion with the booth level workers. We used to play critical role in making development related decisions. Eventually the situation started to change especially 2002 onwards. Decisions were taken by the district leaders who knew nothing about the local demands. (reported by Saurabh Adhikari, one of the booth-level CPIM cadres in the same group discussion) CPIM booth-level workers cited several examples where construction of roads, drainage and installation of tube-wells were done undermining actual needs. In TMC regime there were different strategies for allocation of different kinds of public services. Allocation of individual-benefiting schemes such as IAY, IGNOAPS and MGNREGS demanded complete political patronage on behalf of the beneficiary. TMC looked for the history of the beneficiary, whether s/he had an active CPIM affiliation or not. The second most important criterion was the amount of bribe the beneficiary was willing to pay to access the service. For IAY it was somewhere around 5 to 10 thousand rupees in cash. However, this amount was negotiable based on economic condition and nature of association of the beneficiary with TMC. For getting IGNOAPS there was no hard and fast rule. As one of the booth-level workers reflected: “often the family members are willingly pay some amount to pace up the process”. TMC demanded bribes to quicken the process of service delivery and people paid the money. In case of IAY it was informally known and accepted that without such bribery a beneficiary would never get his/her work done. Because of proximity of the sea, farming was never profitable in GP 3. Yet most of the families were either traditionally farmers or fishers. As a consequence, there was a substantive demand for MGNREGS works, especially during the dry season. The most important criterion for getting MGNREGS work was attendance at TMC rallies in the region, as well as in the state capital, Kolkata. A family would get less than 15 days of work if its members were not ready to pay about ten percent of their earnings from the MGNREGS to the party. However, relaxations existed for those families which had at least one individual working actively with the party. Only providing external support to TMC was not sufficient for entitlements in such discounts. Decisions were taken in different meetings conducted under the leadership of Anchal Samiti Sabhapati. M. Bar was the Sabhapati and Sahakari

124  Politics of land-water-debt network Sabhapati (assistant secretary) was Mr. Jana. The booth-level workers played a critical role in providing the list of possible beneficiaries. Sudeb argued that in this system most of the influential booth-level workers were engaged in making the negotiations with the beneficiary regarding the bribe. A percentage of the bribe went to the party fund and the rest remained with the cadres to meet their day-to-day needs. M. Bar and D. Jana did not take money which came from the collection of such bribes. They ran a syndicate of building materials from which GP purchased each and every time they were supposed to initiate public works. Since 2010 onwards they also became contractors and because of their political influence most of the road-related public works were done by their agency.

*** In the beginning of this section on GP 3, I discuss principal agent relationships as a key feature to the study of corruption. Here the corrupt practices are revolving around small-scale land grabs. I argue that relationships between the electorate, elected officials, and local leaders in their functional and hierarchical attribution of roles and functions determine the nature of corrupt practices. To explore such roles, I have found a link between corrupt practices and attempts to exercise political control in the region. One of the most prominent features of local politics in GP 3 is the use of violence to extend political control. Although, it appears as a strategy of the political leaders to use violence to continue their dominance over the electorate and grassroots informal sector organisations, these violent practices have other predispositions as well. People who maintain constant contact with local goons, work closely with and often get patronage from the political parties in terms of illegal “relaxation” from the local administration. These people used to have direct party affiliation during the CPIM regime, but at present TMC maintains an apparent distance from them. In exchange for patronage, such as extension of illegal administrative advantages from party, they provide support at the time of interparty clashes. This form of exchange indicates a fuzzy but important linkage with corruption, violence and local politics. The exchange relationship between such groups which can sponsor violence at the time of election with the local leaders is a form of tolerance and allowance of corruption. I track the history of such corrupt practices in the region. These corrupt practices are rooted in CPIM-led land allocation initiatives. Instead of allotting land to the sharecroppers, CPIM leaders in 1980s started to allocate land to the immigrants in exchange for money. This practice helped the party to consolidate their political base in the region and earn revenue. With the capital flow in the tourism industry, the corrupt practices related to land allocation change their forms to become more aggressive land grabs. It is important to note that the section of people who are involved

Politics of land-water-debt network 125 in such corrupt practices quickly changed their political affiliation from CPIM and TMC and continue to play a significant role even after political changeover. This feature of the continuation of corruption reflects its order and predictability. It forms what is often termed as a culture of corruption (Hirschman, 1982). A parallel development of corrupt practice is witnessed in the delivery of public services through GP as well. Although, broadly speaking, bypassing local councils (Gram Sabha) and making decisions related to the delivery of public services is itself a corrupt practice, but corrupt practices go beyond this and involve commissioning and bribery. Almost every one of the ­­individual-benefiting schemes is exchanged with bribery. The public works such as construction of roads are also linked with corrupt practices. The formation of syndicate of material supply by the local leaders hints towards such practices. Another significant issue is the passive role of the public sphere. As the chapter reflects, there is almost a complete absence of the role of public sphere to influence the decisions or hinder corrupt practices in the region. Understandably, with regular conflicts in election a fear of violence is one of major reasons that make people to remain silent. Nevertheless, the practice of bribery indicates that there is a taken-for-granted attitude in the public sphere to accept the corrupt means of exchange. Since bribery speeds up the process of decision-making or enables a person to become entitled for certain services, people accept it as a standard means of exchange at the local governance institution, a feature which indicates the development of a culture of corruption in the region.

Land issues in broad spectrum It appears that land is acting both as a source of livelihoods and a source of dependency for people in West Bengal. It is one of the most important issues primarily because of the nature of people’s dependence on land and related resources. The Census of India (2011) shows that being an agriculture dependent state with 2.7% of India’s land, West Bengal has one of the densest populations of the state, supporting over 7.55% of India’s total populace. GoWB (2017) notes that there are 71.23 lakh farm families of whom 96% are small and marginal farmers. It is only natural that a state which has historically been mobilised based on land in LFG-led widely recognised land reform would definitely develop a particular attachment with it. Abhijit Guha has done extensive ethnographies on the issues of land grabs in West Bengal to conclude that LF thought West Bengal in 1990s to be an ideal ground for “Industrialisation through Land Reform” – which faced backlash only when it got wide attention (Guha, 2017b). Although the landrelated movements of Singur and Nandigram were widely known about, Guha through his fieldwork reveals that peasant resistance against corporate giants has started at different places but remained unfocused on by

126  Politics of land-water-debt network mainstream media and Kolkata-based intellectuals (Guha, 2007a, 2007b). Guha’s different publications related to land appearing in scholarly journals including Economic and Political Weekly indicate the historicity and factual presence of land-people attachment. To make conclusions, I would like to give emphasis on a core issue that land plays a pivotal role in West Bengal’s political economy. It is land that determines much of the fate of politics at different places, especially in places where it is considered a valuable resource. The three cases of this chapter strongly resonate towards such a contention. I would like to make a few points here: 1 We can imagine land as a primary source of livelihoods in Bardhaman and Paschim Medinipur, but these two have two completely different connotations. In Bardhaman, we have seen that because of an agent’s position in existing local hierarchy and credit networks there is an existence of symbolic capital (Bourdieu, 1984). If we look at the social capital that the powerful families have in Bardhaman and the ways in which their relative control over the weaker section continues because of their relative position in the local community, we can clearly make out a kind of dependency by weaker sections which is rooted in economic position but goes beyond it. Such dependency is aided by stagnation of farming economy as discussed vividly by Desai, D’Souza, Mellor, Sharma, and Tamboli (2011), and lack of formal credit facility and stark reduction in the percentage of small and marginal borrowers from the banking sector since 1990s (Shetty, 2009). In such a context, the dependency and exploitation out of this dependency ought to increase and such places as Bardhaman can be seen as one of such prominent examples. However, if we look at the practices of strictly “non-farm” employment of villagers, the nature of conflict between lower and middle tier is indicative. It simply means that even the non-farm employment is often but not always linked to farming and land such as the nature of tasks of cold-storage middlemen. It is nevertheless equally important to look at the nature of political practices, and when we do that we find complete chaos. While there is a continuity of dominance of the landed class of a region which has the advantage of symbolic capital over other forms of exchange relationships, relatively weaker sections have also been able to form coalitions according to the nature of their social capital and often eked out decisions in their favour. Hence, looking at the structural and agency issues in West Bengal politics, especially in politics related to farming and land, is operating in a distinctive formulation than it is usually thought of. 2 The nature of dependency changes according to context and the Salboni, JSW case is one such example. It not only explains the ways in which different people have different natures of dependence even on land which is officially barren and vested but also throws some important

Politics of land-water-debt network 127 questions, such as: (a) Is it enough to give compensation or it is equally important to guide people in their investment decisions? (b) Is it all right to go for large-scale industrial projects before addressing local economic needs so that if the corporation fails such as JSW did, the locals remain at least economically unaffected? 3 The third issue is related to small-scale land grabs, which most frequently remains unnoticed and unreported. Although, the declared agenda of TMC has been not to take away lands from its owner forcibly, even when it is for public interest, there is micro-level dispossession, which needs to be taken quite seriously. Finally, before going towards the ethnography series II, which would deal more directly with political violence and subsequent construction of “cultural misrecognitions”, I would like to re-emphasise the fact that broadly the political change has failed to mobilise people from below. Although, scholars like Ranabir Samaddar (2016a, 2016b) have tried to establish a linkage between the rise of TMC with subaltern movements and subalternisation of politics, empirical findings do not substantiate it. Rather, if one looks at the caste identity of the TMC leaders and ministers it is quite the opposite. There are evidences of grassroots movements, but there is a serious lack of “organic intellectuals” in Gramsci’s (1971) term, which is supposed to contest the dominant class’s hegemonic foundations and make class consciousness a theoretical knowledge. Hence, if we kind of attempt to explain what has happened in places where land is important in a nutshell is this: (a) With a few exceptions, such as few raising voices and subtle mechanisms of power subversion, the landed class continues to dominate local politics and economic decisions; (b) even with the declared anti-acquisition stand, small-scale land grabs are rampant in the state; and (c) in order to comprehend TMC’s politics, it’s important to look at other aspects, which I will discuss in details in my second series of ethnographies.

Notes 1 Bronislaw Malinowski, because of his compulsory stay at the Trobriand Island in Melanesia, developed a distinct method of doing research while staying with the community on whom you are doing research. It is supposed to yield superior information about the people, especially if you are expected to better understand their perception – a notion that has since been valued and dominated anthropological literature. 2 Scholars like Rudolph and Rudolph (2003), Aronoff (1974, 1989, 1993) have also worked with ethnographic sensibility. 3 West Bengal State Election Commission Data. Retrieved August 29, 2014, from http://wbsec.gov.in/%28S%28armgruftbixo0wjnxygsla55%29%29/Home.aspx 4 I have written a popular article on this particular case in Exploring Development and Anandabazar Patrika. The details are as follows: Suman Nath. 2013. Water Politics: Notes from Bardhaman, West Bengal. Exploring Development. Institute of Social Sciences. Retrieved from http://expldev.wordpress.com/2013/03/15/

128  Politics of land-water-debt network water-politics-notes-from-bardhaman-west-bengal-suman-nath/ and in Bengali as Nath, Suman. 2013. Joler Dor Thik Kore Rajniti, Tai Chash Kore Labh Thake Naa Chhoto Chashir (Politics decide water price, hence farming is no longer profitable for marginal farmers) in Anandabazar Patrika. Retrieved from www. anandabazar.com/archive/1130420/20raj10.html 5 In fact, I argue that this social capital is the thing on which the Government of India has experimented its demonetisation initiatives in 2016 and people actually survived. See my blog post on it: http://sumanparole.blogspot.in/2017/06/ demonetisation-banking-on-social.html 6 At present there is a cement factory being set up. There is another cement factory nearby, allegedly, both of them pollute the place and people are not at all happy with a cement factory instead of steel industry. 7 Literally means armed mercenaries. From 2008 onwards CPIM deployed armed mercenaries in forested districts of the state (popularly known as the Junglemahal) where significant Maoist activities are reported. I have discussed such activities in Chapter 4. 8 Goffman (1955) has discussed on the loss of sense of self. 9 As argued by Geertz (1973), see particularly the chapter on “Person, time, and conduct in Bali.” 10 Sangram belongs to a family of communists. His father was an important member of the undivided communist party. His name literally means “struggle” – hallmark of communism. I have used fake names, but he insisted that if I ever write something about this fieldwork, I must use his real name because of this significance! So here I go, twisting ethics of ethnography.

4 Violence, counterpublics and the rise of cultural misrecognitions

ONE Counterpublics rise of cultural misrecognitions: ethnography series II West Bengal has witnessed numerous instances of popular movements a few years before 2011. As already discussed, political change in 2011 is often linked with land-related movements organised by TMC in Singur and Nandigram. Such a notion has been contested by Bardhan et al. (2014) through their sample survey. However, social movements have always been important in West Bengal politics. Before the LFG came to power the state had witnessed the Naxalbari peasant movement, which also involved a section of students of Kolkata. The then-Congress government used police machinery and allegedly fake “encounters” to stop the uprising. Our generation which doesn’t have a direct experience of the movement, which is said to have ended in 1977, has been told the stories of such movements in a variety of ways. For example, my parents relate the movement with merciless killing of the police forces and mass hysteria of the young people. One of my neighbourhood uncles narrates the bravery of their generation which we actually lack. He used to ridicule our generation in the name of self-­centeredness. Many of my friends’ parents see it as a deviation – a result of brainwashing by ideologically strong but selfish leaders. One thing is common, our parents never told us to be a part of or organise any movement against the state. I remember, once as part of the Bangabasi College students’ union, we participated in a road blockade at College Street, Kolkata. We blocked the road for hardly more than fifteen minutes, and then police came and we ran off. After listening to our experience, each of our parents panicked and thought this might be the beginning of another students’ unrest. As I have already pointed out, politics is a thing to discuss in drawing rooms, but not something to be practised. Even today, the students’ politics apart from moving examples like Jadavpur University’s famous “#HokKolorob” (which literally means “let there be noise!”) which was actively supported by students from Presidency University (erstwhile

130  Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions Presidency College) as well, is reduced to gheraos to allow students for examination who didn’t attend classes regularly. I remember in our college days we often had to participate in rallies with slogans like “you have to give answers, or you have to leave the chair!” – we hardly knew who will give the answer? Who is sitting on what chair? And why should s/he leave the chair? I am pretty sure that even our class representatives didn’t know. However, the situation was a little different when we studied at the University. At least we were informed about the issue. We could question and strike up a debate. However, even though the situation is apparently depressing, in major issues after we completed our post-graduations we could see people taking to the streets on issues of Singur and Nandigram, or of late against religious polarisation. Guha (2007a, 2017b) argues that Kolkata-based intellectuals took some time to respond against land acquisition. The popular movements have been rather selective. For example, although there were movements in Singur and Nandigram, such movements failed to address the JSW land acquisition-related issues in Salboni, Paschim Medinipur as I have discussed in the previous chapter. Guha did a detailed study on another case of land acquisition by Tata Group and associated problems. This case has also gone unnoticed by mainstream media, politics as well as the public intellectuals (Guha, 2007b). I agree with Guha (2007b) about the delayed and sometimes biased response of the intellectuals from the public sphere in West Bengal. This is precisely the reason that I have searched for sustained social movements which has been spontaneous and not aided by city-based intellectuals, and have studied their fate over several years. This section carries two such instances from two western districts of West Bengal, viz. Paschim Medinipur and Bankura. Both of these places have seen an armed struggle between the Communist Party of India Maoist (henceforth Maoist) and an informal counter-force installed by CPIM, known as Harmad Bahini. In the first case, I have discussed in detail, the development of spontaneous protest politics against such armed struggle in Goaltor region of Paschim Medinipur district. In the second case, I have shown in what ways the violent armed struggle and subsequent political change has ultimately given rise to a distinct form of “cultural misrecognition” – which is a political strategy used by the TMC. I argue that such misrecognition is ontologically different from erstwhile party society and has a lot to say about the political characteristics of the state in the near future. I Political violence, counterpublics and the role of Gram Panchayat in GP 4, Paschim Medinipur In GP 4 the dialectics between people and Panchayat is mediated by the CPIM party through violent means. I explore two things: first, the ways in which the party tried to address Maoist movement and kept losing their

Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions 131 mass base because of the use of violence. Second, I have explored in what ways counterpublics movement against the CPIM-sponsored mercenaries have accelerated the political change in the region. I focus on ways in which CPIM misused GP resources to fund their violent activities. It is seen that later on the GP became integrated with the counterpublics movement. Let us have a brief idea about GP 4. It would take you about five hours from Kolkata to get down at Chandrakona Road railway station, which is about 20 km from GP 4. Before you reach the station, you would cross a couple of stretches of forest. It is the place where Jnaneswari Express was derailed, allegedly by the Maoists, in a scorching hot May, 2010. The railways could not take any further risk and no express train was allowed to go through the railway track in the night. It was serious enough to change timetables of several important express trains going towards the southern part of the country, including the business capital, Mumbai. I remember during my marriage I had to inform our friends coming from Mumbai to check the rescheduled timetable beforehand. It wasn’t formally declared rescheduling, but every day stations would announce that those trains would run six or eight hours late due to unavoidable circumstances. We all knew the reason was Maoist activities in the region. Once you reach GP 4, you would find it rather pleasant, calm and quiet. Few villagers had access to the CRPF camp. A few of them had knowledge about Maoist camps as well. I knew none of them have ever informed on each other to CRPF or the Maoists. However, the situation started to change rapidly once there were armed mercenaries, Harmad Bahinis, formed from within the villages. Apart from some sporadic sounds of gunshots in the night, there was nothing significant. I was always told that the Maoist camps are located at difficult terrains deep inside the forest and that they never came nearby. However, whenever I encountered wood collectors inside the forest, they were afraid of me. I used to carry a global positioning system (GPS) device, and frequently wore cargo pants and a black t-shirt. In my later enquiry, I could understand their fear is rooted in their experience of sudden encounters with a group of Maoists or CRPF.1 Quite understandably people do not have good memories of such encounters. Apart from these, GP 4 is a wonderful place to stay. You can see thousands of trees literally whispering forest narratives in your ears! In winter, you can listen to the sound of fallen leaves on your way to different villages. In the night, you can listen to the sound of fox, owls and deer, and can fantasise yourself in the middle of some jungle expedition like you have seen on the National Geographic channel. Yes, GP 4 falls within the forested region of Paschim Medinipur and is well known for Maoist activities. My first visit to this region was a few days after Maoists strongly manifested their presence with a landmine blast targeting then-Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan (NDTV, 2008). Maoists took responsibility for the blast. State-deployed police forces which resulted in indiscriminate

132  Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions arrest of villagers, especially the tribal people of the region (Sanhati, 2010). As a protest against such indiscriminate arrests, villagers formed PCPA and blocked the roads. The blockade was removed forcibly on November 18, 2008 (The Telegraph, 2008). These movements clearly suggested that Maoists effectively used the local sentiments against police atrocities to mobilise a movement (known as the PCPA-led Lalgarh movement) against the state. The major political parties of the state expressed their inability to regulate the tribal people (Ray, 2008). Eventually the alliance of PCPA leader Chhatradhar Mahato and Maoists was established and he was arrested. In order to combat Maoist killings of the CPIM leaders (Chenoy and Chenoy, 2010; see also www.satp.org for more details) the party initially formed Gram Shanti Rakhsha Bahini (GSRB) (lit. village peace-keeping force). Later on, they formed Harmad Bahini, by involving armed mercenaries. The existence of such mercenaries surfaced in Netai2, which got wide media attention. In consequence, these forces were taken back and CPIM leaders absconded. Throughout this phase, GP 4 witnessed a counterpublics movement which escalated the political change. To explain such dynamics, I will locate this work theoretically with the theories of protest politics and counterpublics. With my ethnographic engagements in GP 4 region where Maoist and ­Counter-Maoist movement took place, I show the ways in which counterpublics movement was formulated and how these movements revolved around and shaped much of the GP-based politics in places like this. Protest politics and organic intellectuals Protests are seen as dangerous clashes threatening the public order with a view of emotionalised and madding crowd (McPhail, 1991), blind fury and irrational behaviour (Mousnier, 1968; Beloff, 1938). This negative impression about protest politics is replaced by perspectives that consider protest politics as fairly rational and instrumental means to promote a political or social cause. Protest is seen as a political resource (Lipski, 1968) and sometimes quite effective (Gamson, 1990). Resource mobilisation and rational choice theories are the strongest contestants of the irrational behaviour approach. McCarthy and Zald (1977), Tilly (1978), McAdam (1982) and Tarrow (1998) explore cognitive aspects of protest mobilisation, political processes and contexts. Rational choice theorists, on the other hand, focus on individuals and their choices as they are endowed with the capacity to calculate costs and benefits coming out of protests (Finkel, Muller, and Opp, 1989; Muller, 1986; Opp, 1989; Chong, 1991). As protest politics is entangled with the everydayness of the politics in most of the democratic countries (Barnes et al., 1979; Jennings et al., 1990, Norris, 2002; Dalton, 2002, 2004, Fuchs, 1991), using a Foucauldian notion of power better explains the situation. Foucault in most of his writings like The History of Sexuality (1978), Power/Knowledge (1980), The Birth of the Clinic (1975) and Discipline and Punish (1991), analyses the interaction between institutions

Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions 133 and groups of people in affirming or resisting those effects. Contrary to the notion of power as something which is possessed by a handful of people and which is concerned only with oppression, he goes beyond the dichotomy of power haves and power have-nots. He further argues that even in its most constraining and oppressive measures, power is productive which gives rise to new forms of behaviour (Foucault, 1978). Foucault claims that one should treat power as a verb rather than a noun. In his book Power/Knowledge, Foucault explains: “Power must be analysed as something which circulates or as something which only functions in the form of a chain. . . . Power is employed and exercised through a net like organisation. . . . Individuals are the vehicles of power not its points of application” (Foucault, 1980, p. 98). In conceptualising power as a net-like organisation we can see power as systems of relations where individuals are not simply the recipient of power but are the places where power is also resisted. The notion of power in individual agency over the system or structure becomes apparent. In a democratic context, studying power as net-like organisation recalls Habermas’s (1989) theorization of the “public sphere” as a democratic and non-coercive sphere in social life. Being a discursive space, issues of mutual interest and difference can only be resolved by deliberation and rational dialogue. Civil society according to Habermas is grounded in this sphere, where the “public” is an autonomous authority, separated from the state and the private sphere of civil society. Although the public sphere is accorded with high democratic principles of citizenship and equality, Habermas, nevertheless, questions the nature of “public” involved in the public sphere, which is already structured by power relations and hierarchy. This question is aptly addressed by Gramsci (1971). He finds civil society as a buffer between the state and public sphere where hegemony of the bourgeoisie prevails. It helps us understand the impediments, which prevent a Habermasian open dialogue in the public sphere (Gramsci, 1971). The sphere of civil society is already biased towards those who have the social and cultural capital to hegemonise this sphere. Here the language and culture of the weaker sections experience a defeat because of their unequal status of “lower” social and cultural capital. Particularistic interest of the public sphere results in lack of common interest. In consequence when the “subaltern” speaks, they are either simply ignored or silenced and therefore they are never “audible” (Chandhoke, 2003, pp. 172–173). Because of such exclusions of the “multitude” by the elite classes and categories, the excluded finds alternative “political space”, a space which emerges as subaltern counterpublics in counterpublic spheres. In Fraser’s (1990, p. 67) term, counterpublics constitutes “parallel discursive arenas where members of subordinated social groups invent and circulate counter-discourses . . .” The concept of counterpublics is developed primarily through a historical analysis of the limitations of the bourgeois public sphere and the existence of a proletariat public sphere carrying the perspective of weaker sections and their capacity to organise and challenge the dominant groups. It is something that pre-exists and is also in a constant

134  Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions process of production (Negt and Kluge, 1993). Fraser (1990) finds that in actually existing democracy there emerges many public spheres in relation to the state as well as the bourgeois public sphere. The radical democratic scholars argue that in a democratic system the nature of counterpublics is associated with “a constant struggle between opposition hegemonic political projects” (Mouffe, 2002, p. 110). Negt and Kluge (1993) note that often sudden unplanned activities emerge from the counterpublics sphere. This happens primarily because the people from below do not want to be regulated. There is a creative fusion of various ideological layers and expressions of their anger. Such movements have the potential for disruptions as well as democratic possibilities. West Bengal in most of the recent movements, be it Singur or Nandigram, has seen a strong role of Kolkata-based public sphere backed by the then-opposition TMC leadership, most prominently by the present CM Mamata Banerjee, herself. The role of “organic intellectuals” – in the sense of contesting domination and formulation of local consciousness to a theoretical knowledge and protest practice has been missing. For example, in the case of the Lalgarh movement, with which this case is closely associated, we have heard about Chhatradhar Mahato. He was idolised to such an extent that one of the most popular and national award-winning contemporary Bengali songwriters-cum-singer, Kabir Suman, wrote a song about him. However, he eventually got arrested and convicted by the Honourable Court under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act in May 2015. He has gone out of public discourse. Similarly, we have seen how Mr. Becharam Manna, one of the first people to protest against Tata’s land acquisition, got involved with TMC and became an MLA. Hence, it is rather rare to find organic intellectuals offering alternatives towards the mainstream power discourse. However, GP 4 region has seen an upsurge of people’s protest against violence. In the following, I have given a detailed ethnographic account of the development of violence and counter-violence in politics in the region. CPIM leaders and their attempts to influence the public sphere CPIM leaders of GP 4 region were under constant threat from the Maoists since 2006. The CPIM Local Committee members in different interview sessions reflected on the atmosphere of fear created by the Maoist forces by firing bullets (or some say lighting firecrackers that sounded like bullets firing) in the night and also by killing some of the party members3: [T]he killing began with murder of one of our members who was first gone missing and then his body was found lying beside the main road . . . the brutality of the act created a fearful atmosphere . . . several Maoist posters were also found at different places mentioning a list of people on whom they wanted to put on trial at the gana aadalat [lit. people’s court, actually kangaroo court to kill] . . . our Local Committee secretary and the Panchayat Pradhan’s names were also in the list . . . A

Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions 135 murder, several posters recovered from different places and finally the land-mine blast targeting our CM were enough for us to have sleepless nights and restless days4 [as revealed from a group discussion with CPIM leaders and cadres in December 2008] With the frequent reports of murders of CPIM leaders from different places surrounding GP 4 and because of the recovery of Maoist posters, an environment of extreme fear was generated. I could find no one roaming around after dusk, most of the tea stalls where people met and chatted after hours became empty. To deal with the rise of Maoist movements, CPIM leaders did three things simultaneously for which GP resources were systematically used. First, they tried to consolidate their support base among the tribal people of the region. Second, they involved their cadres to provide night guard to combat Maoists. Finally, when CPIM leaders sensed that their cadres with traditional weapons of sticks, bows and arrows could not fight Maoists, they brought men with arms from outside to fight back and exercise dominance over villagers. A failed attempt to consolidate tribal support base Before the Salboni blast, CPIM had their primary support base among the tribal people of the region. Tribal families began to reject CPIM after the massive police arrests and formation of PCPA which followed the mine blast. CPIM leaders argued that Maoists started to consolidate their support base among the same tribal people as they started to reject CPIM. Moreover, as mark of protests against the police activities, they dug out roads and chopped down large trees to create hindrance to the police movements. Once during such a blockade, I had to walk for ten kilometres to access the nearest available transportation. It was intense and lasted for weeks before such events got media attention. It became clear that the police arrests after the Salboni blast resulted in a strong anti-CPIM mood which was capitalised by the Maoists in the region. CPIM leaders tried to rejuvenate their mass support by organising street meetings. One of the CPIM cadres from a tribal village in GP 4 region told: [S]ince Maoists have their primary support base among the tribal people in the region, our leaders asked us to regain tribal support which we had over the years. [recorded in December 2008] When such a drive for regaining tribal support was taken up by the party, I could locate a fissure within those who were party cadres and those who were not. The tribal cadres and the GP members, on whom the party had direct control, became sceptical and afraid about the possible Maoist

136  Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions affiliation of their fellow villagers. It resulted in a mistrust among the people who were inhabiting with each other for generations. Local and regional leaders started large-scale mobilisation of people by holding regular streetmeetings (Patha Sabha). I attended one such meeting in November 2008 at a village about six kilometres within the forest. The place was virtually disconnected from the main road. CPIM leaders placed printed flex depicting photographs of Maoist atrocities over their leaders and hoisted the party flag two days before the actual street meeting was held. Hundreds of tribal people from neighbouring blocks were forced to attend the meeting. It was a strategy to display CPIM’s support base amongst the common people. There were arrangements for tribal dance and music, cockfights and country liquor sponsored by the party. The place transformed itself into a small-scale village fair. The speeches were laced with a mix of threats and promises. Local and regional leaders spoke about the ways in which they successfully carried out land reform and established the rights of the weaker sections, enabling a decent livelihood. It was one of the first meetings in which CPIM leaders equated Maoists and TMC. They emphasised on the potential damage that the coalition could bring to the everyday life of the people. One of the villagers in January 2009 told: [O]n the one hand, there are joint forces [coalition of state police and paramilitary forces] in action which have arrested several innocent villagers. On the other hand, CPIM constantly brings people from outside to convince us that they have significant support base in the region. It was clear that these street meetings became a place for outsiders who were forced to attend. Local people enjoyed the fair like atmosphere of the place. In afternoon chats, people started discussing the local demand of unconditional apology of the local superintendent of police (SP). They assumed that under SP’s direction, influenced by the CPIM, police harassed several innocent villagers by arresting them and dismantling their houses in the name of routine search after the mine blast. PCPA was formed and one of the wellknown figures of the committee Chhatradhar Mahato became their leader. Because of existing CPIM control and the regular party meetings, the antiCPIM sentiments could not consolidate in GP 4 region. There was, however, considerable grievance among the villagers against CPIM leaders. Villagers easily linked police atrocity as a decision of the CPIM party as the boundary between state and party was already blurred.5 Apparently, such blurring of the boundary between the CPIM party and government was systematically done over the years of the party’s exclusive control over the administration, including police and even paramilitary forces. In a group discussion during January 2009, villagers shared this sentiment: For the last several years we have seen that it is the Local and Regional Committees [of CPIM party] which decide everything . . . We have to

Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions 137 go through our leaders to access government. Even Panchayat members and Pradhan have repeatedly told us to communicate through the party . . . party decides who will get what and when . . . nothing can be done here without their permission. Since party took a strong mediating role, any adverse outcome of state intervention was easily equated with the party. Local CPIM leaders could sense people’s disengagements from the party, as there was a steady fall in the number of “common people”6 attending their street meetings. The falling rate of people’s attendance became parallel to the rise in the activities of the PCPA and Maoists by January 2009. One of the booth-level workers of the CPIM party mentioned the problematic dimensions of party-controlled government, which went against the CPIM. In 2009, after the parliamentary election, he said: We failed to convince them [the villagers] that government had its own line of action on which our local leaders did not have much control . . . people misunderstood us . . . They did not say a word against the party but continued to preserve the sentiment of hatred . . . it is true that police did it wrong when they vandalised several tribal villages in the name of combing operation . . . the tribal people are shy when it comes to the matter of dealing with uniformed armed men, such as CRPF . . . they were extremely disappointed with the deployment of such armed forces in their territory. While the CPIM constantly tried to distance themselves from the state decisions and interventions, tribal people did not believe it. The tribal people held the CPIM party to be responsible for the police harassments. In their attempt to rejuvenate tribal support, CPIM leaders used GP resources. In January 2009, it was decided at a district-level meeting that each of the GPs falling in the forested region of the district would initiate MGNREGS work primarily to involve the tribal people. The GP 4 Pradhan argued in March 2009: We have initiated labour intensive schemes under MGNREGS. Primary target is to provide money to Kurmi-Mahato-adivasi groups [kurmi and mahato belong to SC category and adivasi represents the ST] who are actively involved with PCPA and Maoist . . . we have asked them to take up MGNREGS work and get the wage payment . . . so far, I can sense this endeavour is failing. With an exception of our supporters, most of the villagers have refused to take up work. A large section of villagers were PCPA supporters and sympathisers. They rejected any of the state interventions including the Panchayat initiatives. It became clear that neither street meetings nor MGNREGS initiatives could

138  Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions help CPIM regain their support in the region. To combat the rising antiCPIM sentiments which was directly associated with PCPA and Maoist activities, CPIM formed GSRB. Later, a group of armed mercenaries, the Harmad Bahini, was called up. ARMED STRUGGLE AND USE OF GP RESOURCES

Failure of CPIM’s endeavour to regain mass support through street meetings and MGNREGS was parallel to the rise in the Maoist activities. Maoists continued to kill CPIM leaders in the vast forested areas of the districts of Paschim Medinipur, Purulia and Bankura. To protect themselves, CPIM party workers and sympathisers wittingly or unwittingly formed GSRB. They patrolled the villages every night carrying traditional tribal weapons like bow and arrow, battle axe and also mobile phones for speedy communication. In early 2009, several informal meetings were held among the CPIM workers. They discussed the weakness of GSRB to combat heavily armed Maoist forces. It was decided that professional outsiders with arms would be called for. Bringing armed and trained men was a well-planned initiative from the party. Eventually the CPIM party offices were filled with illegal arms and a camp of outsiders was set up at one of the party offices near the GP 4.7 Outsiders carrying arms started patrolling the villages. Several frontier camps were set up at strategic locations near the forest to prevent potential Maoist attacks. My fieldwork visits were restricted. I could only talk to the villagers under the surveillance of these mercenaries. Each of the families from the village was compelled to send at least one person per week to serve as night watchman. Services like cleaning of the camps and cooking for the armed men were assigned on a rotational basis to the villagers. CPIM Local Committee members cited the involvement of villagers as an indication of the “felt need” by the party and people for protection of the villages. Villagers were quite unhappy. Based on my discussions I could find the following factors which instigated considerable amount of anger among the villagers: A GSRB was a felt need for CPIM leaders and their supporters. To protect villages from the Maoists, CPIM cadres volunteered to provide night guard with traditional tribal hunting weapons. However, it was impossible to sustain GSRB activities against heavily armed Maoists and a proper state intervention was needed which never happened. B Instead of proper state interventions, the CPIM party called up outside men – the Harmads with arms to combat Maoists. GSRB failed because cadres became afraid of continuing such activities without proper weapons. The Harmads started to threaten the anti-CPIM people and instead of giving protections, they made common people their enemy. They continued to fight against the PCPA supporters who were not Maoists and hence CPIM lost their support from the villagers.

Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions 139 C Because of Harmad activities the peaceful atmosphere of the village was gone. When these men were openly roaming around with arms and started to sneak around the village water bodies where girls and women took baths, villagers objected. Moreover, economic consequences of such a movement were also quite significant. Villagers could not cultivate and these men took away many of the village livestock. Cooking and cleaning services for these men were forcefully extracted from the villagers. The sustenance of such camps within the village was based on violence and threat of violence. Throughout this work I could manage to speak to a handful of such mercenaries. I came to know that the people who formed this Harmad Bahini were mostly absconding from their native places because of TMC’s rising power in districts like Purba Medinipur (from Nandigram) and Hooghly (especially Arambagh). A few of them could use firearms, the rest were just learning. One such man pointed towards their compulsions: [A]ctually I have nowhere to go. Party is giving us place in Haldia to take shelter. In exchange I had to come here and fight to protect our comrades from rebels . . . camp life is hard but I know sooner or later this thing will be over. [recorded in a group discussion in January 2009] Even those mercenaries were compelled to live the camp life because of political violence elsewhere. While CPIM could provide a sense of security to their local leaders and cadres, the party nevertheless continued to lose their support base in the region. It is important to understand how these activities were funded. A significant portion of the funding came from the party fund. The LC secretary and GP Pradhan in a group discussion reflected that it was asked by the party to make the movement “self-sustaining” to the extent possible. In order to sustain the movement, Panchayat resources were systematically used. Several villagers got money through MGNREGS schemes in exchange for little-or-no work. The only agreement was to give a share from that money, which was roughly 50 percent. Pradhan and Panchayat members argued that they were compelled to make inflated estimates in the master roll to generate funds. In 2008–2009 financial year, MGNREGS work at GP 4 amounted more than one crore, of which 35 percent was spent in materials and about 50 percent from the remaining fund was taken away by the party. CPIM could extract money from other schemes as well by imposing levy on the contractors and material suppliers. There was no concrete plan for development in GP 4 during this period. No development plans were taken up at the Gram Sabha or even in the informal meetings between political

140  Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions leaders, elected representatives and GP officials. The meetings became a space to discuss the plan of action regarding the sustenance of the antiMaoist activities in the region. The Nirman Sahayak (NS)8 and Panchayat secretary9 were close to the political leaders but they tried to oppose such corrupt practices of siphoning funds from MGNREGS. They had no choice other than to obey the local party leaders. Accordingly, more labour intensive programmes were taken up and allotted to the party cadres. In 2008, MGNREGS wage was delivered to the Panchayat office and payment was made in cash. As a result, taking out the levy was easier. In 2009, most of the MGNREGS job cardholders were having bank accounts. GP provided work in exchange for a token advance. Participants were asked to pay the remaining amount (about 50 percent of what they get) after they received their wage from the bank or post offices. It was difficult to figure out the exact amount taken away by the party, because such corrupt practices were never documented. However, I could decipher an average estimate of the amount of money taken out from the MGNREGS (see Figure 4.1). In both the years CPIM-led GP could provide close to thirty-five lakhs from MGNREGS alone. There were other sources as well. Local leaders took out money from the contractors through other schemes, including the BRGF and different financial commissions.

MGNREGA

Wage

Extracted money 10800000

10070000

7020000

6545500

3510000

3272750

2008-2009

2009-2010

Figure 4.1 MGNREGS fund, wage payment and extortion from wage in 2008–2009 and 2009–2010 financial years in GP 4 (in rupees) Source: A calculation based on the documents from GP regarding the amount of money spent and conversation on the percentage share of the party to fund the Harmad activities. Data collected during 2009 to 2012

Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions 141 Counterpublics movement and the stake of Gram Panchayat When the CPIM-led Harmad camp was active, PCPA continued its movements on issues of police atrocities after the Salboni blast. In consequence, there were numerous fights between the PCPA and Harmads. Eventually PCPA failed to continue its movements and several PCPA activists were absconded. Within a few months several regional formats of PCPA were developed. From a committee against state-sponsored violence it became an umbrella organisation under which most of the anti-CPIM and antistate forces were organised. One of the local PCPA activists D. Mondal, who eventually became a TMC leader, argued that PCPA was desperate to make an alliance with any of the democratic parties, excepting the Left Front. None of the parties extended their support, although a contradictory picture was made popular in the media. In consequence, the PCPA leader Chhatradhar Mahato failed to control, regulate and direct the movement. Several leaders of the PCPA including D. Mondal were arrested. When leaders of PCPA were arrested, their followers continued to remain in touch with each other through secret meetings which formed the backbone of the counterpublics. These meetings took place during different festivals and ceremonies related to life cycle and the like. Throughout this period (2008–2009), I was unaware about the existence of these local anti-CPIM forces. These were diversified forms of PCPA which had strong anti-CPIM sentiments. They strategically distanced themselves from the Maoist-Harmad Bahini fight. They were in touch with local tribal people and maintained connection with anti-CPIM groups such as the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and village-level anonymous Morchas (fronts) loosely connected by kinship and friendship networks. When D. Mondal and several other PCPA leaders were released in August 2009 there was a strong antiCPIM mood in the region. Mass protest marches without any political banner were initiated under their leadership. Protest rallies populated by common villagers started to move through different villages giving slogans against the CPIM, Harmads and the state. I could see that with each passing day, the intensity and participation of common people in such rallies was rising. Neither the Harmad Bahini nor CPIM party challenged such protest rallies. On a cold December night in 2010, D. Mondal and one of his associates, M. Mahato, spoke about the need to tie up this movement with the mainstream opposition party – the TMC. That group discussion took place in front of several others. A mixed reaction came. Several young people from that group protested against such an alliance. I have seen a few of them even leave the place immediately showing disapproval. However, both of them argued that because of the lack of mainstream political support, the grand PCPA movement which had the potential to overthrow CPIM regime has failed. By January 2011, they established a working relationship with the regional TMC leadership. Together with TMC they approached the village headmen

142  Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions and convinced them about the alternative that TMC could provide. Under the leadership of Subhendu Adhikari, MP, Purba Medinipur, they provided shelters to thousands of people who became homeless because of MaoistHarmad Bahini battles. In Bugri Krishna Nagar, about 25 km from GP 4, they organised a TMC-hosted camp during a spring festival in March 2011 to declare “liberty or death”. With support from the local tribals, erstwhile PCPA leaders and supporters, TMC started to gain momentum. The eventual mass rallies in April 2011 strengthened TMC’s base. People’s initial fear was gone as they started to participate voluntarily in those rallies. The already weakened and receding Harmad did not dare to face this challenge especially after the Netai incident. Immediately after the CPIM party offices were abandoned by the Harmad, people from several villages under no political banner destroyed the office. It is notable that while in many places of West Bengal there are reports of turning the CPIM party offices into TMC party offices, and in this case, to date this building is still abandoned. No one, not even now powerful TMC leaders, occupy or use the semi-ruined building (Figure 4.2).

Figure 4.2 The party office which was turned into a Harmad camp was attacked by the villagers in 2011 near GP 4. Just behind the party office the mudwalled hut is the TMC office which was constructed in 2013 after the Panchayat election was over. Source: Photograph taken by the author in 2013

Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions 143 D. Mondal reflected on the reason for such abandonment: [T]hat building symbolises what they [CPIM] have done and portrays what happens when political parties forget their principles. This building will continue to remind people about those days as I know people do have a short-lived memory, especially when it comes to the matter of electoral politics. (in an interview session in March 2013) Such spontaneous attacks on the party offices indicate a transformation of local power structure. While this movement was in its peak, bureaucratic leaders of GP 4 took an initiative. GP secretary in December 2010 met D. Mondal and told him about the extent of fund misappropriation which was going on at GP 4. He also provided documents to prove such misappropriations and requested D. Mondal to involve GP-based issues in their movement so that the impact of the movement could be felt at the local administration. In a group discussion with the GP officials the secretary narrated: We knew that we were taking a huge risk . . . when we met him [D. Mondal], harmads were still considerably active. If it was revealed that we met the anti-CPIM allies we could have been murdered . . . ­Nevertheless, it was a felt need. We became part of the corrupt practice which was going on. We know that if a political change takes place, which is quite obvious, we will not be spared. (in February 2010) The fear of political change and involvement of GP officials in the corrupt means of fund pulling made them seek help from the anti-CPIM groups. While the officials could provide details of such corrupt practices, D. Mondal asked for two things, first, he instructed that they should arrange similar funds for the TMC-led movements as well and, second, they should not let the local CPIM-elected representatives escape when Harmad camps would be uprooted from the region. Eventually in each of the rallies and street meetings GP fund misappropriation became a significant issue. People started to discuss CPIM’s misdeed not only in the state at large, but also at the very local level. The mass rallies often entered the GP office and demanded papers related to fund utilisation. The TMC leaders demanded explanation about the false preparation of utilisation certificates. GP secretary, in an interview, argued that he knew quite clearly that the elected representatives – excepting a few – would not escape. They would stay back because they did not occupy important position in the party hierarchy and the party will abandon them. Except the Pradhan, most of the other members were not involved in the decisions related to siphoning off money from public funding. Therefore, they were not afraid of any adverse

144  Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions consequences. In a group discussion in February 2013, three CPIM-elected members of the Panchayat focused on their compulsions: We had nowhere to go . . . we did not want to join camps for the absconded . . . most of us never participated in any of the meetings and never took an active role in any of the decisions. Party never consulted us and we never bothered to talk to the leaders because they would not listen to us. My villagers knew it. We kept signing the resolutions which were taken at the meetings but we never attended. It was a risky affair to stay back but we were assured by the GP officials that the TMC leaders would not do any harm and that they needed us to continue the GP activities in the region . . . TMC leaders did not want a premature GP election. After 2011, GP continued to remain officially under CPIM leadership, but TMC took each of the decisions from backstage. They also misappropriated MGNREGS funding to establish their position and to expand their organisational base after the 2011 assembly election. They initiated developmentrelated programmes as well. After the formation of Paschimanchal Unnayan Parishad (PUP), a special development authority for the development of the western part of West Bengal, GP 4 came under its purview and initiated construction activities with a high priority on rural connectivity. Protest politics and issues of Jungle-mahal At the beginning of this section, I focus on the concept of protest politics and formation of counterpublics. I argue that in scholarly literature protest politics is increasingly seen as a fairly rational activity having potential to promote political as well as social causes. It is quite appropriate to see the concept of power from a Foucauldian perspective. When the individual is seen as simultaneously a vehicle and a space for the resistance to power, one can conceptualise the existence of power even in the rule obeying subjects. I refer to the concept of counterpublics as a site of creative counterproduction of power parallel to the dominant (conceptually the bourgeois) public sphere. GP 4 represents an instance where the local political dialectics, centred on violent political movements, forms a parallel discursive space and rise of counterpublics. Because of CPIM rule in the region for more than three decades, people failed to differentiate between the party and government. The state-taken measure of police deployment was seen by the villagers as an initiative from the party. CPIM primarily failed because of the shared interest of counterpublics was incompatible to the party’s interest in holding its control over the large section of people through violent means. One of the reasons that led to the failure of the PCPA movement is the lack of mainstream political participation. It is notable that even when PCPA failed

Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions 145 and its leaders were arrested, people’s [anti-CPIM and hence anti-state] sentiments persisted. New forms of localised movements were initiated which quickly got political affiliation under TMC. The parallel discursive space, which was masked under festivals and household rituals, had formidable influence on the formation of a counterpublics movement. People who were displaced because of CPIM-led Harmad activities formally initiated the movement. Symbolic preservation of the CPIM party offices gave some form of concretisation to the movement, which has resulted in a significant change in the local politics. This section reveals three important aspects of protest politics which was going on in most of the forested districts of West Bengal. First, the local sentiment against a regimented political structure was a reflection of the rejection of top-down regulations on which CPIM depended for quite a long time. The PCPA movement and subsequent development of local fronts rejected the violent regulations from the party and Harmads. CPIM in their mass rallies during the initial stage of the PCPA movement, displayed their support by bringing men from outside. It indicated a mechanism to contend with protests and unrests after the Salboni blast. This attempt was rejected by the people, especially the tribal. The nature of the localised form of leadership to the anti-CPIM drive even when Harmad activity was quite prominent indicates constant innovation of the weaker sections. The innovation in strategies represents a democratic potential of counterpublics movements such as this. It strongly manifests that top-down coercive forces in a democratic space cannot sustain for long. No matter how weak the counterpublics appears, their different innovative strategies carry the potential to challenge and overthrow the dominant section to bring about a political change. Second, the formation of counterpublics through secret meetings not only challenged the existing regime but also overthrew it. This issue needs to be linked with the GP-based democratic possibility of such forces. It is true that GP resources were systematically used to fund the Harmad activity and later on the anti-CPIM counterpublics movement in the region; however, the initial submission of the GP bureaucracy and later on their active involvement in anti-CPIM movements indicates a distinct possibility of participation. It is a form of participation which challenged the top-down decisions involving corrupt practices. It is simultaneously structural and agency based. It is structural because the very structure of the GP allowed the disagreements to form within the GP office. GP bureaucracy feared the political changeover and its possible consequences which came directly from the structural arrangements of the office, but their initiatives to build partnership with the counterpublics movement was primarily an agency-based initiative. Third, while the entire movement oscillated from a large conglomeration under PCPA through smaller conglomerations under village level morchas to again a large conglomeration under no political banner, it indicates the active role of organic intellectuals – a feature, which is otherwise missing in the state.

146  Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions In the next section, I present what happened after the political changeover in Bankura. It is important to note that GP 1 in Bankura had a similar background of the Maoist-Harmad Bahini fight. I have studied in detail what happens after the changeover here. II Constructs of misrecognition10 and symbolic violence: case from GP 1, Bankura When the Goaltor region of Paschim Medinipur was going through regular violent fights between Maoists and the Harmads, the Khatra region of Bankura block was experiencing similar violence nearby. I remember once in January 2009 I had to come to Khatra region to keep myself safe from the violent conflict which was taking place adjacent to GP 4. My landlord, Sukhdeb, belonged to the Santal community. He was an excellent hunter. He knew roads through the forest better than GPS. He asked me if I was willing to share a motorcycle ride to GP 1. We went through the forest roads. It was a ride for six hours at a stretch and both of us were exhausted and worried to hear the sound of gunshots nearby. We spend the night at the Panchayat guesthouse and talked over hours about the possibilities of the future once this war-like situation was over. He was not sure whether the war-like situation would end anytime soon. He couldn’t imagine anything beyond getting rid of CPIM in their region. Something, which in his opinion would be nothing short of a revolution. I asked him about his expectations if there is indeed a political change. His response on this matter was rather quick: “We would like our heritage to get recognition. It should not follow your way of festive celebration, it should be done in our own way!” Both of us were tired and he quickly fell asleep. I went outside to smoke. I could see the silhouette of the forest nearby disrupting the view of distant hillocks. The moon was clear. Makar – the January festival – was a few days away. I could hear the sound of traditional Santali drums and was questioning myself; what makes these people demand their “own way” of celebration of their tradition. Sukhdeb didn’t say anything about mosquitoes, drinking water, roads or electricity – the things which bothered me the most in Paschim Medinipur. Yes, my anthropological training gave me theoretical insights about cultural relativism, but I could feel the differences in perceptions of priorities where may be the state has failed miserably. I didn’t know then in what ways Sukdeb’s demand could be heard, or whether it was at all something that the state can incorporate when there are “more pertinent” issues like health and hygiene yet to be addressed. But, that was his expectation if the war-like situation ended and there was a change in politics. I have read the conceptions of cultural relativism from the very beginning of anthropological studies. I have read, taught and felt proud of the fact that my discipline takes tolerance towards cultural difference as a part of the disciplinary endeavour.

Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions 147 I always talked about development as something to be complex and should be viewed critically where development initiatives should not disintegrate or disturb existing cultural settings. Development is not simple transformation of heterogeneous culture to an increasingly homogenous entity. But, even with all this theoretical knowledge, I could not comprehend the depth of cultural attachment that Sukhdeb had with cultural traditions which has been irrevocably altered. I can relate today such sentiments are there with the Santal society. Whenever, I tried to know something about their everyday life nothing interests them more than the discussions of hunting expeditions. I found this to be true in Bankura, Purulia, Paschim Medinipur and Birbhum districts of West Bengal. I found similar welcoming and enthusiastic discussions among tribal people in Manipur, Meghalaya and Assam in my other works. Whether this is a pan-Indian feature or not, I don’t know. Let me go back to the context of this study. As I have shown the violence, counter-violence and mechanisms of protest politics, its connection to the GP and political change, it becomes equally important to know the aftermath of violence and political change. These are the places where CPIMled LFG has continuously ruled for three decades and in 2011 there was a political change. Interestingly in TMC’s second term in 2016 the party has successfully penetrated the traditional Left bastions such as these places of Paschim Medinipur and Bankura (Ei Samay, 2016; Nath, 2017). The following section will give one of the major and hitherto unaddressed reasons for such a penetration. As an explanatory tool I will introduce the concept of cultural misrecognition which in my opinion will continue to dominate the politics of West Bengal in coming decades. Let us have a quick idea about GP 1. GP 1 is surrounded by hillocks and the Kangsabati River dam with a history of mass displacement because of the construction of the dam. This ethnography is focused on studying the ways in which CPIM and TMC during their rules excluded the tribal section of GP 1 from certain development-related benefits. While this is a simple attempt to study skewed allocation of public resources, the mechanisms and legitimisation of such exclusions are quite complicated. At GP 1, out of the nine Sansads, six are predominately tribal. Paradoxically, both the parties have systematically excluded the tribal people but continue to get their patronage. CPIM (along with JMM at one Sansad) won six out of eight Sansads in the 2008 election. However, in the 2013 election, it was completely reversed. Out of nine Sansads, TMC won in seven Sansads to secure a massive victory. As the GP showed a complete transformation during this period, I have intensively studied the series of events that took place over the years that could help explain such a major political alteration. I argue that there is a shift from the party-controlled “systemic misrecognition” to “cultural misrecognition”. I have used the concept of misrecognition and symbolic violence as mechanisms of legitimisation of decisions related to the skewed allocation of resources. I argue that tribal people extended their patronage despite the fact that such patronisation went against their

148  Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions interests primarily because their real interests were mystified with different strategies devised by local political leaders. Legitimacy through symbolic violence and hegemony One of the classic and more relevant theorisations of power relationships is by Weber (1978) who argues that legitimacy and dominance are essential components to maintain leadership hierarchy in a society. He acknowledges that people can get things done in different ways, drawing on varied resources. This conception makes the notion of power a dynamic one. Among the variety of resources, cultural resources are used as subtle mechanisms by which political control is extended. For the present purpose, I conceptualise culture in generalised patterns of communication which has an inherent everydayness. The idea of culture as a generalised pattern of communication is an extension of Geertz’s (1973) concept that culture is “there” as “given”, forcefully shaping perceptions and modes of interpretations through everyday discourses. Within such a framework of culture, power is exerted by influencing interpretations of different social actors. Therefore, one can study culture as being a “set of actions upon other actions” (Foucault, 1983, p. 220). Following Foucauldian tradition, I argue that it requires a study of power as a generic concept with a central focus on studying the relevant mechanisms by which power is put into action. There is an everydayness of culture as resource of power exercise because in the contemporary world the power equation is maintained by a variety of symbolic dominations and less by physical coercion. Such domination is widely referred to as symbolic violence (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992; Wacquant, 2005). Political struggle makes an effort to legitimise the existing systems of classifications and categorisation in such a way that the hierarchy appears as natural. Bourdieu argues that symbolic violence results when people misrecognise those systems of classification as natural and not culturally arbitrary and historical. The dominant classes, therefore, need little energy to maintain their dominance. They “let the system they dominate take its own course in order to exercise their domination” (Bourdieu, 1977, p. 190). There is a link between Gramsci’s concept of hegemony, which is based on consent, with that of Bourdieu’s notion of symbolic violence, which is based on misrecognition. The only point of difference is that “hegemony is explicit and overt and, thus, can be subverted by the organic intellectual [as they are embedded in their class positions] while the symbolic violence is deep and unconscious, appreciated by the sociologist . . .” (Burawoy, 2008). The idea of symbolic violence and hegemony has a strong resonance with the concept of false consciousness in Lukes’s sense. Lukes (1974) notes that the ultimate form of power is a condition where social actors do not know what their “real interests” are. While there is a deep-rooted ethnocentric problem in defining “real interest”, Lukes (2005) argues that there are deliberate attempts of the powerful people to exercise what he calls a

Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions 149 “power to mislead” (Lukes, 2005, p. 149, italics original). Studying these attempts requires a close look at the major social forces of power such as the societal constructs of deviance and normalcy which reinforces the existing power structure. Lukes (2005) notes that these aspects of power should not be ignored simply because theorising these entails violation of certain academic taboos. However, it remains important for both Lukes (2005) and for Gramsci (1971) to study why do weaker sections frequently consent to their own domination? Here the question of legitimacy and consent and power comes in. To address the issues of legitimacy and consent there are two different perspectives with regard to false consciousness in Gramsci and Bourdieu. For Gramsci the questionable part of false consciousness is its “falseness”. For Bourdieu the problem is not with the “falseness” but with “consciousness”, which cannot address the depth of symbolic domination (Burawoy, 2012). Bourdieu finds that symbolic domination settles within the unconscious because people accumulate sedimentations of social structure. Therefore, consent is too weak to explain the nature of domination which is the idea of misrecognition embedded within the habitus (Bourdieu, 2000). For Bourdieu, as already mentioned, instead of direct violence, symbolic violence is what contemporary society experiences. To explore the ways in which such misrecognition and symbolic violence is generated, according to Bourdieu (1984) it is important to look at habitus. Here habitus is seen as an outcome of conflict between the relatively powerful and the relatively powerless for prestige and status to form a tacit knowledge. Bourgeois reify their particular manners as “natural” and this manages to define what constitutes the “proper” socialisation. Once a particular habitus is “naturalised”, as superior to habitus of others, it constitutes cultural capital which is another resource for the constitution of power hierarchy. If we consider Gramsci’s (1971) idea of a capitalist system as having endless fortifications and ditches, cultural capital constitutes some of these such ditches. Drawing from such theoretical insights, I show the ways in which such symbolic violence is formulated in two different ways as a legitimising mechanism by local political parties. In the following I show the ways in which CPIM and TMC in their respective regimes have formulated two distinct forms of legitimisations through constructs of misrecognition. Misrecognition as perpetuated by CPIM An analysis of the GP scheme implementations during the CPIM regime in 2008–2009 financial year reveals that while mass-benefiting public works show more or less an equal distribution in tribe and non-tribe predominated Sansads, individual-benefiting schemes are allotted mostly to the ­non-tribe-dominated Sansads. The following figures (Figure 14 and 15) show the extent of skewed allocation of resources in the GP. Individual benefiting schemes which involve direct cash transfer and creation of durable assets like IAY – the rural housing scheme and Indira

Figure 4.3 Allocation of mass-benefiting resources in 2008–2009 financial year (in percentage) Source: GP office

Tribe predominated

Non-tribe predominated 26

18 12

1 IAY

12

2

IGNOAPS

MGNREGS

Figure 4.4 Allocation of individual-benefiting schemes among the tribe and nontribe predominated Sansads in 2008–2009 financial year (in numbers) Source: GP office

Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions 151 Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme (IGNOAPS) were mostly distributed among the non-tribe people. The only exception was the MGNREGS which required manual labour work. MGNREGS work was distributed mostly among the tribal people. I saw that MGNREGS beneficiaries often worked in non-tribe pre-dominated Sansads. It indicated the fact that tribal people were brought from their Sansads to work as manual labour in caste pre-dominated Sansads. It violated the policy of allocating works to the beneficiaries within their villages. During CPIM regime, in terms of road condition and availability of filtered water, there was not much difference between tribe and non-tribe Sansads. The skewed allocation of individual benefitting schemes, nevertheless, had a political bias. One of the local leaders, S. Mahato, the LC secretary of CPIM, gave a historical reference to the nature of gratitude of local tribal people towards the CPIM: Our party works for the poor. The tribal here had no land of their own. They were nomads. Eventually they were allotted land through land reform movement. A sizeable amount of their forest on which they traditionally depended was taken away to construct the nearby river dam. We work for them and they vote for us. This is the strength of our party. Caste predominated Sansads, including my own has a PWD [Public Works Department] road; people of these Sansads are well off. They do not need Panchayat. The rich people who reside in Sansad 8 and 9 had to give away their extra land to the tribal people; therefore, they continue to oppose whatever CPIM has done for the Tribes. . . (recorded in November 2009) Local CPIM leaders like S. Mahato tried to convince me about their concern for the tribal people in the region. As I asked about the skewed allocation of individual-benefiting schemes, S. Mahato argued that it was the inability of tribal people to deposit the percentage of money required to get the benefit of such schemes as IAY. There was no initiative from GP to arrange funding through other schemes so that IAY could be distributed among the tribal. In my subsequent conversations with other local leaders and party cadres it appeared that CPIM was fast losing its tribal support base in the region. A booth-level CPIM worker, J. Mondal, reflected that the problem was with the lack of initiative from CPIM leaders to include the tribal people. He emphasised the flawed BPL list which was prepared intentionally. It was a major source of people’s grievances against the local CPIM leaders: CPIM is fast losing tribal support here. Panchayat has numerous individual benefiting schemes right now. To get those benefits you must be enlisted as BPL. When the surveyors came [for BPL listing] CPIM leaders registered the names of their party members in the list and excluded the people-in-need! Eventually several schemes like IGNOAPS which gives cash benefits was swiped away by the party cadres . . . Yes our

152  Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions party has done a lot for these people earlier, but when it comes to monetary benefits, tribal people come last in their priority list. (in 2008 December). From 2008 to 2009 CPIM’s booth-level workers continued to build individual networks with each of the tribal families. I could find that each of the families had at least one of the members associated with CPIM or its associate organisations. Women from the SHGs commonly identified them as indebted to the party because of their SHG memberships. CPIM helped them formulate the SHGs. The youngsters were happy as the party sponsored different sporting events in the village. Sudeb Das, who worked directly under the leadership of S. Mahato, reflected on the nature of political control that CPIM had in 2008 over the villagers: We [i.e. CPIM party] used to organise annual sports. We have supporters in each of the families. Their forefathers were with us. Now their sons and grandsons provide us with the support base. We have constructed roads, made rural electrification through RGGVY [Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojna] for them. They will continue to support us . . . Of course, we organise feast, arrange for vehicles so that they can come to the polling station, but this is not a bribe. Voting means loss of a man day; this is the least we can do to compensate. (in a conversation while campaigning for the CPIM in December 2008) Sudeb was the most trusted partner of S. Mahato. In my years of association with Sudeb, I never found him speaking anything against the CPIM party or S. Mahato. His account of the Panchayat initiatives for development was grounded in reality. There were instances of road constructions; RGGVYbased rural electrification and youth mobilisation through annual sports meet. Whenever I tried to probe a little more about the lack of involvement of tribal people in the individual-benefiting schemes, he only pointed to the fact that the BPL listing was faulty. Unlike J. Mondal, he never accepted that CPIM was involved in making a faulty BPL list. Sudeb reflected on significant aspects of election-related activities. I could sense that the party’s drive for making one-to-one communication with the tribal people was linked to a fear of loss of the tribal support base in the region. On the day of the parliamentary election in 2009, CPIM arranged for a community lunch comprised of rice, mutton and chicken curry, and country liquor for the villagers who came to the polling station and voted for them. The Panchayat guest house, where I used to stay during fieldwork came under CRPF control, and thus, I had to take refuge in J. Mondal’s house which was only a couple of kilometres away from the election booth. I could see the arrangements for the cooking and dining nearby. In the evening, there was a cultural programme, which featured tribal music and dance to celebrate predictable victory of the CPIM. Similar community feasts, although on a

Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions 153 much smaller scale, were also organised a few months before the election in different villages. People who were involved in cooking, catering and cleaning services were paid by the GPs through MGNREGS (Figure 4.6 and 4.7). Arrangement of feasts during the days of the elections and individual networking enabled CPIM to get patronage from the tribal people of the region. They also developed other mechanisms to maintain their control. They compensated for the exclusion of tribal people from individual-­ benefiting schemes by constructing concrete roadways, village electrification and allotting MGNREGS work to them. These overt mechanisms of distributing mass-benefiting schemes had parallel subtle mechanisms of exercising political control and gaining patronage. The most prominent among those were the detailed gate keeping mechanisms which made people dependent on the party to access any of the public services. CPIM used to set up their party offices near the GP. In order to get access to the Panchayat an individual was bound to report at the party office first. I saw students submitting documents which were to be attested by the Pradhan, to the party office. People seeking any sort of help ranging from certification to the entitlement for MGNREGS work, were expected to meet the

Figure 4.5 Village women and children going for the feast organised by the CPIM in January 2009. They also carried utensils for taking away the surplus amount for the dinner. Source: Photograph taken by author

154  Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions

Figure 4.6 Two MGNREGS worker are clearing up debris and food wastes after election day in 2009 Source: Photograph taken by the author

local political bosses in the first place. They could almost never meet the Pradhan or the secretary bypassing the party. I pursued one of my informants to enroll in the PROFLAL (Provident Fund for Land less Agriculture Labour) scheme to watch the steps he has to follow to get access to Panchayat. Since PROFLAL was one of the least popular schemes I pushed my informant to go for it. It was a strategy to see how the local party reacts towards him. He was unwilling to go for the scheme. I tried to convince him about the benefits of the scheme. However, he feared going to the Panchayat office on his own. He said: I should first go to Shyamacharn Murmu [a booth level CPIM worker] it is up to him to report it to S. Mahato at his convenience. If Mahato takes up the proposal he may direct the Panchayat member and any of the booth party cadres to enquire about my economic status. If the member gives a positive feedback to him, and Mahato manages to remember my needs and informs it to the Panchayat Office then only this can be done. In between I have to remind each of them at regular intervals. If I bypass these steps I will never be

Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions 155 enrolled in the scheme. Moreover, I may have to face other adverse consequences because of ignoring them! (recorded in June 2008) The elaborate gate keeping mechanism was pushing the villagers away from accessing GP. Through several conversations I found out the following steps were needed to get the public services (Figure 18). Different steps which an individual has to follow to access the public services made the villagers alienated from the activities of the Panchayat. The primary source of information regarding the development related schemes came from CPIM party office. I found that MGNREGS, a demand driven scheme was commonly misunderstood by the villagers as a supply driven scheme. Villagers accepted party affiliations as an essential criterion to get any benefit from the government. With such strong mediating role by the party workers people could not distinguish between party and government. In one of my Group Discussions in 2009 villagers equated party with government. VILLAGER 1:  Ashok

stambha (National emblem of India) signifies government; it is there at the Panchayat Office, in the PHE [Public Health Engineering] office. . . VILLAGER 2:  Also in the Kangsabati [irrigation] office and on the belts of the havildars [lowest rank of Police Service] . . . VILLAGER 1:  We cannot enter the PHE because of the security guards. Entry to Kangsabati office is also restricted. Even tourists are not allowed to take any photographs. VILLAGER 3:  Our party is our government. Party men are accessible. So, in order to reach the government, we must go to the party as party steers the government. Party, no matter what symbol it carries, is the representative of the Government. . .

Booth commiee

•Booth level cadres Individual

•Branch level cadres Branch Commiee

Local commiee

•Local commiee cadre

•Local commiee secretary

GP office

•GP pradhan or member

GP link man

Figure 4.7 The elaborate gate-keeping mechanism followed by the CPIM in their regime Source: Data collected by researcher

156  Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions The popular perception of government as something remote, inaccessible was systematically constructed among the villagers by the party. CPIM provided an alternative to the “inaccessible” government machinery to make people dependent on the party. In a group discussion at the local CPIM party office the party cadres accepted such popular perceptions. S. Mahato argued that: [S]ince the inception we are working for the poor . . . whenever they need some assistance our workers help them. They do not know the paper works and the ways in which works are carried out in the office. They do not know whom to ask for information. In many cases Panchayat members are also quite unaware about the procedures one needs to follow. We fill the vacuum. You may perceive it is interference from outside, but this is the way government beneficiary relationship is maintained here. We don’t find anything wrong in this system. (in December 2009) CPIM developed an elaborate gate-keeping mechanism and played an active mediating role between people and government. It was a strategy to establish a clientelist mode of politics by capitalising people’s dependency on party for getting access to the government. This strategy was effective in many ways. First, it made people completely dependent and hence, submissive towards the party. Second, the system resulted in alienation of government from the people. Therefore, with the deep-rooted dependency on the party, people could not question any of the decisions taken by the party leaders including the skewed allocation of resources. Finally, the combination of people’s dependence and the Election Day incentives (food, liquor and transportation) made people extend their support for the CPIM party. From December 2009 to January 2011 the entire region came under activities of the Maoists. The most frequent targets were the local CPIM leaders and active party workers. In consequence, during this period I could not meet S. Mahato and any of his fellow party men. Later, I came to know that S. Mahato had been murdered in August 2010 allegedly by the Maoists. Apart from the booth level CPIM workers who avoided interview sessions, no active party workers could be found in the region. The GP came under exclusive control of TMC and a new face, D. Sahoo, owner of three brick factories in the region became the most trusted and powerful local leader. While CPIM used to capitalise on people’s dependence on the party, TMC adopted a different strategy to exercise political control over the villagers. Misrecognition through cultural practices: TMC’s strategy I could sense the extent of TMC’s control over the GP in the 2009 Gram Sabha meeting. Although there was no official political change in the GP from CPIM to TMC through election during that period, but because of the

Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions 157 absence of CPIM leaders, TMC started to control the GP from backstage. The GP took up plans for Sansads where caste concentration was heavy and now even the distribution of mass-benefiting schemes had an inclination towards the caste Sansads. I arranged my first meeting with Mr. Sahoo and Mr. Samanta, two of the most important political persons of TMC in January 2010. They gave numerous examples of political atrocities that CPIM has done to the oppositions. For them, such grievance against CPIM was the major reason for people’s disgust with the party. Mr. Sahoo and, Mr. Samanta were traditionally large land holders and had significant disgust on CPIM’s land reform movements for which they had to lose significant portion of their farm lands. D. Sahoo reflected on political violence and corruption of CPIM: To be honest CPIM has done nothing for us. At first, they snatched land from us and allotted it to them [tribal and lower caste groups] and then build roads for them, even allowed them to have illegal electric connections at their homes. We were not even allowed to raise questions regarding such corrupt practices. Later they took away all the monetary benefits which came from the Central Government Schemes and allotted the funds to their followers. They imposed party levy on the poor people in exchange of their enrolment in MGNREGS. They knew we were active party workers of Congress and later TMC and had a very strong support base in our village. In order to restrain me politically they took violent measures. They harassed many of my brick factory workers by labelling them as Maoists. (January 2010) M. Samanta argued that CPIM was even unfaithful to their loyal followers – the tribal people as well: CPIM has systematically prepared a faulty BPL list. Today these people have roads and electricity but do not have money to feed their family. (January 2010) D. Sahoo reflected that CPIM failed in prioritising the development initiatives. However, this reflection also indicates an elitist mindset of Mr. Sahoo: People must be able to live first and then enjoy roads and electricity. You will not find any concrete house in the six Sansads that belong to STs, but you will find metalled roads. Is it development? You must have seen our Sansad. All of us have concrete houses but roads are not metalled. It looks like we are still living in the pre-independence time. We do not have a drainage system; no solid waste disposal system is there but ours is a densely populated region of this GP. Now that we are in power, we have amended the Annual Action Plan so that new constructions

158  Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions and maintenance works could be done in our Sansads where CPIM did nothing so far. We will of course not forget our ST brothers, we have made them understand that prioritising public services is important. (as told in January 2010) There was clear indication of prioritisation of caste-predominated Sansads for development works. The local leaders of TMC initiated a process of divergence of the Panchayat services towards caste-dominated Sansads where most of the anti-CPIM people resided (Table 4.1). I found five concrete alleyways originally designed for the tribe-dominated Sansads had been diverted. TMC continued to thrust on labour intensive schemes such as land levelling, pond excavation and construction of earthen roads in tribe-dominated Sansads. It was a strategy to arrange the money to meet the material cost for constructing concreted alleyways to connect Sansads which have historically belonged to anti-CPIM people. With these strategies from 2010 onwards allocation of mass-benefiting schemes showed a strong inclination towards the non-tribe-dominated Sansads. Following table and figure (Table no. 4.2 and Figure no. 4.8) represents allocation of different schemes in 2011–2012 and 2012–2013 financial years. Table 4.2 and Figure 4.8 reflect the extent to which allocation of resources had a tribe caste dichotomy. TMC in their initial phase of control over the GP siphoned existing schemes and bypassed the AAP. Eventually they prepared AAPs to deliver mass-benefiting schemes less towards the tribe-­ dominated Sansads. CPIM during their time siphoned the individual-­ benefiting schemes. TMC started to take away the mass-benefiting schemes as well. However, it is important to note an exclusion of Tribal section from

Table 4.1 Diversion of schemes by TMC after gaining control over GP 1 in 2009– 2010 financial year MGNREGS Original Schemes

BRGF Diverged Original Schemes Scheme

13th Finance Commission Diverged Scheme

Original Scheme Diverged Scheme

Construction • Levelling of Concrete Installation Three tube- Construction of dustbins road of five wells are of the shed land in nearby for kitchen tube-wells diverged • Earth work in picnic spots of Integrated road Child • Pond Development Re-excavation Scheme • Concrete road (ICDS) Centre Source: Field data collected from GP officials and TMC leaders during 2009 to 2011

Table 4.2 Allocation of fund (in rupees) in GP 1 in 2012–2013 financial year Financial Years

Categories of Sansads

2011–2012

Tribe predominated (traditional CPIM base) Caste dominated (Traditional anti-CPIM base) Tribe predominated (traditional CPIM base) Caste dominated (Traditional anti-CPIM base)

2012–2013

BRGF (in Rupees)

13th Finance

3rd Finance

30914

0

56724

607807

91551

271638

15224

48257

0

42600

63559

888869

Source: GP office

BRGF

13th Finance

3rd Finance 888869

607807

271638

30914

0

56724

Tribe Predominated

91551 15224 Caste Predominated

2011-2012

48257

0

42600 63559

Tribe Predominated

Caste Predominated

2012-2013

Figure 4.8  Allocation of fund (in rupees) in GP 1 in 2012–2013 financial year Source: GP office

160  Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions the development related schemes entailed a risk of losing electorates. M. Samanta in March 2013 a few months before the next Panchayat election reported: We have gained control over the GP because of the lack of CPIM leaders here. In a sense, you can say that the Maoists have unintentionally helped us to achieve this political control. We know that we will win in the coming [Panchayat] election primarily because Tribal people know that CPIM is wiped out . . . but we are quite concerned about the patronage we need from the tribal people of the region. We have our workers among them. We will convince them with our new model. But before that we really need to look at the Sansads where CPIM did nothing for several years. There was a clear indication of involvement of people from the tribal families within the party to percolate the party authority among the tribal families and also to legitimise the decisions which were going against the tribal. Traditional political system and party interface There is a three-tier hierarchy in the traditional Santal political system. At GP 1 it starts with village-level, Sholo Aana, the lowest tier where each of the heads of the families are members. Sholo Aana is headed by Majhi and his assistant, Jak Majhi. Village-level conflicts are primarily resolved by organising a Sholo Aana meeting at a common place. An unresolved issue in Sholo Aana goes to the intermediate Pargana, formed by all the Majhis from different villages of a region chaired by Parganayat. On top of Pargana there is Disam, the highest position in the hierarchy. Traditionally, Disam has the capacity to execute even capital punishments. However, villagers commonly stated that most of the village-level conflicts are resolved in the Sholo Aana. Pargana and Disam meetings are done once in a year during the Sendra – the hunting festival which takes place in January and March to decide on the forest territories so that hunting related territorial conflicts can be avoided. SANTAL MAJHIS AND THE EXTENSIONS OF PARTY

In order to understand the functioning of local-level organisations, I tried to make contact with the Majhis of different villages. I interviewed all Majhis during 2008 and 2009, except S. Hansda who was youngest of all. S. Hansda denied speaking to me, but we had the following conversation in 2009: ME:  Are you S. Hansda, the Majhi of this village? S. HANSDA:  Who are you? What makes you think

Majhi like this?

that you can talk to a

Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions 161 ME:  I am Suman, I am sorry I had no intention to hurt your feelings. I know

you are a respected person. I do not mean to disrespect you. I want to know about your life here. SH:  What is so amusing here in the village? Go to the river side, take photographs and enjoy your holiday. Give me a cigarette! He lit up his cigarette and, before I could say another word, he left. In many of such encounters he avoided me. When I began to collect information about him, I learnt S. Hansda lost his parents when he was about seven years of age. He became the village Majhi at a young age. He enjoyed this position and established considerable control over other Majhis of the region. I talked to one of the old Majhis, D. C. Murmu and his assistant G. Hansda of the neighbouring villages about S. Hansda in 2009 (Figure 4.9).

Figure 4.9 A moment of intensive discussion regarding the village-level political system and TMC’s intrusion. Sitting in front of me is the oldest Majhi of the region and standing is another experienced Majhi. Photo Credit: Dr. Krishnendu Polley

162  Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions D. C. Murmu and G. Hansda argued that the swift decision-making ability, deterministic attitude and organisational skill of S. Hansda helped him to have enough influence among the local TMC cadres. He also imposed a restriction on the tourists from entering into the tribal territories. D.C. Murmu noted that: CPIM tried to get him arrested as he had connections with the Maoists, but police never found him. He always managed to escape. Once he was bitten by a cobra. He killed the snake, tied it with his bicycle and cycled to the block hospital which is about 10 kilometres from here . . . He has a charismatic personality and we believe he has some supernatural power. In any village Sholo Aana meeting he is an integral part. He decides what should be done and usually no one opposes his decisions. (interview with D. C. Murmu in December 2009) S. Hansda was commonly seen as invincible. I saw people seeking help from him and his fellow members. When CPIM local leaders were forced to leave the place with rising Maoist activities the vacuum was rapidly filled up by S. Hansda and his team in the tribal villages. As the GP came under the control of TMC, tribal people in order to get access to Panchayat found him as an alternative to CPIM. Eventually, TMC recognised his political potential and involved him in their party. Quite clearly the organisation-based mechanism of CPIM is replaced by individuals with leadership potentials. As D. Sahoo narrated in January 2010: S. Hansda is a very active young party worker in the ST Sansads. He has earned his position in the party. He faced several atrocities during the CPIM regime simply because he did not conform to their activities in the region. They have tried hard to prove his Maoist affiliations but failed. During that same phase of my fieldwork, with help from D. Sahoo, I was able to convince S. Hansda to grant me an interview session. He began with an apology that he refused to talk to me before. He reflected on his anger and hatred towards urban dwellers and that he identified me as one of them: I do not like city people. CPIM in the name of development contaminated our world. They allowed city people to come here and enjoy. Outsiders drink alcohol and do sex in the hotels. . . Over a period of next two years, S. Hansda became one of my important field companions. While I asked him about his alleged Maoist affiliations, he argued that: They never harmed any common man. They have targeted corrupt CPIM leaders. I know killing people is bad but if you have stayed here

Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions 163 you too probably have supported this killing . . . since they do not believe in democratic system and it is true that the democracy does not function here, bullet is the only source of power. Only a few were killed but the fear which infected CPIM was needed to undo what they have done to their oppositions for years. (recorded in December 2010) The way he articulated his idea about the Maoist movement showed his sympathies towards them. One evening in December 2010, after having some country liquor, he argued that he was not a party cadre: I must say, people like me are not followers. I am for the good. People can change, party can change but the distinction between good and bad never changes. I have sympathy for many of the CPIM booth level workers who worked for the villagers. I have sympathy for the Maoists too. I have seen the hardship they face just to keep their ideology alive. I am seeing TMC as well. If they forget the evil against which they have fought I will leave them as well. With time, TMC started using him to extend their party network among the tribal people in the region. The most conspicuous means that TMC adopted was by promoting their traditional festivals. In January 2011, an extended Sholo Aana was called. It involved representatives from each of the families of five tribal villages. I had never seen such a huge tribal conglomeration before. There were arrangements for the Santal music and dance. The entire meeting place was filled with TMC posters featuring their chief, Ms. Mamata Banerjee (Figure 4.10). The meeting, although not organised under any party banner, was funded by the TMC party and chaired by D. Sahoo. M. Samanta was the chief guest. The meeting represented a space for spreading political agenda, displays of authority relations and the popular presentation of Santal cultural expressions through their traditional music and dance. It was anchored by S. Hansda in the Santali language. Although it was an extended Sholo Aana, non-tribal people also participated in it. The latter came to enjoy tribal dance and music. D. Sahoo in his speech clarified the TMC party agenda for tribal people: You have supported CPIM for quite long. They gave you roads and electricity but took away the money which came for you. They resold the food grains which came for you from the central government. They never cared for your culture and civilisation. They have allotted you land but never arranged for water to cultivate. You have remained poor . . . they have set up mercenary camps against Maoists but in turn have systematically exploited you . . . entire West Bengal is looking for a change . . . stay with us. We promise we will promote your culture, provide you safe homes, food for your children, and water for cultivation.

164  Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions

Figure 4.10 Tribal dancers in their traditional outfit in January 2011 to attend the extended Sholo Aana; behind them there is a TMC banner featuring Ms. Mamata Banerjee Source: Photograph taken by the author in 2011

D. Sahoo indicated the corrupt practices of CPIM and their ignorance of tribal culture. After D. Sahoo, S. Hansda delivered a speech in the Santali language. He portrayed the urgent need for the people to support TMC to get the actual benefits of development. He continuously requested the villagers accept the Panchayat decisions of development, even if for some time GP was unable to cater much to the tribal villages. In the same meeting, M. Samanta tried to legitimise TMC’s stance: At present, we cannot initiate individual benefiting schemes because of the faulty BPL list prepared by the CPIM. We are emphasising a lot on construction of new kitchen sheds in different ICDS centres where your children will learn their primary lessons. We will concentrate on improvement of the ST hostels in the nearby higher secondary school. Next year onwards you will see a bigger tribal fair during the Makar Sankranti. We will undo CPIM’s historical blunders of ignoring your tradition.

Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions 165 Apart from S. Hansda, Majhi and Jak Majhi from other villages were asked to sit on the dais. They were also asked to address the crowd. They thanked all the participants and expressed their gratitude to the TMC leaders for whatever Panchayat based initiatives were taken. None of them forgot to make a special mention of S. Hansda for organising the tribal music and dance to such a spectacular scale. One of the Majhis, D. C. Murmu, requested the TMC leaders to fund their yearly hunting festivals and Mr. Sahoo accepted the proposal and assured that he would talk to the district leadership. This extended Sholo Aana meeting was then followed by a series of village-level Sholo Aana meetings where Panchayat decisions were approved by the Majhis under the leadership of S. Hansda. It was also an important step to ensure tribal support for the TMC before the assembly election. The village-based Sholo Aana meetings where Panchayat decisions were legitimised and approved by the Majhis in the presence of S. Hansda became a miniature Gram Sabha. In 2012 in one such meeting, some discussion related to development initiatives took place: VILLAGER 1:  When

are we going to get MGNREGS work? This is dry season and all of us are running short of cash. . . VILLAGER 2:  S. Hansda, please tell us about that [a noisy and chaotic discussion of MGNREGS continued among the villagers] S. HANSDA:  Yes uncle, GP is planning to initiate such work. All the job card holders would be called up soon by the GP. But this year you have to go to the Sansad 8 for such works. Much more work is being taken up in that Sansad. No one asked about the reason for which they are expected to walk five miles to get work which is supposed to be done nearby. The meeting ended with a long speech by S. Hansda: This year one tube-well will be installed in Sansad 5, you can go and access water from there. It is not very far. This Sansad will not have any tube-well because of fund shortage. Whoever comes to the Gram Sabha must support our plans. It is well thought off. It is for the betterment of the entire region. TMC leaders have told me that they are going to organise a big cultural festival in January. They will also fund our sendra [hunting festival]. When he finished several villagers clapped. He ended his speech by ritualistically reciting one of the popular slogans of TMC, “maa maati manush er aikya zindabad” [long live the unity of “mother, soil and people”]. Each and every villager followed him and the meeting ended. In the evening over a cup of tea in my camp, I asked S. Hansda if he accepted that he has become just another party worker. I repeated what

166  Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions he once told me in 2010 that he could not be just a follower. He took some time before responding: S. HANSDA:  This

is not about following a political party; this is about dignity. TMC leaders do not treat us as backward; they care for our culture and our heritage. We need to continue our patronage. This is a new government and we need to give it some time. Decisions of Panchayats are now being made by people who have never made any of such decisions. ME:  Don’t you find it a little disturbing that most of the development benefits are being catered to caste predominated Sansads? S. H:  No this is a wrong interpretation. They are providing us the MGNREGS employment more than what the CPIM used to give us. They have promised to fund our cultural programmes. One of our village dance groups was invited to perform at Durgapuja in Kolkata. You people project your culture in movies and festivals. What about us? This is the only party so far, I have seen that cares for our culture. S. Hansda eventually became an important TMC leader among the tribal people of GP 1. Since January 2013 TMC started funding the annual hunting festival (Sendra) and organised tribal fairs. In the January festival, there were several government-sponsored stalls which displayed the success of TMC-led government in sectors like agriculture, handicrafts and tourism within the fairground. These stalls provided sponsorship to support the fair. While the dream project of promoting Santali festivals of S. Hansda got materialised, he became the secretary of the organising committee (Figure 4.11). It appears that with Maoist activities which resulted in an absence of local CPIM leaders, TMC got a chance to exercise domination on the GP. While CPIM had an organisational strength, TMC capitalised on the existing networks of the individuals. They successfully used the tribal sentiments related to their traditional cultural expressions to legitimise their decisions. Since, S. Hansda and also others had a strong sentiment towards the preservation and promotion of Santali cultural heritage, TMC added spectacle to their local and small-scale cultural programmes. In exchange the tribal people, networked through village-level Sholo Aana, extended their support towards whatever decision taken by the party. TMC’s strategy can be schematically described as per Figure 4.12. The three-tier traditional political system has been used by TMC to infiltrate their mode of politics effectively. While CPIM, has never tried to intervene in such traditional mechanisms, TMC uses them to generate consensus about the decisions taken at GP level. Since 2010, before organising the annual Gram Sabha meeting, a Sholo Aana meeting is organised by the Majhis at each of the villages to convince the villagers to support the decisions taken by the party. I have seen that tribal people asked about the nature of MGNREGS work, construction

Figure 4.11 The grand tribal fair organised by TMC in GP 1 in 2014. Note: (a) the blue-white combination of the clothes used in the decoration of the space, which is actively projected as the favourite colour of TMC Supreme Mamata Banerjee,11 and (b) the person taking a movie clip with his mobile phone from the stage (extreme left on the stage) is S. Hansda. Source: Photograph taken by the researcher in 2014

‘Country’ level (Meeting: Disham)

Region level (Meeting: Pargana)

VILLAGE LEVEL (Meeting: Sholo Aana)

Disham

Parganayat

Majhi

TMC taps Majhis, the village chiefs, occupying chief posi on at the most basic form of hierarchy in the Santal villages

Figure 4.12  The traditional Santal political hierarchy and TMC’s intrusion Source: Field data collected by the author

168  Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions work to be carried out in the region to their Majhis in Sholo Aana, but they have always remained silent in the actual Gram Sabha meetings which never attained the quorum. In several Sholo Aana meetings I have seen Majhis explaining the importance of supporting TMC’s decisions because of three reasons: • TMC will fund and promote their hunting festivals and each year one of the groups of dancers will get a chance to perform in Kolkata Durgotsav.12 • TMC will simplify the access to the Panchayat, there will be no more party mediation but Majhi will take issues directly to the Panchayat. • TMC will withdraw all the false cases registered against their fellow villagers for their alleged Maoist links, and TMC will amend the BPL list. In each of such meetings, almost half of the time was devoted to discussing the preparation of the hunting festival and annual celebration of Makar Sankranti13 fair. The nature of such meetings has largely been the same from 2011 to 2014. Accordingly, I saw a complete transformation of the hunting festivals and yearly Makar Sangkranti fair from a small-scale, village-level festival to a space to enjoy spectacle. Earlier, the entire fair was organised during daylight and by evening, people used to go back to their villages. With TMC assuming power in the region, 2010 onwards, it started to continue even in the night. In 2011, for the first time a dance competition between different teams coming from different villages continued even after dusk and a grand prize was awarded. From 2012 onwards, several government departments (e.g. departments of Information and Culture, Agriculture, etc.) started organising stalls at the fair ground and the festival had enough government funding to continue round the clock for five days.

Broad spectrum of misrecognitions It is true empirically, political clientelism is quite ubiquitous in any democratic systems (c.f. Clapham, 1982; Eisenstadt and Roniger, 1984; Roniger and Günes-Ayata, 1994; Piattoni, 2001). While earlier studies report establishment of clientelist mode of exchange with the delivery of public services (Robinson and Verdier, 2002, 2013; Scott, 1972; Lemarchand, 1977), present work indicates the failure of the tribal people to conceptualise their “real interest” to remain victims of misrecognitions. While the previous chapter discusses more about clientele dependent politics, here people fail to comprehend the depth of misrecognitions. It is important to note that this form of promotion of erstwhile ignored aspects of cultural expressions has become a popular weapon of the TMC-led government to fight against the mighty “party society” as advocated by Bhattacharyya (2009, 2010, 2016). It is quite clear that regime continuity in West Bengal is not simply a hegemonic establishment of power relations; rather, it should be seen as an

Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions 169 active and creative construction of misrecognitions. While in some senses hegemony is overt, symbolic violence is covert and hence, often remains unnoticed especially to the “organic intellectuals”. As already discussed for Gramsci (1971), exploited people are exploited because their consciousness is false, but for Bourdieu (1977) people misrecognise their real interest because real interest is mystified and often incomprehensible by consciousness itself. This brings to focus the importance of misrecognition GP 1 as a case unearths the mechanisms by which party cadres and leaders, often with distinct class, caste and tribe identity can exercise political control over a large section of the population by mystifying their “real interests” through everyday practices. These are actively constructed (systemic and cultural) misrecognitions and subtler than simple and commonsensical idea of mistaken recognition. Bourdieu finds that instead of direct violence, symbolic violence is what contemporary society experiences. Symbolic domination settles within the unconscious because people accumulate sedimentations of social structure through their position in the habitus. To explore the ways in which such misrecognition and symbolic violence is generated, according to Bourdieu (1984) it is important to look at habitus. Here habitus is seen as an outcome of conflict between relatively powerful and relatively powerless for prestige and status to form a tacit knowledge. Through reification, powerful groups naturalise their habitus to constitute power hierarchy. Here, symbolic violence is formulated in two different ways as a legitimising mechanism by local political parties. Such naturalisation of exploitation by the two parties and continuation of domination is conceptualised as (a) “systemic misrecognition” and (b) “cultural misrecognition”. These are ethnographically located, and now require a little more elaboration. The former and LFG-promoted mechanism of misrecognition is “systemic” because the nature of misrecognition is deeply engrained within the system itself. It is perpetuated over a very long period of time and in consequence, it has become part of people’s everyday practices. This is typical of the CPIM regime. Because of their long-term political control, CPIM has formed elaborate mediating mechanisms compatible to the theoretical constructions of “political society” and “party society”. The nature of party mediation is no longer an overt mechanism; rather it has become a part of people’s everyday practices. We can still study such mediating mechanism as rooted in several cultural constructs which are subtle, symbolic, and “natural” in appearance and always pre-given (almost ontological). Therefore, people continue to misrecognise the domination of the party and its mediating role in getting access to the local governance institutions as an essential part of their everyday practices. In consequence, government institutions (refer to Ashok Stambha discussion once again) are commonly perceived as unknown systems of paperwork and bureaucracy, filled with restrictions. They equate restrictions at the irrigation office, oppression by police as variants of expressions of the

170  Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions “government”, all carrying similarity in terms of lack of access. The gap between people and government is therefore filled by the party, reaping the electoral benefits over decades. Party is a “friendly” and accessible extension of the government. The steps which an individual has to go through in order to access the government institutions is a mental map that people over the years have taken for granted and forgotten to question. Actual access to government institutions is always mystified. Therefore, what appears as “consent” from the people in the Gramscian sense is actually misrecognitions “manufactured” by the local political leaders. TMC capitalises first on the leadership vacuum resulting from the absconding CPIM leaders to exercise control over the GP. Because of the lack of an organisation base to percolate political control within the everydayness of the people like CPIM, they have successfully adopted a different strategy. They have combined a promotion of historically ignored tribal cultural traditions by funding hunting festivals with existing tribal traditional political network base in exchange for political patronage. Therefore, the tribal section which constitutes a substantive percentage of voters to determine the political fate of the GP is pushed towards a new form of symbolic violence. TMC tapped important traditional village leaders, organised traditional meetings, the Sholo Aana, and gained consensus about the decisions which clearly excluded the tribal people. The traditional Santal Majhis busily celebrated their festivals, legitimised the decisions made by the GP and did not question the skewed allocation of resources. This form of consensus building by the new regime makes explicit use of “cultural” traditions, a much-valued sentiment which has largely remained unaddressed by CPIM. As a contrast to the “systemic misrecognition”, TMC needed a quick alternative, primarily to exercise and sustain political control over the tribal sections of the region. As the patterns of expenditure indicate, TMC has successfully used tribal “cultural” expressions to construct the “cultural misrecognition” after political change in the region. This new form of misrecognition unlike party-mediated “systemic misrecognition” is apparently, radically free of strict party mediation. In contrast to what Bhattacharyya (2016) notes as moral guardianship of the party, or making every issue partisan, the new form of political control seeps through the existing “cultural” mechanisms. Instead of bypassing or substituting existing channels of public transactions, TMC is inviting existing channels of public transactions to take place but within templates provided by them. Conceptually the idea of “cultural misrecognition” as a political mechanism is different from some of the earlier conceptualisations, such as Fraser and Honneth (2003). While scholars like Fraser find “cultural mechanism” as a source of status subordination and injustice – hindrance in “participatory parity”, here as the ethnographic findings denote, “cultural misrecognition” refers to a process of using of existing “cultural” apparatus for political gain. It is quite expected that such “cultural misrecognition” has different forms and localised manifestations demanding further studies. Meanwhile

Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions 171 there are sporadic reports of resurgence of village-level shalishi sabha (kangaroo courts) in tribal areas such as in Birbhum and Jalpaiguri, where local TMC leaders are allegedly involved. Moreover, of late, the use of identity issues in West Bengal politics has a root in these mechanisms. Clearly, TMC’s political mechanism is taking a distinct shape, ontologically different from that of “party society”. It is reasonable to believe that this approach is politically fruitful to TMC as in 2016 they have managed to secure victory in most of the constituencies reserved for SC and ST. The mighty party society-dependent LFG continues to lose its position even among the weaker sections, which traditionally constituted their support base for three decades (Ei Samay, 2016).

Notes 1 I wrote a blog on one of such experiences. On that fieldwork, I was roaming around with my colleague, Dr. Krishnendu Polley. Krishnendu had extra trimmed hair and both of us had the typical fieldwork look – tanned skin and a relatively hardy look; when villagers encountered us, they thought we were Jungle party – the name for Maoists. You can read it here: http://sumanparole. blogspot.com/2015/02/many-faces-of-jungle-people-yet-another.html 2 Netai incident has been seen as one of the eye-openers about the existence of CPIM-supported armed mercenaries. See http://archive.indianexpress.com/ news/CPIM-pays-for-netai–suffers-losses-in-junglemahal/790753/. Three years later the then-Chief Minister Mr. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee admitted, “An incident had taken place in Netai. It was very wrong. Our boys had done a mistake, a grave mistake”. See http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Netai-killings-abig-mistake-by-cadre-Buddha/articleshow/29784645.cms 3 There is an interesting book on such incidents by Swati Sengupta (2016). She interviewed the surrendered Maoists and the book gives intricate details of the Lalgarh operation as well. 4 Several CPIM workers were killed. See www.frontline.in/static/html/fl2618/­ stories/20090911261810700.htm 5 The boundary between state power and power of a particular political party has been quite unclear in West Bengal. Whether this has happened because of the mediating role played by the CPIM and its machinery for decades needs further research. However, it is reasonably clear that people failed to comprehend such difference. I define such a failure as systemic misrecognition, which I have discussed in the ethnography in section II of this chapter. 6 Since CPIM leaders could compel several villagers to attend street meetings, they also had a rough estimate about the real common people attending such rallies. When there is a significant fall in such numbers they could easily understand the nature of detachment of people from the party. 7 Many such camps were set up in different places in districts of Paschim Medinipur, Purulia and Bankura. 8 A diploma engineer responsible to design, estimate and supervise construction activities under the GP. 9 A government official, chief of the GP office, but working under the Pradhan who is the chief among the elected representatives. 10 I first conceptualised cultural misrecognition in an article: Nath, S. (2018). Cultural misrecognition and sustenance of Trinamool Congress in West Bengal. Economic and Political Weekly, 53(28), 92–99.

172  Violence, counterpublics, misrecognitions 11 The blue-and-white combination has become the second most important symbol of TMC’s authority after their flag which contains a tri-colour flower. The colour has been used under strict dictation of the CM Mamata Banerjee to paint all the government properties including roadside fences, bridges, and all government buildings. Each of the meetings organised on behalf of the party or government has been decorated with this combination across the state since 2011. 12 The biggest festival of the capital city of Kolkata. 13 The grand January festival which holds a special position among the tribal people of the region.

5 Indian political terrain and the location of West Bengal

ONE As I am writing this chapter, the LF is disappearing from one place after another and new forms of discourses are emerging. In Tripura, one of the strongest Left bastions, they have experienced a massive election defeat with the rise of BJP as an alternative. BJP in Tripura has already created controversy by uprooting one of Lenin’s statues by using a bulldozer. TMC supreme, Mamata Banerjee, clearly said that she would have been happy to see Left rule in Tripura (Times of India, 2018). While she immediately criticised the removal of the Lenin statue, I can still remember the sudden disappearance of a wonderful Lenin statue installed near Shramik Bhavan, Haldia following LF’s election defeat in 2011 (Figure 5.1). Shramik Bhavan used to be a well-equipped and well-maintained house for the labourers. There are dormitories, a seminar hall and meeting rooms for the labour union representatives of Haldia. Now, the place looks like a deserted and abandoned building. Interestingly, while there are places where TMC occupied CPIM’s party offices, here they didn’t do so. Perhaps the symbolism of CPIM and Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) has been made to decay slowly. While the LF is becoming insignificant in Indian Parliament in terms of numbers, a mass of 35 thousands farmers walked 180 kilometres in Maharashtra to assert their demand in Mumbai under the Left banner, All India Krishak Sabha (AIKS) (Jadav, 2018). In West Bengal there is a definite rise of BJP (see Figure 5.2) as manifested in the percentage of vote share and also in 2017 and 2018 bi-elections (Talukdar, 2017). In sum, India is going through an uncertain time. There are concrete data and there are a variety of symptoms, and often these two do not match. In West Bengal, apart from the rise of BJP, recently, there is a probability for a new Congress/TMC equation, as TMC has declared a support for Abhisekh Manu Singhvi – the Congress nominee for Rajjya Sabha (Indian Express, 2018). Broadly speaking, India is experiencing all sorts of political vibrations revolving around different policy measures and initiatives taken up by BJP-led NDA at the centre. This chapter will not deal with political calculations; rather I will attempt to identify broader trends of politics in India with a special focus on West Bengal.

Figure 5.1  The Lenin Statue in Haldia before it was removed Source: Photograph taken by the researcher in 2012

TMC

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39.8

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38.9

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45.6

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Figure 5.2  Percentage of vote shares by major parties in West Bengal Source: Indiavotes.com

10.3

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Indian political terrain 175 Throughout this work I have felt that there is a lack of internalisation of political ideology among the people and leaders, at least in West Bengal. In fact, ideological training to the party cadres is seldom practiced. It remained a surface issue. Even the massive organisation structure of CPIM in West Bengal took little time to disappear after 2011. Coalition politics practiced by both BJP and Congress regularly sets aside ideological issues. In West Bengal, there is a definite lack of ideological orientations and, of late, TMC doesn’t show much of a concern for building up party organisations. Instead the party has successfully used several hitherto underutilised mechanisms to consolidate their support base – cultural misrecognition and an emphasis on locally influential people are two of them, as this book notes. Consequently, they have started facing an increasingly tough challenge from more organised BJP forces, most conspicuously by organisations such as Hindu Sanhati. At this juncture, what do West Bengal’s political trends say about the country?

Broader trends of politics in India and the location of West Bengal India has shown a trend of centralisation in decisions being made by leaders in the name of government since the 1970s and 1980s. This tendency represents a stark contrast to the 1950s. Erosion of traditional authority relations, weakening of highly fragmented political authority, and linkage between city and village are seen as some of the primary reasons for the rise of fragmented political society. Its consequences include low levels of state efficiency in accommodating conflicting interests and solving development-related problems. These issues have resulted in political violence and poverty (Kohli, 1994). Loyalty towards personhood, often aided with “charisma”, dominated India’s political trend during Indira Gandhi’s prime ministerial era (Brass, 1990). There was a conscious use of cultural hegemony as Partha Chatterjee (1997) finds in his analysis of emergency in India. He argues that there was an attempt to position Indira Gandhi as a Bharat Mata-like figure. For Kohli (1990), Rajiv Gandhi after Indira’s assassination attempted to reverse this trend but failed and re-established a highly centralised regime. Perhaps Kohli’s publication of Democracy and Discontent: India’s Growing Crisis of Governability in 1990 followed by political instabilities with five general elections in 1989, 1991, 1996, 1998 and 1999 respectively and his edited volume entitled The Success of India’s Democracy in 2001 (Kohli, 2001) says a lot about scholarly scepticism and then admiration of the democratic transition of India from a predominantly centralised Congress regime through a period of political instability to the rise of a coalition politics; two of the most conspicuous being BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA). In 2014, India has seen a new form of centralisation with the rise of BJP and Shri Narendra Modi becoming the prime minister of

176  Indian political terrain India. This book slithers through an overlapping phase between the rising regional powers and a simultaneous power accumulation in the centre. Even in West Bengal, within its first five-year term, TMC is successful at increasing its political support base even further to become the power centre in West Bengal, making oppositions insignificant. It is difficult to comprehend such centralisation and a simultaneous rise of regional forces. Kohli (1990) gives three ethnographic examples to establish the argument that India’s political hinterland from the 1960s onwards started to become more fragmented. The third one being from West Bengal is of particular relevance to the present book. West Bengal, with a distinctive history and susceptibility towards radical appeals according to Kohli, poses a typical challenge to the consolidation of power by promoting a grand and country-wide narrative by political parties like Congress. The state has seen a political transformation ending the longest elected left regime only to start a new regime with another localised political party. With three decades of continuous LF rule, it will not be an overstatement to say that West Bengal is one of the important hotbeds for the development and continuation of distinctive political culture. This chapter, therefore, focuses on (a) the broad trends of the politics of India and location of West Bengal in such a broad spectrum and (b) how far the concepts generated from my ethnographic works can be used in making sense of certain forms of political practices in India. Regionalism and coalitions in India 1990s India has witnessed an era of the rise of regional forces. It was a definite shift from older single party domination to the rise of identity-based politics at the regional level. The result was short-lived coalition governments, especially in the Hindi heartland. The rise of state-wide significant political parties like Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in Andhra Pradesh have not only capitalised on regional issues but also remained successful to continue without joining UPA or NDA. LF extended their support for Common Minimum Programme (CMP) during UPA 1 and TMC partnered with UPA 2 but continued to remain distinct to get a better bargain (Yadav and Palshikar, 2008). Southern India represents an array of different political parties like TDP in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) in Telengana, Congress in Karnataka, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) in Tamil Nadu, Left Democratic Front (LDF) in Kerala and so on. However, the situation has been changing rapidly with the rise of BJP since the 2014 parliamentary election. Either singlehanded or in coalition, BJP at present, (March 2008) is ruling 22 out of 29 states. Its penetration in the northeast is also quite significant and symptomatic of the rapid spread of the party’s organisation base in some of the impenetrable corners of India. In this changing terrain, let me place West Bengal. I will begin with 2004 when the then-LF had external support of Congress-led UPA.

Indian political terrain 177 West Bengal: distinctiveness and integration Let me work out some of the details of West Bengal politics in the broad context of India. I will try to concentrate on the politics of Bengal in two different ways. First, I will show some of the lost opportunities of the LFG and map India’s political landscape since May 2004. I have taken May 2004 as my starting point because this was a historical point of one of the most important beginnings of UPA where the Left was a crucial partner. Second, I will focus on 2014, another historical juncture when the BJP-led NDA climbs to power defeating the Congress-led UPA. I will conclude this chapter by showing how my ethnographic findings indicate broader political trends of the country. May 2004 to LF’s defeat in West Bengal Apart from the “historic blunder” of 1996, when the then-CM of West Bengal Jyoti Basu had an opportunity to become the prime minister of India, a second opportunity for installing left-inclined policies through a parliamentary process came in 2004. That year was unique for at least three reasons. First, UPA became left-dependent to form the coalition government in the centre where the LF secured 60 parliamentary seats to achieve an important position in the political map of the country. Second, in addition to their existing support base from the marginal sections of the society, there was a strong civil society backup, asking LF to participate to the government and shape policies in the philosophy of communism – a rare opportunity in India.1 Third, and related to the first two, is LF’s unique position to mobilise people from the bottom and formulate policies from the top to create an alternative political landscape to the country. If we inspect what happened afterwards, we can see support from outside based CMP, a series of compromises and finally a disjunction of the LF and UPA. The politics in West Bengal played a crucial role in mapping what happened after 2004. When I started my fieldwork in March 2008, the debate on nuclear deal was going on in the Parliament. People in West Bengal were divided among themselves with a debate on whether LF should support UPA with nuclear deal or not. Such discussions used to occupy rooms of the university and institution professors along with discourses on the issues of Singur and Nandigram. Streetlevel discourses revolved around Singur agitation by the leader of opposition Ms. Mamata Banerjee and police firing in Nandigram. More fuel to such local discourses was added as the Salboni blast resulted in subsequent police atrocities and formation of a protesting organisation – PCPA. While a PCPAMaoist alliance was apparent, the Netai incident revealed LF’s installation of armed mercenaries Harmad Bahini, in forested districts (see Chapter 4 of the book). No matter how local these issues were, each of them got national and international attention. Moreover, these events had considerable impact on Congress-LF interface. For example, initially, before 2007, UPA was sceptical

178  Indian political terrain about confronting LF. They were afraid of the situation if external support extended by the LF was withdrawn. This situation changed rapidly with Nandigram violence. I remember the telecast of the police firing on Bhoomi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee (BUPC) (committee to resist land acquisition) on March 14th, 2007. A day after the incident I tried to reach Nandigram with a small group of friends but failed. There was no communication available from Kolkata; neither was there anything available from the nearest railway station, Mecheda. My friends from Haldia later reported that they could not come back to Kolkata because of similar circumstances. When I started having informal conversations with several CPIM leaders I knew personally, they legitimised the violence by citing issues with Maoist support to the movement, which demanded strict administrative intervention. It is worth recalling that, following the continuous agitation, in September 2007, LFG announced that the chemical hub would be shifted elsewhere. However, in November 2007, Nandigram experienced a series of violence organised by CPIM cadres to “recapture” Nandigram and snatch control from BUPC. I remember CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee justifying the event as “paying [the BUPC] back in their own coin” (Hindustan Times, 2007). Following these events, Singur and Nandigram got even more attention; LF lost its moral credibility and became defensive. LF’s falling popularity was immediately clear with the May 2008 Panchayat election, where TMC won 35 out of 53 seats to assume the Purba Medinipur Zilla Parishad – the district where Nandigram is located. TMC was also victorious in South 24 Parganas Zilla Parishad. Within a month, TMC won three municipalities with a substantive Muslim population. If we look at the centre, UPA pushed for International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) negotiations and safeguards in November 2007. LF categorically declared that they will oppose the government’s move towards IAEA. However, with a loss of face in West Bengal, falling popular support base, it was only matter of time that UPA went ahead with the deal and got it through with the help of Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party, a former CPIM ally on July 22nd, 2008.2 While LF’s loss of support base in West Bengal and UPA’s move with IAEA are roughly parallel, I would like to mention one more issue here that says a lot about regional politics in West Bengal and its country wide impact. Let me begin here by asserting on the fact that LF experiences success when they work in collaboration with civil society movements. Most recent experience being the AIKS-led protest march in Maharashtra at a moment when LF has experienced a defeat in Tripura. Similarly, during UPA partnership it was the Rojgar Adhikar Abhiyan – a LFsupported civil society movement that ultimately resulted in MGNREGA. LF experiences backlash when such civil society backing goes away. For example, as I have just discussed Singur and Nandigram issues, there was a clear disjuncture between LF – especially CPIM and the rest of the others. Aamra vs. ora (Us and them) post-Nandigram became a popular connotation, where “Aamra” meant LF. Clearly, LF’s disjuncture from civil society is an extremely important issue to study its rise and fall, at least in India.

Indian political terrain 179 Issues of Singur and Nandigram must be seen in context to this disjuncture within the LF. It actually shook the credibility of LF’s critical role in CMP. While CPIM central leadership was opposing the SEZ policies, West Bengal was witnessing LF’s invitation to Wal-Mart for retail trades, Cargill to invest in seed and food sectors, Asian Development Bank and World Bank to provide loans for the development of SEZs. The disjuncture was quite clear as LF has also restrained UPA from large-scale privatisation. During that phase, whenever I attended meetings with officials or political leaders as part of my research work at IIMC, most of them were of the opinion that West Bengal’s left is more pro-capital than perhaps some of the declared pro-capital parties of the country. Meanwhile, 2008 Panchayat results and some of the municipality elections set the mood for the possibility of a change – paribartan in Bengali. If the nuclear deal was the moment of defeat for the LF at large, Singur-Nandigram-Netai took away the popular support base of the LF in West Bengal, resulting in disjuncture in Central-Bengal’s approach and disassociation of civil society backup. There are intricate connections between these local and national issues in politics. These issues not only pop up side by side, but also influence each other. For example, soon after LF withdrew support from UPA three things happened: (a) LF had to share more or less the same line of opposition with BJP, (b) they expelled Parliament Speaker Mr. Somnath Chatterjee – a veteran CPIM leader because he didn’t vote against UPA and (c) in West Bengal Congress and TMC formed a coalition against LF. The last consequence was quite heavy to the West Bengal LF, resulting in a series of defeats. LF became virtually an insignificant political force in a state which it ruled for 34 long years at a stretch. The rest of story is relatively unilateral. LF was defeated, TMC broke alliance with Congress and in its second term they increased their margins to a great extent. While there are issues of corruptions against TMC, people’s apathy towards corruption have made TMC almost invincible. Instead of looking for an organisation-based mobilization, TMC continues to depend on relatively influential figures, be it local or regional. TMC-led state government has been successful at providing critical policy alternatives. Such relatively quickly deliverable policies as Kanyashree, Sabooj Sathi, distribution of subsidised rice grains and a focus on MGNREGS represent some of the examples (Nath, 2017). Since the time of LF’s power in the writers’ building, West Bengal is marked with certain key political practices over the years. These are often quite distinctive in nature. First, West Bengal has seldom seen the mobilisation of its populace along the line of primordial identities for more than three decades. Second, at the micro-level, the state during the LF regime developed party mobilised Panchayats to decide and dictate much of the everyday life of the people through what is known as “party society.” The party society has left such a strong impact in the cultural-cognitive dimension of people’s everyday life that it has generated what we can call “systemic misrecognition”. TMC promoted what I term

180  Indian political terrain as “cultural misrecognition” (Nath, 2018 and Chapter 4). Third, there is a formation of pervasive class-based mobilisation of the issues related to farming. Such class formation in the post-reform period reveals a lot about agrarian structures and the state’s political practices. Fourth, land issues continue to remain important and a source of most of the mobilisations – at the micro-level often the corrupt practices and a strong dependency network, and at the macro-level, landcentric mass mobilisations, such as Singur and Nandigram. Cultural misrecognition, 2014 and West Bengal is never the same again Before I talk about 2014, let me dwell a little bit with TMC’s promotion of cultural misrecognition. Where to trace its roots? Was it a sudden invention after the 2011 election? Perhaps not! Apart from a few LF leaders like the late Subhas Chakraborty, most of the others kept a distance from becoming directly associated with religious ceremonies. In fact, during the 34-yearslong LF rule, the issues of identity-based cultural expressions, including religion, was pushed backseat to the main concern of party hierarchy. Not only the LF, even the opposition forces have not used religious ideologies or identity politics to expand their political base. Having said so, it is also important to note that the opposition leaders, especially those belonging to the TMC, have patronised Durgotsav directly for several decades. The festive and carnivalesque nature of Durgotsav have always made its religious association somewhat secondary. My theorisation of the promotion of little-known cultural expressions as vividly discussed in Chapter 4 of this book, as cultural misrecognition has a definite root in TMC’s patronisation of Durgotsav during the LF era. Similarly, TMC leaders have wisely participated in iftaar parties, wore traditional Muslim dresses and openly sought patronage from Muslim religious leaders at various occasions. These sorts of patronisation remained important but started to gain stronger focus especially after 2014. Political change in the parliamentary election of 2014 is phenomenal because of two important reasons; first, this election to a certain extent represents people’s shift in focus from coalition politics to single-man-led, single-party-led politics. Second, and more importantly, the 2014 election carried a symbolic predisposition of identity mobilisation. This mood was set in even before the election was won by BJP. It was clear when the prime ministerial candidate, Mr. Narendra Modi, fought the election from Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh (UP) – the ancient city which symbolically represents the rich history of Hinduism. Within three years, UP elects a Hindu monk to rule the state. Meanwhile, there is a proliferation of violence by cow protectors, issues of mob lynching and communal violence in numerous corners of the country. Before I say anything further on the primordial issues of politics, let us quickly look at some of the available data on issues of communal violence. If we look

Indian political terrain 181 at the number of reported communal violence, there is a steady increase in India, and West Bengal is no different, if not showing worsening trends. Let us closely look at both the figures. The first figure (Figure 5.3) representing communal violence in India shows that 2008 has been the most violent time for the country. The frequency then shows a declining trend for three consecutive years and then again it starts to increase before the parliamentary election in 2014. Since 2014, the trend is towards increase. More intriguing is the picture of West Bengal. Even in 2008 the number of communal violence in West Bengal was negligible, but the steep growth to such numbers is noted post-2014 (Figure 5.4). Such a figure for the state which has gone through communal tensions during the partition of India and then virtual absence of such issues for three decades needs special attention. Before linking these new trends in West Bengal politics through my ongoing ethnographies let me discuss a little bit about the issue of communal violence in India. Discussion on communal violence is linked with the concept of secularism (Anand, 2005). One of the major challenges to practices of secularism is linked with Hindu nationalists’ disgust with Congress’s alleged (in West Bengal TMC’s) Muslim appeasement (Copley, 1993; Ganguly, 2003; Gupta, 1996). Two dimensions remains perennially linked to the promotion of religious fundamentalism in India: first, an exclusive referencing to history including the distant and mythical past using what Thapar (2014, p. 3) says: “In contemporary times we not only reconstruct the past but we also use it to give legitimacy to the way in which we order our own society”. Such legitimacies are cultivated, invented and re-invented thoroughly “invented traditions” (Hobsbawm and Ranger, 1983). The second dimension is promotion

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Figure 5.3  Number of communal violence in India since 2008 Source: Replies to Loke Sabha3

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Figure 5.4  Number of communal violence in West Bengal since 2008 Source: Replies to Loke Sabha3

of a particular understanding and subscription to the notion of Nationalism. Thapar, Noorani, and Menon (2016, p. 11) note that, “India has become the arena of struggle between the secular nationalists and those endorsing varieties of religious pseudo-nationalisms”. India, in the recent past has seen a rise of both the invented traditions and pseudo-nationalists. Identities are consolidated through a variety of mechanisms – most exclusively by using the markers of earlier traditions and spread of post-truth rumours resulting in an increased frequency of incidents like mob lynching (Frontline, 2017). The second mode has started with labelling4 of dissenting voices as anti-nationals; most prominent examples happen to be such labelling of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students – although the Left-affiliated student unions continue to win in elections there (Indian Express, 2017). Political discourses related to the issue of secularism in Indian context often embrace the Brahminical tradition; consequentially it has lost its relevance in the contemporary Indian value system to become a popular slogan (Nandy, 1998; Sen, 1998; Bhargava, 2010; Thapar, 2010). Effective secular practice depends on the minorities’ ability to “resist homogenization from outside and push for democratization from inside” (Chatterjee, 1998, p. 348). While people experience the disruption of communal harmony, historians feel it could have been even worse (Guha, 2016). Nehru was particularly concerned with the promotion of secular ideas, but its effective discourse disappeared over the years (Nehru, 1985–1989; Guha, 2016). It is needless to mention that the Babri Masjid demolition is one of the landmarks for the strengthening religious foundation of post-independent Indian civilisation. At present,

Indian political terrain 183 there are ample evidences to prove growing intolerance, cultivation of identity politics and shrinking of secular democratic space in the country. Yes, there are histories of book burning, vandalization of paintings during the earlier Congress regimes and even in apparently secular democratic Leftruled states, “now, perhaps for the first time in our history as an independent nation, serious, well respected writers are murdered, physically eliminated for their views” (Guha, 2016, p. 39). Let me focus on how political space has transformed since 2014 and what does it say about the rest of India. Let us recollect “cultural misrecognition” once again. Whenever I think of the concept I remember my conversation with Sukhdeb on that night when we had to take the motorcycle ride through forest and he talked about earning recognition for their cultural traditions. Now I know the significance of his statement and how significant it has become since 2011 and especially after 2014. Three issues mark the importance of cultural misrecognition in West Bengal since 2011. First, promotion of little-known traditions, additions of spectacle to existing festivals make TMC a primary protector and promoter of little-known traditions to the villagers. It carries a crosscommunity appeal. Second, the state has declared a monthly allowance to the Imams and Muezzins by pulling funds from the waqf board. Third and related to it is the promotion of the Durgotsav carnival in Kolkata. While, the second initiative has been popularly projected as strong evidence of Muslim appeasement and part of TMC’s “vote bank” politics, the Durgotsav carnival didn’t receive similar reflections. Meanwhile, 2016 and 2017 Muharram and Vijaya Dasami (the idol immersion day) coincided and the state had to issue a government order to stop Vijaya Dasami processions on Muharram. It was thought that overlapping processions could create communal tensions. When the honourable Calcutta High Court gave a verdict against the stopping of idol immersion on October 1st, 2017, TMC used their party machinery to stop idol immersion (Kundu, 2017). Such attempts must be seen in context of more than a dozen reported acts of communal violence in the state since 2016 (Dutta, 2017) and the fact that processions are prone to instigate communal disturbances (Jaffrelot, 2005). Dasgupta’s (2017) revelation of the Hindutva forces’ plan to initiate communal tension during Durgotsav reinforces the reasons behind the state’s decision. ETHNOGRAPHIC REFLECTIONS ON COMMUNAL VIOLENCE IN WEST BENGAL

It was one of my fieldwork sessions in Paschim Medinipur in 2014 when I got the news of communal violence at a place not far from Chandrakona Road station. It was one of the first incidents which remained unreported in the popular media. By 2014, most of the youngsters in different villages already possessed a smart phone with 3G if not 4G internet connection. I started receiving numerous WhatsApp forwards of mostly photoshopped images of Muslim atrocities towards others. No one knew their origins but nevertheless believed in their truthfulness instantly. One of the images was from the

184  Indian political terrain Bollywood film Bombay carrying a caption that it happened in Chandrakona Road. I didn’t hear the word post-truth then, but was shocked by the spread of such rumours. Soon, West Bengal started experiencing many such incidents. Smaller incidents remain unreported. Significant events get media coverage. There were 11 media-covered incidents in just October to December 2016. Along with a group of like-minded friends through a publication platform known as “AAMRA ek sachetan Prayash”, I started exploring these events. To date, we have covered six incidents of communal nature in West Bengal, viz. forced conversion in Rampurhat Birbhum 2015, Kaliachak, Malda violence in January 2016, Shariati attack on Sufi followers in 2014–2016 in Rejinagar Murshidabad, Hindu-Muslim communal violence in December 2016 in Dhulagarh, Howrah, Naihati-Hajinagar, North 24 Parganas in 2016 and Baduria-Basirhat in 2017. The following is a table containing core issues which came out of the ethnographies on these issues. I have noted that a series of identity consolidation mechanisms are promoted in each of these regions. The organisation bases of both Hindus and Muslims are on the rise. These organisations include pro-Hindu organisations like Hindu Sanhati, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Bajrang Dal and Durga Shakti Bahini – the women wing, and an umbrella term “Jamat” for the Muslim organisations. Activities include regular sword fighting, fitness enhancement programmes, adding gloss to little-known Hindu festivals in West Bengal like Ram Navami Rallies, Ganga Aarati (in Naihati-Hajinagar area) for Hindus. There is similar rise to the extent of celebration of Milad ul nabi, Muharram rallies and Islamic Jalsha (AAMRA, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018; Ghoshal, 2017; Nath and Roychowdhury, 2019a, 2019b). In a variety of conversations I found out that even TMC workers and local leaders find it okay to join RSS or Hindu Sanhati, as it is linked to the protection of the interests of the Hindus. It is important to note that the rise of identity-based politics has roots in the history of the partition of the country and has been nurtured carefully in a concealed manner (as argued by Das, 1991, 2005). TMC’s association with the celebration of Durgotsav during the LF era were symptoms of identity consolidation. The same leaders participated in iftar parties as well. Instead of creating a secular image, these actions slowly brought a politics of identity consolidation into the state political practices. When one of the ritual practices gets political leverage, others feel insecure. It becomes clear in conversations with the local youths in Naihati-Hajinagar who found it important to preserve their religious identity through organisations like Hindu Samhati. These insecurities have been promoted with polices like provisions for allowance to Imams and Muezzins. Apparently, the promotion of local traditions might appear as a much-needed attention to preserve the rich cultural heritage of the small and marginal sections of the society, in practice it is not. There is rather an element of intrusion. For example, while festivals related to hunting or Makar have transformed to include elements from outside, such as music and songs in the Bhojpuri language in Bankura (see Chapter 4), in

Pre-decided date, well organised

Nature of event

Identity issues. Fear psychosis

Hindu minority & identity under threat

Media and Social media Muslim terror

Pre-decided date opportunism

Organised use of goons

Kaliachak (2016)

Using Mosque microphone Monolithic Islam, Pirpanthi (Sufi) followers as deviants Attempt to remove relatively open syncretic traditions

Sudden proliferation

Mosque-based, Sharia followers

Rejinagar (2014–2017)

Hindu-Muslim fissure, mistrust

Muslim terror

Social media

Festival and procession linked

Hindu and Muslim organised move, and use of goons

Dhulagarh (2016)

Source: Field data collected by author and AAMRA (see also Nath and Roychowdhury, 2019a, 2019b)

Cultural cognitive institutional dimensions

Muslims terror

Pro-Hindu organisations

Organisation base

Mechanism of spread Stereotyping

Rampurhat (2015)

Issues

Table 5.1  Core issues from the five cases

Muslim appeasement by state Perceived threat and participation in communal organisations

Social media

Festival procession linked

Pro-Hindu organisations

Naihati-Hajinagar (2016)

Organised. Revenge and counter revenge among the ghettoised neighbourhoods Started and continued with a Facebook post Hoax and social media Muslim appeasement by state Prominent mistrust

Baduria-Basirhat (2017)

186  Indian political terrain Naihati-Hajinagar there is Ganga Aarati and there are Ram Navami rallies which was never part of the Bengali calendar of festivals. Moreover, there is an increasingly organised mechanism of conflicts. While most of the conflicts took shape during festivals, Basirhat-Baduria sees weeks-long conflict on a photoshopped Facebook post. In 2018, even TMC actively participated in organising Ram Navami rallies. Such rallies have resulted in violent conflict between communities and parties. There are ever-increasing numbers of riots erupting in many corners of the state – the latest being Asansol-Ranigunj. Two aspects indicate the organisation base of identity consolidation at present: (a) the continuation of conflicts for relatively longer period of time, and (b) the proliferation of polarised rallies following each act of communal violence. We need to comprehend that the identity consolidation and secularism are two extremes and relational issues. They emerge out of a complicated nexus of community, caste, religious practice, state-led policy and preferences, practices of leadership at the grassroots and so on. It is quite obvious that each of these aspects exists in relation to the other and they are undergoing some major changes in the recent past. Even if the right-wing Hindutva forces do not climb up the ladder to assume power immediately in the state, identity consolidation will continue through the mechanisms of “cultural misrecognition”, making irrevocable changes in the public sphere of the state. West Bengal and India – location, spirit and emotion It is quite clear that BJP has a fair chance to become the or ruler in the assembly in 2021 if no massive change happens at the centre. However, if we look at the political process, it is difficult to say with confidence that West Bengal has retained its distinctive political features any more. I would like to draw attention on two issues here: (a) TMC’s lack of focus on careful building of party organisation, and LF’s rapid disintegrated organisation is providing a significant vacuum for the proliferation of organised Hindutva forces to rise in West Bengal, and (b) there are policy-related misunderstandings and a strong role hoax that fuels communal tensions in West Bengal. With a lack of strong party grid and people still living with partition memories West Bengal took little time to show communal issues. Of course, there are experiences of Hindu-Muslim friendship, peace and harmony, giving dividends even at times of religious disturbances, but these acts of communal violence attempt to create a disturbed present for its future references. While Indian Muslims remain one of the most socio-economically deprived communities (SCR, 2006), their metaphorical and physical boundaries (ghettoes), and a continuous cultivation of negative Muslim stereotyping by others has severely limited their access to climb up socio-political milieu. These issues in turn have continuously promoted mutual apprehensions between Hindus and Muslims (Jaffrelot and Gayer, 2012; Chatterjee,

Indian political terrain 187 2017). In such a situation, any special attention towards Muslims is quickly identified as features of “vote bank politics” and “Muslim appeasement”. Needless to mention, the rise of communal violence is parallel to the BJPled NDA’s rise in power in the centre. There is also a rise of BJP’s vote share in different bi-elections in West Bengal following communal violence (see Figure 5.2). Coupling of coalition and Hindutva propaganda is an effective model of BJP’s electoral operation for quite a long time. We can plot BJP’s spectacular rise from 1989 with the retreat of Nehruvian consensus on secularism and promotion of right-wing Hindu Nationalism. The Hindu nationalist alternative to Congress started getting momentum in the 1990s, especially in the Hindi heartland on temple issues (Brass, 1993; Hansen and Jaffrelot, 2001; Pai, 2013). Apart from the Hindutva issues, pre-election and post-election coalitions, often ignoring ideological differences have proved to be beneficial for BJP (Pai, 2013; Sridharan, 2013). There are many West Bengals in West Bengal. West Bengal is not a singular entity, it never was and it never will be. My decade-long research for this book could only reveal a minuscule part of the everyday interface of people and politics. West Bengal, despite its distinctive political culture revolving around party organisations that are extremely localized, is able to play a crucial role in shaping many of policies. Bidwai (2015) based on his journalistic experience argued that LF leaders in West Bengal are one of the most local-minded generations of leaders he has seen anywhere in the world. If it was UPA 1 when LF in West Bengal has made several experiments with the “Capital”, it was UPA 2 when TMC’s hard bargains and tactful move made the political change. Meanwhile, as my ethnographies reveal, the politics of West Bengal are increasingly revolving around the primordial issues instead of earlier forms of party-mobilised public transactions. If one of the reasons for such a growth is the rapid disappearance of party organisations of the LF, and TMC’s lack of emphasis on rebuilding party organisations, another major reason is ignorance of the LF to train their cadres to combat Hindutva. Apart from a few rhetorical initiatives, like ritualistically remembering the 1992 Babri Mosque demolition, there is a serious lack of a conscious public sphere to combat identity politics. Instead of policies of secular democratic spirit, West Bengal is increasingly becoming integrated with identity politics, like many of the other states of the country.

Notes 1 The request letter along with the list of signatories is available with South Asia Citizen’s Web, URL: http://sacw.net/article9524 2 There was a television channel’s sting operation revealing the bribery of the Congress to gain majority in parliament: www.ndtv.com/india-news/wikileakscongress-bought-mps-for-trust-vote-over-nuclear-deal-450320 3 http://164.100.47.190/loksabhaquestions/annex/14/AU590.pdf, http://164.100. 47.190/loksabhaquestions/annex/12/AU3586.pdf http://164.100.47.193/Annex

188  Indian political terrain ture_New/lsq16/3/au1606.htm http://164.100.47.193/Annexture_New/lsq15/13/ au6502.htm http://164.100.47.193/Annexture_New/lsq15/5/au2545.htm 4 Sometimes the concerted attack on dissenting voices have resulted in killings as well. In the recent past, India has witnessed the murder of several dissenting voices, the latest among them is the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh.

6 Theorising Bengal at a crucial juncture

I I hope you still remember a few characters that I have interacted with in the preceding pages. Let me once again bring them face to face. Let’s call up the prospective groom from Bardhaman who was marriageable because he used to be very close to CPIM and would write down the Gram Sabha meeting minutes. I hope S. Hansda, the notorious Majhi wouldn’t mind coming and having a puff of a cigarette. Subrata Shounda wouldn’t mind taking out some time from his reading schedules at Purba Medinipur, hopefully he is not that depressed after six years of his party’s defeat. Let me also call D. Mondal – the local leader to people’s movement against Harmads in Paschim Medinipur, one representative from either the Saha or Debnath family, and of course, how can we forget S. Sarkar, the female member, and Ronnie, the active GP member in Bardhaman. What would they converse with each other about? I know people like Subrata Shounda will not talk much as he doesn’t know what to say after the continuous defeats of his party. People belonging to the families of Debnath and Saha know they really have nothing to lose unless there is a stark change in the agricultural policy of the state. The prospective groom knows how to switch over his political affiliations and now he will find it convenient to share a few words about their mode of political operations under TMC. He might continue to praise present CM as this has become the trend. In every public works done there is a signboard saying how the work is inspired by CM and funded by local MLA or MP. I think D. Mondal or S. Hansda would not like such discussions for long. What about S. Sarkar, the woman who strived to bring water to her Sansad, or Ronnie, who silently worked to bring about changes in the rural connectivity in his Sansad? They might start pursuing the representatives of Saha and Debnath family. Can we identify the silence of the so-called left elites, the switching over of persons who depended on the left regime for so long, the rise of individualised leaders instead of party organisation, and the continuation of dialectics in Panchayat operations? Yes, even when Subrata Shounda is silent, dialectics is present through Ronnie and S. Sarkar. Yes, opportunists have switched over as they always have. Of course, there is a

190  Theorising Bengal at a crucial juncture definite rise of individual leaders and retreat of organisation-based politics in TMC’s rule. And then there is the rise of BJP along with an organised cadre base of late.

II Since, we have successfully arranged [an impossible and imagined] meeting between different important actors, let us have a quick glance at the main issues that are unearthed in this book. I explored different dimensions of the dialectics between three major agencies: 1

The political leaders and their coalition with local power groups including the economic elites 2 The GP officials 3 The weaker sections of different regions. Often the dialectical nature of the relationship between these three major players is subtle and unrecognisable. I focus on the mechanisms by which the local power groups try to contend the resistance against skewed allocation of resources through GP. I explore dimensions of “misrecognition” which resulted in “symbolic violence” in GP 1 Bankura. I argue that CPIM during their regime made GP inaccessible to the villagers. They constructed elaborate mediating mechanism through their political hierarchy and people wittingly or unwittingly accepted the system. They capitalised on the difficulties of handling GP related “official” procedures for the common people and used their social networks to make the villagers dependent on the party. The misrecognition is so powerful that villagers have failed to differentiate between the party and government. I call this mode of party mediated construction and misrecognition as “systemic misrecognition”, primarily because this mode of misrecognition is linked with the existing system of political practice. This practice is then highly formalised and becomes one of the most dominant forms of political culture of the region. Because of such misrecognition most of the decisions which are taken by the political parties are not contested. This form is quite ubiquitous in other places under study as well. However, this misrecognition is also linked with a tendency of seeing a state-led initiative as a party-led initiative by the people (discussed in Chapter 4). It is most prominently manifested in the case of GP 4, which I will discuss shortly. The second form of misrecognition in GP 1 is found during TMC’s period. TMC started to capitalise on the existing cultural expressions of the local tribal groups. In order to shift attention from the issues of skewed allocation of resources they popularised and promoted tribal festivals on a grand scale. This way of popularising tribal festivals enabled them to achieve popularity among the tribal people. They also used the traditional Majhi-Disam

Theorising Bengal at a crucial juncture 191 political system to gain tribal support. I call this form of symbolic violence “cultural misrecognition”. This mode capitalises on the existing cultural expressions and hence it does not require as much time as is needed in the case of CPIM’s party-based “systemic” constructs over the years. TMC is rather quick to shift tribal attention from “real interest” related to the equitable distribution of public services. I argue that conceptually misrecognition and symbolic violence are subtler than hegemony. Hence, as I have discussed in the theoretical section, “organic intellectuals” cannot comprehend the considerable power being masked in the “systemic” and “cultural” fields in everyday practices. In GP 2, Bardhaman I show a different form of dialectics which is rooted primarily in the field-capital interaction forming habitus. The case supports earlier studies by Harris-White (2003, 2008) as I explore the nature of ­oligopoly-based networks and their impact. However, I have given detailed understanding of actual local nature of people’s dependency and how this dependent habitus is capitalised by the political parties. I explored the functioning of the “new class” (as advocated by Kohli, 2011; Ghatak and Ghatak, 2002) and its various practices. I show that the relationship between different tiers of local hierarchy has economic and social capital base. The political struggle is found in the lower and middle tier of the local hierarchy. The topmost tier through their strategic alliance with the political parties during changeover withstands disruptions of political changeover. I explore the ways in which local economic elites based on their cold-storage and ricemill trade networks exercise control over weaker sections. I found that local hierarchy has a deep-rooted dependency network based on irrigation water, position of land and influence over GP. Over the years, the local elites have formed strong “social capital” through their cold-storage and rice-mill networks where a distinct hierarchy is constructed based on the interaction between people’s position in the “field” and social, cultural and economic capital. These interactions over the years have formed what can be termed as “symbolic capital”, which is manifested in their everyday practices. I have studied everyday practices during the political transition to conclude that existing hierarchy continues to seep into the local politics to influence (if not dictate) most of the GP-based decisions. Here we have seen “hegemony in habitus”. Over the years, agency position in the local hierarchical “field” has formed distinct habitus. Conceptually, this form of habitus entails a constant struggle for social and cultural capitals. Hence, while an agent occupies a specific position in the local hierarchy he constantly struggles to go beyond his position. This struggle enables weaker sections to go beyond their land and irrigation dependency to become entangled with the storage and rice mill-based hierarchy. Here, the relatively powerful groups adopt hegemonic mechanism by giving discounts, providing monetary support in case of an emergency or lending money to buy motor vans to the weaker sections. These mechanisms represent new forms of dependency network. It is new, because it goes beyond the traditional sources of dependency based on land and

192  Theorising Bengal at a crucial juncture irrigation water in the region. However, this hegemonic means of exercising control is not misrecognition per se, because the weaker sections consciously allow this to happen. Rather, I argue that this is something new which can be termed as hegemony in habitus. It is hegemony because it entails some form of passive domination and there is a lack of subtler mechanism to channelize misrecognition. Such channelization is absent because there is no need for it. Rather, it is easier to exercise hegemony based on economic inequality. I bring the notion of consciousness of the organic intellectuals to explain the dynamics. Organic intellectuals, based on their knowledge and experience from existing class position, have developed elaborate mechanism to subvert the domination. Therefore, even in the strict structural apparatus of the political and economic hierarchy there are subtler mechanisms of power subversions manifested in GP decisions. Since, the weaker sections cannot completely overthrow or undermine the local structural hierarchy, neither can they impose a direct counter attack, hence, they utilise a variety of persuasion mechanisms. Such mechanisms have a foundation rooted in the democratic functioning of the GP through informal channels. Initiatives of different agencies to bring comparatively large-scale schemes such as filtered drinking water, and construction of metalled roads through persuasion and use of social capital exemplify such practices. Issue of consciousness of the organic intellectuals and hegemony in habitus is quite prominent in case of GP 4, Paschim Medinipur. In this case, I show the ways in which hegemonic failure and violent dominance result in a distinctive protest politics. I conceptualise such protest politics as a formation of counterpublics. Political consciousness (or counterpublic consciousness) is manifested in the form of protests within a dialectics of local politics where GP plays an important role. To explain the protest politics which was formed during the most oppressive phase of local politics in GP 4, I conceptualise power in Foucauldian terms. Following Foucault (1980, 1983, 1991), I argue that weaker sections are not only the recipients of coercion, but they occupy a space where power is also contested. Therefore, there is always a potential of power subversion as well as consolidation of protests. Such protests require a level of political consciousness that can only be formed in the counterpublics sphere, which is a parallel development of the Habermasian public sphere. This is “counter”, because this formation has the potential to go beyond the public sphere which is ideologically filled with “false consciousnesses” perpetuated by the relatively powerful groups. Following Fraser’s (1990, 1997) notion I try to explore the formation of public sphere parallel and alternative to the bourgeois public sphere. In GP 4, I find a similarly blurry boundary (systemic misrecognition) between the state and the CPIM party, which is an outcome of long-term party mediation of village life. The system of party mediation was disrupted with Maoist blast and subsequent developments including police combing activities, the formation of PCPA, Maoist violence over CPIM leaders, the formation of GSRB, CPIM-led Harmad Bahini and finally the formation of counterpublics

Theorising Bengal at a crucial juncture 193 respectively. In each of the stages until the formation counterpublics CPIM exercised dominance over villagers and repressed their protesting voices. With the formation of counterpublics during late 2010 and removal of Harmad camps local CPIM leaders receded and finally absconded. I note that CPIM failed to comprehend the magnitude of village sentiments against the state-led police atrocities. When they tried to legitimise such activities against Maoists, villagers rejected such efforts. With such rejections, CPIM tried to contend PCPA and Maoists by Harmad activities which made the party to further lose their village support base. Initially the local opposition forces were displaced because of violent Harmad activities. I could find them forming an alternative public sphere. I argue that CPIM was unsuccessful at continuing their domination because at GP 4 their mechanism was neither misrecognition, nor hegemony. It was direct violent domination. It was first contested and then overthrown by the counterpublics. The formation and sustenance of counterpublics through a series of meetings masked under household rituals and the like shows creative possibilities of counter domination. Within this dialectical political environment, I find an important dimension of GP-based local politics. Though leaders of the GP bureaucracy did not support large-scale fund misappropriation during the CPIM-led Harmad activities, but due to lack of political oppositions, they could not protest against such activities. Rather, they were forced to support such activities. However, with the hint of counterpublics protests the GP bureaucratic leaders quickly made an alliance with it and popularised the issues related to corruptions. In sum, GP 4 shows two important issues of local politics: A It shows that a failure of hegemonic mechanism and constructs of misrecognition pave the way for protest politics. It indicates that even the long-drawn misrecognition constructs for continuation of political control can be disrupted by events of external violence such as the landmine blast and subsequent state interventions. The violence and counterviolence measures, especially if that fail to address the popular sentiments, result in the rise of protest politics. B The systemic and institutional design of the GP, where elected representatives are supposed to work with bureaucratic personnel, has a potential to withstand corrupt practices. GP 4 exemplifies the fact when corrupt practices are promoted by the powerful local leaders it cannot be contested until there is a strong opposition. The way in which GP bureaucratic leaders made alliance with the opposition forces not only shows the importance of opposition in democratic forums but also indicates the democratic possibilities of a counterpublics movement and protest politics. GP 3 represents a continuation of corrupt practices related to land and GP-based activities even after political changeover. I show that a corrupt

194  Theorising Bengal at a crucial juncture practice related to the allotment of vested land was generated during the CPIM regime. Later on, a section of party cadre assumed the role of landnegotiating middlemen. They controlled the local goons and helped political parties win in different elections. I find that these middlemen during the political changeover became entangled with TMC and continued to practice land-related corruptions in and around the GP. GP-based local politics develops a corrupt means of exchange relationship between the party and middlemen. Middlemen provide funds, arms and muscles to the party during election; in exchange the party does not intervene in their land-related corrupt practices. It appears that the corrupt means of exchange is also extended in the GP-based development initiatives. I argue that the absence of a vibrant public sphere can result in power concentration to decentralised agencies, such as the party leaders and representatives attached to GP. I note the order and predictability in corrupt practices over the years which give rise to a culture of corruption. Hence, the public sphere which can truly contend with the corrupt practices by and large accepts this means of exchange to quicken the process of getting public services. Hegemonic efforts to exercise control over weaker sections and responses of the weaker sections represents a dynamism which requires theoretical attention. Before doing that, it is important to focus on bureaucratic leaders – another major player of the implementation of different development programmes at GP. I focused on the ways in which disagreements are handled by the bureaucratic leaders. I found that local bureaucratic leaders are dependent on the political leaders for making decisions and implementing them. Each of the political parties has developed its own and often local mode of decision-making where the role of bureaucratic leaders is reduced to mere rubber-stamping authority. However, during the phase of political changeover the bureaucratic leaders have played an important role in creating political disagreements against corrupt practices. In GP 1 because of political dependency, bureaucratic leaders failed to continue GP activities when CPIM leaders were absconded. This dependence is highly local in nature. In contrast, in GP 4 under similar crisis, bureaucratic leaders successfully contended the CPIM-led fund misappropriation. They took the initiative to involve the GP in the counterpublics movement. Findings from GP 4 reinforce the possible contribution of the political disagreements in democracy. There are few issues of disagreement between bureaucracy and administration that needs a mention here. First, it is important to note that there is no permanent mode of collaboration, adversary or submission in the GPs. All of these changes appear frequently and can even co-exist, making it difficult to isolate them from one another. Second, the rise of counterpublics and a loss of political base of the local CPIM and its use by the local bureaucracy that helped in cutting off the supply line to the party-sponsored mercenaries indicate the disagreements can be translated in favour of the people. No matter how small scale and regional this may seem, it indicates the strength of the system of

Theorising Bengal at a crucial juncture 195 local governance and public sphere and their possibility to work in collaboration. Therefore, with the presence of a viable political alternative, the bureaucracy can devise strategies to best serve the interest of the people, even within a violent political environment. Third, disagreements within the same political party, especially between different factions as evident in GP 3, can lead to a favourable outcome for the people. Therefore, even when there is lack of a viable opposition, factions within the same party can play a positive role in deliberative democracy. The use of political factions and counterpublics by the bureaucratic leaders also indicates the contribution of disagreements in deliberative democracy (Barabas, 2004; Mutz, 2002, 2006; Price, Cappella, and Nir, 2002). There is a possibility for the present system of local governance bureaucracy to fulfil the ethical obligations (Frederickson, 1997). Fourth, the case from GP 2 highlights the complicated nature of different disagreements regarding the implementation of a decision by different stakeholders. Here the role of a local leader is notable and settlement is based on the percentage of extortion money. In order to resolve disagreements, the bureaucrats and local politicians work together to make inflated estimates. GP 2 also shows the strength of a politico-economic coalition of the agribusinessmen to transcend the decisions of the GP and other stakeholders. Even with the failure to implement the project, the case of GP 2 unearths the fact that bureaucracy and local leaders have a capacity to challenge (and to a certain degree convince) the strong structural arrangement of the agriculture-based “big-men politics”. Finally, I re-emphasise the fact that there is no predictability to the nature of disagreements and their outcomes. I find disagreements to be chaotic and cannot be categorised in simple positive or negative terms. It is interesting to note that the discretionary power of any of the stakeholders in the ­decision-making of local governance can be radically altered making the results highly unpredictable. In the following table (Table 6.1) I give a summary of major issues from the four GPs.

III The local- and micro-level analysis of this book gives rise to certain analytical tools to address issues of popular politics at the grassroots. However, I have never attempted to formulate any grand theoretical argument. This is precisely the reason for which I do not use any grand theoretical frame to situate this book. Rather I bring theoretical notions which best explain particular issues in their particular contexts. Some of the issues do have grand appeals but to do so it needs further research along the conceptual line. I argue that conceptualising West Bengal, especially during the political changeover, requires theoretical precision which can accommodate both the structural apparatus of the Left parties – especially the CPIM – and

196  Theorising Bengal at a crucial juncture Table 6.1  A summary of findings from different GPs Issues Ritualistic meeting performance Spatial location of power Legitimacy issues Misrecognition and symbolic violence Hegemony Political violence Counterpublics

Corruption

Nature of issues

GPs where they are found All four GPs

Three layered space Historical referencing Systemic misrecognition Cultural misrecognition Through structural and cultural apparatus Hegemony in habitus Armed mercenaries Structural violence Power subversion Social movement Attempts to contend counterpublics movements GP-based corruption in principal agent relationship GP-based fund misappropriation to fuel political violence Corruption in scheme design and implementation

All four GPs All four GPs GP 1, GP 2, GP 4 GP 2 GP 1, GP 2 GP 2 GP1, GP 3, GP 4 GP 2 GP 2, GP 4 GP 4 All four GPs Most prominent in GP 3 GP 4 All four GPs

negotiations of the weaker sections, even when the opposition is absent. Additionally, it is now important to look at the micro dynamics of the rise of strong leaders at local levels. Before I dwell on some of the lasting and emerging trends of West Bengal politics, let me make a few concluding comments here: 1

There is a methodological limitation in earlier studies. As I have already discussed, most of the earlier studies on politics in India are variablebased studies. Scholars are methodologically inclined in the relative impact of major variables such as clientelism, violence, factions, and elite capture. I argue that in each of the places of West Bengal there are local factors and analysis of their impact requires methodological refinement. I find two things are important here. First, there should be an emphasis on the case-based approach to understanding the local interplay of different variables which can give rise to conceptions, for instance cultural misrecognition. To do this it is important to immerse oneself in the political practices of everyday life of the villagers. I advocate ethnography to be the only way of doing that. Second, it is crucial

Theorising Bengal at a crucial juncture 197 to look beyond the conversations and interviews as methods of data collection. Rather the spatial arrangements, people’s passiveness and reluctance also tell nuanced stories which need to be documented and interpreted. I find phenomenology to be one of the methodologies that address such issues of local politics. 2 The mechanisms of domination are rooted in aspects of ritual-like meeting performance, spatial arrangements of meetings, dominance and subordination and display of authority relations. I argue that such mechanisms are quite prominent in the popular forums but needs more theoretical refinements which I have done through my ethnographies. Such mechanisms indicate a conscious attempt by the political parties to influence the political consciousness through different forms of misrecognition and hegemony. A significant failure of this mechanism has the potential to escalate political changeover. 3 CPIM is successful in constructing systemic misrecognition to exercise control over a significant number of people. This form of misrecognition is linked primarily with the construction of party mediation in such a way that the boundary between party and government becomes blurred. Although this book does not deal with the history behind the rise of the Left in West Bengal, we need to mention that such constructions of systemic misrecognition take years to develop. Once it is developed, CPIM easily manoeuvres their control through a dependence network which is variously seen as clientelism and party mediation. I argue that the controlling mechanism is more of a forestalling the counterpublics and less of dominance. CPIM has developed elaborate mechanisms to forestall alternative consciousness within the public sphere through a structural apparatus of the party. Hence, conceptually it is more important to refer to the mechanisms that can control the consciousness. The analysis of the voting pattern in four cases shows the existence of a substantive number of opposition voters. Ethnographic findings indicate that opposition forces fail to consolidate or make their presence felt in the popular forums until there are some disruptions in the systemic misrecognition. I conceptualise cultural misreognition as TMC’s strategy, most prominently in GP 1. This is another unique development that requires further study, especially in the context of a rapid spread of fairs and festivals and of the recent rise of identity issues, as popular political mechanisms that the state is experiencing after the political changeover in 2011. As a contrast to the systemic misrecognition at GP 1, TMC needed a quick alternative, primarily to exercise control over the GP because of sudden absence of CPIM leaders as a result of Maoist activities. TMC successfully used tribal cultural expressions to construct the cultural misrecognition after political change in the region, and villagers continue to live in a false consciousness which is now linked with their popular cultural expressions. I limit my theoretical analysis of cultural misrecognition here and do not bring the existing theoretical notions of nostalgia or

198  Theorising Bengal at a crucial juncture imagineering primarily because it requires further studies. As a continuum to the political control through subtle mechanisms I analyse a partial failure of such mechanism in GP 2 Bardhaman. In GP 2 it is seen that a clientelist mode of political control is inherently linked to the formation of particular habitus. I bring up the notion of habitus because there is a tendency for weaker sections to go beyond the earlier clientelist mode of politics as their dependence on land and irrigation water starts to change. I argue that although there is a change in the economic reality based on farming, a parallel change in the habitus is not yet evident. This static nature of agents’ position in the field does not mean that the structure is getting an upper-hand over agency. Rather it reflects that the entire structure is undergoing a change. The symptoms of such changes are evident in the alterations within the middle and lower strata of the local hierarchy. Moreover, through my analysis of the informal meetings, I show that the weaker sections have effectively (although in a limited way) made power subversion possible. GP 4 represents another pole in the continuum of the political control and change. Here the constructs of systemic misrecognition acted like a boomerang. While people continued to depend on the party for making any public transaction, they failed to understand the difference between party action and state-led police atrocities. Any subsequent endeavour by CPIM to restore their support base among the weaker sections was then overtly and covertly rejected and alternative consciousness is developed. The subsequent violence over the opposition and weaker sections then formed counterpublics protest movement. Here the CPIM party completely failed to extend political control through subtle mechanisms and assumed violence which escalated a political changeover in the region. 4 While I show the nature of dynamism within GP-based local politics in West Bengal as an outcome of the constructions of misrecognitions and hegemony and a failure to this, I also show the role of weaker sections as dialectically linked to such constructions. Therefore, the nature of political practices and attempts of exercising political control conceptually become a creative exercise. I argue that even within such creative process of constructs there are continuations of issues such as corruptions. The political disagreements related to corrupt practices at GP 3 exemplify such a contention. Finally, I argue that due to the existence of different agencies in everyday political practices in GP-based politics, the entire domain of decision-­making has at least two, often interchanging, dialectical potentials, viz. (a) the dialectics within the informal sections which involves a variety of stakeholders including the local elites, party leaders, middlemen and also the weaker sections; (b) the dialectics based on disagreements between the informal section and the formal bureaucratic leaders and elected representatives. Any attempt to explain the local politics in transition without addressing

Theorising Bengal at a crucial juncture 199 these micro-factors would be partial. Major events such as the vibrant landrelated movements in various parts of the state have only a partial influence on local level of politics. GP-based local politics has always been dynamic in West Bengal and such dynamism has only surfaced during the political transition.

Bengal: perennial issues and new trends Three things discussed in this book will continue to dominate the politics of West Bengal in the near future: (a) politics with land, (b) dialectics of a variety of forms in decision-making mechanisms and (c) the misrecognitions. The first one will continue to dominate the nature of major problems of development-related initiatives, including the job creation challenge of the state government. The West Bengal Land Reform (amendment) bill gives emphasis to construction of new business enterprises in existing poorperforming industries. Even industries like JSW (as discussed in Chapter 3 of this book) have started to return excess land to the farmers. Dialectics would always fascinate researchers with an inclination towards ethnography on power. Let me discuss something which is becoming more prominent in the politics of West Bengal – the politics with cultural misrecognition. Let me begin with the present policy of West Bengal. Two major areas in which West Bengal government is giving emphasis include (a) farming and (b) information and culture. The farming sector gets substantive attention over the years (see Figure 6.1). The popular slogan of TMC is Maa-Maati-Manush (literally mothersoil-human) quite clearly manifested in the nature of funding for farming. However, it is uncertain whether such endeavour would reach small and marginal farmers withstanding the resistance of the local elites as we have seen in Bardhaman. However, the second important area, i.e., the funding to uphold cultural misrecognition is equally important and almost has become the political trend of the state. If we look at the funding pattern to the ministry of information and culture affairs we can see the stark increase (Figure 6.2). In contrast to well-organised community-driven endeavours of the CPIMled LFG, TMC devises policies which are quick to make direct impact in people’s everyday lives. Moreover, it is important to note that these policies are relatively easy to implement. Most prominent among such initiatives is the kanyashree prakalpa, in which girls of 18 years are given Rs. 25,000/- in an attempt to help them continue their education. Another initiative is that of Sabooj Saathi, through which school-going students of tenth and eleventh standards are given bicycles. Moreover, the distribution of subsidized food grains under the National Food Security Act is also quite effective (as noted by Sarkar, 2016; Hafeez, 2016). A special emphasis is given to implement MGNREGS, as the average day of employment given has increased from 34.7 days to 46.91 days over the period of four years. The coupling of direct

Agriculture markeng

Food processing

2013-2014

285.35

2012-2013

120

138

152.4

225

181

2011-2012

150.46

315

300.45

585

1157.72

1500

1728

Agriculture

2014-2015

2015-2016

2016-2017

Figure 6.1 Over the year budgetary allocations (in crore rupees) in agriculture and allied sectors by Government of West Bengal Source: Computed from state budget statements, accessed from www.wbfin.nic.in/Page/ budget.aspx

Rupees allocated (in crores)

300

200 150

165

110 61

2011-2012

2012-2013

2013-2014

2014-2015

2015-2016

2016-2017

Figure 6.2 Budget allocation to the Department of Information and Culture Affairs, Government of West Bengal over the years Source: Computed from budget statements, accessed from www.wbfin.nic.in

Theorising Bengal at a crucial juncture 201 and quick development benefits and resurgence of cultural expressions have given rise to statewide government sponsored fairs, festivals and exhibitions. A slow but steady rise of the religious sentiments is also around the corner as I have discussed in Chapter 5. With growing religiosity in every sphere of life, West Bengal is witnessing a rapid alteration of the public sphere and politics if the report of more than 150-armed Ram Navami rallies in April 2017, and several riot-like events is anything to go by (Ghoshal, 2017). There is a rapid rise of BJP in recent bi-elections, which manifests a resurgence of identity-based politics parallel to such a rise (see Figure 5.1 of Chapter 5). Keeping in mind a Muslim population that constitutes 28% of the population, TMC-led state government devised several populist policies like provision of a monthly allowance to Imams and Muezzins. These measures are seen in some sections at least as examples of “Muslim appeasement”, which partly explains the rise of BJP and the Hindutva forces (Roy, 2017). There are instances of forced religious conversions and unreported riots. Bengal has seen an unprecedented rise of communal clashes at different districts in recent times. Since October 2016 there have occurred dozen of medium- to large-scale religious riots in the state which is a serious matter of concern (see for example Figures 5.2 and 5.4 of Chapter 5). It appears that the political mechanism of party society and political society mediating systemic misrecognition will no longer work for West Bengal. Instead, the state is going to witness even stronger forms of cultural misrecognitions.

Note 1 See MGNREGA portal at: http://164.100.129.4/netnrega/homestciti.aspx?state_ code=32&state_name=WEST%20BENGAL

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Index

agribusiness 75 – 76, 81 – 82 agro-economy 77; cold storage 81 – 86, 88 – 89, 95 – 96, 126, 191 (see also politics, cold storage); loan 81, 87 – 90; rice mill 88 – 95, 191 anthropology of policy and politics 73 – 75 authority relations 44 – 46, 86 bike procession 118 BJP 35, 175, 177, 180, 186, 187, 190, 201 bribery 123 – 124, 125 caste 76 – 77, 84, 86, 127, 151, 157, 159 centralisation of politics 175 – 176 charisma 48, 53, 175 civil society 11, 109, 133 – 134 class 7, 8, 80, 84, 86; see also Gram Sabha, class relations clientelism 6, 8, 19, 22 – 23, 76 – 80, 90, 168, 196 – 197 coalition politics 176 communal violence 180 – 186 compensation 103 – 116, 127 corruption 48 – 49, 51, 65, 108 – 112, 139 – 140, 143, 145, 157, 162 counterpublics 11 – 12, 129, 130 – 134, 141, 144 – 145, 192 – 195 CRPF-Maoist violence: 33 cultural misrecognition 26, 64, 180 – 189, 191, 196 – 197, 199 dependency 88 – 90, 95 – 97, 153, 156 – 157, 168 dialectics 11 – 12, 24, 76, 79, 95 – 96 dominant party system 6 – 7 election 12, 152 – 153 elite capture 24, 25, 80 – 90, 95 – 97

embodiment 38 ethnographic sensibility 24, 75 ethnography 73 – 75 factions 53 – 59, 109, 118 fair 136 – 137, 166 – 168, 197, 201 false consciousness 8 – 10, 13, 148 – 149 farmers march 173 festivals see fair fieldwork 73 fish trade 110 – 111, 113, 119 formalism-substantivism in economics 90 – 91 gender 19, 22 – 23, 24, 46 Gram Panchayat: decisions 3, 20 – 21, 71, 45, 91 – 95; see also Panchayat Gram Sabha 28 – 72, 165; class relations 78 – 79; decisions 3, 21; functions 18; gender 43, 61; idolisation of leaders 50, 134; politicisation 43 – 44, 61, 62; power of persuasion 47 – 51; power structure 42 – 43, 70, 143, 149; ritualistic 42, 44 – 47, 62, 70; voice suppression 39, 61 – 63, 71 Gram Unnayan Samiti 25, 64 – 69; fourth tier 68; open voting 68 gunda/dada/goon/hooligan 81, 97, 124 haat 91 habitus 9, 12 – 14, 77 – 80, 95 – 97, 191 – 192 harmad bahini 53 – 54, 130, 131 – 132, 137, 139, 141 – 142, 143, 145, 192 – 193 hegemony 7 – 10, 11 – 13, 133 – 148, 169 hierarchy 91, 95 – 97, 126 – 133, 148 – 149, 160, 167, 180, 191 – 192, 198 Hindu-Muslim fissure 183 – 186 Hindutva 183, 186 – 187, 201 hunting 147, 160, 165, 166, 168, 170, 184

Index  221 identity 73, 86, 179 – 186 industrialisation 98 – 106, 107, 125 informal economy organisation 57 informal meeting 91 – 92, 94, 95, 138, 139, 198 invented traditions 181 – 182 irrigation 86 – 88, 99, 191 – 192, 198 jungle mahal 144 – 146 JSW see Salboni project kinship, friendship and business 83 – 90 land 76, 97 – 107; acquisition 76, 99 – 107; dependency 78, 95 – 96, 107, 125 – 126; reform 3, 4, 15, 21, 22, 47, 48, 52, 77, 85, 114, 125, 136, 157, 199; vested 98 – 100, 105, 107, 108, 112, 114, 194 left regime: cadre 28 – 29, 54, 67, 114 – 115, 154 – 169; continuity of (see reasons for stability); control of 4, 5, 95, 111, 153 – 155; crisis of 2 – 3; discontent of 3 – 6; history of 3 – 4; hooligans 116 – 118; reasons for stability 4 – 5, 6 – 14, 169 – 170; structural explanations to 4 – 5, 24 – 25, 41, 83, 97; UPA 176 – 179; voters turn out 29 – 35 Left rule in Tripura 173 legitimisation/legitimacy 70, 79, 65 – 66, 147, 148 – 168 Lenin statue controversy 173 levy 80, 88, 111, 139 – 140 lived space 38, 42, 70; see also space livelihoods 26, 52, 97 – 106, 125, 136 local coalition 77 local elites 21, 77, 79 – 92, 95, 97 Maoist-harmad battle 141 – 142, 146 Maoists 40, 51, 54, 55, 58, 131 – 132, 134 – 136, 138, 141, 156, 162, 166, 177 – 178, 192, 193 middleman 87, 97, 109, 111, 113, 114 – 115, 126, 194, 198 migration 110 – 111 misrecognition 12 – 13, 25, 130, 146 – 171, 180 – 186, 190 – 193, 196 – 201 Nandigram see Singur-Nandigram nationalism 182, 187 Netai 2, 132, 142, 171n2, 177 network 83 – 88, 90, 126, 141, 166, 190, 191

oligopoly 21, 76 – 82, 90, 96, 191 organic intellectuals 11 – 13, 127, 132 – 134, 145, 148, 169, 191 – 192 Panchayat 15 – 23; corruption 24, 70; politics interface 18 – 23, 45, 122 – 125, 141 – 144; see also Gram Panchayat participant observation 74 – 76 party government confusion 155 – 156 party ideology 175 party society 22 – 23, 168 – 169 passive revolution 22 PCPA 132, 135 – 138, 141 – 142, 144 – 145, 177, 192 – 193 people’s participation 32 – 35 phenomenology 37 – 38, 62, 70, 197 polarisation/ intolerance 59, 71 political change 2 – 3 political disagreement 5, 194, 198 political society 22, 24 political transition 77, 80 – 83, 87 politics: cold storage 83 – 91 (see also agro-economy, cold storage); definition and conception of 5 – 6 post truth 182, 184 potato bond 81; see also agro-economy, cold storage power 132 – 134 power struggle 83, 95 – 96 pradhan/member 41, 44 presiding officer 30 – 31 Production of Space 38 promoter 115 protest politics 11, 26, 132 – 134, 144 – 146, 147, 192 – 193 public sphere 10 – 11, 132 – 193, 194, 195, 197, 201 qualitative methods 74 rational choice 132 regionalisation of politics 176 – 177 religion 22, 23, 179 – 186 sacred grove 102 Salboni blast 2, 135 – 136, 141 – 142, 145, 177 Salboni project 98 – 107 Sarada-Narada 103, 104, 107 secularism 181, 182, 186 – 187 service delivery: 69, 123 – 124 Singur-Nandigram 48, 49, 50, 52, 96 – 98, 125, 130 – 134, 139, 177 – 180

222 Index skewed allocation of resources 61, 92, 109, 122, 147 – 148, 149, 151, 156, 170, 190 small/marginal farmer 82, 88 social capital 35, 60, 77 – 79, 85, 86, 91, 95, 109, 126, 191 – 192 space 36, 38 – 43; power 41 – 43 structure–agency problem 9 – 10, 80, 83, 96 – 97, 126 subaltern 10 – 11, 127, 133 symbolic capital 9, 11, 23, 126, 191 symbolic violence 12 – 13, 25, 146 – 149 syndicate 113, 124 – 125 systemic misrecognition 127, 179, 197 – 198 tourism 113, 116, 124 traditional political system 160 – 168

tribal issues 100 – 107, 132 – 135, 137, 147, 151 – 153, 160 – 168 violence: depiction of 53 – 57; hate speech 53 – 57, 59; political control 117 – 121, 124 – 125, 148, 152, 153, 156, 169 – 170, 198 voter turnout 29 – 35; people’s participation 29 – 30 water relationship see irrigation weaker sections/marginals 10 – 11, 13, 83, 87, 93 – 94, 95 – 97, 107, 126, 133, 136, 145, 149, 171, 190, 191 – 192, 194, 196, 198