Critical Reflections on Economy and Politics in India

Raju J. Das holds a Ph.D. from The Ohio State University, Columbus, and is currently a Professor at York University, Toronto. He is the author of Marxist class theory for a sceptical world (Brill, 2017).

"This book argues that Indian society is characterized by a complex of forces such as low labor productivity in export-oriented and local subsistence production. The majority of people live in abject poverty. These forces and their economic result have to be understood via class analysis—how large groups of people relate to each other and to nature. Raju Das provides an extensive theoretical and empirical version of this analysis—the best ever written so far."— Richard Peet, Clark University, USA, in: Critical Sociology 47(6), pp. 1047-1048"This book is a magisterial examination by Raju J Das of the current political and economic dynamics in India, and confirms his place as one of the leading social scientists contributing to our understanding of what is really happening on the subcontinent. After the hiatus of the cultural turn, this volume returns the focus once more to where it should be: a materialist approach based on political economy and class analysis. As such, it is situated firmly within the intellectual tradition of the best scholarship about India, as exemplified in the earlier mode of production debate. It will surely define how the Indian development path is studied and argued over for the foreseeable future."— Tom Brass, formerly of SPS, Cambridge University, and Editor of The Journal of Peasant Studies

• AcknowledgementsList of Illustrations1 Introduction1 Why Class?2 Why Not Class – Why Not a Class-Based Analytical Framework?3 Components of a Class-Based Framework for Understanding Contemporary India4 The Chapter Outline2 Class in India 1 Existing Criticisms against Class Analysis of India2 Existing Approaches to Class in India3 A Critique of Existing Approaches to Class in India4 Constructing a Class-Based Framework5 Conclusion3 The Capitalist Character of Class Society in Post-colonial India: Moving Beyond the Mode of Production Debate1 The Development of Capitalist Relations, and the Barriers to This: A Brief Discussion on the Indian Mode of Production Debate2 A Critique of Some Influential Ideas in the Indian Mode of Production Debate3 Examining India’s Capitalist Character on the Basis of Marx’s Distinction between Formal and Real Subsumptions of Labor4 Class Struggle and the (Slow and Uneven) Transition to Real Subsumption of Labor5 Class Struggle and the ‘Blocked’ Transition to Real Subsumption of Labor6 Possibilities of, and Limits to, Real Subsumption of Labor7 Jairus Banaji’s (and Others’) Mistaken Subsumption of Labor Perspective8 Conclusion4 Neoliberal Capitalism with Indian Characteristics1 Neoliberalism: Its General Traits2 Neoliberalism in India: The Context3 Neoliberalism with Indian Characteristics: Eight Theses4 Concluding Comments: What Is to Be Done?5 Capitalism and Technological Change: Reflections on the Technology-Poverty Relation1 The Literature on the Green Revolution and Poverty: The Thesis and the Anti-thesis2 The Literature on the Green Revolution and Poverty: A Critique of Neo-Malthusianism3 Technology, Population and Poverty: A Contingent Relation4 The Green Revolution and Poverty in India: An Empirical Analysis5 Conclusion6 Low-Wage Neoliberal Capitalism, Social-Cultural Difference, and Nature-Dependent Production1 Shrimp Aquaculture and the Missing Laborer2 A Labor-Based Approach to Nature-Dependent Commodity Production3 The Local, National and the Global Contexts4 Working for Less and in Poor Conditions: ‘Capital’ Negated5 Making Sense of Low-Wage Capitalism: From the General to the Locally Specific6 Conclusion7 Class Relations, Class Struggle, and the State in India1 Existing Views on the Indian State: A Critical Review2 The Indian State and Its Class Base3 A Coalition/Alliance of Proprietary Classes4 The Indian State, Lower Classes, and Lower-Class Struggle5 State Form, State Policy, and Class Struggle6 The Indian State and the Class Contradictions of Economic Development7 Conclusion8 Class Dynamics of Poverty, State Failure, and Class Struggle1 Class Dynamics, State Failure and Poverty in Rural India2 The Naxalite Movement as a Form of Lower-Class-Struggle3 A Marxist Class-Theoretic Critique of the Naxalite Movement4 Conclusion9 State Repression as Class Struggle from Above1 State Response to ‘Social’ Movement: A Conceptual Discussion2 The Indian State’s Response to the Naxalite Movement3 Why Does the State Repress the Naxalite Movement?4 Conclusion10 Capitalist Development and Liberal-Democracy under a Right-Wing Regime1 BJP Government’s Record on Economic Development at the National Level2 The Winners under the BJP Regime: The Capitalist Class (and the Richer Elite)3 The Losers under the BJP Government : The Toiling Masses4 BJP Government’s Record on Protection of Democratic Rights5 People’s Response to False Promises6 Conclusion11 Towards a Political Economy of Fascistic Tendencies1 Fascism and Fascistic Tendencies: Some Conceptual Issues2 A Short Introduction to the Fascistic Movement in India3 Political Economy of Fascistic Tendencies, Globally and in India4 Conclusion12 Bourgeois-Political Dynamics of Fascistic Tendencies1 The Failure of ‘Reformist Democracy’ to Weaken Fascistic Tendencies2 The BJP, the Fascistic Movement, and (Neoliberal-Peripheral) Capitalism3 Political Techniques of the Fascistic Movement4 The Contradictory Character of theBJP5 Conclusion13 Forward March of the Right and the Relative Weakness of the Left: What Is to Be Done?1 A General Theory of Left Politics in an Age of Fascistic Threats/Tendencies2 Left Forces in India: Their Strength and Weakness3 The Indian Left and the Two Forms of the Fight against Fascist Tendencies4 Such a Big Compromise?: Return to Vladimir Lenin5 Conclusion14 Conclusions and Reflections1 Class Character of Indian Economy/Society2 Capitalism as Class Relations of Subsumption of Labor3 Capitalist Class Relation in a Neoliberal Form4 Capitalist Class Relation, Technological Change, and Labor5 Export-Oriented Neoliberal-Capitalism, Social Oppression, and Dual Metabolic Rift6 Class, Capitalism, and the Capitalist State7 Lower-Class Struggles and the State Response8 Economic Development and Democracy under the Right-Wing Government9 Capitalist Political Economy and Turn to Fascistic Tendencies10 Bourgeois Political System, and the Fascistic Movement11 What Is to Be Done?Appendix 1: Processes Influencing the Balance of Power between Capital and LaborAppendix 2: A Suggested Research Program on Agrarian NeoliberalismBibliographyIndex