Exploring Social Movements: Theories, Experiences, and Trends 1032666455, 9781032666457

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of Boxes
List of Tables
List of Figures
List of Contributors
Preface and Acknowledgements
Part I Social Movements: Conceptual Dimensions
Chapter 1 Understanding Social Movements : Conceptual and Theoretical Issues
Chapter 2 Typology of Social Movements
Chapter 3 Intrinsic Dynamics of State, Market, and Social Movements
Chapter 4 Social Change through Social Movements: Role of Leadership and Ideology
Chapter 5 Kernel of Social and Protest Movements in Liberal Democracy
Part II Social Movements in India
Chapter 6 From Peasant to Farmers’ Movement: The Changing Agrarian Dynamics in India
Chapter 7 Tribal Movements in Colonial and Post-Colonial India
Chapter 8 Movements of Radical Marxists: From Naxalism to Maoism
Chapter 9 Dalit Movements: Typologies and Trajectories
Chapter 10 Movements of Organised and Unorganised Labour
Chapter 11 A Trajectory of Women’s Movement in India
Chapter 12 Ethnic Movements
Chapter 13 Intractable Conflicts: Environmental Struggles in Neoliberal India
Part III Globalisation and Social Movements
Chapter 14 Globalisation, Technology, Media, and Social Movements
Chapter 15 Genealogies of Queer Activism Around the Globe
Chapter 16 Rise of New Religious Movements in the Global Scenario
Chapter 17 Anti-systemic Movements from Global to Local: Concepts, Frameworks, and Practice
Chapter 18 Displacement, Development, and Movements : Contemporary Concerns
Chapter 19 Anti-globalisation Movements
Index

Citation preview

Exploring Social Movements

This book introduces the readers to the dynamics of various kinds of social movements. It examines how social movements have become an instrument of social change including assertion of identity and protest against marginalisation. This book describes three major domains – conceptual, experiential, and the impact of globalisation on social movements. The volume begins by locating social movements within broad and contemporary social processes and explores the intrinsic and complex patterns of dynamics among state, market, and social movements from a critical sociological perspective. It explains the meaning, basic features, origins and types, leadership and ideology, and perspectives of social movements and probes into major experiences of eight social movements in India, namely, peasant and farmers, tribal, Naxalite and Maoist, Dalit, working class, women, ethnic, and environmental movements. This book also analyses the role of information technology, media, and civil society in the spread and continuation of such movements. The experiences of queer, new religious, anti-systemic, and anti-displacement movements would also help readers understand how globalisation has offered new avenues of protest to diverse sections of the population. Lessons of anti-globalisation movements across the world provide a futuristic perspective in assessing the strength of social movements in a global society. This book will be useful to the students, researchers, and faculty working in the field of political science, sociology, gender studies, and post-colonial contemporary Indian politics in particular. It will also be an invaluable and interesting reading for those interested in South Asian studies. Biswajit Ghosh has recently retired as the Vice Chancellor of The University of Burdwan, West Bengal. Being a Professor of Sociology, he taught, supervised, and conducted research on certain emergent issues of the discipline of Sociology for 37 years. He studied in The University of Calcutta and Jawaharlal Nehru University. He also served as a Visiting Faculty in many universities. He has authored 107 articles, including reviews, e-contents, and study modules, and written three major policy documents of UNICEF, Govt. of West Bengal, and Save the Children. He has edited/written the following five books: Social Movement: Concepts, Issues and Experiences from India (2020), Methodology of Research in Sociology (2018, Inflibnet e-book), Social Movements (2018, Inflibnet e-book), Interrogating Development: Discourses on Development in India Today (2012), and Pariveshvidya (2012, The University of Burdwan). He was a Module Coordinator of UGC E-Pathshala e-content on Research Methodology and Social Movement Courses in Sociology. He is in the editorial board of many reputed journals.

Exploring Social Movements Theories, Experiences, and Trends

Edited by Biswajit Ghosh

First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Biswajit Ghosh; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Biswajit Ghosh to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted 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. The views and opinions expressed in this book are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Routledge. Authors are responsible for all contents in their articles including accuracy of the facts, statements, and citations. 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 ISBN: 978-1-032-66645-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-77192-2 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-48174-4 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003481744 Typeset in Times New Roman by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India

Contents

List of Boxes List of Tables List of Figures List of Contributors Preface and Acknowledgements PART I Social Movements: Conceptual Dimensions

vii ix x xi xv

1

1 Understanding Social Movements: Conceptual and Theoretical Issues 3 BISWAJIT GHOSH AND RABINDRA GARADA

2 Typology of Social Movements

31

JYOTIPRASAD CHATTERJEE

3 Intrinsic Dynamics of State, Market, and Social Movements

57

SUBHASIS BANDYOPADHYAY

4 Social Change through Social Movements: Role of Leadership and Ideology

75

SWATAHSIDDHA SARKAR

5 Kernel of Social and Protest Movements in Liberal Democracy

95

RABINDRA GARADA

PART II Social Movements in India

6 From Peasant to Farmers’ Movement: The Changing Agrarian Dynamics in India

119

121

JYOTIPRASAD CHATTERJEE



vi Contents 7 Tribal Movements in Colonial and Post-Colonial India

148

CHANDAN KUMAR SHARMA AND BHASWATI BORGOHAIN

8 Movements of Radical Marxists: From Naxalism to Maoism

173

BISWAJIT GHOSH

9 Dalit Movements: Typologies and Trajectories

194

VIVEK KUMAR

10 Movements of Organised and Unorganised Labour

215

BISWAJIT GHOSH AND TANIMA CHOUDHURI

11 A Trajectory of Women’s Movement in India

238

RITU SEN CHAUDHURI

12 Ethnic Movements

261

BISWAJIT GHOSH

13 Intractable Conflicts: Environmental Struggles in Neoliberal India 285 SHOMA CHOUDHURY LAHIRI

PART III Globalisation and Social Movements

305

14 Globalisation, Technology, Media, and Social Movements

307

STHITAPRAGYAN RAY AND NEHA OJHA

15 Genealogies of Queer Activism Around the Globe

326

BANHISHIKHA GHOSH

16 Rise of New Religious Movements in the Global Scenario

349

RAJEEV DUBEY

17 Anti-systemic Movements from Global to Local: Concepts, Frameworks, and Practice

367

SUMIT SAURABH SRIVASTAVA

18 Displacement, Development, and Movements: Contemporary Concerns 386 PANKAJ KUMAR

19 Anti-globalisation Movements

407

SHWETA SHUKLA

Index431

Boxes

1.1 Movements for and against Veils across the Globe 1.2 Approaches to Social Movements 4.1 Battle of Seattle 4.2 Indian Farmers’ Movement (2020–2021) 4.3 India Against Corruption (IAC) 5.1 Illiberal Democracy and Liberal Democracy 5.2 Mass Politics and Mass Movements 5.3 Process of Democratisation and De-democratisation 5.4 Autocratic Government 5.5 Arab Spring 5.6 Arab Spring vs. Political Islam 5.7 Ethnic Diversity and Conflict 5.8 Indian National Congress as Inclusive Movement for Democracy 6.1 Bharat against India 6.2 Tikait’s Most Stunning Show: Delhi Boat Club Lawns, October 1988 7.1 Santhal and Munda Uprisings 7.2 The Heraka Movement 7.3 Rampa Rebellion: Andhra Pradesh 7.4 Tipraland Movement 7.5 The Kutia and Dongria Kondh 8.1 The Case of Lalgarh 8.2 Mendha Lekha Story 9.1 Dalit Media 9.2 Protest by Dalit Students 10.1 Case of CMSS and CMM 10.2 Case of SEWA 10.3 Example of a General Strike 10.4 Innovative Strategy 10.5 Trade Unions Supporting the Farmers’ Protest in 2020–2021 11.1 Uniform Civil Code 11.2 Women Reservation Act 11.3 The Case of Hijab 11.4 Mee Too Movement

4 12 81 85 89 96 100 103 104 105 106 107 108 136 137 160 161 161 162 166 180 180 208 209 219 220 231 232 232 247 247 249 256 

viii Boxes 12.1 Role of Language 12.2 Nativistic Movements in India 12.3 Role of Religion 12.4 Khalistani Movement 12.5 Inter-tribe conflict 13.1 An Example of Poor Concern for Environment 13.2 Eviction of Tribals from Forest Land 14.1 IT and Social Movements: Some Examples from India 14.2 Zapatista Movement 14.3 Technology and Democracy 15.1 The First Documented Queer Organisation of the USA 15.2 Save the Children Campaign (in 1977) 15.3 Hosting Gay Nights 15.4 Common Platform for the Hijras 15.5 Rise of Queer Voters in India 18.1 Supreme Court Verdict 18.2 Emotional Relation of Tribes with Land

271 274 276 277 279 292 299 310 318 318 332 334 340 341 343 399 400

Tables

1.1 1.2 2.1 2.2 6.1 6.2

Cohen on the features of NSMs Differences between ‘old’ and ‘new’ social movements Aberle’s classification of social movements Characteristics of millenarian movements Peasants and farmers: Conceptual differences Differences between farmers’ movement and classical peasant movements: Opinions of Byres and Assadi 6.3 Multiple traditions within the farmers’ movement 7.1 Tribal revolts by regions in British India 10.1 Growth of trade unions and their membership in India (1975–2019) 10.2 Industrial disputes in India (2000–2022) 12.1 Major approaches to ethnicity at a glance 17.1 Regional variations of ‘Old’ and ‘New’ anti-systemic movements

10 11 36 42 131 135 139 159 222 228 265 372



Figures

  3.1 ‘Creative destruction’, long waves, and economic change   3.2 How much change?   3.3 Stages of social movements   4.1 Aberle’s model on social movement vis-à-vis social change 19.1 Relationship between the core, the periphery, and the semi-periphery 19.2 The global system 19.3 Protests against globalisation (Gumrucku 2010) 19.4 Protest against Globalisation



63 65 66 78 411 412 419 424

Contributors

Subhasis Bandyopadhyay is an Associate Professor in the Department of HSS, IIEST, Shibpur. He is a Life member of Indian Sociological Society and Indian Statistical Institute and a member of International Sociological Association. His areas of interest include Critical Sociology, Science and Technology Studies, Political Economy of Climate, and System Dynamics. Bhaswati Borgohain is an Indian Council of Social Science Research Doctoral Fellow (2019-20) in the Department of Sociology, Tezpur University, researching on urbanisation in Arunachal Pradesh with a focus on land governance. She is a graduate of Sociology (2007-10) from Sri Venkateswara College, Delhi University, and post-graduate in Social Work (2010-12) from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. She has worked in the development sector and has published three books, a few book chapters and journal articles. Her interest areas are urban sociology, Northeast India, land issues and peace and conflict studies. Jyotiprasad Chatterjee is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Barrackpore Rastraguru Surendranath College, North 24 Parganas, West Bengal. He pursues research in the field of social movements within the larger structural debate between democracy and development. As the Joint State Coordinator, West Bengal, of the Lokniti-CSDS (Delhi) network, he has been regularly taking part in different national level scholarly debates on sociopolitical processes in India. Besides co-authoring a book, he has published a number of articles in scholarly journals and edited volumes in the fields of electoral behaviour, social movements, ethnic movements, sociology of gender and motherhood etc. Ritu Sen Chaudhuri is a Professor and Head at the Department of Sociology, West Bengal State University, Barasat. She has also taught at The Women’s Studies Research Centre, University of Calcutta and the School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University. After completing Masters in Sociology from the University of Calcutta, she did her doctoral research from CSSS, Kolkata. Her areas of interest include sociological and feminist theories; gender and sexuality; Ambedkar, caste and feminism; women’s writing; and interfaces of sociology,



xii Contributors literature and film. She has published many articles and delivered lectures on her areas of interest. Tanima Choudhuri is an Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Sociology in Burdwan Raj College, Burdwan. She did her Masters from Kalyani University and PhD from Vidyasagar University. She has written several articles in reputed national and international journals. Rajeev Dubey did his M.Phil. and Ph.D. in Sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Currently he is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology, Banaras Hindu University. His area of specialisation is Methodology of Social Sciences and Sociology of Religion. He has widely published in national and International Journals and also contributed in edited volumes. He is life member of Indian Sociological Society and regular member of International Sociological Association and American Sociological Association. He has been Hans Mol Visiting Fellow to the University of Sasketchwan. Canada. He has also been Associate Fellow of IIAS, Shimla. Rabindra Garada is a Professor and Head of the Department of Sociology at Utkal University, Odisha. He did his M.A and M.Phil from J.N.U, New Delhi and Ph.D. from Utkal University, Odisha. He has been teaching sociology for the last 27 years and published several articles including book chapters and study materials. He has supervised 2 Ph.D scholars and 30 M.Phil scholars. His areas of interest include Sociology of Development and Regional Disparity, Sociology of Development induced Displacement, Sociology of Movement, Classical and Modern Sociological Theories, Indian Sociological Perspectives and Gender Studies. Banhishikha Ghosh is a Lecturer in Health and Social Care at the University of Sunderland (London campus), UK. Previously she worked as Research Associate at the Centre for Cultural Inquiry, University of Konstanz, and Lecturer & Academic Assistant at ISEK, University of Zurich. She did her Ph.D. from the ISEK – Department of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies, University of Zurich, Switzerland. She is a recipient of the Swiss Govt. Excellent Scholarship for Foreign Scholars and Post-Doctoral scholarship at the University of Konstanz, Germany. She completed her Masters and M. Phil in Sociology from the Centre for the Study of Social Systems (CSSS), School of Social Sciences (SSS), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). She is a Gold Medallist of Presidency University (UG) and Jawaharlal Nehru University (PG). Seventeen of her articles are published in reputed journals and edited volumes. Pankaj Kumar is the Head of the Department of Sociology in Asansol Girls’ College, West Bengal. He did his Masters from Jawaharlal Nehru University, M.Phil from Delhi University, and Ph.D from the University of Burdwan. He has published several research papers in edited books and referred journals of national and international repute touching upon various aspects of tribal displacement and presented several research papers in various state, national,

Contributors 

xiii

and international conferences and workshops. Women and child issues are his special areas of interest. Two of his edited volumes are Relocating Women’s Equality and Interrogating Child Problems – Issues and Challenges. Vivek Kumar is a Professor of Sociology and former Chairperson of CSSS, SSS, Jawaharlal Nehru University where he earned his Ph.D. He is also an Ambedkar Chair Professor. He is also co-coordinator of Global Studies Programme (JNU). As a Fulbright Fellow, he served as a Visiting Associate Professor in Columbia University, New York. As a DAAD–UGC fellow, he has also been a visiting faculty at Humboldt University, Germany. His publications include Decoding Ambedkar (2023), Caste and Democracy in India (2014), India's Roaring Revolution (2006), and Dalit Leadership in India (2002). He has published many books and enumerable articles in reputed journals and edited volumes. Shoma Choudhury Lahiri teaches Sociology at St. Xavier’s College (Autonomous) Kolkata. Her research interests lie in the field of social movements, ecology, sociology of science and development, citizenship, and qualitative methods. She has a few publications in the form of articles and book chapters in national and international journals. She has recently published an edited volume on qualitative research methodologies titled Doing Social Research: Qualitative Methods of Research in Sociology (2020, Orient Blackswan). Neha Ojha did her Ph.D. from CSSS, SSS, Jawaharlal Nehru University. She is an independent researcher. She also did her Masters and M.Phil in Sociology from JNU. She was the co-principal investigator in the ICSSR-sponsored research project on Youth and Post-conflict Reconstruction in Kandhamal, which was completed in 2019. Sthitapragyan Ray currently teaches sociology at the National Institute of Technology, Rourkela in Odisha. As a development sociologist, he has worked with national and international institutions like the National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, Hyderabad and the World Bank. He has also taught sociology at Ravenshaw University, Odisha. His present research interests include anti-displacement social movements, decentralised governance and service delivery, youth and post-conflict reconstruction, and sociology of urban transformation. He has executed research projects for the Government of Odisha, ICSSR and Ministry of Rural Development, Govt. of India. His publications have appeared in national and international peerreviewed journals. Swatahsiddha Sarkar is a Professor at the Centre for Himalayan Studies, University of North Bengal, Darjeeling and was the Director of the Centre during 2019–2022. Sarkar was the recipient of Scholars Exchange Grants (2016 to 2017) under the Indo-Swiss Joint Research Programme funded by the University of Lausanne, Switzerland and the ICSSR, New Delhi. His research prioritises epistemological and ontological concerns of Himalayan Studies. He has published widely and some of his books are: Gorkhaland Movement: Ethnic

xiv Contributors Conflict and State Response (2013), Ethnicity in India: Issues in Community, Culture and Conflict (Co-editor, 2013), and Contours of South Asian Social Anthropology: Connecting India and Nepal (2022). Chandan Kumar Sharma is a Professor and the Founder-Head of the Dept. of Sociology at Tezpur University, Assam. He did his Masters, MPhil, and Ph.D. from Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi. He has been a Charles Wallace Visiting Fellow to Queens University, Belfast, and many premier Indian Universities. Professor Sharma was the founder editor of Explorations, the e-journal of the Indian Sociological Society. He is a well-known commentator on various social and political issues pertaining to Assam and the northeastern region of India. His areas of research interest include identity politics, social movements, development, urbanisation, environment, migration, and agrarian change. Shweta Shukla is a Gold Medallist in Sociology. She holds her M.Phil and Ph.D. in ‘Globalisation and Culture’ from the University of Lucknow, Lucknow. Currently, she is working as an Assistant Professor in Sociology at Shri Ramswaroop Memorial University, Lucknow. Her teaching and research interests include Sociological theories, Organisational Sociology, and Sociology of Globalisation. She has contributed to the discipline by publishing articles in reputed journals. Sumit Saurabh Srivastava is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Development Studies, University of Allahabad. He is the recipient of the M. N. Srinivas Memorial Young Sociologist Award 2015 awarded by the Indian Sociological Society, New Delhi and is associated with the Indian Anthropologist, the biannual journal of the Indian Anthropological Association, New Delhi in the capacity of Associate Editor. His research area pertains to Development Studies with emphasis on gender, sanitation, social exclusion, and violence. Along with contributing chapters in scholarly edited volumes, he has also published in journals of repute. Recently his book titled Sulabh Sanitation in India: Issues, Challenges and Prospects (2022) has been published.

Preface and Acknowledgements

This textbook is a first of its kind on social movement. In the contemporary era, social movement is ubiquitous and hence there is every need to teach social movements to both undergraduate and post graduate students of social sciences. There was a time when social movements were matters of only intellectual interest. But now, it is a matter of everyday discourse among the researchers and teachers, planners and politicians, administrators and law enforcing machineries, social activists, and common people alike. A lot of emphasis is now put on the way social movement has become an instrument of social change including assertion of identity and protest against marginalisation across time and space. The global society is also a place where protest is global. Given such a context, the idea to publish a comprehensive volume on conceptual, practical, and changing aspects of social movements came to me. This book tries to deal with the issue of social movement from both theoretical and contextual points of view and introduce the readers with the dynamics of various types of social movements which have become a vital part of our social life today. Nineteen chapters of this book are divided into three sections (i) conceptual issues, (ii) experiences of social movements from India, and (iii) the impact of globalisation on social movements. The central aim of the first section is to locate social movements within broad and contemporary social processes, clarify its meaning, describe its basic features, origins and types, and explain basic perspectives of social movement. The relation of social movement with state and market is now sought globally. Moreover, social scientists now are concerned about linkages between social movements, social structure, and social change on the one hand and the significance of ideology and leadership in understanding social movements in different contexts, on the other hand. Again, in a context of growth of majoritarianism, authoritarianism, and cultural nationalism across space, there is increasing concerns for the way protest movements have contested and challenged undemocratic regimes and illiberal democracy. All these emerging issues and concerns constitute the major theme of the first section. The second section deals with nine major experiences of social movements in India. Starting with peasant movement, it goes on to discuss tribal, Naxalite, Dalit, working class, women, ethnic, and environmental movements in India. But most interestingly, these chapters, while dealing with a particular movement, also delve deep into the recent manifestations of each of them as readers would be 

xvi  Preface and Acknowledgements more interested to know their current phase. Thus, for instance, the discussion on peasant movement is followed by a critical analysis of the farmer’s movement of recent times. Similarly, the way Maoists in recent times have been able to bring back the imagery of the Naxalite movement of the late 1960s has been analysed. Discussions of all other movements are done keeping in mind the challenges they face in the age of globalisation. Taking a cue from these discussions, the last section analyses the global influences on social movements. It begins by analysing the role of information technology, media, and civil society in the spread and continuation of social movements. The experiences of queer, new religious, anti-systemic, and anti-displacement movements provide definite inputs to readers about the way globalisation has also expedited new avenues of protest to diverse sections of population. Finally, this book ends with experiences of movements against globalisation and provides a futuristic perspective in assessing the strength of social movement in a global society. The coverage of this book is, therefore, quite comprehensive and contextually relevant today. The chapters are also written specifically for this book by the contributors based on their immersion in the field and enhanced knowledge base specifically to make the discussion vivid. I am thankful to all contributors for writing these chapters as per the design of a textbook and comply with my request to incorporate new events/research findings to enhance the quality of the discussion. I am also grateful to Taylor and Francis personnel particularly Amit Kumar for helping me profusely in organising this book. Biswajit Ghosh

Part I

Social Movements: Conceptual Dimensions



1

Understanding Social Movements Conceptual and Theoretical Issues Biswajit Ghosh and Rabindra Garada

Learning Objectives After reading this chapter, you will be able to:

• • • •

Know about the concept of social movement; Learn about the elements of social movement; Explain why social movements arise; Discuss different approaches to social movements, and their strengths and limitations; • Know about similarities and differences among different approaches; and • Make use of an approach to explain a social movement in a particular context.

Introduction The omnipresence of social movement across space makes it one of the most debated and researched issues in contemporary times. The term social movement refers to a wide variety of collective attempts or actions that directly or indirectly produce changes in the social order or create a new social order in its place. As a corollary, movements against any orthodox social order or autocratic system or for the rights of people often strengthen democratic values and institutions. Organising a powerful social movement is not, however, an easy task. Many a time, spontaneous protest or agitation by people ends abruptly without making any impact. Hence, such agitations and protests do not qualify for the term social movement. For a social movement to take place, certain conditions are to be fulfilled, and these are an orientation towards change, a practical programme, formal organisation, viable strategy, effective leadership, common ideology, and sustained efforts (McAdam and Snow 1997; Shah 2004). In the absence of these conditions, some types of collective behaviours or actions like crowds, mobs or sporadic protests are not considered as examples of social movements. The major reason for this

DOI:  10.4324/9781003481744-2

4  Biswajit Ghosh and Rabindra Garada  is that a crowd or mob action is temporary, less integrated, directionless and least organised. Box 1.1 Movements for and against Veils across the Globe

In recent times, the compulsory dress code of wearing veils (hijab) has become a bone of contention among Muslim women in different parts of the world. Hijab is a simple piece of attire, a headscarf, which is often argued to be a heritage of the community. In theocratic nations like Iran and Afghanistan, the enlightened educated sections of Muslim women resisted this as being patriarchal. There is a legitimate concern that the choices of Muslim women are controlled by compelling them to wear veils. They see it as a custom to keep control over women’s bodies, decisions, and the entire idea of their agency. In India, however, there is a counter response to the decision of the Karnataka state government to ban hijab in educational institutions. The issue became a matter of judicial review, and the petitioners opposing the ban argued that hijab is a religious duty for girls and is mentioned in the Quran. There is also the fear that a hijab ban would prevent Muslim students from attending educational institutions as those not wearing it may face social stigma and marginalisation. The Indian Supreme Court later upheld the decision of the Karnataka High court banning wearing of hijab in educational institutions. Incidentally, many European countries have recently put a full or partial ban on the burqa (a long garment covering the whole body).

Social movements are widely considered to be exceptional events in society as they are capable of challenging established institutional practices and order, and, thereby, argue for changes in the system (SinghaRoy 2016). Melucci (1996: 9) believed that as prophets of the present, social movements bring messages for change. Hence, they are essential parts of any societal development. Social movements, however, could be short-lived and episodic, yet they generate strength to argue for justice, equality, and fraternity in one form or another. It is also possible that members of the community demanding rights and freedom might put forward differential and often contrasting demands in different contexts. The movement for a veil (hijab) in different parts of the world may be cited as an example (See box 1.1). Touraine (1981: 29) also believed that our social life in contemporary times is closely and permanently entangled with social movements. By rejecting order and fighting against oppositional forces, they try to control the production of society by itself and by classes. Amidst rising instances of people’s movement at the grassroots levels, the state is often forced to co-opt them to prevent any political damage to the party in power. Hence, it appears that in contemporary society, conflicts are getting institutionalised and social movements are progressively becoming a perpetual

Conceptual and Theoretical Issues  5 feature of political interest. The plurality of social movements in recent times has led to the formation of a ‘movement society’. It has, therefore, become essential to acquire knowledge about the nature and role of social movements for each of us, irrespective of whether one is an activist or administrator or academician. Concept of Social Movement Any collective and organised activity seeking to introduce changes in the beliefs, attitudes, thoughts, values, relationships, and major institutions in the society is known as a social movement. Some social movements might also resist change in the existing system. While ‘movements against corruption’ led by Anna Hazare in 2011-2012 is an example of the first type, movements resisting the introduction of new farm laws by Indian farmers in 2022-23 is an example of the second type. Whether a movement seeks to change the existing system or demand preservation of the old arrangement, it tries to represent the voices of a large number of people in mitigating their problems. As concern for rights, justice, freedom, equality, better environment, livelihood, or dignity of a populace remains at the centre of most social movements, Blumer (1951) saw them as ‘collective enterprises to establish a new social order of life’. This is because participants of a social movement draw their inspiration from discontent and displeasure with the current form of life. Simultaneously, they draw inspiration from desires and expectations for a new system of living. Toch (1965) argued that social movements are efforts ‘by a large number of people to collectively solve a problem they feel they have in common’. Wilkinson (1971) thought that a social movement is a deliberate collective action and hence it tries to promote change in any direction, by any means, including violence. Similarly, Gusfield (1971) argued that a social movement has the capacity to initiate change in some aspect of the social order. Haberle (1972) defined social movement as a ‘collective attempt to bring about a change in certain social institutions or to create entirely a new order’. Based on such understanding, we may define a social movement as an organised and collective activity of a large segment of people to bring about or resist changes in the social order/system by any means. Elements of Social Movements A social movement has certain essential elements. These are ideology, collective mobilisation, organisation, leadership, interest articulation, and identity formation. Let us discuss each of them in brief.

• A movement cannot sustain for long if it is bereft of any ideology or certain values and ideas that it promotes. Notions like rights, justice, freedom, equality, fraternity, livelihood, or dignity very often are picked up by movement activists as their ideology. These ideologies not only unify participants of movements through interest articulation, but they also establish the legitimacy and broad

6  Biswajit Ghosh and Rabindra Garada 

•

•

•

•

•

frame of action of a social movement. Formulation of a precise ideology or ideologies of a movement may however be a time-consuming process. Collective mobilisation is another essential element of any social movement. A movement cannot sustain for long unless a large number of people support and stand for it. The nature of such mobilisation largely shapes the nature and direction of a social movement. The more a movement is able to mobilise people, the better it becomes able to assert its voices and claims. Collective mobilisation may, however, be of different types, namely, violent or non-violent, institutionalised or non-institutionalised, restricted or spontaneous, sporadic or large scale. Over a period of time, a movement may witness rise and fall in the volume of collective mobilisation. As a corollary, all social movements undergo a process of transformation in different phases of their lifespan. It is, therefore, possible that over a period of time, a radical social movement may alter its nature and stress more on democratic processes and values. A social movement also requires leadership and organisation to carry out its activities. Many times, the absence of any dominant leader or the death of the main leader may make the movement weak and unstable. This happens particularly when a charismatic leader leads the movement. A leader, whether charismatic or democratic, may play a vital role in guiding the movement, particularly in its initial phase. Formation of a proper structure of authority of any organisation leading the movement is often helpful in delineating roles and responsibilities to different activists for taking decisions and making them effective. A movement cannot sustain for long if its leaders and activists fail to articulate the interests of people at large. In order to do so, any organisation leading a movement tries to uphold the common interests of its members. The concerns of a large segment of supporters/sympathisers and their unity leave a deep impact on the success of any movement. Participants in a movement also build up their identity based on solidarity among comrades. While the growth of a common identity is needed to express the unity and oneness of members of the movement, it might also be directed against the opponents. When various participants of any movement start thinking of themselves as a mutual group (we feeling), they are able to identify their enemy (they) and strengthen protest activities.

Protest, Agitation, and Social Movement The term protest or agitation is used to refer to the most visible form of any collective action. But when any agitation or protest is a response to any sudden event, say a road accident, or a killing, it might not lead to a social movement for being disorganised, sporadic, and unsystematic. Even though all social movements begin with protest actions by the activists or people facing any strain, all protest activity or agitation might not culminate into a movement. In other words, while all social movements contain features like protest and agitation, all types of protests or agitations might not lead to social movements. One, therefore, needs to assess the presence

Conceptual and Theoretical Issues  7 of most of the major elements of a social movement (discussed above) in order to determine whether a protest activity qualifies for the tag of social movement. Let us pick up some examples to explain the process. Many a time, we have witnessed students protesting or agitating for issues like lack of infrastructure, poor marks, or timely publication of results. They assemble under the leadership of some senior students, hold meetings, organise processions, hold hunger strikes or even prevent educrats from entering or leaving their premises. But once their demands are accepted by the authorities, students disperse. These sporadic and spontaneous protest actions cannot be called social movements as these are less organised and take place on a momentary basis only. Yet, there are examples of sustained student’s movements that became good examples of social movements. For instance, All Assam Students Union (AASU) and the All Assam Ganasangram Parishad (AAGSP) launched a powerful movement on the citizenship issue in 1976-77. Similarly, the Hok Kolorob (let there be chaos) movement launched by the students of Jadavpur University became an example in the country to protest against autocratic administration and undemocratic decisions of academic bodies. Let us also take the example of the agitation of the Sri Lankan people against the Mahindra Gotabaya Rajapaksa government in 2022. Due to exceptional economic and political crises, large-scale national-level protests of Sri Lankan people then took place for months since April 2022. This agitation contains certain elements of a social movement, namely, the mobilisation of thousands of people, a definite agenda, and interests of different sections of people cutting across boundaries. Yet, this is not an example of a social movement in the strict sense of the term for certain reasons. These are as follows: First, though the protests were peaceful initially, common people participating in the violent agitation behaved like a mob or crowd targeting the state and its agencies. As police and military started retaliating amidst a state of emergency and curfew, opposition got divided with no clear solution to the crises emerging. Such a state of confusion allowed the mob to take to the street and attack state agencies including ransacking the presidential palace. Second, these protests were largely spontaneous and sporadic as people of all ages, colours, and sex took part in them. As a corollary, rumours and social media constructions played havoc in directing people’s anger. Third, being spontaneous, these agitations were largely leaderless though some leaders of the opposition parties initially tried to cash in on people’s anger. As a consequence, these agitations failed to give rise to any consolidated organisation leading, nurturing, and unifying the interests of the agitators. Finally, though the major agenda of these agitations was the resignation of Rajapaksa as the President of the country, the agitators got divided into different camps one Rajapakse resigned and left the country. And when in a

8  Biswajit Ghosh and Rabindra Garada  dramatic move, Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe, a leader of an opposition party, took charge of the administration, the protestors did not know what to do. In the midst of confusion and divisions, people who demanded change in the system of exploitation succumbed to state-led oppression. Why Do Social Movements Arise? Different perspectives on social movement, discussed later, lay claim to different and often contrasting reasons for the rise and sustenance of social movements. In the classical model, the origin of a social movement is explained as sequences moving from structural weakness due to the strain in society to psychological disturbances and finally to the manifestations of social movements (SinghaRoy 2016). Accordingly, reasons such as the nature of mass society, collective strain, status inconsistency, raising expectations, and relative deprivations are argued to create psychological pressure on individuals for collective mobilisation. There is, however, little uniformity among the classical theorists about the reasons for structural strain. Thus, William Kornhauser, a theorist of Mass Society, argues that there is an absence of any intermediate structure in a mass society, causing lack of integration of people. This contributes to alienation, tension, and finally social protest. But theorists of status inconsistency like Leonard Broom and Gerhard Lenski argue that the objective discrepancy between the ranking and status of persons leads to subjective tensions in the society. As a result, there is a rise of cognitive dissonance, discontent, and protest. Again, theorists of Collective Behaviour such as Neil J. Smelser, Kurt Lang and Gladys Engel Lang, R. H. Turner, and L. M. Killian have brought forward a different argument. They believe that any severe structural strain may contribute to social movements. In other words, the more a society faces strains, the better the likelihood of social movements in that society. It is worth noting here that Marxist scholars also give importance to structural reasons for explaining conflicts and consequent movements. But unlike others, they gave primacy to class conflicts in explaining collective mobilisations. Hence, Marxists consider exploited social classes (proletariat) as the sole agents of social movements. The economic or material deprivation of the ‘have-nots’ is the prime cause of social conflict among the two antagonistic classes, that is, the proletariat and the bourgeois. The Marxists, therefore, positively correlate the rise of class antagonism in a capitalist society with social transformation. By contrast, the functionalists consider the potential of social movements to disrupt the social order. However, symbolic interactionists like Blumer (1951) have identified social movements with the desire for a new life. The theorists of relative deprivation, however, go a step further to explain the non-material base of social movements. Thus, according to Aberle (1966), factors such as status, behaviour, and prestige are important determinants of deprivation, and a person feels relatively deprived when there is a discrepancy between his legitimate expectations and the reality. Such deprivation explains social movements to a large extent. We would discuss these theories in detail at a later stage.

Conceptual and Theoretical Issues  9 As opposed to the reasons stated above, Wallace (1956), in his Theory of Cultural Revitalisation, has argued that social movements result because members of a society deliberately, consciously, and in an organised fashion try to build a more satisfying culture for themselves. He identified four phases of the revitalisation of movements: (a) cultural stability, (b) increased individual stress, (c) cultural distortion and (d) disillusionment. These phases clearly explain the way social movements undergo a process of transformation. In other words, each movement has a life history of its own, and depending on its support base, need, and context, it either gains strength or declines. Changes in ideology, organisation, leadership, and orientation also introduce new elements in a social movement. Social scientists have observed that social movements many times become subject to the process of routinisation (SinghaRoy 2016). A protest movement beginning with a radical ideology may develop its own establishment at a later stage. We will discuss many examples of the transformation of social movements in the second section of this book. It, therefore, appears that social movements cannot be explained only from the vantage point of certain fixed issues like strains or deprivations. For a social movement to take shape and become popular, both subjective perceptions of participants and objective factors of deprivation may play an equal role. Herein, factors such as ideology, organisation, and leadership also play a crucial role in encouraging and sustaining social movements (SinghaRoy 2016). Old and New Social Movements Following Jurgen Habermas’s use of the term ‘new social movement’ (NSM) in the late 1970s, it has become a common practice among scholars to differentiate between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ types of social movements. The NSM paradigm seeks to argue that there is an apparent shift in the form of social movements in Western nations following the arrival of a post-modern or post-industrial society. As against old social movements based on class and ideology (for instance, the workers’ movement), NSMs do not put any direct challenge to the state and these are mostly located in civil societies. The major features of NSMs are as follows: (a) participants of such movements come from different social backgrounds, (b) they represent a variety of social and cultural ideas and interests and attach less importance to political mobilisation, (c) being mainly led by the middle class, they give birth to new identities and challenge the legitimacy of traditional elites and political parties, (d) going beyond material issues, they stress on intimate aspects of human life including those of human rights, environment, gender and peace, (e) they mostly rely on non-violent strategies of mobilisation, and (f) they are loosely organised, informal and segmented (Oommen 2010: 7). Touraine (1981) had argued that ‘new social movements’ are potential bearers of ‘new social interests’ that characterise contemporary society. According to Melucci (1996: 8–9), as our social reality today relies heavily on cultural construction, social movements also seem to shift their focus from class, race, and other

10  Biswajit Ghosh and Rabindra Garada  Table 1.1 Cohen on the features of NSMs Overall goal

Participants do not seek to return to an undifferentiated community free of all power and all forms of inequality. They want to protect and extend the spaces for social autonomy. Objective of Participants mobilise in the name of autonomy, plurality, and mobilisation difference, without, however, renouncing the formal egalitarian principles of the modern civil society or the universalistic principles of the formally democratic state. Hence, there is no violation of the principles of egalitarianism and sovereign universalism respectively of the civil society and the state. Values Stress on values of relativity against any sort of absolutism. Position vis-à-vis Participants attempt to arrive at a synthesis between the formally democratic state and democratic state and the market economy. They find no necessary the market contradiction between them. Source: Cohen (1985)

more traditional issues towards the cultural sphere. However, the ‘newness’ of the NSMs is a relative concept and only partially helps us differentiate between the historical forms of class conflicts and today’s emergent forms of collective action. An NSM is largely considered as a response to the ‘inadequacies’ of classical Marxism in mapping the terrain of collective action in these societies. Table 1.1 maps the distinctive aspects of the NSM perspective following Cohen. Buechler (1995: 442) has argued that notwithstanding various types of NSM theories, they all share the following common themes:

• First, most strands of the NSM theory underscore symbolic action in the cultural • • • • •

sphere as a major arena for collective action besides instrumental action in the political sphere. Second, NSM theorists stress on the importance of processes that promote autonomy and self-determination, instead of gaining influence and power. Third, some NSM theorists highlight the role of values in collective action as opposed to conflicts over material resources. Fourth, NSM theorists incline to problematise the delicate process of building collective identities and identify group interests, instead of supposing that conflict groups and their interests are structurally determined. Fifth, the NSM theory also highlights the socially constructed nature of grievances and ideology instead of deducing them from a group’s structural location. Finally, the NSM theory recognises a variety of submerged, latent, and temporary networks that often undergird collective action, rather than assuming that centralised organisational forms are prerequisites for successful mobilisation.

Hence, a shift in priorities of the ‘old’ and ‘new’ social movements is evident from the foregoing exercise. Table 1.2 attempts to depict these.

Conceptual and Theoretical Issues  11 Table 1.2 Differences between ‘old’ and ‘new’ social movements ‘Old’ social movements

‘New’ social movements

Production sector of the economy is the collective action.

Greater emphasis is on the cultural sphere as the arena for preferred site of collective action. Glorify the grass-roots, non-institutional, non-modes of conventional and ad hoc actions of everyday life. Identities of the participants get constructed and structural contested with the gradual unfolding of the participants.

Formal, institutional and conventional collective action. Emphasis is on class or other related and ‘given’ dimensions of the movement itself. Rather than ‘given’, identity is always in the process of making in and through the conflictual social processes. Institutional political discourses are central.

Seem to be non-political or apolitical in nature.

It should, however, be recognised that in spite of the claim to be non-political, there have been considerable contestations regarding the political status of NSMs, since appeals to identity, perhaps, its most substantive concern, is often a function of direct political counter-offensive, as mentioned by Touraine (1981). Habermas (1981: 33), in his discussion of the new politics of the NSMs, offers a possible solution to this. He argues that as against the old social movements, the NSMs are associated with problems of quality of life, equality, individual self-realisation, participation, and human rights, which are certainly not among the most dealt with issues of the traditional institutional politics. As the new conflicts, he clarifies further, ‘arise in the areas of cultural reproduction’ rather than in the ‘material reproduction’, ‘they are no longer channelled through parties and organisations’ (Habermas 1981: 33). He is also of the opinion that the ‘newness’ of the new politics lies in its support base, which compared to the ‘old’ one is mostly composed of the middle class and younger generations and those with higher levels of formal education. Needless to say, such a different contour of politics of the NSMs is much beyond the scope of conventional institutional politics and organisations represented by the political parties. Notwithstanding such arguments in favour of NSMs, differences between the old and new forms of social movements are not always clear, and scholars have noticed the continuation of ‘old’ strategies and issues also by participants of NSMs. Often the differences between the two are of degree and not absolute. The leaders of the farmer’s movement in India in 2022, for instance, targeted the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government in the Centre for introducing three farm laws. Some of the leaders then also campaigned openly against the BJP in certain state elections. The issue is, therefore, not very clear (for a detailed discussion on the claim of farmer’s movement as a type of NSM, read Chapter 6).

12  Biswajit Ghosh and Rabindra Garada  Approaches to Social Movements A social movement that brings forth social change and transformation can be explored, explained, and analysed along with old and new perspectives.

• • • • • •

Marxist approach; Structural-Functional approach; Gandhian approach; Relative Deprivation theory; Resource Mobilisation theory; Identity perspective.

Box 1.2 Approaches to Social Movements

1. Marxist approach emphasises material aspects, class antagonism, and class conflict in explaining social movements. 2. Structural-functional approach stresses on structural deprivations and strains as causes of social movement. 3. Gandhian approach provides a non-violent theory of social movements. 3. Relative Deprivation theory explains how relative deprivation of a large number of people who develop a sense of legitimate grievances through interaction leads to social movement. 4. Resource Mobilisation theory attaches importance to material and nonmaterial resources of participants for rational, reason-driven and professional organisation of social movements. 5. Identity perspective argues that the newness of social movements being attached to values, culture, subjectivity, morality, and empowerment play crucial roles in the formation of new collective identities.

Marxist Approach

The Marxist approach to social movements revolves around communist movements. The political economy and capitalism that emerged in the 18th and 19th century Europe, as analysed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, led to the formation of communist movements in the world. The Marxists, besides being critiques of a capitalistic economy as how capital is reproduced, its profit is maintained and its crises develop (Jäger 2016; Gamble 1999), promote class struggle in capitalist countries. Even after the massive democratic transformation of the communist world in the last decades, Marxism continues to fuel the working-class movements in many parts of the world (Hough 1997; Shleifer and Treisman 2005).

Conceptual and Theoretical Issues  13 Non-Marxists, however, argue that Marxism could not offer an explicit theory of social movements (Barker et al. 2013: 32). Nevertheless, for Marx and Engels, the term ‘social movement’, as Barker et al. (2013: 23) suggest, refers to a whole ‘multi-organisational field’ – ‘an amalgam of political parties, trade unions, clubs of various sorts, exile organisations, underground organisations, newspapers enroling and representing the serried ranks of the exploited and oppressed’. Colin Barker argues that ‘the language of ‘class struggle’ can be translated into a language of ‘social movement’—with a Marxist accent’ (Barker et al. 2013). Besides the materialistic justification for the formation of a social movement, Marxism promotes a whole range of movement activities, i.e., origin, nature, organisation, ideology, leadership, and so on. The Marxian perspective on social movements concentrates on the following factors:

• • • •

Materialistic Orientations and Repression; Stages of Class-Based Social Movements; Trade Union Movement; and Communist Movement and Revolution.

Materialistic Orientations and Repression

Marx wrote, ‘The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles’. Dialectical materialism, for Marx, is the political theory that explains the series of contradictions between social forces caused by material needs. Marx, however, acknowledged that ‘Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past’ (Marx 1852: 115). Marxism, thus, does not simply talk about inequality and exploitation; it also offers an emancipatory perspective for the people who have been oppressed particularly in the capitalist mode of production for a long. The Marxian perspective relates social movements with the existence of social inequality and exploitation in human society that culminate in class conflicts and cause revolutionary changes. Stages of Class-based Social Movements

Since Marx’s writing in The Communist Manifesto, Marxists have believed that class conflict is a historical fact. In fact, the conflicts between freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild master and journeyman, and the bourgeoisie and the proletariat were historical facts of class conflicts. Marxists strongly believe that given appropriate material conditions and the use of right tactics by the Communist Party and its organs, it is possible to realise a class revolution (Aarons 1972). In this context, the Marxist approach to the study of social movements stresses on certain dialectical processes that can inspire movement participants to launch a resistance movement (Barker et al. 2013). These processes include aspects such as dialectical totality in place of functional totality,

14  Biswajit Ghosh and Rabindra Garada  dialectical contradiction in place of a simple binary contrast, dialectical coherence in place of logical coherence, and praxis as an activity that changes the world instead of merely any practical activity. In this respect, Morris and Herring (1987) explore a broad six-stage analysis of resistance. In the first stage, an intense sense of self-estrangement and powerlessness grips the workers. In the second stage, they get organised under trade unions, raising demands for higher wages, better working conditions, and the like. To achieve their demands, they might get engaged in intermittent riots and restricted violence. In the third stage, the workers try to develop unity and strength through the formation of national and international networks. By doing so, they become successful in developing class consciousness against the bourgeoisie. In other words, in the fourth stage, they transform themselves into ‘a class for itself’, a process that also coincides with increasing internal differences among the bourgeoisie. As a result, in the fifth stage, the condition for collective action becomes ripe, as even the enlightened segments of the bourgeoisie join the ranks of the proletariat. In the final stage, a socialist revolution to overthrow capitalist rule becomes a reality (Morris and Herring 1987). Communist Movement and Revolution

The Marxist movements are not simply outcomes of workers’ resentment of daily grievances; rather, they involve wider structural issues and the economic and political system as a whole. For instance, the ‘communist revolution of 1917 in Russia, Spanish revolution of 1936 in Western Europe, and communist revolution of 1949 in China bear testimony to revolutionary social movements that brought radical structural changes’ (Garada 2016: 4). Marxists plead for both violent and nonviolent means, but it depends upon the extent of oppression and exploitation committed by the capitalists. They justify their retaliation with violent means against the violent opponents. In Europe, however, Marxists later took up a different stance on the questions of reform and revolution (Aarons 1972). While some sought to reform capitalism from within through labour movements, others argued for a complete revolution against capitalism and capitalist exploitation. Interestingly, the nature of the communist movement was different at different times. In the early 19th century, Marxists had witnessed localised collective action against Western capitalism. In its later phase, especially after the Second World War, they started visualising the importance and possibility of class conflicts against global capitalism. Trade Union Movement

To the Marxists, a trade union cannot just help workers articulate their arguments and redress their grievances. It can also build up solidarity among them to struggle against capitalism. Engels considered workers’ unions ‘schools of war’ which can prepare workers for class struggle and thereby help them in their self-emancipation. There is, however, a contrary view which underscores the importance of a trade union to overthrow capitalism. This is because over the years workers’ conditions

Conceptual and Theoretical Issues  15 within capitalism have improved and they are no longer interested in any class struggle (Cliff and Gluckstein 1986). Neo-Marxists like Gramsci doubted the possibility of any historical law by which the working-class movement would inevitably triumph. For this reason, Gramsci also pleaded for the development of workingclass intellectuals. C. Wright Mills also found that trade unions have become managers of discontent or have been fully incorporated into the structure of capitalism. Similarly, Jenkins and Wallace (1996) have found that educated salaried professionals, especially socio-cultural and public sector professionals, display greater protest potential, especially for civil disobedience, and are supportive of emerging middle-class movements. At present, trade unions face insurmountable challenges to counter the forces of global capitalism. This is mostly because of changes in the nature of work and employment in the globalised world. Despite the relevance of trade unionism, the Marxian optimism about such a movement can hardly be seen now. This is notwithstanding the fact that Marxism did influence the thinking of leaders of many movements—students, youths, peasants, or women apart from workers. But the ideology of class contradictions could not always be applied to explain the marginalisation of say Dalits or tribals. Structural-Functional Approach

The structural-sunctional approach provided a new direction to the study of social movements in the 1960s. In explaining a social movement, it raises three important questions:

• Why do social movements develop? • What functions do they serve? • Why do they continue to exist? In response to the first question, structural-functionalists identify structural deprivation and strains as the key causes behind any social movement. According to William Kornhauser, Robert Nisbet, and Edward Shils, social movements occur due to unequal distribution of material resources at micro (class, race and gender) and macro levels (nation-state level). Unlike Marxists, some theorists of this school also identify non-economic factors such as psychological traits, elite power struggle, and manipulation to explain social movements. They also stress on factors like institutionalised injustices and inequalities such as social barriers to material success, unequal state policies, and bureaucratic rules that favour one group (corporations) over another (workers) (Smith and Fetner 2007). Given such a state of condition in a mass society, social movements develop against repressive law, exploitative programmes, and anti-democratic policies. Social movements also take place when a state cannot fulfil the rising expectation of its people or when the gap between people’s expectations and the system’s performance widens (Huntington 1968). Incidentally, rising political expectations of women in a context of their unequal access to politics gave rise to the women’s suffrage movement in the United States.

16  Biswajit Ghosh and Rabindra Garada  In response to the second question, the structural-functionalists argue that social movements are functional to society because they stabilise and re-establish social order. Here, unlike Marxists, this approach stresses the consensual nature of social movements. Thus, deprivation and strains may cause social movements only when the participants develop a shared sense of their anxiety, excitement, and frustration. Following the Durkheimian notion of ‘collective conscience’ (feeling of unity) and ‘moral density’ (frequent interaction), structural-functionalists argue that social movements significantly intensify the unity and solidarity of participants (Segre 2016). While such arguments may be true in a certain context, it cannot be denied that social movements might also generate violence and conflict (Agnew 1987). In response to the third question, the structural-functionalists argue that settlement of an issue or recognition of a demand does not signify the end of a social movement. This is because a new social order promotes new structural deprivations and new social strains. By arguing in this fashion, this approach focuses more on the continuity of social systems than its change. It is interesting to note here that unlike the Marxists, functionalists recognise an adaptive change in the structures of deprivation and strains when society changes from the traditional to a modern type of mass society. One of the best explanations of the structural-functional approach can be found in Smelser’s (1962) structural strain theory. Let us discuss this theory, in brief. The Structural Strain Theory

Relying on the Parsonian framework of structural functionalism, Smelser explained the formation of social movements with six major conditions/factors. These are structural conduciveness, structural strain, growth and spread of an explanation, precipitating factors, mobilisation for action, and lack of social control (Morris and Herring 1987). Let us explain these, in brief.

• Structural conduciveness: It refers to a favourable situation causing a social

movement. During such a condition, people perceive serious and prolonged structural problems in their society. The movements that countries of Eastern Europe witnessed in the recent past resulted from structural conduciveness. • Structural strain: It refers to structural conditions that circumscribe relative deprivation. For instance, in India, exclusion based on caste, ethnicity, and religion has resulted in structural strains leading to the emergence of collective action. Again, pro-democracy movements in Eastern European countries arose when people felt that compared to their Western counterparts, they are relatively deprived (Macionis 2012). • Growth and spread of an explanation: It refers to logical explanations of factors responsible for social movements. As leaders of organised social movements try to prevent the unruly behaviour of their members during periods of crisis, Smelser believed that the potential of any movement to prevent riots and mobs is an important condition for its sustenance. For instance, the leaders of

Conceptual and Theoretical Issues  17 pro-democratic movements could provide a well-informed explanation about the problems of political economy as well as the requirement for democracy in Eastern Europe (Macionis 2012). • Precipitating factors: It refers to stressful events that induce actors to take action. • Mobilisation For Action: It refers to the coordination of group activity for effectively mobilising public opinion. Thus, participants in a movement may coordinate their actions through leaflets, rallies, or alliances with other movements to mobilise opinion. The leaders of the solidarity movement in Poland, for instance, could effectively mobilise public opinion to strengthen their support base (Macionis 2012). • Lack of social control: It refers to a condition that facilitates a social movement. The success or failure of a social movement also depends upon the liberal or repressive policies of a government. Many times, the state uses its instruments to crush a social movement against it. For instance, the Chinese government repressed pro-democracy movements, but governments in Eastern Europe including the Soviet Union took a lenient view on them (Macionis 2012). The structural strain theory of Smelser is able to explain different types of deprivations and strains to explain the emergence of social movements. By doing so, this theory has enabled us to explain many social movements based on such reasoning. Yet, it would be partial to argue that social movements arise only due to structural deprivation and strains. Gandhian Approach

Contrary to the Marxist approach, the Gandhian approach provides an explicit and less violent theory of social movement. Gandhi not only advocated the strategy of non-violence (Ahimsa) for organising social movements, but he also applied it in his movement against racial discrimination in South Africa and British rule in India, including his movements against untouchability and gender discrimination in India. Dynamics of the Gandhian Social Movement

• Gandhi’s approach to social movements involves three successive stages. First,

the activists would make moderate appeals. Second, they would get involved in passive resistance. Finally, they would launch a large-scale and active mass movement. • Apart from humble appeals, the Gandhian approach also promotes steps such as prayer, self-suffering, fasting, non-cooperation, and civil disobedience for a just cause in the true sense of their spirit and applications. • Gandhians make the movement participants believe in their ability to win over opponents by means of voluntary non-violence. In simple

18  Biswajit Ghosh and Rabindra Garada  language, they learn how to win the hearts and minds of their opponents voluntarily. • The Gandhian approach to conflict resolution goes beyond the known methods of dispute settlement of modern type. Although, like the Marxists, Gandhi believed in dialectics, unlike them he strongly suggested non-violent means and ends for any social movement. He did not believe in any class conflict. • Like structural-functionalists, Gandhi believed in holism, but unlike them, he did not believe in any temporary adjustment or continuation of any rigid and exploitative social structure after an ethical solution. • Like the Marxists, Gandhians are also votaries of socialism and communism. However, Gandhian socialism is based on cooperation and coordination between labour and capital and landlord and tenant, which is contrary to the Western conception of socialism. The Path of Gandhian Social Movement

The strategies and tactics that Mahatma Gandhi prescribed for social movements were largely based on his personal experience first in South Africa and later in India. The Gandhian strategy prescribes pursuance of a goal through the following ways.

• • • • • •

Thoughtful engagement; Mutual cooperation; Involvement of people at large; Formation of organisation; Seeking truth through newspaper writing; Pursuing satyagraha.

Thoughtful Engagement

It can be quite clearly seen that in his whole life, Gandhi did not prefer any quick and radical step for resolving an issue. He rather believed in understanding, analysing, and discussing an issue before taking the final step of corrective action. This is because his goal was to achieve collective welfare through collective action and such transformation should be voluntary. Hence, he suggested that people should be inspired to join a movement voluntarily and spontaneously as a willing partner. The Gandhian strategy, therefore, stresses on making each individual participant aware of other participants to generate inner strength and moral courage and thereby change the social situation. It may be noted that before Gandhi arrived in India in 1915, the Indian National Congress (INC) rarely organised popular resistance (Moradian and Whitehouse 2000). But Gandhi’s intervention changed the scenario. He started sufficiently sensitising and uniting common people on their collective interests. This helped the INC to gain popularity and avoid its shortcomings. The most important thing that Gandhi brought among the leaders was optimism of success.

Conceptual and Theoretical Issues  19 People then started believing that Indians can withstand British torture and fight for independence. Organised Activity and Public Opinion

The Gandhian approach also stresses on strategies like the formation of organisations to express unity of the marginalised as well as setting up a press to influence public opinion. Thus, in 1894, he founded the Natal Indian Congress (NIC) in South Africa to fight discrimination against Indian traders in Natal. Then he set up a newspaper called Indian Opinions in 1903 through which he not only addressed emigrants’ issues but also made it a tool for a pro-emigrant political movement in South Africa. Through this paper, Gandhi could sensitise the public about various problems of Indian indentured laborers, such as poor working conditions, harsh treatment by employers, racial discrimination in the agricultural estates, and consequent incidents of suicide. Newspapers such as Young India, Harijan, and Navjivan were also started by him. To Gandhi, these newspapers were an essential means of pursuing truth. Formation of Ashram

Apart from newspapers, another instrument for his pursuit of truth was the establishment of ashrams (hermitages). These residential locations served as the centres of learning Gandhian ideas and practising satyagraha. In South Africa, he established the Phoenix Settlement (Indian immigrant community settlement) near Durban in 1904 and Tolstoy Farm near Johannesburg in 1910. The Phoenix Settlement promoted a simple living and a life of bread labour, whereas Tolstoy Farm fostered a self-sustained system that involved all human activities. Tolstoy Farm was a cooperative colony and Gandhi dedicated this to the racial victims and families who pursued his path. In India, he founded Satyagraha Ashram at Kochrab, Ahmedabad, in 1915 (later shifted to the Sabarmati Ashram) and Sevagram Ashram at Wardha in 1936. Satyagraha

Gandhian insistence on satyagraha as a method of social movement made his approach unique. The term ‘satyagraha’ is taken from two words—satya (truth) and agraha (firm insistence or holding firmly), meaning firm insistence on the truth against what may come. According to Hardiman (2003), it is both a dialectical process and dialectical resistance. As a dialectical process, satyagraha insists upon the truth that works like a strong weapon against opponents but without committing any violence. It is an activity of self-suffering, prayer and humble appeals to the opponents for a just cause. It also acts as a method of passive resistance but becomes strength by practising non-violence. Satyagrahis do not treat their adversary as an enemy as they try to win their hearts and minds voluntarily. Unlike Marx, Gandhi did not believe in

20  Biswajit Ghosh and Rabindra Garada  class antagonism and class struggle, though he was aware of class repression and exploitation. Satyagraha in South Africa

The first ‘satyagraha’ that Gandhi organised in South Africa was against the new law of carrying finger-printed registration certificates for Indian emigrants. Let us note down the way Gandhi did that: He first sent repeated appeals to the government authority to resolve the problems. When he became firm that the government was not going to listen to him, he went from passive resistance to satyagraha. But when that strategy also failed, he called all emigrant Indians for an active resistance by which they publicly burnt their fingerprinted registration certificates. While doing so, the participants were physically tortured and humiliated. In fact, when Gandhi was beaten up publicly, he withstood it with courage without responding with counter-violence. His next ‘satyagraha’ in 1908 was against another racial law of restricted migration of the Indian community within African cities. In order to defy the immigration law, Gandhi along with some Indian immigrants from Natal crossed the city frontier and went to another area called Transvaal. He also organised another satyagraha against the poll tax (levied on ex-indentured Indians) and invalidation of Indian immigrant marriage certificates (if emigrants’ marriages were not solemnised like Christians). Herein, Gandhi witnessed success as the South African government succumbed to the moral pressure and decided to withdraw the new laws against Indian emigrants. Satyagraha in India

Gandhi first visited different parts of the country and gained first-hand experience of people’s problems before launching satyagraha. He also compared the Indian situation with that of South Africa to explore the feasibility of launching satyagraha. Before launching Champaran Satyagraha, he visited Champaran in Bihar to see the problems of indigo cultivators and then, based on a case study of 800 indigo cultivators, justified their rights and entitlements to profits. Similarly, in the case of Ahmedabad Satyagraha, Gandhi first analysed the cost and profits of mill owners before justifying the workers’ grievances. Consequently, he generated a dialogical process of moderate appeals against the colonial administration. But when his moderate appeals were not heard, he applied his active resistance ‘satyagraha’. Consequently, an enquiry committee and a tribunal were formed respectively in Champaran and Ahmedabad. As a result, the indigo cultivators got back their profits and were provided with tenure security and freedom of cropping. Similarly, the mill owners of Ahmedabad increased workers’ bonus to 35%. Later, during the Civil Disobedience and Non-Cooperation Movements, the Gandhian technique of satyagraha could energise and revitalise the inner strength of people to boycott foreign goods and not to cooperate with the British in offices,

Conceptual and Theoretical Issues  21 institutions, or courts. Gandhi also led the Salt March by walking 240 miles. This is also known as the ‘Dandi March’, where millions of people, including women, voluntarily participated and were arrested by the police. Gandhi also used the strategy of fasting to mobilise the masses. On several occasions, his tactic of ‘fast unto death’ could put pressure on both the state and people to stop violence as well as caste and communal divide. His stratagems of non-violence and satyagraha contributed immensely to launching popular movements to gain independence. Many social movement activists later used the Gandhian strategy to launch powerful pro-people movements. Many global leaders like Martin Luther King Jr and Nelson Mandela gave credence to the Gandhian strategies for anti-racist and peace movements. In India, leaders like Vinoba Bhave (Bhoodan Movement), Medha Patkar (Narmada Bachao Andolan), and Anna Hazare (anticorruption movement) used the Gandhian strategy. In recent times, the leaders of peasant movements in India have also relied on the Gandhian strategy of nonviolence to sustain their voice against the three farm laws. Relative Deprivation Theory

This theory highlights how relative deprivation of some people in comparison to others leads to social movement. It emerged from socio-psychological research on American soldiers conducted by sociologist Samuel A. Stouffer during the Second World War (Stouffer et al. 1949). This theory proclaims both psychological and sociological factors responsible for the cause of social movements. Psychological Factors

From the psychological point of view, the major reasons for relative deprivation are frustration and aggression. When people perceive ‘a discrepancy between their value expectations and their value capabilities’ (Gurr 1970: 24), relative deprivations occur. It is the gap between what people believe is their rightful entitlement and what they are capable of getting and keeping. As relative deprivation generates frustration, it, in turn, leads to aggression. In other words, the intensity and scope of frustration determine the nature of collective violence. According to Ted Gurr (1970), there are three different patterns of relative deprivations: (1) aspirational deprivation, (2) detrimental deprivation, and (3) progressive deprivation.

• Aspirational Deprivation: It occurs when increasing aspirations are not realised

and when the value expectations increase but value capabilities remain constant. In the 1960s, for instance, Black Americans led violent actions demanding immediate equality against prolonged racial discrimination and prejudices in the United States. • Detrimental Deprivation: It occurs when value expectations are stable but available resources seem to be declining. In the case of Russia in 1917, for instance, Bolsheviks could seize power due to this deprivation. During the

22  Biswajit Ghosh and Rabindra Garada  First World War, Russian people not only witnessed material and human loss, but they also had widespread discontent against the functioning of the then government. • Progressive Deprivation: It takes place when value capabilities either stabilise or decline but value expectations increase together. People living in a colony, for instance, can agitate if the expected liberal atmosphere is not materialised. Using this approach, Skocpol (1979) has found that social revolutions in France, Russia and China had emerged due to specific political crises located in the structures and situations of old-regime states. It is, therefore, important to evaluate the perspective of those at the bottom and put emphasis on the structural situation of, say, the peasants in the agrarian economy and political and class relations at local levels to explain the potential of a social movement (Garada 2016). Sociological Factors

Unlike psychological factors like aggression and frustration, social factors such as social inequality and deprivation might also cause a social movement. Sociologists believe that relative deprivation occurs due to perceived inequality in terms of class, status, and power position by a group of population compared to others. In other words, when any marginalised group of people perceive that they are socially and economically discriminated against by another group in some specific spheres of their life, they may join any social movements (Merton 1968; Runciman 1966). The relative deprivation theory starts with a hypothesis that the relatively deprived people are most likely to organise a social movement compared to the absolutely deprived people. For instance, Alexis de Tocqueville once argued that, as compared to the Germans, it was the French who brought revolution. This is because the German peasants were in an absolutely deprived condition, whereas the French peasants were in a relatively deprived condition. The German peasants also had no class consciousness, whereas the French peasants became class conscious and wanted changes in their condition. Marx and Tocqueville emphasised the role of relative deprivation in the emergence of social movements (Macionis 2012). From the sociological point of view, the feeling of relative deprivation may act as a catalyst for a social movement only under certain conditions. First, the members of a group/community should collectively feel deprived as a social movement is a collective endeavour. For instance, the relative deprivation of a single worker or a Dalit woman cannot cause a social movement. Second, unless a large number of relatively deprived people interact with each other, there will be little possibility of any collective action. So, the scope of collective action depends upon continuous interaction and communication among group members of relatively deprived people. Three, the possibility of any social movement by a large number of relatively deprived and connected people is also linked to the nature of their grievances. Only when relatively deprived members of a group feel that their legitimate and

Conceptual and Theoretical Issues  23 common right to remedy is blocked by members of another group, the situation may give rise to a social movement. Four, a social movement also requires leadership and organisation to lead a movement. Hence, the motivation to assert collective rights to remedy legitimate grievances becomes strong when leaders, activists, and organisations act in a constructive manner. Both the psychological and sociological factors of deprivation are able to explain the emergence of many social movements. Yet this theory fails to explain why some deprived people join a social movement while others do not. It is also difficult to presume that members of a class or community might feel equally deprived. At the same time, feelings of deprivation might even be manufactured by leaders of a movement. On the whole, the theory of relative deprivation brings forth certain important dimensions of social movements, but does not take into account the combination of multiple factors in shaping and deciding the contours of a social movement. Resource Mobilisation Theory With the arrival of resource mobilisation theory in the early 1970s, explanations of social movements have taken a new trajectory. This theory claims that the success of a social movement depends on the strength of resources that its participants or leaders can mobilise in a particular context. John D. McCarthy and Mayer Zald first proposed the classic entrepreneurial (economic) version of this theory. Jenkins and Perrow (1977) have argued that social movements take shape when the necessary resources are pumped into them by the rich for their own benefits. According to Charles Tilly (1978), increasing ‘political opportunities’ is a strong reason for large-scale popular protest in contemporary times. Based on the ‘rational choice theory’, this theory argues that people make a rational choice regarding what is best for them at a particular moment and then decide to join a movement to satisfy their unmet goals. In other words, the ‘resources’ of any movement encourage people to join it for certain benefits at a later period. By arguing very strongly against the earlier theories of social movements, this theory argues that reasons like class antagonism, structural deprivation, structural strains, or relative deprivation cannot necessarily lead towards any social movement. This is because in the absence of resources like willing participants, effective leadership, required finances, organisational stability, management ability/ skill, and media strategies, no social movement can succeed (Macionis 2012). In addition, electronic and virtual resources such as YouTube, social media, the internet, Facebook, and Twitter have now become crucial in recent times (Preston 2011). Features of the Resource Mobilisation

• First, for any social movement to take place, the primary and more relevant factor is the availability of resources (McCarthy and Zald 1987). Though

24  Biswajit Ghosh and Rabindra Garada 

•

• •

•

• •

•

prerequisites like structural strains, relative deprivations, class issues, or ideologies are relevant, they are secondary. Second, both material and non-material resources are salient for the success of any social movement. The material resources include money, technology, buildings and so on, whereas the non-material resources include willpower, leadership, ideology, political support, collective solidarity, and so on (Edwards and McCarthy 2004). Third, in order to launch a social movement, the leaders have to motivate movement participants and assemble resources until the movement becomes successful. Fourth, both selective and collective incentives determine the extent of participation of the movement participants (Klandermans 1997). Hence, leaders of any movement have to think about the expected goals of participants who might join later. As rational interests influence the motivation of participants, a person would prefer joining a movement activity only when there are gains. The opposite is equally true. However, Olson (1971) believes that individual benefits or collective goods or both can pull the participants towards joining any collective action. Fifth, a movement may become strong if its leaders have the quality and ability to manage. In the contemporary political sphere, grievances are often not always based upon past experience or empirical evidence; they are rather framed, manufactured and given meaning (McAdam 1982). Given such a context, the leaders of any movement have to ‘exploit political opportunities, create new collective identities, bring people together in organizations and mobilize them against more powerful opponents.’ (Tarrow 1995: 3). Sixth, social movements are strongly linked to political activity and economic funding. Hence, a social movement that fails to generate adequate funds and political support may fail to attract participants. Seventh, the formation and continuation of a social movement rely to a large extent on management of grievances or deprivations. Hence, deprivation or grievances of any group or community are not enough to organise a movement. These grievances and deprivations are to be made public through media, internet, professional advocacy, movement entrepreneurs, and movement experts. Finally, political opportunities and political strategies are also crucial factors for the success of any movement (Gamson 1990). The elite division or coalitions can legitimise movement demands as well as facilitate a revolutionary situation (Piven and Cloward 1977; Tilly 1978).

The resource mobilisation theory, thereby, argues that a social movement becomes successful only when it relies more on formal organisation, makes allies, uses violent tactics, organises participants during political crises, but narrows its goals and avoids splits. Unlike the traditional approaches to social movements, this theory views social movements as rational, reason-driven, and professionally organised.

Conceptual and Theoretical Issues  25 Identity Perspective

Identity perspective became a popular alternative to explain social movements since the early 20th century. In the backdrop of intensification of labour movements, expansion of industrial democracies, Fabian socialism and the welfare state, as well as the rise of nationalist feelings in countries like Germany, this intellectual tradition has arisen (SinghaRoy 2016). In that context, issues of values, culture, subjectivity, morality, and empowerment have played critical roles in the formation of new social movements. Touraine (1981), therefore, has argued that a sense of historicity, self-consciousness, and collective identity characterises social movements. It is widely recognised that social movements not only rely on social identity, they also generate a sense of collective identity. The best example of this is the proliferation of ethnic movements across space. Collective identities are constructed and negotiated through the formation of social networks. By connecting the members of a group, such identities provide a distinctive meaning to collective action (SinghaRoy 2016). Melucci (1996) believed that by developing a new social identity, a social movement voluntarily ‘empowers’ its members and inspires them to defend and fight for that identity. As a corollary, identity movements differ from movements based on class, race, and similar other traditional issues. Identity perspective stresses features such as cultural interactivity and co-construction in the contemporary world. This creates space for social movements to generate new thoughts, new ideas, and activate new actors. Reflecting on the cognitive identity of participants, social movements develop new ideas and knowledge related to the process of human creativity. In the process, they challenge the existing social order and give rise to new worldviews. Social movements also contribute to the transformation of societal identities. The leaders and activists of identity movements use social and cultural elements like language, region, religion, and descent to intensify emotion and shape solidarity among group/community members. It is expected that, like a mini-society, members of an identity group should have mutual trust, respect, some degree of equality, mutual aid, regular communication, and informal leadership among them. Though identity groups generally allow their members living in close proximity to share thoughts on a regular basis, in recent times, electronic technology has extended this facility also to members living in widely scattered locations (Ghosh 2011). Following Scott (1991: 6), we may also argue that social movements not only rely on understanding of a common social identity to make their presence felt, but they also rely on the formation of a common interest among a larger number of participants as identity very often serves as a ‘resource’. The more numerous an identity group, the better it gains strength for sustenance. Many a time, therefore, identity movements pick up common issues of socio-cultural deprivation of their members to garner strength and support. It appears that the identity perspective has attempted to combine the arguments of three perspectives to endorse their views. These are structural-functional approach, relative deprivation theory, and resource mobilisation theory.

26  Biswajit Ghosh and Rabindra Garada  Notwithstanding the popularity of the identity perspective, it is challenged on several grounds. Thus, to begin with, since identity is fluid and contextual, it is not always possible to generate or sustain a given identity. Again, scholars working on identity movements have noticed the fragmentation of identities in certain contexts, making it difficult to organise and endure any social movement. When a collective identity fragments due to differences among its members on the basis of class, caste, race, religion, or gender, the leaders face obstacles to unite them. These complexities in comprehending an identity movement should not prevent us from acknowledging that in a network society, people belonging to diverse backgrounds may become a part of a ‘community’ through informal networks. The notion of community itself has undergone changes in the network society. The use of electronic technology to mobilise a large number of people on conflictual issues has been noted by social scientists. In the recent farmer’s movement against three farm laws, for instance, many national and international stakeholders came forward to support it. The Kuki-Meitei conflict in Manipur in mid-2023 also drew support from people across boundaries. In the network society, we not only join global platforms on common interests, but we also simultaneously become members of more than one organisation. It is, therefore, fair to argue that identity movements are contextual and situationally contingent depending on a wide range of factors. Summary and Conclusion This chapter discusses the concept, issues, and various approaches to social movements. As we have seen, social movements are largely ‘collective’ or ‘organised’ activities to bring about or resist changes in the beliefs, attitudes, thoughts, values, relationships, and major institutions in the society. As contemporary society commonly witnesses social movements, it is impossible to think of modern life without social movements. With increasing awareness, knowledge, and connectivity in the information society, it is possible to challenge marginalisation, deprivations, inequality, and oppression through collective mobilisations. At the same time, it would be unwise to equate all agitations and protest activities as social movements. This chapter allows us to learn about certain vital elements of social movements, namely, ideology, collective mobilisation, organisation, leadership, interest articulation, and identity formation. Discussion on the origin of a social movement and the reasons for its upsurge across time and space allowed us to examine several perspectives. We have briefly discussed six major perspectives, namely, Marxist, structural-functional, Gandhian, relative deprivation theory, resource mobilisation theory, and identity perspective. This discussion makes it clear that all perspectives have both strong and weak arguments. For instance, the Marxist approach is able to explain class-based movements most effectively. Working-class movements in many countries are influenced by the Marxian notions of class conflict and class struggle. But as identity based on class is often blocked in reality by non-class identities like caste, race, or ethnicity, the Marxist approach cannot explain many social movements.

Conceptual and Theoretical Issues  27 The structural-functional approach first explains the emergence of social movements by linking those with structural deprivations and strains and then goes on to examine how such movements affect society as a whole. Structural-Functionalists argue that a social movement is a dynamic process. As the new social order promotes new structural deprivations and strains, these deprivations cause new movements. For instance, movements against neoliberal globalisation may be argued to be a product of economic deprivations and cultural strains. Yet, we cannot argue that social movements arise only due to structural deprivation and strains. There are many other factors that equally affect social movements. Contrary to these Western approaches, the Gandhian approach provides an alternative non-violent theory of social movements. It proposes innovative conflict resolution strategies like moderate appeals, passive resistance, and active mass movement through satyagraha, non-cooperation, and civil disobedience, including fasting and self-sacrifice. Though the Gandhians support a dialectical approach, they stick to non-violent dialectical actions with the least concern for class conflict. Like the Structural-Functionalists, Gandhians believe in holism though they fundamentally challenge the rigid and exploitative nature of social structure. The Gandhian ideology encourages participants in a movement to win the hearts and minds of their opponents through non-violence. The relative deprivation theory, however, brought forward a new argument. It argued that a social movement takes place only when a large number of relatively deprived people interacts with each other and develop a sense of legitimate grievances through their leaders, activists, and associations in a constructive manner. Relative deprivation of Kukis as against the Meiteis in Manipur, for instance, did inspire the former to launch a movement. Although it is possible to explain many social movements with reference to this theory, it fails to explain why some deprived people join a social movement while others do not. Again, the resource mobilisation theory introduced a new dimension. It argued that factors like class antagonism, structural strains, deprivation, and discrimination may not always produce a powerful movement unless the participants and their leaders possess enough material and non-material resources. As opposed to the existing arguments of participants being compelled to launch a movement, resource mobilisation theory sees movements as a rational choice. Unlike the traditional approaches, this theory views social movements as rational, reason-driven, and professionally organised. People join a movement having adequate resources if they see benefits to be drawn when the movement becomes successful at a later stage. This theory, however, does not envision that people lacking resources may also take part in a social movement and may become successful in drawing the attention of people at large. Many scholars, therefore, find it simplistic, rigid, and static. Finally, the identity perspective stresses the roles of values, culture, subjectivity, morality, and empowerment in the construction of collective identities. While in contemporary times, we witness the construction and reconstruction of various types of identities, it cannot be denied that the development of a common social identity also depends on the formation of a common interest. But as many of us

28  Biswajit Ghosh and Rabindra Garada  endure numerous interests, we often become part of loosely organised collectivities in a network society that may promote inconsistent interests. This gives rise to fluidity of identities, weakening any powerful social movement. As a result, many identity movements are contextually and situationally contingent. The above discussion points out that social movements, being integral parts of social change and transformation, cannot be explained only from the vantage point of any particular theory. For a social movement to originate, grow and reach out to a large number of sympathisers, both subjective sensitivities of participants and objective factors of deprivation may play an equal role. It is also possible that in a network society, our attachment to any particular organisation is fluid, global, and of varying strength. Herein, factors such as ideology, organisation, leadership, and political opportunity contribute decisively in promoting and nourishing social movements. In contemporary society, new forms of social movements are also becoming popular to articulate new forms of identities and interests. Review Questions 1. What is a social movement? Discuss the key features of the resource mobilisation perspective on social movements. 2. Explain the structural-functional approach to the study of social movements. 3. Discuss the possible patterns of relative deprivations for the cause of a social movement. 4. How does the Gandhian approach provide an alternative to the existing approaches to social movements? 5. What are the limitations of the Marxian approach to social movements? 6. Explain any contemporary social movement with reference to any approach. Examine the limits of that approach to explain that movement completely. 7. Do you agree with this view that social movements cannot be explained strictly from the vantage point of any particular approach? Give reasons for your answer. References Aarons, Brian. 1972. ‘Marxist Theories of Revolution’. Australian Left Review, 1 (34, March): 19–24. Aberle, D. F. 1966. The Peyote Religion among the Navajo. Chicago, IL: Aldine Publishing. Agnew, Robert. 1987. ‘On-testing Structural Strain Theories’. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 24 (4): 281–286. Barker, Colin, Lawrence Cox, John Krinsky, and Alf Gunwald Nilsen (Eds.). 2013. Marxism and Social Movements. Boston, MA: Koninklijke Brill. Blumer, H. 1951. ‘Social Movements’. In Lee, A. N. (Ed.), New Outline of Principles of Society (167-222). New York, NY: Baines D. Noldi. Buechler, S. M. 1995. ‘New Social Movement Theories’. The Sociological Quarterly, 36 (3): 441–464.

Conceptual and Theoretical Issues  29 Cliff, T., and D. Gluckstein. 1986. Marxism and Trade Union Struggle: The General Strike of 1926. London and Chicago, IL: Bookmarks. Cohen, J. L. 1985. ‘Strategy or Identity? New Theoretical Paradigms and Contemporary Social Movements’. Social Research, 52 (4): 663–716. Edwards, Bob, and John D. McCarthy. 2004. ‘Resources and Social Movement Mobilization’. In Snow, D. A., et al. (Eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements (11–152). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Gamble, Andrew. 1999. ‘Marxism after Communism: Beyond Realism and Historicism’. Review of International Studies, 25 (5): 27–144. Gamson, William. 1990. The Strategy of Social Protest. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing. Garada, Rabindra. 2016. ‘Approaches to Social Movements’. INFLIBNET e-PG Pathshala. Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. Available at: epgp​ .inflibnet​.ac​​.in (accessed on 14 October 2019). Ghosh, Biswajit. 2011. ‘Cultural Changes in the Era of Globalisation’. Journal of Developing Societies, 27 (2): 153–175. Gurr, Ted. 1970. Why Men Rebel. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Gusfield, J. R. (Ed.). 1971. Protest, Reform and Revolt: A Reader in Social Movements. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons. Haberle, R. 1972. ‘Types and Functions of Social Movement’. In Sills, David L. (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. New York, NY: The Macmillan Company and the Free Press. Habermas, J. 1981. ‘New Social Movements’. Telos, 1981 (49): 33–37. Hardiman, David. 2003. Gandhi in His Time and Ours. Delhi: Permanent Black. Hough, Jerry F. 1997. Democratisation and Revolution in the USSR, 1985–1991. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Huntington, Samuel P. 1968. Political Order in a Changing Society. London: Yale University Press. Jäger, Johannes. 2016. ‘Marxian Political Economy’, review of Exploring Economics by Andreas Dimmelmeier, Andrea Pürckhauer, and Anil Shahl. Available at: https://www​ .exploring​-economics​.org​/en​/exploring​-economics​.org (accessed on 5 October 2018). Jenkins, C., and C. Perrow. 1977. ‘Insurgency of the Powerless Farm Workers Movements (1946–1972)’. American Sociological Review, 42 (2): 249–268. Jenkins, J. Craig, and Michael Wallace. 1996. ‘The Generalised Action Potential of Protest Movements: The New Class, Social Trends, and Political Exclusion Explanations’. Sociological Forum, 11 (2): 183–207. Klandermans, Bert. 1997. The Social Psychology of Protest. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Macionis, John J. 2012. Sociology. Boston, MA: Pearson. Marx, Karl. 1852. ‘Der 18: Brumaire des Louis Bonaparte’ (The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon). Marx-Engels Works, 8: 111–207. McAdam, Doug. 1982. Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. McAdam, Doug, and David Snow (Eds.). 1997. Social Movements: Readings on Their Emergence, Mobilisation, and Dynamics. Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury Publishing. McCarthy, John D., and Mayer N. Zald. 1987. ‘Resource Mobilisation and Social Movements: A Partial Theory’. In Buechler, S. M. and Cylke, F. K. (Eds.), Social Movements: Perspectives and Issues (149–172). Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing. Melucci, A. 1996. Challenging Codes: Collective Action in the Information Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Merton, Robert K. 1968. Social Theory and Social Structure. New York, NY: The Free Press. Moradian, Meneejeh, and David Whitehouse. 2000. ‘Gandhi and the Politics of Nonviolence’. International Socialist Review, 14: 1–17.

30  Biswajit Ghosh and Rabindra Garada  Morris, Aldon, and Cedric Herring. 1987. ‘Theory and Research in Social Movements: A Critical Review’. In Long, Samuel (Ed.), Political Behavior, Annual, 137–198. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Olson, Mancur. 1971. The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups, revised ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Oommen, T. K. 2010. ‘Introduction: On the Analysis of Social Movements’. In Oommen, T. K. (Ed.), Social Movements I: Issues of Identity (1–46). New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Piven, Frances F., and Richard Cloward. 1977. Poor People’s Movements. New York, NY: Pantheon. Preston, J. 2011. ‘Movement Began with Outrage and a Facebook Page That Gave It an Outlet’. New York Times, 5 February. Runciman, Walter Garrison. 1966. Relative Deprivation and Social Justice. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Scott, A. 1991. Ideology and New Social Movements. London: Unwin Hyman. Segre, Sandro. 2016. ‘A Durkheimian Theory of Social Movements’. International Journal of Social Science Studies, 4 (10): 29–47. Shah, Ghanshyam. 2004. Social Movements in India: A Review of Literature. New Delhi: SAGE Publications. Shleifer, Andrei, and Daniel Treisman. 2005. ‘A Normal Country: Russia after Communism’. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 19 (1): 151–174. SinghaRoy, Debal. 2016. ‘Introduction to Issues and Concepts of Social Movements’. INFLIBNET e-PG Pathshala. Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. Available at: epgp​.inflibnet​.ac​​.in (accessed on 14 October 2019). Skocpol, T. 1979. States and Social Revolutions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smelser, Neil J. 1962. Theory of Collective Behavior. New York, NY: The Free Press. Smith, Jackie, and Tine Fetner. 2007. ‘Structural Approaches in the Sociology of Social Movements’. In Klandermans, Bert and Roggeband, Conny (Eds.), Handbook of Social Movements across Disciplines (13–58). New York, NY: Springer. Stouffer, Samuel A., Edward A. Suchman, Leland C. DeVinney, Shirley A. Starr, and Robin M. Williams. 1949. The American Soldier: Adjustment to Army Life, vol. 1. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Tarrow, S. 1995. Power in Movements: Social Movements, Collective Action and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tilly, Charles. 1978. From Mobilisation to Revolution. Boston, MA: Addison-Wesley. Toch, H. 1965. The Social Psychology of Social Movements. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill. Touraine, A. 1981. The Voice and the Eye: An Analysis of Social Movements. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wallace, A. F. C. 1956. ‘Revitalization Movements’. American Anthropologist, 58: 264–281. Wilkinson, P. 1971. Social Movement. London: Pall Mall Press.

2

Typology of Social Movements Jyotiprasad Chatterjee

Learning Objectives After reading this chapter, you will be able to:

• • • •

Comprehend the nature of social movements as a social process; Understand the different types of social movements; Identify the distinct characteristics of various social movements; Analyse and explain the primary contradiction of any given society, at any given point of time, giving birth to particular type(s) of social movement(s); and • Classify and analyse various social movements in India, past and present.

Introduction Social movement can be seen as a social reality, marked by the participation of individuals in a collective action, contingent upon their social contexts and realities. It can be, and has been, understood from various perspectives. Some scholars have seen it as a social process (Diani 1992; Diani and Bison 2004). Others have seen it as a political process (Tarrow 2011; Tilly 1979) that is unfolding gradually. Wilson (1973) suggests that social movements either try to bring about social change, or resist it, an observation that seems to be in tune with Touraine’s (1971) claims that social movement seeks to address the ‘historicity’ of a society or the ‘way it acts upon itself’ (ibid.: 3). Evidently, then, social movements represent a lack of stability in its social backdrop and hence might be seen as a manifestation and an offshoot of pathological conditions of society. Such varied observations highlight some of the distinctive traits of social movements. First of all, it is a form of collective behaviour of a number of people, shaped and induced by their socio-cultural realities. In that sense, social movement is a form of human interaction. Now human interaction might assume various dimensions, and hence social movements also vary considerably across time and space. Being ultimately shaped by the contingencies of the actors participating in it, the DOI:  10.4324/9781003481744-3

32  Jyotiprasad Chatterjee  traits, goals, and attributes of social movements are liable to change with changes in the socio-political contexts. Wilkinson (1971: 46) suggests, ‘Historically, social movements are multi-dimensional and kaleidoscopic’ . Owing to its fluid nature, it poses a challenge to the sociologist trying to classify it, for a systematic exploration of its traits and attributes. In this chapter, we will discuss how various social scientists have tackled this challenging task, and thereby will try to arrive at a typology of social movements. Typologies of Social Movements Herbert Blumer’s Typology

Herbert Blumer of the Chicago School made the first systematic attempt to classify social movements. Deeply influenced by the notions of social unrest and collective behaviour of Robert E. Park and E. Burgess, he classified social movements as (a) general social movements, (b) specific social movements, and (c) expressive social movements (Blumer 1946). He traced the origin of general social movements in the ‘gradual and pervasive changes in the values of people …– changes which can be called cultural drifts’ (ibid.: 199–200). Such cultural drifts alter the ideas of people regarding their conceptions about themselves and their rights and privileges. Often these new self-conceptions and interests are not in tune with the actual positions people occupy in their lives. The dissatisfaction arising out of such incongruity may be the potential reason for general social movements. The new self-conceptions, which people begin to develop in response to the ‘cultural drifts’ (ibid.: 200), unfold gradually. Due to this, general social movements, Blumer argues, ‘have only a general direction’ (ibid.: 200) lacking any specific one. These movements are characterised by their lack of organisation, lack of established leadership, and recognised membership. The examples of such movements are the labour movements, youth movements, women’s movements, movements for the rights of children, movements to guarantee or extend the scope of free and compulsory education, and so on. Specific social movements emerge out of the general social movements. When the indeterminate and vague self-conceptions originating from the cultural drift take a concrete shape in the form of definite objectives, a specific movement results. To attain its well-defined objectives or goals, it develops organisation and structure. Transcending the unorganised nature of general social movements, specific social movements acquire the character of a society. Formal legitimate leadership and concrete membership having a strong ‘we-consciousness’ (Blumer 1946: 202) characterises such movements. Compared to general ones, therefore, specific social movements are well organised and structured. Blumer mentions the reform and revolutionary movements as examples of specific social movements. Expressive social movements, ‘do not seek to change the institutions of the social order or its objective character’ (Blumer 1946: 214). Expressive behaviours provide the channels to release the feeling of dissatisfaction causing the movements. Such feelings might be intensive enough to influence the overall personality

Typology of Social Movements  33 of the individuals as well as the society. According to Blumer (ibid.: 214), expressive movements are apparent. ‘in a situation wherein people are upset and disturbed, but wherein they cannot act; in other words, a situation of frustration. The inability to release their tension in the direction of some actual change in the social order leaves as the alternative mere expressive behaviour. To cite examples, Blumer refers to religious movements and fashion movements as expressive movements. A religious movement, often spearheaded by sects, exhibits a kind of war with society at large without making any determined effort to change it. Rather, it looks for a moral regeneration of the world. Changes in the inner life of the people are considered more important for this. Similarly, a fashion movement expresses the new subjective demands of the people when they find the old ones upset. Rudolf Heberle’s Typology

Rudolf Heberle presents a critique of the collective behaviour approach to social movements propounded by the scholars of the Chicago School, especially Park, Burgess, and Blumer. A concrete perception of ‘group identity and solidarity’, he believes, is the necessary precondition for a social movement to develop rather than ‘mere like sentiments’, like actions’, and ‘imitative mass actions’ (Heberle 1949: 349). Genuine social movements, to him, attempt to bring about ‘ fundamental changes in the social order, especially in the basic institutions of property and labour relationship’ (ibid.: 348–349). In spite of the importance of the institutions of property and labour relationship, he also believes that a genuine social movement must go beyond the mere ‘economic’ or ‘political’ programme and incorporate into it other important socially relevant issues. Out of this understanding, Heberle (1968) has classified social movements into the following types: Movements of limited goals: The goals of this type of movement are limited. For this they are also participated in by a relatively small number of people and are often referred to as protest movements. The movements of mostly local, regional, or national character are examples of these. In spite of the limited scope, such movements can acquire the character of mass movements aiming to redress grievances of certain groups. For example, the Negro movement and, in the Indian context, the movement of the Dalits and the Adivasis (so-called ‘tribes’). The experience and perception of discrimination as a group or category often impart a mass character to such movements. Movements aiming at comprehensive and fundamental change: These are movements that aim at bringing deep-rooted and fundamental changes in the social order. Hence, they always attract a large number of individuals from all cross sections of any society. For their wider scope, these movements may transcend even the boundaries of any state, nation, or country. The extensive coverage of the movements leads them to be characterised as true mass movements with

34  Jyotiprasad Chatterjee  considerable historical significance. For the objective of fundamental social change and the wider participation of individuals, these movements are designated to be social movements, classically. Socio-psychological types: Here we are concerned with the diverse motivations of the movement participants. On this basis, Heberle (1968: 440) has classified social movements into the following: a. The value-rational ‘spiritual community’ or ‘fellowship’ of believers in the truth of the constitutive ideas and in the practical aims of a movement. b. The emotional-affectual ‘following’ of a charismatic leader. c. The purposive-rational or utilitarian association for the pursuit of individual interests. Actually, social movements often exhibit a combination or mix and match of all these traits. During the journey of a particular social movement, there may be a transition and shift from one type to the other. Heberle (1968) talks about some revolutionary movements where the devotion to the cause of the movement supersedes any kind of personal relationship among the participants; still, there are instances where kinship and other social bonds of the participants help to develop solidarity among them. Neil J. Smelser’s Typology

Smelser (1962) views social movements as a distinctive collective action motivated by certain types of generalised beliefs. He has classified social movements into two forms: norm-orientated movements and value-orientated movements. Value-orientated movement: According to Smelser, it is a ‘collective attempt to restore, protect, modify, or create values in the name of a generalized belief’ (Smelser 1962: 313). Hence, the aims of these movements are restoration of old and moribund values, the protection of the prevailing values, and the construction of new values for the future. Any given value-orientated movement can aim at attaining all these objectives. As examples of this form of movement, we can mention ethnic movements, nativistic movements, messianic movements, millenarian movements, religious revolution, political revolution, nationalistic movements, and so on. Norm-oriented movement: This type of movement attempts to ‘restore, protect, modify, or create norms in the name of a generalised belief’ (Smelser 1962: 270). Here the participants may either attempt to influence norms directly or persuade and pressurise the government or other public agencies to do so. Smelser considers the reform movements and counter-movements, students’ movements, and feminist movements as examples of norm-orientated movements. From this standpoint, the farmers’ movement in India, which has been attempting to pressurise the government of India to grant several concessions to the farmers, can be classified as a norm-oriented movement.

Typology of Social Movements  35 Joseph R. Gusfield’s Typology

Gusfield (1968), focussing on the organisational structure and nature of associational networks, has classified social movements as directed movements and undirected movements. Directed movements are distinguished by their organised and structured nature. They have ‘specific programmes, formal leadership structure, definitive ideology, and stated objectives’ (Gusfield 1968: 445). Undirected movements are characterised by their ephemeral or transient nature. Along with the norms and values, the perspectives of these movements are always in the process of reshaping. For this, they lack any definite and specific associational context. The participants of both these types are partisans to a belief. While in the former, they are members of an organisation, in the latter, they lack it. Similar to Blumer’s (1946) distinction between general and specific movements, Gusfield also considers that more than a typology, the classification of directed and undirected social movements is a portrayal of the life course of any single social movement. They can be considered as two phases of a single social movement. Every movement passes through the initial undirected or unstructured and unorganised phase to ultimately reach the directed phase exhibiting more organisational strength and formal structure. Along with this structural classification, Gusfield has also attempted to classify social movements by the means they employ to achieve their goals. Accordingly, he has classified movement into two types: public policy-oriented movements and private persuasion-oriented movements. A public policy-oriented movement aims at bringing effective change in the rules of the government or other public institutions. Chatterjee (2017a) cites the movement of Patels or Patedars of Gujarat and the movement of Jats of Haryana for official recognition as Other Backward Classes (OBCs) as examples of this type in contemporary India. The private persuasion-oriented movement attempts to reform and change individuals’ behaviour. It tries to attune individuals’ behaviour to a particular way usually disregarding the public institutions as agents of control. To Gusfield, religious movements, with a stress on conversion rather than enacting new legislations, are examples of this. David Aberle’s Typology

Depending on the levels and the degree of change sought by social movements, anthropologist Aberle (1966) has classified social movements into four types. By level of change sought, he refers to the range of change any movement is attempting to achieve. It may either be at the level of the individual or the supra-individual or group level. The degree of change indicates the scope of a social movement. It may be partial or total. On the basis of these, he has classified movements into transformative, reformative, redemptive, and alterative. Table 2.1 presents this classification comprehensively. While transformative movements such as radical political groups, millenarian, and revolutionary movements aim at total change at supra-individual level, reformative movements like many women’s organisations seek partial change at the same level. Redemptive movements like Peyotism, as studied by Aberle (1966), and most of the movements of religious cults attempt

36  Jyotiprasad Chatterjee  Table 2.1 Aberle’s classification of social movements Degree of Change Sought

Level of Change Sought Individual

Supra-individual/Group

Total Partial

Redemptive movements Alterative movements

Transformative movements Reformative movements

total change of the individuals. Alterative movements, like the ecological sustainability movements, call for partial change of the individuals. Wilkinson’s Typology

In contrast to the structural and processual nature of conceptualisation and classification of social movements, as the foregoing schemes entail, Wilkinson (1971) has attempted to study the morphology of social movements. This has enabled him to identify three elements crucially important to formulate a working concept of social movements. These are: a . Social movement’s conscious commitment to change; b. Its minimal organisation ranging from a loose, informal level to a highly institutionalised one; and c. The participants’ conscious volition, normative commitment to the movement’s aims or beliefs, and active participation. On the basis of these three fundamental characteristics, Wilkinson has identified different types of social movements. Among these, the following are noteworthy: 1 . 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Religious movements, millenarianism, and sect; Urban and Rural movements; Nationalist movements; Race movements; Reform movements; and Revolutionary and Totalitarian movements.

In spite of attempting the classification, Wilkinson admits that, ‘In the typology … each category is purely an ideal type’ (Wilkinson 1971: 51). In actual social conditions, therefore, no social movement can perfectly match with any of the types. There may be considerable overlapping among the types. To substantiate this, Chatterjee (2017a: 7) cites the instance of Jharkhand Movement in India, which to some scholars ‘is an ethnic or sub-national movement, for others, it is a workingclass movement, for yet others it is a peasant movement. There are still others who consider it as a reform movement’.

Typology of Social Movements  37 Religious Movements Drawing a line of distinction between religious movements and other social movements is often difficult due to the similarities in their objectives. The commitment to bring about a ‘good life’, often the primary goal of any religious movement, can also be observed in other social movements. Moreover, transcending the ‘religious ethos’, religious movements often enter into the domains of politics and culture (Blackham 1966). In early 19th-century India, especially in Bengal for instance, the Wahabi movement, moving beyond the goal of establishing pure ‘Islam’, soon acquired the character of a political and social movement (Hunter 1876; Smith 1943) against the landlords and colonial power. This overlapping between religious and other social movements calls for a close scrutiny of the nature of religious movements. Sociologists and other social scientists have conceptualised religious movements from a number of theoretical standpoints. According to Blumer (1946), religious movements approximate expressive movements because far from being a purposive action for actual social change, they merely express the worries of the participants. Bainbridge (1997: 3) seems to disagree as he conceptualises a religious movement to be a ‘ relatively organised attempt by a number of people to cause or prevent change in a religious organisation or in religious aspects of life’. Ostensibly, a religious movement, viewed from the angle of collective action to bring in or resist change, closely resembles political, cultural, and social movements. However, to Bainbridge, the distinctiveness of a religious movement vis-àvis other forms of collective action lies in its religious character pertaining to the ‘human feelings about the divine’ (ibid.: 3). In a much similar tune, Stark (1996) also points out ‘ultimate meaning’, ‘existence of the supernatural’ and so on as the basis of a religious belief system. Through an empirical and deductive analysis, he conceptualises religious movements as, ‘Social enterprises whose primary purpose is to create, maintain, and supply religion to some set of individuals’ (Stark 1996: 134). The importance attached to divinity, the ultimate and the supernatural by Stark as well as Bainbridge, specifically the former’s consideration of religion as a sort of cultural capital, needs a detailed analysis, but that is not possible within the limited scope of the present chapter. Surpassing the parameters of divinity and the supernatural as central to religion, Wilkinson (1971: 55), in more general terms, has defined it as, ‘all prevalent systems of faith and worship past and present.’ He has also identified the unique characteristics of religious movements to distinguish it from other social movements. Characteristics of Religious Movements

First is the claim of all religious movements ‘to a source of doctrinal authority which transcends the individual’ (Wilkinson 1971: 55). Usually perceived in relation to the prophets’ preaching, the transcendental doctrinal authority is not necessarily connected to the supernatural entities. The doctrinal authority can well be

38  Jyotiprasad Chatterjee  inspired by teachings of history or principles formulated by any supreme political personality or charismatic leader. Second, religious movements have the ability to reorient individual personality and behaviour. Adherents of a religious belief system often feel it obligatory to attune their conduct with the ethics, values, and moral principles of that particular religious system. Thus, religious movements can resocialise the individuals by significantly changing their personalities. Aberle (1966), as noted earlier, has also talked about this ability of religious movements to modify the individuals’ personality in his conceptualisation of redemptive movements. Third, Wilkinson (1971: 56) suggests, is the claim of any religion, ‘to primacy and to authority on the basis of its monopoly of revelatory or rational ideological truth’. In a world with a complex multitude of religious diversities and belief systems, such claims of primacy can obviously be contested. Notwithstanding the integrative attributes of religion, this contestation infuses enough ‘conflict-inducing and revolutionary potential’ to religion (Wilkinson 1971: 59). Human history is marked by numerous instances of inter-religious conflicts and mobilisations in the forms of crusades, jihads, and so on. Huntington (1993) in his thesis on ‘The Clash of Civilizations’ and Fox (2000) while examining domestic civilisational conflict have particularly attempted to explore the nature of this type of conflict. Fourth is the integrative and solidarity-building function of religion. A religious movement, overtly or covertly, often attempts to reinforce and preserve the existing social order and cohesion. It is also considered instrumental in maintaining the existing social structure and power relations. Almost all functionalist sociologists, from Durkheim to Parsons, have underscored such conservative functions of religion. Ellwood (1913: 300) reiterates it quite succinctly when he says, ‘Religious values or sanctions may attach themselves to any existing institutions, and by doing so they render them much more stable, and so also the whole social order’. Consideration of this integrative role of religion possibly has led Wilkinson (1971: 56) to conceive religious movement as a ‘socially controlled safety-valve for the expression of potentially violent and disruptive passions such as fanatical devotion, envy, or hatred’. Hence, whether it is a revolutionary force or a conservative one, religious movement significantly influences the nature and direction of social change. Theories of Religious Development

Now, it is necessary to comprehend the mechanisms or processes through which a religious movement originates and develops. Among a number of theoretical viewpoints, a few deserve attention here: Rationalisation: Max Weber has considered religious phenomena to constantly evolve from a less rational state to a relatively more rational one. Increasing rationalisation, he believes, concomitantly enhances the levels of sophistication and complexity of religious ideas, doctrines, and mechanisms of normative control. Rationalisation of religious phenomena, however, does not necessarily imply the

Typology of Social Movements  39 fading out of the irrational belief systems, which are basically magical and demonic in nature. With growing rationalisation, people become increasingly aware of the perceived discrepancy between normative expectations and their everyday experiences. The more rationalised a religious belief system is, the more intense is the feeling of such deprivation. When people cannot resolve this or fail to get the ‘religious benefits’ (Weber 1978: 54–56), worldly or other-worldly, from the conventional religions, they turn towards the saviour, usually a charismatic leader in the shape of a prophet or magician or Guru in the Indian context, to achieve personal salvation and justification of human existence. Increasing rationalisation of religious beliefs, thus, enhances the perception of religious discontents and causes the genesis of religious movements. Sociological determinants: There may be various sociological influences of religious movements, but most often the situations of despair, frustration, and distress lead people to turn towards the prophets and preachers. The ‘prophet’, to Weber, is a charismatic person who ‘by virtue of his mission proclaims a religious doctrine or divine commandment’ (Weber 1978: 439). As a religious leader, the prophet usually possesses considerable charisma to challenge the traditional order of life and attempts to establish a new legitimacy. Dismantling the power of magic, ‘rational prophecy’, (Weber 2003: 362) helps to establish rational conduct of life. To Wilkinson (1971: 64), ‘the alienated urban population of the ghetto or slums, the poor, the unemployed, and the rootless’ often become the followers of prophets. Participants of religious movements, therefore, are found more among the relatively disadvantaged people belonging to a vulnerable socio-economic situation. This is precisely the case with the New Religious Movements (NRM), which as argues Turner (1971: 17), arises out of the interaction of a primal society and its religion with one or more of the higher cultures and their major religions and involving some substantial departure from the classical religious traditions of all the cultures concerned, in order to find renewal through a different religious system. Under total control of the charismatic leaders, the new religions are nearly delinked from public institutions like churches, mosques, and temples. For this Turner (2010: 661–662) terms them as ‘post-institutional’, which can be ‘legitimately called postmodern religions’. Secularisation: The general expectation of secularisation theorists is that an increasing degree of industrialization, urbanisation, and rationalization will lead to an obvious decline in religiosity and belief in the supernatural. It also implies a waning of the power of magicians (Weber 1978). In this sense, secularisation has a direct and one-to-one relation with the rationalization of social life, one of the chief hallmarks of the process of modernisation, which is perceived to be innately non-religious. Auguste Comte, the founding father of positivist sociology, for example, has argued that social progress and modernisation will ultimately lead to the positive stage, leaving behind the theological one, where the science of sociology, replacing faith in the supernatural, would become the primary basis

40  Jyotiprasad Chatterjee  for moral judgements. Freud (1961), Marx (1970), Weber (2002), Parsons (1973), Berger (1967), and so on have dealt with this idea in their works. Such thinking links secularisation with an autonomous society where the scope of religion is limited and confined within the sphere of private life (Shiner 1967). Hence, secularisation can be conceived as a contest or mobilisation against the civic or public role of religion to insulate politics and the political institutions from the influence of religion. Scholars, however, tend to disagree about the manifestation of the secularisation process in the real lives of the citizens of contemporary societies. The prosecularisation camp points out the declining church attendance in Britain for the past 100 years or so as proof of secularisation. Critics consider this anecdote to be too narrow as well as parochial, since a mere decline in religious belief does not serve as concrete proof of secularisation (Chaves 1994) and it cannot, possibly, be estimated through church attendance alone. The question arises: if one accepts the decline in church attendance as an indication of the march of secularisation, then what about the United States, where it has trebled during the last 150 years (Stark 1999)? Citing the emergence of new religious movements of different cults, resurgent Islam, and dynamic evangelical Protestantism in the contemporary period, they cast doubt on the claims of the pro-secularisation theorists (Berger 2008). The recent proliferation of followers of popular religions in the global south is also a point of concern. Moreover, religious mobilisations of messianic, utopian, and millenarian character are also increasingly gaining prominence. Hence, the contestations with the claim of the secularisation thesis may be pointers to the significance and salience of the religious movements in the contemporary period. Millenarianism

The Latin term ‘Millennium’, and its Greek parallel chilias, literally signifies a period of a 1000 years. As per the millenarian tradition, Christ will reappear in the guise of a warrior to conquer and imprison the devil. He will then establish a messianic kingdom and rule it for a 1000 years (Cohn 1957; Talmon 1968). Apart from Christianity, the trace of millenarianism as a religious movement can be found in other religions too. Similar to Christ’s reappearance to defeat the devil, in the Bhagavad Gita of Hinduism, we find Lord Krishna assuring his reappearance throughout the ages (sambhavami yuge yuge) to protect the eternal good (dharma) and to annihilate the miscreants. In the tradition of Adivasi revolts in India also, we come across a number of such instances. For example, in the Santhal rebellion of 1855–1856 and the Birsa Munda rebellion of 1895–1900, the messianic leaders Sidhu, Kanhu, and Birsa, respectively, proclaimed to have received divine commandment to free the Adivasis from the oppression of the non-Adivasi rulers and to establish Adivasi self-rule. Its literal meaning notwithstanding, the term ‘millenarian’ movement now signifies those religious movements ‘that expect imminent, total, ultimate, this-worldly, collective salvation’ (Talmon 1968: 349). Hence, it now applies to a diverse range of movements. Peter Worsley (1957: 11) observes this in the context of the millenarian movement of the ‘cargo’ cult in Melanesia:

Typology of Social Movements  41 A prophet announces the imminence of the end of the world in a cataclysm which will destroy everything. Then the ancestors will return, or God, or some other liberating power, will appear, bringing all the goods the people desire, and ushering in a reign of external bliss. Anthropologists have used the term millenarianism to classify movements including messianic, acculturation, nativistic, revitalisation, and cargo cult. In Lindstrom (2002: 561), we find a depiction of the nature of all these. ‘Messianic’ describes movements that focus on the advent or the return of a saviour; acculturation movements respond to the disruptions of colonial domination; nativistic movements seek to revive or perpetuate endangered aspects of culture and so re-establish a golden age (Linton 1943); the label ‘revitalization’ highlights the reconstructive and socially therapeutic functions of movement belief and ritual (Wallace 1956); and cargo cults are a specific, Melanesian case in which the anticipated millennium will be a supermarket of Western commodities. The distinguishing feature of the ideology of the millenarian movement, for Shils (1958), lies in the notion of the evil of the world. Rigid separation and setting apart the good from the evil are central to it. He argues that a millenarian movement exhibits ‘violent hatred of the existing cosmic order, and especially of its earthly beneficiaries, governmental, economic, and ecclesiastical authorities, indeed, of authorities of any kind’ (Shils 1958: 460). Evidently, it considers authority to be the manifestation of evil, which millenarianism attempts to eradicate through a cosmic verdict. At the core of the millenarian movement, there is a concern with an imminent crisis. It offers a conduit to the marginalised people and the victims of different forms of socio-economic inequality, ethnic and racial antagonism, colonialism, development-induced displacement, and dispossession, etc. to protest and redress their grievances. Table 2.2 depicts the important characteristics of this movement. Sect

Max Weber, in his sociology of religion, has dealt at length with the concept of sect. The church appears here as an analytical counterpart of the sect. The distinction between the church and the sect, as drawn by Weber, has been clarified by Swedberg (2005: 242) quite lucidly when he says, ‘While specific religious qualifications are needed to become a member of a sect, one typically becomes a member of a church through birth’. Unlike the church, thus, the membership of a sect is not a matter of inheritance. Being an ecclesiastical and religious organisation, the church is more or less tuned up with the established cultural and social order, but a ‘sect’, for its exclusiveness, rejects, to some extent, the larger society. The church, as an important social institution, is marked by priesthood and the related hierarchy, the apostolic succession, and sacrament. For its relation with the state and the

42  Jyotiprasad Chatterjee  Table 2.2 Characteristics of millenarian movements Characteristics

Implications

Total salvation

• Attempt to bring about fundamental transformation of life on

Imminent and terrestrial

Collective orientation Ecstasy

earth.

• Can be revolutionary and catastrophic. • Can resolve any grave crisis. • Better time is to come ‘both soon and suddenly’ (Cohn 1957: 13).

• It will come on this earth only, not in some other-worldly • • • • • •

Messianic

• • •

Ephemeral

• • • •

heaven. Juxtaposition of perfect time and perfect space. Salvation can be achieved and enjoyed only collectively. Individual salvation is secondary. Involve untamed and frantic emotional display. Show some antinomian proclivities such as sexual eccentricity and immoderation. Often hysterically expects miraculous accomplishments of salvation by or with the assistance of supernatural agencies. Salvation is brought about by a redeemer who claims divine inspiration and acts as the mediator between the human and the divine. Often the leader is considered the messiah. Leadership pattern closely resembles Weber’s notions of charismatic leader and the prophet. Often tend to be amorphous and ephemeral in nature, although an exclusive and sect-like discipline can be traced in some cases. For the anticipation that the millennium is close at hand, they attract a variety of individuals. They tensely wait for it and often become impatient when the perceived deadline fails. This tension often leads to the downfall of millenarian movements.

Source: Talmon (1968).

ruling classes, the church often becomes part of the social order. The sects, on the contrary, consider the nexus of the church and the state as unholy and oppose it. In contrast to the principle of objective holiness of the Church, the sect considers itself as a holy community composed of ‘mature’ Christians. The sects’ perceived detachment from the state, the official positions, law, force, oath, war, violence, and capital punishment (Troeltsch 1931) is considered to be the manifestation of its ‘holiness’. There is an inbuilt proclivity of the sects, argue some scholars, towards accommodation with the larger society through institutionalisation (Niebuhr 1922; Pope 1942). They term this as routinization. This accommodation, motivated by the desire for prosperity and better adjustment to conditions of life, leads to the denominationalization of the sects. Wilson (1995), however, has vividly criticised

Typology of Social Movements  43 the denominationalization thesis of Niebuhr and Pope. Since different sects have different levels and natures of organisations, experience and ideology, he argues that the process of denominationalization also takes different courses. While some sects are denominationalised, others might intensify their ethic and spirit strongly to maintain their sectarian outlook. Hence, the generalisation that all sects have a tendency towards denominationalization might be sweeping. Chatterjee (2017a) cites the examples of some Hindu sects in India, such as the Shaiva, Vaishnava, Shakteya, and Smarta, as experiencing differential levels of denomination, while the Ananda Marga, another Hindu sect, is still steadily adhering to its sectarian outlook and ideology. Urban and Rural Movements Urban and rural movements generally are the raging expressions of popular discontents of the urban and rural folk. Although these movements are often ephemeral and transitory in nature, their relatively high frequency warrants the focus of the sociologists. Urban Movements

Hobsbawm (1971: 110) has identified ‘mob’ as the primary form of collective mobilisation of the urban poor to attain, ‘economic or political changes by direct action – that is by riot or rebellion’. Inter-class solidarity of the urban poor, he believes, is the foundation of urban movements. Apparently, the city mob is the urban counterpart of ‘social banditry’, a phenomenon he (1971: 6–7) associates with the protests of the impoverished peasantry in the rural areas. To Hobsbawm, mob behaviour, expressed as riot, is purposeful or rational. In contrast to Park, Blumer, and other sociologists of the Chicago School, who have considered mob as impulsive and aimless elementary collective behaviour, he believes that instead of mere protesting, classical mob expects to achieve its goals by rioting. Due to its lack of organisational structure and definite ideology which formal politics often have, Hobsbawm has treated mobs to be ‘pre-political’ (1959: 110) or ‘sub-political’ (1959: 114). This lack, however, does not imply that mob action is purposeless. To substantiate this claim, he argues that historically, ‘mob’s activities … were always directed against the rich and powerful’ (Hobsbawm 1971: 112). In fact, devoid of any explicit class ideology, the earlier city mobs have provided the fertile ground for the present-day industrial working class to spring up. Contemporary urban movements, in spite of their root in the city mobs of the 18th century, have acquired a new form and strategy. The diversities characterising the objectives of the contemporary urban movements are wide enough to cover almost every aspect of urban governance compared to the existential demands of the city mobs of the early phase of urbanisation. Contemporary urban movements should be considered as a response to the rapid increase in the pace and momentum of urbanisation in both the developed countries of the north and the underdeveloped south. The rapidity of urbanisation can be conceived from the fact that 54% of the world’s population living in urban areas in 2014 will become 66% by 2050

44  Jyotiprasad Chatterjee  (United Nations 2014). Evidently, the present-day social movements cannot avoid the growing concerns of the urban populace. Manuel Castells coined the term ‘urban social movement’. It refers to the ‘collective actions consciously aimed at the transformation of the social interests and values embedded in the forms and functions of a historically given city’ (Castells 1983: xvi). The basic issues of these movements are predominantly urban in nature, pertaining to the amenities, services, and facilities provided or organised by the state such as housing, sanitation, transportation, and different social services. Widening the scope of community control of neighbourhood life is one of the important goals of these movements. The neighbourhood or the urban residential groups instead of the workers in a factory or place of work are the chief participants of an urban movement (Downs 1989). The urban social mobilisation, therefore, is spatially located in the heterogeneous city or urban agglomeration. Possibly, due to the amorphous, ad hoc, and non-class composition of the participants, scholars have categorised urban movements as new social movements (Castells 1983; Fainstain and Hirst 1995; Rabrenovic 2009). Characteristics of Urban Movements

Castells (1983) notes the following as distinctive features of urban movements: 1. Urban movements consider themselves as urban, or citizen, or in any case related to the city, or to the urban community; 2. They are locally based and territorially defined; 3. They tend to mobilise around three major goals: ‘collective consumption, cultural identity, and political self-management’ (ibid.: 328). These are the important characteristics of any urban movement. The attainment of the goal of social change by any urban movement is contingent upon the combined reflection of these in its programme and practice. Although, for its territoriality, how far it can become a viable agent of structural social change in the contemporary technologically sophisticated global social order is doubtful, an urban movement undeniably spells out the basic concerns of our time and has ‘major effects on cities and societies’ (Castells 1983: 329). Rural Movements

Social banditry, according to Hobsbawm (1971), is the most important signifier of rural movements in pre-capitalist societies. He asserts, ‘it is rural, not urban. The peasant societies in which it occurs are rich and poor, powerful and weak, rulers and ruled, but remain profoundly and tenaciously traditional, and pre-capitalist in structure’ (ibid.: 23). Rural populisms, therefore, are ‘archaic’ in nature. Although they are pitted against the rich, they fail to develop a class consciousness found in most of the organised peasant movements or agrarian revolutions. Hence, to Hobsbawm, they are largely pre-political in nature. The illiteracy

Typology of Social Movements  45 of rural folk and their territorial isolation from the mainstream due to an underdeveloped communication network impede the growth of organised unionism among them. Critiques like Scott (1985) and Guha (1999), however, cast doubt on such Hobsbawmian inferences. They find in it a clear hint of the modernityinduced elitist bias which tends to equate politics with organisation. Although ‘most primitive’ (Hobsbawm 1971: 13), rural populism of this form does inform a large number of contemporary rural movements. Quite similar to archaic rural banditry, modern rural populism also exhibits, argues Wilkinson (1971: 87), ‘a certain primitive xenophobia, intolerance, anti-urbanism and antiindustrialism’. Rural movements heavily rely on the intrinsic virtues of the simple people and thoroughly reject elitism, primarily of the urban nature. In the context of the farmers’ movement in India in the 1970s and 1980s, we come across the hint of such rural populism. The imagination and consequent conceptualisation of the rural as ‘backward’ vis-à-vis the ‘more advanced’ urban, has served as the base of the identity construction of the ‘farmer’. Chatterjee (2017b: 10) has attempted to find out the reasons behind this, as he argues, The whole gamut of identity politics expressed by the farmers’ mobilization is rooted in a kind of populism that characterizes the state as the chief opponent since it has been catering to the interest of the industrial/urban sector, neglecting the rural. Although the growing crisis of the industrial-urban sector has brought the urbanites close to the agitating farmers in the recent wave of the farmers’ movement, still there have been conscious efforts on the part of the farmers to demonstrate their rural attributes. Thus, the tangible causes of rural movements appear to be: (a) modern, industrial and urban encroachment in the rural and/or agricultural sector, (b) the exploitation of the rural folk by the zamindars, moneylenders, and so on, and (c) imposition of the increasing burden of taxation on the rural populace. Since the colonial period to the post-Independence era, most of the peasant uprisings in India have emerged due to a complex interaction of these factors. Characteristics of Rural Movements

Wilkinson (1971) mentions the following features of rural movements: 1 . 2. 3. 4.

Lack of organisational structure; Ideological ambiguity; Anti-elitism and anti-urbanism; Romanticism.

Gupta (2005), seems to contradict some of the aforesaid features of rural populism. Disagreeing with the romantic portrayal of Indian villages as idyllic and timeless, he also dismisses the view that the prevailing duress of Indian rural society is due to the encroachment of urban interests and culture. In spite of this, the yearning and aspirations of the rural people to recreate a peaceful rural society

46  Jyotiprasad Chatterjee  free of exploitation and full of abundance, possibly, cannot be totally denied. Such sentiments often allow populism to be assimilated with other more organised movements, revolutionary or otherwise, through a problematic but nonetheless possible course of politicisation. The organised mobilizations of the rural folk in contemporary India, participated by peasants and farmers, have been exhibiting this. Nationalist Movements Nationalism as an ideology and as a discourse upholds the notion of the nation as the fundamental and primary unit of human society. Human society, hence, is considered to have a number of discrete and separate units or nations, each of which has the potential or right to emerge as a distinct political unit or state. Here it is necessary to mention some of the important markers of nationhood. According to Spencer (1996: 590), these include the idea of a group of people with a shared culture, often a shared language, sometimes a shared religion, and usually but not always a shared history. Cultural harmony, one of the crucially important characteristics of a nation, enables it to demand self-rule based on its right to selfdetermination. Nation, culturally conceived as an ‘imagined political community’ (Anderson 2006) or ‘invented’ (Gellner 1965) category, often becomes incompatible with the existing structural arrangement of the states. Nationalism as a collective sentiment finds such inconsistencies as its chief adversaries (Hechter 2000). Nation, primarily a cultural construct, hence, acquires significant political valency. The goal of attaining territorial sovereignty, therefore, occupies the centre stage of any nationalist movement. Olzak (2004), however, finds a range of variation in the goals of nationalist movements for autonomy and self-rule, from demands for regional autonomy to special status within a federation on the basis of linguistic identity, to total separation or secession from multinational states, regimes, or empires. Characteristics of Nationalist Movements

The foregoing discussion points out some of the important characteristics of nationalist movements. According to Wilkinson (1971), these are: 1. Nationalist movements are rooted in identity politics. Common public culture, language, religion, history, and territoriality are the core elements of national identity construction. According to Smith (2001), it also includes common myths, a single economy, and common rights and duties of all members on the basis of which nations raise their political claims. 2. Nationalist movements demand control over territory. Since a nation always aspires for sovereignty, command over a particular geographical territory is an important demand of any nationalist movement. 3. Determined effort to usher in economic development often is an important marker of nationalist movements. Towards this end, they attempt to redistribute

Typology of Social Movements  47 the existing economic resources in favour of their respective nations to remove the existing practice of economic discrimination. Major Forms of Nationalist Movements Cultural linguistic nationalism: The demand for official recognition of the languages of different nationalities to fulfil their aspirations for cultural autonomy characterises this mobilization. Obviously, the intellectuals or the literati have to play a crucial role here. Through their thoughts, writings, and actions they often shape and express people’s feelings of national distinctiveness. Examples of such movements can be found in many European, Asian, and African nations. Expressions like Bengali nationalism or Tamil nationalism are rooted in the intellectual heritage of these communities in India. Ethnic groups often exhibit such tendencies to express their cultural distinctiveness. Anti-colonial nationalism in the Third World: As a political doctrine, nationalism is European in origin (Wilkinson 1971). The colonisation of the Third World countries by most of the European nations in the 18th century paved the way for the penetration of nationalist ideology in the former countries. Subsequently, the values and ideologies of nationalism provided the necessary fillip to the struggles for national independence to bring an end to colonial rule in many Third-World countries. Usually, the struggles for national liberation have followed two distinct paths. First, the tradition of non-violent movements against colonial rule. Arguably, colonialism itself had been tolerant enough to allow the required space for the growth of primarily non-violent nationalist movements and political parties in the colonies. In some of the colonies such as Cyprus and Algeria, perhaps due to the non-accommodative attitude of the colonial rulers, the nationalist movement turned out to be violent and often extra-legal. In both violent and non-violent forms, the participation and active support of the common people have remained a precondition for success. National conscience and national rejuvenation: Minority groups in long-established nation-states often form parties of national conscience and national rejuvenation. The parties so formed often claim themselves to be the protectors of national honour, prestige, and unity. They appear to be ultranationalists in nature until and unless they form a coalition ‘with other groups on the authoritarian right, such as monarchists, corporatists, fascists, and anti-semites’ (Wilkinson 1971: 93–94). During periods of grave national crises with severe economic and political instability in the nation-states, these parties might become highly prominent and can even seize power. Hence, such movements might be isomorphic to fascism, although they may not be identical to it. Race Movements Sanzek (1996: 697) defines race as the perception of, ‘global variation in human physiognomic and bodily appearances’. Groups who are more or less homogeneous in some of the external physical characteristics constitute races (Comas 1951: 5). Among these, skin pigmentation is important and perhaps the most popular

48  Jyotiprasad Chatterjee  marker of race. Racial prejudice and discrimination resulting in a particular form of dominance is also often rooted in skin colour. The imposition of such a discriminatory attitude in social policy and social practice is known as racism (Du Bois 1903; Karenga 2002). Race movements are the collective protest against prejudiced attitudes of one race against the other race(s), which subsequently gets transformed into racism. Among the different race movements, the most important are those of racial emancipation and equality, and racialist movements in America. A very brief account of these two types of mobilisations is presented here. Types and Characteristics of Race Movements Movements for Racial Emancipation and Equality

Often people with a distinct racial identity are subjugated and dominated. These movements emerge when they attempt to do away with the existing pattern of racial dominance to achieve the goals of racial emancipation and equality. These can be achieved, as argues Wilkinson (1971), in the following ways: Migratory movement to a ‘promised land’: The Blacks in the United States in the early 20th century, like the Jews under Moses, thought to escape from the land of oppression by migrating to a ‘promised land’ to attain their goal of emancipation. Movement to establish a separate territorial enclave: This movement attempts to seize a territory from the dominant race to remain racially separated from it. The Black Muslim mobilization in the United States has been an attempt towards this. Bizarre millenarianism: Racial minorities, often the original pre-colonial population of any region, may take recourse to this, which expects supernatural forces to act against their conquerors. Movement for peaceful assimilation into a multiracial society: The racial minorities can also mobilise to get assimilated amicably into a multiracial society on the basis of racial equality. The U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964, for instance, is an outcome of such movements. Racialism

Racialism implies racial prejudice and pride pertaining to the ungrounded belief and myth about the superiority of one’s own race vis-à-vis others. Comas (1951), however, believes that often the hidden agenda of class rule is there behind such myths. To him, ‘Here there is no question of ‘white’ against ‘black’ or Nordic against non-Aryan; it is a question of finding pseudo-biological support for discrimination against the proletarian classes by the bourgeoisie’ (Comas 1951: 8). He has mentioned five such powerful racial myths, which have considerably influenced different racialist movements in the globe; these are: (a) the myth of Negro inferiority, (b) the Jewish myth, (c) the myth of Aryans or Nordic superiority, (d) the myth of the superiority of Anglo-Saxon, and (e) the myth of Celticism.

Typology of Social Movements  49 Reform Movements Reform movements attempt to bring partial changes in the existing social framework. Their objectives are limited to changing some specific aspect or arena of the existing social order (Aberle 1966; Blumer 1946; Williams 2004). In contrast to the revolutionary movements (discussed in the following section), they do not reject societal values and norms totally. Rather than attempting fundamental change or revision of people’s perceptions about the existing structural arrangements of any given society, reform movements often accept and favour the status quo. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s in the United States is a classic example of a reform movement. In India, particularly in Bengal, we can trace a significant heritage of reform movements spearheaded by Raja Ram Mohan Roy; Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar; and those of the Brahmo Samaj, Arya Samaj, and so on. Characteristics of Reform Movements

The quest for a ‘good’ society: Yearning for a good and ethical social order free from all evils is the primary goal of reform movements. Religious influence: The notion of a ‘good’ society is often designed and reinforced by the reform movements’ claim over the existing social institutions, primarily religion. Due to this, reform movements are often characterised as ‘outgrowth’ or ‘sub-movements’ of larger religious movements (Wilkinson 1971). Similar is the case of 19th-century reform movements in India, which to many scholars and social historians were inspired by and rooted in the ethos of Bhakti movement of medieval India. Involvement of educated middle class: Although limited in scope, reform movements, as a medium for planned and directed change, often attempt to garner the allegiance of the educated and enlightened cross section of the middle class to awaken within them a sympathy for the cause of the oppressed population (Blumer 1946). Instances of reform movements led, financed, and organised by the liberal middle class are plenty in history. The 19th-century reform movements in India were led by a number of enlightened personalities such as Ram Mohan Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Mahadev Govind Ranade, Jyotirao Phule, and so on. Revolutionary and Totalitarian Movements Revolutionary and radical transformation of the existing social order is the primary goal of revolutionary movement. It attempts to sweep away existing social, political, and economic structures utterly (Blumer 1946; Wilkinson 1971; Goodwin and Jasper 2009) and make exclusive competing claims for the control of the political apparatus or the state (Tilly 1993). Hence, the distinguishing feature of any revolutionary movement happens to be the attempt to overthrow the existing government or the state. Unlike a reform movement, which attempts at partial change of a society, the participants of a revolutionary movement aim at utter transformation of the existing social, economic, and political institutions (Blumer 1946; DeFronzo

50  Jyotiprasad Chatterjee  2015). For this orientation, they come close to what Aberle (1966) terms as transformative movements. Different Strategies of Revolutionary Movements

To transform a society fundamentally, revolutionary movements adopt different strategies. According to Wilkinson (1971), these are: Guerrilla warfare: Usually, the term ‘guerrilla’ refers to an unofficial military group which tries to change the government by making sudden and unexpected attacks on its official armed forces. Revolutionary movements, particularly in Third-World countries, often use this strategy to usher in revolution. Mao TseTung (1937) believes, ‘Guerrilla warfare basically derives from the masses and is supported by them, it can neither exist nor flourish if it separates itself from their sympathies and co-operation’. The renowned Latin American Marxist guerrilla leader, Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara (1961) thinks that guerrilla warfare signifies ‘…an armed group engaged in struggle against the constituted power, whether colonial or not, which establishes itself as the only base and which builds itself up in rural areas’. Thus, to launch guerrilla warfare, a strong social base among the rural population is often necessary. Since urban settings cannot provide the vital security ensured by the rural retreats and fastness, the guerrilla strategy has not been very successful there. Revolutionary conspiracies of secret societies: This style signifies, argues Wilkinson (1971: 139), the ‘cabinet coup of a handful of notables, powerful military officers or ministers, a seizure of control over the organs of government at the top’. Hence, as a revolutionary strategy, it is quite opposite of mass uprisings. In spite of their revolutionary consequences, the detachment of secret group conspiracy from the masses in general casts doubts about the revolutionary nature of such movements. The Leninist strategy: V.I. Lenin’s strategy of revolution was deeply influenced by the Marxist doctrines of class struggle and revolutionary social change. Lenin considers it necessary for any revolutionary movement to reflect the needs and aspirations of the masses and rest on their support and active participation to seize control of the state. The role of the industrial proletariats and their well-organised vanguard revolutionary communist party in guiding the entire course of the revolution is crucial for the success of the revolutionary movement (Lenin 1918). Mass revolutionism: These movements, out of a bitter hatred for the existing social system, attempt to destroy it. Traces of mass revolutionism often can be found in mobilizations of students, races, tribes, and peasantry. Similar to other revolutionary movements, appealing to general emotions of the masses is an integral feature of mass revolutionism as well. The American Black Power movement of the 1960s, among others, is a classic example of this. Peasant uprisings in colonial as well as post-independent India have also exhibited this tendency. Fascist movements, sometimes, can also adopt the strategy of mass revolutionism. Over-reliance on

Typology of Social Movements  51 the spontaneity of the masses rather than their organisation, however, is a serious concern for the success of mass revolutionism. Totalitarian movements

Totalitarian movements attempt to expunge all rival parties, loyalties, and potential bases and forces of opposition in a planned manner. Without a revolutionary seizure of power, this is certainly impossible. Like mass revolutionary strategy, the totalitarian ideology also considers the existing society to be entirely corrupt, immoral, and impossible to reform. Hence, revolutionary reconstruction of the present society is the primary call of totalitarian movements. For this, they forcefully demand total conformity and loyalty of the masses. The idea of National Socialism propagated by Hitler through the ideology of Nazism is a typical example of totalitarian movements. Contributions of Indian Sociologists In India, we come across an exceptional variety of social movements. Focussing on social movements, conflict and social change, and their dynamic interrelationship, P.N. Mukherji (2013) has attempted to classify social movements in India. This possesses immense analytical potential since conflict and contradiction leading to social change or resisting it are the central concerns of social movements. From this standpoint, Mukherji has classified movements into three types: (a) quasistructural social movements, (b) structural alterative social movements, and (c) structural transformative social movements. a. Quasi-structural social movements: These are intra-systemic in nature since they focus on the changes within a given social system. Their effort to bring accumulative and incremental change within the system, resulting in enhancing its capacity and efficiency, ultimately makes it more inclusive and just. In this manner, they enhance the adaptive capability of the social system. Here, the trace of Coser’s (1957) theory of conflict functionalism is apparent in Mukherji’s analysis of social movements. Instances of these movements in India can be found in the demand for the proper share of the sharecroppers in the Tebhaga movement of the 1940s, strikes of the industrial workforce, and protest movements of different political and civil society groups. b. Structural alterative social movements: These movements, by eliminating a certain structure or introducing new structural elements, effect alteration of a social system. Mukherji cites the instance of alterative change in the agrarian system based on the landlord, tenant, and attached labour through the incorporation of the element of wage labour into it. The recent wave of farmers’ movement demanding the repeal of three farm laws introduced by the central government of India in September 2020 and enactment of a law guaranteeing a minimum support price for food grains can also be an example of it.

52  Jyotiprasad Chatterjee  c. Structural transformative social movements: These movements attempt to replace certain structures or the entire structure of the social system leading to its qualitative transformation. Undoubtedly, transformative movements can bring about revolutionary change when all the structures and institutions of any system are thoroughly transformed. The Naxalbari movement in India, with its goal to transform the existing rural property relation, can be an example of this. On the basis of the levels and kinds of structural changes sought by social movements, Rao (2006) has classified movements into three types: reform, transformative, and revolutionary. Resonating the conceptualisation of Blumer (1946), Aberle (1966), and Williams (2004), Rao (1984: 12) also argues that reform movements bring in ‘partial changes in the value system’. Revolutionary movements, in contrast, aim at radical transformation of the entire social and cultural systems. As examples of these movements, he cites the revolutions of Russia and China in the 20th century. Transformative movements, according to Rao (1984), seek to usher in middle-level structural changes. Usually, the nature of conflict is sharper here than in the reform movements. While the ideology of class conflict is central to the revolutionary movements, conflict between ethnic groups characterises the transformative movement, although the elements of class contradiction might be embedded in it. Rao’s classification of social movements talks about the degree of structural change sought by these from partial to medium to total. Two poles of the continuum are exhaustive indeed, but rooms of confusion are there in the nature and magnitude of change sought in the middle level. Considering the nature of the goals of social movements, Oommen (2010) has classified them into two genres: the symbolic and the instrumental. Symbolic movements pursue goals which do not contradict the basic principles of distribution of goods and services in any given society. The scope of change attempted by these movements is restricted within the system. Oommen considers caste mobility movements, reform movements, and cultural identity movements as the examples of these movements. Movements orientated to instrumental goals might also attempt intra-systemic changes, although there are occasions when some of these movements might usher in structural change. As examples of instrumental movements, he mentions the women’s movement for equal wages and those of religious, caste, linguistic, cultural groups, and so on for greater political representation. Summary and Conclusion Society is a dynamic entity. As the medium for promoting or resisting change, a social movement reflects this dynamic nature of society. Hence, to perceive this dynamism, the study of social movements is crucially important. Since social movements can be considered as a representation of the society itself, the sociologists who attempt to study social movements confront similar difficulties involved in the study of an abstract phenomenon like society. The problem gets augmented even more when one attempts to classify social movements. Considerable

Typology of Social Movements  53 confusion has been there regarding the philosophical as well as empirical basis of such a classification. The typologies discussed here might be a proof of this. Following the Weberian lead, we can indeed designate these as ideal types or analytical constructs, which are of considerable help to enhance our understanding of the intricacies, interrelationships, and idiosyncratic features and predilections of different social movements. Undeniably, every social movement in reality exhibits a complex interplay of different traits and characteristics, still such a classification, despite being abstract in nature, allows the sociologists to isolate the dominant pattern represented by it. In this manner, it contributes towards a scientific, comprehensive, and more explicit understanding of social movements. Given the isomorphism between social movements and society, such an exercise towards the classification of social movements might be instrumental in perceiving the nature of social reality with greater scientific rigour. Review Questions

1. Distinguish between ‘general’ and ‘specific’ social movements following Herbert Blumer. 2. Reflect upon Heberle’s criticism of the collective behaviour approach to social movements. 3. Analyse Aberle’s fourfold classification of social movements. 4. Why does Max Weber consider rationalisation of religious beliefs to be an important cause of religious movements? 5. Trace the features of millenarian movements. 6. Point out the differences between the reform and revolutionary movements. 7. Discuss the contribution of Indian sociologists in classifying social movements. 8. How does P. N. Mukherji differentiate between ‘quasi-structural’ and ‘structural transformative’ social movements? 9. What does Oommen mean by ‘symbolic’ movements? References Aberle, D. 1966. The Peyote Religion among the Navaho. Chicago, IL: Aldine Publishing. Anderson, B. 2006. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso Books. Bainbridge, W. S. 1997. The Sociology of Religious Movements. New York, NY: Routledge. Berger, P. 1967. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. New York, NY: Doubleday. ———. 2008. ‘Secularization Falsified’, First Things, February. Available at: http://www​ .firstthings​.com​/arti​​cle​/2​​008​/0​​2​/sec​​ulari​​zatio​​n​-fal​​sifie​d (accessed on 29 July 2016). Blackham, H. J. 1966. Religion in a Modern Society. London: Constable. Blumer, H. 1946. ‘Collective Behavior’. In Lee, A. M. (Ed.), New Outline of the Principles of Sociology (167–222). New York, NY: Barnes & Noble. Castells, M. 1983. The City and the Grassroots: A Cross-cultural Theory of Urban Social Movements. London: Edward Arnold Publishers. Chatterjee, J. 2017a. ‘Typologies of Social Movement’. INFLIBNET e-PG Pathshala. Sociology, paper on Social Movement. Module Id: SM 03. Ministry of Human Resource

54  Jyotiprasad Chatterjee  Development, Government of India. Available at: http://epgp​.inflibnet​.ac​.in​/ahl​.php​ ?csrno​=33 (accessed on 20 July 2017). ———. 2017b. ‘Farmers’ Movement in India’. INFLIBNET e-PG Pathshala. Sociology, paper on Social Movement. Module Id: SM 23. Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. Available at: http://epgp​.inflibnet​.ac​.in​/ahl​.php​ ?csrno​=33 (accessed on 28 July 2017). Chaves, M. 1994. ‘Secularization as Declining Religious Authority’. Social Forces, 72 (3): 749–774. Cohn, N. 1957. The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages. London: Oxford University Press. Comas, J. 1951. The Racial Myths. Paris: UNESCO. Coser, L. A. 1957. ‘Social Conflict and the Theory of Social Change’. The British Journal of Sociology, 8 (3): 197–207. DeFronzo, J. 2015. Revolutions and Revolutionary Movements. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Diani, M. 1992. ‘The Concept of Social Movement’. Sociological Review, 40 (1): 1–25. Diani, M., and I. Bison. 2004. ‘Organizations, Coalitions, and Movements’. Theory and Society, 33 (3/4): 281–309. Downs, C. 1989. Revolution at the Grassroots: Community Organizations in the Portugese Revolution. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Du Bois, W. E. B. 1903. The Souls of Black Folk. Chicago, IL: A. C. McClurg. Ellwood, C. A. 1913. ‘The Social Function of Religion’. American Journal of Sociology, 19 (3): 289–307. Fainstain, S. S., and C. Hirst. 1995. ‘Urban Social Movements’. In Judge, D., et al. (Eds.), Theories of Urban Politics (181–204). London: SAGE Publications. Fox, J. 2000. ‘Is Islam More Conflict Prone than Other Religions? A Cross-sectional Study of Ethno- religious Conflict’. Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 6 (2): 1–23. Freud, S. 1961. The Future of an Illusion. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company. Gellner, E. 1965. Thought and Change. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Goodwin, J., and J. M. Jasper. 2009. ‘Introduction’. In Goodwin, J. and Jasper, J. M. (Eds.), The Social Movements Reader: Cases and Concepts (3–8). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Guevara, E. C. 1961. ‘General Principles of Guerrilla Warfare’. Guerrilla Warfare. Available at: https://mltheory​.files​.wordpress​.com​/2017​/06​/che​_guevara​_guerrilla​_warfare​.pdf (accessed on 25 August 2017). Guha, Ranajit. 1999. Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press. Gupta, D. 2005. ‘Whither the Indian Village: Culture and Agriculture in “Rural” India’. Economic & Political Weekly, 40 (8): 751–758. Gusfield, J. R. 1968. ‘The Study of Social Movements’. In Sills, D. L. (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, vol. 14 (445–452). New York, NY: Macmillan Publishers and the Free Press. Heberle, R. 1949. ‘Observations on the Sociology of Social Movements’. American Sociological Review, 14 (3): 346–357. ———. 1968. ‘Types and Functions of Social Movements’, In Sills, D. L. (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, vol. 14 (438–444). New York: Macmillan Publishers and the Free Press. Hechter, M. 2000. Containing Nationalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hobsbawm, E. J. 1959. Primitive Rebels. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Hunter, W. W. 1876. The Indian Musalmans. London: Trubner & Co. Huntington, S. P. 1993. ‘The Clash of Civilizations?’. Foreign Affairs, 72 (3): 22–49. Karenga, M. 2002. Introduction to Black Studies. 3rd ed. Los Angeles, CA: University of Sankore Press. Lenin, V. I. 1918. ‘State and Revolution’. In Apresyan, Stepan and Riordan, Jim (Eds.), V. I. Lenin Collected Works, 1964, vol. 25 (385–497). Moscow: Progress Publishers.

Typology of Social Movements  55 Lindstrom, L. 2002. ‘Millennial Movements, Millenarianism’. In Barnard, Alan and Spencer, Jonathan (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology (561–562). London. Routledge. Linton, R. 1943. ‘Nativistic Movements’. American Anthropologist, 45 (2): 230–240. Marx, K. 1970. Critique of Hegel’s ‘Philosophy of Right’. Translated by Annette Jolin and Joseph O’Malley. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mukherji, P. N. 2013. Social Movement, Conflict and Change: Towards a Theoretical Orientation. Available at: https://www​.isa​-sociology​.org​/uploads​/files​/EBul​-Mukherji​ -March2013​.pdf (accessed on 12 August 2018). Niebuhr, H. R.1922. The Social Sources of Denominationalism. Reprint, New York: Meridian Books. Olzak, S. 2004. ‘Ethnic and Nationalist Social Movements’. In Snow, D. A., et al. (Eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements (666–693). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Oommen, T. K. 2010. ‘Introduction on the Analysis of Social Movements’. In Oommen, T. K. (Ed.), Social Movements I: Issues of Identity (1–46). Delhi: Oxford University Press. Parsons, T. 1973. ‘Durkheim on Religion Revisited: Another Look at the Elementary Forms of the Religious Life’. In Glock, C. Y. and Hammond, P. E. (Eds.), Beyond the Classics? Essays in the Scientific Study of Religion (156–180). New York, NY: Harper & Row. Pope, L. 1942. Millhands and Preachers: A Study of Gastonia. New York, NY: Yale University Press. Rabrenovic, G. 2009. ‘Urban Social Movements’. In Davies, J. and Imbroscio, D. (Eds.), Theories of Urban Politics (239–252). London: Sage Publications. Rao, M. S. A. 2006. ‘Conceptual Problems in the Study of Social Movements’. In Rao, M. S. A. (Ed.), Social Movements in India: Studies in Peasant, Backward Classes, Sectarian, Tribal and Women’s Movements (1–16). New Delhi: Manohar. Sanzek, R. 1996. ‘Race’. In Barnard, Alan and Spencer, Jonathan (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology (696–700). London: Routledge. Scott, J. C. 1985. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. London: Yale University Press. Shils, E. A. 1958. ‘Ideology and Civility: On the Politics of the Intellectual’. The Sewanee Review, 66 (3): 450–480. Shiner, L. 1967. ‘The Concept of Secularization in Empirical Research’. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 6 (2): 207–220. Smelser, N. J. 1962. Theory of Collective Behaviour. New York, NY: The Free Press. Smith, A. D. 2001. Nationalism: Theory, Ideology, History. Cambridge: Polity Press. Smith, W. C. 1943. Modern Islam in India: A Social Analysis. Lahore: Minerva Book Shop. Spencer, J. 1996. ‘Nationalism’. In Barnard, Alan and Spencer, Jonathan (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology (590–592). London: Routledge. Stark, R. 1996. ‘Why Religious Movements Succeed or Fail: A Revised General Model’. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 11 (2): 133–146. ———. 1999. ‘Secularization, R.I.P’. Sociology of Religion, 60 (3): 249–273. Swedberg, R. 2005. The Max Weber Dictionary: Key Words and Central Concepts. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Talmon, Y. 1968. ‘Millenarism’. In Sills, D. L. (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, vol. 10 (349–362). New York, NY: Macmillan Publishers and the Free Press. Tarrow, S. 2011. Power in Movement: Social Movement and Contentious Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tilly, C. 1979. ‘Social Movements and National Politics’. CRSO Working Paper No. 197. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan. ———. 1993. European Revolutions, 1492–1992. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Touraine, A. 1971. The Post-Industrial Society: Tomorrow’s Social History - Classes, Conflicts and Culture in the Programmed Society. New York, NY: Random House. Troeltsch, E. 1931. The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches. English translation by Olive Wyon. London: Allen & Unwin.

56  Jyotiprasad Chatterjee  Tse-Tung, Mao. 1937. ‘What Is Guerrilla Warfare?’. In On Guerrilla Warfare. Available at: https://www​.marxists​.org​/reference​/archive​/mao​/works​/1937​/guerrilla​-arfare​/ch01​.htm (accessed on 25 August 2017). Turner, B. S. 2010. ‘Religion in a Post-secular Society’. In Turner, B. S. (Ed.), The New Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Religion (649–667). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Turner, H. W. 1971. ‘A new field in the history of religions’. Religion, 1(1): 15-23. United Nations. 2014. World Urbanization Prospects: The 2014 Revision, Highlights. New York, NY: United Nations. Wallace, A. 1956. ‘Revitalization Movements’. American Anthropologist, 58 (2): 264–281. Weber, M. 1978. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Edited by G. Roth and C. Wittich. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. ———. 2002. The Protestant Ethic and the “Spirit” of Capitalism and Other Writings. Translated by Peter Baehr and Gordon C. Wells from the original edition published in 1905. New York: Penguin Books. ———. 2003. General Economic History. New York: Dover Publications. Wilkinson, P. 1971. Social Movement. London: Pall Mall Press. Williams, R. H. 2004. ‘The Cultural Contexts of Collective Action: Constraints, Opportunities, and the Symbolic Life of Social Movements’. In Snow, D. A., et al. (Eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements (91–115). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Wilson, B. R. 1995. ‘Persistence of Sects’. Indian Missiological Review, 17 (2): 209–232. Available at: http://www​.workersect​.org​/2x205p​.html (accessed on 29 July 2016). Wilson, J. 1973. Introduction to Social Movements. New York, NY: Basic Books. Worsley, P. 1957. The Trumpet Shall Sound. New York, NY: Schocken Books (Reprinted 1968).

3

Intrinsic Dynamics of State, Market, and Social Movements Subhasis Bandyopadhyay

Learning Objectives After reading this chapter, you will be able to:

• Know about the inclusive nature of social movements; • Understand that a social movement is a flow and not just a reactive force against the state oppression and hegemonic power of the market;

• Explore the intrinsic and complex patterns of dynamics among state, market, and social movements from a critical sociological perspective; and

• Reflect on the way the triad has degenerated over space and time.

Introduction The present world order in a turbulent time of post-COVID-19 reality reflects certain indications of changeover so far as the origin, spread, peak, and resolution of a social movement are concerned. Numerous bubbles of local and regional resistance are cropping up globally indicating an undercurrent of social turbulence which the market process and the state structure cannot resolve adequately, and yet, most of these bubbles tend to fizzle out quickly leaving only some remnants in the collective memory. In addition, a resurgent ultra-nationalistic tendency in the political sphere over a wide-ranging society could effectively dissipate the threads of resistance even before they mature into a full-blown social movement. It does not mean, however, that social movements and the objective material and historical circumstances that generate such moments of question have gone missing in the short and long-run dynamics of contemporary society. In 2022 alone, hundreds of significant social movements had drawn the attention of the global community in terms of their demands, strategies, and outcome. For example, the Iranian women’s movement to stop atrocities on women by the state police and religious militia is a significant one with possible long-term effects on gender rights issues in the Arab world. Globally, calls for economic justice and protest against austerity measures initiated by numerous governments in the EU and the Global South spiked DOI:  10.4324/9781003481744-4

58  Subhasis Bandyopadhyay dramatically in 2022 alone. The climate conundrum and the profiteering by the large oil corporations remain two broad-spectrum sources of protest movements in many regions, including Scandinavian countries. In South Asia, protests are being organised against economic meltdowns (Sri Lanka and Pakistan), expansion of civil rights opportunities (Bangladesh and Nepal), unemployment, and demand for steady jobs (India). Dalits, Other Backward Classes (OBCs), religious minorities, and tribal organisations in India are also protesting against numerous state policies, including citizenship matters and atrocities against these sections of society. The worldwide anti-war protest has remained another significant thread in the canvass for peace and justice. In the context of such a unique turn of events, the interrelation between the modern capitalist state, market system, and social movement as a triple helical complex needs a deeper insight. If one looks at the phenomena of states, markets, and social movements in the context of their evolution, these organisations and interventions do appear quite transient in nature, holding a brief history of about 1,000 years. Even if we consider Greek philosophers like Plato, the formative concept of a primordial state does not go beyond a few 100 years before the appearance of Christianity as an institutionalised religion. Since then, however, a set of loosely formed structures in many parts of the world have come to be known as the ‘state’. Nevertheless, the current configuration of a state in contemporary society is both qualitatively and quantitatively different from the previous formations. The same also applies to the notion of a market. The market is no longer a simple public space for the exchange of goods and services as it used to be in the last millennium. Today, it is abstract, cultural, political, emotive, and virtual and has penetrated into the body–mind complex of the individual and the group. The intrinsic nature of a social movement, the third variable here, has a symbiotic relationship with the two prior organisations and coevolved with them. As a result, the forms of social movements as seen today have inevitably grown out of the womb of the modern state and its market formations to throw substantial challenges to the hegemonic economic, social, and political structures. More importantly, these concepts, when used in present-day social science, reflexively carry the essence of one determining complex interconnecting the three: capitalism or capitalist mode of production. This chapter tries to understand the intrinsic dynamics among these three political and economic elements from a critical sociological perspective. Also, attempts have been made to look at the inclusive nature of social movements that once helped in the formation of the bourgeois state and industrial capitalist market in their progressive avatars. Consequently, this chapter contests the popular idea of social movements only as a reactive force against state oppression and the hegemonic power of the market. Rather, the attempt here is to project the symbiotic relationship among states, markets, and social movements as a triad that has degenerated over space and time with the capitalist mode of production into a morphed complex of mutual antagonism. Without delving into the question of an abolitionist social movement, the discussion, in general, seeks to emphasise the permeability of contradictory material conditions into the collective political will as a social movement that moves

State, Market, and Social Movements  59 towards new political and economic formations first within and then beyond the state and market. Approaching the Pattern of Interactions A social movement is an experiential platform that is unique in its approach to open-ended derivations such as seeking remedies against social maladies, learning lessons from both failures and successes, and conceptualizing new and vibrant tools that are sweeping in their orientations and possibilities. Most importantly, a social movement is not, and does not intend to be, free from influences of other salient socio-political and economic organisations such as a state and market in reference to contemporary civil society. The consequent pattern of interaction, needless to say, is neither linear nor simple. It is important to emphasise here that concepts of agency and action are the binaries that sociologists often put forward to analyse contemporary social dynamics. It is imperative in this context to take a relook into these ideas, which are not only intermingled but also reflexive of the contradictions they carry. It is conceivable, therefore, to look into the triad of states, markets, and social movements as three different but intersected issues that can be conceived of as an organic whole, which has an immense effect on changing social formations. It is also important here to take a non-essentialist approach while dealing with these intertwined constructions. As one commentator has put it: ‘Essentialism is most commonly understood as a belief in the real, true essence of things, the invariable and fixed properties which define the “whatness” of a given entity’.1 Effectively, the endeavour here would be to show the variable, non-fixated nature of these social formations with a core or nucleus that changes with its surroundings. The issue here is not to put one’s belief into something; rather, it is to see a reasonable departure from the mechanistic absorption of a dominant ideology as if there is no alternative. The three interconnected organisations of states, markets, and social movements carry with them an intriguing relationship from a sociological perspective. This perspective puts adequate emphasis on the origin of each of the elements and how together they complement and contradict one another, where the considered outcomes are mostly ingrained in cultural ethos. Empirical evidence from the history of the industrial society shows that each element of the triad tries to enforce its control over the other two in numerous ways. It may also happen that in any given condition, any two agencies of the triad (especially state and market more frequently) join hands together on a particular occasion to subvert or coerce the third one. In the course of such a movement, where perpetual backlash takes place from the two other wings, the widespread perception of infallible autonomy of the state and the market within the capitalist mode of production increasingly becomes symbolic rather than a social reality, which again opens up numerous other future possibilities. When we look at the third component of the triad – social movements – closely, it becomes clear that while at the theoretical level a social movement enjoys wide-ranging definitional and conceptual assortments relative to the other two, in reality, it is closely intertwined with them. This

60  Subhasis Bandyopadhyay particular prospect makes it imperative for a social scientist to understand the dynamics of the interrelationship between such prominent social agencies and actions, especially if one attempts to place them in the global scenario of the present time. Three Concepts and One Construct In a broad-brush sweep, first an attempt is made here to demarcate the cardinal concepts one by one. Then, an effort is made to locate the significant points of structural and spatial overlapping among the three variables. Finally, we have tried to assess the impact of each of the variables on the other and at the same time how the resultant entanglement reinforces or weakens the worldwide capitalist social formation. State In sociological literature, the ideas surrounding the state are conceptualised and defined in ways that are often diverse and sometimes contradictory.2 In its most basic sense, the state may be defined as a political and geographical entity that selfidentifies as deriving its political legitimacy from serving as a sovereign existence for an organised political community with a system of governance.3 There are types of states based on history, mode of production, political formation, and space-time (Bandyopadhyay 2015). For example, distinctions are made among traditional states, feudal states, absolutist states, and modern states, and among liberal states, social democratic states, collectivist states, totalitarian states, and developmental states, while some states are nowadays even described as failed or failing states.4 In its modernising sense, the early 16th-century works of Machiavelli (The Prince) played a central role in popularising the use of the word ‘state’ that closely resembles closely with the contemporary use of the term. In a formalist way, the North American colonies were called ‘states’ as early as the 1630s. Thomas Hobbes advanced the concept of states as a system of social contract that would lead to a civil society. In his masterpiece titled Leviathan (published in 1651), he argued that from a narrow domain of self-interest, human beings evolved into a collectivity that put limits over the unbridled individual interests for the sake of a collective goal supremely guided by the state. In continuation of this tradition, political philosophers, therefore, may classify states as sovereign if they are not dependent on, or subject to, any other power or state. A more specific and grounded definition of a state comes from Weber (1946), one of the founding fathers of sociology, who says that the state as a human community claims a monopoly to use physical force within a given territory legitimately. The poignant assertion here is the overwhelming possibility of the existence of physical coercion that has to be applied legitimately on the subjects of the state. The legitimacy claimed in the process may not be moral, rational, or value-neutral. The deep sense of chasm within the structure of the state in Weber's definition

State, Market, and Social Movements  61 only falls short of looking at the source of the legitimate power and the objective/ goal of the state thus achieved.5 The Marxist definition of a state, however, compensates for the hint given in the Weberian definition of a state in no uncertain terms. While rejecting the social contract theory, it categorically portrays the state as the most inexhaustible instrument in the hands of the ruling class to overwhelm and coerce the oppressed class. As stated by Engels (2010: 92), The state is … by no means a power forced on society from without. It is a product of society at a certain stage of development; it is the admission that this society has become entangled in an insoluble contradiction with itself, that it has split into irreconcilable antagonisms [between its constituent classes] which it is powerless to dispel. But in order that these antagonisms, these classes with conflicting economic interests, might not consume themselves and society in fruitless struggle, it became necessary to have a power, seemingly standing above society, that would alleviate the conflict and keep it within the bounds of ‘order’; and this power, arisen out of society but placing itself above it, and alienating itself more and more from it, is the state.6 Evidently, in the Marxist understanding, the persistence of a state is inconceivable without the reference to its class nature and class essence.7 In reality, the life experience of the toiling masses, the subaltern, and especially the working class across the geographical spaces reflects this concrete, overwhelming power exercised by the state on behalf of the ruling class, the bourgeoisie, in the capitalist world order. It is the leading agency of capital that creates a trajectory of compulsion where the exchange of labour time and the creative value of the labour are expropriated in the name of individual ownership of private property and profit in a free market. Even when such a state makes concessions to a subordinate class, it is only because the ruling class deems this necessary to preserve its status. For a Marxist, the only way to cure what ails the system is to revolutionise the societal system, and the only way to do that is for the subordinate classes to take over the state, exercise their own class dictatorship, and ultimately eliminate class divisions in society. Once classes are eliminated, there will be no more role for a state since states are class dictatorships, and the state will ‘wither away’. Market In furtherance of the perceptive understanding given above, the second most important organisation of the military-industrial complex is the market. Apparently, the system of a market works with relative autonomy in a state and across the states. However, in reality, scholars such as DiMaggio and Zukin (1990) and Krippner et al. (2004) have expressed doubts in separating the economy from the political instrument of the capitalist state. Furthermore, it is the market that guarantees that class divisions continue as the principal form of social stratification across the capitalist order.

62  Subhasis Bandyopadhyay In generalised theoretical consideration, a market in bourgeois economy is an ‘ideal’ level playing field where freedom and equality endure through competition in which every economic contribution is assessed and rewarded without fear or favour on the basis of its social worth. Individual failings in this connection are the result of the individual inadequacies. This is the most Panglossian claim that is as impervious to evidence-based real-time criticism of a market as any other theological doctrine. This also turns the economics of a market into principles of morality. However, such a position also provides us with a point of departure to develop an analytical insight into the market dynamics. We proceed here from the commonsensical notion of the market to a graduated definition of it as an agency involved in the extraction and optimisation of surplus value. This is an organisation of the industrial economy that strengthens the suppressive nature of the state with normalisation of exploitation and the sole objective remains profit maximisation at the cost of the producing classes. Even if one looks at the generalised notion of a market in an industrial economy, it is often argued that a market is a place where forces of demand and supply operate and where buyers and sellers interact to trade goods, services, contracts, or instruments for money or barter. From such a point of view, a market allows a person to (a) determine the price of the traded item, (b) communicate the price information, (c) facilitate deals and transactions, and (d) effect distribution (Bandyopadhyay 2015). The market for a particular item is made up of existing and potential customers who need it and have the ability and willingness to pay for the same.8 In a more specific definition of a market, it is defined as a dynamic complex of institutions, procedures, social and economic relations, and corresponding infrastructures whereby parties engage in exchange. While parties or interest groups may exchange goods and services by barter, most markets rely on sellers offering their goods or services, including labour, in exchange for money from the buyers. A market, therefore, not only fixes the prices of goods and services but also facilitates trade and commerce and enables the distribution and allocation of resources in a society. Markets may allow any item to be traded immediately; they may also hold or preserve any item, pricing at later stages. And it is never considered unnatural, though most often it defies the logic of welfare as a goal of the state. Interestingly, the medium of exchange in a market, called money is also a legal tender or currency, and as an instrument of exchange, it is fully endorsed by the state as a promissory note. Taking all these characteristics into consideration, it is reasonably clear that a market is an arena of inequality, which is always strife-torn, open to wide-ranging conflicts, and maneuvering. It is one of the anticipated arenas of capitalist appropriation of use value and exchange value. In the Marxian analysis, the institution of the market has been explained with reference to the political economy of any society. In a capitalist society, a market serves to ‘mystify’ the class character of production, which, in reality, is the root of capitalist exploitation (Figure 3.1). In industrial society, market mechanisms steadily become the central means of organising economic life. In the process, they undermine social institutions and exacerbate social and economic inequalities. Marx had argued in Grundrisse that

State, Market, and Social Movements  63 Schumpeterian Waves Accelerate Water power Textiles Iron

Steam Rail Steel

1st wave

1785

2nd wave

1845 60 years

Electricity Chemicals Petrol engine

3rd wave

1900 55 years

Petrochemicals Digital networks Electronics Software Aviation New media

4th wave

1950 50 years

5th wave

1990 40 years

2020 30 years

Figure 3.1  ‘Creative destruction’, long waves, and economic change. Source: Adapted from Joseph A. Schumpeter (1999); https://images​.app​.goo​.gl​/ Xqgam4A8ZqC6KmZAA (accessed on October 7, 2019)

by means of ‘reciprocal compulsion’ let loose by competition in a market, ‘capital’ itself surfaces as a domineering class entity, irreducible to the ‘atoms’ of individual capitals. The Marxian explanation evidently contradicts the nominal conception of the market. If economic sociology primarily stresses the trust relationships between the buyer and seller, it would fail to explain how capitalist production and distribution sustain a system of exploitation through the market. As Fine and Lapavitsas (2000) have shown, a market cannot be taken as an analytical starting point from the Marxists’ vantage point without obfuscating the exploitation inherent in the process of production. A Marxist would rather see the market as a part of the production system where qualitatively different products of human labour are converted into quantitative ratios between things. Hence, it is where the social relations of production are concealed or mystified. It is true that Marx certainly explained the market as the realm within which the essence of capital manifested itself. Yet the relationship between essence and appearance was not that of a deterministic reductionism. For Marx, appearance is the form of existence of the essence: the essence of capital is only realised in the interaction of particular capitals in the sphere of exchange. We may here argue that a market is an extended social formation in which the needs of people are satisfied by the labour of other people through a network of exchange relations connecting everyone who is part of the given market. In a nutshell, a market is a mechanism that reflects the power of imaginative creation only to diminish the potential of such creativity later and to destroy it in the final count in favour of something else. This dynamic condition is in reality called creative destruction. The process of creative destruction is not purely economic. Rather, it is a combination of economy, polity, and cultural conditions prevailing in a given market society. It is important to note that while Marx gave importance to the economic ‘base’, he was entirely clear about the fact that an economic force like the market

64  Subhasis Bandyopadhyay could not be understood in isolation from the political system, history, and social relationships. Structural Marxists like Althusser have later brought out such dimensions of Marxist thought very clearly. In essence, the arguments of structural Marxists have portrayed the existence of the economic base only in terms of and reference to superstructural elements such as polity, culture, and psychology. The dialectical relationship between base and superstructure has suffered either from dogmatic adherence to economic determinism or from dilution into a liberal fluidic formation where how things happen and why become almost irrelevant. Structural Marxists, particularly Althusser, have tried their best to reaffirm the base–superstructure continuum in the light of the irreducibility of class struggle. In the world of social movements, today, experiences far and apart are affirming the centrality of class in understanding the dynamics of the triad mentioned above. It is also possible for us to explain the phenomenon from the experiences of certain social movements. As an illustration, it can be stated that it is only in the context of politics, history, and social organisation that we can understand the genesis of the Dalit movement in India, the great financial meltdown of 2008, and the Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011. Social Movements The point of genesis of most of the present-day social movements in various societies is found to be situated in a rejection of bureaucratised imposition of the policy of an indifferent power structure. Needless to say, this happens in a globalised world order of capital. Even though the market mechanism in relation to the potent power of repression in a capitalist society remains in a highly twisted form, some forms of opposition to the structural despotism always exist in the capitalist social system. An intensely imperfect market based on monopoly and oligopoly is bound to give rise to degeneration and skewed distribution of resources. As a corollary, capitalism is bound to give rise to numerous forms of disillusionment in the economic, political, cultural, and psychological spheres. Some of these disenchantments, when they get organised to resist, take the form of a social movement. In a wide-ranging series of social change starting with alterations that are slow and reformative in nature to radical and redemptive changes, a movement embraces both individual and collective. Figure 3.2 depicts those dimensions from a narrow specificity to wide-ranging comprehensiveness. The rise of social movements in the modern industrialised society across space, region, community, and class has been documented by social scientists (Hobsbawm 1959; Tilly 1975, 1986). Studies on ‘great’ revolutions of the West, namely, the English, the American, the French, and the Russian revolutions, gave rise to explanations based on natural histories, political violence, and mobilisation on the class line among other things. Recent analyses of scholars such as Charles Tilly, Theda Skocpol, John Foran, and James Scott have drawn a substantial balance between international and domestic sources and between structural constraints and political agency to explain social movements. Explaining the

Limited

Radical

Specific individuals

Alterative Social Movements

Redemptive Social Movements

Everyone

State, Market, and Social Movements  65

Reformative Social Movements

Revolutionary Social Movements

Figure 3.2  How much change? Source: Author, based on D. F. Aberle (1966)

potential of revolutions in the context of the global domination of world capitalist systems, Foran (1993) has shown how political, economic, and cultural processes are important in understanding social movements and the possibility of revolutions in the Third World. Studies have noted how industrialisation and urbanisation, technological advancements, and the increasing demand for democratisation allowed people across regions to push for change collectively from the margins of the polity, and from the outside of less-than-open institutions. Following the works of Tilly and Skocpol, the fourth-generation theorists have incorporated aspects of culture and ideology to explain social movements and revolutionary upheavals in the Third World (Foran 2005). It is worth noting here that sociological definitions of movements also emphasise qualities such as collective and innovative behaviour, extra-institutionality, network character and multi-centeredness, the shifting and fluidic boundaries of movement membership, and the willingness of members to disrupt an order a little or to a great extent (Gerlach and Hine 1970). From the sociological perspective, a social movement is taken as a diverse range of activities affecting, and being affected by, the social realities in different times and spaces. At one end of the spectrum, it starts with the understanding of conservative protectionism as applied to social order. On the other, it finds engagement with the radical transformation of the social system. For example, Max Weber, while dealing with the potential of social change beginning within the informal groupings, could easily locate the seeds of resentment directed essentially against the formal order of society. Michael Burawoy (2015) has shown effectively that Weber was unequivocal about the rise of formal rationality, be it in the form of bureaucracy, the law, or mass democracy, and this does not compensate the subjects for their social and economic oppressions. Rather, formal rationality that encompasses equal rights for all, in reality, preserves the prejudices they experience. The solitary approach by which this can be mitigated, feels Weber, is through informal means, what he sometimes called ‘kadi justice’. However, these informal means, sometimes taking the forms of public opinion and community actions, are often manipulated and staged from above. In reality, Weber was quite apprehensive of what we call social movements today that he had seen as developing from

66  Subhasis Bandyopadhyay an ‘incoherent mass’ obsessed with ‘irrational sentiments’. The Weberian theory of collective action belongs to the first generation of the social movement theory that starts from Durkheim and Weber to Talcott Parsons, for whom collective action was an irrational response to social change.9 The corresponding alternative positions are, however, more nuanced. They are critically involved and have made an effort to combine the concept of a social movement with macro social structures such as the state and market. These theorists looked at the powerful agency of the social movement not simply as one reactive entity but as the existence of an unceasing way of resistance to all forms of economic, social, and political oppression. This has garnered more significance in the present context of the global political economy that is replete with protest movements and mass demonstrations of numerous forms and intensities in the Global South and Global North, starting in Africa and Latin America. Such movements are quickly spreading in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East with significant echoes in China and the United States. It seems appropriate to ask whether there is a significant connection between these eruptions of popular protests. Large numbers of those actively participating from Dakar and Cairo to Athens, from Santiago to New York and New Delhi think that there are. The interconnectedness they draw springs from certain common sources such as inequality, displacement, lack of natural justice, unemployment, ethnic rights, and an overall democratic deficit. All these contributory factors get connected by the sharpest economic turbulence the world capitalism has experienced since the meltdown of the 1930s (Barker et al. 2013: 2).10 The other related question is: Do all contemporary movements adhere to some general pattern from the point of emergence till their decline? Figure 3.3 reproduced from the works of three movement researchers portrays that indeed there is a patterned sequence in general in social movements that may be described as stages of social movements. The query, however, remains whether every movement must follow these stages as a rule or there may be the possibility of a new form of movement taking shape without reference to any or all of the stages depicted in the figure. Representative stylisation has its theory. The problem is that most of such theories are transient and positivistic in their essence.

Success Failure Emerge

Coalesce

Bureaucratize

Co-optation Repression Go mainstream

Figure 3.3  Stages of social movements

Decline

State, Market, and Social Movements  67 The Marxist understanding of social movements, in contrast, endeavours to integrate different perspectives in terms of the situatedness of their social relations. In this sense, it does at least have the merit of being able to pose such questions. Moreover, it also invites us to think about a number of allied factors as relevant and necessary. As an illustration, one may say that if the ‘working class’ is written off to a large extent, there do not remain many points in exploring the nitty-gritty of actual forms of current worker resistance as part of ‘social movement’ concerns. Then emerge the ‘labour process’ specialists to analyse strikes and forms of workplace resistance as managerial issues which demand only timely intervention for reconciliation. Decomposition of the essence of a social movement like this then becomes part of some muted celebration by Foucauldians and cultural studies theorists, where everyday struggle is treasured but the prospect that it may intensify into something producing substantial structural change is anathema. In its worst form, social movement studies would become what Touraine called a ‘natural sociology of [movement] élites’. Looking into a movement from this angle, a researcher may get adequate insight to understand the routine operations of movement establishments; for example, how nongovernmental organisations seek to position themselves within the U.S. media or in the institutional labyrinth of Brexit in the United Kingdom. However, such insights would fall far short of analytical clarity with no capability to explain how and why these situations are reshaped and transformed. The parcelling out of trade union dynamics and strikes to ‘labour studies’ or ‘industrial relations’, of everyday resistance to ‘cultural studies’, or of revolutions to a specific branch of political science ignores the crucial role that strikes may play in social movements.11 The financial meltdown of 2008 itself widely seemed to confirm the basic analysis of the ills of capitalist neoliberalism. Although bourgeois intellectuals have regained confidence and endeavoured to define the crash as the liability of disproportionate state spending rather than of unbridled finance capitalism, popular resistance to austerity measures – from Iceland to Greece and from Spain to the United Kingdom – proposes that this is a shallow hegemony. In another place, movements in Latin America have challenged U.S. geopolitical hegemony and the Washington Consensus in a wide range of ways going far beyond any isolated identity politics or cultural radicalism, combining extensive popular alliances, systematic analyses of the roots of injustice and, in some cases, serious attempts to remake the state. The Triad Economic, political, and cultural instabilities are endemic to the industrial system since its inception. The power agency within the system is also equally predisposed to such turbulence. The irreconcilability shown by various agencies to the macro structures such as a state and a market in an industrial capitalist formation was foundationally different from all pre-capitalist modes of production. The issues at the core of such mismatch are the domineering class orientations of the state and market standing in contrast to the interests of the producing class and the productive organisations as a whole. In the industrial society, the state and market are the major archetypal organisations supposed to establish order within the relevant ecosystem in an otherwise laissez-faire condition. Nonetheless, the evolutionary

68  Subhasis Bandyopadhyay pathways of these two important economic and political entities in industrial capitalism have had to negotiate wide-ranging deformations over different spatial and temporal matrices. Interestingly, some of the deformities such as the double-helical accentuation of political and economic power and the subsequent hegemonies are embedded in the DNA of these formidable structures. The formative discrepancies, therefore, make the state and market, from conceptualisation to structural formations to reflective understanding, open to severe questioning, serious opposition, and the risk of volatility. The space generated in these potential subversions to the order is mostly occupied by the action formations by social groups which are broadly known as social movements. The genesis of a social movement in present-day society has two mutually exclusive dimensions: first, the dynamic is situated within the societal context of a system seeking modification within the order itself; second, at a cognitive plane of the collective, a social movement occurs as a graduated snowballing that leads to a paradigm shift. In other words, from a stage of psycho-social construct, a social movement evolves into an action to alter or replace the existing order fully or partially with a new system. As a result, the aspirations of a demographic cross-section for a qualitative improvement in the society and its structural agencies though remain as objectives at the formative stage of any movement, after a certain time those initial objectives are impregnated with nascent dynamics to bring in systemic changes. If these are the unfurling possibilities of a social movement, there is a flip side too. Very often the quantitative aspirations of a social movement remain oblivious to the intrinsic qualitative shift necessary to endure the new structural load. In a condition like this, the state, as the supra-organic entity, co-opts the demands within its framework and induces the market to act as an enabler to alleviate only the quantitative issues at stake. Numerous examples can be presented here to show how it takes place. One predominant instance that can be barely missed is how the environmental movement on the international stage is patronised, captured, reified, and showcased by the state and even by giant corporations on an equal footing typically in the name of ‘green future’ and ‘sustainability’. To establish analytical prudence in circumstances like this, it is of utmost importance to remain attentive to the class components of any movement whatsoever at the interface with the state and market. Another example may help to drive home the dynamics within the triad further: a socio-religious movement today, if majoritarian in nature, is very likely to garner both active and passive support even in a non-theological society or a secular state across the continents to highlight the movement’s objective as if these are questions of rights of the citizenry. After some time, when the position of the state visà-vis the movement comes out clearly in the public domain, the various forms of print and electronic media would try to engage themselves with an overwhelmingly patronising gesture with an eye on their niche market to satisfy the larger section of their clientele. Now ponder about a ‘purely’ cultural movement attached to the environmental issues in the same society: if the state is initially not paying heed to the demand, the same media outlets may still highlight the issues and demands in the name of liberalism, civil society aspirations and ecological rights to draw the

State, Market, and Social Movements  69 attention of the state to operationalise the safety valve mechanism. Without going into the intricacies involved in each of the movements, at the end of the day, the original objectives, content, and conditioning may all get usurped by the economic and political hegemonies in the society, namely the state and the market. Also, we must keep in mind that both the intervention and non-intervention of the state in reference to social movements are part of a wider decision-making process. Any decision-making in the formal sphere of a government policy opens up the conjoining issue of influence of a social movement on the public policy as formulated by the state. As put aptly by Ozen and Ozen (2010: 33), social movements are mostly overlooked in public policy analysis. Perhaps the reason is that public policy analysis is usually state-centred. ‘Policy sciences’ that have been developed particularly by North American researchers focus on the way public mechanisms work to materialize public actions. Thus, putting the public authorities at the centre of the analysis, they attempt to explain the functioning of the policy process consisting of such stages as agenda setting, developing policy options, formulating, implementing and evaluating policy, and to offer suggestions for more effective public actions. If one only adds the stage where these flows of actions are being enacted and exchanged, it would be easy to find that the overarching market mechanism is at play in overt association with the state actors. Hence, the role of public policy as an intervening agency among social movement, state, and market is close to the role played by any analgesic substance that reduces the fever (which is only a manifestation of some underlying disease) without addressing the root cause of the disease. Some Examples: Past and Present Quit India Movement of 1942 was a watershed movement in the history of organised political movements with mass involvement in the Indian subcontinent with the stated goal to achieve complete independence (purna swaraj) from colonial rule. Since then, organised movements in India had experienced a qualitative shift in terms of both ideology and tactics. Consequently, the importance of class factor began to take the centre stage in social movements, especially in movements for social justice and human rights. Right before Independence, the ruling class of India had tasted the water in the form of Tebhaga (literally, three parts share) peasant uprising in eastern India in 1946. The sharecroppers of the then undivided Bengal raised a demand for two-thirds of the produce from the mostly city-dwelling absent landlords. The catalytic factors behind the consolidation included the volatility of a transitional state in the aftermath of a global imperialist war (the Second World War), the excruciating pressure generated by the state and its intermediaries to collect higher revenue from the heavily oppressed and grossly marginalised peasantry, and the prolonged instability in an otherwise aspiring market of agricultural product. The post-Second World War economic desolation helped in unifying the small and marginal farmers with the landless sharecroppers (bargadars) to

70  Subhasis Bandyopadhyay put their long-drawn genuine claims forward. The movement then confronted the consolidated state machinery and also had to experience the betrayals of the established political outfits of differing orientations and could not immediately achieve its primary goal. Nevertheless, this particular peasant uprising could sow the seeds of long-term changes in the form of a slew of policy measures to initiate some preliminary steps towards land reforms in the post-Independence West Bengal and India. In the same year, 1946, a movement of bonded labourers sprung up in the peninsular, princely state of Hyderabad. The movement is famously known as the Telangana peasant rebellion. It continued till 1951 in full swing through various phases of consolidation, resistance, and remission. The overall experience of Telangana in comparison with Tebhaga is one of escalated resistance against a neophyte state. The intensity of organised confrontation, introduction of guerrilla tactics, and establishment of village commune under the leadership of the undivided Communist Party of India, in every sense the revolt was so formidable that it compelled the newly independent state of India and its ruling class to initiate its first military mobilisation to suppress the movement of its own people in the pretext of accession of Hyderabad in India. At the international level, the 1960s present twin faces of the changing nature of social movements: one, in the United States where Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) unequivocally raised the flag for participatory democracy, and two, the Movement of March 22 in Paris in 1968. Together, these movements put forward wide-ranging socio-political and cultural aspirations of the disgruntled educated youth of the United States and France. The 1960s also showed an international upsurge in numerous protest movements within a wide-ranging spectrum that included feminist waves in the West and the revolutionary left movement in India that had taken place in the milieu of Marxist–Leninist–Maoist political struggles. Particularly in India, the disillusionment that was generated from the experience of independence, the repressive nature of the state, and the infirmity of the market based on a mixed economy - all these factors contributed enormously to the proliferation of these important social movements. The 1974 railway strike and the movement against the declaration of Emergency in 1975 can also be seen as the two important extensions of the previous genre of social movements including the Naxalbari peasant uprising. It is important to note that these last two movements could effectively diminish the nationalistic euphoria created around the military victory over Pakistan in 1971 on the issue of independence of Bangladesh. The world today is a vibrant place of social movements of every possible hue and colour: from individual rights to collective well-being, from gender justice to climate protection; mobilisation of opinion to protect, preserve, and change for the better has become the perceptive features of this time. The increase in the overall intensity of social movements at the same time also points to the fact that the society today is much more fraught with conflicts and contradictions, questions and paradoxes than ever. In other words, both the state and the market in the globalised system are facing serious hazards as far as their ability to maintain order and usher in prosperity in the society is concerned.

State, Market, and Social Movements  71 For instance, the political Islam today is suffering from a deep systemic schism. On the one hand, countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and Azerbaijan are steadily consolidating on the line of industrial capitalism notwithstanding all the in-built contradictions of this mode of production; the situation in the entire Middle East, particularly in Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Palestine, on the other hand, is acting as a flashpoint of uncertainty in terms of the nature of their statehood and the ways they are realigning with market forces heavily influenced by the American, Russian, and Chinese interests and competitions. Overall, the radical Islamic movement that we see today can be treated as a representative sample of the antiimperialist congregation of some severely contradictory geopolitical interests. Side by side, if one looks closely at the important strains of new social movements, it becomes clear that instead of raising questions about the system, these movements are in reality putting questions to the system which in turn revalidates the systemic power of the establishment to negotiate, control, and coordinate. For example, the enlightened and urbanised students of universities such as Jadavpur University and JNU have extended their enthusiastic support to the ongoing struggles by the Dalits and other backward castes students in various universities across the country, especially since the death of Rohith Vemula, a Dalit research scholar. The movement in general, however, does not belong to a cohesive political ideology fighting the shallow caste enshrined in the state machinery and within the market per se, but on the contrary, with all its diversities in place, it tries to envisage a more perfect state and a more equitable market for all. In the process, the movement gets used to a well-spread power milieu including political parties; interest groups; and electronic, print, and ‘social’ media – an amalgamation of state and market forces. Such an amalgamation is inherently inequitable, divisive, and totalitarian, but it has allowed the movement to operate within that very framework – giving it some space, providing it with some legitimacy, but at the same time putting effort to douse the fire in it. In its current locus, the movement is in a simmering condition with all the contributory factors intact. Meanwhile, the state and the market are trying all out to neutralise the essence of the discontent so that it does not pose any substantial challenge to the structure. Co-optation of this sort of movement by the power milieu in the global perspective is not an end in itself. Rather, with the sharpening of the material contradictions within and between the powerful states and the intensely competitive market mechanisms under the shadow of a third global imperialist war, it may as well be expected that the task of formation of a class organisation for social movements would soon take the centre stage that would be equipped with the meaningful experiences from previous struggles. Summary and Conclusion Two salient features of the present-day industrial capital are (a) increased monopolistic concentration in the market, and (b) all-encompassing financialisation of the productive structures. The results of these structural changes in the economy have directly affected the political processes within the state, that is, how the state apparatus

72  Subhasis Bandyopadhyay as a supra-organic entity would view its citizenry in the framework of neoliberal policies and how much space it would leave for them to raise important demands, taking the effort to achieve them. These are the two intrinsic factors of complex dynamics which also spell out the elementary nature of capitalism: exploitation of every possible resource to consolidate private property and maximisation of surplus value at any cost at the organisational level. A combination of these two factors, in the face of the problems of overproduction and market saturation, has transformed a once-radical relation of production into an intransigent system of imperialism. Also, it would not be out of context to mention that the over-financialisation of the economy as mentioned in point (b) above is acting as a catalytic factor to squeeze the manufacturing enterprises in favour of an expanding service sector which is already laid bare to the vagaries of new technologies such as the Internet of Things and machine learning, among other things, to reduce the opportunities of effective employment even there. Hence, the dynamics of state policies and market aspirations are creating a vicious cycle of deprivation and denials. Rising economic and social discriminations, lack of opportunities, and dwindling welfare expenditures in the present world system are bound to generate more wide-ranging and sharp proactive politics by the people under duress. Tilly (2006: 182) has, therefore, argued that social movements have now become ubiquitous, ‘at least in relatively democratic countries’. Almost always, a social movement takes place as an expected countervailing effect to a predatory and retrograde system. It is, therefore, reasonable to look into the process of social movement in conjunction with the political economy of the state and the market. It is a triad that may get transformed into historical evidence of a long-drawn despondency of civilisation. The hope and promise of the social movement are very hard to avoid: in the coming years, one may hope that accentuated movements of the people across societies would alter the basic premises of the state and market for a more egalitarian and creative existence for the human being going well beyond the era of Anthropocene. Review Questions 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

How may one connect states, markets, and social movements sociologically? What role does the state perform in a modern society? Is it possible to separate the state from the market? In what ways are public policy issues connected with social movements? Explain the points of departure for new social movements in contrast to older forms.

Notes 1 The clearest definition of essentialist philosophy was offered by gay/lesbian rights advocate Fuss (2013), who wrote: ‘Essentialism is most commonly understood as a belief in the real, true essence of things, the invariable and fixed properties which define the “whatness” of a given entity’.

State, Market, and Social Movements  73 2 https://sociologytwynham​.com​/2013​/06​/01​/defining​-the​-state (accessed on October 16, 2016). 3 As argued by Bandyopadhyay (2015), the definition reflects the enhancement in the scope and operationalisation of a simple state that has graduated into a modern, and in that sense, an industrialised nation-state. 4 Brook (2005) has argued, ‘Failed states, the dark mirror image of a successful state, lose control over the means of violence, and cannot create peace or stability for their populations or control their territories. They cannot ensure economic growth or any reasonable distribution of social goods’. 5 Without internal legitimacy, states would face great difficulties providing solutions to societal needs. But these structural needs are in essence the needs of the ruling class to maintain their productive hegemony over the real needs of the people. Hence, the internal legitimacy is enclosed within the state as the necessary condition to control all other needs. Weber did not look into this salient feature of the state’s legitimacy. 6 Lenin (1992: 1), while commenting on this definition, wrote, [T]his expresses with perfect clarity the basic idea of Marxism with regard to the historical role and the meaning of the state. The state is a product and a manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms. The state arises where, when, and insofar as class antagonism objectively cannot be reconciled. And, conversely, the existence of the state proves that the class antagonisms are irreconcilable. 7 It is interesting to note that class identity of the state is also embedded in symbols such as the national flag and state emblems. Goodman (2015: 282) has made a detailed discussion on this indisputable political reality. He showed how the meaning and significance of these symbols are nuanced but definitive about the class orientation (even with deviation) they depict. 8 The definition given here tries to show the vagueness of the predominant capitalist views on the market mechanism. This particular definition is taken from www​.businessdictionary​.com​/definition​/market​.html (accessed on October 21, 2016). 9 The explanations here are taken entirely from Burawoy (2015) as published in Rhuthmos. 10 The essence here is to break the reified idea of economic determinism proposed by the postmodern and cultural studies theorists with a dialectical exposition of the material condition. 11 The explanations here are taken entirely from Burawoy (2015) as published in Rhuthmos.

References Aberle, D. F. 1966. The Peyote Religion among the Navaho. Chicago, IL: Aldine Publishing. Bandyopadhyay, S. 2015. ‘State, Market and Social Movement’. INFLIBNET e-PG Pathshala. Sociology Module on social movement (No. 02), Available at http://epgp​ .inflibnet​.ac​.in (accessed on 7 October 2019).. Barker, C., L. Cox, J. Krinsky, and A. G. Nilsen. 2013. Marxism and Social Movement. Leiden: Brill. Brook, R. E. 2005. ‘Failed State or the State as Failure?’. The University of Chicago Law Review, 72 (4): 1159–1162. Burawoy, M. 2015. ‘A New Sociology for a New Social Movement’. Rhuthmos, February. Available at: rhuthmos​.eu​/spip​.php​?articl​e1486 (accessed on 7 March 2019). DiMaggio, P., and S. Zukin. 1990. Structures of Capital: The Social Organization of the Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Engels, F. 2010. The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. London: Penguin. Fine, B., and C. Lapavitsas. 2000. ‘Markets and Money in Social Theory: What Role for Economics?’ Economy and Society, 29 (3): 357–382. Foran, J. 1993. ‘Theories of Revolution Revisited: Toward a Fourth Generation?’. Sociological Theory, 11 (1): 1–20.

74  Subhasis Bandyopadhyay ———. 2005. Taking Power: On the Origins of Third-World Revolutions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fuss, Diana. 2013. Essentially Speaking: Feminism, Nature and Difference. New York, NY: Routledge. Gerlach, L. P., and Virginia H. Hine. 1970. People, Power, Change. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill Company. Goodman, D. S. G. 2015. Handbook of the Politics of China. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. Hobsbawm, E. 1959. Primitive Rebels. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company. Knoepfel, Peter, Stéphane Nahrath, and Frédéric Varone. 2007. ‘Institutional Regimes for Natural Resources: An Innovative Framework for Sustainability’. Environmental Policy Analysis (455–506). Berlin and Heidelberg: Springer. https://doi​.org​/10​.1007​/978​-3​-540​ -73149​-8​_15. Krippner, G., Mark Granovetter, Nicole Biggart, Fred Block, and Thomas D. Beamish. 2004. ‘Polanyi Symposium: A Conversation on Embeddedness’. Socio-Economic Review, 2 (1): 109–135. Lenin, V. I. 1992. The State and Revolution. London: Penguin. Ozen, H., and S. Ozen. 2010. ‘Public Policies and Social Movements: The Influences of Protest Movements on Mining Policy in Turkey’. Review of Public Administration, 43 (2): 33–64. Schumpeter, Joseph A. 1999. ‘Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy’. The Economist, 20 February. Tilly, C. 1975. From Mobilization to Revolution. Boston, MA: Addison-Wesley. ———. 1986. The Contentious French. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 2006. Regimes and Repertoires. Chicago. IL: The University of Chicago Press. Weber, Max. 1946. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. Edited by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mill. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

4

Social Change through Social Movements Role of Leadership and Ideology Swatahsiddha Sarkar

Learning Objectives After reading this chapter, you will be able to:

• Understand the analytical link among social movements, social structure, and social change;

• Deduce how social movements create social change in the society and • • • •

also how social changes create possibilities for New Social Movements (NSMs) to occur; Comprehend the relationship between social movements and globalisation; Appreciate the significance of ideology and leadership in understanding social movements in different contexts; Grasp the distinctions between various types of leadership patterns that are manifest in different stages of a social movement; and Comment upon the mass–leader relationship in the context of social movements.

Introduction Social movement studies as a concern of the discipline of sociology (and other social sciences) have been variously pondered upon to the effect that social movements are framed more as a form of collective behaviour. As such, analyses of social movements have often opened up core questions of sociology like: What makes us live together? How do differential interests coexist? Why do complaints and acquisitions turn into a collective action? When does collective action lead to social change? Probing into such questions, one could actually realise why social movements are needed to be viewed in relation to social reality and not an aberration to it. Situating the study of social movements to these seminal sociological questions, many scholars have stressed that the study of social movements is not a partial description of a reality; it is a sociological reality in itself (Touraine 1985). Some DOI:  10.4324/9781003481744-5

76  Swatahsiddha Sarkar  have even gone really far in claiming that by studying social movements, sociologists would actually make the discipline politically engaged and committed to the public; otherwise, the discipline will remain esoteric, elitist, and eccentrically intellectual enterprise (Turner 2004). Setting this as a backdrop, this chapter would explore the analytical links among social movements, social structure, and social change by examining the significance of ideology and leadership in understanding social movements in different contexts. Social Movements and Social Change: Significance Can social movement inevitably lead to social change? This question will elicit an ambiguous answer because at times social movement, instead of bringing about a social change, could even lead to reaffirmation of the status quo. Thus, social movement and social change, despite being corollaries, also stand as separate notions as may be understood within the purview of sociological studies. Social change is a ubiquitous phenomenon that may not necessarily take the shape of a movement. While a social movement, both as a concept and as a reality, has a career of its own – it grows, matures, and dissolves (Sarkar and Khawas 2016a); social change may remain invisible without a definite ‘career’ or ‘biography’. Social movement is aimed at a definite purpose, while social change can happen independent of social movement. All social movements are characterised by the predominance of a critical core, conflictual content, and social contradiction, quite unlike the functionalist orientation of social change. The structure of a movement invariably rests on some form of conflict (Singh 2001: 39). In spite of the conceptual difference between the two categories, sociologists do acknowledge that owing to the inter-relational pattern between the two, a social movement leads to either partial or total change in the prevalent value system and hierarchical power structure, despite the general propensities of upholding the status quo. For Marxists and Functionalists, the phenomenon of social movement is a harbinger of change or even resisting change (Wilkinson 1971). Social movements, whether old or new, as Mukherji (2013: 2) points out, have always been based on the theoretical ground of social conflict and entailing social change in the Western discourse. From the perspective of culture, theorists such as Ron Eyerman and Andrew Jamison (1991) have recognised social movements as reflective of articulated and transformative cultural power. Being an outcome of social and historical contexts, social movement hinges upon culture and other forms of pre-existing social solidarity and contact, and in the process both revitalises and transforms traditions substantially. Relating Social Movements to Social Structure and Social Change In his discussion on issues of social structure and social movements, Mukherji (1977) focuses on how social movements are connected to social change and concomitantly to social structure. Being born out of certain conditions of the social structure, social movements in turn influence those very aspects of social structure. There are two ways in which the changes impacted by social movements may be classified: (a) structural changes, referring to changes in the totality of relationships,

Social Change through Social Movements  77 positions, and their arrangements, and (b) organisational changes, referring to the changes in the activities and personnel from one position to another. A social movement and its objectives can be characterised into two: implicit and explicit, based on the results it begets. A movement always celebrates the objectives that are explicit in nature, and irrespective of the outcome, of whether a success or a failure, it leaves traces of some normative implications on the social structure; the latter implications are inherent in the goals of the movement and hence implicit. These goals are either large or small and may try to subvert the corporate or state policy, change the attitude of the public, and at the same time bring about a change in the personality of the individual protester. Even within a single movement, there is a possibility of different goals of individuals with different degrees of priorities and constantly shifting of purposes. The goals are also elastic in the sense that they may expand and contract depending upon the successes and failures. In case of absolute repression and torture, the question of mere survival overwhelms all other distant goals. And finally, the goals cater to a particular audience and may change with the concomitant change in the audience. Changes in Social Movements: Nature and Types The direction a movement takes could be considered as emblematic of the character of the movement which in turn defines how and what form of social change could be envisaged through a particular form of social movement. Of the categorisations of social movements, Ghanshyam Shah (1977) has categorised social movements in terms of revolt, rebellion, reform, and revolution and Rao (2000) in terms of reformist, transformatory, and revolutionary. Again, Mukherji (1977) has categorised the same in terms of accumulative, alternative, and transformatory. Again, based on what change the members of the social movement intend to bring about, social movement can be categorised. For instance, the Sathya Sai Baba movement may intend to change the manner of its own group members, while an anti-war movement may opt for changing the society at large. Thus, one can argue here, taking cue from Smelser (1993: 378), that a movement relates itself to the status quo by either trying to challenge it or maintain it. The former can be traced in the progressive, reformatory, transformative, or radical politics and the latter in the politics of the rightist or liberal. Oommen (1977: 16), however, feels that social movements neither bring about a radical or absolute change in the society nor do they surrender absolutely to the status quo as they try to maintain a fine balance between the old and the new order of things. Drawing reference from his own study on the Navajo, anthropologist Aberle (1966) forwards his thesis on the typology of the social movement (also discussed in Chapter 2). Studying the patterns of conflation between religion and the changes and transformations among the Navajos, he postulated the four-tier model of alternative, redemptive, reformative, and revolutionary social movements. These again constitute two aspects: locus of the change sought (i.e., who is the target population) and the amount of change sought (i.e., the type of change desired). The first, the target population for whom the change is meant, either an individual or a

78  Swatahsiddha Sarkar 

Who is changed? Collective Individual

How much change? Radical Limited Alternative Social Movements

Redemptive Social Movements

Reformative Social Movements

Revolutionary Social Movements

Figure 4.1  Aberle’s model on social movement vis-à-vis social change

collective whom the movement wants to change with the change in the socio-economic, technological, political, and legal orders. The second, that is, the amount of change sought, refers to either a total or a partial change in the social order. Aberle, by taking into consideration all these ramifications, opines a matrix (see Figure 4.1) of the four-tier model and the way these relate to the locus and amount of change sought in a particular societal context. Social Change and Social Movement: Reciprocal Causality There are two-way traffic flows between social movements and social change. While social movements can bring about social changes, social changes can also become an impetus for social movements. The factors that influence social movements and social change are (a) the nature of social structure at a given point in time, (b) its rootedness in history, and (c) the vision of a future society envisioned by the members of the movement. This theoretical framework upholds the idea that not only can social movement bring about social change, but social change can also lead towards the germination of social movement. Smelser points out how trade union movements, consumer movements, and movements to ban child labour and to provide workers’ compensation, were produced at the inception of industrial capitalism. Similarly, worldwide industrialisation can be considered the impetus for the upsurge of various other movements in recent times, like the environmental protection movement (Smelser 1993: 384). Again, a host of scholars such as Melucci (1990), Touraine (1981), Tilly (1988), and Smelser (1993) have stressed on the dynamics of contemporary society producing new types of social movements called New Social Movements (NSMs). According to these scholars, the rise of new social dynamics in the late capitalist societies is concomitant to the rise of NSMs for peace, queer, human rights, environmental protection, anti-nuclear power, and so on. The proponents of NSMs also argue that worker–owner conflict of the older type seems to have weakened in the post-industrial society. Support for NSMs also cuts across class loyalty as, for instance, the peace movement is supported by all irrespective of socio-economic background. Touraine (1981, 1983) in many of his writings talked about NSMs as

Social Change through Social Movements  79 potential bearers of new social interests, while philosophers like Habermas (1987) have contemplated the potential civilisational role of NSMs. In all these, there is a general consensus that NSMs steer towards new ways of understanding the world and creating awareness about it. The LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) movement, for example, has propelled the domain of the personal to strive for political recognition and rights. However, there are NSMs whose goals are shortlived and purposes are issue-based, so that their potential to bring in fundamental structural change in the prevalent social order may be less, so that these may end up without leaving any significant impact at the societal level. Hence, such demands are either easily met or readily suppressed by the authorities. Let us now concentrate on the way social change can also influence social movements. In the Indian context, there are several instances wherein social change has led to movements. Since Independence, India has witnessed rapid urbanisation and industrialisation, planned economic development, and a series of social legislations, among many other changes, which have impacted the spread of social movements. It was mainly the state-initiated policies and programmes of change, believes Oommen (1977), which led to movements based on regional disparity, movements for linguistic states, language movements, and even movements for the achievement of protective discrimination measures. In other words, changes in the socio-economic standard of living of people, including the spread of literacy and awareness, may give rise to new aspirations and movements. Many social movements of recent types, for instance, are linked to the growth of the middle class who provide leadership in such movements. It is also important to consider the idea of ‘counter movement’ when we try to comprehend the relationship between social change and social movements. This happens when people resist any change and argue for the status quo. The objective of these counter movements is to create resistance towards the call for social change as called for by social movement. Movements for protective discrimination measures in India, for instance, were more often than not opposed by hostile antireservation counter movements. It is often said, nearly every social movement is impacted by the resistance of counter movement. In a given time, Smelser (1993: 384–385) thus argues that a society is nothing but a complex system of movements and counter movements which are going in different directions. Social Movement and Globalisation In the world today, trends of social change have been invariably influenced by the vicissitudes of globalisation. Due to rapid flow of capital, technology, information, trade, ideas, and other resources beyond and across national boundaries, globalisation as a phenomenon has penetrated every aspect of social reality. The unique relationship between globalisation and social movements has been an impetus for the creation of transnational resistances through global networks which have been facilitated by the uninhibited flow of ideas, resources, and observers. This is particularly true in the case of NSMs that rely upon the forces of globalisation for the augmentation of their agenda, strategy, and expansion. Seidman (2000: 344),

80  Swatahsiddha Sarkar  however, argues that international appeals in social movements are nothing new, as the trade union movements have long tried to establish an international association of the working-class organisations. However, it is only after globalisation that there has been a systematic increase in emphasising the need to launch protest movements through global networks, although the initiative to form ‘international communities’ of workers had been there since the middle of the 20th century. Globalisation has also encountered serious challenges and resistances since many of the policy changes it has introduced have directly affected the fate of a national economy. The change caused by globalisation in social actions and culture of particular societies, argues Porta and Diani (2006: 51–52), may lead to the formation of local resistance in the form of nationalistic or ethnic movements, religious mobilisations, or even promote fundamentalism to protect cultural lineage against the so-called foreign ideas and their invasions. Such movements against globalisation are often deemed as ‘global justice movements’. The Carnival Against Capitalism which took place on June 18, 1999 in many metropolitan cities is one such movement. Another example is the Battle of Seattle, which happened on November 30, 1999 where over 50,000 people participated. Examples of such protests can be found in India as well. The protest movement organised by the World Social Forum in Mumbai in 2004 is a good case in point. Either in the name of anti-globalisation protest or as global justice movements, they all are directed towards the negative consequences of globalisation in general and target the global corporations, international organisations, or the international trade agreements in particular (Opp 2009: 337). While introducing changes in our material realities, globalisation also moulds our thinking processes and knowledge base. The electronic media, which is a result of globalisation itself, in particular exposes the way a particular group of people is facing discrimination and deprivation. As a corollary, it becomes easy to organise and express common interest and protest against such deprivation or exploitation. Many regions, especially the former colonies, may be considered as places where social movements have been directed against the forces of globalisation. India witnessed resistance movements against the varied forces of globalisation in recent times. For instance, the movement against Vedanta Resources Limited – a giant mining company – was fought by the tribes of Niyamgiri hills in Odisha in the recent past. The fight was also taken up by many others including the fishermen of Tamil Nadu in Kudankulam against the establishment of a nuclear plant (Das 2015; Harikrishna 2013). Among the four types of movements suggested in this model, the first one, situated at the individual level, is called ‘alternative social movements’, and they may cause minor changes affecting some aspects of an individual’s behaviour, for example, changes sought by participants of an anti-liquor movement. The second type, called ‘redemptive social movements’, also occurring at the individual level, may cause radical changes, for example, movements related to conversion and the spread of Christianity. The third type is ‘reformative social movements’. They occur in a broader societal realm and advocate for minor changes. For example, social movements in favour of widow remarriage may seek to change only certain

Social Change through Social Movements  81 aspects of social life. And finally, ‘revolutionary social movements’ taking place at a broader societal level may cause radical changes, for example, the Cultural Revolution in Communist China from 1966 to 1976. This model helps us in understanding not only different religious movements but also the nature of New Social Movements (NSMs). Box 4.1 Battle of Seattle

Battle of Seattle refers to the civil unrest that took place in Seattle, Washington against the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial Conference of 1999. More than 40,000 protestors came out on the street (mainly composed of NGOs, trade unions, student organisations, and organisations having religious affiliations) on November 30, 1999 to protest against the WTO c­ onvened meeting/conference designed to launch a new millennial round of trade negotiations. The Seattle Battle was the first attempt made publicly in the United States against globalisation. It made ‘anti-globalisation’ movements a matter of serious public concern throughout the globe.

Agents of Change: Role of State The marginalised tend to come up as a united front through social movements which are then directed towards social change. In this sense, movements stand in opposition to any force or agency including the state seeking the status quo. For a state that normally invests more attention towards the maintenance of law and order within a given social structure might see any such movement as an impediment to its directed objective. This point stands valid even in the case of a modern welfare and socialist state where the ruling and powerful classes hardly leave any scope to maintain their hegemony. In the conventional sense, therefore, social movements very often target the ‘police state’. However, as the idea of the state has undergone a sea change over the course of period, we can see that instead of emerging as a controller, a state can function as a facilitator as well. There are instances of the state and its institutions initiating social movements for achieving a better standard of living. Collective mobilisations for full literacy, land reform, family welfare, immunisation, and cleanliness are examples of such state-centric initiatives in India in the past. We may, therefore, argue that with changes in the dynamics of the state, a marked change can also be observed in the dynamics of the social movements. Scholars like T. K. Oommen, thus, observed that this transformation in the functions of the state and the mode of its operations has tremendous significance for the analysis of social movements in the contemporary world situation particularly in developing countries (Oommen 1977: 23).

82  Swatahsiddha Sarkar  Significance of Ideology in Social Movement Historically used in understanding the function of culture in social movements, an ideology is usually conceived of as a relatively stable and coherent set of values, beliefs, and goals. It provides the rationale for defending or challenging various social arrangements and conditions (Snow 2004: 396). According to Touraine (1977), the role of an ideology in a social movement always includes a more or less clearly articulated definition of the actor, identification of an adversary, and an indication of ends, goals, and objectives for which to struggle. An ideology is an essential as well as an analytical key in understanding any social movement (Sarkar and Khawas 2016b). In his analysis of ideology as an important component of any social movement, Rao (2000) used it as a key to distinguish social movements from any other collective social behaviour. Here, Rao moved away from both the Marxist and Mannheimian understandings of ideology and resorted to a more culturally informed viewpoint of Clifford Geertz, who considered an ideology as a system of interacting symbols. For Geertz (1964), an ideology is that which acts as a connection between source analysis and consequence analysis in a symbolic system. It enables interpretations of the environment and the self-imagination of the participants of the movement. It codifies and organises beliefs, myths, outlook, and values; defines aspirations and interests; and directs responses to specific social situations. An ideology, therefore, is not only a framework of consciousness but also a source of legitimising actions. If considered as a cultural system, an ideology helps in mapping the movement from alpha to omega. As the social movement reaches a certain stage of maturity, an ideology comes in to serve two important functions. First, by playing out an integrative function, it contributes towards preserving the social movement organisation. Its function is to persuade the dissident members and bring them back to consolidate the movement organisation. Besides the integrative function, an ideology also has to play out a strategic role in the context of mediation with the state and further it facilitates the leaders to induct fresh movement participants out of those who previously stayed away from participation (Melucci 1996: 352). Social Movement and Leadership: Significance The study of leadership is associated with organisational behaviour, while also being invoked in the study of social movements. The position of leaders in any social movement at any given time is an extremely important factor. Since a social movement cannot take place in a void, leaders serve as the central architects of the phenomenon of social movement. Movement minus either organisation or mobilisation is hardly conceivable as a reality. A leader performs the task of mobilising people for action. Generally, we are used to identifying a social movement with a single leader, though there might be a set of leaders, organised in a hierarchical manner associated with the organisation of a movement (Kilian 1969). Many studies on social movements have shown that often the leadership comes from a crosssection of society or is a cut above the average in social background, intelligence, and skill. In fact, the upper and middle strata in the society supply the substantial

Social Change through Social Movements  83 bulk of leaders in social movements. Many of the NSMs in today’s world are led by people from upper and middle strata. Even the so-called ethnic or backward class movements are often led by those who were not from that section of society but are relatively forward-looking and economically solvent with the potential to give the movement its required impetus. Leaders are more than ordinary participants of a movement and as such they are often vulnerable and pay a high price for their commitment. Role of Leader: Critical Estimation Leaders and their actions are instrumental in propelling the process of mobilisation and consolidating the organisational structure of any movement by promoting the pursuit of goals, developing strategies and tactics for action, and formulating an ideology. They enable mobilisation and create consensus among various social groups involved in the movement (Melucci 1996: 332). The role of a leader can be understood through examples of leaders like Lenin and the pivotal role he played in the Russian Revolution. He was the one who falsified Marx and Engels’ prediction that a revolution would occur in a country where the production process has reached its zenith. Although leaders are one of the movement participants, what distinguishes them from others is their active and committed nature to the cause of the movement. They have certain personality traits which enable them to lead the movement in a particular direction. Not undermining their other traits, a leader, taking a cue from Weber, must have both charismatic and rational aptitude. Scholars like Melucci opine that in any given situation, leaders have certain specific functions to perform. To begin with, a leader defines the objectives of the movement by formulating its goals which enables him to establish a system of priority in goals and to adapt or change them according to the changing conditions. Second, leaders are supposed to gather and organise the available resources in order to provide the means for action which must then be channelised towards the realisation of the movement goals. Third, leaders are supposed to maintain the structure of the movement by ensuring the interaction and cohesion among the movement participants. Fourth, leaders are also responsible for mobilising the support base of the movement. They are to preserve consensus among members over objectives of the movement and to attract growing investments from members. Finally, the leaders are responsible for maintaining and reinforcing the identity of the group. This becomes possible when a leader is able to offer incentives for solidarity. According to Melucci (1996: 333–334), a leader should be able to offer symbolic objects for identification around which the participants of a movement develop solidarity. These functions of a leader are complementary to each other, and they collectively make their presence felt in movement situations. Types of Leadership in Social Movements The changes in the nature of movements inevitably require different types of leadership at work. Dawson and Gettys (1935) have provided a four-stage division in the life cycle of any movement. As per this scheme, in the first stage, a leader has

84  Swatahsiddha Sarkar  to be an agitator, the one who stirs up things, so as to channelise the social unrest. The second stage demands that the leader should be able to spread the message and stimulate enthusiasm among the followers so as to stir popular excitement. The third stage requires an administrator who can disseminate work among the members so as to define the requirement of membership besides coordinating the movement from all possible directions. The fourth and the last stage demands the leader to be a statesman, one who understands political realities and can take full advantage out of it (Lang and Lang 1961). Max Weber classified leadership according to its style. He stipulated three different kinds of authority in order to understand three different patterns of leadership structures. The first type is called ‘charismatic’ which is about the personal charisma of leaders and is especially common among leaders of new movements. Weber used the term ‘charisma’ to refer to a certain quality of an individual’s personality which is considered as extraordinary, sometimes appearing as supernatural, superhuman, and exceptional. Charismatic leaders are believed to have capacities which are inaccessible to common people and due to this they come to hold positions of power and are treated by the masses as their leaders. By definition, charismatic leadership tends to be spontaneous and decision-making occurs with the leader’s personal intervention in every possible sphere of collective mobilisation. The second variety of leadership is the rational-legal leadership which is to be found in formal organisations. Hence, the growth and maturity of a social movement may require some type of formal organisation – as in the case of trade union movements – which is to be maintained by skilled leaders having knowledge of procedural norms. Weber’s third variety is that of traditional leadership that is hardly ever found in social movements – except in the form of ‘elder members’ entry into social movements – as the emergence of traditional leadership is actually a generational phenomenon whereas social movements as events are abrupt and momentary. Although the above-mentioned three kinds of leadership can be distinguished as ideal forms, these frequently get commingled in actual practice and can prove to be functional in the same movement. Thus, the ‘elder statesman’ can facilitate the movement with her knowledge base and thereby ensure continuity or change. The ‘efficient bureaucrat’ can maintain its organisational structure more efficiently. And the charismatic ‘firebrand’ can stimulate popular sentiments. Leaders, whether charismatic or otherwise, are required for varied rationale working at different stages of a movement’s trajectory. Based on the role and function of leadership, Smelser (1993) points out that there are generally two fundamental orientations towards which all leaders are directed: formulation of belief among the members and mobilisation of the participants for action. In the case of NSMs, however, we find a paradigm shift in the worldview of leaders. Instead of projecting a public domain, leaders showcase a private one and, more particularly, reflect on the concerns of global civility. In doing so, leaders are able to transcend themselves from the local issues to a more global platform. For analytical precision, one can devise a typological framework – in case of NSMs – based on the public–private domain of leadership pattern. The more the movements

Social Change through Social Movements  85 have public issues on their agenda, the greater is the possibility of outside leadership (like the anti-dam movement and the role of Medha Patkar). Contrarily, if NSMs are focussed on private issues – like the movements of the LGBT community – the leadership is rooted within the community itself. However, there is no hard and fast difference in leadership – whether internal or external to NSMs. A human rights movement, for example, may have leaders from within the community whose human rights are in jeopardy, or it can be led by a leader from outside to unleash the issue as a matter of public concern. Leadership in Social Movements: Indian Scenario After having discussed the theoretical and conceptual frameworks relating to the types and roles of leaders, it is necessary to examine the worth of such propositions in the light of concrete cases as may be exemplified by various social movements. Such an attempt is made here with a focus on the leadership question as evinced in the context of social movements in India. Leadership in Peasant Movements

In the context of peasant movements, as Shanin (1972) highlights, the struggle received a political character due to the presence of leaders with political penchant and inclination as compared to the peasants themselves. Scholars such as Kumar (1984), Pouchepadass (1999), and Chatterjee (1984) have shown that the leaders of peasant movements in India primarily emerged from the educated urban middle class. Such a phenomenon can also be observed in a radical movement like the Naxalite movement. Mukherji (1987), in his study, has pointed out how the urban-based leadership invoked a more sophisticated ideology among the masses in the name of the Naxalite movement. However, recent studies have shown that the participation of the tribe and even tribal women in the movement was of critical significance as it ushered in indigenous leadership in peasant movements. Hardiman (2006) and Pandey (2011), among others, have discussed in detail the role of autonomous leaders among the tribal peasants. BOX 4.2 Indian Farmers’ Movement (2020–2021)

The farmers’ movement began as a protest against the three farm acts passed by the Indian parliament in September 2020. Often criticised as ‘anti-farmers laws’, these acts were considered to have left the farmers at the mercy of the corporate sector. The movement continued for 378 days, involved 11 rounds of talks and the loss of 700 lives, and the heavy pressure of national and international media have forced the Government to repeal the laws. Though the protesters encountered police atrocities, they did not fizzle and were successful in forcing the powerful central government to withdraw the laws. The

86  Swatahsiddha Sarkar  movement was largely peaceful and was hugely participated by the farmers hailing from Punjab, Haryana and later the UP farmers also joined the movement. The farmers’ protest marked the longest agitation that India, or perhaps the world, has seen in recent history. This is quite evident that the sustenance of a more than 15 months agitation would require a cohort of leaders. Seasoned leadership, leadership network and the coming together of all farmers’ unions under one common platform known as Samyukt Kisan Morcha (formed in November 2020) and bypassing right-left ideological barriers all helped the movement continue its journey for more than a year. What was remarkable is to note that a handful of leaders (like Rakesh Tikait, Dr. Darshan Pal, Joginder Singh Ugrahan, Balbir Singh Rajewal, among others) including the women leaders (like Harinder Bindu and Jasbir Kaur Natt) led the movement towards success. Their leadership helped bridge the left-right political divide and paved the way for farmers from Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh to assemble on a common platform and fight the long battle.

Leadership in Tribal Movements

It is interesting as well as a matter of concern that when it comes to tribal leadership, it is rarely discussed as it is presumed to be a spontaneous phenomenon unlike leadership in other movements. Social scientists like Singh (2002), while addressing the issue of tribal leadership in the Indian context, points out that the leadership of the Santhal, Oraon, and Munda rebellions came from religious leaders like Birsa Munda. The leaders of the Santhal rebellion like Sidhu and Kanhu claimed to have supernatural callings to lead their brethren. They exercised incredible command over their fellowmen and often called for laudable sacrifices from their followers. Arundhati Roy has also talked about the involvement of tribal people across Maoist movements in India so much so that she even acknowledged that the tribal people in Central India uphold a legacy of resistance that even precedes Mao (Mao Zedong of Chinese Communist Revolution of 1949) by centuries. In today’s scenario, she highlights that both tribal men and women are providing leadership to the Maoist movement in various parts of the country (Roy 2011a). Of late, anthropologists such as Alpa Shah and Judith Pettigrew have also specified the significance of tribal leadership in the Indian Maoist movement as both movement constituents and leaders and regarded the tribal people as ‘natural vessels of a revolutionary consciousness’ (Shah and Pettigrew 2011). Yet, it cannot be denied that many leaders of this movement do hail from urban middle-class backgrounds (read Chapter 8, for details). Leadership in Dalit Movements

B. R. Ambedkar is considered as the most important leader of the Dalit movement in India who fought relentlessly for the social, economic, and political rights of Dalits, women, and minorities. He also emphasised on the issues of education, awareness, and reform so as to free his brethren from the dehumanisation and

Social Change through Social Movements  87 slavery prevalent in the traditional Hindu caste system. Mangoo Ram, the leader of Ad Dharma in Punjab, is considered as the only other pan-India Dalit leader barring Ambedkar. In Uttar Pradesh, we also witnessed the rise of indigenous Dalit leadership through figures like Kanshi Ram and Mayawati, who were successful in forming government in the state, thereby influencing the mainstream parliamentary politics. It is a noteworthy fact that the Dalit movement in India has been impactful under the indigenous leadership, and it is only in recent times that we find the appearance of urban, educated middle-class Dalits in leadership categories. These Dalit intellectuals are equally influential in arguing against manifold deprivations and exploitations of Dalits in contemporary India. Leadership in Backward Caste Movement

Based on structural cleavages and manifest conflicts, Rao (1979) categorises backward caste movements in India into four kinds. The first kind is that which was led by upper non-Brahmin castes such as the Vellalas, the Reddis, and the Kammas of old Madras Presidency. Ramasamy Naicker1 of Tamil Nadu started the Self-Respect Movement in Madras in the late 1920s to perform marriage ceremonies without Brahmin priests. The non-Brahmin movements in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu raised cultural issues, where the leaders of the movement attacked caste and condemned it as a tool of Brahmin oppression (Hardgrave 1965). These are known as non-Brahmin movements, as the major targets of such movements are the Brahmins and the practices evolved by them. However, such movements are not found in North India because unlike the Brahmins of Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, North Indian Brahmins lack in terms of modern education and government employment (Shah 2004). The leadership in the case of the Yadava movement in Bihar or the non-Brahmin movements in Maharashtra cropped up from the well-off castes and people of the upper stratum. The second type of backward caste movements are hinged on the fractures within the non-Brahmin castes, and these were mainly led by intermediate and low castes such as the Ahirs and the Kurmis in Bihar, the Noniyas in Punjab, the Kolis in Gujarat, and the Malis in Maharashtra. It is in this context that the role played by Jyotirao Phule, the ideologue of the non-Brahmin movements in Maharashtra, may be elaborated. In order to justify this stand to the masses, Phule stressed on cultural and ethnic factors rather than on economic or political factors. He rejected the Hindu religion and caste system since they were the means of suppression and the cause of poverty of the low castes. More particularly, he founded Satyashodhak Samaj in 1873 in order to raise non-Brahmin voices in Maharashtra. The movements by the depressed classes or untouchables against upper and other backward castes are the third type of backward caste movements. The fourth type is that of the tribal movements that we have already discussed in a previous section. Leadership in Bhoodan Movement

The Bhoodan movement, led by a Gandhian charismatic leader Acharya Vinoba Bhave, was essentially a leader-centric movement. The intensity and spread of the movement largely depended upon the way leaders comprehended the issues and

88  Swatahsiddha Sarkar  mobilised the people. Oommen (1972) has shown Vinoba Bhave’s charismatic use of power to collect land via donation (Bhoodan) from landlords. He redistributed those lands among the landless people of Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh. His success seems to be an unimaginable feat in the power dynamics that India poses and herein lies the worth of a charismatic leadership. He firmly believed and suggested that the movement was inspired by the divine decree and projected himself as a saint and maintained a pious lifestyle. The mass, including the powerful landlords, listened to his arguments with immense respect and honoured him. He had an alluding appeal and an abiding personality. This was at the core of the charismatic leadership of Vinoba Bhave which gave the Bhoodan movement a momentary success. Leadership in Ethnic Movements

Leaders form the most essential aspect of ethnic movement. Leadership here becomes a ‘conscious’ category because in ethnic movements the opponents can be clearly identified and the grievances of those rising in the movement stand firmly rooted in the history and culture of the community. By this logic, the leaders play an instrumental role in only bringing the grievances to the surface and channelise the already existing general discontentment and anger towards the direction of a movement which also defines its nuances. Hence, in any agitational politics, the subjective perceptions related to culture, tradition, and history are given an objective foundation. In the instrumentalist versions of ethnicity, the leaders are considered the matchmakers of movements who awaken the people towards the realisation and appreciation of the importance of ethnic orientations which are reinforced to compete for scarce resources at the local/regional level. Quite naturally then ethnic movements heavily rely upon indigenous and spontaneous leaders. Even in the case of a long-drawn ethnic movement, the leaders have to play different roles in different phases of the movement. The trajectory of the Gorkhaland movement in Darjeeling Hills, West Bengal, India, can be used as an example here. From the beginning of the early 20th century, the Indian Nepalis/Gorkhas have been agitating for securing the political claim of a separate state within the Indian Union for the ethnic Gorkhas. The century-long biography of Gorkha agitation has not only surfaced different phases of leadership – prophet, agitator, administrator – but has also recorded the emergence of alternative leadership discrediting the stronghold of the already existing ones.2 Leadership in New Social Movements (NSMs)

The rise of NSMs, in an Indian context, is related to the notion of civil society which resists the policies of the state and their unpleasant consequences on the people. It uses non-party banners to mobilise its supporters in favour of political actions. Anna Hazare provided such a kind of leadership in the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement of Spring 2011, which captured people’s imagination for a short period. Hazare, a self-styled Gandhian, went on ‘fast until death’ for the demand of the enactment of the long-awaited Jan Lokpal Bill. His so-called

Social Change through Social Movements  89 non-party IAC campaign was an endeavour against the bureaucratic corruption and political parties of India. However, it is believed that Hazare’s movement did not attract the left intellectuals and was also subjected to unrelenting criticisms of his subscription to casteism and allegiance to the Hindutva forces like the RSS. It also received serious criticism from thinkers like Roy (2011b) who seemed sceptical about the people representing the movement. Apart from the IAC movement led by Anna Hazare, post-Independence India also witnessed the rise of numerous civil society movements which were profoundly leader-centric. In all these movements, the role of a leader subsumed all other aspects of the movements such as the leadership of Sundarlal Bahuguna in the case of Chipko movement, Medha Patkar in Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save Narmada), and Ela Bhatt in the case of SelfEmployed Women’s Association (Bhatt 1977). Box 4.3 India Against Corruption (IAC)

India Against Corruption (IAC) campaign emerged as an anti-corruption protest movement in India during 2011-2012. The comet-like rise of IAC among the urban Indian middle class was spearheaded by a self-professed Gandhian Mr. Anna Hazare. The series of protest movements became prominent in many parts of urban India and was mainly concerned with the introduction of Jan Lokpal Bill that would entrust the Lokpal (ombudsman) with the powers to arrest and charge government officials accused of corruption. The spread of the IAC protests gained momentum primarily through social media. The movement gradually waned down with the emerging split in the leadership. Relationship between the Leaders and Masses What is interesting to note in the diverse patterns of leadership discussed is that in most cases leaders do not emerge from those who are firmly rooted within the community which they lead. The leaders, in most cases, can be set apart from the general public. This makes the issue of relationship between leaders and masses interesting, though it is less researched in social sciences. The unscripted dictum of social movement envisages leaders as the de facto boss, while the masses are considered as the silent boards who must follow suit. This equation tends to thus become lop-sided since in this ‘relationship’ although the masses are considered valued constituents of a social movement, they merely carry forward the agenda set by the leaders as silent spectators. The crucial questions that arise here are: How do the leaders, then, manage the body of mass participants? What do they do to ignite mass sentiment and legitimise their stake as leaders? Melucci (1990, 1996) in his discussion on the issue of mass–leader relationship has considered the leadership issue in relational terms, thereby, implying

90  Swatahsiddha Sarkar  that leadership is basically a relationship between the leaders and his/her followers. In this relationship, both the leader and his/her followers participate with their respective resources and receive certain goods and values in return. Thus mass–leader relationship is directed towards a win-win situation where both parties intend to secure their own advantageous position. What logically follows from this is that if any one of the parties considers the relationship disadvantageous, then two possibilities might follow. The first option is to work out and restore the balance in the relationship. If this happens, it may also give birth to factionalism and alternative leadership. The second option is to come out of the relationship by breaking it off. This implies the sudden death of the movement or changes in the direction of the movement. Armand Mauss (1975) has also pointed out that movement participants play a significant role in the way a movement is formed and continues. Mauss has attempted to create categories among movement participants and has shown that the social movement may be affected by a critical significance of the constituents in the augmentation of social movements. When viewed from the standpoint of movement constituents, Mauss forwards three concentric rings or circles to establish his point: the innermost circle is represented by the principal leaders, while the outermost ring is termed as ‘fair weather friends’ (implying not-so-committed participants or movement sympathisers whose number waxes and wanes with the success or failure of the movement). The in-between circle is represented by the committed participants who are also the ones among the most skilled participants and aware of the organisational set-up of the movement. The ‘fair weather friends’ category of the movement participants is also significant according to Mauss, as they contribute to the fundraising activity. By enhancing the numerical strength, they also augment the political capacity of the movement (Mauss 1975: 38–71). The historians of ‘subaltern’ perspectives have also contributed towards analysing the mass–leader relationship from a new perspective. In their attempts to pursue a social history that guarantees agency to the masses, scholars such as Sumit Sarkar and Ranajit Guha, among others, have made pertinent observations. Sumit Sarkar’s insistence on the ‘history from below’ perspective put greater emphasis on the forms of consciousness and self-activity of the masses without demeaning the significance and indispensability of leadership. Sarkar showed that the labour movements during the 1920s in India took place rather spontaneously which actually defied the sermons of mainstream nationalist leadership. He noted the simultaneity between the spontaneously organised general strike of the Bombay textile workers of 1919 and the rejection of counsels of moderation offered by the Home Rule League leaders to them (Sarkar 1985). Ranajit Guha’s subaltern history also emphasised on the autonomy of mass movements and their relatively free and autonomous ways of operation. The subaltern historians have spotted plenty of such cases of subaltern upsurges where the consciousness and autonomy of the ‘subalterns’ such as the peasants, tribes, workers, and depressed castes have left their mark. It has been reflected in the way the subalterns rebelled against their adversaries – colonial rulers or the native zamindars, sahukars, or mahajans – throughout the colonial period and beyond. Subaltern historians have shown how

Social Change through Social Movements  91 these resistances could be understood as revelations of a parallel discourse of history that could not be grasped by mainstream nationalist elitist historiography. Subaltern historians, however, did not rule out the question of leadership. But they raised an essential critique against the standard practices of history writing – one that had situated the subalterns at the analytical periphery of an elitist history. Such ‘mainstream’ historical accounts were denounced as being reductionist in nature since these failed to unravel the nuances of subaltern consciousness and bracket their courses of actions as external to their consciousness (Guha 1999). Summary and Conclusion Social movements is a concept that finds universal recognition in the discipline of sociology, as does the concept of society. Despite the fact that societies do not remain embroiled in conflicts all the time, social movements are an essential component of every society. It is so because societies are constitutive of a critical conflictual core that germinates, matures, and takes different forms and directions at the same pace as that of social change. Whether a movement would promote or resist social change is largely defined by the structure of the social movement itself. This understanding helps us to grasp various forms of social movements in different spaces and at different times. Moreover, the degree, direction, and nature of change actually determine the scope and efficacy of social movements and vice versa. For example, social changes occurring at the face of globalisation have become the epicentre of numerous NSMs in contemporary time. While, on the other hand, anti-globalisation movements have been successful in creating global civic concerns against the negative implications of globalisation. In the final analysis, it can be maintained that social movements can promote, resist, and subvert social change while also appropriating and institutionalising social change. Leadership and ideology are issues of critical significance which not only distinguish a social movement from other forms of collective action, but they also contribute towards keeping the dynamics of the social movement intact. Thus, leadership and ideology not only contribute towards maintaining the structure and pace of the movement, but they also meet the changing requirements of a social movement spatially and temporally. This brings about variation in leadership pattern and also concomitant changes taking place in the ideological make-up in case of a long-drawn social movement. Thus, leadership and ideology in social movement studies are significant components that can neither be overestimated nor underestimated. They may rather be treated as those components which make social movements a dynamic social phenomena. Review Questions 1. 2. 3. 4.

How social movements bring about social change? Identify the varieties of social movements caused by social change. Does globalisation promote social movement? What is anti-globalisation movement?

92  Swatahsiddha Sarkar  5. What is new about New Social Movements (NSMs)? 6. Write briefly on the importance of ideology in social movements. 7. Examine the significance of leadership in social movements. 8. How does leadership change in the biography of a movement? 9. Discuss the nature of leadership in New Social Movements (NSMs). 10. Examine critically the mass–leader relationship in social movement studies. Notes 1 Ramasamy’s decision to delete his surname Naicker in 1929 was significant as it represented both a metaphorical vengeance against the caste as a system and a personal attempt at denouncing the metonymic significance of caste in one’s life process. 2 Bimal Gurung rose in power by displacing the one-time infallible leadership of Subhas Ghising in 200-7. Again in 2022 Gurung has been replaced by Anit Thapa, who became the existing Chief Executive of Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA), a semiautonomous council for the Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts of West Bengal.

References Aberle, David F. 1966. The Peyote Religion among the Navajo. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company. Bhatt, E. 1977. ‘SEWA as a Movement’. In Dutt, R. (Ed.), Organising the Unorganised Workers (210–223). New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House. Chatterjee, Partha. 1984. Bengal 1920–1947: The Land Question. Calcutta: K. P. Bagchi. Das, Prafulla. 2015, ‘Hill of Resistance’. Frontline 32 (5). 20 March. Available at: http:// www​.fron​​tline​​.in​/t​​he​-na​​tion/​​hill-​​of​-re​​sista​​nce​/a​​rticl​​e6951​​423​.e​​ce (accessed on 11 April 2015). Dawson, C. A., and W. E. Gettys. 1935. Introduction to Sociology. New York, NY: Ronald Press. Eyerman, Ron, and Andrew Jamison. 1991. Social Movement: A Cognitive Approach. Cambridge: The Polity Press. Geertz, Clifford. 1964. ‘Ideology as a Cultural System’. In Apter, David E. (Ed.), Ideology and Discontent (47–67). New York, NY: The Free Press. Guha, Ranajit. 1999. Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India. Reprint, Delhi: Oxford University Press. Habermas, J. 1987. The Theory of Communicative Action, vol. 2. Cambridge: The Polity Press. Hardgrave, Robert L. 1965. ‘The Riots in Tamilnad: Problems and Prospects of India’s Language Crisis’. Asian Survey, 5 (8): 399–407. Hardiman, David. 2006. Histories for the Subordinated. Delhi: Permanent Black. Harikrishna, K. S. 2013. ‘Waves of Resistance Never End at Nuclear Plant’. Inter Press Service News Agency, 3 February. Available at: http://www​.ipsnews​.net​/2013​/02​/waves​ -of​-resistance​-never​-end​-at​-nuclear​-plant/ (accessed on 2 February 2015). Kilian, L. M. 1969. ‘Social Movements’. In Faris, R. E. L. (Ed.), Handbook of Modern Sociology (426–455). Chicago, IL: Rand McNally. Kumar, Kapil. 1984. Peasants in Revolt: Tenants, Landlords, Congress and the Raj in Oudh. Delhi: Manohar. Lang, Kurt, and Gladys Lang. 1961. Collective Dynamics. New York, NY: Thomas Y. Crowell. Mauss, Armand L. 1975. Social Problems of Social Movements. Philadelphia: Lippincott. Melucci, Alberto. 1990. Nomads of the Present. London: Hutchinson Press.

Social Change through Social Movements  93 ———. 1996. Challenging Codes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mukherji, P. N. 1977. ‘Social Movement and Social Change: Towards a Conceptual Clarification and Theoretical Framework’. Sociological Bulletin, 26 (1): 38–59. ———. 1987. ‘Study of Social Conflicts: Case of Naxalbari Peasant Movement’. Economic and Political Weekly, 22 (38): 1607–1617. ———. 2013. ‘Social Movement, Conflict and Change: Towards a Theoretical Orientation’. Available at: http://www​.isa​-sociology​.org​/publ​/E​-symposium​/E​-symposium​-vol​-3​-1​ -2013​/EBul- Mukherji.​-March2013​.​pdf (accessed on 21 June 2016). Oommen, T. K. 1972. Charisma, Stability and Change: An Analysis of Bhoodan-Gramdan Movement in India. New Delhi: Thompson Press. ———. 1977. ‘Sociological Issues in the Analysis of Social Movements in Independent India’. Sociological Bulletin, 26 (1): 14–37. Opp, Karl-Dieter. 2009. Theories of Political Protest and Social Movements: A Multidisciplinary Introduction, Critique, and Analysis. London: Routledge. Pandey, Gyanendra, ed. 2011. Subalternity and Difference. London: Routledge. Porta, Dontella Della, and Mario Diani. 2006. Social Movements: An Introduction, 2nd ed. Reprint, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Pouchepadass, Jacques. 1999. Champaran and Gandhi: Planters, Peasants and Gandhian Politics. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Rao, M. S. A. 1979. Social Movements and Social Transformation: A Study of Two Backward Classes Movements in India. Delhi: Macmillan. ———. 2000. Social Movements in India. Reprint, New Delhi: Manohar. Roy, Arundhati. 2011a. Walking with the Comrades. New Delhi: Penguin. ———. 2011b. ‘I’d Rather Not Be Anna’. The Hindu, 21 August. Available at: https:// www​.thehindu​.com​/opini​​on​/le​​ad​/id​​-rath​​er​-no​​t​-be-​​anna/​​artic​​le237​​9704.​​ece (accessed on 12 February 2016). Sarkar, Sumit. 1985. ‘Popular’ Movements and ‘Middle Class’ Leadership in Late Colonial India Perspectives and Problems of a ‘History from Below’. Calcutta: K. P. Bagchi. Sarkar, Swatahsiddha, and Babika Khawas. 2016a. ‘Social Change and Social Movements’. INFLIBNET e-PG Pathshala. Sociology, paper on social movement. Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. Available at: http://epgp​.inflibnet​.ac​.in​/ ahl​.php​?csrno​=33 (accessed on 20 May 2018). ———. 2016b. ‘Leadership and Ideology in Social Movements’. INFLIBNET e-PG Pathshala. Sociology, paper on social movement. Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. Available at: http://epgp​.inflibnet​.ac​.in​/ahl​.php​ ?csrno​=33 (accessed on 20 May 2018). Seidman, Gay W. 2000. ‘Adjusting the Lens: What Do Globalisations, Transnationalism, and the Anti-Apartheid Movement Mean for Social Movement Theory?’. In Guidry, J. A., et al. (Eds.), Globalisation and Social Movements: Culture, Power and the Transnational Public Sphere (339–358). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Shah, Alpa, and Judith Pettigrew (Eds.). 2011. Windows into a Revolution: Ethnographies of Maoism in India and Nepal. New Delhi: Social Science Press. Shah, Ghanshyam. 1977. Protest Movements in Two Indian States. Delhi: Ajanta Publishers. ———. 2004. Social Movements in India: A Review of Literature, 2nd and enlarged ed. New Delhi: SAGE Publications. Shanin, Teodor. 1972. The Awkward Class—Political Sociology of Peasantry in a Developing Society: Russia 1910–1925. London: Oxford University Press. Singh, K. S. 2002. ‘Tribal Autonomy Movements in Chhotanagpur’. In Shah, Ghanshyam (Ed.), Social Movements and the State (267–292). New Delhi: SAGE Publications. Singh, Rajendra. 2001. Social Movements, Old and New: A Post-modernist Critique. New Delhi: SAGE Publications. Smelser, Neil J. 1993. Sociology, 4th ed. New Delhi: Prentice Hall.

94  Swatahsiddha Sarkar  Snow, David A. 2004. ‘Framing Process, Ideology and Discursive Fields’. In Snow, David A., et al. (Eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements (380–412). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Tilly, Charles. 1988. ‘Social Movements, Old and New’. In Kriesberg, L. (Ed.), Research in Social Movements, Conflict and Change, vol. 10 (1–18). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Touraine, Alain. 1977. The Self-Production of Society. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. ———. 1981. The Voice and the Eye: An Analysis of Social Movements. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 1983. Anti-nuclear Protest. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 1985. ‘An Introduction to the Study of Social Movements’. Social Research, 52 (4): 749–787. Turner, B. S. (Ed.). 2004. The Blackwell Companion to Social Theory, 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Wilkinson, Paul. 1971. Social Movement. New York, NY: Prager Publications.

5

Kernel of Social and Protest Movements in Liberal Democracy Rabindra Garada

Learning Objectives After reading this chapter, you will be able to:

• Contextualise the kernel of liberal democracy; • Assess the compatibility between democratic state and social and protest movement;

• Explicate the dynamic of mass politics, mass movements, and states; • Explore social movement as a process of democratisation; • Capture the dynamics of protest movement against the possibility and • • • •

limit of democratisation; Analyse protest movements against autocratic governments; Explain the Arab Spring as a democratic protest movement; Elaborate the rise and fall of an ethnic movement in democracy; and Comprehend democratic compatibility and transformation of India.

Introduction The liberalising tendency of democratic states shows an intense speculation worldwide. The world has undergone fast democratic changes in the last and current centuries. A large spectrum of its nation-states is democratic in nature (Freedom House 2016; Puddington and Roylance 2016). Nevertheless, a striking fact is that while some of the nation-states witness the process of de-democratisation, others invite people’s agitation, protest, movement, and revolution against it worldwide. As per a report of Freedom in The World 2023 by the Freedom House (2023), the last 17 consecutive years have been witnessing a decline in the index of global freedom. As per a Global data on status by population and status by country published by the Freedom House (2023: 30), in 2023, out of 7.9 billion populations, 20% is free, 41% is partly free and 39% is not free and out of 195 countries, 43 % is free, 28% is partly free, and 29% is not free (https://freedomhouse​.org​/sites​ /default​/files​/2023​-03​/FIW​_World​_2023​_DigtalPDF​.pdf). Over the last 50 years, DOI:  10.4324/9781003481744-6

96  Rabindra Garada  consolidated democracies have been remarkably resilient in preventing de-democratisation and setbacks worldwide (Freedom House 2023). The world has been the testing ground of democratic renewing, democratic backsliding, and democratic backfiring. Change is the unchanging law of nature in the world. The open secret with these dynamics depends upon the contents, contention, and context of democracy in general and liberal democracy in particular. The extent to which the liberal democracy is compatible and incompatible with social protests and social movements is a matter of debate and discussion in the nation-state worldwide. Before embarking upon these dynamics, a brief conceptual and critical review of democracies and social movements suffices for our comprehension. BOX 5.1 Illiberal Democracy and Liberal Democracy

Democracy: It is a direct or indirect form of government that is ruled by the people and allows movement against monarchy, oligarchy, autocracy, dictatorship, and theocracy (Garada 2016a). Democracy and Liberalism: Both democracy and liberalism (civil liberty and open society) show a turbulent relationship within a state. Both result in liberal democracies attracting one another as well as producing illiberal democracies repelling one another (Marc Plattner1998). Liberal Democracy: As compared to an illiberal democracy, a liberal democracy explores more avenues for civil liberties and open societies (Calleros-Alarcón 2009; Patrick 2010). It protects citizens and civil societies from state’s repression as well as harmonises individualism with the ethics of collectivism (Garada 2016a). Social Movement: It is an organised activity or a collective action that encourages or discourages social change. It reforms old social order and also creates a new social order with enough justification (Garada 2016b). In this context, democracy is not simply the government of the people, by the people, and for the people as Abraham Lincoln defines it; it is also a continuous movement against monarchy, oligarchy, autocracy, dictatorship, theocracy, and so on. However, political democracy cannot be achieved without social and economic democracy as Dr. B. R. Ambedkar argues and rightly defines it. Democracy is the principle of one man, one vote, and one value in both political and socio-economic life (Chand 2007; Ramana 2017). Many of its diverse forms such as direct democracy, presidential democracy, authoritarian democracy, representative democracy, participatory democracy, parliamentary democracy, social democracy, and Islamic democracy strengthen the institution of democracy globally. Since the process of democratisation is differently contested and contextualised in different nation-states, it is an uphill task to recapture each one in a comprehensive review.

Kernel of Social and Protest Movements  97 However, there exists a broad division between illiberal democracies (such as Singapore, Hungary, Honduras, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Turkey under Erdogan and the Russian Federation under Vladimir Putin) and liberal democracies (such as India, Japan, Taiwan, Israel, South Korea in Asia, Switzerland and Iceland in Europe, South Africa in Africa, the United States, Canada and Mexico in North America, and Brazil, Chile and Argentina in South America (Anton 2017). As compared to illiberal democracy, liberal democracy explores more avenues for civil liberties and open societies (Calleros-Alarcón 2009; Patrick 2010). Based on the principles of liberalism, liberal democracy is increasingly proved to be a real democracy, whereas in its absence the democracy often turns out to be partial democracy, low-intensity democracy, empty democracy, and hybrid regime. Notwithstanding the increasing popularity of liberal democracy in the world, a few states reject liberal democracy altogether (Garada 2016a). For instance, Communist China rejects democracy with counter-narratives (Habets 2015), whereas countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, and Russia have acted and reacted to the spread of democracy. Some democratic states either cannot confront the threat posed by the authoritarian governments or become authoritarian themselves (Diamond, Plattner, and Walker 2016; Fukuyama 2015). Nevertheless, the possibility of any social movement against such authoritarianism cannot be prevented in any democracy, and in liberal democracy, they rather become inevitable (Garada 2016a). In this context, the study of dynamics between liberal democracy and social movements becomes quite interesting and revealing. This chapter proposes to delve deep into such dynamics. Liberal Democracy: Practice and Paradox Although liberal democracy is practised in different forms, namely, constitutional monarchy (the United Kingdom, Japan, and Canada), presidential system (the United States and Indonesia), parliamentary system (the United Kingdom, India, and Italy), constitutional democracy (India, the United States, and France), and semi-presidential democracy (Taiwan and France), there is some commonality among them. It ensures common rights to citizens such as right to life, right to equality before the law, freedom from slavery, freedom of movement, freedom of speech, freedom of information, freedom of the press, freedom of association and assembly, and freedom of religion. Illiberal democracy also claims to have such rights but cannot guarantee these rights like liberal democracy (Doomen 2014). Liberal democracy also confronts many challenges in ensuring these rights in real practice. The practice and paradox of liberal democracy are revealed through its following major features: Liberal Democracy

• Free, fair, and competitive election; • Free and unbiased media; • Active citizenship and participatory democracy;

98  Rabindra Garada 

• • • • •

Accountability in liberal democracy; Multiparty politics; Role of pressure groups; Democratic rule of law; Separation of power.

Liberal democracy: In practice, liberalism and democracy as interrelated concepts get reinforced by one another under liberal democracy (Plattner 1998). Liberal democracy is liberal in the sense that it is amenable to changes and flexible to challenges against any sort of conservatism, absolutism, and authoritarianism. As a representative of democratic governance, it not only promotes democratic values of liberty, equality, and fraternity but also encourages majority rule with minority’s protection, limited government with free market economy, and so on. However, its constitutional conservatism (Habets 2015; Zakaria 1997) and political majoritarianism may turn it towards an oligarchic or polyarchic form of government in the long run. Paradox is that liberal democracy fails to set right the elected representatives who often become unreliable and act beyond constitutional values. Despite this limitation, liberal democracy checks collectivism over individualism and connects liberal individualism with democratic collectivism (Garada 2016a). Free, fair, and competitive election: Liberal democracy with a mechanism of universal suffrage and secret ballot generally conducts free, fair, and competitive elections with adequate representation and equal participation (Habets 2015). However, most liberal democracies are faced with the challenge of declining electoral turnout due to increasing tendencies of pessimism, apathy, and powerlessness among the voters (Offe 2011). Lack of interest is also caused by corrupt practices in elections by vested interest. In fact, liberal democracy can neither make voting compulsory nor prevent disrupting factors, such as age, gender, caste, class, race, and region, influencing voting practices. Free and unbiased media: Liberal democracy enables the media to protect the citizens and civil societies from any arbitrary action and repression (Diamond 1999) in its practice. It evolves unbiased media to achieve an informed public (Herman and Chomsky 1988). But the media may equally distort communication being influenced by commercialisation and politicisation. It may discourage mass view while presenting the elite view (Herman and Chomsky 1988). The media in democracy promotes Althusser’s ruling class ideology, Gramsci’s cultural hegemony, and Marx’s political economy, spoiling the possibility of Habermassian speech community and communicative action (public sphere) Garada 2016a). Active citizenship and participatory democracy: Liberal democracy promotes active citizenship and participatory democracy. But, in real practice, it also very often restricts the right to dialogue, criticise, and protest. The government can repress and suppress active citizenship and activism in the name of law and order problems. Gramsci and Althusser have shown how the governments can do so through coercion and persuasion and through repressive state apparatus (law, police, and court; Garada 2016a, 2016b).

Kernel of Social and Protest Movements  99 Accountability: Liberal democracy is accountable to the electorate and answerable to the media. However, it often deviates from free and fair election (Habets 2015; Huntington, 1991) because it cannot out rightly reject the excessive use or abuse of politics in actual practice. The unscrupulous politicians consequently resort to immoral money and muscle power in contesting the election. Unfortunately, it leads to class-based democracy as dominant classes very often manipulate power and politics in their favour (Garada 2016a). Multiparty politics: Liberal democracy believes in multiparty politics: distinct political parties can participate in the election. At least two parties are necessary as one in opposition questions another in power. The multiparty system can make effective governments against inefficient and undemocratic practices. It sometimes encourages coalition governments if the situation demands. However, there are cases where the opposition parties are not active and hardly interrogate the ruling parties. It is equally true that the ruling party may use the divide-and-rule strategy to keep the opposition under control. When such things happen, the power elites can easily deprive the minorities and masses in the name of majority rule. One may here argue that the majoritarian tyranny is incompatible with democratic liberalism (Deneen 2015; Garada 2016a). Role of pressure groups: Liberal democracy responds to issue-based lobbying by pressure groups. These pressure groups generally publicise and politicise the minority interests against the majority rule, whereas ruling political representatives can make use of issues such as cultural diversities and pluralism in order to stay in power. If, however, different pressure groups competing in a limited space become hostile to one another, the functioning of democracy may get disrupted. Democratic rule of law: Liberal democracy establishes a democratic rule of law: a constitution that guarantees the citizens with formal political, economic, and social rights and enables them to access and enjoy freedom in democratic spirit (Offe 2011). Further, it is the point of reference in guiding and correcting democratic functionaries. However, rigid constitutionalism may spoil the entire dynamics of democracy with lethargic administration, and bureaucratic inertia and ritualism (Garada 2016a). Separation of power: Liberal democracy promotes separation of legislative, executive, and judicial powers (Vile 1967). It thereby prevents concentration of power in any exclusive branch. The legislature passes the law, the executive administers and implements the laws, and the judiciary interprets and enforces the laws in their exclusive but interrelated domains. However, the legislature is vulnerable to disturbances in the parliaments as the party in power often dominates it while the multiparty practices easily disrupt it. As a corollary, the enforcement of laws often becomes complex and cumbersome and gets delayed in actual practice in liberal democracy (Garada 2016a). It is difficult to refrain executives from corruption while implementing and administering the laws. Extent of State’s Compatibility with Social Movements The compatibility between state and social movement reveals a critical concern in the contemporary world. However, from the Hobbesian contractual state to the

100  Rabindra Garada  Weberian bureaucratic state, social movements have played a critical role by challenging hegemonic power relations and responding to undemocratic state actions with contempt and disdain (Garada 2016a: 6). However, it depends on the nature of the state to tolerate social movements. The powerful states can subvert democracy while the weak states run the risk of inviting civil war and fragmentation (Tilly 2007). In contextualising the facts Charles Tilly (2007), has categorised political regimes into four major types: High-capacity undemocratic state: A high-capacity undemocratic state like North Korea, though vulnerable to top-level political struggle, can repress the mass movements by security forces. Low-capacity undemocratic state: A low-capacity undemocratic state like Somalia witnesses a host of violent struggle and civil wars with diverse ethnic blocs and political warlords. The contentious politics usually gets restricted to a form of revolutionary action in the first category, but it results in multiple forms of collective actions in the second category (Garada 2016a). High-capacity democratic state: A high-capacity democratic state like Norway becomes more effective in controlling political violence by showing liberal attitude to political parties, pressure groups, and social movements. Low-capacity democratic state: A low-capacity democratic state like Mexico is less effective in dealing with and monitoring political violence. Thus, the dynamics of collective action depend on whether a regime is democratic or not and its high or low capacity. Based on such experiences, protest movements become more participatory under substantive democracy. Notwithstanding the nature of political regimes, social movements including mass politics and mass movements have played a major role in transforming the earlier tribe federations, princedoms, kingdoms, empires, city-states, and city republics into modern democratic nation-states in the world. Communist revolution in Russia in 1917, Spanish Revolution in Western Europe in 1936, and Communist Revolution in China in 1949 had brought radical structural changes (Garada 2016b:4). BOX 5.2 Mass Politics and Mass Movements

Mass politics: Mass politics refers to a political process by which the masses/ people get into political activities and elections in the state. However, it occurs in spontaneous, unplanned, undemocratic, and controversial ways. It refers to mass-oriented political activity that occurs beyond institutionalised settings in changing and challenging the established political regimes (Garada 2016 b). The American presidential campaign and Protestant Reformation are obvious examples of this.

Kernel of Social and Protest Movements  101 Mass movement: It is a protest movement which gets supported by large segments of a population (Garada 2016b). Examples are Satyagraha, Dandi March, Non-Cooperation Movement, and Quit India Movement which took place in India.

Mass Politics, Mass Movements, and States Mass movement occurs when an organised non-elite group of people trigger changes in existing socio-economic and political institutions (https://www​.dictionary​.com​/browse​/mass​-movement). On the other hand, mass politics requires favourable conditions such as less authoritarian government (liberal democracy), more democratic participation (participatory democracy), well-informed public (public sphere), free and responsible media, and economic freedom. It also varies with different democratic practices. Accordingly, mass politics or a mass movement either gets provoked or becomes dormant. For instance, Gypsies in Finland; Travellers in Ireland; poor workers in England; migrant children in France and Britain; Dalits, Adivasis, and minorities in India; and unemployed masses in Britain, France, and Germany could vigorously organise protest movements when their concerned governments did not pay any heed to their predicaments, but the strength of these movements declined when the concerned governments pro-acted to their demands favourably (Didier and Royall 2010). The mass politics and mass movements maintain symbiotic relation. Indeed, both promote each other in a systematic way. Spontaneously they emerge against autocratic and corrupt governments across time and space. The mass collectivisation may, however, occur even without any clear-cut social boundaries or with unconventional norms among the participants. Mass movements may pursue extreme objectives like mobilising the alienated, uprooted, and atomised people (Kornhauser 1959). For instance, fascist and communist movements as mass movements had overthrown autocratic political regimes in the last century. The mass politics and mass movements were triggered by peasants, factory workers, women, industrialists, and others in Independent India, and during the Indian freedom movement, moderate and even extremist groups targeted the colonial rulers. In recent times, the anti-corruption movement led by Anna Hazare was also activated through large-scale mass participation. Mass politics turn into a mass movement when political parties, pressure groups, political activists, civil society organisations, trade unions, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) spontaneously come forward supporting mass mobilisation against undemocratic governments. For instance, the Chartist movement in Britain,19th-century slave trade abolitionist movement, women suffragettes in the United States, Afro-American anti-segregation movement in the United States, Anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa, peace and nuclear disarmament movements, environmental movement and gay liberation movement merged out of mass protest in the past.

102  Rabindra Garada  Social Movement and Democratisation A social movement strengthens democratic processes by reflecting upon the extent of democratisation in its emerging stages – origin, coalescence, institutionalisation, and success or decline (Blumer 1969; Tilly 1978). In recent times, social movements are also organised to express popular discontentment against undemocratic authorities. Beyond such a coalescence stage, social movement may become bureaucratised in the institutionalised stage, and in the final stage, it declines due to its success or failures. Tilly (2004, 2007) also points out that a social movement involves crucial democratic processes:

• A campaign; • Social movement repertoire; and • WUNC (worthiness, unity, numbers, and commitments). A campaign helps in involving organised public efforts for collective claims on targeted authorities. A social movement repertoire involves political actions through public meetings, demonstrations, processions, rallies, petition drives, solemn vigils, and so on. WUNC refers to the way participants of a movement express their commitment, strength, and solidarity for the cause of movement. Charles Tilly further substantiates such dynamics with models: the polity model and the mobilisation model. For changing the government, the former model emphasises on the government, polity, coalitions, and contenders, whereas the latter explains some important variables such as political interests, political opportunity, political organisation, political mobilisation, and political collective action. Tilly and Tarrow (2007) further emphasise on additional elements to strengthen the process of democratisation. These are: (a) political opportunity structure and (b) social and trust networks. Democratisation and Protest Movements Social movements are normally seen as instruments to establish or expand democracy. Such democratisation can change the state towards a broader, more equal, more protected, and more consultative relationship. But the opposite has occurred in history and is occurring even now. When democrats become autocrats, social movements battle against autocratic rule. Tilly (2007) has used the term ‘De-democratization’ to refer to a situation when a political authority reverses the gains of democracy and returns to authoritarianism. He has shown that during the last two centuries, even those countries which have taken significant steps towards democracy have de-democratised at least temporarily. For instance, the democratisation process introduced by the Weimar Republic in Germany postFirst World War was reversed by Hitler in 1933. These two kinds of conditions are linked with two different approaches to social activism: Top-down elitist approach and Bottom-up populist approach. While the latter approach results in democratisation through public space and transferring political power from top

Kernel of Social and Protest Movements  103 to bottom, the former approach may consolidate new forms of authoritarianism. For instance, the welfare state once introduced by the labour movements in the 1970s was opposed by neoliberal democracy in the 20th century in the Western countries (Tilly 2007). BOX 5.3 Process of Democratisation and De-democratisation

Democratisation: It is a process of obtaining democratic rule or a process through which a political government gets democratised. It leads the political government towards a more democratic regime such as from semi-democracy to full democracy and from authoritarian system to democratic system (Garada 2016b). De-democratisation: The process that deteriorates the state of democracy is de-democratisation. The reverse process of democratisation is the dedemocratisation that might affect democracies or break down the democratic regime (Garada 2016b). Samuel Huntington (1991) has critically analysed the historical waves as prodemocratisation waves and de-democratisation in detail. These are as follows:

• In the first wave of democratisation (1828–1926), democracy was adopted in about 33 countries in the Western world.

• During the cold wave (1943–1962), it spread to West Germany, Austria, Japan, Latin America, post-colonial Africa, and Asian countries.

• In the third wave (since 1974), the whole world started accepting it. • A fourth wave of democratisation was also visualised from 1989 to 2001 in Eastern Europe; for instance, Hungary moved to democracy in 1990.

• The democratisation process largely witnessed men’s suffrage in its first wave;

de-colonisation in Latin America, Asia, and Africa in its second wave; civilian governments in its third wave; and rapid collapse of non-democratic regimes in its fourth wave. • In the case of historical reverse waves, the first reverse wave witnessed Mussolini’s power in Italy, military power in Brazil and Argentina, and Hitler’s power in Germany, the second reverse wave persisted till the collapse of dictatorship in Portugal in 1974, and the third reverse wave resulted the killing of student democrats by the communist rulers in China. Thus, it is clear that while democratisation promotes a soothing environment for social movements, de-democratisation does not necessarily undo the strength of mass politics against autocracy. History is full of resistance and revolution of the oppressed/marginalised people against oppressive regimes. Let us focus on such possibilities.

104  Rabindra Garada  Protest Movement against Autocratic Government BOX 5.4 Autocratic Government

Autocratic Government: A system of government in which the complete powers are rested in the hands of one person unlike in a democracy where the power remains in the hands of the people. It can be of three types according to Mauricio Rivera Celestino (2011) such as military, personalist, and one-party. The military autocrat perpetuates human rights violations, the personalist autocrat monopolises state power, and the one-party autocracy (as one-party regime) can minimise the elite and mass threats. Despite despotic, dictatorial, and tyrannical repression of the autocrats, people have had organised protest movements against such rule, raising issues such as fraudulent elections, economic hardships, corruption, and lasting repression. Protesting against autocratic governments is normal and inevitable although not as usual. This is notwithstanding the fact that autocratic dictators such as Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, and Joseph Stalin had attempted to suppress protest movements. These protest movements as mass-driven or elite-inspired or mass–elitedriven were successful in ushering a transition towards democratic government in the Western and post-communist countries. Some unusual protests were also mobilised under stiff autocratic control, while others were prolonged or complicated. For instance, the democratic form of government once initiated in Iraq by the United States became unstable, whereas the non-democratic Lebanon and Palestine were moving towards democracy (Celestino 2011). Democratic movements are emerging in undemocratic countries like Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Iraq, and Palestine, whereas these movements in countries of the Arab League are dawdling. Citizens belonging to former countries have organised movements for democratic rights, whereas it is not even grounded in the latter countries (Garada 2016a). It appears that protest movements against autocratic governments are often region-specific and class-specific. Thus, for instance, the protest movements against autocratic rule organised by the elites in Latin America and Southern Europe (O’Donnell and Schmitter 1986; Przeworski 1991) are qualitatively different from the protest movements organised by the masses in African, Asian, and post-communist countries (Collier 1999). Arab Spring as Democratic Protest Movement The Arab Spring as a democratic movement emerged with a series of mass protests in the undemocratic states of the Middle East during 2010–2011. This refers to a host of pro-democracy revolts that have also caused ‘a network of diffusion’ among the Arab-majority States of North Africa and the Middle East (Zhukov and

Kernel of Social and Protest Movements  105 Stewart 2013). They inspired protest movements in both African and Asian countries (Ivory Coast, Korea, Myanmar, Azerbaijan, Vietnam, Iran, Iraq Kurdistan, Israel, Armenia, Maldives) and European countries (the United Kingdom, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ukraine, Greece, Russia, Turkey, Spain). It has been argued that protest movements in Kuwait, Oman and Lebanon brought many democratic changes (Rozsa 2012). BOX 5.5 Arab Spring

Arab Spring and Arab Awakening: There were a host of Arab revolts such as silent protests, sit-in protests, civil resistance, civil disobedience, selfimmolation, social media activism, protest camps, public demonstrations, riots, and revolutions. These revolts occurring in between 2010 and 2011 were commonly termed ‘Arab Spring’ (Ashley 2011) and ‘Arab Awakening’ (Aljazeera 2011). Interestingly, these were largely democratic in nature. Arab Spring and Network of Diffusion: Due to the Arab Spring, a host of pro-democracy movements caused a network among the Arab-majority states of North Africa and the Middle East known as a network of diffusion. The impact was directly seen in Burma, where people voted for the National League for democratic government in 2012 led by Aung San Suu Kyi against military rule. The Facebook campaign as a part of Arab Spring also brought democratic revolution in Egypt and Myanmar in 2011 (Shah 2011). It is worth noting here that not only the consequences but the factors that encouraged protest movements in these countries are also found to be democratic in nature. Thus, there were three major sets of issues impacting such movements: social, economic, and political. The social issues include gender discrimination, gerontocracy, fundamentalism, sectarianism, authoritarianism, patriarchy, demographic boom and increasing younger population, their educational attainment and democratic spirit, and democratic youth bulge, who increasingly used social media against authoritarian systems. The economic issues involve increasing unemployment, poverty, declining oil prices, inflation, decreasing demand for regional manufactured goods, crisis of food production, and price hike in food grains. The political issues include excessive regulated elections; political corruption; and restricted access to civil rights, human rights, and political rights (such as rights to vote, liberty, equality and expression, economic reforms and economic inequalities, and international democratic intervention). These issues were persistently raised by the leaders of the Arab Spring despite consistent autocratic oppression (Mushtaq and Afzal 2017; Sharabi 1988). Consequently, several authoritarian and autocratic rulers (from Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt) were removed from power, whereas various other rulers (from Saudi

106  Rabindra Garada  Arabia, Oman, Bahrain and Morocco) were forced to grant some socio-economic rights to their citizens. Some autocratic rulers such as Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Libyan leader Muammar Al Gaddafi adopted a proactive approach towards the Arab Spring after seeing the removal of Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Others like Moroccan King Mohammed VI made institutional reforms responding to new political and social changes.

BOX 5.6 Arab Spring vs. Political Islam

Political Islam: It is a basis for political identity and action or modern political mobilisation in the name of Islam. There were strong political and religious oppositions against the Arab Spring (Aljazeera 2011; Ashley 2011; Sharabi 1988). In the name of political Islam, Muslim brotherhood politics, and the like, the Arab Spring was castigated as ‘Westernised democracy “against” Arabian socialism’. They continued to assert the authority of Islamic religion over Arabian states. But due to the very strength of the pro-democracy movement, the Arab League and Gulf Cooperation Council finally decided to go for democratisation, even though there were very strong undemocratic consequences such as growth of terrorism, civil war, and communalism in many of these countries (Aissa 2012; Mushtaq and Afzal 2017).

Democracy and Ethnic Movement Democracy resolves ethnic conflict as well as breeds ethnic fragmentation (Hutchinson and Smith 1996). An ethnic movement, whether violent or non-violent, may promote changes leading to democratisation when rights of ethnic minorities are recognised; yet, at the same time, an ethnic movement resisting change or targeting other communities may turn out to be a de-democratisation process. The former process can establish civic nationalism or pluralism, whereas the latter can form ethnic nationalism or ethnic polarisation. The rise of new nations in Europe in recent times exemplifies the strength of ethnic affiliation. It should, however, be recognised that a democratic state often witnesses ethnic movements of different types such as (a) majority, (b) minority, (c) multiple minorities, and (d) majority-minority (Oliver 2016): As compared to ethnic minorities, ethnic majorities very often tend to secure more political representations with numerical majority, social network, and resources. The white supremacist, anti-minority ideologies, anti-immigrant, antiJewish, anti-Muslim, and anti-Catholic movements are the obvious examples (Bonilla-Silva and Tyrone 2000). The ethnic majority may also be involved in intersectional movements emphasising the non-ethnic issues such as gender, sexual orientation, class, environment, peace, and morality.

Kernel of Social and Protest Movements  107 On the other hand, the ethnic minority people concentrate on civil rights movements, political autonomy movements and cultural separatist movements against ethnic repression, and discrimination and marginalisation in the nation-states worldwide. The movements of mixed minorities, however, do not mix with the ethnic majority as their members are pulled towards a similar sense of non-privileged, deprived and ignored by the majority. For instance, a strong multi-ethnic communist union was built by Japanese, Chinese, and Filipino workers in Hawaii (Jung 2006). Despite many international cooperation and disarmament treaties signed, the ethnic security dilemma is looming large in the regions such as Sri Lanka, India, Iraq, Israel, Chechnya, Ukraine, Balkans, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and sub-Saharan Africa. BOX 5.7 Ethnic Diversity and Conflict

Ethnic Diversity: The existence of multiple ethnic groups with multiple ethnic and cultural identities in the countries. Ethnic Conflict: The ethnic conflict becomes endemic in such a country where ethnic diversity is not only respected but also used, abused, and changed by the ethnic groups over the time. For instance, the ethnic diversity perpetuates the ethnic conflict among Tamils and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka; Hmongs in Thailand; Malay and Chinese in Malaysia; Shias, Sunnis, and Kurds in Iraq; Kurdish in Germany; Serbs and Croats in the former Yugoslavia; Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda; Turks in Bulgaria; Jews in Hungary; and Greeks in Albania. There are also some mixed majority–minority movements, namely, the environmental justice movement (Perrolle 1993), colour women’s movement for reproductive rights (Luna 2011), the Black Lives Matter movement against police violence, U.S. civil rights movement, anti-slavery movement, and Indian anti-untouchability movement (Marx and Useem 1971). Although the process of ethnic identity formation has been interpreted from several theoretical points of view, it is a common place in recent times to argue along with the constructivists that ethnic identities are fluid, and such an analysis reinstates the possibility of development of new identity with passage of time. Internal differentiation within ethnic groups often provides the foundation for a plurality of ethnic identities under a democratic set-up. Beyond the simple melting pot model of ethnicity which stressed on blending of identities as an outcome of ethnic diversities in modern societies, research has proved that there are sequences (Smelser 1963) in the development of ethnic social movements, including change from one phase to the other depending on the context (Oommen 1997). It may further be argued that the process of identity formation itself in the contemporary world is marked by contextuality, fluidity, hybridity, and plurality.

108  Rabindra Garada  Democratic Compatibility and Transformation of India The democratic compatibility India has witnessed since ancient, medieval, and colonial periods has shown the world that it is the largest democracy today. Democratic compatibility in ancient India: The facts and artifacts of democratic evidence like Mahajanapadas, Ganas, Panchayats, and Sanghas found in ancient India reason with democratic compatibility. The ganas (republics), janapada (state), sabha (meeting), and samiti (assembly) were prevailing as democratic public institutions. The egalitarian principles of Buddhism like liberty, equality, and fraternity flourished in ancient India. Oligarchic form of government in the republic and direct democracy type of government in the village was perceivable. Democratic compatibility in medieval India: Din-i Ilahi, a syncretised religion established by Akbar, laid the democratic foundation in India. The collective worship beyond caste and gender differences propagated by the Bhakti movement provided a cultural basis for such syncretism. As a result of intermingling of different religious traditions and collective worship, Indian culture became pluralistic, tolerant, and liberal (Ricci 2014). Democratic compatibility in colonial India: India fought with the British for freedom but built democracy on British India’s institutional set-ups. Social reform and national movements spearheaded by Indian leaders themselves and British India’s modern education, transportation, communication, and legal systems had further strengthened the democratic spirit in India. The local self-government and the Government of India Act, 1935, the twin democratic prospects enhanced the politics of inclusiveness and contestation among the colonial Indians (Jeffrey 1994). It was the Indian National Congress (INC) which organised a secular political network across regions, gender, caste, creed, religion, and ethnicity in colonial India.

BOX 5.8 Indian National Congress as Inclusive Movement for Democracy

The Indian National Congress (INC) was an ardent advocate of democratic ideas in India. The Indian National Congress functioned like Dahl’s scale of inclusiveness and contestation (Ricci, 2014). To Ricci (2014) the political organisation of the INC is well matched with Tilly’s hypothetical argument of democratisation as how a government was to dissolve its pre-existing societal networks and to create new politically connected networks of trust.

Democratic Compatibility in Post-Independence India Based on pre-Independence democratic compatibilities, post-Independence India witnessed its democratic foundation, consolidation, and deepening in the long run.

Kernel of Social and Protest Movements  109 Democratic Foundation

The democratic foundation in India goes with the democratic roots of ancient and medieval India and the democratic transition that germinated through British colonialism and national democracy in colonial India. In the 1940s, the national leaders, who started debating the formation of the Indian constitution, were divided into two groups. One group emphasised on inclusion of suffrage, secularism, and federalism in the foundation of the sovereign Indian republic, while another group remained silent on issues of adult suffrage, pro-Hindu religious politics, and unitary or centralised state. Thus, Indian democracy and federalism emerged with divided opinions. However, its real consolidation started when Independent India declared itself democratic country in 1947. Democratic Consolidation

The democratic consolidation in India has passed through three democratisation phases. First phase of democratisation from 1947 till Middle of the 1960s:

• India gained Independence in 1947 and since then became the largest democracy

•

• •

•

in the world. The Preamble of the Indian Constitution declares it as a ‘sovereign, socialist, secular, and democratic republic’. However, India continues to witness democratic as well as anti-democratic waves since Independence (Garada 2016a). New challenges such as partition led influx of refugees, communal tension, ethnic tension, caste exclusion, and tribal marginalisation ignited collective action in India. Unlike Pakistan, India’s administration and Army were free of theocratic control. However, it could not resolve tensions stemming from primordial identities, even though it promoted democracy in the beginning (Tilly 2007). However, the elitist nature of the ruling Congress Party in terms of caste, religions, and regions soon made independent India move towards an authoritarian and majoritarian democracy. The majoritarian tyranny against the minorities and elite rule against the masses could not be checked. India, however, did witness the birth of some early human right associations in Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, and Punjab after independence, and they tried to foster democratic values and demand democratic rights. As Kothari (1990) has shown, these organisations fought for the rights of the working class, small peasants, marginal farmers, and landless labourers.

Second Phase of Democratisation since the Middle of the 1960s till the Early 1970s

• Since the middle of the 1960s, another process of democratisation came into

being when the state-level parties started challenging the Congress supremacy in power.

110  Rabindra Garada 

• The beginning of the powerful Naxalite movement in 1967 forced planners to rethink development policies and the importance of land reforms in particular.

• The weakening of the Congress Party also led to its splitting due to hegemonic,

elitist, and populist and personality politics, and autocratic rule during national emergency (Kohli 1990).

Third Phase of Weakening of Democracy in the Middle of the 1970s

• India witnessed a democratisation process in the middle of the 1970s when suspension of human rights was witnessed in the wake of national emergence.

• But, by doing so, Indira Gandhi could not retain her control over the politi-

cal machinery for long as Jayaprakash Narayan’s Total Revolution against the authoritarian democratic regime at the Centre at that time signalled the power of social movements to foster democratic values. • Consequently, there was a rise of new leadership leading to the formation of a new coalition by the Janata Party which defeated the Congress Party in the 1977 election. Fourth Phase of Democratisation in the 1990s and Onward

• The coalition politics consolidated Indian democracy in its unique form in the 1990s further strengthening the democratisation.

• It also started increasingly confronting the challenges of multiparty politics and rise of civil society activism in the form of anti-corruption movements.

• The democratic dividend is also evident in caste losing its hierarchical sig-

nificance (Srinivas 2003). Media exposure to undemocratic practices has also strengthened the voices of civil society. • The strengthening of Indian democracy through democratic collective actions continued later. These movements started pleading for right to information, right to environment, right to education, right to rehabilitation, right to life, right to self-assertion, and right against undemocratic practices in the country (Garada 2016a). • Interestingly, the Indian State also reacted positively as and when any social movement became powerful enough to influence public opinion. For instance, the demand for right to information was first raised by Mazdoor Kishan Shakti Sanghthan, an NGO in a village in Rajasthan. But gradually, it became a major public issue. In certain instances, the proactive role of the judiciary also enlarges the scope of democratisation. But, simultaneously, due to inter-religious and inter-ethnic conflicts in the country, pro-cesses related to de-democratisation found new expressions and language. Following Kothari (1990), we may argue that these are in reality expressions against homogenising tendencies of the Indian State. The sub-nationalist movements for separate states (Bodoland, Gorkhaland, Khalistan, and so on) challenged the centralised politics in India. Likewise, the Nehruvian model of centralised planned

Kernel of Social and Protest Movements  111 development was challenged by environmental movements such as Chipko movement, Appiko movement, Silent Valley movement, and Narmada Bachao Andolan (Shah 2004). As India progressed on its way from lower-middle income country to upper-middle income country, issues of rights of groups such as women, minority, Dalits, and tribals also found new routes of expression. The increasing visibility of Indian feminists, environmental activists, NGOs, civil societies, displacement protestors, transgender (LGBT) activists, and so on is really illuminating. More importantly, in a network society, social movements of different shades and colours have by now strengthened the scope for expression of rights of marginalised groups and communities. The democratic means such as Public Interest Litigation (PIL), Civil Society and NGO activism, political campaigns, and protest movements – all have led to democratic consolidation which is not merely a concept but a process of institutionalisation, socialisation, and legitimisation of certain democratic values and imperatives over decades. It still thrives in its evolutionary process (Misra 1999; Palma 1990; and Huntington 1968). It seems it has been crossing its consolidation stage or it is still in its transition phase. However, the dynamics of Indian democracy in the 1990s and onward led India towards her democratic consolidation. Democratic Deepening

• While all these above certainly point out India’s success towards the processes of democratisation, the contrary process of de-democratisation has also found its expression on the way. India’s democratic deepening witnesses both success and paradox (Heller 2009). • The gap between active citizenship and civic virtues (i.e., law-abidingness, open-mindedness, political willingness, political accommodation, or compromise) is not yet fully bridged in India today. Indian electoral participation is largely vote-centric politics without a valid mechanism of prior-informed consent for voting in India. • As a corollary, despite India being a large and diverse democracy, it confronts challenges in the form of separatism, casteism, religious fundamentalism, leftist extremism, along with socio-economic issues such as inequality, poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, exclusion, and marginalisation (Garada 2016a). Despite the long saga of rural development programmes and empowerment of rural people through local self-governments, issues of disparity, deprivation, displacement, and divide persist in rural India (Jodhka 2016).

Obviously, India is still on its way to fully realise and actualise the ideals of democracy. Studies on social change in contemporary India reflect both complementary and contradictory relationships between democracy and social transformation. Since economic liberalisation, the control and domination of India’s economic and political elites have increased in each and every sphere of social life. The continued domination of Indian elites over the masses is another paradox of Indian democracy. As compared to the urban elites, higher castes and middle classes, the

112  Rabindra Garada  working classes, Adivasis, Dalits, marginal peasants, and women from countryside and informal sectors are yet to enjoy the fruits of Indian democracy (Nielsen and Nilsen 2016). There are numerous instances of religious and cultural minorities becoming targets of majoritarian politics. It cannot be a matter of mere coincidence that there is a concomitant rise in the instances of violence against Dalits, tribals, women, and other minorities in neoliberal India. They rather signify a growing culture of intolerance in contemporary India. In India, the social movements against marginalisation and inequalities are more often perceived as law and order problems. The ‘authentic essence and liberating presence of the subaltern groups’ in the academic discipline of sociology is largely negligible (Garada 2013: 11). Indeed, it has been a critical heart-searching for Dalit, tribal, and gender in Indian sociology (Garada 2013: 11). Now, the subaltern consciousness, though has gained momentum, grapples with stiff mainstream opposition in India. Increasing occurrences of crimes, corruption, public violence, and public insecurity encircle average Indian as they move towards a global society. All these prove that we have hardly made use of the democratic dividend during the last six decades of Indian Independence and also allowed extremism to grow in certain pockets. We may agree with Balakrishnan (2016) that India has failed to nurture individual and collective capacities. There has been far too little effort in public policy to create spaces where citizens can interact freely and peacefully. The liberal democracy seems to be more acceptable because it checks collectivism over individualism as well as connects liberal individualism with democratic collectivism. Although it has been contested and contextualised differently in different nation-states, political elites, ruling classes, and vested interests have attempted to undo the achievements gained so far through several unfair and illegal means. For instance, steps such as constitutional conformism, majoritarian rule, pressure group hostilities, bureaucratic ritualism, political elitism, deviation from free and fair election, unequal political participation and inadequate representation, complex and cumbersome separation of powers, biased media, and uninformed public with distorted communication are some of the tactics used to turn the democratic states towards oligarchic or polyarchic governments. Despite these limitations, the world seems to be pressing towards democratic modern nation-states. At the same time, the existing liberal democratic countries are becoming more participatory and substantive and also more effective in controlling political violence. The pressure of social movements or rather the fear of social disapproval has worked as a major threat to the ruling elites and interest groups to accommodate and adjust to democratic principles. As Manual Castells (1997) has argued, in a ‘global network society’, collective identities are formed as an achieved definition of a situation, constructed and negotiated through the constitution of social networks which then connect the members of a group or movement through collective action to provide distinctive meaning to collective action. In a global society, social movements and their participants now seem to follow a new protest trajectory. A broad series of actors, including international NGOs and transnational coalitions, are acting in response to the development challenges posed by globalisation. As a result, social movements grow around the relationship of new social identity

Kernel of Social and Protest Movements  113 that is voluntarily conceived ‘to empower’ members in defence of this identity (Melucci 1996). We also need to recognise the role of global media and the rising middle class in promoting civil society activism across borders. Historically speaking, however, global democracy would not have become a possibility without mass politics and mass movements with a host of democratic revolts such as silent protests, sit-in protests, civil resistance, self-immolation, social media activism, public demonstrations, riots, and revolutions in general. For instance, the Naxalite movement of independent India for the first time forced the Congress to rethink its policies and programmes. Similarly, Jayaprakash Narayan’s Total Revolution was an eye-opener to many citizens of the country. There have been similar prodemocracy movements in many of our neighbouring countries forcing the state to adopt progressive measures, though often for a temporary period. Interestingly, the protest movements like the Arab Spring and Arab Awakening not only emerged against autocratic governments but also caused a network of diffusion among the non-democratic states of North Africa and the Middle East. But, at the same time, the rise of ethnic movements in many countries of Europe in recent past has led to ethnic fragmentations and violent conflicts, posing threat to ethnic minorities. Notwithstanding such complexities and contradictions, assertion of identity has now become an inevitable phenomenon globally, and there has been a rise of new types of social movements cutting across boundaries for assertion of new identities. The process of democratisation across time and space is therefore influenced by protest movements, while the latter is equally affected by the former. India’s vibrant multiparty democracy today is heavily dependent on protest movements, PILs, political campaigns, NGO movements and civil society activism, RTI Act, RTE Act, electoral reforms, and the like. It is because of such activism that India is able to constantly upgrade its democratic essence and prevent the opposite process of de-democratisation. The increasing number of self-disciplined and law-abiding citizens in India is a matter of great worth. Yet, Indian citizens have to constantly face threats such as casteism, religious fundamentalism, economic misery, regional disparity, displacement, and marginalisation. These challenges of retaining democratic values are also prevalent in the developing countries of the world in different forms. The lesson that emanates from such challenges is that democratisation is an unending process. There is no final stop to it as people have to constantly remain vigil against any possible danger or threat. When citizens take up the challenge to make democracy a foolproof system, there is constant pressure on the state to upgrade the system. Herein, the issue of governance (the action or manner of governing a state, organisation, and so on) and the role of social movements in keeping a check on state action become significant. Hopefully, during the last few decades, the whole world has witnessed new sites of people’s antagonism and new ways of protesting against autocracy. Emerging movements such as feminism, environmentalism, displacement protests, anticorruption movements, human right activism, Dalit activism, tribal movements, and LGBT movement have time and again challenged the tendencies of autocracy including those of majoritarianism. We may, therefore, conclude with the following cautions that Dr. Ambedkar had expressed long ago: Democracy is not simply

114  Rabindra Garada  a form of government that achieves the greatest happiness of the greatest number, but it is also a way of life that must establish social justice – the welfare of all. Unless and until that is done, social movements remain an omnipresent feature of all kinds of governments, whether democratic or not. Review Questions 1. What is liberal democracy? Explain its practice and paradox in democratic states. 2. Explore the compatibility between democratic state and social movement. 3. Analyse protest movements against autocratic governments. 4. Explain the Arab Spring as a democratic protest movement. 5. Write an essay on democratic compatibility and transformation of India. 6. Explicate the symbiotic relationship between mass politics and mass movements. 7. Give a brief account of social movements as a process of democratisation and de-democratisation. 8. Analyse the possibilities and limits of democratisation through protest movements. References Aissa, L. C. 2012. The Arab Spring: Causes, Consequences, and Implications. Carlisle, PA: US Army War College. Aljazeera. 2011. ‘The Arab Awakening’. Available at: http://www​.aljazeera​.com​/ programmes​/general​/2011​/04​/20114483425914466​.html (accessed on 16 July 2019). Anton, M. 2017. ‘The Future of Liberal Democracy’. Journal of Political Sciences & Public Affairs, 2 (5): 1–5. Ashley, J. 2011. ‘The Arab Spring Requires a Defiantly European Reply’. The Guardian. Available at: https://www​.theguardian​.com​/commentisfree​/2011​/mar​/06​/arab​-spring​ -european​-reply​-labour (accessed on 17 July 2019). Balakrishnan, P. 2016. ‘The Crisis of Indian Democracy’. The Hindu, 27 July. Blumer, H. G. 1969. ‘Collective Behavior’. In Lee, A. M. (Ed.), Principles of Sociology (65–121). New York: Barnes & Noble Books. Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo, and Tyrone A. Forman. 2000. ‘I’m Not a Racist, but Mapping White College Students’ Racial Ideology in the USA’. Discourse & Society, 11 (1): 50–58. Calleros-Alarcón, Juan Carlos. 2009. The Unfinished Transition to Democracy in Latin America. Routledge. Castells, M. 1997. The Rise of the Network of Society. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Celestino, M. R. 2011. ‘Protest, Collective Action and Regime Change’. Paper presented at Workshop on Beyond Civil War. Centre for the Study of Civil War, PRIO, University of Essex, UK. Chand, Shyam. 2007. ‘Dr Ambedkar on Democracy’. Mainstream, XLV (51), 8 December 2007. Available at: https://www​.mainstreamweekly​.net (accessed on 1 October 2019). Collier, R. B. 1999. Paths toward Democracy: The Working Class and Elites in Western Europe and South America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Deneen, P. J. 2015. ‘Equality, Tyranny and Despotism in Democracy: Remembering Alexis de Tocqueville’. Available at: https://the​imag​inat​ivec​onse​rvative​.org​/2015​/03​/ equality​-tyranny​-and​-despotism​-in​-democracy​-remembering​-alexis​-de​-tocqueville​.html (accessed on 17 July 2019).

Kernel of Social and Protest Movements  115 Diamond, L. 1999. Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Diamond, L. Plattner, F. Marc, and C. Walker. 2016. Authoritarianism Goes Global: The Challenge to Democracy. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Didier, C., and F. Royall. 2010. Mobilising against Marginalisation in Europe, new ed. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Doomen, J. 2014. Freedom and Equality in a Liberal Democratic State. Brussels: Bruylant. Freedom House. 2016. ‘Number and Percentages of Electoral Democracies’. FIW Report. Available at: https://freedomhouse​.org​/sites​/default​/files​/Freedom​_in​_the​_World​_2016​ _complete​_book​.pdf (accessed on 7 October 2019). ———. 2023. ‘Freedom in the World 2023’. https://freedomhouse​.org​/sites​/default​/files​ /2023​-03​/FIW​_World​_2023​_DigtalPDF​.pdf. Fukuyama, F. 2015. ‘Fukuyama Speaks at CEU about the Future of Liberal Democracy’. Available at: https://www​.ceu​.edu​/article​/2015​-10​-14​/fukuyama​-speaks​-ceu​-about​ -future​-liberal​-democracy (accessed on 17 July 2019). Garada, Rabindra. 2013. ‘Beyond Structural-Functional Perspective: A Critical Heart Searching For Dalit, Tribal and Gender in Indian Sociology’. IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 16 (6): 7–18. ———. 2016a. ‘Democracy and Social Movements’. INFLIBNET e-PG Pathshala. Sociology, paper on social movement. Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. Available at: https://epgp​.inflibnet​.ac​.in​/view​.php​?category​=1493 (accessed on 7 October 2019). ———. 2016b. ‘Approaches to Social Movements’. INFLIBNET e-PG Pathshala. Sociology, paper on social movement. Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. Available at: https://epgp​.inflibnet​.ac​.in​/view​.php​?category​=1493 (accessed on 7 October 2019). Habets, I. 2015. ‘Liberal Democracy: The Threat of Counter-Narratives’. European View, 14 (2): 145–154. Heller, Patrick. 2009. ‘Democratic Deepening in India and South Africa’. Journal of Asian and African Studies, 44 (1): 123–149. Herman, Edward S., and N. Chomsky. 1988. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books. Huntington, S. P. 1968. Political Order in Changing Societies. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ———. 1991. The Third Wave: Democratisation in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. Hutchinson, J., and A. D. Smith. 1996. Ethnicity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jeffrey, R. 1994. ‘Democracy in South Asia’. History Today, 44 (5): 43–49. Jodhka, S. 2016. Democracy and Socio-Economic Transformation in India. Delhi: Lokniti Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. Jung, Moon-Kie. 2006. Reworking Race: The Making of Hawaii’s Interracial Labor Movement. New York: Columbia University Press. Kohli, A. 1990. Democracy and Discontent: India’s Growing Crisis of Governability. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kornhauser, W. 1959. The Politics of Mass Society. Glencoe, IL: The Free Press. Kothari, Rajani. 1990. Rethinking Development: In Search of Humane Alternative. Delhi: Ajanta Publications. Luna, Zakiya T. 2011. ‘The Phrase of the Day: Examining Contexts and Co-Optation of Reproductive Justice Activism in the Women’s Movement’. Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, 32: 219–246. Marx, G. T., and Michael Useem. 1971. ‘Majority Involvement in Minority Movements: Civil Rights, Abolition, Untouchability’. Journal of Social Issues, 27 (1): 81–104. Melucci, A. 1996. Challenging Codes: Collective Action in the Information Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

116  Rabindra Garada  Misra, A. 1999. ‘Democracy in the Third World: What Should be Done?’ Paper prepared for the ECPR Joints Sessions of Workshops, Mannheim, Germany. Department of Politics and Asian Studies, University of Hull, UK. Mushtaq, Abdul Qadir, and Muhammad Afzal. 2017. ‘Arab Spring: Its Causes and Consequences’. JPUHS, 30 (1, January–June): 1–10. Nielsen, Kenneth Bo, and Alf Gunvald Nilsen. 2016. Social Movements and the State in India: Deepening Democracy? London: Palgrave Macmillan. O’Donnell, G. P. C. Schmitter. 1986. Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Offe, C. 2011. ‘Crisis and Innovation of Liberal Democracy: Can Deliberation Be Institutionalised?’. Sociologický časopis/Czech Sociological Review, 47 (3): 447–473. Oliver, Pamela. 2016. ‘The Ethnic Dimensions in Social Movements’. University of WisconsinMadison. Available at: https://www​.ssc​.wisc​.edu/​~oliver​/wp​/wp​-content​/uploads​/2016​ /04/ Olive​​r​_The​​-Ethn​​ic​-Di​​mensi​​ons​_A​​SA​_20​​1601​06​ ​​ _All​​.pdf (accessed on 17 July 2019). Oommen, T. K. 1997. ‘Social Movement and State Response: The Indian Situation’. In Shah, A. M., et al. (Eds.), Social Structure and Change, vol. 4, Development and Ethnicity (134–162). New Delhi: SAGE Publications. Palma, G. D. 1990. To Craft Democracies: An Essay on Democratic Transitions. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Patrick, O’Neil. 2010. Essentials of Comparative Politics. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Perrolle, Judith A. 1993. ‘Comments from the Special Issue: The Emerging Dialogue on Environmental Justice’. Social Problems, 40 (1): 1–4. Plattner, M. F. 1998. ‘Liberalism and Democracy: Can’t Have One without the Other’. Foreign Affairs, 77 (2): 171–180. Przeworski, A. 1991. Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Puddington, A., and T. Roylance. 2016. ‘Anxious Dictators, Wavering Democracies: Global Freedom under Pressure’. Freedom House. Available at: https://freedomhouse​.org​/sites​/ default​/files​/FH​_FITW​_Report​_2016​.pdf (accessed on 7 October 2019). Ramana, T. V. 2017, March. ‘Ambedkar and Indian Democracy’. International Journal of Academic Research, 4 (3[4]). Available at: http://ijar​.org​.in​/stuff​/issues​/v4​-i3(5)/ v4-i3(5).pdf Ricci, Kennedy. 2014. ‘Hinduism and Democracy: The Transition of India to Democracy and Its Implications for Islam’. An Interactive Archive of Exemplary First Year Writing Project, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN. Rozsa, Erzsébet N. 2012. ‘The Arab Spring: Its Impact on the Region and on the Middle East Conference’. Policy Brief for the Middle East Conference on a WMD/DVs Free Zone, Academic Peace Orchestra Middle East, Frankfurt. Shah, A. 2011. ‘Middle East and North Africa Unrest’. Global Issues, 24. Available at: http://www​.globalissues​.org​/article​/792​/mideast​-north​-africa​-unrest (accessed on 17 July 2019). Shah, G. 2004. Social Movements in India: A Review of Literature. New Delhi: SAGE Publications. Sharabi, H. 1988. A Theory of Distorted Change in Arab Society. New York: Oxford University Press. Smelser, Neil J. 1963. Theory of Collective Behaviour. New York: The Free Press. Srinivas, M. N. 2003, ‘An Obituary of Caste as a System’. Economic & Political Weekly, 38 (5): 455–459. Tilly, C. 1978. From Mobilisation to Revolution. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. ———. 2004. Social Movements: 1768–2004. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers. ———. 2007. Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kernel of Social and Protest Movements  117 Tilly, C., and S. Tarrow. 2007. Contentious Politics. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers. Vile, M. J. C. 1967. Constitutionalism and the Separation of Powers. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Zakaria, F. 1997. ‘The Rise of Illiberal Democracy’. Foreign Affairs, 76 (November– December): 22–43. Zhukov, Y., and B. Stewart. 2013. ‘Choosing Your Neighbours: Networks of Diffusion in International Relations’. International Studies Quarterly, 57 (2): 271–287.

Part II

Social Movements in India



6

From Peasant to Farmers’ Movement: The Changing Agrarian Dynamics in India Jyotiprasad Chatterjee

Learning Objectives After reading this chapter, you will be able to:

• Develop some understanding about the nature of peasant and farmers’ movements in India;

• Know the fundamental differences between the two movements; • Identify the features and causes of the two movements; • Explain the social bases of the two movements along with their similarities and dissimilarities;

• Analyse the different ideological orientations of the two movements; • Trace the multiple traditions within farmers’ movements in India; • Reflect upon the debate on the ‘newness’ of the farmers’ movements in India; and

• Recent Phase of the farmers’ movement.

Introduction Even after 75 years of Independence, agriculture continues to be the mainstay of economic activity in India, with almost 55% of the total workforce (Government of India 2023) engaged in agriculture and related activities. In spite of this, the continuously declining growth rate of Indian agriculture since Independence is a serious concern. Such mediocre agrarian performance finds its reflection in the economic marginality of its chief architects: the peasantry. The economic inequality confronting the peasantry can be traced in the ontology of the term ‘peasant’, which implies, ‘... people who engage in agricultural or related production with primitive (palaeotechnic) means and who surrender part of their produce or its equivalent to landlords or to agents of the state’ (Gough 1974: 1391). The poor peasants have revolted many times to alter the existing structural inequality and the related exploitative power relations of the country. Differences in ideology and mobilisation pattern, notwithstanding, all these mobilisations are peasant-centric. DOI:  10.4324/9781003481744-8

122  Jyotiprasad Chatterjee This lends them to be classified generically as ‘peasant movements.’ Afterwards, since the mid-1970s, a new type of movement has been initiated by the middle and rich farmers which has revealed some newer contradictions and concerns of Indian agrarian society. Peasant Movements Colonialism and its expansion historically sowed the seeds of peasant discontent in India; the colonisers introduced a new land relation along with a land revenue system through the enactment of the Permanent Settlement Regulation Act of 1793, which protected and promoted the interests of the landlords and other intermediaries marginalising the peasantry. Peasants across the different categories of tribe, caste, ethnicity, and religion rose into rebellion several times throughout the 19th century against the exploitation of both the landlord and colonisers to oppose the new land revenue system. Although class-like consolidation was covertly present in these, the overt consideration of the denominational entities rendered considerable haziness to the context to avert the wider solidarity of the peasantry against the oppressors. The economic transformation brought in by colonialism through the integration of the Indian economy with the international capitalist economic order provided the necessary underpinnings for the rise of Indian nationalism. The consequent emergence of organised politics in the early 20th century had its influence on the peasantry too. The earlier spontaneous and sporadic peasant outbursts were organised under the political party like the Indian National Congress. With the formation of the Communist Party in the mid-1920s, the small and marginal peasants along with the landless labourers were organised in a political platform with a distinct ideology. Largely, the peasant movements in India have received relatively less attention from the scholars and researchers than they deserve. Barrington Moore Jr (1966: 202), comparing the conditions of the Chinese and the Indian peasantry, concludes that in pre-modern India, peasant rebellions ‘had been relatively rare and completely ineffective’, although the process of modernization impoverished the peasants of both the countries equally. This leads him to characterise Indian peasants to be docile and passive in the past. In the same vein, Stokes (1978) also finds the absence of peasant rebellions in Indian history to be unusual. Both of them have attributed such weakness of the Indian peasantry to the caste system and its hierarchical division and fragmentation of society which has prevented the unity of the peasants. Gough (1974), Desai (1979), and Dhanagare (1983), however, challenge Moore’s contention regarding the docile character of Indian peasantry. Gough (1974) on the basis of her brief survey of 77 peasant revolts in India finds these to be not only common in India since the British annexation but also participated by several thousands of peasants. Since 34 of these revolts were exclusively or partially participated by the Hindus, she considers Moore’s opinion about the disintegrating influence of the caste system on Indian peasantry to be doubtful. Desai (1979: XII), from his in-depth survey of the agrarian situation in India, observes that the view of the Indian peasantry to be docile, passive, fatalistic, and submissive is wrong and

The Changing Agrarian Dynamics in India  123 needs to be refuted since ‘... the Indian rural scene during the entire British period and thereafter has been bristling with protests, revolts and even large-scale militant struggles involving hundreds of villages and lasting for years.’ Guha (1999) also finds agrarian movements of various forms and scale, ranging from localised riots to almost peasant war, since the initiation of British rule till the end of the 19th century to constitute the historiography of peasant mobilisation in India. Within a relatively shorter span of 117 years from the Rangpur rebellion of 1783 to the Birsa Munda uprising (1895–1900), he notes 110 instances of such incidents. Dhanagare (1983) also questions Moore’s empirical generalisations about the Indian peasants and feels the need to re-examine his thesis about the passivity of Indian peasantry in the light of extensive survey of various peasant resistance movements. Shah (2004: 40) also casts doubts on such generalisations and through an extensive review of the literature on peasant revolts in India concludes, ‘Peasant struggles have been widespread in both the post- and pre-independence periods.’ The following chronological list of some of the important peasant struggles since the introduction of British rule, as noted by scholars such as Gough, Desai, Guha, and Shah can be considered as the proof against the claim of Indian peasantry to be a docile, passive, and submissive category. Some Important Peasant Struggles in India

• The Sanyasi–Fakir rebellion, 1771, in Bengal and Bihar; • The Oudh revolt of 1778–1781 led by Raja Chait Singh and other Hindu and Muslim zamindars of Oudh;

• Rangpur and Dinajpur revolt, 1783; • The uprising of the Chuar tribesmen of Midnapore in Bengal in 1799; • The revolt of Pazhassi Raja – commanded tens of thousands of guerrilla fighters and affected most of the population of Malabar in 1796–1805;

• The revolt of the Muslim Pagal Panthis, converts from the Garo and Hajong • • • • • • • • • • • •

tribes, under Tipu Shah in northern Mymensingh (presently in Bangladesh) in 1824–1833; Titu Mir revolt in Bengal, 1827–1831; The Moplah (or Mappila) revolts of Malabar, 1836–1896; Movement of the Muslim Faraizis of Dacca and Faridpur (presently in Bangladesh), 1838–1851; Santhal tribal revolt of 1855–1856, involving a peasant army of 30,000–50,000; The ‘Mutiny’ of 1857–1858; Indigo growers’ revolt in Bengal, in 1860; Pabna Bidroha, 1873; Deccan peasant uprising, 1875, covering Pune and Ahmednagar districts and spreading into Gujarat; Birsa Munda uprising, 1895–1900; The Champaran Satyagraha in Bihar under M. K. Gandhi’s leadership in 1917; The Kheda Satyagraha in Gujarat under M. K. Gandhi’s leadership in 1918; The Moplah rebellion of 1921.

124  Jyotiprasad Chatterjee Movements under the Guidance of the Communist Parties of India

• The Tebhaga uprising in the north of Bengal, 1946; • The Telangana peasant war in former Hyderabad state, 1946–1948; • Strike of tenants and landless labourers in eastern Thanjavur for several weeks in 1948;

• Series of short strikes followed by attacks on granaries and grain trucks in Kerala, 1946–1948;

• Prolonged peasant struggles involving land claims and harvest shares during

1966–1971 led by the Andhra Pradesh Committee of Communist Revolutionaries;

• The Naxalbari uprising in West Bengal, 1967.

Far from being exhaustive these are only the movements which have either been participated by a large number of peasants or covered a relatively wider geographical area. Although Communist Party-led peasant movements are fundamentally different from the rest since they attempt to overthrow the existing power structure of the country, differences in form, nature, and strategies of mobilisation are there among the non-communist peasant mobilisations, as well. To comprehend these, a brief reflection on the features of peasant movements in India seems necessary. Features of Peasant Movements in India In spite of the diverse nature and trends of peasant movements in India, there are certain common features. Certainly, not all the movements have exhibited all the traits, but a significant number of these mobilisations are expected to reflect some of the features in their respective careers. 1.

Religious overtone: Religion as a vehicle of social cohesion has played an effective role in organising the peasantry in a number of mobilisations in India. Amid religious dimensions, however, all these movements exhibited a rigorous zeal to organise the oppressed peasantry against the landlords, moneylenders, and the British rulers and their administrative machinery such as the bureaucrats, police, and army (Sengupta 2001). Religious overtones are apparent in the effort of the peasants to be organised under the leadership of charismatic religious leaders to resist their exploiters (Gough 1974). Here one may find a parallelism between the peasant movements and millenarian movements: a form of religious movements, which aim at imminent, total, ultimate, this-worldly, collective salvation (Lindstrom 2002; Talmon 1968). Fuchs (1965) has found a number of peasant movements in India, directed against the British rulers and their allies, to have an expectation among the peasants about the imminence of the forthcoming Golden Age through some kind of supernatural intervention. Among these, the important ones are the Sanyasi–Fakir movement in Bengal of the late 18th century; the movement of the Muslim Pagal Panthis, the Muslim converts from the

The Changing Agrarian Dynamics in India  125

2.

Garo and Hajong Adivasis under the leadership of Tipu Shah in northern Mymensingh (presently in Bangladesh) in 1824–1833; the Wahabi movement in Bengal under Titu Miyan (1827–1831); the movement of the Moplah tenants of the Malabar region of South India from 1830 to the 1850s; the Faraizi movement in Faridpur (presently in Bangladesh) primarily under the leadership of Dudu Miyan during 1838–1851; the Santhal insurrection of 1855–1857 in some parts of Bengal and Bihar (presently Jharkhand); the Sardari Larai or the Mulki Larai (the struggle for the land) under the leadership of the Munda and Oraon sardars in Chota Nagpur (presently in Jharkhand) during 1858–1895; Birsa Munda movement (1895–1900) in Chota Nagpur region; the revolt of the Bhil Nath-panthis under Govindgiri in 1911–1912 in Rajasthan; the Tana Bhagat movement of the Oraon Adivasi community belonging to the western part of Ranchi district of Chota Nagpur under the leadership of Jatra Bhagat from 1914 to 1915; and so on. In all these, the rack-rented, evicted, and famine-affected peasantry participated wholeheartedly and ‘invested their leaders with supernatural powers’ (Gough 1974: 1398) and believed in immediate salvation through the sacred duty of annihilation of their oppressors, namely the British ruler and the landlord combine, even at the cost of their martyrdom. Lack of organisation: Peasant movements up to the 1920s (after which they entered into the domain of organised politics) often had been the unorganised expressions of the outrage of the exploited peasantry against their exploiters. Absence of organisation coupled with their spontaneous and sporadic nature located in a rural setting has often led the scholars to explain them through the notion of banditry following the lead of Hobsbawm (1971). As examples of social banditry, Gough (1974) mentions about the revolt of the Thuggee of North and Central India of 1650–1850; the Fakir–Sanyasi rebellion in Bengal in the late 18th century; the revolt in Kurnool, Andhra Pradesh, under the dispossessed military chief Narasimha Reddi (1846–1847); that of the Lodha Adivasi community in Midnapore of present-day West Bengal during the 19th century; and the revolt of the Kallar Adivasis of South India during the late 18th–20th centuries. Besides banditry as a strategy, these movements often exhibited millenarian trends. In spite of noting their politically progressive roles, Gough (ibid.) also, following Hobsbawm (1971), considers these movements to be ‘pre-political’, ‘primitive’, or archaic in nature for their non-responsiveness to the question of the nation-state and its future. Guha (1999: 6), however, contradicts this view quite emphatically and argues that in colonial India, ‘there was nothing in the militant movements of its rural masses that was not political’. To him, it is a tendency of the elite discourse to equate politics with organisation, so that the protest or insurgencies of the exploited subalterns, a necessary antithesis of colonialism, may be characterised as unorganised, spontaneous and, hence, non-political. Scott (1985) also

126  Jyotiprasad Chatterjee

3.

shares Guha’s opinion in this regard that politics takes an entirely different form in the case of the peasantry who are scattered across the countryside, often lacking any sort of formal organisation, but that does not anyway imply their ‘… political nullity’ (Scott 1985: xv). Non-sectarianism: Generally, the peasant movements in colonial India were non-sectarian in nature. In spite of the religious orientation of some of these movements, the reality of exploitation brought forward the cause of liberation of the peasants as the basic aim of most of these movements. In the Sanyasi rebellion, Wahabi movement, and Faraizi movement, for example, the rebels attacked the exploiters irrespective of religious denominations to bring an end to their sufferings. Tracing this in the Wahabi movement in Bengal under the leadership of Titu Miyan, Hunter (1876: 64) argued: ‘Any form of Dissent, whether religious or political, is perilous to vested rights. Now the Indian Wahabis are extreme Dissenters in both respects; Anabaptists, Fifth Monarchy men … touching matters of faith; Communists and Red Republicans in politics. In the peasant rising around Calcutta in 1831, they broke into the houses of Musalman and Hindu landholders with perfect impartiality.’ Here one can find a clear hint about the predominance of class consciousness, however incipient in nature, over the communal interest. Class interest became prominent in the movement which originally had emerged as a protest against some of the corrupt practices of Islamic religion (Smith 1943). The same happened in the case of Faraizi movement (1838–1847) too in Faridpur of present-day Bangladesh. The leaders of the movement rebelled against the landlords and the indigo planters of Bengal, who were the enemies of both the Muslim and Hindu peasants. Because of this, many Hindu peasants also participated in the movement. A similar union of the Hindu and Muslim peasantry was witnessed in the Indigo rebellion of 1860 in Bengal (Roy 1966). In Bengal, since the Hindus primarily were the landlords and the vast majority of the Muslims mostly were the peasants, it was relatively easy to label any form of anti-landlord struggle to be communal. Guha (1999), in his analysis of the 19th-century peasant movements, has noted this tendency of misinterpreting the class confrontation of the peasantry as communal or racial protest. In the instance of Pabna Bidroha of 1873, he insists that although religiosity did play a role in uniting the peasantry, mostly the Muslims, against the landlords, mostly the Hindus, ‘Clearly it was the anti-landlord aims and operations of the peasants’ league that gave the movement its basic identity’ (ibid.: 172). Along with the communal divide, the peasantry also transcended the caste and ethnic barriers to unite against their oppressors. This has been prominently evident in the Santhal insurrection of 1855–1857, where a number of artisan castes such as blacksmiths, potters, Telis (oilmen), Gwalas

The Changing Agrarian Dynamics in India  127 (milkmen), and carpenters actively joined hands with the rebel Santhals to achieve the goal of the rebellion. It was also successful in bridging the inter-ethnic differences. The participation of the Adivasi communities such as Mal, Bhuyans, and Pahareeahs in the rebellion serves as proof here. Gough (1974: 1403) tracing the non-sectarian disposition of the peasant movements in India comments that Indian peasants ‘are capable of cooperating in class struggles across caste, religious and even linguistic lines to redress their common grievances.’ 4.

Repressed but attained partial success: Although Most of the peasant movements in pre and post-independent India were violently repressed, they also attained some degree of success. The Santhal insurrection in Bengal and Bihar (in 1855) was violently repressed by the British authority, but it also led the East India Company to enact the Act 37 of 1855, which formed the Santhali areas into a separate non-regulation district, to be known as Santhal Parganas. The Santhals, thus, were successful in ‘forcing recognition of their special status as a national minority’ (Natarajan 1979a: 170). In the same vein, the Indigo rebellion in Bengal forced the British authority to constitute the Indigo Commission in 1860 which reasserted the peasants’ right to sow the crops they chose, and consequently the indigo planters, left with very little option, had to move away from Pabna, Bogra and Barasat in Bengal (ibid.: 170). Mention can be made of the Maratha uprising of 1875 in the Pune and Ahmednagar districts of Maharashtra, which saw the enactment of the Dekkhan Agriculturists’ Relief Act of 1879, that restricted the alienation of the peasants’ land and provided them with protection against usury. Pabna Bidroha of 1873 led by the tenants of Sirajgunj subdivision of the Pabna district in Bengal was instrumental for the enactment of the Bengal Tenancy Act (Act VIII of 1885), which greatly restricted the landlords’ absolute power in estate management. In a similar vein, the six-month-long Mappila rebellion in the Malabar district of Madras Presidency in 1921 forced the colonial authority to enact the Malabar Tenancy Act in 1929 to bring out the Mappilas, mostly the Muslim peasants, from the vulnerability of ‘rack renting and eviction at the hands of the Hindu landlords (janmi)’ (Hardgrave 1977: 61). Afterwards, the more organised peasant movements, launched under the aegis of organised political parties and their peasant wings, also reflected this feature. The Tebhaga movement of Bengal in 1946–1947, led by the Krishak Sabha under the guidance of the Communist Party of India, witnessed brutal repression of the rebel peasants but, nonetheless, was successful in enacting the Bengal Bargadars’ Bill of 1950 that legalised the Bargadars’ (sharecroppers) demand of two-thirds share of the crops produced. In the same way, the Telangana movement (1946–1951) in the former Hyderabad state of India, led by the Communist Party of India and its peasant and student wings, in spite of being repressed, had its success stories, as well (Sundarayya 1979).

128  Jyotiprasad Chatterjee 5.

6.

Unity of objectives: Each of the peasant movements, having different areas of origin and operation, reflected various strategies which were often in tune with the diverse culture and tradition of the respective regions. While some of these were violent, the others adopted the nonviolent strategy. Both the unorganised version of the peasant movements of the 18th and 19th centuries and the more organised ones in the 20th century exhibited these divergences. These strategic differences notwithstanding, all the uprisings focused on the foremost demands of the Indian peasantry to remove the unequal and oppressive land tenure system by bringing an end to the Zamindari, moneylending and the related form of oppression. Apathy of the middle class: During the 19th century, when the peasantry was fighting the most blistering struggle against the landlords, moneylenders, and their patron: the colonial rulers; the new Indian middle class was busy in organising several social reform movements. 19th-century Bengal, alike the peasant movements, also became the locus of waves of reform movements against some of the evil practices of Hindu society such as Sati, social ostracisation of widows, child marriage, polygamy, restrictions on women’s education, idolatry, etc. Popular as the ‘Bengal Renaissance’, the pool of such movements was limited to a minuscule cross-section of the urban, primarily English-educated middle class. The rural Bengali population, primarily the illiterate peasants, remained largely outside the purview of these. Strikingly, most of the participants, leaders, and rank and file alike, of the reform movements remained either indifferent or often opposed to the peasant movements. Ram Mohan Roy, the foremost leader of the reform movements, supported the European indigo planters and underscored their positive contribution to the cause of the peasantry of Bengal (Sarkar 1914). Similarly, Dwarkanath Tagore traced the benefits of indigo plantation for both the zamindars and the ryots (Natarajan 1979b). Hence, the two leading personalities of Bengal Renaissance could not find a concrete reason to oppose the inhuman oppression of the peasantry by the indigo planters and considered it only a ‘partial evil’ (Ram Mohan Roy November 12, 1829, cited by Sarkar 1914: 156).

To understand the stance of the middle class even better we can refer to Bankimchandra Chatterjee, the great literary figure of 19th-century Bengal as well as India, who, in spite of being quite sensitive to the issue of the peasants’ exploitation by the zamindars during colonialism, also could not support rebellion as a means to redress the grievances of the peasantry. In one of his essays, titled ‘Bangadesher Krishak’ (in Bengali), Chatterjee (1872) clearly declared, ‘amra samajik biplaber anumodak nohi’ (we do not approve social revolution). In reality, only a tiny section of the Bengali middle-class intelligentsia stood in support of the peasants. Among them, the prominent personalities were Dinabandhu Mitra, who described the plight of the indigo cultivators; Bengali poet Michael Madhusudan Dutta; Harish Chandra Mukherjee, secretary of the magazine Hindu Patriot and his

The Changing Agrarian Dynamics in India  129 colleague Girish Chandra Ghosh, Sisir Kumar Ghosh, founder of the Amrita Bazar Patrika, etc. The new middle class, apart from them, was blatantly silent about the miserable condition of the peasantry. Perhaps, the middle class and the landlords: the beneficiaries of the Permanent Settlement Act of 1793, found a vested interest in colonial rule to consolidate their class interests. Thus, it is apparent that the peasant movements exhibit certain commonalities on the issues addressed. The similarity in the issues might be the result of the combined exploitation of the peasants by the zamindars and colonial authority, the most obvious cause of all these movements. Causes of Peasant Movements The peasant movements during the British rule were primarily caused by the introduction of private property in land which replaced the customary right of the village community over village land and the new land revenue system that made the individual landholder the unit of land assessment and revenue payment instead of the village community. Moreover, the compulsion to pay the revenue in terms of cash, removing the earlier system of payment through a portion of annual agricultural produce, also added to the sufferings of the peasantry. Desai (1948) has painstakingly analysed the impact of the new land relation on the growing fragmentation of land and commercialisation of agriculture, which enhanced the poverty and indebtedness of the peasants to a greater extent. The consequent transfer of land from the cultivating owners to the non-cultivating owners viz. the landlord and the absentee landlords, had considerably changed the property relation in the villages. On the one hand, there had been the proliferation of the class of non-cultivating landlords and growing misery of the class of agricultural proletariat composed of the poor peasants, sub-tenants, and landless labourers, on the other hand. Since there was very little substantial change in the techniques and management of agricultural production, the alarmingly growing polarisation could reach a condition, as Desai (1948) recollects Radahakamal Mukherji’s apprehension, where the agricultural proletariat out of despair could join the industrial proletariat to initiate great social upheaval in India. Such changes in the traditional agricultural pattern of a feudal society, argues Magdoff (2013), were indeed necessary for the development of capitalism. Along with the changing attitude to society, money, and obligations to others, these changes would also dispossess a section of the peasantry who will be left with very little option but to sell their labour power for survival. This was the case in Europe, especially in Britain in the 17th and 18th centuries. He terms this process of primary accumulation as - dispossession by enclosure. In Magdoff we find a resonance of Desai (1948) who has talked about the same transformation in his discussion about the impact of British colonialism on Indian agriculture. Therefore, colonial land relations induced dispossession from their means of production, or the threat of it, apparently had been the raison d'etre of the peasants’ uprisings since and during the British rule in India. They tried to resist rack-renting, excessive land revenue determined primarily by the landlords, veth begari or extraction of free forced labour, forced eviction from land, and other exploitative

130  Jyotiprasad Chatterjee measures of the colonisers and landlords in agreement. Needless to mention, occupancy rights of the tenant cultivators over land and its equal distribution to all cultivators had been the main demands of the peasant mobilisations. Since Independence, the agricultural scene in India has been dotted by a new phase of change. Institutional reforms, primarily in the form of land reform policies along with adult franchise introduced by the democratic government of India, had been instrumental in this. The dissolution of landlordism was bringing in changes in the earlier property relation in the countryside. With the average size of landholding declining from 2.28 hectare in 1970–1971 to 1.08 hectare in 2015–2016 (Government of India 2019) the demand for landless labourers has diminished considerably, since small plots can be well managed by family labourers (Gupta 2005). With the increasing application of modern technology and related implements in agriculture since the mid-1960s, this trend gained further momentum. Introduction of adult franchise had resulted in increasing entry of the backward castes, scheduled castes, and other marginalised sections, mostly the landless labourers hitherto, into the domain of democratic politics. The resultant ‘democratic upsurge’ (Yadav 1999: 2397), dealt a severe blow to the traditional political grip of the dominant caste. The shrinking landholding of the erstwhile propertied dominant castes made them unable to employ the landless which diminished their influence and power as patrons and political leaders, as well (Gupta 2005). The economic and political changes also had their cultural influences. The newly attained economic and political positions led the erstwhile landless labourers to consider labouring on the landlords’ land as degrading and they started to find jobs in the towns and cities. This had its ramifications in the changing nature of the agrarian movements. The sufferings of the landless labourers, a primary reason for the agrarian agitation up to the late 1970s, has been increasingly becoming irrelevant in the mobilisations since the early 1980s. The rural Indian scene, marked by the dwindling presence of agricultural labourers, altered the nature of agrarian resistance significantly. Some stray instances apart, the ‘farmers’, of variable size of landholdings with their demands for protection and profitable agriculture compose the substance of agrarian unrest today. Rural India, which had been the site for peasant uprisings since the introduction of British rule or even earlier, is now witnessing a completely different mobilisation, in terms of goals, strategies, and organisations, in the shape of the ‘farmers’ movement’. Farmers’ Movement in India Emerging in the 1970s and developing further since the 1980s, the farmers’ movement in India, has unearthed some newer dialectics and concerns of the Indian agrarian society. Participated primarily by the middle and rich farmers of different Indian states, the farmers’ movement has inaugurated a new and distinct trend in the tradition of the agrarian struggle in India. In a marked difference to the earlier movements of the small and marginal peasants along with the landless agricultural labourers against the landlords, the farmers’ movement primarily reflects the yearnings of the upper stratum of the rural society. Hence, in the long

The Changing Agrarian Dynamics in India  131 tradition of agrarian movements in India, the farmers’ movement poses certain interesting questions. Is it a matured stage of the peasant movements? What constitutes the conflict core of the movement? Is it a complete denial or rejection of the primary contradiction between the landless peasants and the landed stratum of the rural Indian society? A critical understanding of the nature of the farmers’ movement in India depends on the answers of these questions. To begin with let us start with the major distinctions between the terms peasant and farmer as presented in Table 6.1.

Table 6.1 Peasants and Farmers: Conceptual differences Indicators

Peasants

Meaning of the term

Primarily used, as says Ghanshyam Shah (2004), to designate those agriculturalists who are homogeneous, having small holdings cultivated by family labour. Often the landless agricultural labourers are also included in this category. Objectives of Satisfaction of various needs of their production respective families. Economic status As propertyless or less-propertied, they occupy the lower strata of the agrarian society.

Farmers Used to refer to the persons who own or manage farms.

Produces for the larger market. Propertied and usually occupy middle and upper strata of the agrarian society.

Organisation and Leadership of Farmers’ Movement

The farmers’ movement, since the 1970s, has been organised by different organisations and leadership in different states of India. The notable ones are the Shetkari Sanghatana in Maharashtra, led by Sharad Joshi; the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU), led by M. S. Tikait in Uttar Pradesh (UP) and by Ajmer Singh Lakhowal, Balbir Singh Rajwal, and Bhupinder Singh Mann in Punjab; the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh in Gujarat; the Tamil Nadu Agriculturalists’ Association (Tamilaga Vyavasavavigal Sangham or TVS) in Tamil Nadu, led by Narayanaswamy Naidu; and the Karnataka State Farmers’ Association (Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha or KRRS) in Karnataka, led by M. D. Nanjundaswamy (Brass 1994: 3). Of late, an umbrella organisation of 150 farmers’ organisations, namely, the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC) came into being in 2017. Major Demands of the Farmers’ Movement in India

The farmers’ organisations, in spite of their differences in ideological and strategic aspects, have raised the following demands in their respective areas or regions of operation:

132  Jyotiprasad Chatterjee 1 . 2. 3. 4.

Lower prices on inputs such as seeds, fertilisers, and pesticides; Lower tariffs on electricity and water; Removal of land revenue and imposition of tax based on output alone; Waiving off loans of the farmers to the government, banks, and cooperative societies, fallout of the unjustified levy system, and low prices of agricultural outputs imposed by the government; 5. Reduction of rate of interest on fresh loans; 6. Waiving off tax and other restrictions on the use of agricultural implements such as tractors and tractor-trailers; 7. Determining agricultural prices logically, considering the input prices and man-hours spent for agricultural production; 8. Higher output prices of grains, cash crops, vegetables, milk, and so on; 9. Provision of crop insurance; and 10. Proper balance in the terms of trade between industry and agriculture ameliorates its allegedly pro-industry bias marginalising agriculture. The demands are fundamentally aimed at increasing output prices of agricultural products and lowering the input costs: the obvious demands of an archetypal farmer. The basic goal, undoubtedly, was to benefit the farmers through an increase in agricultural profitability, which the Green Revolution, perhaps, could not ensure (Dhanagare 2013). Demands to secure the farmers’ interest through various provisions are certainly there (Nadkarni 1973), but the most typical issues of peasant movements such as the implementation of land reform laws, redistribution of surplus land, protecting the interests of the small peasants or tenants, and the agricultural labourers, are clearly absent in the agenda of the farmers’ organisations in general. The conviction of the farmers’ organisations that ‘Anyone who did not own land was not really a farmer’ (Gupta 2005: 754) might be an explanation for such absence of the peasants’ concerns. Leaving aside the peasants and the agricultural labourers, here the bias of the farmers’ movement towards the rich and middle farmers is apparent. Important Features of the Farmers’ Movement

The features of the farmers’ movement can be discerned from Dhanagare’s (2013) thorough analysis of farmers’ movement in Maharashtra. These have been summarised by Chatterjee (2017: 4–5) in the following: Pan Indian scope: In contrast to the large region, district or at best one or two states-specific peasant movements, the farmers’ movement of the 1970s and 1980s, except few states like Kerala, West Bengal, and those of the Northeast India, has drawn their support, though not well coordinated always, from the farmers all over India. 2. Uniformity of demands: From the list of important demands of the movement, it can be easily discerned that everywhere protection of the interest of 1.

The Changing Agrarian Dynamics in India  133 the farmers by increasing agricultural profitability through cost-based agricultural prices has been the central concern of the farmers’ movement. 3. Common strategies of agitation: Farmers’ movements across the states have exhibited strategic commonality. Massive demonstrations (dharnas, gheraos) of lakhs of farmers blocking roads including highways and railways (rasta roko) have been witnessed in different states. Often the entry of the politicians and government officials into the villages has been barred. Strategy of boycotting mandis (local agro-business hub) either in the form of refusal to sell farm produce particularly onion, cotton, and tobacco in market, or to sell farm produce at low prices, have often been adopted. Such refusal has resulted in sharp price rises (Lindberg 1994). Often the farmers have organised protest marches or rallies to make their demands felt. Refusal to pay tax arrears, electricity bills, and interest on the loans taken from banks and credit cooperatives are also common strategies. Quite similar to Dhanagare’s (2013) characterisation of the movement as non-violent, Lindberg (1994) finds the farmers’ movement across the states to closely resemble the civil disobedience movement. Since the dying phase of the 1980s, however, the farmers’ movement has deviated from such a path of non-violence. To Sharad Joshi, one of the prominent leaders of the movement, this is due to the growing influence and strength of the communal forces (ibid.: 96). 4. Intellectual and charismatic leadership: Usually, the leaders of the farmers’ movements in different states are themselves farmers. Besides, some of them are also intellectuals with the capability to effectively articulate the demands of the farmers along with the ideological justifications. Such intellectual ability, perhaps, has been instrumental for them to get elevated to the stature of charismatic leadership (Lindberg 1994). This is especially true of Sharad Joshi, a retired UN official, and Mahendra Singh Tikait, a Jat peasant and clan leader who has the analytical skill to theoretically situate the demands of the farmers along with leading the agitations from the front. This intellectual leadership has led the farmers’ movements to bring in ‘new ideas in theoretical and ideological discourses’ for the first time in the history of protest movements in post-colonial India (Dhanagare 2013: 174). The leaders’ insights about the impact of the penetration of global capital in the farm sector of India and the state response to it, the Green Revolution induced imbalances and crisis of the farm sector, etc. are indicative of this. Moreover, such capability helped them to formulate and articulate the demands of the movement in a language which could be easily perceived by the farmers. The demands, values, and strategies of the farmers’ movement closely resemble the new social movement (NSM). The contestations about the importance of ‘class’ in the movement, the nature of identity politics implicated in the conceptual construction of the term ‘farmer’, and the ‘rural’ being the site of the mobilisation are some of the potential factors for such a claim. The NSM approach has been discussed in detail in the first chapter; here a brief outline of it seems necessary.

134  Jyotiprasad Chatterjee The thinking about NSM began during the 1960s in the United States and Europe due to the alleged failure of the orthodox Marxist approach to analyse the wide-scale students’ movements in Europe and the significant participation of students in the anti-war movements in the United States. The Marxist class analysis, with its theoretical scope limited to the industrial society, could not offer a valid analysis of the NSMs, which are instances of unique protest mobilisation under the structural conditions of the post-industrial society. Apart from ‘class’ of the industrial society, demands of NSMs dwell more on the core post-materialist values like ‘quality of life and lifestyle concerns’ (Pichardo 1997: 414). Thus, more than state, the autonomous sphere of the civil society, and more than class or any other structured category, the fluidity and flexibility of identity become the sites of the NSMs. The movements of the students, farmers in the Indian context, women, ethnic groups, and so on, with an emphasis on the new politics of identity, naturally come under the purview of the NSM approach. Farmers’ Movement as NSM

Here the moot question, perhaps, is: can the farmers’ movement in India be considered or classified as an NSM? The answer to the question is not straight at all. As a manifestation of social dynamics, classifying a social movement might always become tentative. This is because with changing time and priorities, it becomes imperative for a social movement to change its nature and predilections. A social movement of a perceived variety might acquire newer dimensions to address the need for the changing hours, hence rendering the earlier classification irrelevant. The same is true for the peasants’ and the farmers’ movements in India. Hence, to judge the claims of newness of the farmers’ movement, a glance over the differences between the two movements seems important. Table 6.2 is an attempt in this direction. Gupta (2005) has also pointed out the non-class nature of the farmers’ movement. To him, vertical mobilisation across class primarily distinguishes the farmers’ movement from the earlier peasant movements. To substantiate this, he argues, ‘Rural agitations today are no longer between agricultural labourer and landlord as used to be the case as late as the 1970s’ (Gupta 2005: 754). Singh (2001) also considers the rural ruling class composed of the zamindars, talukdars (a person in charge of a taluk/tehsil or district), and jagirdars (a person responsible for the maintenance of the financial system of Jagir or the area, a small part of the empire, assigned to her/him by the emperor) to be the adversary of the traditional peasant movements while the state is the chief opponent of the farmers’ mobilisations. These shades of opinion explicate the newness of the farmers’ movement. Lindberg (1994) shows how the organisational dimensions of the farmers’ movement come close to the contemporary NSMs. Referring to the Shetkari Sanghatana in Maharashtra, he argues that the organisational structure of this movement is,

The Changing Agrarian Dynamics in India  135

Table 6.2 Differences between Farmers’ Movement and classical Peasant Movements: opinions of Byres and Assadi Criteria

Peasant Movement

Farmers’ Movement

Agency Central focus Agitational form Methods of agitation

Peasants Land Party-based Traditional methods, violent as well as non-violent Restricted to the cause of the peasants exclusively

Farmers Market and prices Non-party-based Distinctive, novel, primarily nonviolent methods

Nature of agenda addressed Major opposition Mobilisational field Major thrush

Broader to include environment and women’s issues, also embrace a new set of post-material values Local landlords, External agencies like state and zamindars, moneylenders industrial capital/international capital Exploited and pauperised Entire rural population, irrespective of peasants as a distinct the economic, ethnic, caste, religious, economic category and political differences To free and liberate the Retrieving identities, communitarian peasants from the clutches life, and cultural practices threatened of exploitation by capitalism both Western and indigenous

Source: Byres (1995) and Assadi (2002)

anarchic or ‘post-modern’ in the sense that, much like new social movements in the West, it builds structures around actions rather than routine organisation. There is no fixed membership, no fixed rules of organisation, or strict tiers between local, intermediate and top levels in the organisation. Anybody who wears the badge, who participates in agitation … is a member. (p. 112) Omvedt (1994) also notes the non-political form of the farmers’ movement characterised by its anti-urban/anti-state/anti-capitalist ideological orientation. She believes that the informal, ad hoc, and flexible organisational pattern of the farmers’ movement brings it close to the NSMs. To clarify the informality she argues, ‘There is no formal membership but a badge with the name of the organisation written in white on red’ (ibid.: 137). The organisational adhocism and informality certainly bring the farmers’ movement to the analytical scope of the NSMs. From the nature of the farmers’ movement in India we find an imprint of the ‘new politics’ occupying the ‘non-institutional’ space, which Habermas (1981) and Offe (1985) consider to be the fundamental character of the NSMs. The non-class or post-class new politics of the farmers’ movement has led many scholars to consider it as a ‘quest for the farmers’ identity within the larger structural binaries of rural versus urban, agriculture versus industry, colonised versus colonialist, indigenous versus non-indigenous or more broadly east versus the west’ (Chatterjee

136  Jyotiprasad Chatterjee 2017: 9). Sharad Joshi’s thoughtful slogan ‘Bharat against India!’ (Joshi 1981) epitomises the identity assertion of the farmers. BOX 6.1 Bharat against India

India corresponds to that notional entity that has inherited from the British the mantle of economic, social, cultural, and educational exploitation, while Bharat is that notional entity which is subject to exploitation for the second time ever since the termination of the external colonial regime. In brief, the Black Britishers have replaced the White ones to the benefit of Bombay rather than that of Manchester (quoted in Assadi 2002: 44). Bharat is the indigenous name for India, with positive connotations, while India is the Westernised name, symbolising exploitation (quoted in Lindberg 1994: 96). Joshi quite perfectly resonates with the internal colonialism thesis, which provides an analytical insight into the process of identity formation in most of the underdeveloped nations in the contemporary world in general and the marginalisation of the Dalits and minorities particularly in India. Substantively, his message implies that the indigenous rural ‘Bharat’ has turned out to be the colony of the urban ‘India’. Joshi quite succinctly underscores the relative importance of ‘identity’ over ‘class’ in the context of farmers’ movement in India when he remarks, ‘The real contradiction is not in the village, not between big peasants and small, not between landowners and landless, but between the agrarian population as a whole and the rest of the society’ (Interview, March 1989, mentioned by Lindberg 1994: 96). M. S. Tikait of the BKU, another prominent leader of the farmers’ movement, has also identified the identity assertion of the farmers to occupy the conflict core of the movement. This is explicit when he says that the movement is primarily directed to ‘safeguard the honour, dignity and self-respect of the kisans,’ as quoted by Zoya Hasan (1989: 2663). Echoing Sharad Joshi in Maharashtra and M. D. Nanjundaswamy of the KRRS in Karnataka, he also talks about the overall feeling of discrimination and deprivation of the Kisans (the farmers) in the countryside affected by the urban-based politicians, bureaucracy, and the government. Such a feeling of discrimination is apparent from his sarcastic comments made after several visits to Delhi, ‘Let’s talk about land reforms when there is a ceiling on urban property – look at those skyscrapers!’ (quoted by Lindberg 1994: 97). Moreover, like the NSMs, the Tikait-led BKU also has consciously maintained distance from institutional political spheres marked by party competition. Hasan (1989) believes that this claimed political neutrality has been an attempt on BKU’s part to prove its credibility before the government. Moreover, mobilisation backed up by a nonpartisan and genuinely Kisans ideology would help to unite the farmers, ‘across the … identities of caste, clan, community and class’ (ibid.: 2665).

The Changing Agrarian Dynamics in India  137 The farmers’ movement, for its apparently non-class and non-institutional political orientation, deviates considerably from the tradition of peasant movements in India. It exhibits the changing ethos and nature of rural agitation in contemporary India. Pitted against the industrial/urban working class ideologically and culturally, it strongly articulates the identity and aspirations of the ‘farmers’ or the owner cultivators, Akhil Gupta (1998) relates this whole process of identity construction with the development discourse which reintroduces inequalities after the formal dissolution of colonial domination in the post-colonial world. Development as a discourse sees the ‘underdeveloped’ or ‘developing’ as ‘backward, deficient, inadequate, behind’ (Gupta 1998: 11), against the ‘developed’, which signifies its opposite qualifications. From this standpoint, the ‘Bharat vs India’ dualism symbolises the ‘underdeveloped vs developed’ binary. In the development regime of post-colonial India, it led to the construction of the rural as ‘backward’ or lagging behind the more ‘advanced’ urban sector. The identity assertion of the farmers’ mobilisation veers around a populism embedded in this contradiction. It holds the state as the chief opponent for its alleged ‘undue’ favour to the industrial/urban sector, depriving the rural. Apparently, this feeling of discrimination is rooted in the Nehruvian model of development, which considered industrial growth to be the sole path of development of independent India. The Bharatiya Kranti Dal, founded by Chaudhary Charan Singh, ex-prime minister of India, was the first organised political party to generate a counter-populism to the Nehruvian one and, later, Indira Gandhi came up with state’s developmental populism centring on industrialisation and collectivisation. To Charan Singh, the urban-industrial model of national development was opposed to the interest of the rural population in general. The same ‘urban’ vs ‘rural’ developmental populism against the state has been pursued non-politically by the farmers’ movement in UP under the leadership of Tikait in the 1980s. Through this anti-state populism, his attempt has been to develop an overarching farmer identity on the basis of their ‘underdeveloped’ and ‘oppressed’ socio-economic and cultural status. BOX 6.2 Tikait’s Most Stunning Show: Delhi Boat Club Lawns, October 1988

About five lakh farmers from western UP, under the ingenious leadership of Tikait, occupied the entire stretch from Vijay Chowk to India Gate for almost a week. They came pouring out of the western UP hinterland in tractor cavalcades. From the scene of the gherao, with Tikait sucking on his hookah and talking to his associates, surrounded by buffaloes, carts, charpoys, and hay, one can have a replica of a village panchayat. In the manicured green Boat Club lawns in New Delhi, he and his men flaunted their rural lifestyle. They defecated in the open, milked their buffaloes twice a day, and cooked their meals on angithi (charcoal brazier). The then Rajiv Gandhi government

138  Jyotiprasad Chatterjee hastily gave in and bowed to his 35-point charter of demands, the most important among which were higher remunerative price for sugarcane and waiving of electricity and water charges for farmers. Although the wider identity of the ‘farmers’ has been developed to transcend the structural limits of caste, class, religion, gender, and any other form of inequality, critiques seem to differ in this. Tension has been there between the Jat farmers and the Harijan labourers, more generally, between the owner cultivators and the landless labourers, which has obstructed the broad-based unity of the farmers significantly (Gupta 1988). There are instances, he argues, where the farmers, due to their superior caste and class statuses, vis-à-vis the labourers, forced the latter to work much below the prevailing wage rate. Contradiction has also been there regarding the demand for input–output prices of agricultural products, since a decrease in input prices and an increase in output prices would benefit the large farmers more than the small and medium ones (Hasan 1989; Hasan and Patnaik 1992, quoted in Gupta 1998; Kohli 2001). The emerging class divisions coupled with the growing communalisation of UP politics in the 1990s have posed serious concerns to rural unity, which is reflected in the declining tone of the movement in the 1990s (Hasan 1994). Gupta (1998) also refers to BKU’s patriarchal bias which has become evident from Tikait’s accusation to Rajiv Gandhi, the-then prime minister of India, for not having a clear and dominant patriarchal lineage. Hence, the unity of the farmers under the symbol ‘Bharat’ has been a ‘contradictory unity’ (Gupta 1998: 97) with divergent interests and specific exclusions. The presence of such divergent tendencies within the farmers’ movement is yet another point of its convergence with the NSMs. This is evident, as depicted in Table 6.3, from the different nature of interaction with the forces of globalisation pursued by the different organisations of the movement in their respective states. The conflict and contradiction of the farmers’ movement with the World Bank and IMF unleashed forces of globalisation, have also helped it to establish a broader alliance with other social movements nationally as well as internationally. The Farmers’ movement of India is now an ally of, Assadi (2002: 51) notes, National Fishermen’s Movement, Navadanya, Mukti Sangharsh, Timbuktu Collectives, Indian People’s Front, Rajasthan Kisan Sanghatana, Alternative Communication Mukti Sangarsh, etc. Meanwhile, their strategies and struggles have gone beyond national boundaries. They have become part of the larger collectives at the global level; these collectives are Via Campesina and People’s Global Action. The international organisation La Via Campesina works to fulfil various demands of small and medium peasants, agricultural labourers, rural women, and the indigenous communities of Asia, Africa, America, and Europe. People’s Global Action

Shetkari Sanghatana

States of operation Maharashtra Name of the leader Sharad Joshi Attitude to globalisation 1 Welcomed globalisation generously 2 State control over agriculture would diminish 3 Increase the freedom of the farmers Attitude to the Shown more sensitivity to independent the issues of the women and non-institutional Dalits mobilisations of the women, Dalits, and environment

Names of Farmers’ Organisations

Punjab and UP M. S. Tikait 1 Globalisation is anti-farmer 2 Globalisation will impoverish the developing countries Women have no role except as housewives and servants; reflection of the patriarchal gender relations in Jat society

Protection of environment and biodiversity is more important than the causes of the women and Dalits

BKU

Karnataka M.D. Nanjundaswamy 1 Globalisation is fundamentally anti-farmer 2 Globalisation will impoverish the developing countries 3 Organised ‘Bij’ or ‘Seed Satyagraha’ against multinational corporations like Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), Cargill India, and Monsanto

KRRS

Table 6.3 Multiple traditions within the farmers’ movement

The Changing Agrarian Dynamics in India  139

140  Jyotiprasad Chatterjee is a global platform of different human rights organisations, farmers’ organisations, indigenous people, students, environmentalists, unemployed, fisher-folk, anti-racists, peace mobilisers, animal rights activists, etc. Little doubt that such alliances with the global forums have been possible due to the intellectual leaders and local-level activists of the farmers’ movement. These activists are often the sons of the farmers who studied at colleges and universities in the urban areas but have taken up farming because of the dearth of employment opportunities in the urban economy. The presence of persons with higher level of formal education in the leadership as well as in rank and file of the movement also brings it close to an NSM. Counterclaims of Farmers’ Movement as NSMs

The observed similarities of the farmers’ movement with the NSM have been contested by a number of scholars and researchers. To Guha (1989) it is nothing but an ‘old’ kulak-rich peasant mobilisation with a class-based overtone. Dhanagare (2013) and Lennenberg (1988), however, have criticised Guha and stressed the important role played by the middle peasantry in the farmers’ mobilisation. Questioning the validity of the claim of the farmers’ movement to be an NSM, Arora (2001) has put forward several arguments. First, she casts doubt on the claimed supremacy of the issue of remunerative price of the agricultural commodities over land in the farmers’ movement. She argues that albeit in a different form, land has always been an important agenda of the movement. Lindberg (1994) also considers land to be an important political issue in the farmers’ movement. Second, Arora and Lindberg also refute the claimed novelty and distinctiveness of the methods of agitation of the farmers’ movement as these are as old as those used by the farmers of Maharashtra and the women in the anti-famine agitations. Third, Arora questions the claim of ideological newness of the farmers’ movement since this is hardly different from the politics and ideology of agrarian populism. Fourth, she is doubtful about the non-political disposition of the farmers’ movement, as well. Citing the examples of electoral participation by the farmers’ movement in Karnataka and Maharashtra and particularly of the Swatantra Bharat Paksha, a political party formed by Sharad Joshi in 1994, which has participated in the electoral competition with little success, she seems to refute such a claim. In the recent waves of the farmers’ movement also, anti-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), political parties have often provided support to the movement. Moreover, some leaders of the recent movement have also formed their own political outfits to contest elections. Finally, she also seems to differ on the point of the anti-state ideology of the farmers’ movement. The state, rather than being irrelevant to the central objectives of the movement, is indeed important since the movement has engaged in ‘partial’ and ‘class-specific’ antagonism with the state. The importance of state in the movement is also apparent from the fact of Sharad Joshi becoming the chairman of the Standing Advisory Committee on Agriculture with the status of a cabinet minister in 1991.

The Changing Agrarian Dynamics in India  141 Recent Phase of the Farmers’ Movement

There have been, as the foregoing discussion suggests, claims and counterclaims regarding the ‘newness’ of the farmers’ movement. Precisely, these can be summarised in two basic issues: first, its supposed embracing of ‘identity’ of the farmers as the primary vehicle of mobilisation keeping aside the ‘class’ orientation of the traditional peasant mobilisation, and second, its interaction with and alleged ‘isolation’ from the institutional political sphere. The recent phase of the farmers’ movement opposing the three farmers’ bills introduced by the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre in September 2020, subsequently repealed in November 2021, can throw some new lights on this debate. The farmers have been mobilising since February 2015 to protest against the Union government’s aggressive change to the Land Acquisition Act of 2013 along with their other demands including loan waiver and remunerative prices for agricultural produce. The protest became more widespread and intensive when the police in Madhya Pradesh on June 6, 2017 fired on protesting farmers and shot dead six farmers injuring many. As an immediate response to the killings, ‘around 150 farmers’ organisations came together and formed the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC)’ (Fadaee 2022: 38). Perhaps, for the first time in the history of the farmers’ movement in India, a national level umbrella organisation of the farmers was formed with the goal to coordinate the farmers‘ mobilisations in different parts of the country. Since its formation the AIKSCC has been organising several protest movements of the farmers. In November 2017 in a major protest meeting in New Delhi it demanded the passing of two bills in the Parliament: a minimum support price for agricultural products and a total loan waiver for farmers. Throughout 2018, it organsed farmers’ march to Mumbai in March, a ten-day protest movement in June, and in November marches to Kolkata and the Parliament. Interestingly, since the march to Mumbai a number of nonfarm categories like different civil society groups and activists, some segments of urban-based middle class of different states, students, workers, and oppositional political parties (Fadaee 2022: 38) have come forward to support the farmers’ cause possibly on a realisation that the agrarian crisis has reached ‘civilisational proportions’ (Todhunter 2018). The reason for the urbanites’ solidarity with the rural farmers’ cause can be gauged from Sainath as he tweeted on November 28, 2018, ‘The agrarian crisis won't be restricted to only the rural for much longer. The pressure will fall in urban India soon enough’ (https://twitter​.com​/psainath​_org​/ status​/1067763371607449600, accessed on April 15, 2023). Evidently, a consciousness regarding the interlinkages of the rural and the urban issues was emerging. The agrarian crisis, which had extended beyond rural India acquiring a more general social character, was certainly instrumental in developing this consciousness. The march to Parliament on November 29–30, 2018, was indeed successful, marked by the massive participation of farmers and agricultural workers from across the country. The Nation for Farmers group, arising out of the perceived interconnections between the crisis of the rural and the urban, was very

142  Jyotiprasad Chatterjee active in mobilising different sub-groups of the urban middle class like doctors, lawyers, artists, journalists, etc. in different protest movements of the farmers, particularly in their march to the Parliament. The BJP-led Union government did not pay sufficient heed to all these mobilisations and out of its growing ‘authoritarian’ (Chacko 2018; Sud 2020) outlook approved three farm ordinances in June 2020 and subsequently passed the three farm laws in September 2020. The laws were: ‘The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020; The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020, and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, 2020’ (PIB 2020). Although, the government’s espoused aim was, ‘transformation of agriculture and raising farmers’ income’ (PIB 2020), the farmers’ perceived these as an ‘attack on their livelihood and identity’ (Kumar 2022: 483). To the farmers, the bypassing of the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) laws and the liquidation of the provision of minimum support price (MSP) along with the removal of commodities like the cereals, pulses, oilseeds, edible oils, onion, and potatoes from the list of essential commodities as implied in the farm bills, would eliminate state protection of the farmers, exposing them increasingly to the vagaries of the corporateled market forces. They believed that in the absence of state mediation, the issue of ‘mutually agreed remunerative price’, as envisaged by the bill, would require the farmers to negotiate with global capital spearheaded by the large corporates, only to benefit the latter even more at the expense of the former. From a socio-historical point of view this is the latest attempt to integrate Indian agriculture with global capital which started with the new land relations introduced by the colonial administration in the late 18th century, followed by the capital-intensive technologydependent agricultural strategy brought in by the Green Revolution in independent India. Such efforts of integrating Indian agriculture with global capitalism have always faced the wrath of mass movements. The peasantry in colonial India rose into rebellion several times to protest against the new land relations, the farmers movement of the mid-1970s had been the reflections of the newer contradictions brought in by capitalist agriculture while the contemporary phase of the farmers’ movement is aimed at protecting the farmers as well as Indian agriculture from the exploitation and appropriation of neoliberal capital. Hence, to protect their overall interest, the farmers demanded repealing of the three farm bills. Just after the ordinances were passed, the farmers of Punjab, sensing its adverse impact, started to protest. Soon they realised that protesting against the large corporates in only one state, without the participation of other farm organisations in other states, would not be fruitful. Out of such a realisation the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), comprising over 300 farmers’ union was formed in November 2020 to coordinate the movement at the national level. To fulfil the farmers’ demand of repealing the three farm laws, the SKM gave the call of Dilli Chalo and asked the farmers’ unions from all over the country to reach Delhi on November 26, 2020. In their bid to enter the national capital the farmers of Punjab and Haryana were stopped at Singhu and Tikri borders of Delhi by the Delhi police. The farmers of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand were detained at the Ghazipur border while the farmers

The Changing Agrarian Dynamics in India  143 of Rajasthan were blocked entry at the Shahjahanpur border of Delhi. The farmers, denied entry to the national capital, began dharna and that marked the beginning of a year-long movement at these sites. In due course farmers from different corners of the country began to pour in these protest sites to make it a truly national-level mobilisation. Thousands of farmers camped there for more than a year braving the winter chill, beating the summer heat, and foiling the government’s attempts to ‘crush’ their protests and ‘demonize dissenters’ (Amnesty International 2021). After several rounds of failed talks between the farmers’ unions and the central government, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 19, 2021 announced the repealing of the three farm bills by his government. After receiving the official proposal of the government regarding this the SKM decided to call off the protest on December 9, 2021. Yet, they continued their struggle in one or other form as the promises made by the Prime Minister were not fulfilled and on February 13, 2024, they again decided to march towards Delhi for securing MSP and other demands. From the very beginning the movement strived to be ‘apolitical’ in nature while adopting peaceful non-violent satyagraha as the method of achieving its demands. Although many anti-BJP political parties lent their support to the movement, the farmers under SKM remained non-committal to all these. It is true that the SKM had campaigned against the BJP in the assembly elections of West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, and elsewhere but instead of supporting any political party it primarily argued to ‘punish’ the BJP for its perceived ‘anti-people’, ‘corporate-friendly’ ‘anti-farmer’ stance (Ghosh 2021). It is, perhaps, owing to its non-political dispositions, the farmers’ movement for the first time in independent India could achieve a broader issue-based alliance of different farmers’ unions bolstered by the able support of students, members of various women and gender rights activists, youth, Dalit organisations, intellectuals, artists, trade unions of small shopkeepers, workers and labour organisations, retired bureaucrats, scientists, etc. A close look at the recent wave of the farmers’ movement provides some new insights into the ongoing debate regarding its status as a new social movement. Broadly, it can be subsumed under two distinct but interrelated issues, the identity of ‘farmer’ putting aside the traditional notion of ‘class’ as the carrier of the movement and political dynamics characterising the conflict core of the movement. The identity of ‘farmer’ during the movement of 1980s largely signified the male, Hindu upper caste, and large to medium farmers (kulaks). Such a discursive formation of the farmers’ identity largely ignored and excluded the categories of women, Muslims, Dalits, and landless labourers. In the recent phase, however, for the first time in the history of farmers’ protest, we have come across slogans like ‘kisan mazdoor ekta zindabad’, ‘Jat-Dalit bhaichara’ (unity). From the presence and active participation of Muslims and women in the protests, the constantly broadening and more inclusive base of the farmers’ identity is evident. Such widening scope of the identity of ‘farmer’ provides hint at the emerging political dynamics characterising the movement. In spite of its attempt to remain apolitical, the recent phase of the farmers movement had been a mobilisation against global capital. There was a growing realisation among the farmers that while struggling against the state for its enactment of the ‘anti-farmer’ laws, they were basically confronting the interest of

144  Jyotiprasad Chatterjee the neoliberal capital represented by the mighty corporates. Hence, widening the social base of the identity of the ‘farmer’ by including the other marginalised segments might be an effort to develop a unity of the oppressed and exploited. From the farmers’ standpoint this could be a political response to the anti-people politics of neoliberalism. This politics of alliance (Fadaee 2022) signifies the emergence of a ‘new rural politics’ (Kumar 2022: 492) in India where the issue of identity, perhaps, for the exigencies of the political context, drifts towards a class-like solidarity leaving aside its characteristic exclusivity. Certainly, the involvement of the left organisations like the All India Kisan Sabha, peasant wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)], in the recent phase of the farmers’ mobilisation might have some bearing on it. The change in the substance of the farmers’ identity as developed in the 1980s can also be traced to the dilution of the urban-rural divide during the course of the recent movement. Such a divide is the brainchild of the development discourse which operates by constructing a binary of the ‘developed’ and ‘advanced’ urban vis-à-vis the ‘underdeveloped’ and ‘backward’ rural. The identity of ‘farmer’ during the movement of the 1980s was constructed as an expression of the discrimination faced by the farmers of rural ‘Bharat’ against the more advanced and privileged urban ‘India’. During the recent farmers’ movement, there has been a realisation that the agrarian crisis has become threatening to both rural as well as urban areas. This realisation, propelling the urbanites to join hands with the rural farmers in the protest, has considerably blurred the urban-rural binary on which the identity of ‘farmer’ has so far rested. Summary and Conclusion The farmers’ movement in India reflects the emerging crisis in Indian agriculture emanating from two major transformations: the adoption of the Green Revolution technology during the mid-1960s and the forces of globalisation induced structural adjustment programmes adopted in India in the early 1990s. The farmers’ movement and its demand for remunerative prices for agricultural produce might be indicative of the failure of the Green Revolution to fulfil its promises of increased agricultural productivity and profitability. Perhaps, the capital-intensive nature of agricultural technology leading to the Green Revolution necessitated substantial investment which, apart from a small section of rich farmers, was, perhaps, beyond the capacity of the vast section of middle and small farmers. Added to this, the liberalisation of the Indian economy in the 1990s, significantly withdrawing state subsidies to agriculture, has also dealt a significant blow to the prospect of a profitable agriculture. The increasing rate of depesantisation and farmers’ suicide in the Green Revolution belt of India hence, can be attributed to such an onslaught of globalisation. In the post-liberalisation era, market uncertainty has not only made it difficult for the middle and small farmers but a section of the rich and well-to-do farmers have also found it uncomfortable to compete. Farmers’ movement, new or otherwise, is an attempt of the farmers to protect them from the odds of the market forces. It is also a bid to safeguard agriculture and maintain food security of the

The Changing Agrarian Dynamics in India  145 nation. Construction of an overarching farmers’ identity, cutting across the limits of class-based agrarian movements of the earlier period, is also a mark of such effort. What is interesting to note is that with the agrarian crisis turning more acute the identity of ‘farmer’ is also undergoing metamorphosis to include other marginalised and oppressed sections of the population which it earlier excluded. The future of farmer’s movement in India largely depends on the consolidation of the wider network of different stakeholders against both the state and global market forces. As a social movement, it largely falls on the vision and sensitivity of the leadership to carry forward and expand this network of the disadvantaged and oppressed. References Government of India. 2023. ‘Annual Report: 2022–23. Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare, Ministry of Agriculture, and Farmers Welfare’. Available at: https://agriwelfare​.gov​.in​/Documents​/annual​_report​_english​_2022​_23​.pdf (accessed on 30 January 2024). Amnesty International, 2021. ‘India: Government must stop crushing farmers’ protests and demonizing dissenters’. February 9. Available at: https://www​.amnesty​.org​/en​/ latest​/press​-release​/2021​/02​/india​-government​-must​-stop​-crushing​-farmers​-protests​-and​ -demonizing​-dissenters/ (accessed on 20 April 2023). Arora, V. 2001. ‘Politics of Class(ness) in the Farmers’ Movement in India: Validity of the New Social Movement Paradigm’. Sociological Bulletin, 51 (2): 84–121. Assadi, M. 2002. ‘Globalisation and the State: Interrogating the Farmers’ Movement in India’. Journal of Social and Economic Development, 4 (1): 42–54. Brass, T. 1994. ‘Introduction: The New Farmers’ Movements in India’. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 21 (3–4): 3–26. Byres, T. J. 1995. ‘Preface’. In Brass, Tom (Ed.), New Farmers’ Movement in India (1–2). London: Routledge Chacko, P. 2018. ‘The Right Turn in India: Authoritarianism, Populism and Neoliberalisation’. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 48 (4): 541-565. Chatterjee, B. 1872. ‘Bangadesher Krishak’. Bangodarshan, 1 (5): 307–314. Chatterjee, J. 2017. ‘Farmers’ Movement in India’. e-PG Pathshala. Sociology, paper on social movement. Available at: http://epgp​.inflibnet​.ac​.in​/ahl​.php​?csrno​=33 (accessed on 1 March 2018). Desai, A. R. 1948. Social Background of Indian Nationalism. Bombay: Popular Book Depot. ———. 1979. ‘Introduction’. In Desai, A. R. (Ed.), Peasant Struggles in India (3-11). Delhi: Oxford University Press. Dhanagare, D. N. 1983. Peasant Movements in India, 1920–50. Delhi: Oxford University Press. ———. 2013. ‘Understanding the New Farmers’ Movement in Maharashtra: Towards an Analytical Framework’. The Eastern Anthropologist, 66 (2–3): 163–217. Fadaee, S. 2022. ‘Politics of Alliance in the Farmers’ March to Parliament in India’. International Sociology, 37 (1): 31–49. Fuchs, S. 1965. Rebellious Prophets: A Study of Messianic Movements in Indian Religions. Bombay: Asia Publishing House. Ghosh, H. 2021. ‘Farmers’ Message To Bengal: “Defeat Anti-People, Pro-Corporate BJP”’. The Wire, March 13. Available at: https://thewire​.in​/politics​/farmers​-message​-bengal​ -defeat​-bjp​-samyukt​-kisan​-morcha (accessed on 18 April 2023). Gough, K. 1974. ‘Indian Peasant Uprisings’. Economic & Political Weekly, 9 (32/34): 1391–1412. Guha, R. 1989. ‘The Problem’. Seminar (special issue on new social movements), 355: 12–15.

146  Jyotiprasad Chatterjee ———. 1999. Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Gupta, A. 1998. Postcolonial Developments: Agriculture in the Making of Modern India. London: Duke University Press. Gupta, D. 2005. ‘Whither the Indian Village: Culture and Agriculture in “Rural” India’. Economic & Political Weekly, 40 (8): 751–758. Habermas, J. 1981. ‘New Social Movements’. Telos, 1981 (49): 33–37. Hardgrave, R. L., Jr. 1977. ‘The Mappilla Rebellion, 1921: Peasant Revolt in Malabar’. Modern Asian Studies, 11 (1): 57–99. Hasan, Z. 1989. ‘Self-Serving Guardians: Formation and Strategy of the Bhartiya Kisan Union’. Economic & Political Weekly, 24 (48): 2663–2670. ———. 1994. ‘Shifting Ground: Hindutva Politics and the Farmers’ Movement in Uttar Pradesh’. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 21 (3–4): 165–194. Hasan, Z., and U. Patnaik. 1992. ‘Aspects of the Farmers’ Movement in Uttar Pradesh in the Context of Uneven Growth of Capitalist Agriculture’. Paper presented at the School of Social Sciences (SSS) seminar on Understanding Independent India, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, 6–8 March. Hobsbawm, E. J. 1971. Primitive Rebels. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Hunter, W. W. 1876. The Indian Musalmans. London: Trubner & Co. Joshi, S. 1981. ‘Bharat’ Speaks Out. Bombay: Build Documentation Centre. Kohli, A. 2001. The Success of India’s Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kumar, S. 2022. ‘New Farm Bills and Farmers’ Resistance to Neoliberalism’. Sociological Bulletin, 71 (4): 483-94. Lennenberg, C. 1988. ‘Sharad Joshi and the Farmers: The Middle Peasant Lives’. Pacific Affairs, 61 (3): 446–464. Lindberg, S. 1994. ‘New Farmers’ Movements in India as Structural Response and Collective Identity Formation: The Cases of the Shetkari Sanghatana and the BKU’. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 21 (3–4): 95–125. Lindstrom, L. 2002. ‘Millennial Movements, Millenarianism’. In Barnard, Alan and Spencer, Jonathan (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology (561–562). London: Routledge. Magdoff, F. 2013. ‘Twenty-First-Century Land Grabs: Accumulation by Agricultural Dispossession’. Monthly Review, 65 (6): 1–18. Moore, B., Jr. 1966. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Nadkarni, M. V. 1973. Farmers’ Movements in India. New Delhi: Allied Publishers. Natarajan, L. 1979a. ‘Conclusion’. In Desai, A. R. (Ed.), Peasant Struggles in India (170– 173). Delhi: Oxford University Press. ———. 1979b.  ‘Indigo Cultivators’ Strike—1860’. In Desai, A. R. (Ed.), Peasant Struggles in India (148–158). Delhi: Oxford University Press. Offe, C. 1985. ‘New Social Movements: Challenging the Boundaries of Institutional Politics’. Social Research, 52 (4): 817–868. Omvedt, G. 1994. ‘We Want the Return for Our Sweat: The New Peasant Movement in India and the Formation of a National Agricultural Policy’. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 21 (3–4): 126–164. PIB. 2020. ‘Three bills aimed at transformation of agriculture and raising farmers’ income introduced in Lok Sabha today; to replace ordinances promulgated on 5th June 2020’. Available at: https://pib​.gov​.in​/Pre​ssRe​leas​eIfr​amePage​.aspx​?PRID​=1654007. Posted on September 14, accessed on 09 April 2023. Pichardo, N. A. 1997. ‘New Social Movements: A Critical Review’. Annual Review of Sociology, 23: 411–430. Roy, S. 1966. Bharater Krishak Bidroha O Ganatantrik Sangram (in Bengali). Kolkata: Radical Impression.

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7

Tribal Movements in Colonial and Post-Colonial India Chandan Kumar Sharma and Bhaswati Borgohain

Learning Objectives After reading this chapter, you will be able to:

• Understand the evolution of the concept of a tribe and the problems in defining the term;

• Comprehend the complexities in defining a tribe in the Indian context; • Know about the classification of tribal movements in India; • Learn about the history of tribal movements in India in different historical phases;

• Locate the role of globalisation in fuelling tribal movements in India today; and

• Understand the nature of leadership in tribal movements.

Introduction Since colonial times, one witnesses many social movements among the tribal communities in India against various forms of oppression and dispossession from their traditional habitat and resources. Extensive dependence on forest products and community ownership of land traditionally characterised tribal societies. This situation still continues to a significant extent. Although a section of them has taken to settled agriculture, the majority of them continue to engage in traditional practices such as hunting, fishing, gathering, terrace cultivation, shifting cultivation, and animal husbandry. The colonial regime in India which brought the agricultural and forest lands under its control and created commercial interest thereon seriously undermined the traditional land, livelihood, and habitat of the tribal communities resulting in serious resentment among them. This found expression in a series of revolts against the colonial regime in various parts of India. However, in the postcolonial period, notwithstanding existing laws, the exploitation of the tribal people and of the resources in their habitats continues. The Indian State has not only ignored the genuine resentment of the tribals for long but it has also suppressed DOI:  10.4324/9781003481744-9

Colonial and Post-Colonial India  149 their voices by coercion. In recent times, due to aggressive pursuance of the neoliberal model of development by the Indian State, there has been large-scale alienation, deprivation, and enragement among the tribals. This has again pushed these communities onto the path of a series of protests and movements. While some of these protests have been to protect their habitat and livelihood, some others have been to secure more political power for themselves. The objective, organisation, and mobilisation of these movements have generated considerable sociological interest. This chapter discusses various issues and dimensions towards the understanding of tribes and tribal movements in India. Defining Tribe There is no universally accepted definition of a tribe. Historically, the French term ‘tribu’ and the English term ‘tribe’ are derived from the Latin word ‘tribus’, which seems to mean the three divisions of the early people of the Roman state. It later came into use as a way to describe the cultures encountered through the European explorations followed by colonialism. Colonial administrators along with early anthropologists used the prism of racial and evolutionary theories such as ‘Spencerism, Lamarckism, Social-Darwinism, and Aryanism’ that informed their conceptualisation of tribe (Sengupta 1988a: 944). Thus, the term ‘tribe’ emerged vis-à-vis white European industrial societies to represent colonised subjects and imbibed pejorative connotations such as ‘primitive’, ‘barbaric’, and ‘uncivilized’ in the light of these outdated and condemnable theories. Once established as a distinct social category, they defined a tribe as a social group that is usually characterised by a definite geographical area having temporary or permanent political integration and defined by traditions of a common descent, language, culture, and ideology. For example, Lewis Henry Morgan in his work Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family (1871) defines a tribe as a completely organised society. The book illustrates humanity’s condition in a barbaric state, which is no longer primitive and savage but not yet civilised, not a ‘political’ society nor a state. For Morgan, civilisation came with the state and was based on the control of territory and the people living on this territory; they were no longer organised solely into kinship groups but into territorial ones (cited in Godelier 1977: 73–74). Nevertheless, this understanding of a tribe underwent change subsequently. John Honigmann writes in an article in 1964, ‘(I)n general anthropologists agree on the criteria by which a tribe may be described (as a system of social organisation): common territory, a tradition of common descent, common language, common culture, and a common name’ (cited in Godelier 1977: 77). This definition eliminates the evolutionary content of a tribe inherent in early anthropologists like Morgan. However, Honigmann points out that despite a general agreement on the above-mentioned characteristics of a tribe, ‘difficulties arise when the political characteristics of the tribe are discussed’. This led him to classify tribal societies into several types (Godelier 1977: 77).

150  Chandan Kumar Sharma and Bhaswati Borgohain Marshall Sahlins’s characterisation of a tribal society in his book Tribesman (1968) has its roots in the writings of anthropologists such as Emile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss. He argues for restricting the term ‘tribal society’ to ‘segmentary systems (which) are not only small in scale but represent a definite structural type which is quite different from the more complex social systems’ (cited in Beteille 1974: 61; Godelier 1977: 79–80). I. M. Lewis also writes, ‘(I)deally, tribal societies are small in scale, are restricted in the spatial and temporal range of their social, legal and political relations, and possess a morality, religion, and world view of corresponding dimensions’ (cited in Beteille 1974: 61). However, anthropologists have not yet come out with a clear-cut definition of the tribe. As Godelier (1977: 89) sums up, The term ‘tribal society’ covers a group of external features found in the functioning of many ‘primitive’ societies, the ‘segmentary’ character of elementary socio-economic units, the real or apparent nature of ‘kinship groups’ in these socio-economic units and the ‘multifunctional’ nature of these kinship relations. The vagueness of these criteria is such that we could apply this concept to a vast number of primitive societies juxtaposed in large congeries without clear boundaries. Further, the concept of a tribe has been a colonial legacy as most of the literature found on tribal studies are products of anthropological studies conducted by the scholars using colonial prism and ideology. The unilineal cultural evolution being no longer a credible theory and due to its colonial connotations, tribe as an anthropological term had fallen out of favour in the latter part of the 20th century. Many scholars from colonised regions even object to the use of the term tribe itself for its inaccuracy and racist and pejorative connotations (Fluehr-Lobban, Lobban, and Linda 1976; Peters and Mika 2017). In the contemporary context, many anthropologists and scholars prefer to use alternative terms such as ‘ethnic community’, ‘aboriginal’, or ‘indigenous peoples’ in place of tribe. Understanding Tribes in Indian Context The tribal communities in India continue to occupy the lowest socio-economic strata; their areas of habitation remain the most underdeveloped. According to the 2015–2116 Annual Report of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, the Scheduled Tribe (ST) population in the country was 10.45 crore, which as per 2011 Census constituted 8.6% of the total population.1 In India too, like many other colonised nations, the use of the term ‘tribe’ has a colonial history and it needs to be understood with its colonial connotations of a politico-administrative category. The Imperial Gazetteer of India, 1911, defines a tribe as a ‘collection of families bearing a common name, speaking a common dialect, occupying or professing to occupy a common territory, and is not usually

Colonial and Post-Colonial India  151 endogamous though originally it might have been so’. However, such a definition needs to be looked from the viewpoint of colonial administrative expediency. The British classified colonial India into various administrative categories in order to have better control over land, resources, and the people. In terms of land and revenue administration, the British classified colonial India into three categories: Ryotwari areas under British territory, zamindari areas under princely authority, and the tribal zones (Desai 1986). This classification, besides others, emphasised the colonial objective of keeping the tribal areas isolated from the mainstream. In independent India, the Constituent Assembly had engaged in a comprehensive discussion and debate before giving shape to the Fifth and Sixth Schedules of the Constitution, which deal with the tribal areas. Article 366 (25) of the Constitution defines STs as ‘such tribes or tribal communities or part of or groups within such tribes or tribal communities as are deemed under Article 342 to the Scheduled Tribes (STs) for the purposes of this Constitution’. The Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order, 1950, lists 744 communities across 22 states in its First Schedule. From among 744 listed communities, 212 were recognised as STs under Article 342 of the Indian Constitution which provides for specification of tribes or tribal communities for the procedure of identification of STs. However, this figure kept on increasing over the years due to various communities demanding ST status evidently to garner the benefits of the provision of protective discrimination (popularly referred to as ‘reservation’ in India) in the sphere of politics, education, and employment. In the process, several communities, mostly recognised as Other Backward Classes (OBCs) previously, came to be accorded the ST status. According to the Census of India, 2011, the total number of ST communities in India stood at 705. But the demand for securing the ST status has continued. All these make the conceptualisation of a ‘tribe’ in the Indian context a complex issue. Defining a tribe is even more complex for they are not a homogenous group and are at various stages of development. Andre Beteille (1995), dwelling on the problems of defining a tribe, argues that unlike the category of a caste, the category of a tribe is an artefact of colonial rule. He writes, (T)he consciousness of the distinct and separate identity of all the tribes in India taken as a whole is a modern consciousness, brought into being by the colonial state and confirmed by its successor after independence …. To be sure, each tribe taken by itself had a sense of interdependence by which castes have been characterised. (Beteille 1995) The colonial rule conferred on them the identity of a distinct social category. Historically, tribes have co-existed with caste groups, whereby they existed at the uncertain and fluctuating margins of Hindu civilisation. Further, Hindu scriptures acknowledge the distinction between a tribe and a caste as jana and jati, the former confined to the isolation of hills and forests, and the latter settled in villages and towns with a more elaborate division of labour. However, Beteille (1995) contends,

152  Chandan Kumar Sharma and Bhaswati Borgohain Colonial state was only partly successful in giving a clear and definite identity to the tribal population of India. That population is too large and too differentiated to be easily defined in terms of any single criterion or set of criteria, and there are too many cases where it is hard to count a particular community as a tribe or a caste. He, therefore, emphasises that the construction of the category of a tribe in independent India is more a political than a social fact (Beteille 1995). Further, Beteille maintains, characterising a tribal society in terms of the segmentary systems as proposed by anthropologists like Marshall Sahlins may have problems in India, where segmentary societies cannot be easily identified. Some major Indian tribes are numerically quite big and are scattered over extensive territories (Beteille 1974: 60–61). He has also highlighted the existing ambiguity between tribes and peasants while using the term tribe in India on account of the fact that many tribal groups in the country share characteristics of peasants. Besides, ‘the tribal people of one particular region often resemble more closely the non-tribal people of that region than the tribal people of another region’ (Beteille 1974: 63). Nirmal Sengupta (1988a, b, c, d, e) in a series of five articles deconstructed the term ‘tribe’ and showed how a whole set of outdated colonial racialised theories have created the myth of ‘tribe’ as a distinct category. He showed how these theories, although condemned both scientifically and socially, have been able to survive with vigour and deeply strain the image of ‘tribe’. He showed how both the Indian State and the social scientists, especially anthropologists and historians, continued with the divisive colonial administrative categories and knowledge systems resulting in legitimisation of tribe as a category with all its negative baggage. Once this got accepted by the nationalist elites and the post-colonial state, it led to internal racism which later fuelled tribal movements. He appeals to social scientists, especially anthropologists, to start cleaning the whole edifice on which the notion of tribe is based. Attempting at a definition of a ‘tribe’, Ghanshyam Shah (1990: 85–86) observes, (D)ifferent tribes have their own cultures – dialects, life styles, social structures, rituals, values, etc. – differing somewhat from those of the dominant non-tribal peasant social groups. At the same time, most of them are settled agriculturists and social differentiations have developed among them. Their agrarian problems are, to some extent, the same as those of other non-tribal peasants. Virginius Xaxa also recognises conceptual and empirical problems in defining tribes in India. He observes that the criteria adopted for identification (rather than definition) of tribes in India ‘ranged from geographical isolation, simple technology and condition of living, general backwardness to the practice of animism, tribal language, physical features, etc. The problem, however, lay in the fact that they were neither clearly formulated nor systematically applied’ (Xaxa 1999a: 3589). Besides, the early ethnographers also did not maintain a clear distinction between a tribe and a caste.

Colonial and Post-Colonial India  153 However, there has been a systematic effort to distinguish between them during the post-colonial period. While the colonial ethnographers stressed on the isolation of tribes from castes, the native ethnographers (such as G. S. Ghurye and N. K. Bose) emphasised on the interaction between them and how tribes have been drawn to the Hindu society (cited in Xaxa 1999a: 3589). Xaxa argues that the problems inherent in the use of the term tribe can be addressed to some extent by the use of the term ‘indigenous’ (or Adivasi). However, he also points out the problems inherent in this term. Therefore, what Xaxa suggests ‘as the term of reference for the study of tribes in India is the terms that tribal people themselves use to identify themselves and as they are identified by the people in adjacent habitations’ (Xaxa 1999b: 1524). It is common experience that groups brought under the broad category of tribes generally see themselves or are referred to as Santhals, Oraons, Khasis, or Garos and not as tribesmen. N. R. Ray points to this when he underscores the fact that there were janas or communities of people such as the Savaras, Kullutas, and Bhillas, whom today we know as ‘tribes’ and who bear almost the same names. ‘Yet the term by which they were known to the multitudes of people were not “tribes” but “janas” meaning “communities of people”’ (cited in Xaxa 1999b: 1524). Xaxa (1999b: 1524), therefore, argues, If tribes are studied as janas, the problems we are confronted with when we use the term ‘tribe’ will be overcome. Such an approach will enable us to assess transformations occurring in tribal society in the direction of caste, peasant, social differentiation, or religion without questioning the distinctive identity of the group concerned. It means that the terms of reference in tribal studies are not to be categories such as caste, peasant hood, and social heterogeneity but groups or communities such as the Bengalis, the Assamese and the Gujaratis. To sum up, the definition of the term ‘tribe’ (or ST) in India continues to be laden with ambiguity, and it is contingent on many factors. Classification of Tribal Movements in India Various scholars have tried to classify tribal movements in India and have offered different typologies. While some scholars have tried to classify them based on issues being raised, some others have classified them on the basis of time periods. Further, scholars such as Kathleen Gough, A. R. Desai, and Ramachandra Guha have categorised tribal movements as peasant movements for they too raise similar agrarian issues like that of non-tribal peasant communities as many tribes practise settled agriculture (Shah 1990). Such an approach, however, has been criticised by Singh (1985), who argues that the tribal communities are markedly different from the non-tribal peasant communities because of their relative isolation from the mainstream non-tribal societies. This also shapes the distinctive nature of the leadership, organisation, and mobilisation of the tribal movements.

154  Chandan Kumar Sharma and Bhaswati Borgohain It may be noted that the tribal movements as a subject of study did not gain much importance until the late 1960s. The early works on tribal movements were mainly engaged in enlisting tribal movements in India (Singh 1982b: 13762; Raghavaiah 1971). Singh’s volumes on Tribal Movements in India (1982a, 1983) can be regarded as two of the first comprehensive works on tribal movements in India which elaborately discussed movements among the tribes of northeastern region, Central, and South India primarily during the post-colonial era. Mahapatra’s (1968) work on tribal movements can be regarded as one of the first efforts to present a typology of tribal movements in India. He finds several varieties of social movements among the tribes of eastern India in the post-colonial era. They are: a political party on inter-ethnic basis, regional political associations on interethnic basis, pressure groups on ethnic basis as transformed social mobility movements, a revivalistic cultural movement, a cultural creativity and regeneration movement and religious (largely) revivalistic movement as wings of the inter-ethnic political party, and students’ associations as pressure group. (Mahapatra 1968: 40) He offers six bases of distinction which have their respective types of social movements. These are as follows (Mahapatra 1968: 52–58): i . Based on the source of initiative – endogenous or exogenous; ii. Based on orientation to the existing culture or society – reactionary, conservative, revisionary, revolutionary, nativistic (revivalistic or perpetuative), revitalisation, reformative; iii. Based on the portion of culture or social order dealt with – norm-oriented movements, general social movements, value-oriented movements; iv. Based on relation to religion or cult – religious, secular; v. Based on political action – political, non-political, revivalistic; vi. Based on orientation as minority – emulation-reinforcing movements, solidarity-reinforcing movements. Surajit Sinha (1972) presents the following five types of tribal movements as a generally known fact and then tries to analyse movements of tribes which are socio-politically self-conscious and enjoy political solidarity as a group vis-à-vis the non-tribals as a category: i. Ethnic rebellion during the early days of the British rule in the 18th and 19th centuries such as Sardari Larai (in 1885) and Birsa movement (during 1895–1900) among the Munda, Ganga Narain hangama (in 1832) among the Bhumij, Kol rebellion (in 1832), Santhal rebellion (during 1855–1857), and the rebellion of the Kacha Nagas (in the 1880s);

Colonial and Post-Colonial India  155 ii. Reform movements such as the Bhagat movement among the Oraon and the Vaishnavite reform movement among the Bhumij; iii. Political autonomy movements within the Indian Union such as the Jharkhand movement and the Hill State Movement in Assam; iv. Secessionist movements like that of the Naga and Mizo tribes of northeastern India; and v. Agrarian unrest such as the Naxalbari movement and the Birsa Dal movement. Sinha presents his analysis of the above-mentioned category of politically selfconscious solidarity tribal movements on the basis of space, time, and ideologies of nationalism and sub-nationalism. He sums up his analysis in the following words: ‘One of the major roots of tribal solidarity movements arises out of ecological-cultural isolation, economic backwardness, a feeling of frustration vis-à-vis the advanced sections’. Although it is true that these movements are guided by a minority of emerging tribal elite, it would be over-simplification to look into the phenomenon exclusively from the perspective of sub-nationalism engineered by a few self-seeking elites. Sinha discovers in these movements both a process of progressive enlargement of socio-political and cultural experience beyond the primitive tribal units and a process of drawing solidarity boundaries around the expanded horizon vis-à-vis the Indian core (Sinha 1972: 421). Singh (1983, 1985) also makes a classification similar to that of Surajit Sinha and divides them into three phases: i.

The first phase between 1795 and 1860, which coincides with the establishment of the British empire; ii. The second phase between 1861 and 1920 with intensive colonialism during which a merchant capital penetrated into a tribal economy, affecting their relationship with the land and forest; and iii. The third between 1921 and 1947 with the participation of tribal groups in the nationalist movement and also the launching of agrarian as well as some separatist movements. Singh (1983) then classifies tribal movements after Independence into four categories: a) b) c) d)

Agrarian; Sanskritisation; Cultural; and Political.

Interestingly, the scenario in the tribal areas of the northeastern region of India is very distinct from the rest of India with about 200 tribal communities from the region having cultural and historical affiliations with highland societies of the neighbouring countries. In spite of the protective legislations such as the Sixth

156  Chandan Kumar Sharma and Bhaswati Borgohain Schedule of the Constitution, many tribal communities in the region are getting marginalised and alienated from their land and resources. However, compared to the tribes in Central India, the tribes in the northeastern region still enjoy better political and economic autonomy. In fact, except for those from Assam and Tripura, the tribals enjoy numerical majority in the rest of northeastern states. Being located in the frontier region and because of sharing socio-cultural and historical ties with the neighbouring countries, the tribes of this region are politically conscious and have sustained long-lasting movements and armed conflicts demanding various types of autonomy from a separate state to full sovereignty. After studying tribal movements in Northeast India, S. M. Dubey (1982) divided them into four categories: a ) b) c) d)

Religious and social reform movements; Separate statehood movements; Insurgent movements; and Cultural rights movements.

While the above-mentioned typologies share many commonness, they, however, do not take cognisance of the contemporary movements concerning the issues of forest rights, environment, and displacement of the tribal populations on account of various ‘development’ projects undertaken by the state and the private corporate sector (Sharma 2018). By the turn of the 20th century, Singh (1998: 9–10) observes, (I)n recent years, with the rise of the international movement of indigenous people in the post-modernist phase, the focus has shifted to self-determination or self-management of the resources, identity, and ethnicity. The environmental movement has focused on communities in situ, their relationship to resources, their rapport with nature, their world-view. Therefore, with the growing concern for environment, particularly bio-diversity, pluralism, ethnicity, and identity – all are now interrelated – the tribal movements are assuming a new character. They are all now becoming more and more identity-based movements, with various issues concerning control over resources are being considered as ramifications of this central issue. After presenting the various typologies postulated by different scholars, Shah (1990: 88–89) came up with the following five categories of tribal movements in India: i . ii. iii. iv. v.

Ethnic movements which include culture/religious identity; Agrarian and forest rights movements; Environmental movements; Involuntary displacement and rehabilitation movements; Political movements around the nationality question for a separate state.

Colonial and Post-Colonial India  157 Further, he adds that these categories need to be understood in their interconnectedness, whereby one can lead to the other and a great deal of overlapping can exist (Shah 1990: 88–89). Amita Baviskar (1995: 47) finds that resistance of the tribals against various ‘development’ projects is not merely reactive, but through their participation in collective action they construct ‘a creative alternative to the dominant and destructive system of development, based on their tradition of living sustainably with nature’. In the context of various ‘development’ projects in northeastern India too, especially with respect to big hydropower projects in recent years, the tribal communities of the affected states of the region have offered sustained organised resistance (Sharma 2018). Tribal Movements in Colonial India When the British took over various parts of India and slowly annexed newer regions, the response of various tribal communities across the country varied. First, there were direct confrontations in the form of tribal warfare which were crushed by the advanced army of the colonisers. Second, there were long-sustained tribal movements that were led by popular leaders demanding socio-political rights and expressing nationalistic/sub-nationalistic aspirations. Third, there were also cultural and religious movements which were reformative in nature. In order to understand various tribal movements during this phase, one needs to understand the context which led to these movements. To begin with, many tribes tend to live in isolation, which allows them to enjoy certain autonomy in their socio-political affairs. They hold control over land, forest, and other resources and govern them in terms of their own laws, tradition, and customs, thereby having autonomy of governance over their territory. Notwithstanding this, they also had interaction with the outside world. According to Surajit Sinha, tribes were part of the little tradition, while, for Beteille, they remained outside of state and civilisation (cited in Xaxa 2011). Tribes did not face social exclusion at this stage. The process of their social exclusion began during British rule when tribes were incorporated into the colonial state structure through war, conquest, and annexation. This was followed by the introduction of uniform civil and criminal laws as well as setting up of administrative structures alien to tribal traditions and ethos. The new rulers imposed new restrictions on accessing land and resources which earlier belonged to them. In fact, extinction of tribal land and forest were two important reasons for many tribal movements during the British era and continue to be so in the post-colonial era as well. Scholars (Sharma 2001; Sharma and Borgohain 2019; Xaxa 2011) have elaborated on this process of land dispossession and marginalisation during British rule as the result of a combination of forces. Of these, the most important were the introduction of private property in land and landlordism, and the penetration of the market forces. The two taken together opened up the way for large-scale alienation of land from tribes to non-tribes, especially after the tribal areas came to be linked by roads and railways. Xaxa also points out that the mechanisms through which

158  Chandan Kumar Sharma and Bhaswati Borgohain this was achieved were fraud, deceit, coercion, and the most widely debt bondage. Since most tribes had oral tradition, they did not have the habit of keeping land records. Further, illiteracy made it easier for non-tribes to forge evidence and documents in their favour. The local administration being controlled by non-tribals also helped in such transfer. Formal court procedures were also alien to the tribes, which made redressal of any such fraud and deceit very difficult (Xaxa 2011). Further, K. S. Singh and S. Bosu Mullick observe, ‘(T)he colonial state took upon itself the right over the forest, thereby denying tribes the right to collect fuel and other daily necessities of life for which they were so heavily dependent on forest’ (cited in Xaxa 2011). Simultaneously, the colonial state earmarked many tribal inhabited lands as reserved forests, thereby denying the tribes their traditional right to collect fuel and other necessities of life from the forests on which they were dependent to a considerable extent. The colonial administration also enhanced the control of traders, moneylenders, and merchants over the tribes. The tribes thus, Xaxa (2011: 3–4) argues, had to go through a process of twin colonialism – one of the British rule and administration and the other of the non-tribal population …. There was thus the process of integration/ inclusion of tribes into the larger system under colonial rule but a process of inclusion that came to be intertwined with the process of exclusion in the form of loss of access and control over livelihood (economic rights) as well as control over decision making process in determination of their own life. It is under this context that one needs to understand various tribal movements. The exasperation of the tribal communities because of the extractive British colonial policies found expression in the form of various revolts (see Table 7.1). Raghavaiah (1971) lists altogether 70 major tribal revolts during the 200 years of British rule in India. Stephen Henningham (1982) observes that in the early years of the British colonial expansion in India, the tribal communities of present Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and Bengal offered stiff resistance and faced severe consequences. This is unmatched by any other community and the ruling dynasties of India. Thus, during the colonial phase, sometimes the tribals revolted directly against the agents of colonisers such as oppressing landlords and moneylenders and sometimes it was directed against the British themselves. But due to the British policy of demarcation and exclusion of tribal areas, different tribal regions had varying experience of the colonial administration. For example, the central belt experienced colonial administration from the very beginning of British rule in India, whereas the frontier tribes of northeastern India experienced this colonial intervention relatively late. The British relations with the Naga tribe of northeastern India are classified by Gundevia into four periods: (a) control from without (1839–1846), (b) expeditions and control from within (1847–1850), (c) non-interference (1851–1861), and (d) control from within and gradual absorption into British India (cited in Verghese 1996: 85). Thus, although the Nagas resisted British rulers from the

Colonial and Post-Colonial India  159 Table 7.1 Tribal revolts by regions in British India Central India 1774–1779: Halba (Chhattisgarh) 1778: Mal Paharia (Bihar) 1789, 1794–1795, 1811, 1817, 1820: Tamar (Jharkhand) 1795–1800: Chuari (Bihar) 1820, 1832, 1890, 1915–1920: Oraon (Chhattisgarh) 1818, 1831–1832: Kol (Jharkhand) 1820, 1832, 1867, 1889: Munda (Jharkhand) 1822–1823: Kharwar (Jharkhand) 1842: Gond (Chhattisgarh) 1855, 1869–1870: Santhal (Jharkhand) 1910: Various tribes (Bhumkal rebellion – Chhattisgarh) 1850: Kondh (Orissa) 1842–1863: Maria (Chhattisgarh) 1876: Muria (Chhattisgarh) Western India 1784–1785: Koli (Maharashtra) 1809–1828, 1846, 1857–1858: Bhil (Maharashtra) 1838, 1868: Naik (Gujarat) 1844–1848: Ramoshi (Maharashtra)

Northeastern India 1825, 1828, 1843, 1849, 1869: Singpho (Assam) 1827, 1855: Mishmi (Arunachal Pradesh) 1829: Khasi (Meghalaya) 1854: Dimasa (Assam) 1834–1841, 1842, 1850, 1860, 1871–1872, 1892: Lushai (Mizoram) 1835, 1872–1873: Dafla/Nyishi (Arunachal Pradesh) 1860–1862: Synteng/Jaintia (Meghalaya) 1861: Tiwa and others (Phulaguri uprising – Assam) 1879, 1932: Naga (Nagaland) 1917–1919: Kuki (Manipur) The 1920–1930s: Zeme (Hereka movement – Manipur and Assam) Eastern India 1779: The Bhumij (West Bengal) Southern India 1803, 1822, 1862, 1879, 1880: Koya (Andhra Pradesh) 1867, 1883: Sentinel Islanders (Andaman Islands) 1812: Kurichiya (Kerela)

Source: Prabhu (2019: 293)

very beginning, formal tribal identity assertion among the Nagas can be said to have begun only with the formation of the Naga Club in 1918 by the newly educated members of the tribe. This assertion assumed a more radical form with the foundation of the Naga National Council (NNC) in 1946, which demanded political autonomy of the Naga tribe. It was not an anti-British assertion per se; it was rather a demand for the recognition of the distinct political and cultural identity of the Nagas. Under the leadership of Angami Zapu Phizo, this demand was further radicalised as the Nagas asked for full sovereignty from India on the eve of Indian Independence (Chaube 2012: 74, 114–115). On the other hand, the Central Indian tribes such as Oraon, Mal Paharia, Santhal, Bhil, and Munda had organised revolts against the colonial encroachments way back in the late 18th century. Thus, as different tribal regions came under the colonial administration at different periods of time, the effect of larger developments across the nation and the world influenced these movements differently. Events such as the World Wars and the Indian

160  Chandan Kumar Sharma and Bhaswati Borgohain freedom movement provided different exposures to the tribes, thereby shaping the nature, ideology, and intensity of tribal movements in different parts of the country. BOX 7.1 Santhal and Munda Uprisings

In Central India, the Santhal uprising that broke out just before the revolt of 1857 in the Santhal-inhabited areas of Chotanagpur region can be regarded as one of the first organised tribal movements. They protested against the exploitation of the moneylenders and intermediaries of the zamindars, confiscation of their land and properties by the British, and forced labour and sexual exploitation of tribal women. Under the leadership of Sidhu and Kanhu, on June 30, 1855, several thousands of Santhals assembled at Bhaghadihi, where they announced their war against the British. The defeat of the British army at the initial stage was a significant achievement of the rebellion, but by the end of 1856 they were suppressed by the British army. Similarly, the Munda uprising of 1899–1900 led by Birsa Munda was one of the resilient tribal uprisings of the 19th century. Commenting on the uprising, K. S. Singh (1966: 1) writes, ‘The transformation of the Mundari agrarian system into non-communal, feudal, zamindari or individual tenures was the key to agrarian disorders that climaxed in religious-political movements of Birsa’. It was a militant movement, where both men and women participated and declared to end the British rule from the Munda areas and establish their own government. To suppress the rebellion, the British deployed the regular columns of the army and finally arrested Birsa Munda. Eventually, with the death of Birsa Munda in prison and lack of leadership, the movement gradually discontinued. Another movement, known as Tana Bhagat Movement, emerged from this region, under the leadership of Jatra Bhagat during 1913–1914. The immediate cause was the discriminatory treatment by the British administrators to the Oraons as against the Mundas (Chattoraj 1999). The first phase of opposition to British rule by the tribal communities of northeastern India was in the form of sporadic armed revolts and tribal warfare against the exploitative tax regime of the British. The colonial expeditions to the tribal areas in the hills of the region were faced with stiff resistance by the hill tribes such as the Khasi (in 1830s), Naga (during 1832–1880), Abor (during 1911–1912), Lushai (during 1871–1872), and Kuki (during 1917–1919). Similarly, tribal peasantry in Central Assam rose in protest against the repressive British revenue policies in 1861 which culminated in a violent clash between them and the British forces at a place called Phulaguri. The role of the Tiwa tribe was prominent in the revolt, supported by the Kachari tribe and the Kaibartas (fishing community; Goswami 1979).

Colonial and Post-Colonial India  161 BOX 7.2 The Heraka Movement

It was a religious reform movement founded by Haipou Jadonang (1905– 1931), a Kabui (now called Rongmei) Naga of Manipur, and his cousin Gaidinliu (1915–1993). Claiming divine ordination, Jadonang and Gaidinliu professed to establish a ‘Naga Raj’ by ousting the British and massacring the Kukis, both regarded as enemies of the Kabui and Kacha (Zeme) Nagas. From 1930–1931, the movement launched a campaign against the British and the Manipuri Darbar, which included protests against various forms of tributes and tax. The ‘Jadonang Movement’ came to a halt when Jadonang was arrested and subsequently executed. Gaidinliu, then aged 16, took over the movement and gave it a millenarian direction. She promised a ‘golden age’ for her people who were experiencing famine and loss of ownership of land as a result of Kuki migration. She claimed that the ‘golden age’ would come when people pay taxes to her instead of the British government and the Kukis were driven away from Zeme land. Gaidinliu was arrested in 1932 and many of her associates were executed by the British forces. She was imprisoned but was released from jail in 1946 at the intervention of Jawaharlal Nehru. During the 1960s–1970s, Gaidinliu headed a pan-tribal union known as the Zeliangrong Movement, demanding the unification of the Zeme habitats scattered over Assam, Nagaland, and Manipur (Mukherjee et al. 1982; Longkumer 2007). By the 1920s, when the Gandhian nationalists launched the Non-Cooperation Movement, the struggle to overthrow British rule became nationwide. The nationalist leaders took interest in starting constructive work among the tribals which led to the linking of the various tribal movements with the local grievances to the national movement. Tribals across the nation participated in significant numbers in the national freedom struggle, finally overthrowing British rule in 1947. BOX 7.3 Rampa Rebellion: Andhra Pradesh

The tribal region of the Gudem and Rampa hills of Andhra Pradesh, inhabited by branches of the Gond tribe such as Rampa, Koya, and Konda Dora, witnessed tribal oppositions against the British way back in the 1830s. Gradually, with the growing discontent against the British rulers, the introduction of toddy tax and regulations on making toddy sparked the Rampa Rebellion in 1879 against the British (Arnold 1982). Later on, in 1922, under

162  Chandan Kumar Sharma and Bhaswati Borgohain the leadership of Alluri Sitarama Raju, the Rampas again organised guerrilla warfare against the British control and exploitation of the forests for building railways and ships. This uprising ended in 1924 with the capture and shooting of Raju (Murali 2017).

Tribal Movements in Post-Colonial India The nationalist leaders of the Indian freedom movement had the difficult task of building one nation uniting the diverse populations across various regions and princely states. Unlike some other post-colonial countries, the Indian Constitution enshrined equality and justice, thereby giving equal citizenship rights to all, including tribal and marginalised communities. As mentioned earlier, to compensate for the historical injustices of exploitation and marginalisation of the tribes and other backward sections of the population, the Indian Constitution guaranteed affirmative actions in the form of reservations in legislative bodies, educational institutions, and employment. The Fifth and the Sixth Schedules of the Constitution laid down protective measures specifically for tribal land and resources. However, as mentioned above, the Naga tribes of northeastern India demanded a sovereign Nagaland on the eve of independence under the leadership of NNC which soon assumed the form of an armed struggle. One consequence of the struggle was the separation of the Naga Hills from Assam to form the state of Nagaland. It did not satisfy the NNC leadership. In 1980, the leadership of the armed struggle was taken over by the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) and a violent struggle followed. In August, 1997, the Government of India (GoI) and NSCN (led by T. Muivah and Isak Swu) entered into a ceasefire. Since then, many rounds of peace talks have taken place between the two for a resolution of the issue. In August, 2015, a draft treaty defined as a "framework of agreement" was signed although it has not yet culminated in a final accord. Similarly, the Mizos, led by the Mizo National Front, launched an armed struggle for a sovereign state in 1966. In 1972, the Mizo-inhabited Lushai Hills District of Assam was accorded Union Territory status with the nomenclature of Mizoram. Yet the struggle continued till an accord was signed between MNF and GoI which gave Mizoram statehood status in 1986. Such armed struggles to fulfil statehood demands have been raised by different ethnic groups in the northeastern region in the last few decades. It may be mentioned that despite the above-mentioned protective legislations like the Fifth and the Sixth Schedules, the Indian State has not been successful in ensuring the intended upliftment of the tribes. They continue to experience largescale alienation from their native land and have been dispossessed of their livelihood resources in many parts of India.

Colonial and Post-Colonial India  163 BOX 7.4 Tipraland Movement

The indigenous tribal groups of Tripura, referred to as Tripuri/Tipra tribes or simply as Tiprasa, have been demanding a separate land for themselves called ‘Tipraland’ for the last several decades which has gathered more momentum in recent years. The Tripuri tribes are upset at becoming a minority in their own homeland on account of large-scale immigration from East Bengal that started during the colonial period and continued thereafter. As a result, they have substantially lost their traditional land, habitat, culture, and political authority in the state. In response to this, by the 1970s a new Tripuri nationalism emerged led by groups like the Tribal (now Twipra) Students Federation (TSF), the Tripura Upajati Jubo Samity (TUJS, political party), and the Tripura National Volunteers (TNV). The TNV launched an armed struggle for a sovereign Tripura during 1978–1988. In between, the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) was established. However, the TTAADC could only partially fulfil the aspirations of the Tiprasas, and in 2009 Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT) raised demand for a separate state of Tipraland with mass mobilisation of the tribal population. The subsequent demand for ‘Greater Tipraland’ emerged from the demand for Tipraland. However, while the demand for Tipraland was to carve out a separate state for the Tiprasas from the TTAADC areas, the demand for Greater Tipraland goes beyond the TTAADC areas. This demand received a new fillip with the formation of the new political party, the Tipraha Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance (TIPRA) Motha, founded in 2019. The Greater Tipraland idea is not restricted to Tripura, and seeks to include Tripuris living in Assam, Mizoram, and Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the main opposition CPI(M) have rejected the demand as separatist and divisive. However, with the demand of Greater Tipraland as its main issue, the party has achieved great success in mobilising the tribal population of the state. This wave of support helped the party in registering significant success in the TTAADC elections in 2021 and the Assembly elections of early 2023.

The Jharkhand movement in Central India that began in the 1930s assumed the form of a mass movement in 1972 led by the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) in response to such marginalisation of the tribals which culminated in the formation of the separate Jharkhand state in 2000. In the northeastern region, especially in the states of Assam and Tripura, tribes faced massive land alienation due to largescale influx of immigrants from the erstwhile Bengal province encouraged by the

164  Chandan Kumar Sharma and Bhaswati Borgohain British colonial administration. This influx escalated at the time of the Partition of India and in the years that followed (Debbarma 2009; Ghosh 2003; Sharma 2001). The Bodos in Assam and tribal communities in Tripura who launched armed struggle during the 1980s and 1990s are examples of tribal communities expressing their resentments towards sudden demographic change, loss of tribal land, and the apathy of the non-tribal ruling class. The Bodos, led by the All Bodo Students Union (ABSU), launched a mass movement demanding full statehood called ‘Bodoland’ by separating the Bodo-inhabited areas from Assam. Simultaneously, two armed groups, National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) and Bodo Liberation Tigers (BLT), were also quite active with their own territorial demands. In 2003, the GoI signed an accord with BLT to constitute a new territorial entity called Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District (BTAD) within Assam under the Sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitution. Notably, this was the first and only instance when a Sixth Schedule area was created for a plain’s tribe with a constitutional amendment (Sharma 2006). In another accord signed in 2020, the BTAD was upgraded to Bodoland Territorial Region with more authority. Nevertheless, it is observed that during the post-colonial period, the major source of land alienation among the tribal population is not so much the encroachment of the non-tribals into the tribal land as the process of development that the Indian State has followed during the period (Sharma 2001). The large-scale industrialisation and exploitation of mineral resources and the construction of the irrigation dams and power projects that the tribal areas have witnessed during the period have been the most important factors that have uprooted more people out of their lands than the transfer of land from tribals to non-tribals on the individual basis. Nathan and Xaxa (2012) have termed this process as ‘development of underdevelopment’. This is because Adivasis are mainly employed as manual workers on temporary basis in the new industries and development projects coming up in tribal areas. But soon after the completion of the projects, the tribal workers are kicked out, forcing them to migrate to nearby cities and towns. In other words, the new power and irrigation projects are not benefitting the tribes. Rather, such ‘development’ projects are worsening their conditions of living. As a result, numerous tribal movements have sprung up in the areas where such development projects and activities have taken place. Examples of such movements can be witnessed among the tribals of the Bastar region of Madhya Pradesh, Narmada valley of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, and the Niyamgiri hills of Odisha. On account of the continued exploitation of the tribals during the post-colonial era, several new laws and court verdicts to protect the tribal communities and their land and resources such as the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation, and Resettlement Act, 2013, Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (Forest Rights Act), Samatha judgement of 1997, Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 (PESA), etc. have been introduced. Similarly, individual states have also passed laws to prevent transfer of tribal

Colonial and Post-Colonial India  165 land to non-tribals. But all of these have also been systematically violated by the state and corporate agencies for the extraction of minerals and other natural resources available in tribal areas. The state as an institution appears to be complicit in allowing such exploitation. This process has only accelerated manifold since then, especially after 1991, as the Indian State adopted neoliberal policies of development which opened up the resource-rich tribal areas for large-scale commercial exploitation, often at the expense of protective legislations (Sharma 2018: Singh 2007). Many tribal areas in the country are today witnessing stiff resistance against such exploitative policies. The resource-rich tribal region of Central India witnesses the perfect example of tribal struggle to resist various forms of exploitation of its resources during the British rule, in the early years of post-colonial India and in the contemporary neoliberal times. During the British period, their resistance was towards safeguarding rights on land and forests and opposing exploitative tax regimes. In the early years of independent India, the opposition was towards state development projects like mining, whereas in the contemporary times, it is against the combined neoliberal forces of the state and corporate agencies. Annapurna Pandey (2017) has observed that bauxite mining has dismantled the social structure of the Kondh tribe that lives near the Niyamgiri hills in Odisha. She argues that the exploitation and marginalisation of the tribe can be explained through ‘internal colonialism’ as in the British period that K. S. Singh and others have documented. The Kondhs are continuously struggling to sustain their movement against bauxite mining by the state and Vedanta in the name of development. They are fighting to preserve their natural environment and traditional livelihood which is dependent on the hills of Niyamgiri. She argues that such development projects are ‘indicative of the state and central government’s covert and overt resolve of becoming a facilitator for the big corporate houses’ to pave the way for predatory development ‘at the cost of local communities and natural resources’ (Pandey 2017: 46–49). Debashree De (2023) shows how tribal movements in neoliberal regime have become fragmented and multi-sited by presenting elaborate grassroots protests data from the states of Jharkhand, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, and Chattishgarh. In the Pathalgadi and Koel-Karo movements in Jharkhand, the former championed a human rights awareness movement by erecting stone slabs inscribing constitutional provisions on them, the latter successfully resisted the construction of a big dam on the Koel-Karo river, and saved villages from getting submerged. She covered different places in Odisha such as Kashipur, Kalinganagar, Jagatsinghpur, Narayanpatna, Sundergarh, Kandhamal, and Kalahandi that have witnessed tribal protests against multinational and corporate exploitation creating international news. She looked at Chattishgarh as part of the red corridor affected by the extremist ideologies of Naxalism and brutal state violence. In Madhya Pradesh, she captured the tribal cultural and religious revivalist movements which in recent times have witnessed increased violence against Christian missionaries and deeper involvement and rise of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

166  Chandan Kumar Sharma and Bhaswati Borgohain BOX 7.5 The Kutia and Dongria Kondh

The Kutia Kondh and Dongria Kondh are two of the officially designated ‘primitive tribal groups’, inhabiting the Niyamgiri hilly region which extends to Rayagada, Koraput, and Kalahandi districts of South Odisha. They largely rely on hunting, gathering and shifting cultivation in the Niyamgiri hills for survival and consider the hills as their supreme deity ‘Niyam Raja’. The hills have huge deposits of bauxite, the primary raw material for aluminium. In 2003, Vedanta, a multinational company, through a joint venture with Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC), tried to mine bauxite ore in the region. Initially, the members of both these communities protested against Vedanta locally. But Vedanta along with the state forces tried to suppress the protest movement organised under the Niyamgiri Suraksha Samiti (Niyamgiri Protection Society). With their continued resistance, the movement gained wider attention as there was blatant use of violence against the tribal protesters. In 2010, the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests rejected stage-II forest clearance for the mining project, citing a violation of the locals’ rights as per the Forest Rights Act, 2006. This decision was challenged by Vedanta in the Supreme Court. The latter on April 18, 2013 ruled that the clearance can only be given if the Gram Sabhas, or village councils, agree to the mining project. Later, all 12 villages selected by the state government for Gram Sabhas voted against the project, and a plea by OMC in 2016 to hold a fresh Gram Sabha was quashed by the Supreme Court. Such cultural and religious revivalist movements have gained new strength in the Northeast too. While in the past the Heraka movement (See BOX 7.2) played such a role, the Seng Khasi among the Khasis in Meghalaya and the Donyi Polo movement among the Tani and other Tibeto-Burman groups in Arunachal Pradesh are still active and are engaged in the revival of their indigenous religious and cultural practices. Some scholars (Chatterji et​.al​., 2021) argue that these later movements are a part of the larger Hindu religious nationalism project of the RSS and its affiliated network of organisations, intended to assimilate indigenous faiths and culture within Hinduism. However, borrowing the binary of Hindu majoritarianism of mainland India to understand these tribal movements in Northeast India would not explain the nuances of the region. It would rob the agency of both tribal leaders and people who are part of these movements. Longkumer (2021) has shown how RSS has adapted its tactics to the local requirements in the region. While liberalisation brought services and facilities to a section of modern India, it has marginalised the tribals and Dalits further by displacing and dispossessing them of their land and resources. Tribal people from the mineral-rich hills of Odisha are now seen moving to slums such as Salia Sahi and Kargil, which are the largest urban slums in Bhubaneswar, the capital city of the state. Tribals have sunk into the quandary of ‘involuntary nomadism’, ‘the homeless people’ (Pandey 2017).

Colonial and Post-Colonial India  167 N. C. Saxena Committee came out with startling findings that 85.39 lakh tribals in rural India have been displaced since 1990 on account of the mega projects of various multinational corporations. It is observed, (S)ince 1980, an average of around 40,000 hectares of forest land has been diverted annually (this figure has risen from around 25,000 in the early 1990s), and in 2004, the MoEF (Ministry of Environment and Forests) stated in Parliament that 9.8 lakh hectares have been diverted for 11,282 ‘development projects’ since 1980. Over 1.6 lakh hectares have been diverted for mines alone, and in just last three years alone, about 300 mining projects involving a diversion of over 20,000 hectares of forest land have been cleared. (Krishnaswami 2005: 4900) It can thus be concluded that the tribal population as a whole has gained the least and lost the most from six decades of democracy and development in India (Guha 2007). According to Xaxa, the answer to the failure of the development policy lies in the relationship between tribes and the larger society. He also argues that ‘right to property’ for certain sections of India has led to deprivation for such rights for the tribes. Tribes fail to go to court to seek justice and restore their position. The larger society considers them as ‘alien’; hence, there is an overall indifference towards their cause and development. This attitude also gets reflected while their land and habitats are taken over for development projects. The benefits of such development never went to the tribes who are asked to suffer in the name of national interest. The genuine interest and issues of the tribal people never occur in the minds of our planners and administrators. He further observes that the tribals constitute 40% of the totally displaced people in the country, though they form only 8% of India’s population. It is also to be noted that only about 25% of the displaced tribal people are rehabilitated (Xaxa 2011: 13). Even many years after completion of a project, the evictees do not get their compensation. This is not just a failure on the part of bureaucracy, this is also an approach to deny the rights of the tribes. We may also explain the gap in the developmental index of tribes and non-tribes from this point of view. These aspects are overlooked while the issue of tribal development is discussed. Unless such an approach is changed, tribes would continue to face exclusion. These issues have also influenced the growth of Maoist movements in India (Ghosh 2018). In Northeast India too, the government’s logic of development behind the construction of big infrastructure projects like mega hydel dams has barely convinced the tribal communities of the region: There is a strong perception in the region that the Indian state is pushing these projects at the behest of the big capital … that it only betrays the approach of the Indian state towards the region as a distant periphery …. (S)uch a perception is not warranted in a sensitive region like northeast which has already witnessed series of protest movements, insurgencies, and violence on the question of state’s exploitation of its resources. (Sharma 2018: 330–331)

168  Chandan Kumar Sharma and Bhaswati Borgohain Further, the centralised nature of the Indian State has also pushed the tribal communities in the region to the path of ethno-nationalist movements. For the tribal communities in the region, alienation is even more because of the psychological and cultural exclusion of the region from the popularly perceived idea of India. It is within this context of continuous marginalisation of the tribal communities and exploitation of their land and resources that the tribal movement in the post-colonial era needs to be understood. Tribal Leadership and Their Transitions At this stage, a note on the leadership of the tribal movements in different historical phases seems imperative. It is witnessed that the tribal movements in the colonial period were often led by charismatic leaders such as Birsa, Sidhu, Kanhu, Jadonang, and Gaidinliu. These leaders often invoked divine ordination for themselves and promised a better future (golden age) for their communities. Their charisma inspired the illiterate and oppressed tribal communities to fight against their oppressors. However, these movements did not appear to have any clear organisational structures. What is important to note is that they emerged from within the tribal societies without help or guidance from any external agencies. On the other hand, most of the tribal movements in the post-colonial period, in some cases even before Independence, have been led by the newly emerging educated middle class from within the tribal societies. Thus, it is the emerging Naga educated class which formed the Naga Club in 1918, the precursor of the Naga nationalist movement of later years. Similarly, the Adivasi Mahasabha formed in 1938, which demanded a separate state of ‘Jharkhand’ for the tribals in the Chotanagpur region, was led by the Oxford-educated Jaipal Singh, a Munda. The leadership of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, such as Binod Bihari Mahato, Shibu Soren, Nirmal Mahto, and so on, which led the movement for a separate Jharkhand state was a mix of educated and charismatic leaders. The Tribal Sangha, the first tribal political platform of the northeastern region which demanded representation in the provincial legislative assembly, was constituted by the newly emerging middle-class members of various tribes of Assam. All these organisations had clear-cut leadership and organisational structures, and their modus operandi was mainly through democratic means (petition, public rallies, and so on). Subsequently, when some tribal communities of the northeastern region – Nagas and Mizos – took to armed struggles with the demand for self-determination, one witnesses that elaborate organisational structures characterised their movements, although they also had charismatic educated leaders such as Phizo and Muivah (among the Nagas) and Laldenga (among the Mizos). Even later on, since the very beginning, the leadership of the Bodo identity movement mainly hailed from the educated class, and the movement in its different phases has been led by different outfits with elaborate organisational structures. The same applies to other tribal identity movements in the region as well in recent times. Indeed, one important factor that has facilitated the growth of self-consciousness among these tribal groups is the expansion of education, and in this context the role of the Christian missionaries is quite significant.

Colonial and Post-Colonial India  169 The leadership of the contemporary tribal resistance movements against indiscriminate exploitation of resources in their land and destruction of the environment also hails mainly from the educated section of the tribal communities. These movements also seem to be quite organised as they have to take on the combined forces of the state and corporate agencies. However, these movements often receive intellectual, legal, and financial support from various civil society organisations (CSOs). Pandey (2017) has highlighted the role that CSOs played in giving prominence to the issues and movement of the Dongria Kondhs against mining in Niyamgiri to a wider national and international audience. In Central India, Maoist organisations have also taken up the issues of the tribals. However, the Maoists, Padel and Das (2006) observe, often undermine the old patterns of leadership and political organisation, which might weaken the tradition of resistance among the tribal people. It may be mentioned here that although the educated middle class is playing a critical role in providing leadership to the tribal movements, one also witnesses the vacillating character of this leadership. Once they are in power, they often start behaving the same way the non-tribal ruling class does, gradually getting appropriated by the oppressive system which they once fought. With new hierarchies and divisions, emerge new fault lines and contestations within the tribes, which then are exploited by the corporate-state and elite nexus. It has led to mindless and rapid destruction of ecologies, transforming rural landscapes into unplanned and unsustainable urban centres and increased consumerism and loss of tribal culture. Real issues of the tribal people remain therefore unaddressed. In northeastern India too, the leadership of the tribal groups often articulates ethno-nationalist rhetoric. However, more pressing issues of land and livelihood of the tribal communities, more often than not, take a backseat. Summary and Conclusion The above discussion shows how the tribal communities in India have faced continuous marginalisation, exploitation, and deprivation, since the British period to the contemporary times. Against this, various tribal communities have organised movements and raised their issues. During the British period, they resisted the enormous changes imposed on their traditional, social, and economic systems. The colonial policies dispossessed them of their land, resources, and forests, thereby seriously affecting their livelihood and survival. One witnesses how such colonial policies continued in post-colonial India, even though the Constitution guarantees certain protective and restorative provisions for the tribal communities. The development model that independent India adopted further worsened the situation of the tribes. Prabhu (2019) argues that one major reason for this eventuality stems from the very nature of this development model which is informed by the mission of nation-building with the understanding that the backward tribal communities are to be assimilated with the mainstream civilisation. He also argues that the tribals are deliberately kept scattered into several states and districts so as to obviate the possibility of a united struggle by them.

170  Chandan Kumar Sharma and Bhaswati Borgohain It is clear that wherever displacement and dispossession of population has taken place in the name of development projects, the tribals suffered the most. In fact, the tribal movements in the post-liberalisation India can be seen as resistance towards various mega national and international infrastructure development projects which have destroyed their social and natural environment. Further, along with the exploitative development paradigm adopted in the post-colonial India, the tribal movements in the northeastern India also resisted the centralising tendencies of the Indian State. Thus, some resistance movements in the region take the extreme expression of full sovereignty. It has indeed become very challenging for the tribes to continue resisting the Indian State and the corporate agencies, as the onslaught on them and the resources in their habitat have continued unabated. Despite such challenges, tribal communities have continued to resist the destructive resource exploitations in various forms. It is, therefore, of utmost importance that their genuine resentment is acknowledged and addressed by the state and the larger society. It calls for more inclusive development policies which are sensitive to the ethos and the genius of the tribal communities. Review Questions 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

How do you understand tribes as a conceptual category? How is a tribe defined in the Indian context? What are the various typologies of tribal movements in India? Write an account of the tribal movements in colonial India with examples. What are the various causes and types of tribal movements in post-colonial India? Do you find any relation between globalisation and tribal movements in contemporary India?

Notes 1 Broadly, the STs inhabit two distinct geographical areas: Central India and Northeast India. Central India accounts for 83% of the total ST population of the country. Of the total population of these states, Madhya Pradesh has 14.69%, Chhattisgarh has 7.5%, Jharkhand has 8.29%, Andhra Pradesh has 5.7%, Maharashtra has 10.08%, Odisha has 9.2%, Gujarat has 8.55%, and Rajasthan has 8.86% as ST population. Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Jammu and Kashmir, Tripura, Mizoram, Bihar, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu account for another 15.3% of the total ST population. Lakshadweep, Mizoram, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, and Dadra and Nagar Haveli are predominantly tribal states/union territories, where ST population constitutes more than 60% of their total population (Ministry of Tribal Affairs 2013). 2 Singh (1982a) here refers to a survey of tribal movements conducted by the Anthropological Survey of India (ASI) in 1976 that identified 36 on-going tribal movements.

References Arnold, David. 1982. ‘Rebellious Hillmen: The Gudem Rampa Rising 1839–1924’. In Guha, Ranajit (Ed.), Subaltern Studies I (88–142). Delhi: Oxford University Press. Baviskar, Amita. 1995. In the Belly of the River: Tribal Conflicts over Development in the Narmada Valley. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Beteille, Andre. 1974. Six Essays in Comparative Sociology. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Colonial and Post-Colonial India  171 ———. 1995. ‘Construction of Tribe: Ideology and Demographic Reality’. The Times of India, 19 June, New Delhi. Chatterji, Angana P., Thomas Blom Hansen, and Christophe Jaffrelot (Eds.). 2019. Majoritarian State: How Hindu Nationalism is Changing India. London: C Hurst & Co. Publishers Ltd. Chattoraj, A. K. 1999. ‘The Tana Bhagat Movement: An Appraisal’. Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 60: 639–644. Chaube, Shibani K. 2012. Hill Politics in Northeast India. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan. De, Debashree. 2023. Human Rights, Tribal Movements and Violence: Tribal Tenacity in the Twenty-first Century in Central Eastern India. New Delhi: Routledge. Debbarma, Sukhendu. 2009. ‘Refugee Rehabilitation and Land Alienation in Tripura’. In Fernandes, Walter and Borbora, Sanjay (Eds.), Land, People and Politics: Contest Over Tribal Land in Northeast India (113–127). Guwahati and Copenhagen: North Eastern Social Research Centre and IWGIA. Desai, Akshayakumar R. 1986. Agrarian Struggles in India after Independence. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Dubey, S. M. 1982. ‘Inter-Ethnic Alliance, Tribal Movements and Integration in North-East India’. In Singh, K. S. (Eds.), Tribal Movements in India, vol. I (1–25). New Delhi: Manohar. Fluehr-Lobban, Carolyn, R. Lobban, and Z. Linda. 1976. ‘Tribe: A Socio-Political Analysis’. Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies, 7 (1): 143–165. Ghosh, Biswajit. 2003. ‘Ethnicity and Insurgency in Tripura’. Sociological Bulletin, 52 (2): 221–243. ———. 2018. ‘Social Roots of Terrorism: A Critical Appraisal of Maoist Movement in India’. In Verma, Smita (Ed.), Underdevelopment and Naxalism in India (61–83). Jaipur: Rawat Publications. Godelier, Maurice. 1977. Perspectives in Marxist Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goswami, Shruti D. 1979. ‘The Phulaguri Uprising: An Appraisal’. Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 40: 557–565. Guha, Ramachandra. 2007. ‘Adivasis, Naxalites and Indian Democracy’. Economic & Political Weekly, 42 (32): 3305–3312. Henningham, Stephen. 1982. Peasant Movements in Colonial India: North Bihar, 1917– 1942. Canberra: ANU Press. Krishnaswami, Madhuri. 2005. ‘One Step Forward, Two Steps Back’. Economic & Political Weekly, 40 (47): 4899–4901. Longkumer, Arkotong. 2021. The Greater Indian Experiment: Hindutva and the Northeast. Standford California: Standford University Press. ———. 2007. ‘Religious and Economic Reform: The Gaidinliu Movement and the Heraka in the North Cachar Hills’. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 30 (3): 499–515. Mahapatra, L. K. 1968. ‘Social Movements among Tribes in Eastern India’. Sociologus, 18 (1): 46–63. Ministry of Tribal Affairs. 2013. Statistical Profile of Scheduled Tribes in India 2013. New Delhi: Government of India. Mukherjee, D., P. Gupta, and N. K. Das (1982). ‘The Zeliangrong or Haomei movement’. In Singh, K. S. (Ed.), Tribal Movements in India, vol. 1 (67–96). Delhi: Manohar Publications. Murali, Atlury. 2017. ‘Tribal Armed Rebellion of 1922–1924 in the Madras Presidency: A Study of Causation as Colonial Legitimation’. In Bates, Crispin (Ed.), Savage Attack: Tribal Insurgency in India (140–166). London: Taylor & Francis. Nathan, Dev, and Virginius Xaxa. 2012. Social Exclusion and Adverse Inclusion. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Padel, Felix, and Samarendra Das. 2006. ‘Anthropology of a Genocide: Tribal Movements in Central India against Over-Industrialisation’. Available at: http://www​.dem​ocra​ciay​ coop​eracion​.net​/IMG​/pdf​/felixpadel​-samarendradas​.pdf (accessed on 3 May 2019).

172  Chandan Kumar Sharma and Bhaswati Borgohain Pandey, Annapurna. 2017. ‘The Challenges of Neoliberal Policies and the Indigenous People’s Resistance Movement in Odisha, India’. e-cadernos CES 28. https://doi​.org​/10​ .4000​/eces​.2340. Peters, Michael A., and C. T. Mika. 2017. ‘Aborigine, Indian, Indigenous or First Nations?’ Educational Philosophy and Theory, 49 (13): 1229–1234. Prabhu, Pradip. 2019. ‘An Unbroken History of Broken Promises Exploration from a Tribal Perspective’. In Rao, V. (Ed.), Adivasi Rights and Exclusion in India (269–296). London: Routledge India. Raghavaiah, V. 1971. Tribal Revolts. Nellore: Andhra Rashtra Adimajati Sevak Sangh. Sahlins, Marshall. 1968. Tribesmen. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Sengupta, Nirmal. 1988a. ‘Reappraising Tribal Movements: I: A Myth in the Making’. Economic and Political Weekly, 23 (19): 943–945. ———. 1988b. ‘Reappraising Tribal Movements: II: Legitimisation and Spread’. Economic and Political Weekly, 23 (20): 1003–1005. ———. 1988c. ‘Reappraising Tribal Movements: III: The Economic Basis’. Economic and Political Weekly, 23 (21):1054–1055. ———. 1988d. ‘Reappraising Tribal Movements: IV: Current Situation’. Economic and Political Weekly, 23 (22):1111–1112. ———. 1988e. ‘Reappraising Tribal Movements: V: To the Social Scientists’. Economic and Political Weekly, 23 (23):1153–1154. Shah, Ghanshyam. 1990. Social Movements in India: A Review of Literature. New Delhi: SAGE Publications. Sharma, Chandan Kumar. 2001. ‘Tribal Land Alienation in Assam: Government’s Role’. Economic & Political Weekly, 36 (52): 4791–4795. ———. 2006. ‘The Bodo Movement in Assam: A Sociological Study’. PhD Thesis, Department of Sociology, Delhi University, Delhi. ———. 2018. ‘Dam, Development and Popular Resistance in Northeast India’. Sociological Bulletin, 67 (3): 317–333. Sharma, Chandan Kumar, and Bhaswati Borgohain. 2019 ‘The New Land Settlement Act in Arunachal Pradesh’. Economic and Political Weekly, 54 (23): 17-20. Singh, Bhupinder. 2007. ‘Tribal Scenario in the Context of Economic Liberalisation and Globalisation’. Indian Journal of Public Administration, 53 (4): 759–766. Singh, Kumar S. 1966. Dust Storm and Changing Mist: Story of Birsa Munda and His Movement in Chhotanagpur. Calcutta: Firma K. L. Mukhopadhyay. ———. 1982a. Tribal Movements in India, vol. I. New Delhi: Manohar. ———. 1982b. ‘Transformation of Tribal Society: Integration vs Assimilation’. Economic & Political Weekly, 17 (34): 1376–1384. ———. 1983. Tribal Movements of India, vol. II. New Delhi: Manohar. ———. 1985. Tribal Society in India: An Anthropo-historical Perspective. New Delhi: Manohar. ———. 1998. People of India: Rajasthan. Mumbai: Popular Prakashan. Sinha, Surajit. 1972. ‘Tribal Solidarity and Messianic movement: A Review’. In Singh, K. S. (Ed.), Tribal Situation in India (410–423). Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study. Verghese, B. G. 1996. India’s Northeast Resurgent: Ethnicity, Insurgency, Governance, Development. Delhi: Konark Publishers. Xaxa, Virginius. 1999a. ‘Tribes as Indigenous People of India’. Economic & Political Weekly, 34 (51): 3589–3595. ———. 1999b. ‘Transformation of Tribes in India: Terms of Discourse’. Economic & Political Weekly, 34 (24): 1520–1524. ———. 2011. ‘Tribes and Social Exclusion’. Occasional Paper. Delhi: CSSSC-UNICEF Social Inclusion Cell. Available at: http://cssscal​.org​/pdf​/unicef​/OP​_Virginius​_Xaxa​.pdf (accessed on 3 May 2019).

8

Movements of Radical Marxists: From Naxalism to Maoism Biswajit Ghosh

Learning Objectives After reading this chapter, you will be able to:

• • • •

Know about the origin and growth of the Naxalite movement; Learn about the rise and spread of Maoist movements; Explain the factors that led to such rise; Discuss the impact of these movements on policy formulation by the Indian state; and • Be able to critically analyse the success and failures of these movements.

Introduction Marxian theorists have time and again debated on the possibilities and nature of uprising of the marginalised sections of the masses. Notwithstanding diversity among them on certain critical issues, the Marxian notions of class struggle, revolution, and emancipation have inspired a host of political activists across the globe to launch powerful movements both against the state and also against class enemies. In the case of India, the Communist Party of India (CPI) was in the forefront of organising the workers in the cotton textile and jute mills in the early years of trade unionism. They are also credited for launching two powerful movements of peasants and tenants, namely, Telangana1 and Tebhaga2 revolts just before independence. The positive experience of the Tebhaga movement led leaders such as Charu Mazumdar3, Kanu Sanyal, Jangal Santhal, and Saran Ghosh to start organising the plantation workers and agriculture labourers. The spirit of this movement, argues Mukherji (2010: 82), ‘provided the beacon light for those who two decades later created another peasant revolt’. Yet, over a period of time since independence, Indian Marxists got fragmented on the question of ideology and practice and used labels like ‘moderate4’, ‘revisionist’, ‘radical’, or ‘left-wing extremist’ to classify and blame each other. This chapter focusses on the efforts of radical Marxists to organise one of the most powerful and incisive peasant movements, called Naxalite movement, in independent DOI:  10.4324/9781003481744-10

174  Biswajit Ghosh  India. In May 2017, this movement completed 50 years of its history and those who continue to believe in organising a radical revolt prefer to call them Maoist now. This chapter would also concentrate on the ideological transition of radical Indian Marxists from Naxalism to Maoism. As the trajectory of these movements in different phases continued for more than five decades, it would be illuminating to look at the factors that allowed them to do so. Such an analysis would also allow us to comment on whether and to what extent the movement poses a ‘threat’ to India’s security. Growth of Naxalite Movement in India The beginning of the Naxalite uprising in 1967 took the shape of an armed uprising of peasants against the landlords in the Darjeeling district of West Bengal. A popular English newspaper, The Statesman termed it as Naxalbari movement because of its origin in a place called Naxalbari. A group of ‘communist revolutionaries’, seeking fundamental changes in Indian society, then withdrew themselves from the then ‘reformist’ communist parties and launched an armed uprising. Attracting a large number of educated youth from all over the country, the movement generated huge strength as well as counter-state repression and continued until about 1972. Naxalism was a culmination of a series of events since 1940. The peasant leaders of North Bengal continued their struggle against exploitation and for the rights of the marginalised after the Tebhaga movement. Under the leadership of Charu Mazumdar, these leaders started working among the plantation workers, landless labourers, and poor peasants. In 1943, in the context of the great famine and consequent starvation of workers and labourers, Charu Mazumdar, a member of the Jalpaiguri district committee, and other leaders of CPI asked people to come together, attack the granaries of the landlords, and grab the grains (Suchitra 2017). As the struggle spread, agricultural labourers and plantation workers joined the resistance movement in large numbers and followed the instructions of Mazumdar. In 1946, Majumdar joined the Tebhaga movement and started believing in the potential of militant struggle by the proletariat. As the CPI was banned in 1948, Majumdar was jailed for three years. The scenario did not change much after independence. The CPI leaders protesting against the half-hearted policies of the Nehru government on land reform gave a call to grab excess land above the land ceiling from the landlords in 1959 (Suchitra 2017). This movement called the ‘food movement’ gained strength as common man without any party affiliation joined them spontaneously in great numbers. But when the party leadership called off the agitation, peasant leaders like Charu Mazumdar were greatly disturbed and disappointed. Ignoring the instructions from the party, they continued the revolt against exploitations by the landlords. When the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)]5 was formed in 1964, Majumdar joined it though he was against the decision to suspend armed struggle and participate in polls. In the context of the food crisis in 1966, the volunteers of the CPI(M) again started de-hoarding and confiscating food grains in West Bengal. It was also a brilliant moment for the CPI(M) to prove its radical

Movements of Radical Marxists  175 potential as compared to the ‘revisionist’ CPI. Obviously, the food movement of 1966 witnessed large-scale violence, ration riots, as well as retreat by the state. The Naxalbari uprising in 1967 had close links with these popular revolts. Riding on these tides, the CPI(M) and its United Front allies (CPI and Bangla Congress) had come to power in West Bengal in that year. The government, which was formed on March 2, 1967, promised to introduce land reforms. Fearing sharecropper’s right over land, the landowners started evicting them. The case of a sharecropper named Bigul Kishan from Naxalbari added fire to the fury as he was evicted and physically attacked by a landlord and his gang despite a judicial order in his favour. The leaders then stepped up their activities and gave the signal for forcible seizure of lands with dubious ownership claims. Suddenly, the noninstitutionalised means became popular among the peasants as the earlier legal and partially non-institutional strategies did not produce any spectacular results. On March 3, 1967, three sharecroppers, accompanied by 150 CPI(M) comrades, raided the granary of a prominent jotedar (landlord). They were armed with lathis, bows, and arrows while carrying party flags. The rebels picked up 300 bags of paddy without leaving any share to him (Banerjee 1984). The young revolutionaries then introduced guerrilla tactics with traditional weapons in place of collective struggles by the peasant masses. Soon, the experiments of Adivasi people of Phansidewa, Naxalbari, and Khoribari regions in the Siliguri sub-division of the Darjeeling district became a national event. The uprising witnessed spontaneous trials against landlords, redistribution of their land, destruction of their land documents, and formation of revolutionary committees to execute political power. Being embarrassed and unable to control the radical comrades, the United Front government finally resorted to police action. On May 23 when police entered the village to arrest some leaders, the peasants welcomed them by killing an inspector with an arrow. On May 25, the police retaliated by opening fire on a peaceful rally of peasants, killing 11 persons including eight women and two children. This led to a rampage by peasants and workers, forcing many erstwhile Rajbansi jotedars to flee. The armed revolt, thereby, created what Mazumdar called a ‘liberated zone’. Though the peasants could not fight back for long with bow and arrow, particularly after the arrests of their leaders in Naxalbari, suppression of popular resentment culminated in the geopolitical extension of Naxalbari. Since its birth, the Naxalite movement spread quickly into parts of Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Orissa, Karnataka, and some other areas where guerrilla squads of poor and landless peasants drove the landlords under the guidance of leaders who came from outside. Breaking away from the moderate communists in April 1969, the revolutionaries formed the Communist Party of India (MarxistLeninist) with affirmed revolutionary objectives. The birth of this movement is also linked to the charismatic personality and capability of Charu Mazumdar. He was able to inspire very quickly a completely new set of young leadership (as the moderate leaders like Kanu Sanyal were in jail), which replaced maturity with a spirit of revolutionary adventure (Mukherji 2010: 84). They then rejected the state and its institutions and sought their destruction through revolutionary means. The pro-Chinese stand of these leaders gave rise to the idea of ‘Naxalism’ which meant

176  Biswajit Ghosh  ‘armed revolution’. Mao’s thinking6 deeply shaped his vision and ideas of a mass struggle. The Naxalites then called the chairman of China as their ‘chairman’ while accusing the CPI(M) of ‘revisionism’ and of choosing the ‘path of class collaboration’. According to Samaddar (2017), radical subjectivity was the main mark of the movement at the time. The Naxal ideology deeply impacted a large segment of students influencing their movements in many parts of India. Even today, some student organisations carry forward the logic of total emancipation through structural transformations. While the Naxalbari experiment is hailed by many scholars as the first-ever effort to challenge the exploitative nexus of feudal lords and capitalists in independent India, forcing the state to recognise the need for land reforms and development of underdeveloped regions of the country, alternative explanations about Naxalism as an ideology and as praxis are offered by even radical Marxists today. One major criticism of this movement was that it led to indiscriminate killing and violence of innocent people by the police (Harriss 2010: 8). Even the agrarian issues then became less important, and poor peasants who betrayed them became their ‘class enemy’ (Mukherji 2010). The leaders and particularly Charu Mazumdar committed many ‘tactical blunders and adoption of erroneous policies’ as he believed in certain fantasies (Ghosh 2009). Notwithstanding his complete dedication to the peasants’ cause and the popularity of his ideology of emancipation among the youth of his time, Mazumdar underestimated the power of the state apparatus and thereby exposed his comrades. The state came down heavily with matching violence, and by 1973, nearly 40,000 of its members were jailed and many eliminated in encounters (Mukherji 2010: 72). The party was banned, its publications confiscated, and its activities deemed insurrectionary. Interestingly, discussion on such ‘mistakes’ began much before the death of Charu Mazumdar (in jail) by insiders like Suniti Kumar Ghosh, Jagjit Singh Sohail, and Sitaramaiyya. They wanted to rectify such mistakes from within and wanted to rely on strategies like mass organisation and mass movement. But this could not be done. The Naxalites subsequently got divided into several factions by 1971 on ideological, tactical, and regional lines. Such infighting reduced the morale and support base of the movement. From a single party practising ‘Naxalism’, argues Mukherji (2010: 72), radical Marxists today are fragmented into numerous political groupings operative in various parts of the country under different names. Spread of Maoist Ideology The movements of radical Marxists did not die a natural death with the arrests and liquidation of a large number of erstwhile Naxalites or their sympathisers. Contrarily, they grouped and regrouped themselves in different phases using different nomenclature though largely retaining the ideology of revolution and emancipation of the masses. It is, therefore, possible to treat both the Naxalite and the Maoist movements as different phases of a continuous movement seeking to end the exploitative social structure. In the 1980s, which is argued to be the second phase of the movement (Banerjee 2006a), some survivors of the first phase started

Movements of Radical Marxists  177 rethinking about alternative strategy. Participation in parliamentary politics and trade union activity then became the possible path for them. Leaders like Shankar Guha Neogi and A.K. Roy built up a new tradition of ‘social movement unionism’7 within the political tradition of Maoism. Some, however, favoured a mixture of the line of armed struggle with mass mobilisation through open fronts. These Maoists became successful in building a ‘red corridor’ over a huge geographical region that covers parts of states like Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal by the end of the decade. It is worth noting here that like Charu Mazumdar, the Maoist leaders of the 1980s were equally influenced by the political ideology of Mao Zedong. Like the Naxalites, they also voiced the same slogan: ‘power flows from the barrel of the gun’. The change in terminology from Naxalite to Maoist was necessitated by the fact that by the 1980s, the Maoist movement became an all India feature in contrast to the regional struggles of the Naxalites. The new terminology also gives direct credence to the ideology and practice of Mao Zedong. It is widely known that Maoism, which the Chinese Communists theorised in the 1950s and 1960s, tried to establish a classless society through armed revolution for the social, cultural, and economic emancipation of the marginalised people. Maoists considered landless labourers, poor peasants, and exploited middle peasants in semi-feudal semi-colonial countries like India as their class allies. Hence, organising an armed struggle against the oppressors of these allies became their immediate task (D’mello 2009). While the moderate Indian Marxists did not adhere to such a view, the radical Marxists did. Indian Maoists, however, have changed their strategies with the passage of time. Starting with normal political campaigns (which still continue) in the 1970s and 1980s, and mass movements of agricultural labourers, students, and youth, some of them also opt for armed training of cadres. Those who differ on the utility of armed conflict participate in parliamentary politics. As a corollary, there are ‘strategic differences’ among the various streams of the Naxalite Movement today (Mohanty 2015). The need for a united platform was, however, felt by fragmented revolutionaries for quite a long time and a few of them also merged their organisations. Thus, in August 1998, the CPI(ML) merged with the People’s War Group and thereby expanded its geographic scope of operations significantly. It began establishing state committees in Kerala, Haryana, and Punjab. The most significant of such mergers took place in 2004. In this phase, leaders of scattered and divided factions of Maoist could create a single revolutionary party, the CPI(Maoist). The unification of the Nepali Maoist could have influenced them. After this merger, Charu Mazumdar’s doctrine of annihilation of class enemies through armed struggle again became the predominant strategy (Mukherji 2018: 44). The major factor that prompted such a step was the negative consequences of the neoliberal policy of the Indian state and displacement/marginalisation of a large number of Adivasis and Dalits. The Maoist movement then acquired such strength that the Indian state had to declare it as the ‘single biggest security threat’ for the country as a whole. The Maoists’ influence then could be traced in nearly 40% of India’s geographical area. They were able to control a large part of remote and forest areas called the ‘Red Corridor’. The Expert Committee (GoI 2008)

178  Biswajit Ghosh  appointed by the Government of India to find out the causes of ‘discontent, unrest, and extremism’ suggested meeting the development needs of the marginalised sections of society and addressing the unsolved issues of the ‘right to livelihood, right to life, and dignified and honourable existence’. Yet, the Indian state preferred offensives by security forces on an unprecedented scale to wipe out the rebels and their supporters. It was believed that as against the easy method of suppression of voices by force, if the ‘foundational causes’ leading to unrest, discontent, and extremism are met, the Maoists would automatically lose the sympathy of tribes and Dalits. Yet, the Indian state predominantly opted for the easy method and since 2009, the state’s counter-insurgency initiatives have forced the Maoist movement to retreat8 and contract temporarily. It appears that the differential strategy of the Maoists over decades is very much linked to the way the Indian state has responded to the issues raised by them. Given any oppressive strategy of the state, the Maoists have opted for retreat, disintegration, and reorganisation. For instance, despite their critique of the parliamentary system, the CPI(Maoist) changed its stance in 2009 and started developing a tacit understanding with regional parties (Verma 2011: 11). They then went back to the old logic that without mass struggle and mass organisation, the peasants’ armed struggle cannot be sustained. But, simultaneously, democratic protest movements through mass mobilisation ‘take a back seat’ when the state targets them, files false cases, eliminates them, and crushes democratic movements (Balagopal 2006). Any evaluation of the Maoist movement in India must seriously, therefore, take note of the politics of state action in resolving the impasse. It is clear by now that the application of brutal force by the state did not either dissolve or dissipate the movement of radicals. These actions rather contributed to their multiplication and fame. As Felix Padel (2018: 21) argues, ‘Maoism in India today seems to be widely perceived by many people, including many young people, as one of the few valid alternatives to the mainstream’. The Indian Government, however, claims that the influence of Maoists has contracted to only 41 districts of the country by 2021. Yet, field activists suggest that unless the root causes are seriously resolved, Maoist cadres may go underground temporarily to undertake grassroots mobilisation (Krishnan 2023). It is also a recognised fact that even in urban locations, Maoists are active and they also have a large base of sympathisers among the urban middle class and intellectuals9 who feel that the state is equally responsible for the rise of such movement. Interestingly, Maoists do have a Tactical United Front (TUF) working in urban areas for broadbased struggles (Ramana 2018), and it is unfair to limit them only to the Red Corridor. Let us now concentrate on the factors that caused the movements of radical Marxists. Factors Influencing Naxalite and Maoist Movements There are several reasons for which the Naxalite and Maoist movements in India have originated and sustained for seven decades. It is possible to classify these factors into two major types:

Movements of Radical Marxists  179 i ) Issues related to deprivation, precarity, and lack of development, and ii) Issues related to social and political expectations, assertions, and actions. Let us discuss these factors in some detail. i)

Issues Related to Deprivation, Precarity, and Lack of Development

The major factor that influenced the growth of the Naxalite movement was poverty, inequality, lack of development, land alienation and eviction, displacement, underdevelopment, unemployment, and absence of essential necessities like food, drinking water, road, education, and health facilities. The Maoist activists also stressed on similar issues of destitutions of marginalised sections of the Indian population. Some prefer to call these ‘root causes’ (Sundar 2011). I, however, term them as ‘necessary conditions’ which very often play a critical role in explaining the origin of many social movements (Ghosh 2003). Interestingly, the Naxalbari movement took place at a time when the peasants, sharecroppers, tenants, agricultural labourers, artisans, and workers were protesting against prevailing social and economic inequality, discrimination, and deprivation. Declining standard of life and looming precarity enhanced their vulnerability many times. SinghaRoy (2004: 77), therefore, argued that the Naxalite movement had its genesis in the accumulated deprivation of the peasantry and various other forms of their social and economic exploitation and domination in the agrarian society. The Expert Committee also documented that ‘a large section of the people are angry and feel alienated from the polity’ (2008: 2). In North Bengal, there were grievances particularly against the tea garden owners and jotedars for holding disproportionate quantities of land and carrying out illegal transfers and evictions of sharecroppers. Despite the abolition of the Zamindari system, the erstwhile landlords enjoyed unquestionable power in rural India. Ironically, only 4% of rich landlords owned the bulk of the land in this area in 1971. On the contrary, nearly 60% of the population was without any landholding. Most of these rural poor ended up becoming sharecroppers, working for the landlords without any tenancy rights (Mehra 2000). Similar situations typically prevailed in other neighbouring areas where the Naxalite movement found its firm footing. For instance, in the Srikakulam area of Andhra Pradesh, the highest incidence of tribal land alienation was noticed with non-tribals owning more than half of the land in the scheduled areas (Banaji 2010: 136). Similarly, in the Kondeamodalu in East Godavari, the Maoist became popular for raising issues like indebtedness of the tribals, their exploitation by money lenders, and low farm wages (Sinha 1989). One of the major services that the Maoist cadres have provided is to offer protection for villagers from confiscation of assets by moneylenders (Kapur et al. 2012). It is, therefore, not a matter of coincidence that all the regions in which the Naxals or later the Maoists took control are known for alarming levels of poverty, extreme alienation of land, underdevelopment, and lack of proper governance. While the Expert Committee (2008) also identified ‘development deficit’ as the major factor, the positive experience of tenancy reform or Operation Barga in

180  Biswajit Ghosh  West Bengal since 1978 is cited by it to avert the crisis. But except for a few good efforts, the agenda of land reform remained mostly on paper in India. Additionally, since the implementation of New Economic Policy in 1991, dispossession, deprivations, and oppression of tribals and Dalits among other marginalised sections of the Indian populace amplified enormously. These new contexts of ‘structural inequalities’ provided the Maoists a new platform to launch a movement in recent times as well (Mohanty 2015). BOX 8.1 The Case of Lalgarh

The Naxal affected Lalgarh also explains the importance of ‘necessary conditions’. Lalgarh, an undulated forest area within Jungalmahal, is a backward location under the district of West Midnapur, West Bengal. Adivasis like Santal, Bhumij, and Sabar, along with the Mahatos mostly live here. With little or no landholding, they depend on collections of minor forest produce like sal leaves, forest tubers, babui grass, and kendu leaves. They also migrate seasonally to work as agricultural labourers. Though a number of developmental schemes existed formally for the tribals, Jungalmahal was marked by absolute poverty and dearth of proper healthcare and educational facilities for long (Midya et. al., 2012). Such a context allowed Maoist leaders from outside the region to penetrate and develop it as their base in Bengal in the late 1990s. After developing friendship with the tribals, the Maoists demanded higher rates for babui rope and kendu leaves from the middleman. In the process of protecting them from both police torture, exploitation by contractors and political leaders, the Maoists could develop a symbiotic bond with the tribals.

BOX 8.2 Mendha Lekha Story

The once Maoist-affected Mendha Lekha village in the Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra is now a model for others to follow. After implementing the Forest Rights Act in 2009, the district administration started economically empowering the tribal population, mostly Gond. The village, with nearly 500 people, then started harvesting and selling bamboo. This forest region is suitable for the rich growth of bamboo. Within a short time, the tribals were able to use this alternative source of livelihood and earn huge money. In 2012, the villagers were able to sell bamboo worth Rs. one crore. Interestingly, the Gram Sabha sells bamboo through a tender process to the highest bidder, and the money is shared equally among all villagers. The Gram Sabha now has a Permanent Account Number (PAN), and they are also marketing superior

Movements of Radical Marxists  181 quality honey. The forest officers have trained them to produce value-added products from different forest goods. A grain bank has been established to ensure food security. The Gram Sabha also provides interest-free loans to needy villagers out of contributions collected from themselves. The Mendha Lekha villagers are happy as their lives have now taken a positive turn. The money earned is also used to implement integrated, all-round development, including organic farming (Goswami 2012; Tare 2018). One simple argument that is often put forward in this context is that the Maoists will find it difficult to sustain the logic of armed revolution if this ‘development gap’ between the backward regions domesticated by the tribals and Dalits and the developed regions of the country is bridged (Ghosh 2015). Impressed by such logic, the Government of India and the affected state governments have announced a number of developmental projects. There is no doubt about the fact that backward regions of the country need special attention and there are also instances (see Mendha Lekha story) where the Maoist movement has become considerably weak after positive interventions by the state. But the situation is not that simple and unilinear everywhere. Because along with economic factors, one also has to look for social and political factors. It is worth arguing here that economic factors like poverty, inequality, lack of development, or unemployment are present in many other parts of the country that have nothing to do with Maoism. Hence, these factors cannot be the sole reason for the growth of extremism. Obviously, the simple logic here is neither all poor have joined the Maoist movement, nor are the leaders of this movement poor. Hence, there is a need for looking into non-economic issues seriously. Sundar (2011) has cited the examples of Jhabua in western Madhya Pradesh and Dantewada in Chhattisgarh which share similar socio-economic conditions. Yet, Dantewada is the heartland of the Maoist movement while Jhabua is a site for a remarkable nonviolent movement (Narmada Bachao Andolan). Sundar (ibid. 49) has also shown that Naxalites are also absent in western India despite the presence of a sizable number of Adivasis there. It is, therefore, important to contextualise the Maoist movement by regions as areas with better records of development also witness the growth of insurgent activities as compared to less developed districts. Chandra (2013: 3) has shown that in south Bihar and northern Jharkhand only certain sections of Dalits support the Maoists as against their landed patrons. Similarly, in the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh, extremely backward and smaller Adivasi groups, such as the Dhurwas and Murias, did not join the Maoists. Surprisingly, even non-Dalit and comparatively advanced Kurmis or Yadavs from Bihar and Jharkhand have supported the Maoists (Banaji 2010: 140). There is, therefore, no uniform and straight pattern of link between Maoism and economic backwardness. It is, therefore, important to discuss the non-economic factors, which I call ‘sufficient conditions’ (Ghosh 2003).

182  Biswajit Ghosh  ii) Issues Related to Social and Political Expectations, Assertions, and Actions Sociologically, the non-economic reasons are equally important for the rise and sustenance of Naxalite and Maoist movements. In the introductory chapter of this volume, we have recognised the contributions of social, cultural, political, and geographical factors along with economic issues for the growth of any social movement. The trajectory of the movements of radical Marxists is equally driven by multiple non-economic issues. Let us now discuss these in some detail. a. Role of Middle-Class Educated Elites Social movement theorists have time and again recognised the critical role of the educated middle class in organising social movements. The movements of radical Marxists are deeply impacted by this factor. Since inception, the Naxalite movement found enormous support among the educated youth who were critical about the prevailing class structure and the role of the state in defending them (Banerjee 2006b). Initially, the romantic ideals of structural change through armed struggle influenced the Naxal leaders deeply. Being disillusioned with the existing system of governance, they started believing in the Naxalite ideology. Many of these young men and women belonged to the petty bourgeois class as colleges and universities then became hotbeds of radical ideology. Even some medical and engineering graduates left their houses and started working with the guerrillas in the forests. Rabindra Ray (1988) has correctly argued that the Naxal movement was ‘intellectually driven’. Middle-class intellectuals, who wanted to lead ‘the people’, provided the ideological inputs. Shah (2006) has found that the initial spread of movement of the Maoist Communist Centre in Jharkhand was within an educated, often upper caste, rural elite, who were intimately connected with the developmental state. The Maoists could influence the educated youth, who were no longer satisfied with whatever was available for them. It should, however, be recognised that though the radical Marxists could penetrate especially among the Dalits and Adivasis (Sundar 2011), very few of these subaltern activists could assume top leadership posts in the party (Chandra 2013). Interestingly, Maoists also believe that ‘the Adivasis cannot represent themselves; they must be represented’ (Nigam 2010). It is in this context Dilip Simeon (2010) argues that the Maoist movement is a project defined by those who claim to represent the interests of landless tribals and peasants. As a corollary, both the Naxal and Maoist movements were led by outside leaders. Due to such dependency, the movement faced a crisis after the surrender or death of those leaders. With the killing of Koteswara Rao (alias Kishenji) in Jungalmahal in West Bengal, for instance, the Maoist movement lost its vigour in the region. There are equal instances of Adivasi activists either surrendering in large numbers, as in Dantewada, or holding Gram Sabha meetings despite Maoist ban, as in Niyamgiri. These, and similar other events, could be interpreted as symptoms of alienation of the Adivasi youth from the Maoist movement.

Movements of Radical Marxists  183 b. An Acute Sense of Discrimination The emotional aspect of organising a social movement is also recognised by theorists. Notwithstanding certain objective conditions of deprivation like poverty or landlessness, the feeling of being discriminated against is often aroused with the help of striking facts, figures, and historical events. Leaders also try to manipulate such sentiment to develop a kind of psychological unity. The emotional unity of a collectivity is considered a strong resource that helps participants of a movement to continue their struggle. The leaders of the Naxalite movement tried to develop an emotional unity of peasants and workers through meetings, processions, and actions. They were repeatedly reminded about the issues of exploitation and deprivation and the alternatives to structural violence. Several students and literate youth who joined the Naxalite movement either perceived the prevailing discrimination very quickly or aspired for a better system (Ghosh 2003; Oommen 2010; D’mello 2015). According to Saren (2010), the issue of development gap between the tribal and non-tribal areas was felt sharply by those tribal youth who migrate to work as agricultural labourers in developed areas. Such a feeling of deprivation helped the Maoists to penetrate. Alpa Shah and Judith Pettigrew (2009) feel that the Maoist movement has enabled the young boys and girls10 to participate in a new type of modernity. The young cadres also started asserting their rights over the traditional authority of the village elders. c. Ideology, Political Interest, and Goal Ideology of the radical Marxists and their political goal contributed a lot to the sustenance of the Maoist movement. Paramjit Singh Judge (2015: 248), therefore, considered the movement as a form of ‘political protest’ putting up a stiff ‘political challenge’ to the ruling elites like landlords, capitalists, including the state apparatus in developed regions. It is worth noting here that though there is no uniformity among the Maoists about the utility of armed struggle as a strategy, they are consistent about the ‘political’ interests in continuing the movement. Thus, the Maoist Documents (2004) formally claim that they believe in Marxism–Leninism– Maoism and are committed to complete the ‘New Democratic Revolution’ which is also a proletarian revolution. Their target is to overthrow the ‘main enemies’ of the proletariat, namely, imperialism, feudalism, and comprador bureaucratic capitalism. And the main ‘motive force’ of this revolution is the proletariat, the peasantry, especially the landless and poor peasants, though they consider that the urban petty bourgeoisie is a reliable ally, and the national bourgeoisie is an ally in certain periods and to a certain extent. Some analysts, however, have expressed serious doubts about the commitments of the Maoists, as stated in the above-mentioned document. They rather believe that the Maoists have hidden political interests. And such interests become evident when they gain and retain control over a group of people and territory (Miklian 2009; Bahree 2010; Verma 2011; Hoelscher et al. 2012). Balagopal (1997: 2254), a sympathiser, has also argued that the Maoists take and implement most decisions

184  Biswajit Ghosh  ‘over the heads of the people but justified in the name of the people’. In other words, the Maoist never allow the people to make decisions. They rather control them ‘politically’. Some scholars have also alleged that the Maoists have hidden monetary interest. Thus, Alpa Shah (2006), believe that in Jharkhand, the Naxalites work much like the state, selling protection in return for support. Harriss (2010: 22) also argues that there are interconnections among politicians, private companies, and both Maoist and non-Maoist forces. Such connections have led to conflict being reproduced because everyone in this chain benefits from it. These allegations become more critical as field reports also suggest instances of Maoists leaving their ‘motive forces’ to align with upper classes. For instance, the Maoists in Bihar have changed their strategy of mobilising landless Dalits in the 1990s and started uniting the middle peasants (Kurmis). This made the Dalits angry as they had basic contradiction with the landed Kurmis. This expedited the alienation of the Dalits from the Maoists (Kunnath 2008). Ironically, the Maoist strategy of ‘annihilation of class enemies’ has also resulted in the killing of poor tribals and Dalits in many cases (Nigam 2010; Simeon 2010). They have also liquidated human rights workers, NREGA activists, and members of rival Maoist groups. Santosh Rana, one of the original participants in the Naxalite movement, is also critical of the Maoists’ style of functioning that leaves little space for any spontaneous tribal movement. He argues that in Lalgarh (West Bengal), the Maoists have destroyed the unity of tribal people. These tribals initially welcomed them to resist the combined pressure of police, forest officials, contractors, big landlords, and CPI(M) cadres. But gradually, they could feel that the Maoists are forcing them to follow their decisions (Guha 2012). When Sudhir Mandi, a leader of Majhi Marwa (Santal community organisation), raised his voice against such intervention and refused to obey the orders of the Maoist squads, they killed him in November 2008 (Mukherji 2012). The killing made Santals and some other tribal groups indifferent towards the movement. Being terrified by such indifference, the Maoists invited the Mahatos, who were land–holders, to lead the movement. As against such an adverse explanation, Sundar’s field research in the undivided Bastar district of Madhya Pradesh has brought out a positive picture about the contributions of the Maoists. Yet, she acknowledges that people’s allegiances do change over time for several reasons, and hence they may claim to be either neutral or ‘sandwiched’ between the Maoist and the state (Sundar 2013: 366). It appears from the foregoing discussion that though the Maoists justify their penetration among the marginalised Adivasis and Dalits to save them from exploitation and exclusion, they primarily remain committed to their ideology and political interests to gain entry and expand their organisation. d. State Policies and Actions Scholars studying social movements have documented the negative role of state policies and actions in aggravating conditions for such movements. Oommen (1997: 158) has argued that it is normal on the part of the state to ignore the justified

Movements of Radical Marxists  185 demands of marginalised people unless they pick up an anti-India stance. Instead of listening to the voices of the victims, the state and its officials follow the managerial approach of ‘tension management’ often by using force (ibid. 158). In case of the movements of radical Marxists, it is seen that whenever the state tortures innocent Adivasis in the name of anti-Maoist activities, it only enhances the support base of the movement. The conditions that allowed Charu Mazumdar to give birth to the Naxal movement in 1967 are a brilliant example. The leadership of the CPI and the CPI(M), who were part of the coalition government in West Bengal in 1967, did not support the actions of their own cadres in North Bengal. They rather asked Mazumdar and other leaders to cooperate with the police to arrest those involved in arson and killing. Before coming to power, they themselves, however, applied those tactics in Telangana and Tebhaga movements. The chain of state actions following the killing of a police officer on May 23 made the logic of armed revolution acceptable to even moderate leaders like Kanu Sanyal. There are many other instances when the state not only ignored the genuine issues of tribals or Dalits but also suppressed their movement by force. These instances of denial and suppression force Adivasis and Dalits to accept the Maoist strategy of armed conflict as the only alternative. It is also seen that the Maoist mostly retaliate to any state offensive at a later stage. Not only so, the strategy of armed resistance is used by them only in a particular context (Lecomte-Tilouine 2004). They use it only when they become confident about challenging the state. State policies and actions, therefore, are directly linked to the kind of responses that the participants of a movement seek. And the state starts ‘confidence building measures’ only after it is destroyed (Ghosh 2015). Ironically, as against the recommendations of the Expert Committee, the Indian state has launched several counter-insurgency measures during the last few decades only to temporarily suspend rebel activities. For instance, ‘cleansing operations’ like ‘Greyhounds’ (Andhra Pradesh), ‘Operation Green Hunt’ (Dandakaranya), or Salwa Judum (Chhattisgarh) have allowed the Maoists to extend their support base (Shah and Pettigrew 2009; Harriss 2010; Sundar 2011, 2013; Chandra 2013). This happens because in the process of attacking the Maoists, the security forces disrupt the economic lives of Adivasis and Dalits. Ironically, whenever the Maoists launch a successful attack on the security force, they reply by taking revenge on the surrounding villagers suspecting them to be Maoists. This led Mukherji (2010: 20) to argue that ‘more the repression by the state, the bigger the ‘people’s army’ of starving children’. In other words, ‘white terror’11 by the state serves as a ploy for the Maoists to prepare the ground for the ‘red terror’. Sundar (2011) is right in arguing that the state has used the Maoist threat to justify increasing coercion by security forces and in the process also crushed popular democratic uprising12. The state does so without changing the ‘basic structure of exploitation’ (ibid. 63) despite allocation of crores of money to ‘develop’ Naxal affected areas. There are also instances of failure of the state to properly use the fund meant for development of Naxal-affected backward areas. State officials also bother less about effective implementation of pro-tribal laws

186  Biswajit Ghosh  like the Panchayat (Extension to Schedule Areas) Act, (PESA) 1996 and The Scheduled Tribe and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006 in remote areas. Verma (2011: 22), therefore, raises a valid question: Why then are the Maoists blamed for making the issues of deprivations and denial their agenda? One distinct reason for the rise of Maoist influence in recent times is the negative consequences of the neoliberal model of development on the marginalised people. Since 1991, private companies have aggressively entered into forests and hills for the extraction of natural resources. In the name of ‘development’, they have displaced and uprooted a large number of tribals. Nathan and Xaxa (2012) call this process ‘development of underdevelopment’. These projects have subjected Adivasis and Dalits to new levels of impoverishment, exploitation, and oppression. Benefits arising out of power, irrigation, and mineral projects have hardly reached the locals. The outsiders have rather become the principal beneficiary of these projects. These contexts naturalise external intervention of the Maoists to protect the Adivasis and other precarious communities. Bhambri (2015: 71), therefore, feels that ‘the Indian state is in a hurry to ruthlessly and violently suppress the Maoist armed groups because the big business houses of India, and powerful transnational corporations of the West are feeling impatient’. e. Geographical Location Finally, it is not a matter of coincidence that the Maoist guerrilla movement has surfaced in the inaccessible hilly terrains or Jungles (Banerjee 2006b). All guerrilla warfare requires a specific geopolitical space to sustain the actions for a longer period. Take, for instance, the strategic importance of Naxalbari as a location to launch an armed struggle and declare a liberated zone. A look at the map of West Bengal would show that Naxalbari neck is the only link of this northern tip of the state with the rest of India. In the west of Naxalbari neck is Nepal. Bangladesh is located on the eastern side of it. Mechi river, which flows in between Naxalbari and Nepal, becomes accessible on foot in winter. Leaders of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) could easily use these spatial conditions in their favour to carry out guerrilla activities. It is equally important to note that Indian Adivasis had maintained a long tradition of warfare against forest officials, contractors, and bureaucrats using their traditional weapon of bow and arrow. In the Naxalite movement, these weapons were first used to resist police parties. Since then, the next generation of Maoist leaders opted for tribal territories (forest and hilly tracts) to conduct guerrilla warfare. Though the question of tribal identity did not crop up in any discussion about their development, the Maoist consider them as ‘good soldiers and ‘leaders of revolution’. As the institutions of the state did not bother to operate in these locations, the Maoists found it easy to conduct arms training and hide themselves. They have also made use of India’s border with Nepal to operate in states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. It then became easy for the Maoists to run parallel administration in these remote locations.

Movements of Radical Marxists  187 Consequences of Naxalite and Maoist Movements It is not easy to assess the impact of Naxalite and Maoist movements in India. Certain aspects of these movements have received wide recognition though there are sharp criticisms also against their militant strategies. At the outset, considering the volume and intensity of the Maoist movement in the country, the state had to recognise it as the ‘big threat to India’s security’. Obviously, the ideology and goal of this movement has become popular among many marginalised groups and communities and also among those youth who want a structural transformation of Indian society through armed revolution. There are, therefore, some intended and many unintended consequences of this movement. Let us mention a few among them, in brief. According to Mukherji (2013: 12), the Naxalite and later Maoist movements have contributed positively in dismantling the feudal structure. The Indian state has started arguing seriously for land reforms only after this movement. The Expert Committee, therefore, commented that ‘the method of struggle chosen by the Naxalites has brought the problem to a head’ (2008: 2). The issue of ‘structural violence’ and its amelioration through ‘structural reform’ got recognised in administrative circles for the first time in the country. Second, the Maoists have been able to attract the attention of the state by asserting their claims over ‘liberated zones’. Till the arrival of the Maoists, there was hardly any resemblance of ‘administration’ in many of the interior ‘red corridors’. But when the Indian state and its agencies panicked after the Maoist entry, they started talking about ‘developing’ these underdeveloped regions through different schemes. The Indian state would have never recognised the necessity to develop these remote areas unless a violent movement targeting the state and its agencies was launched. The history of the Indian social movement, therefore, would persistently recognise the contribution of the movements of radical Marxists for opening our eyes and giving a new direction to our thoughts. The question that arises in this context is: what would happen once the Maoists withdraw themselves from these zones? Third, the Naxalites and the Maoists have carried out intense campaigns among the marginalised communities to develop awareness about the root causes of their problems and the ways to resolve them. Such conscientisation got reflected in launching several tribal and Dalit movements against the neoliberal policies of the state and Multinational Corporations (MNCs) in recent times. The environmental movements also drew sustenance from the arguments against illegal mining and other industrial projects in interior forests. Fourth, the Indian state claims to have gained experience in developing counter strategies to tackle guerrilla warfare (Mukherji 2013). It did so by building new roads and infrastructure in remote areas for proper movement of the force. Yet, critically speaking, the strategy of annihilation of the revolutionaries did not produce any spectacular results in reducing the support base of the Maoists. The state is unable to put an end to the struggle despite deploying every possible means (Haragopal 2017).

188  Biswajit Ghosh  Fifth, the political strategy of the Maoists is also being critiqued by many, including those who support their goal and ideology. It is true that the Maoists limit their scope by running a secret organisation under strict and authoritarian leadership with little scope for freedom of speech and action. Their movement is often not spontaneous. Hence, Maoism is not an option for many marginalised, democrats and civilians. Finally, the Maoists are also argued to be less concerned about the abject conditions of health and poverty in ‘liberated zones’. They are also critiqued for engaging minor boys and girls to combat (Mukherji 2010). Some of their strategies like extinction of class enemies (those whom they doubt as agents of the police) and involvement of girl cadres did not always produce expected results. Scholars like Roy (2010) and Sundar (2011) have, however, challenged these ‘fabricated’ media reports. Yet, Nirmalangshu Mukherji’s critique about the ‘real’ achievements of Maoist in Dandakaranya appears serious. Mukherji writes, The state earlier did nothing for the Adivasis but, considering the time the Maoists have spent in the region, they themselves have achieved little by way of Adivasi welfare, be it in wages, education, health or agriculture. This is because the Maoist’s politics of waging guerrilla warfare on the road to seizure of state power has meant that they must focus on using the Adivasis for their war. (Mukherji 2010: 16) It is possible that Maoists could not resolve all the issues they themselves have raised. It is equally possible they have given rise to new problems. Yet, one has to give credit to the ‘left-wing extremists’ for popularising an alternative vision of development though the possibility of overthrowing the Indian state seems naive. But, at the same time, the reverse possibility of overcoming the Maoists in the near future also seems remote. This is more so as the state and its agencies are yet to be serious in addressing the basic issues of exploitation and oppression13 of Adivasis and Dalits with ‘alacrity, firmness, empathy and maturity’ (Mukherji 2018: 56). According to Mohanty (2015), unless the structural issues of the Indian political economy, particularly the agrarian relations, are addressed, the Maoist movement would continue in India. Padel’s (2018: 30) refers to a new threat that neoliberalism has opened up in India today. He argues that the Indian state is using the very boggy of ‘development’ in the Red Corridor to promote the interest of capitalist firms. He cites the instance of Odisha to argue how ‘security’ for big corporations is placed above the interests of workers and peasants who are threatened with displacement. The Adivasis of Niyamgiri were successful in halting the Vedanta mining project in their land for the time being following the judgement of the Supreme Court in April 2013. But to rely on the good will of the state and its apparatus is a misnomer as the state really does not care for the marginalised population. The state would always promote resource grab by big corporations leading to displacement of marginalised people. The country, therefore, would continue to need radical movements of marginalised people in years to come.

Movements of Radical Marxists  189 Summary and Conclusion The foregoing discussion demonstrates that a complex set of structural and discursive conditions has contributed to the rise and continuation of the movements of radical Marxists. It is, however, possible to divide these movements into different phases as different strategies were opted in diverse contexts notwithstanding certain unity of stand. The factors promoting these movements may be classified into economic (necessary) and non-economic (sufficient) types. While the necessary conditions are found to be present in all underdeveloped locations where the Naxalite first and later the Maoists could spread their influence, the penetration of this movement among upper class/caste and people living in developed regions (and even cities) makes the situation complex. Herein, the role of sufficient factors in stimulating such movement becomes salient. Importantly, the involvement of sufficient factors raises critical questions about Maoist politics and strategy. The political interests of the Maoists provided little option to Adivasis and Dalits for any spontaneous movement. Their violent strategy also did not produce any consistent results. The sustenance of the Naxalite and Maoist movements for the last six decades proves that in a country like India, anti-state movements have much potential. The urgent need to look into structural and discursive issues of inequality, precarity, oppression, and violence of the marginalised is voiced by many. Though several committees appointed by the state on this issue suggested redressal of structural issues, the Indian state and its bureaucrats took these recommendations lightly and preferred the easy option of offensive by security forces. Even those who support the ideology of revolution are targeted by the state now. The state cannot overcome the problem of exclusion and deprivations of a large segment of the Indian populace by just blaming the Maoists. Ironically, since economic liberalisation, the Indian state has purposefully invited capitalists to enter into Adivasi land to extract mineral resources. The Maoist movement has, therefore, got a new lease of life due to denial of some basic right to the Adivasis and Dalits. Obviously, the responsibility of the state does not end just by blaming the Maoists ‘as the single greatest threat’ and thereby opting for military offensive. If the Maoists become weak in a region because of the arrest and killing of their leaders, there will be some other group(s) in some other location claiming to represent the interests of the marginalised. There is a serious flaw in treating the Maoist presence merely as a ‘law and order problem’. Hence, the counter-insurgency strategies have limited utility. The Indian state needs to recognise the root causes of militancy before blaming the Maoists for the violence. Review Questions 1. What factors led to the rise of the Naxalite movement? 2. Is ‘lack of development’ the sole factor for the sustenance of the Maoist movement? 3. What do you think are the reasons for tribal youths to join Maoist movements?

190  Biswajit Ghosh  4. How did the Indian state promote armed conflict and insurgency? 5. Who are the leaders of the Maoist movement? What are their goals and objectives? 6. What do you think about the future of the Maoist movement in India? Notes 1 The Telangana rebellion of 1946 was against the Nizam of Hyderabad. The peasants took up arms first against the feudal lords of the region and later against the Princely state of Hyderabad between 1946 and 1951. The revolt was led by the CPI and it became successful in taking over 3000 villages from the feudal lords. They then distributed 10,00,000 acres of agricultural land to the landless peasants. 2 The Tebhaga movement took place in the districts of Jalpaiguri and Dinajpur between 1945 and 1947. This movement, led by the Krishak Sabha, fought vigorously against eviction and exploitation of tenants by jotedars as well as unequal land distribution. They demanded ‘two-thirds crop share’ (called Tebhaga in Bengali) in place of half share and no other deductions from the legitimate share of the tenants. 3 Charu Mazumdar joined the CPI in 1939 when he was 20. He was an active participant in the Tebhaga movement. 4 Marxist parties like CPI and CPI(M), who have taken part in parliamentary politics, are called ‘moderate Marxists’. 5 CPI(M) was formed after a split with the CPI in 1964 because of bitter inner struggle on certain political and ideological issues. The CPI(M) leader called CPI a revisionist party. 6 Mazumdar accepted the argument of Mao that in a semi-feudal, semi-colonial country like India, the communists should go for ‘armed struggle’ of landless labourers, poor peasants, and exploited middle peasants against their oppressors. After liberating the rural areas, the communists should expand their base. This strategy was needed to foster a ‘democratic revolution’ (Harriss 2010: 10). 7 Read Chapter 10 on the Working Class Movement for details. 8 According to the Home Ministry, nearly 12,000 people have lost their lives in Maoist violence over the last two decades, including 2,700 personnel of the security forces. The Home Ministry also acknowledges that though 90% of Maoist activity is limited to 35 districts, they have a hold over pockets in 68 districts in 10 states. (The Economic Times, 2018). 9 Instead of carefully reviewing their arguments, the government targets and harasses these intellectuals by labelling them as ‘urban Naxal’. 10 Recently, many tribal girls have joined the Maoist movement. There are, however, some serious allegations of sexual violence against these cadres by the male leaders (Verma 2011: 28; Kujur 2018: 125). 11 The term was used to refer to episodes of mass violence in human history by conservatives and nationalist groups. We need to make a comparative estimate of the number of people killed by the agencies of state as against those by the Naxals or Maoists. 12 Mukherji (2018: 54–55) cites several instances of the security forces severely beating common people, including unarmed tribals in Lalgarh, for no reason thereby destroying the social, cultural, and democratic space. This, to him, makes a fertile ground for Maoist recruitment. 13 Arundhuti Roy (2018) has argued that earlier the ‘Adivasi’ community was labelled ‘Maoists’; now the Dalits, and anyone who supports them, are being included in this category. To her, therefore, ‘We are witnessing a coup against the constitution. It is a very dire situation’.

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Movements of Radical Marxists  193 Samaddar, Ranabir. 2017. ‘Fifty Years After Naxalbari, Popular Movements Still Have Lessons to Learn’. The Wires, https://thewire​.in​/politics​/naxalbari​-communism​-maoism (accessed on 8 March 2019). Saren, Gurupada. 2010. A Study on Santal Migration: Its Context and Ramifications in Relation to Tribal Identity. Ph. D Thesis, Department of Sociology, The University of Burdwan, West Bengal. Shah, Alpa. 2006. ‘Markets of Protection: The “terrorists” Maoist Movement and the State in Jharkhand, India’. Critique of Anthropology, 26(3), 297-314. Shah, Alpa and Judith Pettigrew. 2009. ‘Windows into a Revolution: Ethnographies of Maoism in South Asia’. Dialectical Anthropology, 33(3–4), 225–251. Simeon, Dilip. 2010. ‘Permanent Spring’. Seminar, 607 (March), www​.india​-seminar​.com. SinghaRoy, Debal 2004: Peasant Movements in Post-Colonial India: Dynamics of Mobilization and Identity. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Sinha, Santha. 1989. Maoist in Andhra Pradesh. New Delhi: Gyan publishing House. Suchitra, M. 2017. ‘Charu and Son: Revisiting the Legacy of a Revolutionary Father 50 Years After Naxalbari’. The Wires, https://thewire​.in​/featured​/naxalbari​-abhijit​ -mazumdar​-charu​-mazumdar (accessed on 8 March 2019). Sundar, Nandini. 2011. ‘At War with Oneself: Constructing Naxalism as India’s Biggest Security Threat’. In Kugelman, Michael (Ed.), India's Contemporary Security Challenges (46–68), Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. ———. 2013. ‘Reflections on Civil Liberties, Citizenship, Adivasi agency and Maoism: A Response to Alpa Shah’. Critique of Anthropology, 33 (3): 361–368. Tare, Kiran. 2018. ‘My village, My Rule | How a Maharashtra Village Treats its Forests for Better Living’. India Today, December 31. https://www​.indiatoday​.in​/magazine​/states​/ story/ 20181​231-m​y-vil​lage-​my-ru​le-bo​om-to​wns-1​41440​0-201​8-12-​23. The Economic Times, 2018. ‘Naxal Violence Claims 12,000 Lives in 20 Years’. https:// economictimes​.indiatimes​.com​/news​/Defence (accessed 9 March 2019). Verma, Shrey. 2011. Far Reaching Consequences of the Naxalite Problem in India. Rakshak Foundation Report, July.

9

Dalit Movements: Typologies and Trajectories Vivek Kumar

Learning Objectives After reading this chapter, you will be able to learn about:

• • • • • • • • • • • •

Who is a Dalit? Typologies and trajectories of Dalit movements; Dalit movement and role of Babasaheb Ambedkar; Socio-religious reform movements and its impact on Dalits; Political movements of Dalit activists; Dalit intellectuals and the literature movement; Movement of Dalit employees; Movement of Dalit women; Movement of Dalit non-governmental organisations; Dalit media movement; Movement of Dalit youth; and Movement of Dalit diaspora.

Introduction Defining Dalits

At different points in Indian history, Dalits were identified by diverse nomenclatures like Asprishyas (untouchables), Antyajas (last born), Antvasin (last to reside), Panchamas (fifth class), Chandalas, etc. This was notwithstanding their internal differentiation into a number of endogamous groups called caste or sub-castes with different names like Chamars, Mahars, Mangs, Malas, Madigas, Holiyars, Chakkiliyars, Pulayas, etc. The so-called upper castes of the Hindu social order accorded such nomenclatures to them. Mahatma Gandhi preferred the term harijan, used by the saint poet of Gujarat Narsinh Mehta, meaning son of Hari (God), to refer to them. Yet, in popular high caste discourse, discrimination on the basis of caste identity did not end. With the coming of the Government of India Act of 1935, a Schedule of the aforesaid castes was drawn. Since then, they were classified DOI:  10.4324/9781003481744-11

Dalit Movements: Typologies and Trajectories  195 as Scheduled Castes (SCs) and this taxonomy continued even after independence as a constitutional identity. Though for the erstwhile untouchables of Indian society, such constitutional categorisation did not emanate any inferior connotation, in the 1970s, a group of young ex-untouchables formed a political party called Dalit Panthers and propounded a new name ‘Dalits’ for themselves (Murugkar 1991). They argued that ‘were they so enfeeble that they could not have their own name and have to depend on others for their nomenclature’. As compared to terms like Scheduled Caste or Harijan, Dalit is a cogent term because it literally means ‘crushed to pieces’. Such a self-asserted nomenclature played a major role later in mobilising the oppressed on both caste and class considerations. However, it created confusion because, along with ex-untouchables, the category called Dalit also included the tribals, women, and poor people of every caste. In the same vein, in 1978, the leaders of the All India Backward and Minority Communities Employees Federation (BAMCEF) mooted another nomenclature ‘Bahujan’. Like Dalit Panthers, they also argued that Bahujans include SCs, Scheduled Tribes (STs), Other Backward Classes (OBCs), and converted minorities – Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, and Buddhists. Notwithstanding the advantage of using broader and electrifying terms like Dalit or Bahujan in political discourses, sociologically, at an epistemic level, there are problems with using the term for each and every oppressed category of people in India. This is because the sources of exclusion of ex-untouchables differ from those of tribals, women, poor people, converted minorities, and OBCs. Hence, in this chapter, the term Dalits is used exclusively to refer to the ex-untouchables of Hindu social order (see Kumar 2014a). Dalits constitute approximately 18% of the Indian population. As victims of a rigid social structure, they were cumulatively excluded, especially from social, economic, political, religious, and educational rights (Kumar 2014a). Therefore, from a sociological perspective, Dalits can be defined as a group with the following characteristics: a . b. c. d. e. f.

Unique structural location in the Hindu social order; Suffering from cumulative social exclusion because of their structural location; More than a millennium-long history of cumulative social exclusion; Collective identity based on caste; Unalterable collective identity because of caste; Construction of consciousness anchored in the long history of cumulative social exclusion because of structural location and unalterable collective identity of caste; and g. Developed new identity by drawing inspiration from icons like Buddha, saint Ravidas, Kabir, and from the movements of social reformers like Jotiba Phuley, Narayana Guru, Periyar, Ambedkar, and Achhutanand, among many others (Kumar 2014a, 2005). The assertion of their existence and their claim to be treated as human beings led different segments of the Dalits to launch movements in different phases of Indian history. It is, however, possible to put different trajectories of Dalit movements into

196  Vivek Kumar some sort of hierarchical order and sequence. In other words, the Dalit movements, in temporal history, first manifested against socio-cultural oppression, followed by economic, political, educational, and assertion in other spheres. The rationale for this hierarchy of movements, in the words of Oommen (1990: 254–271), is that ‘a collectivity subjected to multiple deprivations will protest first against those disabilities, which it perceives to be the most inhuman and unbearable’. Therefore, he opines, ‘It is no accident that Dalit protest in India first crystallised against sociocultural oppression’ (ibid. 254–271). But with growing consciousness, rise of literacy, and opportunities, new forms of protest movements became visible among them. In view of the above, it will be pertinent to map the various trajectories and shades of Dalit movements in India. Dalit Movement and Role of Babasaheb Ambedkar It is a fact that Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (popularly known as Babasaheb Ambedkar) played the most significant and dominant role in shaping and developing the Dalit movement. Having a Ph.D. from Columbia University, D.SC from the London School of Economics, and Bar at Law, he produced referential and empirical knowledge to construct the Dalit perspective of nationalism and evolve an agenda for Dalit liberation. Ambedkar also launched direct action through different social and political organisations. Ambedkar took inspiration from Buddha, Kabir, and Jotiba Phule to develop his arguments. He came up with a different approach and philosophy on the emancipation of Dalits. He was firm that the egalitarian social order, for which he was striving, could not be achieved without destroying the Varna social order. Challenging the casteist Hindu social order would also call for destroying the religious sanctity behind caste and Varna. And this is possible only by discarding the divine authority of the shastras (scriptures) through which the caste system draws its legitimacy. Obviously, Ambedkar did not have faith in the charitable spirit of the caste Hindus towards the untouchables. Neither did he believe that any reform within the system could ameliorate the conditions of the dispossessed, for whom he fought till death. Throughout his life, Ambedkar fought almost a lonely battle. Except for his family members and a few friends, there were none to support or stand by him at critical moments (Ghosh 2020). Hence, he often changed his strategy depending on the situation despite arguing consistently for Trinity namely fraternity, equality, and liberty (Jaffrelot 2009). Ambedkar, being a ‘warrior’, was forced to pick up either an adversary or advocacy strategy in different contexts. Being a lone fighter, he had to accommodate though he was not very happy with such a strategy. Ambedkar’s strategy of launching different types of movements should be placed in this context. To begin with, he entered public life in 1919 by submitting a number of memorandums to the Southborough Committee on Franchise (Kumar 2007). Gradually, he took recourse to direct action such as Mahad Satyagraha in 1927 and Kalaram Satyagraha in 1930. By then, he realised that evolving a political position is necessary to highlight Dalit problems. Hence, he launched a political

Dalit Movements: Typologies and Trajectories  197 movement. In this, he participated in the first and second Round Table Conferences held in 1930 and 1931 and won separate political rights for the Dalits. Pursuing the same logic, he launched the Independent Labour Party in 1936 and contested elections in the subsequent year. This is the second epoch of his legacy. In 1942, Ambedkar reconfigured the Independent Labour Party into the much more self-limiting Scheduled Castes Federation and laid the foundation of the Republican Party of India to be established after his death in 1957 (Kumar 2007: 12–18). The strategy of forming a political party did not, however, yield any definite result. Commenting on this strategy, Arundhuti Roy (2014: 135) felt that despite formidable intellect, Ambedkar did not have the sense of timing, the duplicity, the craftiness, and the ability to be unscrupulous – qualities that a good politician needs. His constituency was made up of the poorest, most oppressed sections of the population. He also had no financial backing. It was Ambedkar’s followers who made his legacy popular. In the third epoch, Ambedkar followed the strategy to educate his people. He, therefore, established five newspapers – Mooknayak (in 1920), Bahishkrit Bharat (in 1927), Samta (in 1928), Janata (in 1930), and Prabuddha Bharat (in 1956). He also formed the People’s Education Society in 1945 and established Siddharth College of Arts, Science and Commerce in 1946 to educate Dalits. After entering the Constituent Assembly, Ambedkar began his strategy of amending the exploitative system through legal reforms (Kumar 2007: 19–21). As the chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Indian Constitution, he introduced the values of justice, equality, liberty, and fraternity into the Indian society so that social change could usher. Similarly, as the first law minister of the country, he introduced the Hindu Code Bill to establish equality for Hindu women (Kumar 2007: 21–22). However, when he saw the Bill not coming through, he resigned from Nehru’s cabinet in October 1951. That can be seen as the end of the fourth epoch of his leadership. The final strategy of Ambedkar for Dalit liberation was conversion to Buddhism as there were severe limits to reform the Hindu social order from within. He then embraced Buddhism on October 14, 1956 in Nagpur along with lakhs of followers. Since then, lakhs of Dalits have been converting to Buddhism across the country. But before he could take his movement ahead, he attained parinirvana (died) on December 6, 1956. But by then he had established strong roots of Dalit movement and a new method to fight for their emancipation (Kumar 2007: 22–24). Unfortunately, as Roy (2014: 43) argues ‘History has been unkind to Ambedkar. First it contained him, and then glorified him’. Typology of Dalit Movements Different shades and trajectories of Dalit movements have emerged due to specific assertions of Dalits in the context of socio-political and economic changes ushering in Indian society. These movements can be broadly classified into the following categories: (a) socio-religious reform movements, (b) political movements, (c) Dalit literary movements, (d) movements of Dalit employees, (e) movements

198  Vivek Kumar by Dalit voluntary associations, (f) movements of Dalit women, (g) Dalit media movement, and (h) Dalit diaspora movements. As there are various other types and sub-types of Dalit movements, this list is not exhaustive. For instance, Dalit professionals including information technology experts have started asserting their voices in the virtual space. Similarly, socioreligious movements can be further divided into several sub-types (at least five types). We shall consider some of these sub-types in the course of the discussion. Socio-religious Reform Movements

Dalits use a multipronged approach to liberate themselves from extreme forms of exclusion, oppression, and exploitation and for gaining social mobility and dignity. It is generally considered that since time immemorial, Dalits have been organising socio-religious reform movements. Dalit leaders would ask their caste members to leave carrion eating, observe teetotalism, give up hereditary occupations, and so on, which were stigmatised by the so-called upper castes (Kumar 2002). The socio-religious reform movements can be discussed under the following heads:

• To remain within the pale of Hindu social order; • To convert to other religions of Indian and foreign origin; and • To claim the identity of original inhabitants. The socio-religious reform movements to remain within the pale of Hindu social order are associated with a model called Sanskritisation (Cohn 1990; Mathew 1986; Lynch 1974; Rudolph and Rudolph 1987) and Bhakti movements such as Raidasi, Kabirpanthi, and Satnam Panth (Dube 2001; Gooptu 1993). During the 15th and 17th centuries, Dalits established their own panths (sects) through the Bhakti movement, where they worshipped formless gods to emancipate themselves (Lorenzen 1996). While the Bhakti movement of the 13th–17th centuries sprang up because of extreme caste oppression of Dalits, the 19th-century Bhakti movement among Dalits emerged due to a paradoxical social milieu. Gooptu (1993) contends that the British needed menial labour to serve soldiers. Hence, they imported Dalits from villages. Once Dalits came to army cantonment, they felt free from their caste shackles. As a soldier, they were not segregated into touchable and untouchable castes. However, in civil society including their places of origin, they still faced discrimination as they had no access to religious places. Hence, they started their own sects in the names of Raidas, Kabir, and Shiv Narayani Sant Sampradaya, which was later started in Allahabad (Gooptu 1993). Similarly, Dube (2001) highlighted how the Chamars of Madhya Pradesh started the Satnami sect movement during 1780–1950. Conversion to Islam, Sikhism, Christianity (Webster 2002), and Buddhism (led by Iyothee Dass in 1892 and then by Ambedkar in 1956) are examples of religious movements to sever relations with the Hindu religion. Though exact figure of conversion of Dalits to Islam is not available, the presence of a vast number of

Dalit Movements: Typologies and Trajectories  199 Dalit Muslims proves that conversion to Islam was an option for many. According to Webster, Dalits have also converted to Sikhism. Webster (2002: 16) argues, ‘Chuhra Sikh were called Mazhabi Sikhs and were generally kept at a distance by other Sikhs … despite giving up polluting work and habits (of eating carrion)’. The 1891 Census explained, ‘[I]t is impossible to tell from them whether the Balasahis and Valmiks are the same, whether the Balmikis are a section of the Lalbegis or vice versa, or whether they are two independent sects’ (Webster 2002: 17). In this context, Vicziany and Mendelsohn argue, In this first period many untouchables, particularly in South India were converted to Christianity. Conversion … began to affect untouchables late in the century. The mass conversion movement began in the 1870s and was largely spent by the early years of the present 20th century. (1998: 78) On the impact of Christianity on Dalits, they opined, The churches represented a store of instruction as to how Untouchables might better themselves, and … by then, as opposed to their earlier stance, the churches were beginning to take up issues of social justice in India. (Vicziany and Mendelsohn 1998: 79). Conversion to Buddhism was prevalent in Tamil Nadu during the latter part of the 19th century (Aloysius 1999). Later, Ambedkar embraced Buddhism on 14 October 1956 in Nagpur with lakhs of his followers. After that, thousands of his followers converted to Buddhism all over the country, turning it into a movement. Ambedkar was criticised for his conversion. Some opponents alleged that Ambedkar had converted to gain political favours for his people. However, Zelliot argues, [W]hat possible political advantage does conversion offer? Conversion to Buddhism immediately cuts off … deserving governmental benefits … to Untouchable castes. Ambedkar’s delayed conversion came long after the period of combining the conversion idea with political expediency, and by then, reference to conversion as a political threat had lost its significance. Instead, it had reference to the great Asian Buddhist world, the reputation of Buddhism as an important religion both in India and the West and the possibility of Buddhism as a moral force. (Zelliot 2001: 195) Dalits have launched another stream of socio-religious reform movements to claim that they are the original inhabitants of this country. These movements allowed Dalits to assert that they have their own identity such as Adi Hindu, Adi Dravida, Adi Andhra, Adi Karnataka, and Ad Dharma and these are separate from the one ascribed by the Hindus (Kumar 2005). Assertions of a non-Hindu religious identity led the Dalits to prescribe a racial theory in which Aryans (upper-caste Hindus) were portrayed as outsiders who subjugated the indigenous people (Dalits). Between 1912 and 1924, four Adi Hindu conferences were held in Hyderabad (Omvedt

200  Vivek Kumar 1994: 122). The impact could be found among the Tamil-speaking Dalits claiming Adi Dravida identity. They asserted that their history, philosophy, civilisation, and culture are separate from that of the Hindus. Dalit leader M. C. Raja gave legitimacy to the nomenclatures such as Adi Karnataka and Adi Dravidian conferences during 1923 and 1925 under his presidency (Omvedt 1994: 122). Led by Bhagya Reddy Varma and Arigay Ramaswamy, the Adi Hindu movement emerged among the Malas of Hyderabad (Omvedt 1994). Reddy established an organisation named Manya Sangam in 1912 and later transformed it into the Adi Hindu Social Service League. In Punjab also the Adi Dharma movement of Dalits came into existence with Mangu Ram as its president (Juergensmeyer 1982: 145). Causes of Failure of Bhakti and Socio-religious Reform Movement

Socio-religious movements failed to bring about desired changes in the socioeconomic status of Dalits. According to Gupta (1985), Neera Desai gave certain reasons for the failure of the Bhakti movement to bring about change among the Dalits. He quoted her thus: The socio-religious Dalit leaders of the Bhakti movement argued against caste system, ideology, social evils and corrupted form of Hinduism. They could not be successful in transforming the society, mainly because the movement fostered equality only in the religious sphere and not in secular. The movement offered no new alternative programme of social and economic organization… (and) never built up organization, which could carry out any positive social programme; at best they produced individual (and) not collective opposition to the status quo. (cited by Gupta 1985: 148) Similarly, Ambedkar also provided reasons for the failure of saints to bring about social change in the society. He argues: They [saints] have been ineffective…. Firstly, none of the saints ever attacked the Caste System. On the contrary, they were staunch believers in the system of Castes. Most of them lived and died as members of the castes they respectively belonged…. They were not concerned with the struggle between men. They were concerned with the relation between man and God. They did not preach that all men were equal. They preached that all men were equal in the eyes of God. (Ambedkar 1979: 87; parenthesis is mine) Political Movements of Dalit

Political movements of Dalits began in the early 20th century after the First World War when the British government was forced to allow such a space to the Indians. Issues related to the political rights of Dalits were first raised by Ambedkar. His

Dalit Movements: Typologies and Trajectories  201 efforts further strengthened the independent Dalit political movement. Since Ambedkar’s time, Dalit political leadership grew under two broad categories: (a) dependent Dalit political leadership, and (b) independent Dalit political leadership (Kumar 2003: 49–50). The first type of leadership functions in political parties led and dominated by the so-called upper castes such as the Indian National Congress (hereafter Congress) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (hereafter BJP). Generally, the Dalit leaders in these political parties are often made to look after specific partylevel units like the SC/ST cells of their respective political parties. These Dalit leaders mostly speak in the language of their party in public and are constrained to raise an independent voice in the Parliament or state assemblies. On the contrary, the independent Dalit political leadership is found in the movements and parties led and dominated by the Dalits themselves. They have their own independent ideology, agenda, parlance, symbols, and style of mobilisation. The independent Dalit political leadership and its movement began in 1936 with the establishment of Independent Labour Party (ILP) under the leadership of Ambedkar. Gradually, with changes in the level of political consciousness several other Dalit-based organisations and political parties such as Scheduled Castes Federation (established in 1942), Republican Party of India (formed in 1957), Dalit Panthers party (launched in 1972), and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP; floated in 1984) were launched. Contributions of Dalit Political Leadership

Independent Dalit political leadership has played a major role in the development of Dalit movement. They also became instrumental in influencing the activities of ‘dependent Dalit political leadership’. The fact that all major political parties today are forced to allow a space for Dalit leaders within their party hierarchy could be attributed to such an influence. These leaders have influenced the Congress and the BJP to provide Dalit leaders with dignified positions in the government and in the party organisations. In fact, with the emergence of BSP in Uttar Pradesh in the 1990s, a number of Dalit leaders were elevated to respectable positions. There are many instances that substantiate this phenomenon. For instance, K. R. Narayan was first elevated to the post of Vice President of India by the Congress and later he became the first Dalit President of India in 1997. Following this tradition, Ram Nath Kovind also became the president of India in 2017. Dalit politicians like G. M. C. Balayogi and Meera Kumar became the speakers of the Lok Sabha. Most of the recognised national and regional parties today, apart from BSP, have given recognition to Dalit activists as party leaders. Simultaneously, a number of Dalits are posted as governors of different states and members of the Rajya Sabha and other statutory bodies. The independent Dalit political leadership has also given a separate identity to Dalits and has certainly helped to carve out a distinct community with a vast vote bank. It has given self-confidence to the Dalits and helped them play significant roles in contemporary polity. In fact, they are no more mute spectators and passive recipients in today’s political realm. This phenomenon has also influenced

202  Vivek Kumar Indian democracy to come nearer to the masses. It has transformed Indian democracy from representative to participatory and has thereby strengthened it. It has not only challenged the political hegemony of the so-called upper castes but also started mobilising to bring them within its fold – a process which is quite evident in Uttar Pradesh (Kumar 2006). Along with its success, the independent Dalit political movement is marked by three crises. It has failed to (a) unite different shades of independent Dalit political movements, (b) provide a unified identity to Dalits, and (c) search for a genuine political ally of Dalits in Indian polity (Kumar 2002). Dalit Intellectuals and Literature Movement

During the last few decades, a clear upsurge of Dalit intellectuals has been visible. These intellectuals have made it possible to redefine the contours of Indian academia by questioning the existing knowledge system in the Indian society (Kumar 2014a). Starting from Dalit literature movement to the publication of various types of magazines and newspapers, Dalits are involved in articulating and sharing their views at every level. We may call this a ‘Dalit literature movement’ which has an incredible impact in airing and recognising Dalit voices and views. Let me cite a few examples. During 1997–1999, three Dalit History Congresses were organised in Delhi which tried to highlight how ‘Indian history’ has blacked out the Dalits. In recent years, Dalit intellectuals attached to premier Indian universities like Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) have developed an alternative perspective, that is, ‘perspective from below’. They argue that the Indian social reality elucidated by Indian social scientists is ‘Brahmanical’ in its content and worldview (Kumar 2014a). Another impact of such a change is the rewriting of the history of Dalit literary movement with couplets of 14th and 15th centurries saint poets, such as Raidas or Ravidas. By critically looking at the nature of existing Brahmanical literature, this new history has opened up a new horizon for Dalit movement. More and more Dalit intellectuals have started sharing their experience explicating how social exclusion has continued despite the banning of untouchability and many other legal and administrative initiatives. Wankhade (1992: 316) highlights the situation of a Marathi writer whose ‘understanding of life is restricted by his birth and upbringing in a particular caste and class …. He has never seen … suffering, distress, struggling, howling world, burning with anger from within like a prairie fire’. Such a sharing of experience of lifeworld was necessary not only to counter exclusion but also to develop a Dalit worldview. Though the Dalit literature movement was born in 1960 in Maharashtra under the influence of Ambedkar’s social and political philosophy, it gradually became a national movement (Wankhade 1992: 316). This movement is carried forward by the written and codified languages in small weekly, fortnightly, monthly or annual journals, magazines, and newspapers published in different languages. Devy (2003: xx) argues, ‘When Dalit literature started emerging in the 1960s, Marathi literary taste dominated by a narcissistic tendency foregrounded merely formalistic, non-confrontationist, and titillating works’.

Dalit Movements: Typologies and Trajectories  203 Kuhn’s (1970) view on the revolution of scientific knowledge appears to be rather relevant in the intellectual discourse of the Dalits. Kuhn argued that the revolution in scientific knowledge comes about not through the accumulation of data alone but also through a change in the paradigm when the framework of explanation or the hypothesis is altered or a new set of questions is posed. In this context, one can locate Dalit writers as changing the paradigm and raising a new hypothesis about their existential and experiential realities in their writings. The Dalit writers have been attempting to reject the explanations given by the mainstream Indian writers about the permanent structures of the Indian society such as caste, village, and religion. While every other mainstream writer tries to highlight these institutions as functional for every section of the Indian society, the Dalit writers would provide the rationale and substantiate as to how these institutions are dysfunctional for the Dalits and other marginalised sections (Ambedkar 1979, 1989; Valmiki 2003). Therefore, it is not accidental that the Dalit writers have criticised the Hindu religion. They are sceptic about the powers of gods and goddesses and have even questioned the very sanctity of the Hindu religious texts. Dalit writers have also attempted to deconstruct the negative and stigmatised image of Dalit society by writing extensively on the contributions of Dalit saint poets and social reformers. In this way, Dalit literature has carved out a new iconography parallel to the socalled upper-caste iconography. In recent times, the Dalit writers have also been urging for the quantification and measurement of their labour, which have contributed significantly to the functioning of Indian economy and society. Movement of Dalit Employees

The movement of Dalit employees’ goes back to the British colonial days when Gopal Baba Walangkar, also known as Gopal Krishna, had submitted a petition for the recruitment of Dalits in the British Army. Ambedkar had also demanded inclusion of Dalits in the civil services (Ambedkar 1982). After Independence, Dalits were granted reservation in government services and public sector undertakings under Article 335 of the Indian Constitution. Yet, within the structures of bureaucracy, discrimination continued. This led them to launch movement sporadically. However, the first organised effort in this regard was made in 1971 by Kanshi Ram and his colleagues from Pune. They then established the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, and Minorities Employees’ Welfare Association. This was duly registered under the Poona Charity Commissioner (Mendelshon and Vicziany 1998: 220). The primary objective of this organisation was ‘to … find out quick and equitable solutions to the problems of injustice and harassment of … employees in general and the educated employees in particular’ (Mendelshon and Vicziany 1998: 220). Incidentally, the BAMCEF, which was established in 1976 by Kanshi Ram and other leaders, was relaunched with greater fanfare on December 6, 1978 in New Delhi. Nearly 2,000 delegates attended the meeting (Mendelshon and Vicziany 1998: 221). Through BAMCEF, Kanshi Ram put forward an alternative argument that Dalits or Bahujans constitute 85% of the Indian populace. The term Bahujan

204  Vivek Kumar included the majority of Dalits, tribals, other backward and converted minorities. As against them, he termed the ‘Other’ 15% as Manuwadis, who included the Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and the beneficiaries of the system. By dividing the whole society into two opposed camps, Kanshi Ram nurtured new hopes and optimism for the Dalit movement in the country. BAMCEF tried to mobilise Dalit employees by asking them to ‘pay back’ the community as they had benefitted from reservation. It gave birth first to a semi-political organisation called DS-4 (Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti) on December 6, 1981. The primary objective of DS-4 was to agitate for the issues of the whole Bahujan society. This organisation, in fact, laid the foundation of BSP on April 14, 1984, the first national political party of the Dalits, minorities, and the OBCs. However, after contributing to the formation of BSP, Kanshi Ram made BAMCEF a shadow organisation. This led to its first division in 1986. Today, the biggest Dalit employees’ group of BAMCEF is led by B. D. Borkar. It is still a non-political, non-religious, and non-agitational organisation with 25,000 members having units in 18 states. The organisation brings out six fortnightlies in six languages, maintains a website, and produces audio and video cassettes on issues related to Dalits. Since 1993, this group has also propagated moolnivasi meaning ‘original inhabitants’ identity for the Dalits. Movement of Dalit Women

It is unfortunate that the assertion of Dalit women is invisible though they have been participating in the movement since time immemorial. Yasudasan (1999: 334) argues, The historical invisibility of Dalit women is due to the fact that we look for them exactly where they were denied entry. We look for women’s history in the activities of the savarna women where we cannot find Dalit women. We cannot find them in the struggle against polygamy or enforced widowhood. But we do find them in the struggle against slavery. And we still find them in the struggle for human dignity. He further opines,

They (Dalit women) have actively participated in thousands way in which Dalit communities tried to liquidate slavery and caste oppression. Dodging masters and overseers, they escaped into jungles along with their men and set up maroon settlements. Conversion to Protestant Christianity was an important form of anti-slavery struggle where we find the initiative and drive of Dalit women …. Conversion was a manifestation of Dalit freedom struggle in Kerala …. The moral and spiritual contribution Dalit women made to this freedom struggle was significant. They worked hard with their men folk to set up schools and attended them in spite of unfavourable weather and threats of persecution …. These literate women were writing history, writing some

Dalit Movements: Typologies and Trajectories  205 most stirring of the struggle for freedom from genocidal epoch of slavery that for centuries treated them as non-humans. (Yasudasan 1999: 334–335) Yasudasan has cited several examples where Dalit women played an active role in the movements. For instance, they actively participated in Ayyankali’s movement for the rights of Dalits and in 1909 helped him to sustain a year-long strike at Venganur for educational rights. Further, in 1915, Dalit women resolved to defy ornaments identified as caste marks by the upper caste Hindus to cover their breasts. It triggered a violent conflict at Perinadu, Kerala (Yasudasan 1999: 335– 336). Besides, Dalit women of Maharashtra actively participated in the movement led by Shivram Janaba Kamble. Devadasis of the area responded to the call of Kamble and one of them wrote a long letter explaining the miserable condition of Devadasis. His propaganda against the Devadasi system was so effective that in the year 1909 not a single girl was offered to Khandoba as Devadasi and few male members married Devdasis (Moon and Pawar 2003: 48). Dalit women also participated in Babasaheb’s Mahad Satyagraha at Chowdar Tank on March 20, 1927. They also participated in the deliberation of the subject committee meeting in passing a resolution in favour of equal human rights. Hundreds of Dalit women participated in Kalaram Temple (Nasik) on March 2, 1930 and Pune Satyagraha against denunciation of the ‘Poona Pact’. Apart from a sit-in protest, they also courted arrest. This movement lasted for five years till 1935. During this period, Dalit women conducted meetings to support separate electorates for the untouchables. In May 1936, Dalit women held an independent conference in Bombay to support Ambedkar’s declaration to convert to nonHindu religions. At a later stage, at the time of formation of Scheduled Castes Federation in July 1942, out of 70,000 members who participated in the event, 26,000 or one-third were Dalit women (Omvedt 1994: 216). Shantabai Dani, who joined the Scheduled Castes Federation in 1945, was responsible for organising the women’s conference of the party. She also took part in the Bhoomeeheen (landless) Satyagraha of the 1950s, and mobilised people in rural Maharashtra. Dalit women in Bombay also organised the Dalit Stri Samwadini (Dalit Women’s Dialogue) in 1986, probably the first women’s literary conference in Maharashtra (Zelliot 2001: 322). In 1994, Dalit women’s movement further gained prominence when the National Federation of Dalit Women (NFDW) was established in Delhi. By May 2001, NFDW organised seven conferences. Further, they independently participated in the international conference of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) on racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance, organised by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights from August 28, 2021 to September 7, 2001 at Durban. Thus, it is apparent that Dalit women played a prominent role in regional, state, and national level protest activities. Unfortunately, the increasing visibility of Dalit women in power structures such as Sarpanch and members of the panchayat has led to an increased backlash against them. They are subjected to a range of humiliation

206  Vivek Kumar including violence like rape or killing of their kinsmen. In this context, women from Dalit Action Research Centre, Chittoor, are of the view that ‘Dalit women’s struggles find their place more naturally within the Dalit movement …. From an identifiable, strong position within the Dalit movement, the Dalit women should extend a hand and cooperate within the women’s movement’ (Bandhu 2003: 112). Movement of Dalit NGOs

Dalits have a long history of forming and establishing voluntary organisations which can be traced back to the mid-19th century. During the 1850s, the Dalits in Kanpur, Allahabad, Varanasi, and Lucknow started their own congregations to have social interaction among themselves (Gooptu 1993). In the beginning of the 20th century, Dalits from different parts of India formed social organisations to assert and ameliorate their wretched condition. For instance, in 1903, Shivram Janaba Kamble and Kisan Faguji Bansode founded an organisation called Sanmarg Bodhok Nirashrit Samaj (depressed class society showing the right path) (cf. Jogdand 1991; Omvedt 1994: 121). The Chandal movement (1872–1873) established caste organisations in search of their rights. N. K. Bose traced a caste organisation called Namasudra Hitashini Samiti leading the Chandal movement (cited by Usuda 1997: 229). Ambedkar, on his part, established his own voluntary association Bahishkrit Hitakarini Sabha in 1924. Then, in September 1927, he started Samaj Samata Sangh, and the same year he formed Samata Sainik Dal (Rodrigues 2002: 557). Ambedkar also founded the Depressed Classes Education Society on June 14, 1928 in Bombay and the People’s Education Society on July 8, 1945. A renewed beginning of Dalit NGOs was made after the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, was passed. The Government of India, in its Five-Year Plan, agreed to work with the NGOs, which was, perhaps, due to the necessity for the involvement of the NGOs as this law had special and specific provisions which were to be disseminated to the Dalits. Subsequently, the Dalit Vikas Samiti, a voluntary organisation, was set up in Patna in 1982 to take up this task. By 1990, the membership of the Samiti reached 40,000 and the Samiti opened its centres in many other districts of Bihar (Sachchidananda 2001: 193– 195). The Dalit Vikas Samiti’s main thrust was legal aid and education. The era of globalisation since the 1990s introduced a new phase in the sphere of NGOs because the national and international institutions started playing a dominant role in overseeing the implementation of human rights of citizens. Moreover, more and more international voluntary organisations started funding and collaborating with Dalit NGOs. In this context, the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR), a committee comprising a number of Dalit organisations, was formed in 1995. The initiative developed into a campaign in 1998 and hence NCDHR was launched (Kumar 2002: 218). It ran a national-level campaign on human rights of Dalits from December 10, 1998 to August 15, 1999. It appealed to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to take note of the violation of human rights of Dalits in India. The campaign, among others, stated,

Dalit Movements: Typologies and Trajectories  207 We, therefore, demand that in the 50th year of the Declaration of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, all the international human rights organizations give assurance to all the Dalits of Asia that the violations of their rights will be considered as violations of Human Rights and that the UN in particular will respond seriously to such violations through the appointment of a Special Rapporteur or Working Group on the practice of Untouchability in Asia and include caste discrimination in Article 1 of the ‘Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination’. (Kumar 2002: 218) NCDHR participated in the ‘World Conference against Racism’ held at Durban in South Africa in 2001 (Kumar 2004) with a contingent of 200 delegates from India. It formed a ‘caucus’ with the Dalits of other countries such as Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Japan, and Nigeria, inter alia. Gradually, it took the shape of an NGO with its different wings such as advocacy and media. This campaign has also formed an international network by being part of the International Dalit Solidarity Network comprising members from more than 24 countries. Similarly, National Dalit Forum, National Conference of Dalit Organisations, and few other Dalit NGOs are running the movements for the restoration of Dalit human rights. On the whole, there are two views about the Dalit NGOs. One view argues that they are not grassroots organisations. They are merely funding bodies with a grassroots facade. They are not people-based and spontaneous movements. Further, these NGOs focus more on rights related to health, education, and access to land, water, and other resources. Hence, it has blunted the Dalit political movement. The opposite view argues that Dalit NGOs (and other shades of Dalit movement) work in tandem with political mobilisations. This is possible because NGOs are able to collect much-needed information about socio-economic and educational status of Dalits at the grassroots level. Second, NGOs can provide a much-needed platform to bring different shades of Dalit movement under one platform to have a dialogue with each other and decide a unified direction (Gorringe 2005: 75–77). Dalit Media Movement

Apart from these movements, Dalits have launched daily newspapers such as Vishva Samrat, Mahanayak, Bahujan Maharashtra, and Bahujanratna Loknayak, to name just a few, as a part of their movement. They have launched their TV channels to give their movements and culture greater visibility. Few important channels are Lord Buddha TV, Thiruma TV (in Tamil), and Awaaz India TV. They have also launched e-magazines and hundreds of monthly and fortnightly magazines and newspapers as part of their movement. For example, Dalit Dastak (Dalit knock) is a monthly magazine published in Delhi. It now brings out some 10,000 copies. The magazine has a website ‘dalitdastak​.c​om’ and a YouTube channel with the same name. The cover page of Dalit Dastak provides regular space to the Dalits who rarely get space on other magazines run by upper castes.

208  Vivek Kumar Mulnivasi Times is also a weekly newspaper published by BAMCEF as their mouthpiece. BAMCEF also publishes a monthly magazine in English. Popularity of social media platforms in a network society has propagated a new aspect of Dalit movement. Today Dalit youths use social media pages to question the exploitative social and administrative system. Now on every auspicious occasion related to birth anniversaries of Dalit icons, they use SMS and WhatsApp groups to convey greetings. This has increased connectivity within the erstwhile penury-stricken and illiterate masses. It is interesting to note that Dalits have launched their songs on YouTube because no one was ready to air them. By launching their videos, a number of Dalit singers have now become famous not only in India but also within the Dalit diaspora abroad. Dalit diaspora regularly calls them for performance. This is a very new way of asserting their entity. Dalits are also found using mobile phones for communicating political messages. The Dalit politicians argued that it has really made their lives very simple because they did not have any means of communication in the past till the mobile phones came. In this way, Dalits have used different types of modes of communication as part of their movement to raise the level of consciousness among the masses, thereby augmenting the intensity of their assertion. BOX 9.1 Dalit Media

Dalits publish quite a good number of daily newspapers – Vishva Samrat, Mahanayak, Bahujan Maharashtra, Bahujanratna Loknayak, and so on. They also publish magazines such as Dalit Dastak and Ambedkar India (both in Hindi). BAMCEF publishes fortnightlies in Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, and Telugu languages. They have launched their TV channels such as Lord Buddha TV, Thiruma TV (in Tamil), and Aawaj TV, and YouTube channels such as Dalit Dastak and Dalits News Network. These efforts are made because Dalits think that mainstream media is biased. Through such publications, they try to achieve a greater visibility. Movement of Dalit Youth

Dalit movement of different shades has come to the rescue of Dalit youth who are subjected to exclusion, humiliation, and atrocities of different kinds (Kumar 2014b). With the rise in literacy and awareness, Dalit youth and students today play a leading role to assert and launch their own movements in various universities and college campuses. For instance, the United Dalit Students’ Forum and Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students’ Association at JNU, Ambedkar Students Association at the University of Hyderabad, and Youth for Social Justice at Delhi University (DU), to name just a few, have emerged to face the discrimination prevailing at the campuses at various levels (Kumar 2016).

Dalit Movements: Typologies and Trajectories  209 The students have formed these organisations to face the challenges collectively. These organisations have enabled Dalit youths to identify themselves with their brethren in a hostile environment of campuses of higher learning. These organisations have asserted their identity by celebrating the birth anniversaries of their icons (Kumar 2016). They have started greeting ‘Jai Bheem’ loudly in the corridors of the campus. Moreover, they organise public meetings and demonstrations on the burning issues of their community. Youth for Social Justice (DU) has been celebrating ‘Youth Dignity Festival’ for the past 12 years. All these collective and group efforts have helped them to come out of their alienation and loneliness of the campus life and perform well. The university youth have also contested students’ union elections and forced prominent student bodies to recognise their presence. BOX 9.2 Protest by Dalit Students

Dalit students have established a number of students’ organisations on the university campuses. They demonstrated in front of the Ministry of Human Resource Development and University Grant Commission in Delhi, when they were not given relaxation in marks for appearing for the National Eligibility Test. UDSF (United Dalit Students’ Forum), JNU, and ASA (Ambedkar Students’ Association) demonstrated at Boat Club in front of the Parliament of India after Tsundur (Andhra killings) in the 1990s. Interestingly, youths outside the university campuses have also established their own organisations in the name of Bahujan icons. Moreover, they have directly joined independent Dalit political parties such as Dalit Panthers and BSP. These junior leaders help the illiterate masses in lodging police complaints in the event of local conflict, or help their caste men in making their ‘job cards’ for MGNREGA or some certificates such as caste, income, and domicile or death/birth certificates. Their participation in the political party of their own has empowered them and their community as a whole. However, the Dalit youth still lacks a pan-India movement and an independent agenda to uplift them (Kumar 2014b). Movement of Dalit Diaspora

Dalit assertion has extended its contours from local to global, especially with the help of Dalit diaspora. The Dalits settled abroad have by now turned into a close-knit community. Although they emigrated from different parts of India and belonged to different sub-castes and linguistic groups, they created their own organisations to develop social solidarity (Kumar 2013). In this context, especially, members of the ‘new’ Dalit diaspora took the lead. For instance, Dalits in the United Kingdom established Buddha Vihars (Buddhist praying centres) and

210  Vivek Kumar Gurudwaras (Sikh praying places) in the late 1960s. A Buddhist council was also established in the United Kingdom in 1985. This council is a federation of seven Ambedkarite organisations working for Dalit Indians which is called Federation of Ambedkarite and Buddhist Organisations. Voice of Dalit International (VODI) is another organisation working in the United Kingdom. A more organised effort came in the United States from literate NRI Dalits when they formed Volunteers in Service to India’s Oppressed and Neglected (VISION) in 1975. The VODI report of 2000 also mentions about the establishment of the Ambedkar Centre for Justice and Peace in Canada (cf. Kumar 2004). In 1999, BAMCEF launched its international network. Since 2003, Ambedkar International Mission has been working in the United States. It is worth noting that countries like the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States have been the hub of Dalit diaspora activities in recent years. In these countries, the Dalits celebrate and commemorate birth and death anniversaries of Ambedkar, Buddha, and Ravidas. In the United Kingdom, the Dalits also organised Ambedkar memorial lectures in collaboration with Manchester Metropolitan University for a decade. Dalit diaspora in the United Kingdom established the Ambedkar Museum at Wolverhampton on April 23, 2003. They installed Babasaheb’s bust in the London School of Economics and the Indian High Commission office. The Indian High Commission office in London celebrates Babasaheb Ambedkar’s anniversary on April 14 every year. In Canada, Dalit activism is prominent in Toronto, Vancouver, and Calgary. Dalit diaspora in the United States played a dominant role in getting Babasaheb’s bust installed at Columbia University and have established Ravidasi gurudwaras in New Jersey, California, and Houston. These assertions have given self-esteem to emigrant Dalits and highlighted the fact that the Indian diaspora is not a monolithic whole but is divided on caste lines. Last but not least, this movement has helped to unite the community by using the products of information technology (Kumar 2013: 227–262). Summary and Conclusion Based on the above discussion, we can observe an evolutionary trajectory of Dalit movements in which it traversed from one sphere of social life to another incorporating different types of population and agenda. It is in this context we have observed that Dalit movement in India has produced its different shades to which we have referred as different types of Dalit Movements. The first type of Dalit movement emerged in the socio-religious spheres where the demand for a dignified space within the Hindu social order was raised. But Bhakti and other socioreligious movements failed to bring about desired changes in their socio-economic status. Dalits also chose both Indic religions and religions which came from outside India for conversion in search of a dignified identity. The second type of movement emerged when Dalits asserted and agitated for their legitimate political rights. They asked for self-representation in the government. It was B. R. Ambedkar who first realised that evolving a political position is necessary to highlight Dalit problems. By the 1930s, they launched their own

Dalit Movements: Typologies and Trajectories  211 independent political parties and today all political parties formally give credence to Dalit leaders and Dalit votes. Election of a Dalit President, Vice President, and many other dignitaries bear testimony to the significance of Dalits in Indian politics today. The third important type of Dalit movement is the assertions of Dalit intellectuals. Being inspired by Ambedkar’s philosophy and struggle they played a decisive role in promoting Dalit literature movement. This movement emerged in 1960 in Maharashtra and has now spread across the country. Today Dalit literature is produced in every style – prose, poems, short stories, biographies, and autobiographies. The Dalit autobiographies have become the most important genre of Dalit literature because they present a powerful counter-narrative of the established social reality. Dalit intellectuals have contributed to the dissemination of alternative ‘perspective from below’ through seminars, conferences, and other professional activities. The fourth type of Dalit movement is of Dalit employees when they started organising themselves to carry forward the struggle against their exploitation and discrimination at different levels of Indian bureaucracy. While doing so, they coined a new identity – Bahujans – for the Dalits, tribals, OBCs, and converted minorities. The collective mobilisation of these employees gave birth to a political party called BSP in 1984, which captured political power in Uttar Pradesh a number of times. Dalit women who are triply exploited on the basis of gender, class, and caste started organising a separate and independent movement since 1992. This is the fifth type of Dalit movement. They complained about inadequate representation of their issues and themselves in the mainstream Dalit movement. Dalit women raised issues related to them by writing autobiographies and representing themselves at international forums such as United Nations Commission on Human Rights, WSF (World Social Forum), and EUSF (European Union Social Forum). Apart from this, since the 1990s, Dalit civil society organisations have also been asserting against exclusion and discrimination. This can be termed as the sixth type of Dalit movement. These NGOs have been able to raise their voice at the global level. However, they have changed their expression from caste exploitation to human rights violations and demand interventions from international institutions to protect their civil rights. The seventh type of Dalit movement is found in the sphere of media. Dalit media in the form of magazines, fortnightlies, e-magazines, YouTube channels, Twitter, Meta, and newspapers allow greater visibility to Dalit issues now. It has also helped them to connect far and wide and give their issues wider visibility at the national and international levels. The eighth type of Dalit movement is the assertions of Dalit youths and students. Strong presence of Dalit student bodies is now seen in the campuses of higher learning such as universities and colleges. In JNU and Hyderabad Central University, they have a prominent stake. They have used the internet, Facebook, Twitter, websites, SMS, e-magazines, and fortnightly and monthly magazines to raise their voices. They have also started dozens of daily newspapers and web channels including social media platforms. However, most of these movements

212  Vivek Kumar remain confined to issues of discrimination prevailing on the campuses. Hence, Dalit youth are yet to launch any pan-India movement. Last but not least, the ninth type of Dalit movement is the movement of Dalit diaspora. Dalit diaspora settled in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, and other parts of the world have organised themselves by establishing organisations in the name of Buddha, Ravidas, and Ambedkar. For augmenting solidarity among themselves they celebrate their birth anniversaries and commemorate their death anniversaries. By getting the bust of Ambedkar installed in various universities of the world they have tried to enhance their self-esteem and boost their selfconfidence. They have approached their respective governments and staged sit-ins in front of Indian consulates in the event of human rights violations of Dalits. By doing so, they have given the Dalit issue a little more visibility and international support. In short, we can argue that the assertion of Dalits in different spheres of the society has given birth different typologies of Dalit movements engulfing different types of population and agenda for assertion. These movements have helped them to establish their independent socio-cultural roots parallel to the mainstream. They have developed their identity, started celebrating their own icons, and evolved their own style of assertion cutting across linguistic boundaries. The Dalit movement has challenged the existing hegemony of the so-called upper castes in various regions of the country. Their movements have enabled them to participate in various institutions of the nation and thereby in the Indian democracy with greater self-confidence and as a matter of their legitimate rights. In this measure, they have strengthened the nation-building process. However, Dalits and Dalit movements still face numerous challenges of unity, identity, and leadership and above all the problem of integration in the society at large. Till their complete integration in the Indian society, they will keep on launching their movements highlighting the deficit of Indian democracy. Review Questions 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Who are Dalits? Discuss the trajectories of Dalit movements in India. Discuss different types of Dalit movements in India. How did Ambedkar argue for the rights of Dalits? What are the implications of Dalit assertions across space? Examine the success and failure of Dalit movements in India.

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Dalit Movements: Typologies and Trajectories  213 ———. 1989. ‘The Indian Ghetto—The Centre of Untouchability—Outside the Fold’. In Ambedkar, B. R. (Ed.), Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Writings and Speeches (BAWS), vol. 5 (3–112). Mumbai: Education Department, Government of Maharashtra. Bandhu, Pranjali. 2003. ‘Dalit Women’s Cry for Liberation’. In Rao, Anupama (Ed.), Gender & Caste (108–113). New Delhi: Kali for Women. Cohn, Bernard S. 1990. An Anthropologist among the Historian and Others Essays. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Devy, G. N. 2003. The Outcaste: Akkarmashi-Shravan Kumar Limbale. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Dube, Saurabh. 2001. Untouchable Pasts: Religion, Identity and Power among a Central Indian Community, 1780–1950. New Delhi: Vistaar Publications. Ghosh, Biswajit. 2020. ‘Ambedkar as a Subaltern Theorist: His Relevance in Contemporary India’. In Bandyopadhyay, Arun (Ed.), Prabuddha Bharat- Understanding Ambedkar in the Passage of Time (89–111). Kolkata: Asiatic Society. Gooptu, Nandni. 1993. ‘Caste and Labour: Untouchable Social Movements in Urban Uttar Pradesh in the Early Twentieth Century’. In Robb, Peter (Ed.), Dalit Movements and the Meanings of Labour in India (277–298). Delhi: Oxford University Press. Gorringe, Hugo. 2005. Untouchable Citizens: Dalit Movements and Democratization in Tamil Nadu. New Delhi: SAGE Publications. Gupta, S. K. 1985. The Scheduled Castes in Modern Indian Politics: Their Emergence as a Political Power. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers. Jaffrelot, Christophe. 2009. ‘Dr. Ambedkar’s strategies against untouchability and the caste system’. Working Paper Series, 3 (4). Indian Institute of Dalit Studies, New Delhi. Jogdand, P. G. 1991. Dalit Movement in Maharashtra. New Delhi: Kanak Publications. Juergensmeyer, Mark. 1982. Religion as Social Vision: The Movement against Untouchability in20th-Century Punjab. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Kuhn, T. 1970. The Structure of Scientific Revolution. Chicago, IL/London: The University of Chicago Press. Kumar, Vivek. 2002. Dalit Leadership in India. New Delhi: Kalpaz Publications. ———. 2003. ‘Dalit Movement and Dalit International Conferences’. Economic & Political Weekly, 38 (27): 2799. ———. 2004. ‘Understanding Dalit Diaspora’. Economic & Political Weekly, 39 (1): 114–116. ———. 2005. ‘Situating Dalits in Indian Sociology’. Sociological Bulletin 54 (3): 515–532. ———. 2006. India’s Roaring Revolution: Dalit Assertion and New Horizons. New Delhi: Gagan Deep Publications. ———. 2007. Dalit Leadership and Role of Ambedkar. Jammu: Dr. Ambedkar Studies Centre, Department of Sociology, University of Jammu. ———. 2013. ‘The New Dalit Diaspora’. In Sharma, K. L. and Singh, Renuka (Eds.), Dual Identity, Indian Diaspora and Other Essays (227–262). New Delhi: Orient Blackswan. ———. 2014a. ‘Dalits Studies: Continuities and Change’. In Singh, Yogendra (Ed.), Indian Sociology. vol. 3 (19–54), Identity Communication and Culture. ICSSR research surveys and explorations. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. ———. 2014b. Caste and Democracy in India: A Perspective from Below. New Delhi: Gyan Publishing House. ———. 2016. ‘Discrimination on Campuses of Higher Learning: A Perspective from Below’. Economic & Political Weekly, 51 (6): 12–15. Lorenzen, David N. 1996. Bhakti Religion in North India: Community Identity and Political Action. New Delhi: Manohar. Lynch, Owen M. 1974. The Politics of Untouchability. Delhi: National Publishing House. Mathew, Joseph. 1986. Ideology, Protest and Social Mobility: Case Study of Mahars and Pulayas. New Delhi: Inter-India Publications.

214  Vivek Kumar Moon, Meenakshi, and Urmila Pawar. 2003. ‘Dalit Women, Difference & Dalit Women’s Movements’. In Rao, Anupama (Ed.), Gender and Caste (48–56). New Delhi: Kali for Women. Murugkar, Lata. 1991. Dalit Panthers Movement in Maharashtra: A Sociological Appraisal. Bombay: Popular Prakashan. Omvedt, Gail. 1994. Dalits and the Democratic Revolution: Dr. Ambedkar and the Dalit Movement in Colonial India. New Delhi: SAGE Publications. Oommen, T. K. 1990. Protest and Change: Studies in Social Movements. New Delhi: SAGE Publications. Rodrigues, Valerian. 2002. The Essential Writings of B.R. Ambedkar. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Roy, Arundhuti. 2014. ‘The Doctor and the Saint’. In Ambedkar, B. R. (1936), Annihilation of Caste - The Annotated Critical Edition (17–179). New Delhi: Navayana. Rudolph, Lloyd, and Rudolph, Susanne. 1987. The Modernity of Tradition: Political Development in India. New Delhi: Orient Longman. Sachchidananda. 2001. ‘Voluntary Action for Social Development and Empowering the Marginalised in Bihar’. In SinghaRoy, Debal K. (Ed.), Social Development and the Empowerment of Marginalised Groups: Perspectives and Strategies (184–201). New Delhi: SAGE Publications. Usuda, Masayuki. 1997. ‘Pushes towards the Partition: Jogendranath Mandal and the Constrained Namashudra Movement’. In Kotani, H. (Ed.), Caste System, Untouchability and the Depressed (221–274). New Delhi: Manohar. Valmiki, Omprakash. 2003. Joothan: A Dalit’s Life. Translated from Hindi—Joothan. Kolkata: Samay. Vicziany, Marika, and Oliver Mendelsohn. 1998. The Untouchables: Subordination, Poverty and the State in Modern India. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press. Wankhade, M. N. 1992. ‘Friends, the Day of Irresponsible Writers Is Over’. In Dangle, Arjun (Ed.), Poisoned Bread (314–323). Translated from the Modern Marathi Dalit literature. New Delhi: Orient Longman. Webster, John C. B. 2002. Religion and Dalit Liberation: An Examination of Perspective. New Delhi: Manohar. Yasudasan, T. M. 1999. ‘Caste, Gender and Knowledge: Towards a Dalit Feminist Perspective’. In Ghosh, Ashish (Ed.), Dalits and Peasants: The Emerging Caste–Class Dynamics (324–341). New Delhi: Gyan Sagar Publications. Zelliot, Eleanor. 2001. From Untouchables to Dalits and Other Essays. New Delhi: Manohar.

10 Movements of Organised and Unorganised Labour Biswajit Ghosh and Tanima Choudhuri

Learning Objectives After reading this chapter, you will be able to:

• Know about the history of working-class movement in India; • Learn about the connections between political parties and trade unions in India;

• Know about the strengths and weaknesses of trade unions in India; • Understand the challenges of trade unions since economic liberalisation; • Comprehend recent changes in the strategies and programmes of our trade unions;

• Be able to explain the need for trade unions in the contemporary context; and

• Place the role and importance of Social Movement Unionism in arguing for the rights of a vast majority of marginalised people.

Introduction Since the beginning of modern industrial society, trade unions have been considered a legitimate part of any industrial organisation for promoting and protecting the interests of workers. The need for a union was also felt by employees and staff of each and every formal organisation in the 19th century as legal stipulations were required to run an organisation democratically. As pressure groups, they are, therefore, considered an important agency to promote the democratic rights of workers, employees, and other stakeholders of all organisations. Unfortunately, in countries like India, employers continue to undervalue their importance and do not recognise them. Trade unions also have relied on external political support including the state to protect them. As a corollary, the culture of trade unionism in India, and many other countries, remained confined to certain ‘privileged sections’ of the working class. Amidst a lot of fragility, neoliberal globalisation has exposed Indian unions to unsettling challenges (Bhowmik 2016: xiii). Concepts like work or industrial DOI:  10.4324/9781003481744-12

216  Biswajit Ghosh and Tanima Choudhuri  relations are redefined in the post-Fordist phase of the global economy due to the introduction of new processes like international division of labour, flexible specialisation, informalisation, casualisation, and sub-contracting. These processes, contributing to a clear ‘disengagement’ between labour and capital (Bauman 2001), have weakened the traditional strategy of resistance of labour to capitalism. In the late-capitalist society, workers and their unions require a different mindset and strategy to combat the challenges (Ramaswamy 1994: 14). While large-scale informalisation and casualisation have opened up the critical challenge of organising the unorganised workers to our unions, the story has not been altogether negative. Technological globalisation has also made it possible to develop wider networks of different stakeholders across class and space to fight against large-scale exclusion and marginalisation while at the same time raising voices for wider issues like human rights, social safety, inequality, unemployment, privatisation, inflation, etc. Studying new movements of organised and unorganised labour today, therefore, becomes an important and interesting agenda for social scientists and activists. Rise and Growth of Trade Unions in India The growth of organised resistance of labour in India was a belated process as the development of industry and capitalism itself began late. Coal mining, which started in 1774, was the only modern industry until the middle of the 19th century. Employment of tribal workers in the tea gardens of Assam and Bengal started in the early 1820s by the East India Company. India’s industrialisation was deliberately delayed by the colonial rulers who rather relied on cheap raw materials from India to augment the market for British manufactured goods. The colonial rulers used their power to control the use of the labour force for plantations and mines in which British capital was invested. Bhattacharya (1987: 55) has argued that though the colonial rulers were interested in creating a proletariat for the international labour market, they also tried to control conditions of employment in Indian industries so as to ‘reduce the Indian capitalists’ cost advantage due to the cheapness of Indian labour. In areas, where the competition between the British and indigenous capital was strong, the colonial state tried to alleviate the condition of workers. In 1855, the first textile mill began its operation in Bombay. At the same time, in Calcutta, a jute mill was established (Shah 1990). The establishment of railways in 1851 and the consequent engagement of labour also provided a new space for trade unions. Till the early 20th century, cotton industries in Bombay and jute industries in Calcutta dominated the story of India’s industrialisation. The belated process of industrialisation and factory employment in India, therefore, restricted the growth of the industrial working class in the country. Notwithstanding these limits, there were quite a good number of sporadic protests by tea plantation, coal mine, and urban informal workers against exploitation and oppression by their owners and managers. This means that much before the formation of trade unions in India, workers belonging mainly to informal sectors1 have protested and placed their demands. Chandavarkar (1999) has shown that since the 1920s, a number of strikes were called in Bombay, Calcutta, Kanpur,

Movements of Organised and Unorganised Labour  217 Nagpur, Ahmedabad, and Coimbatore without the involvement of any trade union. Yet, these struggles were not properly documented as scholars studying the labour movement focused mainly on organised factory sector labour. Hence, many ‘unorganised and spontaneous strikes’ were ignored (Shah 1990). Due to limited perception about the labour movement, most of the studies on it had begun after 1920 when the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), the first national body of industrial workers, was formed. It is important, in this context, to take note of some earlier records of worker protest. Thus, in 1862 about 1200 railway workers went on a strike in Howrah station (Shah 1990: 185). In 1877 and 1882, textile workers in Nagpur and Bombay went on strike for a longer period for better wages. Considering the length and number of workers involved, Karnik (1966) believed that the Bombay strike was the beginning of our labour movement. Since then, sporadic and short-lived stoppages of work have been reported from various locations, and textile, jute mill, plantation, and railway workers gave leadership to these activities. In 1875, a few social reformers began a protest in Bombay to draw the attention of the government to the appealing conditions of workers in factories, including women and child labourers (Sulaiman 2017). By the 1890s, more and more workers became involved in protest activities like strike, bandh/hartal (general strike), hunger strike, and mass demonstration or gherao (encirclement), and these became normal features of industrial life in India (Shah 1990). In the early years of labour movements, issues like low wages, long working hours, poor condition of work, and ill treatment by managers agitated the workers. Two major external factors after the First World War, namely, the Russian Revolution and Gandhi’s call for the non-cooperation movement, helped Indian workers. Leaders of the Indian freedom struggle also came forward to help workers to organise their struggle. The first trade union to be formed in India was the Madras Labour Union (Ramaswamy and Ramaswamy 1981: 86–87). It was founded on April 27, 1918, under the leadership of B. P. Wadia and others. Though the workers of Buckingham and Carnatic Mills in Madras took leadership in forming it, workers from different trades joined the union as many intellectuals and social workers came forward to support it. Incidentally, in 1918, a host of employee unions like Indian Seamen’s Union, Railway Men’s Union, and Port Trust Employees Union were also formed. But the historic resistance of the Madras Labour Union showed the possibility of a new beginning to many stakeholders. Just after its formation, its leadership gave a call for strike to fight for their collective rights notwithstanding various intimidations by the management ranging from lockouts to police harassment and even shootings to break their unity. The workers also refused to accept additional welfare benefits and identify those who assaulted the managers. Interestingly, some external leaders of this union, namely, B. P. Wadia and Thiru Vi. Ka, provided strategic support to build working-class solidarity. The story of this unified struggle forced the colonial rulers to enact the Trade Union Act in 1926 to formalise industrial relations and to control militant unionism (Veeraraghavan 2013). Though the strike of textile workers of Madras became widely known for opening new possibilities of working-class struggle in India, the textile workers of

218  Biswajit Ghosh and Tanima Choudhuri  Ahmedabad also called a strike in December 1917 to demand a hike in bonus due to inflation. A social worker called Anasuya Sarabhai brought all the textile workers under one umbrella and sought Mahatma Gandhi’s intervention to resolve their issue. The workers then imbibed Gandhi’s principle of non-violence and fought a month-long strike. Standing on the side of the workers, Gandhi not only addressed their meetings, but he also sat on a hunger strike on their behalf. Gandhi’s demand for the appointment of an arbitrator to settle the rate of bonus was finally accepted by the Indian mill owners. Following the victory, Majoor Mahajan Sangh was formed in 1920. The name was later changed to Ahmedabad Textile Labour Association. The formation of the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) in 1920 as a national body to coordinate trade union movement in the country was an important milestone in the history of our labour movement. Such a formation was needed to raise the Indian voice for freedom at the League of Nations and International Labour Organisation (ILO). AITUC then endorsed the Congress position on both Swaraj and Swadeshi (Bhattacharya 1987: 61). As forming trade unions became a political necessity, several unions were formed in Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras. Citing official data, Sheth (2004) has shown there were 396 strikes involving six lakh workers in 1921. Subsequently, the number of strikes and workers involved in them increased substantially. As the leaders of the trade union movement were also the leaders of nationalist movement, the worker’s movement became a part of the wider unified struggle and both gained their strength and vitality from each other. Such association also inflicted anti-colonial and anti-imperialist politics of our unions before independence notwithstanding their concern for immediate issues. But, since independence, the history of our labour movement is marked by fragmentation, inter-union rivalry, and ‘company unionism’2. Trade unions gradually became dependent on state support for their existence presuming that ‘labour is weak’ and concentrated their struggle mainly in the organised sector of our economy (Ghosh 2009). The failures of our organised trade unions to address the challenges of economic liberalisation are also linked to these failures. Political Alignment and Fragmentation of Unions Since its inception, trade unionism in India got encircled into the larger issue of independence due to the typical political climate prevailing in the country in the early part of the 19th century. As our unions fought a common struggle against British rule, political and ideological differences of trade union leaders were kept largely under control till 1947. Incidentally, within AITUC, three distinct ideological perspectives divided the leaders since its formation: Communists led by M. N. Ray and S. A. Dange, nationalists led by M. Gandhi and J. Nehru, and moderates led by N. M. Joshi and V. V. Giri. These differences led to the fragmentation of AITUC, first in 1929, when the Indian Federation of Trade Union (IFTU) was formed by the moderates and reformists. Again in 1931, the Red Trade Union Congress (RTUC) was formed by the Communists. Increasing influence of Communists in trade union struggle particularly in Bombay and Calcutta was witnessed after the formation of Communist Party of India (CPI) in 1920. But, at

Movements of Organised and Unorganised Labour  219 the same time, the need for workers’ unity was felt desperately in the context of intensified nationalist and anti-imperialist struggles. Hence, in 1933, the National Federation of Trade Unions (NFTU) was formed by 47 Railway and unaffiliated unions. Later in 1935, AITUC and RTUC came together, and in 1940, NFTU also merged with AITUC. But in 1947, when it became clear that a national government was going to be formed soon, political rivalries became sharp. Thus, in May 1947, nationalists and moderates formed the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), since by then the Communists had acquired control over AITUC. The Congress socialists who stayed in AITUC at the time of the formation of INTUC subsequently formed Hind Mazdoor Sabha (HMS). A few years later, HMS split up with a faction of socialists forming Bharatiya Mazdoor Sabha (BMS), and again when there was a split among the Communists, the United Trade Union Congress (UTUC) and Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) were formed. Later a splinter group of UTUC formed another federation, i.e., UTUC, Lenin Sarani. Hence, by 1949, four central trade union federations namely AITUC, INTUC, HMS, and UTUIC came into existence. As the story of Indian trade unionism since independence is marked by fragmentations on political lines, all political parties started forming their labour front. For instance, the formation of Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) in 1955 was linked to the birth of Jan Sangh in 1952. Short-term objectives and electoral considerations have influenced the activities of many of our trade unions. There are only some unions who have gone beyond the parameter of political affiliation and fought for the social and economic empowerment of their members (see some special cases within text boxes). Even though external political leaders provided much-needed support in the formative phase of many unions in the past, political affiliation of trade unions has also contributed to perpetuation of inter and intra-union rivalries and party dominance over unions (Ghosh 1988). BOX 10.1 Case of CMSS and CMM

Chhattisgarh Mines Shramik Sangh (CMSS) and Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha (CMM) under the leadership of Shankar Guha Niyogi did not limit them to struggle for higher wages; they rather got involved in social and cultural issues like anti-liquor campaign, good health campaign, literacy campaign, better environment campaign, and the like. The union began running a dispensary in a small garage and by 1983 it had built a 15-bed hospital with modern facilities. Later, it also built a school building and the union members did all these through voluntary efforts. These unions could launch a movement against bonded labour. They could enforce labour legislation in the arena, stop exploitation by Tendu Leaf collectors, and initiate an alternative vision of the developmental process by successfully mobilising many unorganised workers, Adivasis, and peasants.

220  Biswajit Ghosh and Tanima Choudhuri  BOX 10.2 Case of SEWA

With over two million participating women, Self Employed Women’s Association is the largest non-profit organisation in India and is recognised as the most influential trade union in the global informal economy. It was founded in 1972 by Gandhian and civil rights leader Ela Bhatt as a branch of the Textile Labour Association (TLA). The organisation grew very quickly and it had 2.5 million members in 18 states in 2023. SEWA established its own bank in 1974 called the Shri Mahila Sewa Sahakari Bank, or SEWA Cooperative Bank, as a way to circumvent corrupt banks and moneylenders. It gives microcredit to members through its bank. The SEWA movement is enhanced by its being a confluence of three movements: the labour movement, the cooperative movement, and the women’s movement. Looking into the negative consequences of political unionism, some scholars have argued for delinking (Giri 1958). Ramaswamy (1982: 228) has, however, found that politicisation had provided textile workers of Coimbatore ‘a nucleus of committed members who are actually involved in union affairs and assume leadership. Without such committed members, trade unions can never become an organisation of workers’. There are various reasons why a normal worker finds it difficult to join a union. Given the lack of motivation of workers, the task is mainly shared by politically committed workers including external leaders. Let us now review the performance of our trade unions between 1947 and 1991 keeping in view their failures and successes. An Assessment of Trade Unionism in India (1947–1991) Indian trade unions, since their inception, became a vital part of a virulent struggle for independence. They were then able to establish the rights of workers to form unions and assert their views. Considering the poor economic and educational backgrounds of migratory labourers in India, such a beginning led to the popularity of our unions in the social circle as well. Many of our union leaders became involved in wider struggles involving people at large. This was really a good beginning considering the challenges of trade unionism in those days. While the support of external political leaders was felt necessary in the typical context of a struggle against the powerful colonial rulers, the same strategy boomeranged later when divisions on the basis of political affiliation became a culture. Additionally, the logic of supporting a party in power led them to rely on state machinery to defend their gains. Because of state support, the major gain that Indian trade unions could make after independence is the creation of an atmosphere for the passing of labour laws. They have been able to increase wage rates and acquire statutory facilities notified in the Factories Act 1948 for the permanent workers of the formal sector. These trade unions did not bother about the large segment

Movements of Organised and Unorganised Labour  221 of unorganised labour employed both in the formal and informal sectors of our economy. It is, however, true that had these unions not been there, even workers in the large and registered factories would have lost much. Even legal rights, especially job security, are effective only where there is a strong union. Many large companies in India, argues Bhowmick (2016: xii), prefer not to have trade unions as the management feels that unions create tensions between them and labour. As a result, trade unions in India also have to fight for their recognition along with monetary issues. Hence, despite state support for five long decades, our unions could gain little. It is pertinent now to note down the major weaknesses of our trade unions notwithstanding recognising their need in a country like India. We may classify their weaknesses under the following headings: Vast Section of Unorganised Workers

Industrial workers in India have largely remained unorganised despite some sporadic efforts. Preoccupation with the formal sector workers has led many national unions to neglect the task of organising the unorganised. As our trade unions could organise only around seven and eight percent of formal sector workers, it is also argued that they have created an ‘aristocracy of labour’ (Holmstrom 1976). Trade unions, by confining themselves mainly among the ‘factory sector’ workers, have contributed to the perpetuation of cleavages among the workers. Holmstrom’s argument is however only partially true. Because the terms and conditions of employment vary not only between various industries or within an industry but even within the units in the so-called formal and informal sectors, one can notice differences. Yet, it is largely accepted that established trade unions have neglected the issue of unorganised labour for long. It is only in recent years that efforts are being seriously made to organise them. Such a change in policy is caused by the fact that the size of regular employment has shrunk and there is rapid informalisation of our economy. Even in the so-called formal sector, jobs are being casualised, subcontracted and transferred to Greenfield sites. Trade unions, therefore, can no longer ignore the issues of informal labour. Small Size of Unions

The mushroom growth of unions has reduced the average strength of membership per union and has eroded their financial viability. It has been widely recognised that even though the number of trade unions in India grew impressively after Independence, their membership strength did not grow accordingly. It was estimated that only 10% of the workers in Indian industries are unionised (Ghosh 1988). As per the latest available estimate of the Labour Bureau (Government of India [GoI]), the average membership of 11124 registered trade unions (based on reports from 16 states/union territories only) in the country in 2019 was only 2675. Only 2311 of these unions (i.e., 20.8%) submitted their returns for the year 2019. Labour Bureau’s figures reveal a decline in the number of trade unions from 95,783

222  Biswajit Ghosh and Tanima Choudhuri  Table 10.1 Growth of trade unions and their membership in India (1975–2019) Year

No. of registered trade unions

No. of unions submitting returns (%)

Membership of unions submitting returns (’000)

1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

29,391 35,939 45,067 52,016 57,952 66,056 78,465 19,376 12,420 12,392 9,626 34,433 11,124

9,690 (32.96) 4,399 (12.24) 7,851 (17.42) 8,828 (16.97) 8,162 (14.1) 7,253 (11.0) 8,317 (10.6) 2,937 (15.8) 4,300 (34.6) 4,396 (35.5) 4,031 (41.9) 4,771 (7.2) 2,311 (20.77)

6,267 3,716 6,433 7,019 6,538 5,421 8,719 5,097 8,096 8,946 10,252 12,102 6,182

Average membership per union 647 845 823 795 801 747 1,048 1,735 1,883 2,035 2,543 2,537 2,675

Source: Labour Bureau, Ministry of Labour and Employment, Government of India, 1975–2019 Note: All data pertain to states sending reports to the Labour Bureau.

in 2007 to 11,124 in 2019 though membership per union has increased from 1063 to 2675 during the period. One real problem in estimating the exact membership strength is that many of our unions do not submit returns. Official data stated in Table 10.1 reveal that along with the number of registered unions, the number of unions submitting returns has declined particularly since 2010. This also makes any strict comparison of trade union membership with those of earlier years a difficult job. Notwithstanding such problems, it is very clear that most of our unions are small as they are fragmented. The multiplicity of trade unions did not contribute to their strength. The Trade Union Act was amended in 2001 in an attempt to stop the mushrooming of unions as well as to reduce the number of outsiders in any union. The new law has also imposed some restrictions3 on the registration of unions. In other words, trade unions will now face the threat of losing affiliation if workers do not support them in substantial numbers. It is equally true that the Indian state has attempted to promote private investment and disinvestment. Hence, it has passed three new labour codes in 2020, namely, the Industrial Relations Code, 2020, the Code on Social Security Bill, 2020, and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020. These codes have replaced 44 existing labour laws related to the rights and security of workers and made it easier for employers to engage them on a contract basis with low wages and fire them, as and when required. Today, a large number of Indian establishments are exempted from the legal compulsion of complying with and enforcing labour laws. This should not, however, lead us to believe in the neoliberal axiom that ‘unions are dying’. As such, official figures on trade union membership fluctuate from year

Movements of Organised and Unorganised Labour  223 to year. The reasons for such fluctuations are not always clear. But doubts are expressed about the usefulness of such data (Sundar 1999). The following factors are equally responsible for poor membership:

• Many trade unions are not recognised by employers and are also not registered; • Membership of only unions submitting returns is counted. Even then, due to

• • • •

poor compliance by state labour departments, data from only 14 small states/ union territories are counted by the Labour Bureau. As major industrial states like West Bengal, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Punjab, and Jharkhand did not send their data, the figures stated under Table 10.1 reflect only a partial story; Extent of penetration of unions in the informal sector is not well documented; Processes like closure, casualisation, and informalisation in recent times have reduced the strength of unions; Slow employment growth particularly in the manufacturing industry has also acted against the interest of unions; Employees of service sectors find it difficult to sustain unions.

Notwithstanding poor reflection of reality in official records, it is claimed that the aggregate membership of five central unions4 has increased from 12.2 million in 1989 to 62.8 million in 2023. The growing membership size of Indian trade unions also contradicts the global trend of declining membership of trade unions. It is, therefore, argued that the Indian trade union movement has entered a new phase (Mohanty 2009). Based on large-scale official survey data from 1993–1994 to 2011–2012 and primary data collected through 56 interviews with key stakeholders, Badigannavar, Kelly, and Kumar (2021: 380) have argued that ‘Indian trade unions have increased their membership across most sectors of the economy’. Additionally, three new bodies, namely, the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), the DMK affiliated Labour Progressive Federation, and the CPI (ML) supported All India Central Council of Trade Unions, have been added to the list of central unions as their membership has crossed the mandatory five lakh. Not only this, the average membership per trade unions submitting returns in India has also increased from 747 in 2000 to 2675 in 2019 (GoI 2019). It is fair to argue that Indian trade unions are taking up the question of membership including their verification seriously. It is equally expected that the labour departments of major industrial states should send their data to the Labour Bureau to reflect the changing reality. Problem with Leadership

The strength of trade unions depends to a large extent on the quality and nature of leadership. It is seen that workers show their support for a union whose leaders are committed and do not align with management. It is quite natural for a management to extend all possible help and patronage to a union, which in turn is prepared to provide a peaceful industrial workforce. In many studies it is found that workers consider their leaders as ‘corrupt’.

224  Biswajit Ghosh and Tanima Choudhuri  The issue of involvement of external political leaders in union activities is also a matter of intense scrutiny. Worker’s apathy for politically affiliated unions became evident in many parts of India. It is often seen that unions led by such leaders are hierarchical, bureaucratic, and stress more on political issues than the day-to-day issues of the workers. While external leaders might be committed and responsible, there is no doubt about the fact that such dependency causes harm in the long run by obstructing the growth of activist leaders. Studies have proved that unions hardly call meetings of general workers to make decisions. This not only causes alienation of members; it also causes distance between leaders and workers who start doubting their level of commitment (Ramaswamy 1976). Such unions have also caused fragmentation on political or leadership lines and unnecessarily made unionism a matter of political competition. As against such leadership, there has been a rise of independent unions in India since the mid-1970s. For instance, the a-political union led by Datta Samant in Bombay mobilised a substantial section of textile workers through his Maharashtra Girni Kamgar Union by stressing too much on immediate economic issues. Yet, these independent unions could not create any large-scale impact on the strength of the trade union movement.

• Inter-union Rivalry Conflict within the union movement through intra and inter-union rivalries has caused further damage to the strength of our unions. Unions have preferred unnecessary stoppages of work because of such competitions. Before liberalisation, company management has also used such rivalries to weaken the labour movement. One definite reason for intra and inter-union rivalry is corruption by leaders. Such rivalry limits the strength of unions in collective bargaining5 and reduces the strength and effectiveness of any struggle. Multiplicity of trade unions, lack of unity among workers, and poor membership per union are direct results of such rivalries in India. Poor perception of the general public about the trade union movement is linked to such rivalries. Enterprise Unionism and Economism

One of the reasons for the multiplicity of unions in India is the stress on enterprise unions. When a union is formed according to the convenience of workers of an enterprise, they tend to lose sight of the larger issues and remain indifferent to the struggles of workers of nearby industries. Enterprise unions rely on the charismatic power of their leaders and concentrate more on immediate gains of workers (Sundar 2006: 905). Perceptibly, such unionism has serious limitations to challenge capital (Ghosh 1988). The ‘Datta Samant Phenomenon’ in Bombay between 1977 and 1985 is an interesting example of the ‘end of ideology’ where AITUC lost its stronghold among the textile workers following a shift in affiliation of workers to a charismatic leader (Pendse 1981). Datta Samant became a trade union hero almost overnight. Yet, his strategy of militancy backfired when the yearlong textile strike

Movements of Organised and Unorganised Labour  225 in 1982 could not produce any definite result and many textile mill owners began moving their plants outside the city. ‘Economism’ also limits the potential of trade unions. It happens when unions and their members confine their struggle to economic issues only. Even though Indian unions have given importance to political issues, their struggle hardly went beyond a factory or industry. Their weakness regarding the defence of the peasantry and agricultural workers or other oppressed sections of the masses is equally well known. It is, therefore, acknowledged that what is being done relating to the nature of the trade union struggle in India is just the beginning (Ghosh 2015). Let us now proceed to discuss the challenges that trade unions have encountered since the introduction of economic reforms in India in 1991. We would also discuss the way Indian trade unions have responded to these challenges in unique ways. Impact of Economic Reforms on Trade Unions With the introduction of economic reforms in 1991, Indian trade unions were faced with serious challenges for the first time in their history. The LPG (liberalisation, privatisation, and globalisation) model then introduced a competitive work culture with far-reaching implications for labour, their unions, and management as well (Ghosh 2008). Before 1991, trade unions benefited from a complex set of regulations like the Factories Act, Industrial Dispute Act, Contract Labour Act, or Trade Union Act to bargain with employers, place their demands for better wage and proper implementation of statutory benefits, and increase job security of workers in the formal economy. Considering the logic of workers being weak and marginalised, the Indian state intervened to strengthen the position of workers vis-à-vis employers. This led to the passing of nearly 200 labour laws by both the central and state governments. Apparently, these labour regulations have contributed to the strength of unions and their members. But from a contrasting point of view, these laws have also made our unions and workers dependent on the state machinery (ruling party leaders, labour inspectors, police, lawyers, etc.) for settling any issue. Intervention of a third party stood in the way of the rapid growth of genuine collective bargaining before 1991. Along with the New Economic Policy, the Indian state also came up with a New Industrial Policy in 1991. It virtually freed the domestic investors from all licencing requirements and encouraged the culture of a ‘free market’. It, therefore, allowed the state to expedite the process of reducing public sector investments, closing down loss-making PSUs and even selling the share of high-profile PSUs. The Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) and the Exit Policy were used to retrench the organised workforce and to close down most of the sick industrial units in both public and private sectors. The Indian state has also introduced the Industrial Relations Code, 2020, the Code on Social Security Bill, 2020, and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020. Among these, the Industrial Relations Code 2020 prohibits strikes without prior notice of 60 days to the employer. Along with central legislation, many state governments have introduced ‘flexible labour policy’ applicable to the units working under Special Economic Zones. Such flexibility removes many legal stipulations related to employment and management.

226  Biswajit Ghosh and Tanima Choudhuri  Obviously, trade unions now face writings on the wall as there is a complete reversal of the role of the state. The Indian state today supports and protects private capital. This makes suppression of labour power more than ever before. It would be pertinent to mention here some blatant instances of the Indian state protecting the investors. To begin with, the workers of Honda Motors of Gurgaon (Haryana) were brutally beaten up by the police on July 25, 2005 who were protesting against the dismissal of four and suspension of 50 co-workers (Bhattacharjya and Mehra 2005). Again, workers of the Maruti factory at Manesar (Haryana), Ford Motors at Halol (Gujarat), Nokia at Chennai (Tamil Nadu), Daikin factory at Gurugram (Haryana), garment workers in Bangalore, and contractual employees of the state electricity department in Raipur (Chhattisgarh) received similar treatment when they demanded among others their right to form union. There have also been certain attempts by the employers to shift the location of the industry from highly unionised regions, such as Kerala and West Bengal, to less militant ‘greenfield’ sites or to free-trade zones (Mamkoottam 2003: 71–72). Hence, even the Left parties and their governments in West Bengal and Kerala could not take the risk of providing blanket support to trade unionism that could have antagonised the prospective investors or hamper the productivity of a firm. Public sector trade unions had very little option when the state began disinvesting its share or selling it to private owners. Simultaneously, mass-scale casualisation of labour, subcontracting, and outsourcing of existing works have aggravated trade unions’ agony (Ghosh 2009). When casual workers started displacing the better-paid and more protected workers, trade unions lost their solid support base (Pais 2002; Jhabvala and Sinha 2002). Another tactic followed by many employers was the replacement of permanent male workers with casual female workers. This ‘gendering’ of jobs (Ghosh 2001) helps the employers to pay less and get rid of powerful male protesters as well. As the rate of unionisation among women workers (39.43% in 2019) is less, employers prefer them for certain kinds of work. The growing size of informal employment is a major challenge before our unions. Casual and temporary workers of this sector face threat to join any union. The involvement of subcontractors, agents, or franchises in between the workers and employers makes it difficult to meet demand for the workers (Ghosh 2015). Technological globalisation has also added new dimensions to trade unionism. Though trade unions today rely on digital technology to disseminate information and organise scattered workers, employers also are able to subcontract or outsource any work and reduce the workload of a company. Simultaneously, the use of automation, which is required for survival in the contemporary competitive market, causes redundancy and unemployment, and consequent shrinkage of union’s power in the manufacturing sector. When sophisticated machines are used and ‘knowledge workers’ are employed to operate them, trade unions face new obstacles. As compared to the traditional worker, a knowledge worker might show little interest in union activity. More vitally, the new technology has strike-breaking and labour control capacity. Organising ‘digital labour’ is another big challenge. The issue of technological modernisation, therefore, traps most trade unions into a vicious circle. If they oppose modernisation, workers face the threat of closure. On the other

Movements of Organised and Unorganised Labour  227 hand, if they give consent to such steps, management gains. The critical situation thus becomes an ideal ground for company unionism and syndicalism6. Globalisation has also prompted the entry of global traders or Transnational Corporations7 into the local market. As against the Fordist8 strategy of factory production, the post-Fordist strategy has now popularised decentralised, digital, and flexible international division of labour. Flexible labour market regime, argues Mallett, is a ‘crucial mechanism in the production of precarious work’ (2020: 282). Now local disputes are solved internationally with the real master either hiding or remaining far away from the reach of any union activity. Working class then requires a new weapon to strike the far-off targets. This calls for qualitative changes in the modus operandi of existing unions. Working class today needs to focus more on the general problems of capitalism to play a leading role (Evans 2020). The expanding horizon and challenges of the trade union struggle introduce both compulsions and hope for the future of working class struggle in the country (Ghosh 2015). Responses of Unions to New Challenges9 It was initially believed that Indian trade unions would find it difficult to adapt to the new challenges. The Left-orientated trade unions first started protesting vigorously against ‘anti-people’ policies of the state. But when it gradually became clear that economic reform could not be altered, the Indian unions across colour started adopting themselves pragmatically by responding to the new challenges in the best possible way. They were also able partially to halt privatisation of the PSUs and to obstruct labour law reform till recent times. Accordingly, one can notice marked changes in the stratagems of trade unions to make their presence felt in both service and manufacturing sectors. The pattern of their responses however differ at the national, regional, sectorial, or enterprise levels depending on factors like productivity and profitability of an organisation, history of trade union struggle, political affiliation, level of unity among workers and their unions, response of the government, and the like. The divergent faces of the same union at different levels explain the complexity of union politics today. Let us now discuss the major changes in trade union’s actions and policy prescriptions in brief. Combination of Defensive and Militant Strategies

Since 1991, trade unions have been mixing both defensive and offensive strategies depending on context. In Public Sector Units (PSUs) and traditional manufacturing industries, unions are extraordinarily defensive. As our PSUs and traditional manufacturing units were faced with the question of survival in the global competitive market, any offensive strategy would have instigated the management to declare closure of the unit. The union leaders also considered the impact of the economic recession on them since 2008. Given these constraints, they rather became realistic in reducing cost and increasing the margin of profitability of these industries.

228  Biswajit Ghosh and Tanima Choudhuri  Table 10.2 Industrial disputes in India (2000–2022) Year

2000 2005 2010 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

Number of disputes Number of mandays lost (in millions) Strikes

Lockouts Strikes

Lockouts

426 227 199 119 70 87 69 95 56 35 38

345 229 172 31 27 25 17 10 5 6 5

16.80 18.86 9.97 2.12 2.78 2.65 1.46

11.56 10.81 13.15 2.78 2.25 2.57 1.68

2.78* 1.35* 0.98* 0.34*

* Differential data on strikes and lockouts not published by the Labour Bureau. Source: Government of India (2014, 2022)

Under such a context, strikes or Gherao’s are now being converted into gate meetings at lunch break, wearing a black badge during work or other innovative protest actions. The objective is to allow continuity in the production process and also draw the attention of general people. As a corollary, the proportion of strikes in industrial disputes has declined rapidly. Data stated in Table 10.2 clearly reveal that Indian trade unions have largely toned down their aggressive stance. As there was a concomitant decline in the number of lockouts during the period, mandays lost due to both strike and lockouts declined sharply since 2015. The COVID-19 pandemic has also impacted a lesser number of industrial disputes. Annual Reports published by the Labour Bureau, however, reveal a reversal of trend. Thus, 54% of mandays lost between 2018 and 2020 is accounted to the public sector units (Joy 2021). Reasons like privatisation, corporatisation, and market-driven pension scheme of PSU employees, including the passing of the Industrial Relations Code, 2020, have aggravated the situation. It, therefore, appears that a defensive posture in general does not rule out the possibility of sporadic aggression of unions under certain conditions. Thus, for instance, unions are generally militant against privatisation, closure, or mass retrenchment. Whenever workers are faced with such a situation, they form a united platform to save their job. The workers of some cotton mills in Haryana, for instance, formed a Trade Union Council (TUC), a non-political joint front of INTUC, AITUC, HMS, and CITU. The formation of TUC has led to the return of militant trade unionism in Haryana. In the jute mills and engineering units of West Bengal, a number of ‘save committees’ comprising all the workers irrespective of their union membership were formed after liberalisation (Ghosh 2008). The newly industrialising areas and ‘greenfield’ sites in Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu have witnessed some serious, even bloody, and prolonged conflict and protest in recent years.

Movements of Organised and Unorganised Labour  229 Acceptance of New Technology and Work Culture

Trade unions operating in PSUs and big industrial units have by and large accepted labour flexibility measures. Notwithstanding some initial opposition, unions have gradually accepted global work practices and competitive work culture. And acceptance of such practices would call for the introduction of new technology and postFordist strategies like quality production, better productivity, flexible specialisation, lean and thin staff, and teamwork. In many PSUs and private industries, unions have accepted cost-cutting measures including voluntary retirement of senior workers. In the textile mills of Coimbatore, for instance, there was no evidence of a single strike against the process of modernisation and consequent VRS as the industry was going through a bad phase (Chakravarty 2002: 748). Unions in the Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals as well as in Hindustan Copper have even agreed to defer wage revision. There are several other instances of unions accepting wage freeze. Recognition of Labour Productivity

Lack of competitive efficiency and productivity was the major complaint of management against Indian labour for long. But today, many of our trade unions have also accepted these ideals at the plant level. Hence, no one openly sympathises with non-performers in the industrial circle now. Mamkoottam (2003) has shown how in many industries unions have negotiated with the management to ensure higher productivity through technological changes in return for higher wages. In doing so, they have accepted a reduction in manpower and the union’s strength. Several reports published during the last one decade have documented an ‘impressive increase’ in our labour productivity (Ghosh 2015). Many Indian companies have introduced quality circles and obtained ISO certificates. Cordial industrial relations in PSEs have also facilitated the process of productivity bargaining and productivity-linked incentive payment schemes in many Indian industries. The work culture of many Indian companies including PSUs represents a global touch of professionalism. Enterprise Unionism and Decentralised Bargaining

The rise in enterprise unionism and decentralised bargaining is an important development in post-liberalised India. Even though party-based centralised unions continue to dominate in PSUs and large industries, there are many instances of workers forming independent unions (Davala 1996). Such developments normally take place when the rank-and-file workers become dissatisfied with the leadership of existing unions and form a new union. There are also instances of workers striking a deal with the management at local level to form a new union without external leaders. Another trend partly associated with company unionism is decentralised bargaining. Such bargaining becomes possible when labour and management reach a consensus at the plant level to escape state regulation or outside pressure. Bilateral

230  Biswajit Ghosh and Tanima Choudhuri  agreement expedites the process of bargaining as other alternatives often are too long and unpredictable. Sundar (2015: 46) has noted that 28.47% of industrial conflicts in India between 2000 and 2009 were resolved through mutual settlement. This means that despite large-scale resistance, managers are also promoting better board practices and more responsible corporate governance (Balasubramanian 2004: 64–83). Rise of New Leadership

The growing importance of enterprise unionism and decentralised bargaining also signify that Indian unions are gradually allowing the rank and file activists to take leadership positions. For decades, Indian trade unions largely relied on external political leaders and these hierarchical unions allowed little scope for normal workers to become leaders. But in a changed environment, external control of even PSU unions is a difficult endeavour for many reasons. The voluntary retirement of many of the senior workers and old trade union leaders was one of them. Moreover, unions now have to concentrate on internal issues and win the hearts of general workers to become negotiating agents through the ballot box. An external leader is least effective in such a context. Our old unions, therefore, had to initiate a new process of assigning leadership roles to activist workers. The process of leadership change at the operational level is, however, very slow as trade unions’ dependency on wider networks and legal support has increased many folds these days. Unity of Workers

Unity of workers at a wider level is now the cherished goal of all trade unions in India. Such unity is required today to stop the marginalisation of unions in industrial life as well as to keep the labour movement alive. The agenda of unity of workers is also essential because trade unions now are fighting against bigger enemies. Thus, they are fighting either the Indian state initiating antilabour reforms, or the powerful multinational companies making use of the International Division of Labour, or even the entire system of capitalist economy. The ground reality, therefore, does not favour any confrontation among even politically opposed trade unions. In many industries, this unity of workers has already set an example before us. Hence, Indian trade unions today are fighting unitedly for common issues. The process began with the formation of the National Campaign Committee of Trade Unions in the 1980s, which included four central unions except BMS and INTUC. But later, when the Government proposed reforms in labour laws, all these unions came together under one aegis to resist anti-labour laws and privatisation. The leaders of HMS and AITUC also deliberated on the possibility of merger in 1997. Though merger did not materialise, both the central trade unions agreed to cooperate with each other in resolving common issues.

Movements of Organised and Unorganised Labour  231 BOX 10.3 Example of a General Strike

As many as ten Central Trade Unions with at least 20 crore workers affiliated to them have taken part in the general strike called on March 28 and 29, 2022. Such a nationwide general strike against the alleged anti-worker, anti-farmer, and anti-people policies of the government since economic liberalisation is a yearly phenomenon. The unions protested against the growing economic crisis, price rise, acute unemployment, privatisation of PSUs, amendment to labour laws, regulation of contract workers, increased allocation of wages under MGNREGA, etc. These unions claimed that various public sector employees, unorganised workers, student and teacher organisations of various universities, and farming communities have also supported the strike.

As a result of such unity, unions are today organising joint rallies, joint strikes, or joint actions at plant, state, and national levels. Several general strikes involving crores of workers and employees were called over the last one and half decade. Notwithstanding the differences among labour unions on several counts, they are united in opposing retrenchment, downsizing, closure, privatisation, disinvestments, and new anti-labour laws. Even if these unions fail to reach a consensus on any particular course of action, they hardly oppose that action. There is also some unity of workers at the grassroots level irrespective of union affiliation. Wider Approach

A large majority of Indian unions remained silent on the wider social and economic issues affecting people including the workers for long. Consequently, trade unions could not sustain their relationship with the people forged during the struggle for independence. As a consequence, public sympathy for the sectarian brand of trade unionism also became feeble. Intra and inter-union rivalries enhanced such a negative vision sharply. But today, support of their political rivals along with the people at large has become salient. This is because they are now exposed to greater risks involving the ‘entire system’ and not just any particular enemy. Hence, involving the people in the union’s fight by adopting a wider approach can help them bolster the working class movement (Ghosh 2015). As a corollary, the issues that trade unions pick up today are also of general concern to the society. Thus, they fight for issues like unemployment, job loss, exclusion, privatisation, corruption, inflation, contract labour, human rights, social security, rights of women workers, or concern for a clean environment. Most of our unions supported the protest movement of Indian farmers against three farm laws in the Delhi border in 2020-2021. The message that emanates from such an action is that trade unions do care for people at large and particularly those who face marginalisation and exclusion. Apart

232  Biswajit Ghosh and Tanima Choudhuri  from wider issues, the union’s preference for state or national-level strikes with the support of different sections of our society is another indication of their changed approach. Moreover, union members now hold public meetings at crowded locations of streets to explain and influence the people about a particular development. We may argue here that globalisation has provided a new space to our trade unions. BOX 10.4 Innovative Strategy

Trade unions now try to draw the attention of the public in general. Bombay workers of Hindustan Lever, for instance, produced 110 tons of their own washing detergent powder under the brand name ‘Lock-Out’ during a lockout of the factory and also called a parallel annual general shareholders’ meeting so as to inform investors of various managerial and financial irregularities. Similarly, cotton textile mill workers from Central Bombay marched through the streets in underpants and undershirts denouncing India’s independence and commitment to eradicate poverty.

BOX 10.5 Trade Unions Supporting the Farmers’ Protest in 2020–2021

Several trade union members joined the farmers in the Singhu border in December 2020 to support their movement against the three farm laws. Union activists from Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan joined the farmers at the Delhi border. Leaders of ten central trade unions organised meetings, distributed pamphlets to the visitors, issued press statements, and asserted the unity of workers and farmers. These unions were also seen organising protest marches and meetings in their respective field of activity supporting the farmers and also protesting against the controversial labour laws. By raising slogans like ‘Kisan Mazdoor Ekta’, they stressed on the need for a larger unity of Indian people against the anti-people policies of the Indian state. Social Unionism and Unorganised Workers

The issue of organising unorganised labour has become an important agenda of the labour movement today. It is really very difficult for unions to sustain if issues of unorganised workers are not addressed. Such workers are employed in large numbers in both formal and informal sectors of our economy. Casual, temporary, and contractual employees of both big and small firms find it difficult to join or form unions because of their nature of work. Many of them are

Movements of Organised and Unorganised Labour  233 also recruited by contractors having direct employment relations with the owner. Unions find it difficult to put pressure on labour contractors as any such action would lead to dismissal. Yet, in recent times, there have been encouraging signs of new thinking and efforts by some NGOs and unions. These efforts have proved that it is possible to organise the unorganised workers, though in a different way. The term ‘Social Movement Unionism’ can be applied to refer to this alternative strategy by which unions fight for issues like social security, minimum wage, and welfare of unorganised workers. Instead of directly targeting the employers or contractors, these unions try to put pressure on the state and local authority to look into the issues of informal labour. They also argue for democracy, international solidarity, and gender equality. Appreciatively, such new thinking has paid dividends and the membership of all major trade unions has significantly amplified now. It is important to note that along with the familiar trade union centres like AITUC or INTUC, new trade union federations have become popular during the last few decades. Some of them like the New Trade Union Initiative (NTUI), National Centre For Labour (NCL), or All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU) have been able to register more than five lakh members by organising the unorganised workers. Similarly, many organisations have been formed in the last few years to represent the interests of ITES-BPO workers in India. There are countless stories of the struggle of informal sector workers in areas like construction, fishing, domestic work, or street vending. Rina Agarwala (2013) has demonstrated that informalisation is not the ‘final nail in the labour movement’s coffin’. The innovative new movements are re-embedding workers by claiming their rights as citizens. Koyel Lahiri (2022) has shown how street vendor unions of Kolkata have successfully defended their rights by mixing a dual strategy at the macro and micro levels. Immanuel Ness (2016) considers these achievements as ‘new forms of resistance’. He, therefore, feels that the industrial working class has not disappeared, but rather has been reconstituted in the South and in larger numbers than ever before. In many instances, these unions have picked up new issues related to health, housing, education, street light, water, sanitation, credit, etc., of the unorganised and self-employed workers. We have earlier mentioned the case of Chhattisgarh Mines Shramik Sangh (CMSS) which became very popular by focussing on social issues. Interestingly, along with established trade unions, NGOs like SEWA, Working Women’s Forum, Karnataka Koligeri Nivase Sangathan, Civil Initiatives For Development, Pune City Domestic Workers’ Organisation, Kagad Kach Patra Kashtakari Panchayat (KKPKP), Barjya Punarbyawaharikaran Shilpa Shramik Sangathan (BPSSS), etc., are also involved in organising informal sector workers many of whom are women. Combining the tasks of both NGOs and trade unions, these social movement unionists have targeted the state or local administration for the poor conditions of the informal sector workers, their families, or the members of the community as a whole (Roychowdhury 2005; Jhabvala and Subrahmanya 2000; Kalpagam 1994). By using such a strategy, they are rewriting the meaning of trade unionism (Ratnam and Jain 2002). Unlike narrow ‘business’ or ‘political’ unionism, such Social Movement Unionism is concerned with a wide range of social,

234  Biswajit Ghosh and Tanima Choudhuri  economic, and political issues of workers, peasants, and people at large. They also seek a broader coalition for social and economic justice and try to break the artificial barriers between the workplace and community (Ghosh and Choudhuri 2015). Summary and Conclusion Due to the delayed process of India’s industrialisation, movements of organised and unorganised labour could take shape only in the second half of 19th century. During the freedom struggle, the national leaders including Mahatma Gandhi sought to involve workers in an anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggle. The need for a national-level trade union was also felt to represent the political interest of Indian workers at ILO. Due to the political climate prevalent in the country in the first half of 20th century, trade unions became a part of the wider struggle for independence and rights. As external political leaders came forward to fight for the rights of illiterate, poor, and migrant workers before independence, the linkages between political parties and trade unions became firm. The unity of workers that resulted from a common goal, however, could not be sustained for long. Political affiliation of our unions contributed to their fragmentation particularly after 1947. Today, all political parties irrespective of their ideology do have a worker’s front. The argument of ‘weak labour’ that once prompted our trade union leaders to rely on external political and administrative support to fight powerful employers and thereby pass labour laws, backfired in the context of economic liberalisation since 1991. The same state which once passed laws to protect workers is now busy in providing protection to prospective entrepreneurs making work precarious. For a long time, our unions did not bother about the issue of a large volume of unorganised workers. As the legal protection extended by the state could be applied only to permanent workers of factories and establishments, trade unionism in India remained confined mostly to them, representing only about 10% of Indian workers. Additionally, the trade union movement in India before liberalisation was weakened by factors like inter and intra-union rivalries, external intervention, multiplicity of unions, corrupt leadership, and limited concern. The shrinking empire of the narrow-based organised labour movement became evident in the wake of the Indian state’s formal support for neoliberal policy in 1991. Acceptance of competitive and cost-cutting measures like the introduction of new technology, job cuts, closure, flexible rules, privatisation, outsourcing, informalisation, and casualisation by both public and private sector units have made our unions defensive. Initially, protest against liberalisation was the major agenda of our unions. Gradually, they started realising the need for a new approach to build up their movement afresh. Today, there is a perceptible change in the strategy and approach of Indian trade unions to labour problems and problems of society at large. As various segments of the global population today face dispossession and oppression, it is possible to develop a global unified response to these issues. Due to such a realisation, our unions have tried to expand their horizons beyond the so-called ‘citadel’, and organise the informal sector workers as well as incorporate the general socio-economic and political issues in trade unions’ agenda. All-out

Movements of Organised and Unorganised Labour  235 support of our unions to the agitation of farmers against the three farm laws is one such example. All these have initiated a new beginning in the history of the working class movement in India. Instead of rampant strikes, calling general strikes on issues of concern for people at large today finds importance in the union’s agenda. Globalisation has made our workers both ‘vulnerable’ and ‘empowered’ (Atzeni and Ness 2018). More and more unorganised workers today have joined old and new types of trade unions. There is evidence of the growth of Social Movement Unionism which is a new form of engagement of union with civil society as well as explorations of alliances with independent organisations for initiating pro-people social movements. It is, therefore, premature to argue about the ‘death of labour movements’ and write off their potential. Rather, as Sheth (2004: 176) argues, ‘the logic of trade unionism has just got more widely open’. Review Questions 1. How has political affiliation helped our unions? 2. What factors promoted the formation of trade unions in India? 3. Make a critical estimate of the strengths and weaknesses of trade unions in India. 4. What forces our unions to look for wider issues after liberalisation? 5. Do you agree with the view that ‘unions are dying’? Give reasons for your answer. 6. What kind of strategy do you suggest for Indian trade unions in the contemporary context? Notes 1 It is a part of the economy that is not monitored by the government. 2 The term ‘company unionism’ signifies domination or influence of employers over activities of workers union. 3 The amended law makes it compulsory for unions to have the support of at least 10% (minimum seven) or 100 of the workmen to register. 4 Five central unions, namely, INTUC (33.9 million), BMS (10 million), HMS (9.1 million), CITU (6.2 million) and AITUC (3.6 million) claim to have a total membership of 62.8 million in 2023. 5 Collective bargaining refers to negotiation of wages and other conditions of employment by an organised body of employees with the employers or management. 6 Syndicalism is a movement for transferring the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution to workers unions. 7 Transnational Corporations are enterprises that are involved in international production of goods and services. As against the TNCs, Multinational Corporations (MNCs) are national companies with foreign subsidiaries. While MNCs have a centralised management system, TNCs rely on country specific managerial systems. 8 The term Fordism is used to refer to the production system formulated by Henry Forde in his automobile factory. In the early 20th century, Ford introduced assembly line production where workers performed specialised tasks repetitively within the factory. This phase is also characterised by cycles of mass production and mass consumption. 9 This section is largely based on my article published in 2008.

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11 A Trajectory of Women’s Movement in India Ritu Sen Chaudhuri

Learning Objectives After reading this chapter, you will be able to develop an idea about:

• • • •

Different phases of women’s movement in India; Different issues concerning Indian women; Different independent and affiliated women’s organisations; and The leadership pattern of women’s movement in India.

Introduction We begin with an elementary query: what is women’s movement? To address this, we need to think through two related questions: what are the causes of the movement and who are the organisers and participants? Let us ponder on these two points for a while. We take up the ‘causes of movement’ first. The causes of the women’s movement can be specific to women or generic in nature. First, there are varying and contending issues that are specific to women. On the one hand, liberal reform movements demand pro-woman changes in the society, seeking equality with men, without problematising the existing structure per se. Radical women’s movements, on the other hand, strive to put an end to the sexist structure of the society. The radical groups reject the idea of getting absorbed into a man’s world without questioning its legitimacy. Although the liberal reformist move appears antithetical to the defiance of the radical groups, there remain certain continuities between the two positions. For instance, sometimes before a degree of reformation is sought, a radical challenge to patriarchy, through women’s liberation movements, may not possibly be organised. Second, women can also unify to address general issues (economic, environmental, or political) which, as such affect all members of the society. But in reality, social problems do not affect all members of the society similarly. Gender discrimination is so foundational that each problem (seemingly unrelated to gender) has a cumulative effect of disadvantage on women.

DOI:  10.4324/9781003481744-13

A Trajectory of Women’s Movement in India  239 Women are oppressed as ‘women’ and this precedes their exploitation as members of any other groups. This brings us to the second question related to the ‘organisers and participants’ of the movement. When women are the organisers or the majority participants of a movement, it habitually takes a distinct turn. History has repeatedly witnessed how women, unified for a generic cause, have gradually identified issues specific to them. When a large number of women come to organise for a cause, they raise a consciousness of having several things, especially the experiences of violation, in common. This generates a political ideology that may shift the orientation of the movement. This does not mean that all the participants of the women’s movement need essentially to be women. Women’s movements tend to provide a common platform for a wide variety of people critiquing sexism. The ideals of aggressive masculinity, in different magnitudes though, exploit men, women, and people belonging to other sexual orientations. Women’s movements against patriarchy share grounds with LGBTQA+ and several other marginal groups. Addressing the problems of multiple identity categories within the ambit of the women’s movement actually helps widen the concept of women. The plural ‘women’ in women’s movement is not just a numerical signifier. More than the involvement of many women, it signifies the involvement of a plurality of women – belonging to different mental and physical conditions, sexual orientations, educational and cultural backgrounds, class, race, religion, region, caste, and multiple other identities. The participation of diverse groups in movements generates points of dissent. The politics of women, voicing several dialects, is thus polyphonic. The voice is often (though not consistently) feminist, anticommunal, and anti-casteist. Women’s movement begins with the basic notion that women remain in a poorer social, political, cultural, and economic position than men. This is unfair and intolerable. So they organise against violence, oppression, and injustice. They demand equality with men. Yet, the aim of the movement is not merely to assert power. The claim often is to transform the patriarchal nature of power and control. Underscoring the intricacies of the concept of women’s movement, this chapter charts out the courses of the women’s movement in India with a special focus on the developments subsequent to the rise of autonomous women’s groups. Remembering the everyday sufferings and resistances of the millions of women living in India, this chapter charts out almost a 150-year history of direct confrontation with the bastion of patriarchal power. It talks about the collective goals and disparate experiences, inspirations and impasses, protests and compromises, and achievements and failures of the women. The multifaceted history of the women’s movement has been conceived through three conceptual phases: the first, the second, and the third, and an in-between stage connecting the first and the second. The classification of phases, serving analytical purposes, is based on certain contextual-chronological and thematic principles. This is not to establish a unilinear evolutionary trail, following the logic of a gradual proliferation of feminist consciousness. The feat of a specific phase, in India, cannot always be gauged in reference to a generic index of ‘women’s movement’ across the world. The questions

240  Ritu Sen Chaudhuri raised in the course of the movement can neither be pigeonholed into the dominant/ Western mode of categorising women’s movement into liberal, radical, or socialist categories nor be seen to follow the same developmental paths (Sen Chaudhuri 2016a). This, however, is not to close the possibility of deploying wider trajectories or political concepts while considering ‘local’ issues. Rather, it is a caution against the tendencies of the western/universal models to overlook the local specificities. One has to remember that movements remain marked by the specific political and discursive contexts traversed by the multiple performative possibilities of the individual/group of women. The First Phase (1880–1946) The initial phase of the women’s movement in India remained tied to the issue of women’s reform. Two main forces worked behind this: (a) ‘civilising mission’ of the colonisers (administrators–missionaries, Orientalists – Occidentalises) and (b) nation-building project of the nationalists (conservative Hindu elite-liberal reformists). For the colonisers, emancipating women from the barbaric traditions became the ethical ground to justify colonial rule. On the contrary, the nationalists realised that an independent nation could not be achieved without re-forming the women. Women occupying a pivotal position at home, where the future generation of the nation would be nurtured, should be educated and released from the oppressive social custom. Thus, the question of recasting women got incorporated within men’s discourse of modernity (around the ideals of self-determination, statehood, democracy, and progress). The nationalist reform ideals (prohibition of child marriage, literacy, standardisation of the age of consent to marriage, guarantee property rights, and so on) had got several women out of their homely boundaries. Gradually, the women mostly from the upper-middle-class Hindu families, under the leadership of the nationalists, got involved in the reform movements. This laid the foundations of the early phase of women’s movement in India. There is no documentation of the consequences they faced or the level of hostility they had to bear for this. Scholars like Vina Mazumdar (2001) have indicated how the independence of the nation remained entwined with the emancipation of its women. Yet, the initial phase of the women’s movement can never be circumscribed within the bounds of nationalism. The history of the Indian national movement and women’s movement bears points of overlap and opposition. The pre-independence women’s movement, influenced considerably by the anti-imperialist ideology of the freedom movement, on the one hand, and liberal or socialist ideologies of the women’s movement in the West, on the other hand, had emphasised the principle of gender equality in social, economic, and political rights. The post-independence period witnessed a comparative let-up in the course of women’s movement (Lateef 1977; Mazumdar 1985). Without a shared enemy to fight against, women’s groups were now ever more fragmented. Gender inequity was still not an autonomous concern clearly distinguishable from other sociopolitical problems. While many women still searched for the affiliation of the Congress government, there were many other groups progressively looking for

A Trajectory of Women’s Movement in India  241 their autonomy. A new phase of women’s movement gradually culminated in the late 1970s. Before that, the women’s group were perhaps taking lessons from the radicalisation of the student, farmer, trade union, and Dalit uprisings in the late 1960s (Patel 2002). Since the early 1970s, the radical left movements (like Naxalbari) and the socialist fronts had remarkable impacts on the women’s movement (Kumar 1993). The foundation of Shramik Sangathana1 was followed by the Shahada agitation2 (1970s) to retrieve the lands of the dispossessed tribal peasantry of Shahada. Eventually, the questions of domestic violence and alcoholism were also raised by the women members braving the tribal patriarchal authority. Thousands of middle-class women joined the anti-price-rise movement organised by the students in Gujarat. It ultimately took the shape of the Nav Nirman movement of 1974 (Kumar 1993). This, under the leadership of the Gandhian leader Jay Prakash Narayan, provoked the Sampoorna Kranti Movement in Bihar. In Delhi, a major set of women leadership joined the radical students’ movement and the democratic rights movement. Women in different political parties, all over India, were increasingly suspecting the patriarchal biases of their organisations. The Self-Employed Women’s Association or SEWA was also established in 1972 by Ela Bhatt. In 1973, Mrinal Gore from the Socialist Party along with other women from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) came to form the United Women’s Anti-Price Rise Front (which turned into a women’s mass movement seeking consumer protection). From 1973 to 1974, the Maoist women created the Progressive Organisation of Women, initiating a feminist critique of radical leftist politics (Kumar 1995; Sen 2000). In the same year (1973 to 1974), in the remote hills of the Himalayas, the Chipko (embrace the tree) movement had cropped up. The first women-led non-aggressive environmental movement against commercial logging in the Himalayas had encouraged eco-feminist thought (Shiva and Maria 1993; Mellor 2007; Kumar 1995). A chain of such reactions, though not uniformly feminist, slowly by the late 1970s sprouted into an autonomous women’s movement. But neither the significance of these movements nor the predicament of the women living in India could be officially taken into consideration before the publication of the Towards Equality Report in 1974 by the National Committee on the Status of Women and The Convention on the Abolition of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women in 1979. Towards Equality Report

In the 1974 report written before the commencement of the International Decade of the Woman (1975–1985) by the United Nations World Conference (held in Mexico in 1975), the Indian women were seen to be going through the most horrific experiences of declining sex ratio, increasing rates of mortality and morbidity, economic marginalisation, and victimisation by discriminatory personal laws. Aiming to alleviate the situation, it made several recommendations to the government – like eradication of evil practices (dowry, polygamy, bigamy, child marriage), confirmation

242  Ritu Sen Chaudhuri of basic rights (education, better working conditions, equal pay for equal work, child care, and crèches), ratification of legal reforms (divorce, maintenance, inheritance, adoption, guardianship, maternity benefits, implementation of the Uniform Civil Code). Both the state and media positively responded to it. Following this report, the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) conducted a number of micro-studies all over the country to analyse the predicament. However, the report had excluded the issue of violence against women in the civil society or by the custodians of law (Patel, 1985). The gap was tried to be bridged by the Indian press, which now came up with explicit reports on the violence committed against women (ibid). Still, even after three decades, the report of the National Commission for Women entitled Towards Equality: The Unfinished Agenda – the Status of Women in India published in 2001 marks the failure of policy implementations of the 1974 report. The Second Phase (1975–1990) The commencement of the new wave, amidst the growth of several independent women’s groups, was interrupted by the presidential rule (1975–1977) called upon by the then-prime minister Ms. Indira Gandhi (Patel 2002). The emergency had adjourned the civil liberties of the citizens. By the time it was withdrawn in 1977, a number of women’s groups sprang up – flagging the onset of the autonomous women’s movement. The autonomous women’s movement had to shoulder a mammoth task. Unlike the affiliated women’s organisations bound to the general agenda of the affiliating body (political parties, government, or NGOs), the autonomous women’s group focusses on the issues specific to women. Although keeping in mind the manifold aspects of oppression (class, caste, religion) directly affecting women, the leaders of the new wave tried not to subsume women’s issues by other causes. Committed to the call of ‘shared sisterhood’, now the feminists raise their voices wide across and attain a standpoint they had lacked earlier. The autonomous women’s movement (steered primarily by the urban, educated, middle-upper class-caste women) holds profound implications for the future of feminist politics in India. Despite the fact that the participation of millions of women across class/caste/communities has given it the shape of a mass movement resulting in a chain of pro-woman legislations, the marginalised groups like the Dalit feminists (1990s) pointed at the elitist predispositions of the autonomous women’s movement. The second phase is symbolised by the autonomous groups who have deliberately resisted political allies, dreading to go conformist. There were yet many groups considering political affiliation imperative for the women’s movement. Affiliated Women’s Organisations

The coalition of the All India Women’s Conference with the National Congress (Sen 2000) was followed by the National Federation of Indian Women’s (NFIW formed in 1954) attachment with the Communist Party of India (CPI). Later, in

A Trajectory of Women’s Movement in India  243 1981, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI (M)) formed the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA). Throughout the 1970s, the CPI (M) did not have an organised women’s wing. Although officially formed in 1981, AIDWA considers its existence from the formation of the Mahila Atmaraksha Samity (MARS) in 1943 (led by women from the still underground Communist Party). Unlike its predecessors, AIDWA accepted members who were not affiliated with the CPI(M). Initiated with the slogan of Equality, Democracy, and Women’s Liberation, it collaborated actively with autonomous women’s groups and took up the question of violence against women. The regional affiliates of All India Democratic Women’s Association include Paschimbangla Ganatantrik Mahila Samiti (PBGMS West Bengal), Ganatantrik Nari Samiti (Tripura), and Janwadi Mahila Sanghatan (Maharashtra). However, these affiliated groups did not coalesce into any significant mass uprising on gender issues. Agitation over women’s issues remained limited to the urban elite women, while poor women were mobilised for class or nationalist causes. The questioning of gender roles that persisted in early communist groups dissipated later. In its ‘mass face’, the Communist Party began to be questioned for its ‘patriarchal leanings’ (Sen 2000: 22). The biggest obstacle that confronts any serious attempt to challenge gender inequality through the party system is that parties draw on women’s participation as individuals, not as members of a group that has suffered discrimination. If women’s participation in party-based politics undermines women’s sense of collective identity (Basu 2005), how would the autonomous organisations strive against this trend (Sen Chaudhuri 2008, 2016a)? Although having a leftist inclination, the Autonomous Women’s Movement in India, much like the international women’s movement, is self-directed – without any formal structure or hierarchy. A wide variety of women from consciousnessraising groups, trade unions, organisations of agricultural labourers, tribal, and professional women were informally tied together through networking. There was also a rising feminist press to take up the cause of the movement. Kali for Women, established in 1984, happens to be the first feminist publishing house in India. Through country-wide demonstrations, the autonomous groups primarily attended to the issue of violence against women (rape, abuse, dowry killings/deaths, bride burning, Sati, honour killing) (Sen 2000). The second phase is marked by its tangible achievements both in the form of legal enactments and consciousness raising. In the following section, we refer to a few protest movements of the 1980s resulting in some landmark legal enactments. The Decade of Pro-Woman Enactments

In the 1980s, almost all uprisings against violence on women brought about positive enactments (Agnes 1992). The nation-wide anti-rape campaign was instigated by the Supreme Court verdict of releasing two policemen charged with raping an adolescent tribal girl (called Mathura in a Maharashtra Police station), ignoring the High Court orders. This, including other cases of rape, had ignited a

244  Ritu Sen Chaudhuri chain of protests by the autonomous women’s organisations like Nari Niryatana Pratirodh Mancha (Kolkata), Progressive Organisation of Women (Hyderabad), Forum Against Oppression of Women (Mumbai), Stree Sangharsh, Samata and Saheli (Delhi), Stree Shakti Sangathana (Hyderabad), and Vimochana (Bangalore). Finally, the rape law of 1860 was amended in 1983, enhancing punishment, redefining ‘consent’ (in custodian or gang rape), and removing infirmity from the evidence of the victim. The issues of dowry and violence against women in the marital home had also been taken up by Stree Sangharsh, Mahila Dakshita Samiti, and Dahej Virodhi Chetna Mandal during the late 1970s. Public demonstrations against dowry deaths received broad media coverage. The nationwide upsurge culminated in two consecutive amendments in 1984 and 1986 of the ambiguous Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961. The amended law introduced a new post called the Dowry Prohibition Officer and placed the onus of proving innocence on the person charged. In 1987, the Act against Indecent Representation of Women was passed. This was a response to the dissents against provocative portrayals of women in media. In due course, the Suppression of Immoral Traffic in Women and Girls Act (SITA), penalising the victim for her immoral nature, was amended in 1956. The Immoral Traffic Prevention Act (ITPA) of 1988 specifically addresses trafficking for prostitution rather than for domestic/child labour or organ harvesting. In the same year, a massive protest against the burning of Roop Kanwar, an 18-year-old Rajasthani widow, resulted in the Sati Prevention Act. It renders both abetment and glorification of Sati punishable. The 1971 Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act bestowed women with the right to safe induced-abortions (solely with the consent of the woman concerned). Unfortunately, the right got associated with the practice of female foeticide. Campaigns against this brought about a central legislation in 1994 banning prenatal sex selection techniques. The passing of the Muslim Women Protection of Rights on Divorce Act in 1986 (overruling the Supreme Court decision in the Shah Bano case) also witnessed huge protest. The continuing Uniform Civil Code debate, attending to the issues of marriage, divorce, alimony, property, custody, and guardianship rights, reveals the misogynist nature of the legal system. Indian personal law is grossly pro-patriarchy/patriliny/patrilocality. Patriarchal dominance cannot always be impeded by passing laws. Operating from an androcentric bias, legal enactments/amendments often just pay lip service to women’s causes. Ignoring the limitations or hidden agenda of these enactments, sometimes the activists also simplistically accept them as their accomplishments. Increasingly, it became evident that without consciousness and education, it is impossible to address the issues concerning women seriously. The Rise of Women’s Studies as an Academic Discipline

Limitations of the legal domain had definitely shifted the attention of the feminists towards academic interventions, consciousness raising, and gender sensitisation. Also, governmental support, in the post ‘Towards Equality’ report era, for

A Trajectory of Women’s Movement in India  245 women-related research helped Women’s Studies to flourish as a discipline. Also, the 1980 United Nations Mid-Decade Conference in Copenhagen highlighted the significance of the discipline of women’s studies. In 1981, the first National Conference of the Association of Women’s Studies, an institution of women academics and activists involved in research and teaching, was held. It featured the necessity of Women’s Studies as a regular undergraduate/postgraduate discipline. Women’s Studies, the academic arm of the women’s movement, is considered a tool to transform the women’s perceptions about themselves and people’s perception about women (Mazumdar 1985; Sharma 1989; Basu 2005). Initially, there were only a small number of Women’s Studies centres like the Research Centre for Women’s Studies at the SNDT Women’s University Mumbai established in 1974, the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (Mumbai), and the Centre for Women’s Development Studies (Delhi). Gradually, quite a few universities and colleges opened up women’s study centres. During the last 40 years, Women’s Studies has produced a considerable quantity of dissertation research projects, journals, books, and teaching materials and organised several symposiums and conferences. Also, there have been consistent attempts to synchronise women’s studies and the women’s movement. The dialectical relationship between pedagogy and praxis vis-à-vis the women’s question has always been a matter of concern for the pioneers of Women’s Studies in India like Neera Desai, Veena Mazumdar, Maithreyi Krishnaraj, Latika Sarkar, Sardamoni, Leela Dube, and Shusheela Kaushik (Datta 2007). The combined effort of the women’s organisations and women’s studies centres brings increasing awareness about gender equality and women’s rights. The second phase has a discernible urban middle/upper class/caste character in scope and leadership. In spite of this, it could enflame a feeling of ‘shared sisterhood’ (although fraught with tension) among disparate groups. Perhaps this could spring from the experiences of violence meted out against women across stratifications. Yet, by the mid-1980s, there has been a steady decline of this alleged unity. The Shah Bano and Roop Kanwar cases stir up a real hornet’s nest. Playing against the Dalit and LGBTQIA movements, upsurge of the right-wing women’s organisations, and sustained disputes around the Uniform Civil Code – the purported unity finally dissolved. However, the women’s movement endured – attending to the causes of more variegated groups and issues than ever before – it etched out a new era. The Third Phase (1991–Continuing) The ‘new women’s movement’ of the late 20th century or the third phase has some specific features that conceptually distinguish it from the first two phases. Susie Tharu observes, the movement as it has emerged today, has no centralized organisation, no commonly acknowledged leadership, no unifocal programme. ... Groups do not share a commitment to any one analysis of women’s oppression, or its relationship with other forms of oppression/exploitation, or the strategies

246  Ritu Sen Chaudhuri necessary for action or change. In fact, even an intra-group consensus is often not assumed or demanded (1986: 122). In the face of this, India has witnessed certain instances of alliance between disparate women’s groups on specific causes. Throughout the period identified as the ‘third stage’, women’s organisations with opposing ideals have repeatedly come together. This phase witnessed the rise of new issues ranging from anti-globalisation agitations in the early 1990s to the protests against Nirvaya’s rape in 2012.3 The 1990s constitute the threshold of a new politico-economy earmarked by economic liberalisation, anti-Mandal agitation, upswing of the Bharatiya Janata Party, and the development of caste-based parties like the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party, demolition of the Babri Masjid, and communal riots. This has made things all the more difficult for the women’s groups – now they come to confront an intricate network of ‘unequal patriarchies’ (John 2000: 3829). Amidst this, although no longer tied together by a supposed unity, the women in India have resisted against particular cases of oppression in radically new ways. The nature, form, and content of the uprisings have drastically been altered. Along with demonstration and rallies, there remain civil society network campaigns, legal and judicial activism, civil disobedience, non-party political processes, carnivals and demonstrations, theatres and art performances, etc. (Jain 2013: 8). In the following section, a few key moments of the third phase have been touched upon. The Continued Legal Battle

The Government of India has taken some significant legislative and policy measures to support Indian women facing new challenges in the 1990s. A National Commission for Women in 1992 and several State Women’s Commissions have been established. The National Plan of Action for the Girl Child during 1991– 2000, National Policy for the Empowerment of Women in 2001, National Mission for the Empowerment of Women in 2010, and Verma Committee Report in 2013 – are to mention a few. Yet some of the issues raised by the women’s movement in the 1970s and 1980s could not still be resolved. They remain, even confounded by the trends of globalisation and communalism, as some of the major concerns of the 1990s. Pro-woman legislations still remain a major concern for the activists throughout the country. Since the All India Women’s Conference in 1937, there have been disparate responses of the women’s movement to the Uniform Civil Code from different religious communities. This demand was sustained by the women’s movement in the late 1980s until the 1990s when it acquired a different shape. Conceding the existence of homosexual couples, heterosexual couples outside marriage, and multiple other modes of living, the expression ‘uniform’ has been rejected from the debate in the 1990s. Saheli, People’s Union for Democratic Rights (Delhi), Forum Against Oppression of Women (Bombay), Working Group on Women’s Rights (Delhi) now demand a negot​iable​/comm​on/ge​nder-​just/​egali​ taria​n code rather than a ‘uniform’ code (Menon 1998).

A Trajectory of Women’s Movement in India  247 Box 11.1 Uniform Civil Code

In 2023, the NDA government has pushed for a UCC to standardise the personal laws (concerning marriage, divorce, succession, adoption, guardianship, and partition of land and assets) that would supposedly reduce gender discrimination. Tribal groups and religious minorities are apprehensive that UCC could efface their specificity. Also, various women’s groups are demanding a more negotiable and gender-just code rather than a thoroughly uniform one. On the other hand, a long 30 years of movement demanding the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence resulted in an Act in 2005. Continued protests against female foeticide resulted in the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Technique Act in 2002. The Public Interest Litigations to address sexual harassment at the workplace registered by the NGOs resulted in the 1997 Supreme Court directives for the Prevention of Sexual Harassment at Workplace. The Vishakha guideline, as it was popularly known, later took the shape of a law: The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act 2013. The 73rd and the 74th amendments to the constitution (assuring local selfgovernance) provided a 33% reservation of seats for women in the Panchayat and Nagarpalika bodies. Women at the ‘grassroots’ of the society were provided with the opportunity to be a part of formal decision-making and governance. Yet, the Women’s Reservation Bill or the 81st Constitutional Amendment Bill 1996 (tabled by the H. D. Deve Gowda-led government), seeking to reserve one-third of seats for women in Parliament, has been resisted by various sections of society. The matter was soon caught up in the caste politics demanding special quotas for the women of the other backward classes and minorities. Once again, it came out that the homogeneous category ‘Indian women’ does not carry any meaning. Different women with oppositional interests, representing different caste-community-classreligion-party, inhabit the subcontinent. Since 1996 practically all regimes have tried to transform the Women Reservation Bill into an Act. In 2008 the bill was again tabled in the parliament (by the Manmohan Singh government). In 2010 the UPA government could even approve it in the Rajya Sabha. Yet, lack of political consensus took it more than another decade for the President of India to grant assent to the Constitution (106th Amendment) Act, in 2023. Box 11.2 Women Reservation Act

On September 29, 2023, the President of India, Srimati Draupadi Murmu, has signed the Women Reservation Act (enacted on September 21) which will be put into effect after the delimitation exercise of the next census. The

248  Ritu Sen Chaudhuri Act, valid for 15 years, tends to reserve 33% of Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, and State Legislature seats for women with due sub-reservations for the SC, ST, and Anglo Indians. However, the OBC and Muslim women are not included in the list as existing Indian laws do not permit the reservation of seats for such categories. What we still need to remember is that while political empowerment is an essential step towards equality, it should not in any way be politicised and deployed to increase the class or religion-based divide among women. For the women’s movement, as Mary John observes ‘[t]his is nothing less than an opportunity to link – rather than oppose – women’s rights to rights based on caste, class or minority status in the broader context of a common democratic struggle’ (2000: 3829). In recent times, India has witnessed quite a few significant protests organised by women which have resulted in legal verdicts in their favour. The dissenting voices, unlike the earlier times, do not necessarily come from any organised women’s group with a stable leadership from educated upper/middle-class backgrounds. This exactly, as it has been said before, is the defining feature of the third phase. Far from being a comprehensive list, the following are just a few instances of how women from distant corners of the country with disparate backgrounds come to hold courage and fight for their rights legally. In Mizoram, after a prolonged struggle by the ‘Mizo Hmeichhe Insuihkhawm Pawl’ (MHIP), the Mizo Marriage, Divorce and Inheritance Act was passed in 2014. The law has given the wife the right to claim a share of the family property. In Kerala, the prohibition on women (of menstruating age) to enter the Sabarimala Temple, the famous Hindu pilgrimage in Kerala, witnessed a continued combat against the religious-patriarchal code. The prohibition on menstruating ‘impure’ women is linked to the legend of the celibate deity Lord Ayyapa. In 1991, the ban was challenged before the Kerala High Court which ruled in favour of the prohibition. Challenging this order, six women members of the Indian Young Lawyers’ Association filed a petition before the Supreme Court in 2006. In 2016, the Supreme Court referred the case to the constitution bench. Finally, in September 2018, the Bench overturned the age-old ban and allowed women of all age groups to enter the temple. Yet, women rights activists attempting to visit the shrine continue to face tremendous opposition from the devotees of the temple. Thirty four women officers of the Indian army had signed a petition stating the unlawful promotion of junior male officials over them to ‘combat and commanding’ positions. On December 9, 2022, the Supreme Court gave a verdict that this discriminatory attitude towards the women officials has to be resolved, sanctioning all the due promotions. The writ petition of a single woman of 25 years seeking to terminate her 22-week pregnancy was rejected by the Delhi High Court as unmarried women are

A Trajectory of Women’s Movement in India  249 excluded from the scope of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Rules, 2003. Placed at the Supreme Court on September 29, 2022, this resulted in a landmark judgement granting the abortion right to all women irrespective of their marital status. BOX 11.3 The Case of Hijab

Six students from the Udupi Girl’s College, Karnataka raised their voices against the governmental ban on the hijab in state-owned colleges. This generated a nationwide debate, and rejecting the Karnataka High Court verdict, lifting the ban on the October 13, 2022, the Supreme Court interpreted wearing hijab as a matter of individual choice and autonomy.

The Dalit Feminist Movement

The agenda of the women’s movement at the national level has always been framed by the upper-caste, middle/upper-class women’s perspectives eroding the identity of the Dalit (as well as tribal, Muslim, disabled, queer) women. In fact, both women’s movements and Dalit movements consistently denied the intersections of caste and gender in the dynamics of discrimination (Sen Chaudhuri 2016a). The Dalit women, over an incessant combat against the hegemonic trends of the social movements, eventually forged their autonomous field of struggle by the early 1990s. Caste transpired as an essential constituent of the feminist movement in India4. The National Federation of Dalit Women (NFDW), the All India Dalit Women’s Forum, and several regional Dalit women’s organisations (including Maharashtra Dalit Mahila Sangathana) were all established in the 1990s. Dalit feminists like Baby Kamble, Shantabai Kamble, Kumud Pawde, Urmila Pawar, Shantabai Dani, Pragnya Daya Pawar, and Chandra Bhan Prasad articulated the three-fold nature of oppression of the Dalit women by – upper castes, upper class, and men of their own castes5. Also, Gopal Guru (1995) and Sharmila Rege (1998) put forward important insights into the Dalit women’s standpoint. There is yet another aspect that evokes a kind of tension between a section of the upwardly mobile Dalit women and the women’s organisations. The rise of the Bahujan Samaj Party as a powerful regional party under the leadership of Mayawati is followed by an upsurge of political participation of lower caste women (especially in local Panchayat level politics). This has posed a problem for the feminist face of the movement. It remains tricky to decide how to deal with Mayawati as a woman leader with little concern for feminism as such. Also, women’s active participation in caste-based violence ‘has shattered the movement’s assumptions that women are inherently peace-loving, that gender identity is more important than caste identity, and that ‘sisterhood’ will prevail among women’ (Govinda 2006: 183).

250  Ritu Sen Chaudhuri Muslim Women’s Movement

Though from time to time the cause of the ‘other woman’ was taken up by the dominant sisters, the Muslim women (both in terms of leadership and mass participation) had never been an integral part of the Indian women’s movement. The Shah Bano case of the 1980s was a milestone in the history of ‘Muslim women’s rights’ in India. In 1985, a positive judgement, for Shah Bano, by the Supreme Court became a heated communal issue (Iqbal 1991). At that point of time, very few Muslim women had directly participated in the political debates. Gradually since the 1980s, many Muslim women-led organisations came into open – Awaaze-Niswaan (AeN) in 1987, the Muslim Women’s Rights Network (MWRN) in 1999, and the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA) in 2005 – are to name a few. Challenging the overriding stereotypical notions that Muslim women are submissive and form a homogeneous group with a common set of interests, these organisations hold diverse but intersecting ideological bases, priorities, and strategies. They also critique the mainstream women’s movement for not providing the Muslim women with sufficient attention and space (Kirmani 2009). These organisations gradually gathered steam and helped to bring in certain changes in the lives of the Muslim women. In 2016, a woman called Shayara Bano filed a petition against her husband’s so-called talaqnama – a letter telling her that he was divorcing her. She also asked the court to outlaw halala (where a divorced woman has to consummate her marriage with another man in order to return to her former husband) and polygamy (Muslim men in India are allowed to marry four women). Following Shayara Bano’s petition against triple talaq (instant divorce by uttering the word talaq – in oral, written, or electronic form – three times), another woman called Afreen Rahman also challenged her divorce in the Supreme Court. Within a few more days, some other women and women’s organisations (including the BMMA) filed similar writs and collected 50,000 signatures, calling for a ban on triple talaq. Finally, on August 22, 2017, the Indian Supreme Court deemed triple talaq (talaq-e-biddah) unconstitutional. The Muslim women still have a long way to go. It remains just the same for the millions of other women, across caste, class, creed, and religion, living in India. It could be better if they could rely upon each other over a secular platform of equal rights and opportunities. Rightist Women’s Organisations

The 1990s also witnessed the growth of the women’s wings, corresponding to some Hindu fundamentalist groups, like Rashtrasevika Samity (RSS), Durga Vahini (Vishwa Hindu Parishad), and Mohila Aghadi (Shiv Sena). Grounded on communalist assertions, these militant women’s groups created an alarming situation for the overtly secular nature of the women’s movement in general. Rejecting their conventional ‘victimized’ image, the Hindu-upper-caste women acquire political power to advocate ‘Hindutva’ and reclaim the birth place of Rama (Roy 2001). This assertion is linked to the resurgence of the devi called Bharatmata – the Hindu nationalist icon, the epitome of shakti (strength) and valour. The claims of the rightist women’s

A Trajectory of Women’s Movement in India  251 group peculiarly reinstate patriarchal authority thereby restricting the capability of women’s movement (Kumar 1994; Setalvad 1996; Tharu and Niranjana 1996; Ghosal Guha 2005). Hindu nationalist parties call for an active participation of women in politics in terms of a total ideological control over them. Traditional gender role and hierarchy get heightened through the maxim that if women do not perform their moral duty, first the family and then the nation would dwindle. Hindutva persuades the Hindu women to think not in terms of individual rights, but in terms of responsibility to the Hindu nation (Basu 1998). This reduces feminism as a western elitist concept and a hated enemy of the “Hindu family and Hindu nation”. Feminists in India uphold a scathing critique of the ‘harmonious’ Hindu family arguing that women do not ‘belong’ to the family and the nation in its present form. Protesting Globalisation

Since the 1990s, the interventions of transnational capital and the world market transformed the state-sponsored development pattern of India. The archetypal image of the poor Indian woman (with an underfed child on her lap) switches over to new brand icons of the burgeoning beauty business (Chaudhuri 2001). A thin layer of educated women gain work in the newly emerging fields of employment, especially in the IT service and food-processing sectors. On the other hand, semi-/unskilled labourers lose control over their traditional industries as well as natural resources (land, water, forest), resulting in a loss of traditional livelihood and sustainability. There is also the astonishing growth of the informal sector which employs a large section of women on miserably low wages without any job guarantee. For women, the impact of globalisation has been uneven. In the 1990s, the women’s movement countered the open economic policy with widespread agitation6 against the withdrawal of the state from the social sector, erosion of food security, and the adverse effects of globalisation and Structural Adjustment Policies (SAP) on women. In 2000, through the initiatives of six national level women’s organisations including the CWDS, some 90 women’s groups and organisations were signatories to a document prepared for the Global March. Again, the 2004 Forum provided a meeting ground for peasants, workers, women, Dalit, and environmental movements to come together against globalisation. These movements have always been backed by a resilient left orientation which construed the globalised market as an adversary agent. Lately, feminists pose different questions. They come to see that ‘[i]n many ways, the market offers a strangely democratic space for debate and one that the women’s movement would do well to claim as a potential turf for negotiation … Can the women’s movement use the strategies of the market to re-sell itself to a larger audience and reclaim its right to speak on behalf of a larger constituency of women?’ they ask (Phadke 2003: 4575). We do not know whether one can translate the language of choice into a radical alternative. What remains apparent is how the NGO activities, backed by the international funding agencies, bring down the questions concerning inequality and oppression (touching upon a larger constituency of women) to the level of multinational markets. This de-politicises a specific sphere of women’s activism.

252  Ritu Sen Chaudhuri All through the 1970s and 1980s, the women’s movement had emphasised economic downgrading of women. In the 1990s, through the programme of empowerment, it began demanding rightful spaces for the women in the mainstream discourses. Numerous organisations, including foreign-aided non-government organisations, micro-credit/micro-finance, and self-help initiatives (holding variable relations with the state), were established. Some of these groups are being formed with the funding of the state (co-opted in certain cases), while others carry out developmental programmes on behalf of the international funding agencies which by and large determine the basic mode of NGO activities. The NGOs usually stand as token agents to ensure accountability. There is an increasing mobilisation of rural women in the NGOs and government undertakings. The target-driven programmes to ‘empower’ women (self-help, micro-finance groups) hold limited potential to tackle the problems of uneven distribution of resources or gender disparities. These groups often lack stability and steady membership. The activities of the development sector (including the governmental initiatives) are allegedly seen as pursuits of the civil society. This could be grossly misleading. The survival of these groups does not depend on their activism. It is rather linked to wider national and international programmes. Often the foreign-funded ‘NGOisation’ dissipates the force of the women’s movement (Mehrotra 2002). The dynamics of women’s movements, if they seriously attempt to engage with the issues of development, must retain a feminist mode of questioning. For example, the movements against Sardar Sarovar Project, popularly known as Narmada Bachao Andolan, reveal that the failure to assume feminist questions engenders a pattern of development that harms the women of the third world. Multilateral development banks, governmental lending agencies, nongovernmental organisations, and human rights and environmental groups have to include these questions in their programmes (O’Bannon 1994). The LGBTQIA+ Movement

During the late 1980s – in the backdrop of issues like violence, assault, and AIDS – the women’s movement attended to the question of sexuality. Increasing AIDS consciousness necessitates the widening of the discourse on sexuality beyond violence against women and population control. Internationally funded HIV/ AIDS projects are taken up by many NGOs like the Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (DMSC, Kolkata) which works as a women sex workers’ union demanding the right to sex work. As an organised political effort, the Indian LGBT movement, having taken its first steps only in the early 1990s, is still quite young. However, it is not something that started overnight. It is a result of several visible and invisible developments covertly taking place over several years. Indeed, the question of homosexuality is being discussed in one form or the other in a range of platforms7. The 1990s witnessed the growth of many LGBT organisations such as the Udaan Trust in 1992, Humsafar Trust in 1994, Naz Foundation Trust (originally in London) in 1990, Sangama in 1999, AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan (ABVA), Saathi, Indradhanu, and Sappho for Equality in 2003. The decade also saw the publication of gay and lesbian magazines like Bombay Dost in 1991,

A Trajectory of Women’s Movement in India  253 Pink Pages in 2009, and Galaxy (webzine) in 2010. Gradually the LGBTQIA+ (lesbian–gay–bisexual–transsexual–queer–intersex–asexual) movement is put in order to provide spaces for the political expression of the ‘non-normative sexualities’ around the rights of same-sex, transgender, transvestite, hijras, Kothis, and multiple other identities (Ghosh 2022). The LGBT movement is truly a rainbow of many fascinating hues. This movement is gradually bringing to light, documenting, and representing the rich diversity of genders and sexualities that have existed in our cultures for thousands of years – advocating that this diversity should be respected and discrimination against LGBT people should be stopped. The movement has induced the ‘counter-heteronormative’ arguments claiming to revoke Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which penalises homosexual sexual acts (Menon 2009: 98). ABVA in 1994 and Naz Foundation (in collaboration with Lawyer’s Collective supported by various other NGOs) in 2001 have filed petitions against Section 377 in the Delhi High Court enquiring its constitutional legitimacy. Based on a retrogressive logic of reproductive-heteronormativity8 Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code validates homophobia and misogyny. It violates the Fundamental Rights guaranteed by the Indian constitution. The outcome of the petitions comes as late as 2009 – the Delhi High Court describes Section 377 as a violation of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the constitution. Homosexuality between two consenting adults in private is being decriminalised. Various religious groups appeal against the decision in the Supreme Court. In December 2013, setting aside the 2009 judgment, the Supreme Court endorsed the constitutional validity of the penal provision against same-sex practices. Homosexuality gets re-criminalised. This has been a major setback for sexual/human right activists and is also widely criticised. Protests, from several forums, continued until the Supreme Court (on January 18, 2018) granted a petition to reconsider the 2013 Naz Foundation judgement. Finally on September 6, 2018, in a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court, overthrowing the 158-year-old controversial legal provision, declares Section 377 as unconstitutional. The Court, while legitimising same-sex relationships, holds that intimate relationships among consenting adults is a matter of personal choice. Questioning heteronormativity is now an inalienable part of the agenda of the different strands of the women’s movement in the country. Underlying this broad agreement there are internal strains and discrepancies. The interfaces of the women’s movement with the struggles of the LGBTQIA are often fraught with tension. If the issue of sexuality is not denigrated as an ‘elitist concern’, the tendency (of the women’s movement) to integrate diverse sexual inclinations and practices tends to erode their specific identities and politics. Protests against the State WOMEN FROM THE NORTHEAST

The seven states of Northeast India are facing a prolonged period of political turmoil and at the same time sustained ignorance from the people of the ‘mainland’. Upholding their causes in the public domain, women from the Northeast have long been grappling against these predicaments (Bhattacharya 2010, Kolas 2017).

254  Ritu Sen Chaudhuri Despite their resilient presence, they remain far from playing an integral role in the mainstream women’s movements. Many women’s organisations such as Asom Mahila Samiti in Assam (formed in 1926), Mizo Hmeichhe Insuihkhawm Pawl (Binding Women together) in Mizoram (formed in 1974), Naga Mother’s Association in Nagaland (formed in 1984), and North East Network (formed in 1995) are fighting against/for issues related to violence against women, alcohol and drug abuse, women’s rights, and peace-making for several decades. As early as 1904 (and later around 1939–1940), women from Manipur organised a movement called Nupi Lan (Women’s War) against British rule. Women from the Northwest are also consistently fighting against the government of independent India. In certain zones, labelled as ‘disturbed areas’ by the Indian state, the Armed Forces Special Power Act of 1958 operates to curb insurgency and maintain public order. The said Act sanctions the Indian army to conduct operations wherever they deem it necessary and detain anybody without an arrest warrant. Human rights activists in the northeastern states have long been claiming the removal of the Act. Irom Chanu Sharmila, a 28-year-old Manipuri woman, was then an intern with Human Rights Alert. She helped document the narratives of the children and parents of the killed citizens and the survivors gang-raped by the military forces. On November 2, 2000 in the Imphal valley of Manipur, at the Macom Bus stop, ten civilians were opened fired by the Assam Rifles on the grounds of ‘reasonable suspicion’ following a bomb attack on their convoy. The event had shaken Sharmila to the core as she went on a hunger strike demanding the abolition of AFSPA. The historic fast lasted for 16 long years (till she ended it in 2017) when she was intermittently arrested by the state on account of attempted suicide and force-fed with a Ryle’s tube (Bhonsle 2016)! The feeble-bodied woman with a nasal tube became the symbol of people’s protest against state violence. Iconised as the ‘Iron Lady of Manipur’, Sharmila Chanu had converted her body into a site of resistance against the despotic state apparatus. The exceptional move of Sharmila was a forerunner to yet another moment of transforming the woman body into a stage of protest. In July 2004, the Assam Rifles forcefully lifted Thangjam Manorama, a 32-year Manipuri woman, from her home allegedly to be interrogated under AFSPA. Later, she was gang raped and her genitals were ripped. Bearing 16 army bullets, her body was found in the streets. To mark their dissent, 12 elderly women from the locality dared to defy all gender norms. Facing the Kangla Fort, they disrobed themselves publicly. Hanging their hair loose, their bare bodies held the banner ‘Indian Army Rape Us’. This unprecedented event of the nude protests by the ‘mothers of Manipur’, also known as Meira Paibi (women torch bearers), had shaken the entire world . Shaheen Bagh and Farmers Movement

Dissents against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) 2019 have spread throughout the country as it has affected the people in multiple ways. Several groups have protested against the violation of the secular identity of the nation which, coupled with the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC), has raised

A Trajectory of Women’s Movement in India  255 the fear of excluding the Muslim residents. During the middle of December 2019, India saw an extraordinary uprising of thousands of working-class, home-bound, Muslim women across the country. This is astonishing because the leaders of the mainstream women’s groups (primarily urban, English-educated, Hindu, middleupper class-caste women) did not generally consider Muslim women as an essential part of their movement. Continuous sit-ins against the CAA and NRC were initiated at the Shaheen Bagh area, New Delhi, and gradually germinated across the country (Kolkata, Pune, Lucknow, Allahabad, Gaya, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Ranchi). The movement got its name from its epicentre Shaheen Bagh. Unlike any prior movements, the non-violent protests continued for days together without any universally accepted leadership or an integrated organisation. The homebound elderly women, the mothers and grandmothers, acquired accepted speaking positions. The ammi, nani, and dadi became internationally celebrated figures of people’s resistance as they spoke their minds to the media about their views on citizenship and about the unfairness of the government (Thapar 2020, 2021). Braving the bouts of temperature drops, they organised community kitchens, communal eating, and praying practices. Joined by the students and people from different walks of life, they shared a sense of attachment and together raised the slogan Kaagaz nahi dikhayenge (we won’t show the papers). The Shaheen Bagh agitation was followed by a remarkable move of the farmer women, from Punjab and Haryana, joining hands with millions of farmers claiming the withdrawal of the three Agriculture Laws passed in September 2020. Probably the most prolonged voice of dissent in recent times was raised by the farmers from Punjab and Haryana through non-violent sit-ins and hunger strikes on the outskirts of Delhi. Given that the two North Indian states are as such infamous for blatant sexism and an imbalanced sex-ratio, such massive participation of women was all the more remarkable. Enduring the bitter winter and spreading pandemic, a huge number of rural women across generations and classes came to join the movement. In a way, this helped the women to raise their claims for wider reforms including equal rights in land ownership and inheritance, access to loans and aids, subsidies, and insurances. The ways in which the women from Manipur, Shaheen Bagh, and Haryana deployed the symbol of the mother to fight against the state perhaps show how rightly they have comprehended, also in certain senses subverted, the potentials of the symbolic resources bestowed on motherhood in our society. Social Networking

By the mid-2000s, there has been a phenomenal growth of a new force of women’s movement on the World Wide Web or Internet (Jain 2013). Social media – like Facebook (Meta) and Twitter – has given a large section of women the opportunity to share views, express opinions, initiate, and continue debates reaching out to the world. These interactions are not always feminist in a serious sense of the term. At the same time, very often online interfaces serve as a catalyst for feminist consciousness and solidarity. Leadership of such activity remains diffused

256  Ritu Sen Chaudhuri as these initiatives identify new leaders from unknown corners of the country. In 2011, three years later to the Delhi gang rape, which itself spurs out a phenomenal public and feminist uprising, a book entitled ‘Why Loiter’ gets published – ‘the intent is to rehabilitate this act of hanging out without purpose not just for women, but for all marginal groups’ (Phadke et al. 2011: 197). The hashtag (a symbol to identify online messages on a specific topic) ‘Why Loiter’ takes social media by storm. Women from various corners come up with countless posts, pictures, and stories, narrating how they have regained public spaces habitually reigned by men. The struggle against patriarchy assumes a unique form. It is to occupy virtual and physical space. Feminists are tactically shifting their focus from the anticipation of violence to a dynamic pursuit for pleasure in the public sphere. BOX 11.4 Mee Too Movement

The MeToo movement originated in the United States in 2017 to speak against sexual abuse/harassment by influential men in the media. It then moved to India in September 2018. With the hashtag MeToo, the sufferers pervade social media with their experiences of sexual violations. Several women have exposed the names of powerful men from various walks of life – politics, journalism, film, music, and academics. The majority of the offenders are male. This social media upsurge has united the victims from different corners of the world. Overcoming the fear of defamation, they are now voicing their stories of injustice. This might open up possibilities to take the movement to a stronger platform within and beyond social media. Distinct but interrelated movements, initiated since 2015-2016 – like Pinjra Tod and Hidden Pockets (Delhi), Why Loiter (Mumbai), Kiss of Love (Cochin, Kolkata), Black Noise (Bangalore) – are meant to reclaim public spaces, deploying the Internet as the mouthpiece. The new generation feminists do not always believe in petition politics. Their call is to recoup the city (that also belongs to women) on their own terms, doing ordinary things like a chit-chat at a street corner or just eating out on the roads. Generally, these movements have an educated urban middle/ upper-class appeal. Yet, this does not mean one can reduce their import to elitism. Feminists in India have to remain open to the changing trends of the society at large. Summary and Conclusion The women’s movement has come a long way. Yet the struggle is far from over. In spite of many achievements, the women’s movement is still suspected of being elitist, westernised, and un-Indian. It is true that both activism and academia in India share the legacy of western feminism to a considerable extent. Learning from

A Trajectory of Women’s Movement in India  257 the West is not something to be abhorred. One has to remember that the globalised notions of governance and citizenship, market and consumer, and choice and rights are relevant for India as well. While addressing local issues, feminists in India have perceptively negotiated with the western experiences and intellectual traditions. They have flouted the stubborn norms relating to women’s work, education, sexuality, family roles, and motherhood. Mary John (1996) while talking about the specificity of the women’s movement in India indicates its inalienable link with the various axes of stratification like caste, class, and religion along with gender and marks this as the strength of the movement. But simultaneously, dissimilar voices across caste-class and region-religion-language-sexual orientation have given rise to several contending concerns. The dissipation of the alleged unity, which happened to be the specificity of the first and somewhat the second phase of the women’s movement in India, is not always so worrying. The waning of cohesion could also be read as an indicator of growing awareness at various levels. For an informed politics of women’s movement, internal differences are often constitutive. Despite such positional differences, women in India have upheld a consistent series of movements through multiple formal and informal means: writing, singing, rallying, hugging trees, and over-salting meals to mark their defiance and noncooperation (Basu 1998). There have been qualitative changes in the constitution of the movement, though. One reason behind this is the women’s negotiations with the shifting nature of the state and economy. Albeit sustaining the overall feudal approach of the state (and its communities) since the 1990s, the welfarist economy has shifted to a more global/liberal structure. Without gaining much from ‘liberalisation’, the majority of women now come to face the challenges related to it. Migration, trafficking, prostitution, food security, and several other problems have acquired renewed relevance in the lives of women. On the one hand, to meet the escalated living costs, they join the workforce in increasing numbers. While, on the other hand, most jobs available to them directly or indirectly reinstate their subservient domestic roles. Amidst this, the country has witnessed an all-time intensification of ethnic and religious consciousness where women have continued to remain the repository of communal honour and integrity. Their lives, thus, get entangled in the contradictory claims of community and women’s emancipation. Last but not least is the outbreak of the pandemic, which has hit the economy very hard. This has heightened the economic and social insecurity of women like never before. This chapter has tried to chart out how, in the face of these impediments, women’s movements in India have resiliently been coping with the changing needs of the time, making ways in diverse trajectories. Review Questions 1. 2. 3. 4.

Write a critical note on the first phase of the women’s movement. What exactly is the specificity of the second phase of the women’s movement? Write a comparative note on the first and third phases of the women’s movement. Write a critical note on the significance of legal interventions in the course of the women’s movement.

258  Ritu Sen Chaudhuri 5. Did the political affiliation of women’s organisations contribute to their strength in India? 6. Do social media extend a helping hand to victims fighting gender injustice and crime? Notes 1 The Shramik Sangathana was established in 1972 in Sahada, Maharashtra. The 1972– 1973 drought followed by the famine had led to a fast progression of the movement where the local women played an active militant role. 2 Shahada Movement in Maharashtra is a Bhil tribal-landless-labourers movement against the exploitations of the landlords. Several women participated, came to the forefront. and created a local group of women militants. They raised several questions concerning women’s oppression including wife-beating. 3 Calling themselves the Seven Sisters, seven all-India women’s organisations – Federation of Indian Women (NFIW), All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA), All India Women’s Conference (AIWC), Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), Mahila Dakshita Samiti (MDS), Joint Women’s Programme (JWP), and Centre for Women’s Development Studies (CWDS) – separated mostly by political ideologies, march together swarming the streets of New Delhi. 4 Both liberal and radical feminism’s of the 1960s and 1970s were steeped in a white middle-class perspective. The Black, Indigenous, third-world feminists have questioned the idea of ‘sisterhood’ as well as other assumptions of western feminism and created new ways of understanding and transforming women’s experiences. . 5 For a detailed discussion, see Sen Chaudhuri 2016a. 6 This includes the protest against the 1997 Bangalore beauty contest on the grounds that ‘these contests both glorify the objectification of women and serve to obscure the links between consumerism and liberalisation in a post-globalisation economy’ (Phadke 2003: 4573). Processions were held in Bangalore with mock ‘queens’ crowned as ‘Miss Disease’, ‘Miss Starvation’, ‘Miss Poverty’, ‘Miss Malnourished’, ‘Miss Dowry Victim’, etc. to feature the concerns of poverty, malnutrition, and violence in the country. 7 As early as 1941, Ismat Chugtai’s short story, Lihaf (The Quilt), explored a lesbian relationship. 8 Reproductive heteronormativity is a heterosexual normative system based on the principle of reproduction. Reproduction is a foundational principle that sanctions heterosexuality as a natural means of continuity of the human species. Prohibiting homosexuality and lesbianism as pathological, this system naturalises heterosexual marriage, family, conjugality, fatherhood, and motherhood.

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12 Ethnic Movements Biswajit Ghosh

Learning Objectives By reading this chapter, you will be able to learn about:

• • • • •

The concept of ethnicity, identity, and ethnic group; Major approaches explaining the rise of ethnicity; Critical appraisal of the approaches explaining ethnicity; Some major experiences of ethnic movements from India; The factors that have prompted the rise of ethnic movements in the country; and • Understand mutability in the nature of ethnic expressions in the modern world.

Introduction Social movements based on ethnic identity1 and aspirations of regional cultural communities have now become a phenomenon to reckon with in the contemporary world. Globally, ethnic differences have become a major source of conflict as most of the countries of the world are multi-ethnic. These assertions manifest in the form of self-determination movements, autonomy movements, secessionist movements, insurgency, ethnic conflicts, and riots. Since the second decade of the 20th century, ethnic movements have multiplied in Asia and Africa. Ethnicity was then seen predominantly a matter of the developing world because of cracks and strains in the secular sphere (Phadnis 1989). But later it was recognised that ethnicity is not a typical feature of the ‘tradition-bound’ societies of the East. Cultural minorities and nationalities of both the ‘capitalist’ and ‘socialist’ worlds are sharply divided on ethnic lines. Across Europe and America, ethnic movements have surfaced since the 1960s. The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and formation of new states mostly on ethnic lines later expedited the process. Rattansi (1994: 1), therefore, felt that ‘The spectre that haunts the societies of the ‘West’ is no longer communism, but both within and outside their frontiers, a series of racisms and ethnocentrisms’. DOI:  10.4324/9781003481744-14

262  Biswajit Ghosh  Looking at the experience of the rise of ethnic identity movements in the modern West, it became clear that modernisation does not necessarily de-ethnicise cultural communities; it may crystallise ethnic consciousness (Sharma 1990: 33). Ethnicity is one of the fastest growing contemporary phenomena and it has very strong linkages with the processes of globalisation. Like globalisation, ethnicity is both ‘local’ in its claim and ‘universal’ in its applications. Formation of ethnic ‘subjectivity’ is found to be an instance of the objective consequences of globalisation (Poppi 1997: 289). Though sociologically, we are becoming more and more ‘global’ in our social and personal life, these processes do not necessarily contribute to any narrowing of cultural difference. Emergence of new forms of ethnic expressions today (Fenton 1999: 230) led us to believe that cultural globalisation does not neutralise ethnic identity, it rather heightens it. Popularity of ethnicity does not, however, mean that we confine our identities into certain fixed particularities. Rather, as would see, the process of articulation of identity is fluid and contingent on situations across space and time. What explains the rise of ethnic movements and how can we explain the process of ethnic identity formation in the ‘modern’ world? This chapter proposes to deal with the issues and intricacies of ethnic identity movements. Conceptual Clarification The term ‘ethnicity’ comes from the ancient Greek ethnos, referring to a range of situations in which a human collectivity lived and acted together. In simple terms, it refers to ‘a sense of collective belonging’ by a group of people, which could be based on common descent, language, history, culture, race, region, or religion or maybe a combination of these (Horowitz 1985). While defining ethnicity, we should not confuse it with another identical term ‘ethnic group’ (Ghosh 2015). Ethnic groups are based on three predominant attributes, namely (i) biological attributes like descent and kinship, (ii) cultural attributes like language and religion, and (iii) territorial attributes like region and locality. Conceptually, membership of an ethnic identity group is a must to become a part of an ethnic movement. Yet, a statistical aggregate of some people born into an ethnic category, without certain ‘consciousness of kind’, may find it difficult to actualise such potentialities (Mukherji 1994: 23). In other words, the biological, cultural or territorial attributes of an ethnic category/group may remain dormant unless otherwise evoked by a psychological unity or ‘consciousness of kind’ (Ghosh 2003: 222). Hence, ethnic groups and ethnicity are not the same phenomena. As Paul Brass (1991: 19) argues, ‘ethnicity is a sense of ethnic identity’ and hence ‘ethnicity is to ethnic category what class consciousness is to class’. In simple language, therefore, ethnicity refers to the expressive aspects of ethnic identities. But this transformation of a group/category into a ‘subjectively self-conscious community’ having psychological unity of a kind involves a complex process. Considering such complexity involved in analysing ethnicity, scholars have preferred to treat it not as ‘given’ but as ‘contextual’. Analytically speaking, the socio-cultural identities of an ethnic group are important but not sufficient enough

Ethnic Movements  263 for the evocation of ethnicity. When a group of people uses any or many aspect(s) of culture to create internal cohesion (we/insider) and differentiate them from other group(s) (they/outsider), the self-ascribed awareness of distinctiveness and belongingness becomes crucial (Ghosh 2003: 223). We may, therefore, define ‘ethnicity as the process of formation and reformation of consciousness of identity (real or supposed) in terms of one or more social-cultural-political symbols of domination/subjugation of a group(s) or community by another that emerge out of the processes of assimilation, acculturation, interaction, competition and conflict’ (ibid. 223). For instance, when people living in a region or belonging to a cultural community become conscious of their common identity and start asserting/using that identity in a certain context, we may call it ethnicity. So, while the rise of ethnicity may symbolise the existence of an ethnic group, the reverse is not true. It is also pertinent for us to differentiate ethnicity from some related categories like caste, gender, race, minority, and nationality. This is more so because all these markers are used across the world to assert selfhood and identity based on differences. Interestingly, identity movements based on caste (say Dalit movement) or community (say tribal movement or movement of minority group) normally try to essentialise2 and fix certain markers as absolute for the group members. By contrast, ethnic movements go beyond ‘given’ attributes and prefer to mix multiple attributes to claim a new identity. Though participants of an ethnic movement may make use of these attributes, the trajectory of an ethnic movement remains fluid and contextual. As compared to categories like caste, class, gender, race or nation, which are used to differentiate groups like high caste vs. low caste, man vs. women, or Black vs. White, ethnicity is based on the ‘belief’ shared by its members that they share certain commonality. While a single of these attributes could be the most visible marker in the formation of the ethnic identity, it has been the combination of more than one which actually provides the basis for it. Ethnicity, therefore, transcends the known boundaries of caste, religion, sect, gender, and class (Oommen 1995). It should be recognised here that a movement based on caste, race, or community identity may become ethnic and vice versa in a changing context. In the next section, we would learn more about the salience of ethnicity in contemporary times. Approaches to the Study of Ethnic Movements Ethnicity, being a complex phenomenon, has given rise to diverse and often contradictory explanations. Sumner’s (1906) early exposition of three concepts, namely, ethnocentrism, ingroup, and outgroup, paved the way for the first psycho-sociological explanation of inter-group relations including conflict. Sumner felt that people’s close attachment with their own group (ingroup) allowed them to compare their group with all other groups (outgroup). When members of an ingroup believe that their group is the best and consider others as inferiors, the prejudice is called ‘ethnocentrism’. Based on such an explanation, ethnicity is explained as a process of becoming emotionally attached to an ingroup as against one or many outgroups.

264  Biswajit Ghosh  As against the psycho-social approach, the Marxists prefer to explain ethnic differences on the basis of variations in power and material wealth. To them, differential allocation of resources in a class divided society is the major reason for ethnic antagonism (Cox 1959). Orthodox Marxists would consider ethnicity to be an element of superstructure, which is nothing but expressions of economic/class differences (Base). This position, however, fails to recognise the fact that the notion of ethnicity is different from that of class. It is possible that members of a class, say workers may join an ethnic movement for reasons including differential allocation of resources; but when they do so, they do not stress only on their class identity. Elements like region, culture, history, etc., then come into play. For instance, textile industry workers of Mumbai left the Communist led Girni Kamgar Union and joined Bharatiya Kamgar Sena, the trade union wing of Shiv Sena, during the 1970s. But in the process of fighting for higher wages, the Shiv Sena union also whipped up communal and nativistic passions by targeting the non-Maharashtrian immigrants for large-scale unemployment of Maharashtrians (Gupta 2010: 179). So, unlike the class movement, members of Bharatiya Kamgar Sena mobilised them on the basis of their ethnic identity. The Marxist interpretation is challenged by the Interactionists who rather stress on social interactions contributing to culturally shared meanings in explaining ethnicity (Ghosh 2016). Using the arguments of Sumner, Interactionists argue that distance emerging out of a complex and uncertain social living in modern times results in creation of ethnic categories like ‘we’ vs. ‘they’. While such an explanation may hold good for segregated or distantly related societies, in South Asia religious proximity did not contribute to religious tolerance or spread of secular values (Madan 1993: 547). Incidences of ethnic violence or communal riots in areas where members belonging to different ethnic groups have been living in close proximity for long are many. For explaining ethnicity, many social scientists, therefore, go beyond mere cultural history and stress on the political processes. According to Rajani Kothari (1988), ethnic upsurges are a consequence of the homogenising trend of modern states and of their technological/educational imperatives. Dipankar Gupta (1996a, 1996b, 2003) has equally argued that ethnicity is basically a political process. The Interactionist perspective, therefore, cannot completely explain the rise of ethnicity. Along with these two sociological explanations, there are four other approaches to ethnicity. These are (a) primordial approach, (b) modernisation approach, (c) instrumental approach, and (d) social constructionist approach. Let us now analyse them in brief. Table 12.1 summarises the basic arguments of these approaches: Primordial Approach

This initial and conservative model of ethnicity considered it to be essential aspects of human nature. It was first proposed by Edward Shils in 1957 (Haralambos and Holborn 2000: 232). Shils believed that people of a territory, category, religion, or kin group often maintained primordial attachment with these affiliations. Such

Ethnic Movements  265 Table 12.1 Major approaches to ethnicity at a glance Approach

Major arguments

Primordial approach

Ethnicity is an essential aspect of human nature and a natural outcome of attachment to primordial loyalties based on ascriptive aspects like caste, religion, kinship, region, or language.

Modernisation approach

Ethnicity is an aspect associated with pre-modern ‘archaic’ societies. Identity groups, being temporary, will be assimilated into the modern nation state with changes from a ‘traditional’ to ‘modern’ society.

Instrumental approach

Ethnic identities are actively created, maintained, and reinforced by individuals and groups in order to obtain access to social, political, and material resources. It is used as an instrument.

Social Constructionist approach

Ethnic identity is not natural. Rather, it is constructed and ‘invented’ in a suitable context. Hence, ethnic meanings and collective identities change in form and content as circumstances change.

primordial attachments contributed to their permanent loyalty to the group/category. The solidarity that develops becomes strong during any encounter with outsiders. According to Barth (1969), this ‘taken-for-granted’ model of ethnicity has four theoretical features:

• Ethnic groups are biologically self-perpetuating; • Members of this group share basic cultural values manifest in overt cultural forms;

• The group is a bounded social field of communication and interaction; and • Its members identify themselves and are identified by others as belonging to that group.

The primordial approach drew inspiration from the earliest anthropological explanation about the nature of social life of cultural communities in the East. As the people of ‘Orient’, against those in the ‘Occident’, were constructed as ‘uncivilised’ and ‘savage’ by the Western colonial minds, primordiality became a major paradigm to explain their tradition and culture. Shils’ work had stirred Clifford Geertz (1973) to first introduce the concept of ‘primordial attachments and sentiments’ of an individual. Geertz was concerned with the obstacles that ‘primordial attachments’, deriving mainly from kinship, locality, and culture, enforce. He, therefore, linked ethnicity with the ‘world of personal identity collectively ratified and publicly expressed’ (ibid. 268, 309). The primordial approach has serious limitations in explaining ethnicity. This approach is deterministic and static (McKay 1982). It assumes that emotional bonds of members of an ethnic group are fixed and permanent leaving no agency to its members. But, as would see later, ethnic identification is neither given nor transhistorical. Cultural traditions in India have very little to do with ethnic movements which go through different phases in different contexts. This is because people

266  Biswajit Ghosh  make use of their attachments with land, language, kinship, or religion in a particular context. Hence, these social and cultural factors work as ‘resources’ in various contexts (Brass 1991). Instrumentalists like Brass also argue that ethnicity should not be seen as a non-rational aspect of human mentality. Like class consciousness, development of ethnicity is linked to certain rational factors. Modernisation Approach

Modernisation theorists partially support the arguments of primordialists to explain ethnicity. For them, ethnicity is primarily associated with pre-modern ‘archaic’ societies. Hence, in any modern society, ethnic movements cannot sustain for long. Following the evolutionary model of social transition, they argue that ethnicity will decline in democratic and socialist societies. This is because these societies do not obstruct people’s participation in civic life despite differences in social and cultural life. Scholars like Kerr, Dunlop, Harbison and Mayers (1960), Rostow (1960), Hyden (1983), and Gellner (1983) believed that modern forces like economic development, urbanisation, growing rates of literacy, as well as advancements in science and technology, would inevitably cause demise of the role of ethnicity. Incidentally, evolutionary theories of Marx, Durkheim, Tonnies, and Weber associate the decline of primordial loyalties with the advent of modernity. The modern state is credited for gradually homogenising social life and thereby minimising cultural differences. This theory, however, fails to explain the proliferation of ethnic sentiments in modern society. To explain the failure of modernisation project to homogenise differences, they provide three additional arguments:

• The resurgence of ethnicity is a proximate and not an ultimate consequence of modernity;

• It is due to inadequate modernisation in the developing countries that ethnicity is gaining salience; and

• It is the distorted form of modernisation that accounts for the revival of ethnicity (Sharma 1990).

This revised explanation also cannot explain the rise and proliferation of ethnic groups in the advanced Western countries. Notions like melting pot, salad bowl, mosaic, or kaleidoscope which were once used to signify homogeneity of modern societies could not later explain the rise of ethnic movements. Rajni Kothari (1990) has put forward a counter explanation to explain ethnicity. To him, ethnicity is a response to certain aspects of modernity including reactions to both homogenisation and ‘Majoritarianism’3. People practising ‘ethnicity’ may feel deprived (a sense of relative deprivation in a global economy) not only in economic terms but also in terms of denial of one’s cultural identity in modern society. One major criticism of the modernisation theory is its failure to assess the role of the modern state and its politics to ethnicise issues. It has been observed that the state ignores the justified demands of ethnic minorities unless the movement becomes violent or acquires ethno-national character. While state action or inaction

Ethnic Movements  267 has contributed to the growth of ethnicity, an untimely and delayed state response has legitimised its sustenance (Ghosh 2003). There are plenty of instances from India which reveal that ethno-nationalism4 is encouraged and sustained by the lack of developmental initiative on the part of corrupt state administration as well as premature state response. As a corollary, the role of the nation state remains salient in any discussion on ethnicity. Gupta (1996b, 2003) has, therefore, argued that ethnic movements circulating in the political arena often thematise the nation state. It is, therefore, fair to argue that modernisation does not de-ethnicise cultural communities, but rather crystallise them. Instrumental Approach

The instrumental perspective drew inspiration from the works of Fredrik Barth (1969). Being influenced by Weber, Barth saw ethnicity as the creation and recreation of ethnic identities by people to gain access to social, political, and material resources. Weber argued that, ‘it is primarily the political community, no matter how artificially organised, that inspires the belief in common ethnicity’ (Weber 1978: 389). The possibilities for collective action through ethnicity, for Weber, are ‘indefinite’. Scholars like E. R. Leach, Abner Cohen, Michael Banton, Micheal Moerman, and Paul Brass expanded this approach later. Barth gave importance to interactions for generating, confirming, or transforming ethnicity. Stress on the fluid process of interaction as against the fixed primordial markers for evocation of ethnicity made such analysis interesting. Consequently, people can modify and alter their choices according to the situation. This means, ethnicity is linked to politics, decision making, and goal-orientation. As an instrument, therefore, ethnicity allows actors to make calculations and use it as a means to seek an end. Expanding this argument, Paul Brass (1991) has stressed on the issue of leadership. To him, ethnicity arises out of specific types of interactions and competition among elites from centralising states and elites from non-dominant ethnic groups. For Brass, ethnicity, as an instrument, helps elites to compete in the political field and thereby manipulate public opinion. The cultural values, practices, and symbols of ethnic groups are resources for elites in competition. Using this argument, one may claim that ethnicity has gained prominence in the contemporary world because elite competition has precipitated. This approach has been able to identify the flexible and situational aspects of ethnic identity movements. Yet, it is criticised on several grounds. First, there is a limit to using ethnic identity as an instrument in all occasions. Because people belonging to different social and cultural origins do not always compete. A Bengali might not feel like fighting a Kashmiri unless he is forced to do so. Second, people belonging to a category might have different interests. If members of an ethnic group are divided on the question of class background, for instance, elites can hardly unite them under one platform. So, all the members of an ethnic group might not sustain identical interests (McKay 1982). Third, some participants of an ethnic movement may be more rational and reasonable in expressing solidarity with the

268  Biswajit Ghosh  group. In such cases, elites would find it difficult to manipulate them. Fourth, by stressing too much on the role of elites in ethnic movements, the instrumentalists ignore the possibility of spontaneous voices of people. Fifth, the elites would find it difficult to generate ethnic solidarity if people do not have grievances or dissatisfaction with the existing system. Finally, instead of elites making use of ethnicity, ethnic movements may produce ‘mass’ leaders. There are many examples of ethnic movements giving rise to charismatic leaders who, however, at a later stage lost their appeal. Social Constructionist Approach

The idea that ‘ethnicity is a social construction’ is popularised by the social constructionists. It provided a comprehensive view of the notion of ethnicity by revising and extending the arguments of instrumental approach. As the meanings, forms, and contents of ethnic mobilisation changes over time, social constructionists believe that ethnic identities are constructed, reconstructed, and sometimes deconstructed over time. An initial sociological disposition of this model can be found in the writings of Max Weber and Everett Hughes. Like Weber, Hughes also rejected the commonsensical notion of ethnicity based on certain fixed cultural traits. Hughes argued that ethnicity arises out of and within interactions between groups (Hughes 1994). For Touraine (1977) also our identities in modern societies are shaped by social processes and these are not fixed. Benedict Anderson (1983) made the argument stronger by stating that the nation is an ‘imagined community’. Since a nation is a constructed community, people who imagine it perceive themselves as part of that group. Anderson believed that modern media and capitalism can inspire a local identity group or community to construct a larger national identity and thereby transform its nature and character. In an important sociological work, Steinberg (1989) has tried to ‘demystify ethnicity’ by exposing its historical and structural foundations. To him, ethnicisation is the end product of group solidarity. Scholars like Sollors (1989) have argued that ethnicity is a process of invention. While elaborating the concept of ‘network society’, Manual Castells (1996) has also stressed on the fact that we now do not take our identities from the past; rather we actively make them in interacting with others. According to Jenkins (1997) we construct and reconstruct our identities as cultural differences are variable and manipulable. In other words, cultural traditions as boundary markers are ‘invented’ and put into place according to selective agendas whose rationale is entirely determined by contingent circumstances (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983). Allen (1994) has also acknowledged that awareness of ethnicity is not constant throughout an individual’s life; it emerges only in specific contexts. The social-constructionist view comes closer to the post-modernists’ view that identities are relatively ‘free-floating’, detached from historical and structural conditions. Stuart Hall (1990), for instance, has argued that cultural identities are always evolving and not fixed. He stressed on the role of discourses in creating new identities. In this context, he introduced the notion of ‘new ethnicity’ that implies that internal differentiation within ethnic groups provides the foundation for a

Ethnic Movements  269 plurality of ethnic identities. For Hall, therefore, there can be ‘hybridisation’ and ‘cut and mix’ in the formation of new ethnicity. In this sense, ethnic movements differ from ‘old social movements’ based solely on class, caste, or community and thereby constitute ‘new social movements’. The process of identity formation is thus marked by contextuality, fluidity, hybridity, and plurality. We may identify the four major features of post-modern, post-structuralist view of ethnicity:

• • • •

Stress on differences and diversities; Attack on essentialism; Stress on the role of discourses; and Formation of fractured identities.

Evaluation of Approaches It is apparent from the foregoing discussion that transformation from a given ‘ethnic identity’ to contextual ‘ethnicity’ involves complex and often contradictory processes. As a corollary, predicting the future of any particular ethnic assertion is extremely challenging. It is possible to argue here that like sequences in the development of social movements (Smelser 1963), an ethnic movement may change its form and nature depending on the context (Oommen 1997). Herein, we may accept the argument that human beings themselves function as active agents in the construction of their identities. The situational construct of ethnicity, explaining plurality and heterogeneity of our identities, become more acceptable from such a point of view. But it must also be recognised that identities are not totally and always freefloating objects. There are ‘limits to plasticity of ethnicity as well as to its fixity and solidity’ (Jenkins 1997: 169). Steve Fenton (1999: 21) believes that there is ‘double contextualisation’ in ethnicity. Being a social phenomenon, ethnicity formation is closely linked to social, political, and economic structures. On the other hand, ethnic consciousness develops only when people of an ethnic group begin thinking about it and form solidarity. As a result, depending on context or situation, people may react differently. Herein the logic of ‘double contextualisation’ becomes important: First, ethnicity cannot be totally ‘imaginary’ having no link with history and society. Second, ethnicity can also not be totally ‘instrumental in the hands of elites’. The factors that become salient in the evocation of ethnicity are: (i) history of social interaction, (ii) economic and social constraints of living, (iii) cultural deprivation, (iv) state policies and actions, and (v) political competition and manipulation. Ethnic movements change their nature over time because of involvement of multiple factors as well as changes in intensity of these factors. We would learn more about the role of these factors while discussing Indian experience in the next section. Some Ethnic Movements in India

In this section, we would discuss in brief the experience of four major ethnic movements in India:

270  Biswajit Ghosh  i) ii) iii) iv)

Jharkhand movement; Shiv Sena movement in Maharashtra; Sikh movement in Punjab; and Tribal Insurgency in Tripura.

Jharkhand Movement

The Jharkhand movement is a brilliant example of a tribal movement transforming its character from an ethnic to a regional movement. In this movement, the ‘Jharkhandi identity’ was used to articulate first the tribal and then regional identity of people living in Jharkhand. Thus, in the Jharkhand movement, the concept of region was initially meant to be the places where tribes live. But later, with the maturity of the movement, even the non-tribal domains were incorporated to stress on a greater Jharkhand. Let me discuss this movement in some detail. The marginalised social groups of the region articulated Jharkhandi identity to mobilise people for autonomy and gain a better bargaining power (Prakash 1998). Certain historical and cultural factors, which emerged in colonial and post-colonial India, contributed to the growth of Jharkhandi identity. According to K. S. Singh (1977) five factors are salient for the rise of ethnicity in the region. First, Chotanagpur region is the most advanced tribal region in central India in terms of literacy, political consciousness, and industrial development. In such a context, when non-tribals entered in large numbers into this land for taking advantage of its resources, in particular, tribal and regional identities of the local people took the shape of ethnicity. Second, concentration of tribes in the region helped the leaders to garner numerical strength. Third, Christian Missionaries, who worked in the region since 1845, have helped in the process. They could give rise to a sense of distinctiveness and separateness of the tribes through education and proper lessons about their history, culture, and tribal rights, by making them aware about the exploitations of the landlords and money lenders, and taking care of their health. Fourth, Chotanagpur had a long history of struggle for rights. Tribes living here were accustomed to fight for their rights. Fifth, a sense of history and demand for autonomy of the region was also supported by scholars who worked in the region. Sachchidananda (1997: 238) has also identified another five factors, many of which come close to the ones identified by Singh. These are: (i) cultural arrogance of the majority, (ii) exploitation and domination by the majority community, (iii) apprehension of the tribals about erosion of their culture and identity, (iv) fight for equity and distributive justice, and (v) effort of the leadership to use ethnicity to maintain hold over the masses. Research on the trajectory of the tribal movements in Chotanagpur led Sachchidananda (1997) to argue that the construction of ‘Jharkhandi’ identity traversed through different phases. Thus, to begin with, its emergence is first traced to the formation of a student union in 1912 to raise funds for the poor Christian children. At that point, the religious identity of the tribal students was given importance. But in the second phase, non-Christian tribal students were invited to join the Chotanagpur Charitable Association for providing scholarships. The slogan they raised was: ‘All

Ethnic Movements  271 Adivasis are one’. The Adivasi unity, arising out of such efforts, became a rallying point to demand protection of tribal interests and tribal identity in 1918. The birth of Chotanagpur Unnati Samaj in 1920 signifies the arrival of the third phase. The growth of a small urban middle class among the tribes by then contributed intellectually towards political unification of different groups. Unnati Samaj raised demands like employment for educated tribal youth and formation of a sub-state with tribal concentration. In this second phase, leaders tried to develop a common tribal identity by stressing on tribal culture and language among the youth. There were, however, some opposition to the strategies of the Chotanagpur Unnati Samaj as a dissident group became more interested in stressing on the problems of the peasants. Kisan Sabha, formed by these dissidents, however, could not make any progress. Another organisation, named Chhotanagpur Catholic Sabha, formed in 1931, however, became popular because of its combination of religious and political stance and defeated the candidates of both Unnati Samaj and Kisan Sabha in the 1935 general election. BOX 12.1 Role of Language

Language has always formed the basis of asserting ethnic identity in India. This was well evident during the Dravida Kazhagam (Dravidian Organisation) movement in the state of Tamil Nadu in South India in the 1940s and 1950s when violent protests broke out against the adoption of Hindi as the national language by the Government of India. The birth of a unified platform called Chotanagpur Adivasi Mahasabha in 1938 saw the beginning of the fourth phase. Leaders of all three organisations, namely Chhotanagpur Unnati Samaj, Chhotanagpur Catholic Sabha, and Kisan Sabha then came together and started uniting all tribes. Mahasabha demanded complete separation of the tribal areas from Bihar. This phase is also marked by militancy. Mahasabha advocated a militant path by recruiting soldiers. Yet, its militant strategy could not attract people’s attention and it lost the election in 1946. In the fifth phase, after independence, Adivasi Mahasabha was replaced by the Jharkhand Party. But it subordinated ethnicity to regionalism by inviting all inhabitants of Chotanagpur to join the party though most of its leaders were tribal Christians. The party used legal means to achieve its goal. The demand for a separate Jharkhand State was submitted to the States Reorganisation Commission in 1955. The Jharkhand Party won many seats within the Chotanagpur region in the first general election. But it soon started losing its popularity due to reasons like developmental works by the state of Bihar, split among Christian and non-Christian tribals, and refusal of States Reorganisation Commission to accept the demand of a separate state. In the sixth phase, in 1963, the Jharkhand Party merged with the Congress with the hope that sharing power with the ruling party would be beneficial. But the experience created more divisions among its supporters, and in 1967 the party suffered from split.

272  Biswajit Ghosh  Since 1967, Chotanagpur has witnessed formation of many political and nonpolitical organisations like Hul Jharkhand Party, Birsa Seva Dal, and SidhuKanhu Baisi. This seventh phase is also marked by violent protests and celebration of Birsa Day by tribal volunteers of Birsa Seva Dal. The formation of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha in 1973 was an important phase (eighth) in Jharkhand movement. Through agrarian radicalism and cultural revivalism, it spearheaded many violent protests under the charismatic leadership of Sibu Soren. Morcha also mobilised non-tribal industrial workers, Kurmi peasants and those evicted in Koel-Karo Hydro Project. Functioning through the tribal panchayat called Baisi, Sibu Soren popularised the tribal cultural tradition in farming and festivals, took decisions through people’s court, cut crops of money lenders forcibly, and helped the poor peasants. Gradually, Morcha gained its strength particularly in Santal Parganas and fought elections against the Congress. Revival of their cultural tradition and institutions as well as use of their own script added a new strength and meaning to the ethnic movement. This movement of ‘sons-of-the-soil’ soon started identifying the non-tribals as ‘diku’ meaning enemy. The term was particularly used for people from north Bihar who were seen as exploiters. But, in the ninth phase, Sibu Soren lost his fame when he came close to Congress in mid-1980s (Prakash 1998). Amidst chaotic conditions, All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) was formed in 1986. Though working as a branch of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, it tried to bring together all voices supporting the demand for separate state. The birth of Jharkhand Coordination Committee was a milestone to place and negotiate the demand of autonomy with the central government. AJSU also kept pressure on the state and central governments to accept the demand. Finally, Jharkhand became a new state on November 15, 2000. Though this movement time and again stressed on tribal unity, the support of non-tribals was also necessary to realise the demand. Hence, by broadening the scope of the movement, the tribal ethnicity was undermined. This is a brilliant example of a tribal movement transforming its character from an ethnic to a regional movement. Two additional issues need to be highlighted here. Despite fighting for the rights of the marginalised Adivasi population for long, JMM could not occupy a central position in state politics after the formation of the state (Kumar and Rai 2009). Secondly, with growing fragmentation of support among the Adivasis and disenchantment of the youth, JMM is forced to ally with different and often contrasting (Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP] and Congress) parties to win elections. In this phase, it started stressing also on even general issues like 27% OBC quota in jobs, opposition to politics of arrogance, and demand for ‘greater Jharkhand’. The impracticality of asserting a single identity, whether of Adivasi or Jharkhandi, in contemporary politics is a reckoner to the utility of multiple ‘categories of practice’. Shiv Sena Movement in Maharashtra

As compared to the Jharkhand movement, Shiv Sena moved in the opposite direction of beginning with regional issues and later grappling with ethnic nativism. For long, Shiv Sena, notwithstanding internal divisions, has tried to show its maturity

Ethnic Movements  273 in competitive politics by mingling its old agenda with the new ones. Today, however, two formal segments of the party argue differently, and often against both regionalism and nativism. Historically speaking, Shiv Sena was the first full blown nativist movement in Independent India (Gupta 1996b). Since its birth in 1966, Shiv Sena relied on the questions of dominant Maratha ethos and values as well as their economic deprivations to articulate its voice. Its task was made easy by a Mumbai-based chauvinist organisation called Samyukta Maharastra Samiti (SMS) which earlier raised the slogan ‘Maharashtra for Maharashtrians’. The slogan of ‘sons-of-the-soil’ was voiced to argue that the migrants are living a better life in Mumbai. Shiv Sena also tried to pamper the Maratha ethos by recalling the glory of Maratha Empire. As the insider vs. outsider debate gained prominence in Mumbai, Shiv Sena lost no time to argue that Shivaji had always defeated the outsiders and invaders. Incidentally, the timing of Shiv Sena’s appearance was marked by industrial stagnation, recession, and inflation in Mumbai (Gupta 2010). While the premier textile industry of Mumbai employed a large number of migrants, the rise in the number of capital intensive industries did not offer new job opportunities to the local youth. The then demographic profile of Mumbai with 57% of non-Maharashtrian population led Shiv Sena to claim that the natives were neither rich nor did they dominate culturally. In such a context, pleasing the lower and middle-class people of Mumbai, Shiv Sena raised three prominent demands: (i) 80% of all jobs and economic opportunities in Mumbai should be reserved for Maharashtrians, (ii) migrants should be discouraged to come to Mumbai, and (iii) industrial production should be raised so that it may contribute to greater prosperity and creation of additional employment (Gupta 2010: 173). While the industrialists were happy with these demands, the outsiders panicked as Shiv Shainiks started attacking the South Indians for taking away jobs of the natives. Interestingly, the migrants from South India were better represented particularly in the middle-class occupations in Mumbai. Shiv Sena also labelled the dominant left orientated All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) ‘anti-nationals’ for relying on strikes to obstruct production. Several factors have contributed to the popularity of Shiv Sena (Gupta 1996b). First, Bal Thackeray, the leader of Shiv Sena, was a charismatic person. He also had a strong support base among the lower and middle classes. Second, industrial houses and the then Congress led government supported Shiv Sena for opposing militant trade unionism. As a result, Shiv Sena was able to draw concessions for the working class of Mumbai. The promise of immediate employment and wage increase weakened the political base of AITUC. Third, the party went for many violent and coercive actions to realise its demands. A very aggressive stance made Shiv Sena different from others. Finally, there was a kind of political vacuum in the country with the grip of a monolithic Congress getting weak due to factionalism. Shiv Sena, however, flirted with many local political parties including the Congress till the mid-1980s to exert its power. Shiv Sena’s strategy to develop a new Maharashtrian identity among the Marathi speaking youth of Mumbai (and Thane partially) worked. Yet, using the

274  Biswajit Ghosh  same logic, it was unable to influence the youth of cities like Pune and Nagpur. This is because these cities did not share Mumbai’s peculiar demographic profile. Hence, to overcome its shortcomings and to capture power in Maharashtra, Shiv Sena had to change its strategy from the middle of 1970s. Instead of targeting the South Indians, Shiv Sena then asked the Muslims to leave Mumbai. From an avowedly anti-Communist party, Shiv Sena became an anti-Muslim party. It was alleged that Shiv Sena was involved in communal violence that took place on May 7 and 8, 1970, in Bhiwandi. Clearly Shiv Sena was moving away from its earlier stance on Maratha ethos to the ideology of Hindutva. In the mid-1980s, Shiv Sena started supporting the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS) in an effort to expand its base to other parts of India. Declining political influence of the Congress party at that time obviously was a reason for Shiv Sena to act pragmatically. It, therefore, aligned with the BJP in elections and supported a broader Hindu nationalist agenda since then. In competitive politics, Shiv Sena has tried to show its intention of holding power very clearly by mingling its old agenda with the new ones. It declared its intention of opposing any government led by its electoral ally BJP after the 2014 election also. Obviously, its strategic power-sharing partnership with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) did not last for long. After the declaration of election results of Maharashtra state assembly in 2019, Shiv Sena broke ranks with the NDA on the issue of forming a coalition government as BJP then emerged as the single largest party. Being denied the post of chief Minister, Uddhav Thackeray, the leader of Shiv Sena, then made a U-turn and joined its arch-rival Indian National Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) to form a ‘Maha Vikas Aghadi’ government. After forming this government, Shiv Sena left its Hindutva stance immediately and started stressing on secular and nationalist issues of development. In June 2022, the Maha Vikas Aghadi government came to a halt when the majority of Shiv Sena members of legislative assembly (MLA) under the leadership of Eknath Shinde decided to form a coalition government with the BJP. Since the split in the party, both the factions of Shiv Sena started stressing on both regional and national issues. We may conclude that the competitive politics of Shiv Sena has crisscrossed different trajectories of region, ethnicity and nationalism in different contexts. These actions are a clear pointer to the fluidity of identity assertions in contemporary India. BOX 12.2 Nativistic Movements in India

Like Mumbai, Assam also witnessed nativistic movements in the 1970s. In this movement too, the problems faced by ‘sons of the soil’ particularly with respect to job and economic opportunities became the major rallying points. The Assamese speaking people felt threatened first by Bengali domination and then by the increasing numbers of Bangladeshi refugees (Gupta 1996b: 59). Interestingly, this agitation was initiated by the leaders of All Assam

Ethnic Movements  275 Student Union. To some scholars, this was principally a chauvinist movement despite demographic and occupational constraints faced by the Assamese people. But others feel that this was a genuine attempt at self-expression by the Assamese civil society. As compared to the Shiv Sena movement, which became popular in the Mumbai and Thane regions of Maharashtra, the Assam agitation had very strong rural roots along with urban mobilisations. In urban Assam, the issue of Bengali domination was stressed. By comparison, rural Assamese were mobilised on the plea that Muslim migrants from Bangladesh have captured large tracts of agricultural land. This agitation led to large-scale violence and killing of Bengali Muslims, in particular. But as the movement went through five different phases (Baruah 2008), it reflected both ethnic polarisation and accommodation. And when the Asom Gana Parishad came back to power in 1984, its leaders became flexible to establish political stability in Assam. The experience of this movement proves that the career of the nativist movement does change along with changes in socioeconomic features. Nativism in Telangana was expressed in a different way. People of Telangana believed that since the union of the princely state into Andhra Pradesh, Telangana remained neglected, exploited, and backward. The movement can be seen as a fight against the hegemonic domination of Andhra culture and politics. The three major issues among others that influenced this movement were (i) unequal distribution of river water, (ii) discrimination against Telangana in development, and (iii) cultural discrimination. In 2014, Telangana became an independent state. In all nativist movements, people belonging to the middle class are seen playing a decisive role.

Sikh Movement in Punjab

The Sikh movement also began stressing on regional issues of deprivations. Just before independence, the Sikhs of Punjab felt threatened when Pakistan demanded a larger part of Punjab. Some Sikh leaders then felt that their community would be left without any homeland after the partition. The idea of Khalistan (the Sikh homeland), covering the greater Punjab region, was then proposed by some Sikh leaders. But they failed to resist Pakistan’s claim as Muslims were in majority in undivided Punjab. Hence, the Sikhs mostly migrated to the Indian province of Punjab. But this was not a state only for the Sikhs. Being a large state, non-Sikh population (people of current Haryana and Himachal Pradesh) also inhabited the Indian part of Punjab. The Akali Dal, therefore, launched the Punjabi Suba Movement to demand the creation of a Punjabi-majority state in India. The Akali leadership then argued that certain areas of Punjab, inhabited by the Sikhs, should be made autonomous. As the Akalis were then divided into two groups, they came up with conflicting explanations to defend their arguments.

276  Biswajit Ghosh  Thus, the group represented by Sant Fateh Singh stressed on socio-economic reasons. The other group led by Master Tara Singh justified the demand on religious grounds. Ironically, the States Reorganisation Commission, which gave prominence to language for the creation of separate states, rejected their demand on the plea that Punjabi is not a distinct language and both Punjabi and Hindi are descendants of the same stock. Additionally, the Hindus of Punjab who speak in Punjabi did not list it as their mother tongue during Census enumeration. In November 1966, the Government of India finally succumbed to the pressure and separated Haryana and Himachal Pradesh from the state of Punjab. But this could not pacify the Sikh community as boundaries of the three new states became a bone of contention. Punjab also had to share Chandigarh as the state capital with Haryana. Also issues like water sharing with Haryana and economic constraints of the people of Punjab agitated the Sikhs who were in a majority for the first time in the new state. The Sikhs felt deprived and oppressed. The rise of Akali Dal as a strong political opponent of the ruling Congress during the 1970s was linked to the several issues of deprivation of the Sikhs. Demands like (a) relaying of the early morning hymns sang in the Golden Temple in Amritsar on All India Radio, (b) closure of all liquor/meat shops near the Golden Temple, and (c) naming the first train from Amritsar to Delhi as Golden Temple Express were made to gain extra popularity. Akalis also started critiquing the federal structure of governance favouring the Centre. Relying on such a support base, the Akalis along with the coalition partner Janata party came to power in Punjab in 1977. The new government, however, did very little to realise the major demands related to Chandigarh as the capital of Punjab, water sharing from the rivers of Punjab, and inclusion of some areas within Punjab. They only finalised the Anandpur Sahib resolution that reiterated these demands again (Gupta 2003: 14). BOX 12.3 Role of Religion

The role of religion in articulating ethnicity is seen in the case of Kashmir. It was once believed that the Kashmiris are the people who live in the Kashmir Valley. The unique set of beliefs and the composite culture of Kashmir and ethnic identity that had evolved over many centuries came under severe pressure in the mid-1980s with the emergence of secessionist forces. From 1989 to 1990, the nature of Kashmiri ethnic identity started shifting from regional identity to religious identity. The ethno-nationalism in Kashmir appeals only to the Muslims in the Kashmir valley, but not to the Hindus in the city of Jammu or Buddhists in the region of Ladakh. This proves that ethnic groups are often ‘imagined communities’ though historical processes and shared memories often facilitate such formation (Bamotra 2012).

Ethnic Movements  277 In 1980, the Congress came back to power both in Punjab and at the Centre. The Congress was able to make inroads into the Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) and divide the Akalis. They also supported Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, who put the moderate Akalis on the backfoot (Gupta 2003: 15). Punjab then witnessed a new phase of the autonomy movement under the leadership of Bhindranwale. Earlier, the Akalis largely followed constitutional means to organise protest. But now the insurgents challenged the sovereignty of the Indian state to establish Khalistan based on the tenets of Sikh religion. The issue of religious fundamentalism for the first time became a matter of serious concern. Importantly, however, neither the Sikh religious leaders nor the Akalis promoted any form of extremism before 1980 (Singh and Harji 1985). The Punjabi Suba led by Sant Fateh Singh did not prefer stressing on religion in raising socio-economic issues of the Sikhs. Also, the Akali Dal made no reference to Sikh, Khalsa or Panth in its election manifesto in 1962 (Gupta 1996b: 51). According to Jodhka (2001), the rise of a powerful Khalistan movement was an unprecedented development because Punjab was a well-integrated part of the country, there had never been any doubts about the nationalist credentials of the Sikhs, and Punjab had done well economically during the post-independence period. It is, therefore, essential to ask why fundamentalism entered into in Sikh politics. Two types of explanations are put forward to explain the Punjab crisis. The one by the Marxists argue that the roots of the Punjab crisis lie in the social and economic problems of the people, especially in the wake of the green revolution. To them, factors like escalating cost in agriculture, rising unemployment, the crisis of Sikh identity in the context of mounting consumerism and modern values – all provided a fertile ground for the rise of militancy in Punjab. The non-Marxists scholars considered the socio-economic explanation inadequate. To them, the Punjab crisis has been the outcome of the political manipulation of religion and the problems of the people by the politicians. According to Paul Brass and Dipankar Gupta, it had actually been the manipulation of the services of Bhindranwale by Indira Gandhi in the context of changing centre–state relations which gave birth to the militancy in Punjab. BOX 12.4 Khalistani Movement

The Khalistani Movement was led by Bhindranwale. But he never managed to get elected as head of the SGPC though he was supported by the Congress in late 1970s. But after 1980, he put the moderate Akali leaders on the backfoot. He portrayed them as soft and ineffective. While Akalis could do little to stop Bhindranwale, Congress went on arguing that Sikhs in general want another partition. But only a small number of Sikhs supported Bhindranwale. It was only after Operation Blue Star that Bhindranwale became a martyr (Gupta 2003).

278  Biswajit Ghosh  The Punjab case is an excellent example of how the state ethnicised issues. Punjab agitation had centred on some secular demands, like Chandigarh, water redistribution and territorial demarcation. But the Indian central government bottlenecked these issues for quite a long time. Additionally, the Congress controlling the central government has ethnicised these regional issues for partisan ends (Gupta 1996b; Vanaik 1990). The challenge posed by the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) to the dominance of the Congress in Punjab in the 1970s prompted Indira Gandhi to use Sikh religious symbols to mobilise Sikh votes. In the 1980 election to the Punjab Legislative Assembly, Indira Gandhi took the help of Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, a Sikh religious leader to garner Sikh support. This had two consequences. On the one hand, it encouraged religious leaders like Bhindranwale to act independent of the political leaders and become aggressive. With the support of the foreign forces, he was able to rally a large number of the youth and demand a separate Sikh homeland – Khalistan. On the other hand, it created political bitterness among the Sikhs during the seventies, and some other ill-conceived government policies and actions like Operation Blue Star, Delhi riots in 1984, police atrocities on common people, etc. All of these have contributed to the growth of alienation, ethnicity, and extremism in Punjab. With the passage of time, SAD got fragmented, lost its strength and appeal. To overcome the impending crisis, SAD aligned with the BJP. From a politics of anti-centre, Akalis changed their ideology and started cooperating with the Centre. Notwithstanding sporadic electoral success, the party got encircled in questions of non-performance and corruption. The rise of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in 2022 signifies a new brand of politics in Punjab with new issues like free electricity, free medical facilities, controlling drug abuse of youth, protest against three farm laws, and clean corruption-free governance. As a corollary, the issue of Khalistan has little relevance in Punjab now though it is kept alive abroad (Guha 2023). From a position of regional ethnic assertions, the Sikh movement today is encircling around wider national issues. Tribal Insurgency in Tripura

The 19 different tribes of Tripura, like other northeastern tribes, have a long tradition of protest and insurgency. The hilly terrain, international border, past history of insurgency, success of Mizo or Naga revolt, and the geographical concentration of the tribes helped them to do so. In case of Tripura, changing demographic profile of the state due to incessant influx of Bengali refugees from Bangladesh became the rallying point. The tribal indigenous people of Tripura, who constituted 64% of the total population in 1874, were reduced to 31.76% in 2011. This ‘demographic imbalance’ has led to cultural, economic, and political domination of the Bengalis with corresponding pressure on the tribals for survival (Ghosh 2003). The birth of ethno-nationalism in Tripura can be located in the mid-1960s, when the Tripura Upajati Juba Samiti (hereafter TUJS) was formed. TUJS was led by young, educated, and mostly Christian tribal leaders. Incidentally, unlike the traditional tribal leaders of Tripura, these second generation of leaders hailed

Ethnic Movements  279 mostly from middle-class families who received education from reputed academic institutions. TUJS raised issues like land alienation, displacement, marginalisation, exploitation by outside businessmen, and influx of non-tribals in tribal land. It also demanded recognition of tribal (Kokborok) language and adoption of Roman script to expedite tribal literacy. A few decisions of the Congress government in Tripura in late 1960s like reduction in tribal reserve land by 300 sq. miles, declaration of Bengali as the official language, and eviction of tribal peasants for the Gumti Hydroelectric Power Project instigated tribal ethnicity in the state. TUJS, however, could not mobilise tribes for any ethnic movement as the Communists had established a strong hold among them by the middle of 1970s. The state also did not witness any large-scale ethnic violence before 1980. In 1977, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) led government came to power in the state. Lack of popularity of the TUJS among the tribes forced it to reformulate its ‘soft’ policy on ‘foreigner issue’ and encourage the youth to take up arms. The birth of Tripura National Volunteer (TNV) in February 1978 signifies a distinct phase in the history of tribal ethnicity in the state. TNV unleashed a reign of terror and ethnic violence in the state during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The movement became weak after the formation of the Congress-TUJS coalition government and surrender of TNV militants in 1988. Yet, formation and split of several tribal insurgents (like ATTF or NLFT) and political outfits like IPFT continued for a decade despite the formation of Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council under the sixth schedule of the Constitution. After the formation of the BJP–IPFT coalition government in Tripura, tribal militancy subsided for some time. Yet, the aspirations and issues of the tribal youth are now being raised by a new political outfit called Tipra Motha, under the leadership of Pradyot Deb Barman, a member of the Tripuri royal family. His demand for ‘Greater Tipraland’ reflects a new trajectory of the tribal movement as the target is now the central government. Popularity of Tipra Motha among the tribals in the 2023 assembly election also replicates the failure of the state to mitigate the pressing issues of tribal youth in particular. Ethnicity, in Tripura, therefore, cannot be separated from the wider political and economic process facing the country as a whole under the neoliberal regime. BOX 12.5 Inter-tribe conflict

The Kuki-Naga conflict is an important example of such conflict. Large strips of what the Kukis claim to be their “homeland” in the Manipur hills also overlap with what the Nagas consider as Greater Nagaland or Nagalim. As a result, on September 13, 1993, a group of Naga militants massacred around 115 Kuki civilians of this region.

280  Biswajit Ghosh  The Kuki-Meitei rift in Manipur in 2023 illustrates the negative consequences of ethnic violence. In between May 3 and August 31, 2023, 180 people were killed, 70,000 people became homeless, and many women were raped in this tiny northeastern state. Though differences among the Meitei, Kuki, and Nagas on the question of homeland existed for many years, the current Kuki-Meitei rift began when the All Tribal Students Union of Manipur organised a protest march on May 3, 2023 against the misconceived state plan of evicting Kukis, targeting them as drug traffickers, spreading hate messages against them, and allowing ST status to the general Meiteis. The protesters were attacked in an organised way resulting in large scale ethnic violence. Absence of any administration, looting of police arms, and complete loss of constitutional rights of people living in the violent areas for nearly three months made the situation worse. Taking a suo motu cognisance of rape of two Kuki women in public, when the Supreme Court gave ultimatum to both the central and Manipur governments on July 20, 2023, the Indian state jumped into action. By then, the Kukis became extremely worried, as for years, the state apparatus did not help them (and other tribes) and rather labelled them as ‘outsiders’, ‘illegal immigrants’, and ‘poppy cultivators’ (Bose 2023). The Kuki refugees escaping from Myanmar are now called ‘terrorists’. Since the late 1980s, the demand for a Kuki homeland has been strongly voiced. Nagas, however, refrained from joining this movement as their relation with the Kuki became bitter due to ethnic clashes among them in 1992. Though the Nagas started talking against Meitei aggression at a later stage, the possibility of a wider Naga–Kuki unity seems unpredictable because of past history of antagonism. In fact, at several points of history, Meitei Rajas and the British rulers invited Kukis to Manipur to protect them from the Nagas. Even religious affinity (Christianity) could not unify them in the past. Spread of Christianity also failed to unify Meitei and Kuki Christians. These tribes, who mostly migrated from Myanmar and surrounding areas, collectively constitute around 40% of the population of Manipur. They live in the hilly regions comprising a vast land area of Manipur. On the other hand, the Meites, who constitute 53% of the state population in 2022, are mostly Hindus. Meitei Vaishnavism, which had a long history in Manipur, led to the growth of a culture of diversity, tolerance, and synthesis. For long, Manipur rulers could not resolve the antagonism between the plain and hilly people as the latter survived on a subsistence economy and thereby attempted to migrate to the plains. The passing of the Manipur People’s Protection Bill in 2020 justifying the Inner Line Permit system by the Manipur government aggravated tensions as hilly tribes opposed such a law. Instead of providing protection to the tribes under the sixth schedule of the constitution and looking into their issues of exclusion, this law was passed to protect the Meiteis. Additionally, ‘Meitei Hindu nationalism’ was ignited to divert

Ethnic Movements  281 the issues of deprivations, inequality, and failures of the state. The violence has led to deep mistrust, anger, and hate among different communities. The recent violence has also escalated tensions among Meiteis living in Mizoram as a terrorist organisation named Pamra has asked them to leave Mizoram. Amidst reports of Meiteis leaving Mizoram, some Meitei women of Manipur have condemned the act of violence against Kuki women and sought strong punishment for the accused. Those who thought of using ethnic divisions in Manipur (and other parts of Northeast), for petty political gains, should understand the danger of such politics in Northeast India which is the land of 400 cultural communities. The factors that promoted tribal ethnicity and insurgency in Tripura can be grouped into two types of conditions (Ghosh 2003). These are (a) necessary conditions and (b) sufficient conditions. The necessary conditions include several socio-economic factors like demographic compulsions, cultural deprivation, poverty, land alienation and eviction, unemployment, and underdevelopment. The sufficient conditions include factors like an acute sense of discrimination among the group members, emergence of a strong elite leadership, political competition and manipulation, state policies and actions, and easy accessibility to external support. Hence, ethnicity and insurgency in Tripura is not simply a product of socio-economic, cultural, or ideological issues of the tribes. Tribal ethno-nationalism in Tripura has drawn inspiration from political rivalries of mainstream parties and allowed the interests of the elite to dominate the general question of tribal development. As a result, tribal ethnicity could find its language of expression only when necessary conditions were supplemented by sufficient conditions. Interestingly, the ethnic movement in Tripura has passed through five different phases (Ghosh 2003). This experience proves that though there is no direct relationship between ethnicity and insurgency, the latter occurs only when the former fails in its objective to arouse mass consciousness. Summary and Conclusion The discussion above indicates that ethnic movements are deeply influenced by several socio-cultural, economic, and above all political factors in modern times. While certain socio-economic factors of deprivation could provide a ‘social-base’ for ethnic (and many other types of movements) identity formation, they in most cases depend on additional factors like a sharp sense of perceived discrimination among the group members, emergence of a strong elite leadership, political competition and manipulation, state policies and actions, and sometimes foreign support. As all ethnic movements pass through different phases, the fission and fusion of ethnic boundaries make it impulsive for us to treat it as a discursive process with different levels or phases of integration. Recognition of such changing nature of ethnic movements may lead us to argue that ethnic identities are not natural,

282  Biswajit Ghosh  trans-historical, or ‘essential’ entities; they are rather created and marked by the production of economic, political, symbolic, and positional categories. As concepts like ethnicity, identity, region, and nation are ‘multivalent’ (Skrentny 2020) and ‘categories of practice’ (Bourdieu 1972), they have striking similarities. Hence, one cannot analyse any of these concepts in isolation. The project of boundary formation thus rests on both discursive and structural conditions. The process as such is not totally random, but is linked fundamentally to forms of available resources like economic, cultural, political, social, and symbolic ‘capital’. Consequently, ethnic movements do not necessarily constitute a threat to the nation state. Many sub-national identities based on language, region, religion, or tribal identity are not necessarily opposed to the national identity. Again, movements seeking separate identity and distinctiveness are not always parochial and opposed to modernity. This is because ethnic movements, as in the case of Jharkhand or Telangana, may work as organs of civil society to strengthen democracy. Hence, these movements should be viewed from a wider and historical perspective. Additionally, we should note that many of our identities are only contextually relevant. As identities are variable and as ethnic movements change their colour and shape over time, there is nothing inevitable about ethnic conflagrations (Ghosh 2016). This is because ethnicity is neither static nor a pre-determined object, but a situational construct. It is based on some real life experience of deprivation, lack of development and denial of rights; yet, it is manipulated and mobilised by elites for group-interest and is sustained by political rivalries and state actions. Questions 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Does the existence of ethnic groups ensure the rise of ethnicity? How does the state ethicise issues? Do ethnic boundaries remain stable over time? How do the instrumentalists explain the rise of ethnicity? How does ethnicity influence politics? What do the experiences of ethnic movements in India suggest? Elucidate.

Notes 1 The term identity refers to a state of being identical or unique as compared to others. 2 The term essentialism is used to consider certain aspects of culture as fix or essential. 3 Majoritarianism refers to the process of forcing the members of minority groups to accept or assimilate with the culture of the dominant majority.

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284  Biswajit Ghosh  Kothari, Rajani. 1988. State against Democracy: In Search of Humane Governance. New Delhi: Ajanta. ———. 1990. Rethinking Development – In Search of Humane Alternative. New Delhi: Ajanta Publications. Kumar, Sanjay and Praveen Rai. 2009. ‘Shrinking Political Space for the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha’. Economic and Political Weekly, 44 (33): 24–26. Madan, T. N. 1993. ‘Secularism in Its Place’. In Atal, Yogesh (Ed.), Understanding Indian Society (546–562). New Delhi: Har Anand Pub. McKay, James. 1982. ‘An Exploratory Synthesis of Primordial and Mobilizationist Approaches to Ethnic Phenomena’. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 5 (4): 395–420. Mukherji, P. N. 1994. ‘The Indian State in Crisis? Nationalism and Nation Building’. Sociological Bulletin, 43 (1): 21–49. Oommen, T. K. 1995. ‘Contested Boundaries and Emerging Pluralism’. Sociological Bulletin, 44 (2): 141–158. ——— 1997. ‘Social Movement and State Response: The Indian Situation’. In Shah, A. M., et al. (Eds.), Social Structure and Change, Vol. 4, Development and Ethnicity (134– 162). New Delhi: Sage. Phadnis, U. 1989. Ethnicity and Nation-Building in South Asia. New Delhi: Sage. Poppi, Cesare. 1997. ‘Wider Horizons with Larger Details – Subjectivity, Ethnicity and Globalization’. In Scott, Alan (Ed.), The Limits of Globalization – Cases and Arguments (284–305). London: Routledge. Prakash, Arun. 1998. The Politics of Development and Identity in the Jharkhand Region of Bihar (India), 1951–91. Ph. D Thesis. School of Oriental and African Studies. University of London. Rattansi, A. 1994. ‘Western’ Racisms, Ethnicities and Identities in Post-Modern Frame’. In Rattansi, A. and Westwood, S. (Eds.), Racism, Modernity, and Identity on the Western Front (15-86). Cambridge: Polity Press. Rostow, W. 1960. The Stages of Economic Growth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sachchidananda. 1997. ‘Emergence and Growth of Tribal Ethnicity in Chotanagpur’. In Shah, A. M., et al. (Ed.), Social Structure and Change [Volume 4 on Development and Ethnicity] (234–247). New Delhi: Sage Publications. Sharma, S. L. 1990. ‘The Salience of Ethnicity in Modernization: Evidence from India’. Sociological Bulletin, 39 (1–2): 33–51. Singh, K. S. 1977. ‘From Ethnicity to Regionalism: A Study in Tribal Politics and Movements in Chotanagpur District’. In Malik, S. C. (Ed.), Protest and Reform. Simla: Indian Institute of Advanced Studies. Singh, Patwant, and Harji Malik. 1985. Punjab: The Fatal Miscalculation. New Delhi: Patwant Singh. Skrentny, J. D. 2020. ‘Theorizing Region’. Sociological Theory, 38 (1): 1–15. Smelser, Neil J. 1963. Theory of Collective Behaviour. New York: Free Press. Sollors, Werner. 1989. The Invention of Ethnicity. New York: Oxford University Press. Steinberg, Stephen. 1989. The Ethnic Myth: Race, Ethnicity, and Class in America. Boston: Beacon Press. Sumner, W. G. 1906. Folkways: A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals. Boston: Ginn and Company. Touraine, Alan. 1977. The Self-Production of Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Vanaik, Achin. 1990. The Painful Transition: Bourgeois Democracy in India. London: Verso. Weber, Max. 1922/1978. Economy and Society. New York: Bedminster Press.

13 Intractable Conflicts Environmental Struggles in Neoliberal India Shoma Choudhury Lahiri

Learning Objectives After reading this chapter, you will be able to

• Have an overview of the various types of environmental movements in India;

• Learn about the variety and multiplicity of forms of protests; • Understand the shifts in the environmental movements since the 1970s; • Learn from contemporary examples the impact of the withdrawal of the state on communities;

• Comprehend the impact of globalisation on environmental movements.

Introduction We live in an epoch where human beings have been, for some time now, altering several geological processes on Earth quite irrevocably, pushing it towards an era which would be marked by human domination over nature. In this Anthropocene era, which is slated to have tentatively begun from the mid-20th century onwards, assaults on the environment have increased manifold, affecting most acutely those who are dependent on the environment for their lives and livelihood, reducing them to a life of precarity. Environmental movements have become more numerous, persistent, and widespread, and interestingly enough they have come to reflect certain deep-seated conflicts that societies face today over resources, lifestyles, choices, values, and alternatives. A singular trajectory for the environmental movements in India is difficult to imagine. In fact, the environmental discourse is constituted of multi-sited events, a range of practices, political and institutional contexts, a diversity of actors, and frameworks of thinking and intervention (Brara 2005; Sheth 2014). The situation gets additionally complicated when ‘actions deemed as environmental cross cut parallel forms of collective actions in the field of ethnicity, gender, regional autonomy, labour and human rights’ (Dwivedi 2001: 12). DOI:  10.4324/9781003481744-15

286  Shoma Choudhury Lahiri Terming movements as ‘environmental’ is not arbitrary and has generated a discussion in socio-environmental writings. Baviskar (2005: 161) has argued that ‘the practice of terming movements as environmental is closely related to the nature of capital that a movement confronts and to the intervention of the metropolitan audiences’. Not all movements attain the same kind of visibility or receive attention from multiple actors and groups or even the state. Questions of ecological sustainability or environmental values have to be forged and interests may not always resonate with each other. In a study of the Narmada Bachao Andolan, Baviskar (1998) shows how the interests of the activists in sustainable development did not always strike a chord with the Adivasis. Local discontentment and protests by the oustees over the acquisition of land for the project by the state received a fillip as environmental activists motivated by the idea of sustainable development joined the movement and under the leadership of Medha Patkar organised a common dissent against the state. However, as Brara (2005) reminds us, the demands of the impoverished inhabitants were not fulfilled either by the environmentalist agenda of sustainable development or by the actions of the Adivasi leaders who gained political capital in the articulation of their interests as Adivasis. Being termed as an environmental movement can be both enabling and disabling in different ways. Although the Chipko movement has internationalised the cause of forest conservation, the afterlife of the movement has shown how in the Uttarakhand region, the tag of the environmental movement had backfired, leading the state to centralise forest management activities, instead of decentralising it. All attempts at development work, like setting up schools, bridges, roads, and hospitals, were stalled in the region in the name of the Forest Conservation Act of 1980. It was only by petitioning the Central Government for clearance that development activities could be undertaken and this caused enormous delays (Guha 2013: 205). Since then, the region has seen the demand for regional autonomy gain ground, ultimately culminating in the formation of a new state, Uttarakhand, in 2000. In the era of globalisation, however, environmental movements have not only mobilised around unequal use or access to resources, but they are also against all kinds of commodification – of work, lifeworld, and life processes. This chapter narrates the story of the impact of globalisation on environmental movements in India. Drawing on some of the struggles around the environment in the decade of the 1990s and after, it attempts to argue that the existence of multiple forms of environmentalism may suggest an increase in general environmental awareness among people, but the state renders these initiatives insignificant by its indifference, non-recognition, and repeated violations. This causes a strange kind of ambivalence. Environmental movements reflect the aggressive instincts that lie at the heart of state-supported capitalist expansion. In the years after independence, the state used to indulge in a process of ‘environmental managerialism’, caught between its role as purveyors of economic development on the one hand and environmental regulator on the other (Hannigan 2008). The neoliberal state has given up its pretense of performing the latter role and has turned aggressor against its own people as well as the environment. The hastiness of its moves towards weakening existing

Intractable Conflicts  287 institutions and its failure to establish credible regulations has raised the risk of harm to the environment and the poor, manifold (Ruparelia 2015). Environmental movements today thus experience a precarity as they are peripheralised and suppressed by the predatory impulses of the nation state, which acts to further the interests of private corporations. This is reflected in the rampant violation and dilution of environmental protection laws by the state itself, as evident since 2014 and even during the pandemic. Though there appears to be a progressive convergence of environmental concerns in multiple social movements, the emergence of such concerns often has to be negotiated amidst contradictory and conflicting demands of different stakeholders. This is demonstrated through examples of how the Forest Rights Act has played itself out. The chapter makes a plea that the frame through which environmental struggles need to be viewed and understood requires change. An Overview Environmental movements in India came to be recognised in the mid-1970s, though struggles around forest and water resources made their presence felt during colonial times. Peasants, tribals, and forest dwellers rose up in rebellion at different times against the colonial state over the acquisition of their land and the subsequent curtailment of their customary rights. Although the colonial forest policy led to several forest-based struggles, it was influential in setting the tone for resource extraction even after independence. In the post-independence period too, there have been many conflicts over dams, forests, pollution, mining, and tourism, which have highlighted the fact that in most cases development has not really benefited those who have had to give up their resources in the name of development. In fact, such people continue to remain marginal as before, as their customary rights over resources are taken away, the basis of their livelihood is gradually lost, and their knowledge and skills are gradually made redundant in a modernising society. The Chipko movement in the Garhwal Himalayas region in the early 1970s is considered to be one of the earliest among the environmental movements in independent India, which mobilised the hill people against commercial forestry and the felling of trees in the region. Despite multiple appropriations, opposition, and allegations of exhaustion, the Chipko movement functions as ‘a myth of origin’; it allowed the crystallisation of opposition to a resource-intensive, socially, and environmentally destructive form of development, making it ‘possible to talk of alternative ways of relating to the poor and to nature’ (Guha 2013: 200). In that sense, it has a distinctive place as the originator of environmental concern in contemporary India. The Chipko movement inspired many others in the subsequent decades.1 As India embarked on attempts to industrialise itself after independence, the demands for big dams and heavy industries caused enormous damage to the natural resources, displacement, and progressive impoverishment of the communities that were dependent on them. The exercise of the right of ‘eminent domain’ by

288  Shoma Choudhury Lahiri the state led to a series of protests in defence of the rights of the communities over natural resources which constituted the basis of their livelihood and survival. From the late 1970s onwards, there were successful agitations by the tribals, welfare agencies, local voluntary organisations, and people’s science movements over the submergence of forests. Agitations against the Silent Valley hydroelectric project in Kerala, in Bodhghat, Chhattisgarh, and Inchampalli, Andhra Pradesh, over damming the river Indravati and the Koel–Karo project in Jharkhand stand as testimony. The social consequences of river valley projects also evoked a huge popular response. According to an estimate provided by Gadgil and Guha (1994: 8), till about the mid-1990s in independent India, around 115 lakh people had been displaced due to the building of dams without any thought of compensation and rehabilitation. Therefore, movements of dam-displaced people have characterised the political landscape for the past 30 years. In fact, the Narmada Bachao Andolan became an archetype in that it was the first of its kind to question the nature of rehabilitation and resettlement offered by the state. It could reflect local apprehensions and rally international opinion around the issue, leading the World Bank to review the state’s proposal and withdraw its funding for the project. Subsequent environmental movements would henceforth raise the issue of rehabilitation of the oustees, forcing the state to think of the dam-displaced people at the planning stage itself. Further, although the displacement caused by dams was said to be for the ‘greater good’, the Indian villagers today are reluctant to make way without resistance. Mining caused a lot of misery and conflicts in different parts of the country, leading to considerable environmental degradation, deforestation, drying up of water sources, and laying waste through erosion and debris. Opposition to limestone quarrying in the Doon Valley from retired executives and other residents, who were supported by Mussoorie hotel owners anxious about tourist inflow due to environmental degradation, and the villagers directly affected by mining, came together to file a public interest litigation which resulted in a landmark judgment by the Supreme Court, which ordered the closure of most of the limestone mines in the region. Further, sustained struggles by villagers involving women, affected by soapstone and magnesite mining in the Almora and Pithoragarh districts of the Kumaon region in the 1980s, led to the closure of these mines. Subsequently, the villagers undertook land reclamation in the affected areas through afforestation (Gadgil and Guha 1995). In recent times, internationalisation of protests and resistance to bauxite mining in the Niyamgiri hills in Orissa (now Odisha) and restrictions imposed on Vedanta by the environment protection laws offers us an idea about the high stakes in India’s natural resources. Ecological struggles foreground the question, ‘Who should sacrifice for whose benefit?’ In fact, these struggles have acted as a medium through which those displaced from their habitats and means of livelihood due to large projects stake their claim on these natural resources as the first beneficiaries. This would enable interrogation on the idea of what constitutes ‘public purpose’ or ‘public good’ in such projects (Sangvai 2007). Further, these struggles also questioned the nature of development and the costs incurred in the process. They foregrounded the rights of the depressed and the underprivileged people as human beings and citizens to

Intractable Conflicts  289 have access to a good quality of life, ensured by the presence of forests, tree cover, unpolluted water resources, and pure air. A distinctive aspect of these struggles is the variety in the strategies of protests used, which have largely been of a non-violent nature, ‘not only as a matter of strategy, but almost as a matter of principle’ (ibid.: 116). Spontaneous acts like the hugging of trees by women in the Chipko movement in an attempt to safeguard them from being felled have been hailed in the environmental discourse. Mass actions such as demonstrations, dharnas, indefinite hunger strikes, and village-level actions have been a part of environmental protests. In the early years of the struggle against the Sardar Sarovar Dam, Padayatras (long marches on foot) through villages were used by its leaders for conscientisation and mobilisation. Sunderlal Bahuguna’s hunger strike as a mark of protest with the intention to pressurise the government to stop construction of the Tehri Dam during the decade of the 1980s is quite well known. Appeal to the prime minister by sending postcards seeking his intervention to stop construction of the dam over the Attappady River in Silent Valley in Kerala was another way of participation by common people agitating against the Silent Valley hydroelectric project in the 1970s–1980s. In addition, the use of litigation to stop ecologically degrading activities has also been an act that has given the agitating people a brief reprieve in many of these movements. The role of the judiciary in ecological movements in fact awaits recognition. The oustees of the Omkareshwar Dam on the Narmada River in Madhya Pradesh adopted a unique method of protest called Jal Satyagraha against the proposed decision to increase the height of the dam and a complete disregard of the promised rehabilitation policy by the authorities. These oustees were forced to resettle in stony sites and in forest villages, where no employment was available, and neither the construction of houses was possible. The poor, weak, and dispossessed have always favoured the non-violent mass action as an effective political instrument. They have also gradually realised that non-violent mass actions would be effective if accompanied by simultaneous action on other fronts. Herein support from the media and other environmental groups, political parties, and international stakeholders is found beneficial to both publicise and put pressure on the government. Of Many Environmentalisms Environmental struggles in India have largely been characterised as the ‘environmentalism of the poor’ (Guha 2014: 138) as they combine ecological concerns along with the class politics of the poor and the dispossessed. It was believed that contrary to demanding and working towards improvement in the quality of life in a post-material society as articulated by environmental movements in the West, those in India have largely been about securing lives and livelihood and access to resources. This goes against the widely prevalent notion that environmental politics in India was devoid of a class framework. Moreover, such a typology is inadequate today. The terrain of environmental protests has undergone a change. The typology has limited analytical utility because environmentalism in India draws

290  Shoma Choudhury Lahiri upon a range of sensibilities, ideologies, and negotiations between various groups and interests. Since the 1990s, an interesting aspect of environmentalism in India has not only been the variety and multiplicity of its forms but also the fact that ‘they emerge through collaborations with middle class actors and audiences’ (Baviskar 2005: 161). The importance of the middle classes in India lies in the fact that they are well represented in different sectors such as the government, scientific establishment, media, the non-governmental sector, and the legal sector, and they exercise ‘a disproportionate influence in shaping the terms of the public debate on environmental issues’ (Mawdsley 2004: 81). Further, in recent years, the rise of urban environmental problems in the wake of the transformation of cities has brought the middle classes to the forefront, primarily over conflicts pertaining to urban citizenship, the use of environmental knowledge, and so on (Zimmer and Cornea 2016). The middle classes have been involved in a host of different ways in raising issues pertaining to safeguarding the environment. Their activism has ranged from providing leadership and expertise to filing public interest litigations in the name of ‘public interest’, to being inordinately anxious about managing waste in the cities that emerges as a result of their own consumption, and to even expressing environmental vigilantism in certain extreme cases. Amita Baviskar (2011) terms this ‘bourgeoisie environmentalism’ and finds it contradictory in nature. She finds that activism by certain sections of the middle class in the cities, for example, in Delhi before the 2010 Commonwealth Games, consisted of regulating and controlling the access to streets of Delhi with the help of the courts, in the name of preserving hygiene, cleanliness, and order. Thus, cows and cycle rickshaws posed a threat to their civic sensibilities. Framing the problem in the name of ‘public interest’, such sensibilities are nurtured by a class who voice civic and ecological concern but choose to disregard the very same by their intensive consumption and ownership patterns. Again, in a recent study on urban conservation, Baviskar (2018) shows how the concern for wilderness conservation has led to the domestication of the northern part of the Delhi Ridge by a certain set of urban publics, who while posing a challenge to the developers also effectively manage to keep the poor labouring classes out, restricting them from getting access to their daily needs of firewood and grass. Being largely promoted by self-interest, such forms of environmentalism often turn out to be exclusionary and disadvantageous for the poor. Environmental activism or knowledge cannot be considered benign as there have been different ideological strands within the movement. It is through the difficult negotiation of these within, that movements forge their identities; though these identities are not static, they change over time. While ‘red’ and ‘green’ concerns have jostled for attention, in recent years there has also been an ideological convergence of the green and the saffron in many instances, though it is still ‘extremely diverse and diffuse’. For example, opposition to the Tehri Dam in the Uttarakhand region by Sunderlal Bahuguna and his associates was articulated in a language which fused together nature, religion, and the nation. The question was not only about the inundation of forest and farmland or displacement of about 100 odd villages and resettlement

Intractable Conflicts  291 issues which generally arose due to the construction of large dams; here, environmentalists in the 1990s also ‘used a religious idiom of how a holy river was being desecrated by development intervention’ (Sethi 2001). The anti-Tehri Dam agitators felt that using a Hindu religious platform would not only widen the base of the protest but also strengthen the case against the dam. Bahuguna, in his environmental discourses, emphasised ‘how water and forests are truly necessary for a safe, secure nation, free from outside threats’. This is reiterated in the imagination of the anti-dam activists who affirm that the preservation of a ‘truly Indian landscape’ was central to national unity and integrity (Sharma 2002). Similarly, in the case of the Vrindavan Forest Revival Project (later called the Vrindavan Conservation Project) in Uttar Pradesh, funded by the World Wide Fund for Nature, in the early 1990s, environmental and religious organisations came together to argue for the preservation of a sacred geography not only through tree planting and improvements in the sewerage system but also by mobilising the sentiments of the Hindus around Krishna Janmabhoomi, in an attempt to gain support for the cause of the environment. Thus, various environmental movements and organisations have reflected political shades which, according to Mukul Sharma (2017), signal a saffronising of the green. Dalit environmental visions, largely gleaned from the writings of Phule, Ambedkar, and a few others, have been hailed as a form of environmental consciousness that has deep roots in everyday life. Although articulated in recent years, studies (Ilaiah 2009; Sharma 2002) claim that ‘Dalits have practised environmentalism long before the birth of a formal modern environmental movement’ (ibid.: 62). The Dalit relationship with the environment is often mediated through caste in its relationship with land and is found in the songs, poems, stories, and other writings of Dalit writers, activists and reformers, and poets. ‘Issues of labour, space, past memory, sacrifice, bondage and differential access to nature and its resources’ find a place in the ecological insights of Dalits (Sharma 2017: 62). Offering a critique of eco-casteism2 which provides an ecological justification to caste hierarchy, the ecological sensibility among Dalits draws on their participation in the natural world and reflects experiences of conflict, inequities in access to resources, and in socio-economic power, painful caste histories of exploitation and subjugation, and is thus deeply embedded in emotions around life and labour. In fact, it is also alleged that the emerging Dalit assertiveness through these mobilisations could be seen as a way of forging community solidarity as well as ensuring control over natural resources. Myriad forms of engagement with environmental issues in recent times may suggest that environmental consciousness and activism may have increased at large. But ironically, environmental concerns and conflicts still remain peripheral to the concerns of the state and even outside the mainstream civil society debates. Environmental conflicts and violations causing health hazards, deaths, or reduction in the quality of life never become election issues; no political party ever brings it to public attention. When such a crisis arose, as we saw a few months ago in the latter half of 2017, in Delhi, over severe environmental pollution, there were political squabbles and apportioning of blame, but the interface among civil society,

292  Shoma Choudhury Lahiri political elites, scientific experts, farmers (who were being blamed for causing pollution), and representatives of the state who are policymakers was missing. As a result, the state and civil society organisations remain unprepared to meet such challenges if they were to arise again. Box 13.1 An Example of Poor Concern for Environment

Environmental concerns are also often regionally shaped and articulated. For example, the state of West Bengal has not seen any significant mobilisation around the issue of the environment, historically. Land-based movements which sought changes in the agrarian social structure and predominantly articulated the issue of land reforms, the right to cultivate and secure access to produce gained visibility and political prominence as they were closely linked to the survival of the people. Environmental concerns were never a cause for the organised Left political parties who were at the helm of the state for many years and who looked at the cause with suspicion. Conflicts over ponds and water bodies and protests against cutting down trees, overuse and gradual misuse of wetlands, mobilisations around pollution, citizens’ initiatives over saving a river, and so on, were localised as being of low intensity and intermittent in nature. Although these concerns found a space in the vernacular context and literature, they often needed to be teased out to understand the different nuances of environmental concern in the region.

Globalisation and the Precarity of Social Movements The decade following globalisation witnessed a gradual incursion of multinational corporations ready to extract benefits out of the resources from different regions of our country. As federal states signed memorandums of understanding in the name of development, willing to barter away the natural resources on which the people were dependent, without their consent, there was an upsurge of people’s movements in the countryside. Communities have been resisting the regimes of exploitation which the latter have found difficult to respect. Instead of carving out a fair deal for its inhabitants, the state not only withdrew from its responsibility towards its citizens, but it also gave priority and precedence to the needs of the corporations, throwing the full force of its machinery to suppress the movements and secure the interests of the latter. The POSCO steel plant, a 55,000 crore project with a proposed turnover of 1.2 crore tonnes per annum of steel, to be built by the Korean Pohang Steel Company, was given clearance by Jairam Ramesh, Minister of Environment and Forests, in 2011. The mega steel plant, hailed as the country’s largest foreign direct investment project, and hence of ‘strategic significance’, could override all concerns of

Intractable Conflicts  293 the local people as well as all other environmental concerns that had been raised since the memorandum of understanding was signed between the Government of Orissa and POSCO in 2005. A protracted struggle from 2005 onwards for over a decade finally led to the company’s withdrawal in 2017, though it left the local economy and social solidarity in shambles. Committees set up by the government to assess the nature of social and environmental impact had found that land acquisition for the project would lead to gross infringement of people’s rights over forests. Further, the building of a captive port at the mouth of the Jatadhari River to source iron ore from Khandadhar mountain would adversely affect the livelihoods of about 20,000–22,000 people from the fishing community and violate the Coastal Act. The state had even agreed to allow POSCO to mine the iron ore directly rather than buy iron from the local market for their production, although this would result in substantial losses for the state (Das 2005: 4680). The state government was also obliged to provide POSCO 12,000 crore litres of water from the Mahanadi, which was bound to cause scarcity for farmers on the seaside as well as for the residents of Bhubaneswar and Cuttack. But the state government thought that environmental clearances were minor irritants and could be ‘managed’. Due to the secrecy, which is associated with the terms of the agreement, usually well-guarded by the state as well as by the company, an independent assessment of their impact was practically impossible. In the area that had been targeted for the project, people’s dependence on land and on forests was manifold. They had in fact depended on them for generations, irrespective of whether they had a record of it or not. The state had acquired 4,000 acres of land for the project, of which only 3,000 acres would be required and this was largely forested land. The land acquired was rich, fertile, and alluvial and sustained the cultivation of paddy and different vegetables. There was a local economy of prosperous betel vines (paan) and cashew nuts; local people depended on the forests for saag, mushrooms, and so on. ‘The battle was thus between the steel of POSCO and the dhaana, mina and paana (paddy, fish and betel) of the people’ (Padhi and Nigam 2017: 34). The Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS), which led the agitation, adopted multiple means of peaceful protests in a democracy such as dharnas, satyagraha, Padayatras, sending memorandums to different authorities, holding rallies and demonstrations, and meeting different levels of authority, even the chief minister, to demand their constitutional rights, urging him to implement the law of the land. But the state machinery retaliated in manifold ways to suppress the people’s movement in the region from non-recognition to people’s agitations, to fabrication of information about environmental impact assessment as well as about the actual displacement of people in order to carry out land acquisition, to deployment of armed police, flag marches, intimidation of villagers, criminalising peaceful protests, shooting rubber pellets, arrests, and jail terms, to even killing some of the protesting people (see EPW 2010; Padhi and Nigam 2017). Not being able to make much headway, the company decided to withdraw its operations from Orissa in 2017. Although the exit of POSCO is being hailed as

294  Shoma Choudhury Lahiri a victory for small farmers, forest dwellers, and fisherfolk, ‘it has been a pyrrhic victory’ (ibid.: 33), secured at a huge cost. The economic ruin of the local communities, the fractures created between people, incarceration, litigation, and physical brutality by the state will take many years to heal. Criminal charges and warrants against thousands of people who participated in the movement still remain, restricting their access to healthcare and other needs, as they live with the fear of arrest. Further, the state has refused to give back the land that it had acquired for the project to the people, and with the help of Odisha Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation, the fencing of the land to create a land bank has begun (Sarkar 2017). The PPSS has vowed to continue its multipronged fight to sensitise the state apparatus and ensure that people’s lands are restored and criminal charges dropped against the supporters of the agitation. Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu was in the news due to the massacre of 14 persons during a protest against Vedanta’s decision to double the capacity of its copper smelting plant. The existing plant, Sterlite Copper, an Indian subsidiary of Vedanta, a UK-based mining and metals conglomerate, which had started its operations in 1997, was responsible for slowly poisoning the water, land, and air in the region. The people of the area have peacefully protested since the mid-1990s against the setting up of a hazardous plant in their area whose polluting effects apparently extended to several kilometres from the source. The recent protests started after the company decided to build another copper smelter that would double the total production of copper from 400,000 tonnes to 800,000 tonnes a year, making it the second largest in the world. Reports say that the protests were spearheaded by the residents of Kumarettiyapuram village, located within 200 m off the proposed plant (see Sofia 2018; Philipose 2018). The existing plant, situated within 25 km off the Gulf of Mannar, poses risks in a region which is known for being one of the richest biodiversity hotspots in Asia according to environmentalists. In fact, it has also been expressed that the installation of such a hazardous plant in a highly populated and ecologically fragile region violated all environmental norms. Preliminary news reports mention that scientific surveys have also shown a high concentration of copper, lead, cadmium, arsenic, chlorides, and fluorides in groundwater samples collected from the neighbourhood. Similarly, references to epidemiological studies in newspaper reports reveal the prevalence of respiratory tract infections among people in the region, caused by the presence of harmful gases and particulate matter in the lower atmosphere, menstrual disorders among women, instances of hospitalisation due to poisonous gas leaks, and the prevalence of cases of cancer in households in Pattaramapetti village in the region (see Rejimon 2018). In allowing such companies to come up, the state made several compromises. It is complicit with the multinational corporations in creating a situation whose end is a violent one. Despite the knowledge that the impact of copper production, smelting, and refining industry would be a hazardous endeavour, it did not deter the state authorities from inviting Vedanta to set up shop in Tamil Nadu. In order to accommodate private capital, in the words of one of its leaders who is on the run, the Tamil Nadu government on request from Vedanta reduced the mandatory

Intractable Conflicts  295 width of the green belt around the Sterlite company from 250 m to 25 m, though this constituted a flagrant violation of the Coastal Act. These protests were neither new nor sudden. But since the company is a major contributor to the coffers of political parties, none of the political parties really supported the people’s cause against Vedanta. The villagers protesting against the plant had gone for a peaceful sit-in at the collectorate, but the reprisal was severe. The decision to open fire, infiltrate, and target the leaders of the protest as an attempt to bring the people’s movement under control was a way of ‘creating an ecology of fear where every citizen is suspect by definition’ (Visvanathan 2018). Instead of facing a community in a democratic manner, the government created the myth of outsiders as anti-socials, hunting down the leaders of the movement to disempower and stifle its edge. Thus, ‘as a fable the events at Thoothukudi threaten the very fabric of democracy’ (ibid.). Neither the anti-POSCO agitation nor the people’s protests against Vedanta at Thoothukudi have been termed as environmental movements, but they have deep ecological implications. Hence, they deserve attention. These struggles show us that environmental issues are not mere externalities as they are often described in development literature; in fact, the very basis of life is threatened when the environment around it is affected. The experience of globalisation has shown us that the nature of economic growth pursued by multinational companies and financial institutions in collusion with political parties and security forces threaten our collective existence. Environmental movements, like all other people’s movements, experience similar threats of brutal suppression and precarity, as state governments go to any length and act as spokesmen of the corporate capital. Another aspect of the anti-POSCO agitation is instructive in that it indirectly supports the claims made by Amita Baviskar (2005) that environmental movements have been more effective when they confront large capital and financial institutions, like the World Bank, than smaller, more dispersed capitalist forces, because they have to confront the pressures of metropolitan organisations who wield an influence in the national economy. It may be alleged that the long struggle of the PPSS against POSCO continued because it did not receive the kind of international attention that a similar movement among the Dongria Kondhs in the Niyamgiri region did. With the help of its interlocutors, the latter could draw the attention of some of the leaders at the national level and the international investors to the destruction, dispossession, and human rights violations that would result if the project was allowed, leading to a withdrawal of their support. In fact, one of the interlocutors in the Niyamgiri movement, Felix Padel, admitted that several blind spots remain in the way in which international non-governmental organisations choose to support one cause over another (Chandra and Taghioff 2016). However, these struggles have a ripple effect. The PPSS, which has been hailed as a successful village-level movement, can inspire Thoothukudi to keep up its struggle, even without enlisting the support of international agencies. The struggle has to be multipronged and has to be waged at many levels. In this way, the fight may be a prolonged one, but sharing information and knowledge about strategies may eventually ensure that the travails of people in Thoothukudi are addressed.

296  Shoma Choudhury Lahiri Thus, what these protests reaffirm is that ‘the environmental and ecological struggle is against commodification of human and non-human nature that makes our life-world’ (Savyasachi and Ravi Kumar 2014: 4). Diluting Laws, Criminalising Dissent

Since 2014, a significant change that is witnessed in the environmental arena is the progressive dilution of environmental protection laws which were institutionalised and expanded in India since the 1980s. These were aimed at recognising the ‘environment’ as an arena of concerted intervention, documenting environmental degradation, and was also aimed at safeguarding the civic and environmental rights of the people dependent on nature. It should be acknowledged that there were attempts at weakening the laws before. In fact, it is said that the previous UPA government’s record on environmental protection was unimpressive, but the initiatives of the environmental activists managed to prevent it from flagrant violations of existing norms. However, the turn towards economic growth at the cost of the environment has accelerated manifold with the advent of the Modi government and is pursued with urgency as never before. The attempts to conserve India’s forests tell us a story of multiple negotiations with the state. From the colonial mindset in thinking of the country’s forests as a form of economic resource, the idea gave way in 1988 to an understanding that the forests were ‘a repository of biodiversity, protected soil cover and water resources’, acknowledging a role for the forest-dwelling communities in protecting forest cover. In 2006, the progressive Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act was enacted, which cemented the rights of the forest-dwelling communities. The far-reaching impact of this piece of legislation was felt when its provisions were invoked by the Dongria Kondhs at Niyamgiri hills in Odisha to resist bauxite mining in the region. In November 2016, the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government brought in two amendments to the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of the Forest Rights) Act, 2006, which would enable the acquisition of tribal land for ‘development’ purposes. There were vociferous protests by tribal communities, following which the government announced that it was withdrawing the two bills (Sundar 2018). The Mundas and Oraons, who are at the forefront of the Pathalgaadi rebellion, feel aggrieved at the gradual dilution of the law by the state, making way for the takeover of tribal land by the outsiders and land sharks (Tewary 2018). The draft Forest Policy of 2018, however, goes back to looking at the forests as an economic resource and expresses concern at the low productivity of forests. It has suggested a role for public–private partnerships to regenerate degraded forests, except that this would lead to the forest-dwelling and nomadic tribes being deprived and displaced from their common land. Apparently, this is being offered as a justification to revive the timber-based industries that have to import wood rather than source them locally. ‘The government cares less for India’s forests and more for the forest based industries’ (see EPW 2018: 8). Further, according to an

Intractable Conflicts  297 RTI filed in 2013 by two environmental lawyers, it is revealed that ‘135 hectares of forest lands are lost every day to developmental projects like dams, mines and road building’ (see EPW 2018: 8). Under the Green India Mission launched in 2014, the government has been promoting large plantation programmes. The target is to raise five million hectares of new green cover by 2024. But no distinction is made between forests and plantations. Under this mission, thousands of hectares of agricultural lands have been taken over by private companies in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha, and Chhattisgarh for raising plantations. In fact, the legal rights to forests are undermined in different ways by the use of existing provisions like the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act 2016, which seeks to create ‘new’ forests in order to offset the loss of forests elsewhere. However, many of these newly afforested areas are plantations of non-indigenous, commercial species which have considerable social and ecological costs. Local communities who are directly affected are hardly consulted in the process. It is argued that forest governance under Modi has followed a path of authoritarian populism, realised through centralised top-down processes of implementing policies, re-centralisation of power in the hands of the state, and an erosion of social, political, and ecological rights of marginalised groups through violent evictions or exclusions (Dutta and Nielsen 2021: 75). Under the cover of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government in 2020 amended the Environmental Impact Assessment Act (henceforth EIA), which had been in operation in India since 1994. Though there were several problems with the EIA, in that it provided approvals to almost all the projects, on fulfilling certain conditions like taking up afforestation and setting up health camps to name a few (Menon et al. 2020), it did act as a platform for affected communities who would repeatedly bring evidence of violations to the notice of the regulatory body and to the Environment Ministry. In some cases, regulatory bodies would be compelled to undertake joint inspections along with the project-affected communities and direct ‘appropriate action’. An easing of the EIA amendment would not only 'deny citizens the social, legal and political forums available to protect the environment from bad government decisions’ (Menon and Kohli 2020), it would also make it difficult to bring the violating groups within the regulatory net. Moreover, this draft EIA gives more power to the central government to exercise control over state-level regulatory authorities and expert committees, it also gives more importance to government decisions over environmental projects rather than social decisions. Public hearings were the most important component of the EIA process as they provided an opportunity for communities ‘to learn about projects and demand social obligations from them (the violators). In the absence of this forum, projects can establish themselves in local neighbourhoods without any disclosure of resource extraction, risks posed to communities and without agreeing to meet local development needs’ (ibid.). Though the prolonged lockdown that characterised the pandemic saw widespread cancellations of different panels, boards, and committees which would meet for environmental clearances, this period saw, according to an estimate, as many

298  Shoma Choudhury Lahiri as 191 projects for clearance. The process of video conferencing ensured that very little time was spent on deliberating each of the projects. Indeed, on a single day, more than 30 proposals affecting tiger reserves, sanctuaries, eco-sensitive zones, wildlife corridors, etc., were undertaken for clearance (Ravi 2020). The speed at which the projects were cleared in the context of a nationwide lockdown significantly reduced the scope of public deliberation and consultation, as the affected communities could not even provide evidence and send representations to the said panels, or even gather in public meetings to protest the decisions. Nor could the expert panelists undertake the necessary field visits to verify facts independently (Dutta and Nielsen, 2021). The EIA was thus reduced to being a political tool, and quite ironically, ‘the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) is tasked with devising regulations and procedures for environmental clearance for industrial projects (Huria 2020). Not only did the government stop at the dilution of laws, it has even attempted criminalisation of dissent and punishing environmental defenders. In July 2020, the government ordered the websites of three environmental organisations Fridays for Future, Let India Breathe, and There Is No Earth B be blocked. Legal notices were sent to them, on the pretext that they were publishing objectionable content which was ‘dangerous for the peace, tranquillity and sovereignty of India’. These groups had criticised the government’s attempts at changing the EIA and were running a public awareness campaign regarding the same. A ‘confidential report’ brought out in 2014, after the Modi government came to power even ‘labelled Greenpeace India and other anti-nuclear and environmental citizens’ collectives and independent activists as ‘anti-national’, accusing them of ‘negatively impacting India’s GDP growth rate’ due to their opposition to large-scale industrial projects’ (ibid.). At the local level across different regions, the excesses against people have increased manifold. In 2019, the attempt to save the Aarey forest, at the heart of Mumbai, from being felled to make way for a car shed for the Aarey Metro, at the behest of the provincial BJP government in power, brought citizens together to seek reprieve from the Court. The Aarey forests, besides being considered as the 'last lung’ of the city, were an ecologically diverse region, rich in flora, fauna, and wildlife, and were also places where tribal communities lived. When the Court refused to grant a stay, citizens gathered in large numbers at the site where trees were being cut down. This led the city police to arrest large numbers of students charging them with ‘obstructing public servants from doing their duty’ and ‘unlawful assembly.’ Similarly, in far-flung and interior Gadchiroli, in Maharashtra where the MadiaGonds live, despite protests by the local Adivasis, Lloyds Metals got permission to mine iron ore since 2007. Over the years, ‘the effluents of the mine have run down the hills and contaminated the river water and the fields of nearby villages’ making it unliveable. In March 2023, Lloyds Metals got permission to expand their production, and six more companies have got permission to mine the Surajgarh hills. Due to the opposition by the Maoists against the project, mining goes on under heavy police cover. Mining has brought illness to the area affecting the people and their

Intractable Conflicts  299 livestock; the tribals are anxious that if mining continues unabated, nothing much will remain for their future generations. Yet, they are not allowed to protest. In the areas where projects are located, a large number of cases are filed against the local people who are labelled as Maoists by the state. In 2018, a fact-finding report examining state-sponsored violence in Gadchiroli found that the mining company, the local administration, and the Central Reserve Police Force worked in close collusion with each other in criminalising protests by the Adivasis. 'Across the district, the administration propagates a message that locals can either support the mines, or stand against the mines – and that doing the latter means they are against development. This, in turn, makes them Maoist supporters’ (Minj 2023). Box 13.2 Eviction of Tribals from Forest Land

An unprecedented situation was created recently as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision directing respective states to discredit the claims of about 10 lakh families to forest lands and evict them as they would be regarded as illegal encroachers in the eyes of the state. This was undertaken at the request of several non-governmental organisations such as Wildlife First, Wildlife Trust of India, and others who have claimed that tribal settlers are responsible for degrading India’s forest lands and destroying biodiversity. This move pits the tribals and forest dwellers against the forests and larger national interest. The Forest Rights Act of 2006 empowers the local bodies to manage and grant access to forests; it also enjoins the tribal people to secure title deeds to their lands, which the state government is now refusing to grant in the name of forest conservation. Although this decision was subsequently retracted by the Apex Court, a huge land grab threatens the forest dwellers and tribal groups. The implementation of the Forest Rights Act continues to be a fraught affair, despite path-breaking environmental legislations that exist to safeguard the forest as an ecological entity. Existing policies before 2006 have imagined people living in and around the forests as violators, yet it has often been found that the state and its functionaries violate forest laws more often.

Summary and Conclusion The sociological significance of environmental movements lies in the fact that they lay bare the contradiction at the heart of the capitalist enterprise. Capitalism looks at nature as a resource to be exploited for profit; it regards the human relationship with and dependence on nature as secondary and generates conflicts between competing worldviews and orientations. Environmental movements foreground these conflicts and contradictions (Lahiri 2016). Second, as Gadgil and Guha (1994: 101) articulate, ‘The environmental movement has added a new dimension to the meaning of democracy and civil society.’

300  Shoma Choudhury Lahiri Environmental movements have accommodated a wide plethora of actors and voices, namely tribals, farmers, lower-caste groups, middle-class academics and social activists, women, scientists and experts, traders, political workers, non-governmental organisations, and so on. We find that in the course of their challenge to the state, even a section of the Maoists are also stressing upon these issues. These constituencies have actively forged alliances and attempted to influence the state’s actions from time to time, giving meaning to the idea of democracy. Third, it poses an ideological challenge to the meaning, content, and patterns of development. As Sangvai (2007) has articulated, these environmental movements have established that along with issues like protection against unjust displacement, employment-oriented decentralised small units, food security, housing rights, environmental sustainability, and agricultural–industrial policies are all interlinked in the quest for equality in a democracy. A few other values which these movements espouse pertain to a non-hierarchical mode of functioning and organising, a focus on forging alternatives, and an increasing emphasis on the small and the local. In modern society, the relationship between nature and society has become increasingly central and complex with wide-ranging implications, which are not necessarily restricted to a society or a class per se. According to Gunnar Olofsson (2014), among the new social movements, it is the environmental movement which manages to bring together issues which are at stake personally, along with social issues which affect the reproductive capacity of a society and economy at large. These movements since their inception have challenged the state in its shifting avatars and its changing modes of governance, through increasing use of violence and surveillance over the people and through ‘accumulation by dispossession’. In the neoliberal era, the state has made way for private capital to mount an assault on the resource-rich regions of our country in a much more aggressive and rapacious manner. This has given rise to a renewed spate of environmental movements in these regions, which are being suppressed through an increasing use of different forms of violence against the protestors (Chandra and Basu 2014; Holloway 2014). This indicates that though marginalised by mainstream politics, in the near future, it is expected that environmental movements would grab the centre stage as they highlight some of the basic conflicts of our time over natural as well as cultural resources, voices, forms of expression, and identities. A more intense and engaged democracy emerging from the inventiveness of these protesting communities will stem the degradation of the democratic imagination and the majoritarian authoritarianism that we witness today. Review questions 1. What are the major shifts and strands within the environmental movements in India? 2. Environmental movements have emerged as a result of the resource-intensive developmental policies of the state. Comment.

Intractable Conflicts  301 3. Does the epithet ‘environmentalism of the poor’ appear suitable for ThirdWorld environmentalism? Give reasons for your answer. 4. What are some of the points of convergence between the environmental and the agrarian movements in India? 5. Why has globalisation rendered social movements precarious? Discuss with the help of an example. 6. Comment on the role of the state with regard to the environmental movements in India. Notes 1 The Appiko movement in the North Kannada district of Karnataka was started in the early 1980s by Pandurang Hegde, who was inspired by the Chipko movement. The movement protested against the felling of trees in the eco-sensitive region of the Western Ghats, the consequent deforestation and monoculture, and was even successful in changing the forest policy in the region. The movement spread across the Western Ghats and was able to build awareness about the need for conservation of trees. 2 Eco-casteism naturalises the pollution and reinforces the invisibility of Dalits by arguing that the caste order has an ecological meaning and significance.

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Intractable Conflicts  303 Sarkar, Jayabrata. 2017. ‘Protestors May Have Stopped POSCO, But the Fight Isn’t Over Yet’. The Wire. Available at: https://thewire​.in​/environment​/posco​-odisha​-tribal​-land (accessed on 10 July 2018). Savyasaachi, and Ravi Kumar (Eds.). 2014. ‘The Emerging Contours of a Transformative Act’. In Savyasaachi and Kumar, Ravi (Eds.), Social Movements: Transformative Shifts and Turning Points (1–24). New Delhi: Routledge. Sethi, Harsh. 2001. ‘Whither Environmental Protest? The Hindu, 31 December. Available at: https://www​.thehindu​.com​/todays​-paper​/tp​-national​/tp​-tamilnadu​/whither- envir​ onmen​tal-p​rotes​t/art​​icle2​​79945​​10​​.ec​e (accessed on 1 August 2019). Sharma, Mukul. 2002. ‘Saffronising Green’. Seminar, 516. Available at: www​.india​-seminar​ .com​/2002​/516​/516​%20mukul​%20sharma​.htm (accessed on 20 May 2018). ———. 2017. ‘Dalit Environmental Visions’. Caste and Nature, 60–113. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Sheth, D. L. 2014. ‘Globalization and the New Politics of Micro Movements’. In Savyasaachi and Kumar, Ravi (Eds.), Social Movements: Transformative Shifts and Turning Points (104–143). New Delhi: Routledge. Sofia, Lois. 2018. ‘As Sterlite Plant Expands, a City Erupts in Protest’. The Wire. Available at: https://thewire​.in​/environment​/anti​-sterlite​-protests​-fuelled​-by​-weak​-sanctions​-andpolitical-connections (accessed on 15 June 2018). Sundar, Nandini. 2018. ‘Pathalgadi Is Nothing but Constitutional Messianism, So Why Is the BJP Afraid of It?’ The Wire, 16 May. Available at: https://thewire​.in​/rights​/pathalgadi​-is​ -nothing- but-c​onsti​tutio​nal-m​essia​nism-​so-wh​y-is-​the-b​jp-af​raid-​of-it​ (accessed on 10 June 2018). Tewary, Amarnath. 2018. ‘The Pathalgadi Rebellion’. The Hindu, 14 April. Available at: https://www​.thehindu​.com​/news​/national​/other​-states​/the​-pathalgadi​-rebellion​/article 23530998​.e​ce (accessed on 20 May 2018). Visvanathan, Shiv. 2018. ‘The Thoothukudi Fables’. The Hindu, 8 June. Available at: https:// www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-thoothukudi-fables/article24106809.ece (accessed on 10 June 2018). Zimmer, Anna, and Natasha Cornea. 2016. ‘Introduction: Environmental Politics in Urban India’. South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal 14. Available at: http://journals. openedition.org/samaj/4247 (accessed on 6 June 2018).

Part III

Globalisation and Social Movements



14 Globalisation, Technology, Media, and Social Movements Sthitapragyan Ray and Neha Ojha

Learning Objectives After reading this chapter, you will be able to • Comprehend the link between globalisation and social movements

• Examine the key features and strategies of technology-enabled movements • • Explain the interface between media, IT, and globalisation-induced movements

• Analyse the resistance posed by movements to global capital • Depict the connection among space, globalisation, and movements • Appreciate the role of IT-aided movements for marginalised communities

Introduction In the era of globalisation, social movements rely to a large extent on forces of globalisation like information technology (IT), media, and civil society not only to carry out their daily activities but also to communicate their voices to people across space. As the success of any movement depends to a large extent on the support base of the organisation leading it, IT and other forces of globalisation are the best resources to create such a support base and put pressure on the state, its agencies, political parties, business houses or any powerful bloc to realise their demands. Interestingly, electronic and social media as well as civil society also hinge on IT for quick circulation of information. This chapter, therefore, focuses on the link between these forces of globalisation and social movements in order to understand how leaders and activists of social movements across space use modern electronic technology and media to reach out to the maximum number of people. Let us begin the discussion with a brief glimpse into what is understood by globalisation. Today, the term globalisation is ubiquitous; it is used almost everywhere – in sociological discourses, in economics, in political science, and in the news. This is because it is something that we see, hear, and feel all around us. But what exactly DOI:  10.4324/9781003481744-17

308  Sthitapragyan Ray and Neha Ojha is globalisation? As there are many ways of understanding globalisation, there are many definitions of it. Globalisation is also a dynamic concept – it is forever evolving; it is forever changing its shape and form. It has a process that has transformed or changed everyday social reality through the rapid flow of capital, technology, information, trade, people, ideas, media penetration, and other resources across national borders. This means that the borders of the world have become blurry and porous, and ideas, trends, news, and events are now transmitted across the world at an almost lightning speed. Modern electronic technology has helped in this dissemination by rapidly developing digital technologies, automatic machines, artificial intelligence (AI), and other innovative tools that reshape industries, societies, and our personal lives. What happens on one side of the earth affects the other side as well. The world, thus, becomes a shared social space. Scholars argue that globalisation is not a new process and it started with Columbus’s voyage to the New World in 1492. The Silk Road, an ancient network of trade routes across China, Central Asia, and the Mediterranean used between 50 B.C.E. and 250 C.E., is possibly the most famous early example of globalisation. Mercantilism, Colonialism, Westernisation, or Modernisation – are all examples of globalisation (Ghosh 2010). Yet, the current phase of globalisation is different. It is different because earlier different societies ‘globalised’ differently depending upon their social, economic, and political standing. Oommen (2005: 158) argues that colonialism did not give rise to the ‘One World’ we are familiar with now; it rather gave birth to three dichotomous worlds: (i) the primitive and the modern, (ii) the Orient and the Occident, and (iii) the New World and the Old World. But now, there is little alternative to capitalism, and hence, the current globalisation is also accompanied by policy changes by national governments. Contemporary globalisation represents a major break even in the history of capitalism (Baudrillard 1988). This is because this ‘globalisation’ now represents an economy that is dominated by services. Moreover, the globalisation of social and economic relations has developed very rapidly in the last few decades. Factors like (i) revolution in communication technology, (ii) circulation of finance capital on a global scale along with market internationalism, (iii) flexible production, (iv) homogenisation of consumer products and market processes, (v) enlargement of the scope of electronic media, (vi) faster communication, and (vii) some degree of the circulation of manpower across the countries has augmented virtual localities in a ‘deterritorialised’ world (Appadurai 1996). As the current phase of globalisation is a predominant form of ‘market globalism’ (Ghosh 2010) under the dictate of neoliberal prescriptions, there have also been large-scale protests against the negative consequences of such changes. The uneven outcomes of globalisation in the form of socio-economic disparities, deprivations, exclusions, and degradation have led to protests by people across boundaries. Like economic globalisation, protest is also global now as modern electronic technology and media enable the protesters to reach out to global citizens. As a corollary, globalisation has given rise to a new means of protest, struggle, and organisation, under the banner of ‘social movements’, which serve as voices, criticisms, and apprehensions of persons and groups that demand that something can

Globalisation, Technology, Media, and Social Movements  309 be done to change them against the neoliberal forms and global flow of capital (Fominaya 2014). New Horizons of Social Movements Social movements are focused, systematised groups driven to work towards a mutual goal. These groups might be striving to produce change (Occupy Wall Street, Arab Spring), to fight change (anti-globalisation movement), or to bring a political voice to the marginalised (civil rights movements). The scholarship of social movements in the 1970s and 1980s was more focused on the popularity of ‘new social movements’ like the civil rights, feminist and gay rights movements in the 1970s, and the environmental and peace movements in the 1980s. These movements were considered ‘new’ because new social movement theory emerged ‘in large part as a response to the inadequacies of classical Marxism to analyse collective action’ (Buechler 1995). The development of communication through the extraordinary expansion of satellite broadcasting and the omnipresence of mobile phones means that global flows are continuing to advance. Innovative spaces for communication and media circulation have thus evolved and they, in turn, have changed the milieu of social movement activity. While conventionally social movements have often been examined relative to the nationstate model, their study is now transnational in nature. While electronic technology, modern communication spaces, and media provide scope for activists, there have also been large-scale protests against neoliberal policies, enhanced precarity, and vulnerability under the neoliberal regime, as well as crony capitalism across space. This chapter investigates the complexity of transnational social movements and examines the spatiotemporal network of social movement activity. The influences among numerous anti-neoliberal social movements across space today have enhanced the importance of transnationalism in organising and managing social movements. The transnational paradigm offers the missing connection in key social movement theories and might better clarify the relationship between globalisation and social movement theory. It is also increasingly believed that globalisation has caused massive structural shifts which have impacted and affected the basic nature and issues of new social movements because globalisation not only brings about the creation of social movements but affects the way many social movements are structured and work. Globalisation-induced social movements are organised in socially embedded, diffuse, horizontal networks; they are primarily concerned with culture and identity; and they aim to constrain state and economic power rather than to gain access to it (Cohen 1982; Melucci 1996). These counter-movements try to enhance democratic political control over the development process to make it humane and sustainable. Social movements are not isolated causes of protests; instead, they require constant collective action over time. Such actions are often directed against the state and take the shape of demanding changes in state policies or practices. Movements in one country are now linked to or influenced by factors in another country.

310  Sthitapragyan Ray and Neha Ojha Media and Technology in a Network Society A common way of defining globalisation as ‘time-space compression’ (Harvey 1989) or ‘time-space distantiation’ focuses on how an event that takes place in a far-away part of the world becomes a portion of one’s daily life. In addition, globalisation is often defined as a process of ‘deterritorialisation’ and supraterritoriality in the way that it endorses and spreads organisations, networks, and flows that challenge or go beyond the traditional Westphalian understanding of sovereignty as territorial control. Technology, particularly IT, has ‘flattened’ the globe and intensified global integration (Friedman 2005). Globalisation, understood as the ‘temporal–spatial compression’ of the physical world (Harvey 1989), has been greatly facilitated by IT. This technology links distant localities into one globalising world in a synchronous time zone that goes beyond real territories. The speed and mobility generated by electronic networks become indispensable for creating the physical conditions of globalisation, by tying together the world as a whole. Diversification and globalisation of media hold the potential to create a global village (McLuhan 1964). The role played by print, electronic, and social media in connecting people and circulating information in a ‘network society’ is immense. Media, both traditional and new, generate and spread symbols, on the basis of which we develop our common understanding and construct social reality. The socialisation and resocialisation functions of media, the way it passes on norms, values, and beliefs over generations, by telling us what is right and what is not (Gentile et al. 2011), can hardly be underestimated. The increase in the number of newspapers, periodicals, and media channels at both national and local levels in any part of the world over the last few decades is just mind-boggling. Television, mobile phones, and computer networks have given people greater access to information and allowed them to see a far greater variety of forms of life than previously possible (Ghosh 2010). Electronic and social media has developed as a powerful tool to organise and mobilise social movements (Van Laer and Van Aelst 2010; Oh et al. 2015; Selander and Jarvenpaa 2016). The fact that social media is participatory in nature not only allows a wide dissemination of information to organise people but also diminishes the barriers to participation (Harlow 2012; Tufekci and Wilson 2012). With the use of social media, leaders of social movements dispense messages associated with social or political concerns, the purpose of which is to encourage existing members and enrol new ones (Van Laer and Van Aelst 2010; Lotan et al. 2011; Tufekci and Wilson 2012; Hwang and Kim 2015). Box 14.1 IT and Social Movements: Some Examples from India

i)   Dalit activists in India use their own social and electronic media ­channels to circulate images, ideas, and information to argue their case

Globalisation, Technology, Media, and Social Movements  311 (see Chapter 9). Any event of violence or oppression against any Dalit today becomes a national issue very quickly. Quick dissemination of such information is used to mobilise activists and also to draw the attention of people at large. ii)  Use of alternative media to counter the views of the Indian state and Godi media (Ghosh 2022) on the three farm laws and argue for the rights of farmers is another example (see Chapter 6). During the farmer’s movement, many global celebrities like Greta Thunberg (Swedish climate activist) and Rihanna (popular American singer) then criticised the Indian government for enforcing new farm laws favouring the corporates. iii) It is illuminating for us to note that in the Niyamgiri anti-mining movement in Odisha since 2003, an isolated Indian tribe, the Dongria Kondh, received global support and could successfully resist the combined forces of multinational capital and state power. It, therefore, appears that the global reach of electronic and social media expands the borders of social movements beyond a specific community and location and gives a transnational spin to movements (Hwang and Kim 2015). Social science research has also looked upon the impact of social media on society and the economy (Berger et al. 2014; Leonardi and Vaast 2017). One definite consequence of the use of media and the internet to mobilise opinion and support base can be seen in the activities of civil society organisations (CSOs). Globally, the potential of civil society to ensure an autonomous space for the enforcement and enhancement of social, economic, and political justice to marginalised people, in particular, is highlighted. Hence, the rise of CSOs, including Non-Governmental Organization (NGOs), is considered a healthy and necessary complement to democracy (Ghosh 2009). With the onset of the alternative paradigm of development, the focus of development has shifted to new agendas like human development, community development, sustainable development, capacity building, and the like. As CSOs and NGOs plead for all these, it is quite commonplace to argue for the entry of this ‘third sector’ for the ‘enlargement of people’s choices’ as well as ‘people-friendly’ grassroots movement (Ghosh 2012). By bringing people closer, these mediums have strengthened the role of global civil society and international organisations and allowed them an open space to argue for certain uniform principles and values like civility, justice, human rights, sustainability, equality, gender equality, and justice. The plethora of global events like the World Social Forum and the proliferation and global expansions of organisations like Greenpeace and Amnesty International throughout the last two decades are testimony of the significant linkages of civil society and social movements on people at large (Singh 2020). It should, however, be recognised that media and technological globalisation also carry potential risks as well stemming from the agenda of those who control them. Cultural and ideological biases, loss of local culture, censoring by autocratic governments, and misuse of sensitive personal information by technology

312  Sthitapragyan Ray and Neha Ojha and media companies are some of the risks of IT and media-induced global interconnectedness. In a post-truth society, print, electronic, and social media can very quickly spread manipulated, concocted, or false information. As against the standard ethical practice, they first construct news and then show it. The moment we get connected with these media, we fall under the trap of some outspoken personalities (anchors) who are able to control our emotions and knowledge by their physical and verbal acts. Ghosh (2022) argues that media houses today do not expect people to think on an issue. They rather provide a kaleidoscope within which people should restrict their thinking. Importantly, while constructing news, media houses show different types of invented data (say a survey report) or falsified data (say an old video from a different location) to prove that the news is authentic. This allows them not only to construct or forge news/opinion/ sentiment but also to spread illusion/deception. P. Sainath (2012) has gone a step further to argue that corporate media houses have a vested interest to support ruling parties or dominant groups. Hence, they no longer stand as the ‘fourth pillar’ of democracy. We may refer to the ‘propaganda model of communication’ developed by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman (1988). They identified five types of propaganda which the media houses make: (i) campaign for corporate houses, (ii) campaign for advertisers, (iii) campaign for government and corporate policies, (iv) surveillance on anti-media people, and (v) campaign against communism. These propaganda try to ‘manufacture consent’ in favour of the ruling classes and dominant groups in the society. Scholars of the Frankfurt School also argued that mass media only manipulate society and strengthen social control. Partially agreeing with this view, Jürgen Habermas (1987) contended that instrumental rationality poses a major challenge to communicative action. And when the system ‘colonizes the lifeworld’, the scope of the bourgeois public sphere gets restricted. The new media also runs the risk of commercial exploitation and misuse of personal data, as exemplified in the Facebook (Meta) and Cambridge Analytica case. Additionally, the constant flow of information and the fast-paced dynamic of media exposure in contemporary times may lead to a narcotising dysfunction, that is, a situation when people are too overwhelmed with media inputs to truly care about an issue, causing their involvement to be defined by awareness rather than action about that issue (Lazarsfeld and Merton 1948). Given these limitations, the idea of a ‘global village’ appears too optimistic. In the context of such critical apprehensions, we also need to consider the arguments of Arjun Appadurai, Manual Castells, and Anthony Giddens. Arguments of Anthony Giddens, Arjun Appadurai, and Manuel Castells

The seminal ideas of Anthony Giddens (1991, 1999), Arjun Appadurai (1996), and Manuel Castells (1996, 1997, 1998) have contributed significantly to this debate. According to Giddens, since capitalism is also cultural, globalisation is a part of the ongoing process of modernisation. In a ‘runaway world’ (Giddens 1999), the

Globalisation, Technology, Media, and Social Movements  313 possibility to produce and augment virtual localities has enhanced. Giddens, therefore, believed that globalisation has increased our ‘social reflexivity’, and, hence, it is a dynamic and open process. We have moved from a bipolar to a polycentric world, from a world of cultural hierarchies to a world of multiple meaning systems. Commenting on the nature of contemporary globalisation, Appadurai (1996) centres his thoughts on five scapes. Appadurai uses the suffix ‘scape’ to refer to the interrelating framework of ‘global cultural flows’. As progressions of these scapes are fluid in nature with asymmetrical and mutable shapes, they are open to subjective interpretation by different agents, ranging from individuals to face-to-face groups, subnational groups, multinational corporations (MNCs), and even nation states. The five scapes are as follows:

• First, there are the ethnoscapes which include itinerant groups and individuals

• • •

•

(tourists, refugees, professionals, skilled/unskilled workers, migrants), people who have a significant role to play in a world which is ever changing, forever evolving and globalized. In a world which is changing even as we speak, actual movements as well as allowing one’s imaginations to change are essential in order to keep such fantasies alive. Second, through technoscapes, Appadurai seeks to bring out the significance of technology, both mechanical and IT, in the social, economic, and cultural lives of individuals. Third, financescapes highlight the ways IT has facilitated quick and large-scale transfers of money and other financial resources across the world through stock exchanges and currency markets. Fourth, mediascapes bring together electronic competence (internet, television channels, newspapers, magazines) to yield and communicate information across the globe and the imageries of the world that this media creates and broadcasts. Fifth, ideoscapes, similar to mediascapes, are groups of images and ideas. They are, however, largely limited to political images and ideas produced by states and in sync with their political ideology.

Appadurai argues that the global circulation of these scapes in an uneven way, in relation to one another, contributes to disjunction and difference in the global cultural economy. As the movement of people, technology, funds, media, and ideas exists in varying and colliding forms, modern-day globalisation gives rise to tensions between homogenisation and heterogenisation. Various cultural elements of globalisation are often indigenised by the local culture suffering from a fear of cultural invasion. In other words, both openness to global processes and the will to retain a cultural identity are omnipresent in contemporary society. As the global cultural economy is marked by the presence of different and often contrasting forces, the possibility and potential of social movements enhance. Appadurai, therefore, acknowledges that the global cultural system is full of ironies and resistances.

314  Sthitapragyan Ray and Neha Ojha Manuel Castells (1996, 1997, 1998) has also visualised the advent of a novel society, culture, and economy based on the IT revolution in the United States in the 1970s. This revolution led to significant changes in the capitalist system in the 1980s and saw the emergence of what Castells refers to as ‘informational capitalism’ and ‘informational societies’, both of which are based on ‘informationalism’. Informationalism refers to a means of development in which the main source of productivity is the qualitative capacity to optimise the combination and use the factors of production on the basis of knowledge and information (Castells 1998). The spread of informationalism, especially informational capitalism, leads to the emergence of oppositional social movements based on self and identity, the process by which a social actor recognises itself and constructs meaning primarily on the basis of a given cultural attribute or set of attributes, to the exclusion of a broader reference to other social structures (Castells 1996). Movements like these are the modern-day equivalent of Marx’s class struggles. The problems caused by the spread of informational capitalism are not just faced by the working classes but also by a variety of identity-based social movements. Castells seeks to base his analysis on the IT paradigm with five basic features: 1 ) These are technologies that act on information. 2) These technologies have a universal, pervasive effect because information is part of all human activity. 3) There is a ‘networking logic’ that defines all systems using IT. This permits them to affect a vast range of processes. 4) High flexibility allows new technologies to constantly have the ability to adapt and change. 5) Specific technologies linked within the formation are integrating into an increasingly integrated system. Castells (1996) discusses here the case of multimedia, which is a fusion of mass media and computers. This, in turn, leads to the emergence of the culture of real virtuality, a system in which reality itself (that is, people’s material/symbolic existence) is entirely captured, fully immersed in a virtual image setting, in the world of make-believe, in which appearances are not just on the screen through which experience is communicated, but they become the experience (Castells 1996). Castell’s arguments led us to believe that, at one end, information networks have allowed capitalism to become truly global for the first time because of global financial flows. But, on the other hand, his latest work (2012) reveals how autonomous social movements like the Arab Spring or Occupy Wall Street (read Chapter 19 for details) have become popular in the age of the internet. Like globalisation, social movement is also global today. Space, Identity, and Movement

David Harvey (2008) has shown how the economy or more particularly capitalism constructs space, particularly urban space, and, in turn, space also structures

Globalisation, Technology, Media, and Social Movements  315 economy and society. Space is, therefore, a source of differentiation between and within settlements. Harvey felt that the dramatic urbanisation in the globalised world today is not contributing to any human well-being. A process of displacement and dispossession lies at the core of the urban process under capitalism. In this context, Lefebvre’s notion of ‘right to the city’ fundamentally challenges existing power relations and the deep roots of the capitalist system that drive urban development and the production of urban space, including social, political, and economic relations. Harvey felt that the ‘right to the city’ has undergone a certain revival today in the context of the emergence of social movements around the world that are now demanding such a right. Thereby, such movements by workers, women, queer, and minorities challenged the top-down, externally driven development processes in the city. Likewise, Castells perceives that the expansion of networks, informationalism, and development of global cities is now challenged. These are opposed by individuals and groups with specific identities, and these counter-movements depend on information and networks in order to succeed. The examples of IT-enabled movements include the Zapatistas in Mexico, the anti-Vedanta movement in Odisha, India, lesbian and gay movements in different parts of the world, and so on. While the formation of a global public sphere around issues of identity, transnational social movements, and transnational advocacy networks is not entirely new phenomenon suddenly brought about by globalisation, the formation of an international public sphere in a more coherent manner after globalisation has indeed helped local activists to put pressure on states at home. While Castells and Harvey rightly emphasise the significance of the articulation of identities for social movements, these movements themselves affect identity formation. It is a two-way process in which the transformative power of articulated identities on social movements, as well as the impact of social movements on the re-articulations of identities, needs to be recognised. Castells believes that the state has become progressively powerless in the face of the globalisation of the economy and the growing reliance on global capital markets. It is in this context that the ideas of ‘empire’ and ‘multitude’ given by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri (2000, 2004) assume significance. The ‘empire’ which consists of the minority wields power over the massive oppositional ‘multitude’, which is akin to Marx’s proletariat, having a lot of creative potential. The ‘multitude’ basically refers to the global collectivities that stand up to the empire in a number of ways. The multitude of Globalisation-induced Social Movements (GISMs) bears testimony to this and has the potential to bring about a social revolution in the Marxian sense of the term. The ideas of Hardt and Negri only corroborate the views of Karl Polanyi expressed in his 1944 classic, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Polanyi (1944) showed that the laissez-faire system which was being promoted by globalisation, if left to itself, threatened to destroy society. Indeed, it was such threats that led to counter-reactions by society in the form of GISMs to protect themselves from the problems of a free-market-based social order. Expansion of the laissez-faire-based globalisation and the

316  Sthitapragyan Ray and Neha Ojha self-protective reaction against it in the form of social movements is called the ‘double movement’. While proponents of globalisation saw such counter-reactions and GISMs as ‘mistakes’ that had the potential to disrupt the operation of the free markets, Polanyi saw them as necessary and desirable reactions to the evils of the free market. He believed that the self-regulating market was an absurd idea. He welcomed the movements as natural, ‘spontaneous’, collective reactions by society and its various elements that were threatened by free-market-based globalisation. The GISMs (Smith and Johnston 2002; Smith et al. 1997) represent attempts to counter ‘globalization from above’ through ‘globalization from below’. They assume significance in the context of technological innovations, particularly in the fields of Information Communication Technology (ICT). The GISMs include an array of movements by social groups and individuals in response to the consequences of neoliberal globalisation and its effects in the spheres of economy, politics, and identity/culture. These GISMs have three features: (a) they are conflictual and have identified (ideological) opponents; (b) they are structured through dense informal networks; and (c) they are geared towards developing, sustaining, and sharing collective identities. A combination of objective and subjective conditions seems to have spurred these GISMs. The objective conditions include the rapid proliferation of IT, expansion of global financial markets, transnationalisation of production, privatisation of global commons, growing importance of transnational corporations, rising social inequality, growing precarity, and ecological degradation. These factors account for the interconnectedness of socio-economic, environmental, cultural, and political processes across a global space. The subjective conditions are expressed in the rise of global consciousness (Robertson 1992), the emergence of a global managerial class linked to production and services and to a transnational resistance movement. In the latter case, such new subjectivities capture a transformed relation between space and time which, in turn, opens possibilities for new notions and practices of social mobilisation and state power through which market rationalities are distributed and embodied locally (Appadurai 1996). These conditions facilitate the awareness that local events are embedded in global processes, thereby making global approaches necessary to redress the negative consequences of globalisation. The GISMs emerge as a necessary counterhegemonic strategy in the context of global capitalism. The dialectical interface between globalisation and counter-movements is given concrete manifestation in grassroots mobilisations which express a generalised discontent with the consequences of neoliberal globalisation. The indigenous GISMs as resistant to global capitalism put a premium on community autonomy, identity politics, communal rights, and rights to a variety of traditional practices which many times threaten deeply held values in state-based systems (Mander and Tauli-Corpuz 2006). The GISMs, a particular variant of social movement, are conditioned by both the opportunity and mobilising structures of society. It includes not just the economic, institutional, and social contexts but also the social and technological networks (ICT, social media, internet, and so on) and other resources necessary for faster

Globalisation, Technology, Media, and Social Movements  317 and cheaper popular mobilisation to give vent to grievances. Both are necessary for the emergence of GISMs (Stark et al. 2010). The emergence of digital-networked technologies has led to the convergence of channels of distribution and communication, including social media. The profound impact of networked technologies on societies economically, socially, and politically has led some to claim that we have entered a new era of the information, network, or knowledge society (Castells 1997). Globalisation of Capital and Anti-capitalist Movements As noted in this chapter, the central aspects of globalisation are interconnectedness, compression of time-space, delocalisation, supra-territoriality, action at a distance, and hastening interdependence. Globalisation allows social relationships to be maintained across larger structural and temporal distances. The information age also contributed to the growth of identity-based community resistance movements against neoliberal globalisation, capitalist restructuring, and the disruptions caused by it (Castells 1997). In addition to advocating alternative development models, the new networking logic of these movements enables the emergence of global webs of resistance and a globally networked society. Paradoxically, the movements against global capital are organically associated with the nature of informational capitalism in at least four ways. These are as follows:

• First, these GISMs are global. Coordinating and communicating through trans-

national networks (TNWs), the movement actors have engaged in institutional and extra-institutional politics and cross-border information sharing. The movement actors think of themselves as belonging to global movements, discursively linking their local protests and activities to diverse struggles abroad. The GISMs have thus emerged as transnational sites of meaning, where actions, discourses, and strategies flow from one part of the globe to another through worldwide IT networks. • Second, the GISMs are informational. The protest strategies employed by movement actors, despite originating in diverse socio-cultural settings, produce highly visible images for public consumption, transmitted through the internet, social media, and so on. • Third, the GISMs are organised around flexible, decentralised networks, reflecting the dominant organisational logic of informational capitalism. In practice, they are composed of a multiplicity of diverse network forms (Kapferer 1973). Also, real-time global networking is made possible by the emergence of new ITs, particularly the internet, which allows for a ‘politics of scale’ based on direct coordination and communication among small-scale, autonomous units without the need for hierarchical mediating structures such as traditional political parties or labour unions. Diverse, locally rooted struggles can now directly link up with global players without compromising their autonomy or identity. • Finally, this kind of use of IT by the movement entrepreneurs reflects the logic of the actor-network approach, though in a different manner (Latour 1987). The

318  Sthitapragyan Ray and Neha Ojha movement actors establish alliances not only with other movement activists but also with non-human entities, specifically with IT, computers, and the internet, and make use of them to run the movement. Thus, both humans and non-humans form associations, linking with other actors to form networks.

Box 14.2 Zapatista Movement

The Zapatista movement represents a good manifestation of actor-network dynamics. The Zapatista peasant rebels in Chiapas, Mexico, were able to get international support through the ingenious use of the Internet. This dialectical interface between IT and GISM again came to the fore in the protests at WTO, World Bank, and World Economic Forum gatherings where movement actors used the internet to oppose the very economic globalisation that the new telecommunications technology has played a role in facilitating.

Globalised IT networks provide the base for transnational social movements, by facilitating the production, contestation, and dissemination of movement-related discourses and practices (Diani and McAdam 2003). These networks are, in turn, produced and transformed through the discourses and practices circulating through them (see Mische 2003). Transnational IT networks also spread values of participatory democracy, self-management, and decentralised coordination based on autonomy and diversity. With the emergence of a ‘global network society’, social movement participants seem to follow a new protest trajectory. A broad series of actors, including international non-governmental organisations and transnational coalitions, are acting in response to the development challenges posed by capitalist globalisation. Even though TNWs and movements are not per se new phenomena, what differentiates the contemporary scenario from its historical predecessors is the sharpened capacities to cooperate and coordinate movement activities through technology-based networks across nation-state boundaries and their emergence as a potent political force to reckon with. Box 14.3 Technology and Democracy

As in the case of the Kondh tribe in Odisha, their participation in a GISM only added to their extant democratic and communitarian ethos. This enabled a generation of appropriate political norms and facilitated the large-scale participation of Kondh tribals in the Gram Sabha meetings held under the

Globalisation, Technology, Media, and Social Movements  319 Supreme Court’s supervision. Consequently, it led to a resounding rejection of an MNC’s mining plans in their sacred mountain habitat. IT networks provide the base (technological infrastructure) for the operation of GISMs. The GISMs thus belong to a particular class of CSSMs: computersupported social movements. Using IT and more particularly the internet as a technological base, such movements are increasingly ‘global’, operating at and integrating both local and global movement actors. The Zapatistas were pioneers in this regard. Although locally rooted among the Mayan Indian communities in Chiapas, the Zapatistas used the internet to communicate with a global network of GISMs (Castells 1997; Cleaver 1995; Ronfeldt et al. 1998). IT and internet use have complemented and facilitated face-to-face coordination and interaction, rather than replaced them. The internet does not simply provide the technological infrastructure for CSSMs; its reticulate structure reinforces their organisational logic. Decentralised, flexible, local/global activist networks constitute the dominant organisational forms within GISMs reflecting the broader logic of informational capitalism. It has rightly been argued that in contrast to the centralised, vertically integrated working-class movements, the GISMs are organised around flexible, dispersed, and horizontal networks (see Cohen 1985). While the command-orientated logic of traditional parties is based on recruiting new members, developing unitary strategies, and political representation via vertical structures, network-based politics seeks to provide spaces for diverse collectives and networks to converge around a few common unifying points while preserving their autonomy and identity-based specificity. Rather than recruitment, the objective becomes horizontal expansion and enhanced ‘connectivity’ through articulating diverse movements within flexible, decentralised information structures that allow for maximal coordination and communication. Expanding and diversifying networks is much more than a concrete organisational objective; it is also a highly valued socio-political goal in itself. The new networking technologies and practices are facilitating and strengthening democracy not only at the local but also at regional and global levels. Internet and Social Movement: A Symbiotic and Synergetic Relationship

The internet plays a key role in establishing networks among spatially dispersed movement activists, who may never actually meet. Scholars like Bennett (2003) drive home the significance of the internet in the emergence of global activist movements that seek to bring justice to the neoliberal world order. The internet helps activists in coordinating their activities, including planning protests and publicising their cause. Movements like the Arab Spring have shown that the internet, while overcoming constraints of traditional media, need not supplant it but may rather supplement it effectively. It is important to note, however, that the internet and ICT technologies are available only to those who have crossed the digital

320  Sthitapragyan Ray and Neha Ojha divide. The internet, after all, is just a communicative medium, and in order for structural changes to occur in society, people should be driven to use the capacities of the internet (Bennett 2003). The internet as a medium of communication has the advantages of mobility, combinability, and to an extent stability (Latour 1987). The internet with its openness provides quite an unrestricted platform for exercising the freedoms of assembly, association, expression, and publication of opinions on matters of public interest. Following Habermas (1975), it could be said that these features make the internet a perfect medium for a large public sphere to formulate their opinions and mobilise collective actions. Communication in this non-controllable, decentralised, and distributed network has a large transformative potential (Bennett 2003), which has been put to good use by GISMs. The decentralised nature of the internet facilitates the emergence of large leaderless formation of groups, thereby making it difficult for the establishment to exert control over the movements and activists. In this context, Deibert (2000) highlights the specific uses of the internet for movements: (a) as a tool for communicating and updating information; (b) propagating the interpretation of the information by movement activists; and (c) as a tool to put pressure on traditional organisations such as big business and governments, by galvanising massive public protest with the aim of influencing decisions. IT-enabled networked movements remain self-reflexive, democratic, deliberative, and nonhierarchical. IT is used by movement actors not only for outward functions such as mobilisation, recruitment, attack strategies, and the creation of alternative or independent channels of communication and dissemination but also for inward roles such as organisation, coordination, internal debate, and decision-making (see Bennett and Segerberg 2012; Cammaerts 2005; Van Laer and van Aelst 2010). ICT has impacted a number of GISM components, including collective action frames, strategies, targets, and audiences (Imig and Tarrow 1999). The communicative aspect of the internet has given a global reach to people with diverse backgrounds and different languages. Tribal societies had been particularly isolated for years, but now they too have the means and a medium by which they can connect to the globalised world. The Zapatista uprising in Mexico and the anti-mining movement by the Kondh tribe in India are pertinent examples of how the internet has helped tribal people in reaching out and getting their voices heard. Use of ICT in a Tribal Resistence Movement in Odisha, India This is a case of tribal resistance movement against the combined forces of the state and global capital in the eastern Indian state of Odisha. This movement highlights how the agents (tribals) have responded to both the constraining and enabling elements of globalisation as a structural reality. The counter-hegemonic resistance by the tribals is directed against the capitalist practice of creating wealth at the expense of depriving people of their rights, leading to unprecedented levels of social inequality and ecological destruction. This anti-bauxite mining protest movement in the Niyamgiri hills of Odisha has to be seen in the global context of intensifying resistance to the destructive impacts of the private mining industry

Globalisation, Technology, Media, and Social Movements  321 among the indigenous people in countries as diverse as Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Australia, Brazil, and African nations. By making use of the internet and TNWs, local struggles attain global dimensions when movement actors literally take their opposition to the doorsteps of multinational mining companies. The genesis of the present anti-mining movement can be traced to the early 2000s in Odisha, which was in the thick of an extractive and mineral-resourcebased development strategy during this period. This development approach was advocated as a panacea for the poverty-stricken yet mineral-rich tribal area of Odisha. The Niyamgiri tribal protest provided an antithesis to this approach. The movement emerged against the granting of bauxite mining rights by the government to Vedanta Aluminium Limited, the Indian subsidiary of London-based transnational Vedanta Resources Plc. The Dongria Kondh and other tribes who were affected by this were among the most vulnerable and isolated communities in India. They were spatially separated, socially excluded, and politically disenfranchised groups. There were vast differences in power, political, economic, and social terms between the Kondh tribe and the state and multinational Vedanta. Given the highly unequal situation, how did the protest movement by this marginalised tribe against the combined forces of multinational capital and the state succeed? This anti-mining movement against the multinational Vedanta was based on a compact network among local, national, and international movement actors relying on both offline and online mechanisms. These motley groups of movement actors were only loosely organised and coordinated, with no formal platforms for physical meetings and decision-making. Nevertheless, the unambiguous, unified, and democratic representation of the affected Dongria Kondhs could set their goal and strategy in the absence of a centralised coordination mechanism. In a classic manifestation of glocal, the localised grassroots-based networking logic of the movement came in handy to bridge this gap between the affected tribals and TNWs. The resistance movement successfully realised its goal when the Supreme Court of India ruled during 2013 in favour of the tribals, thereby putting an end to Vedanta’s mining operations in Niyamgiri hills. Summary and Conclusion Technology has been an enabling factor for social movements, starting from the use of the printing presses by movement actors in late-18th-century Europe to the use of IT and the internet by Arab Spring activists in the 21st-century Middle East. Technology, whether printing press, electronic media, or ICT, has been used to disseminate information and mobilise the masses. The ICT and internet-based mobilisation has vastly expanded the reach and scope for the participation of ordinary citizens in movements, even when they are not the primary stakeholders. These technologies have proved quite potent in joining forces and mobilising diverse constituencies, be it in anti-Vedanta or MeToo movements. These technology-enabled social movements represent the responses of marginalised groups to defend and recover threatened forms of life, social identity, economy, and ecology from the forces of neoliberal globalisation (Escobar 1995; Habermas 1987).

322  Sthitapragyan Ray and Neha Ojha Interestingly, globalisation has generated mechanisms for contesting it by expanding and complicating the strategic choices available and forcing movement actors to look beyond their national boundaries to counter it. The IT and mediadriven transnational social movements have emerged in a paradoxical context and have provided linking mechanisms through which social movement participants are able to engage in collective action across national boundaries and are involved in conflictual relations with their opponents by developing a shared and distinct collective identity. The GISMs show how communication between movement actors is essential for its success (Lim 2012). The GISMs depend on networks, both technological and social, that function as dense clusters of stronger ties mobilising weakly linked individuals into a movement (Lim 2012). As Charles Tilly (1984) argues, it is not the individual who is the primary unit of a social movement; rather, it is the interaction between individuals which constitutes the core of a movement. Here, communication plays a key role in sustaining this interaction between individuals and strengthening their identification with movement goals (see Habermas 1987). This communication between contemporary movement actors is taking place across national boundaries due to innovative mobilisation, unique validation, and scope expansion of collective action made possible by IT and the internet (see Butsch 2007). As evidenced above, social movements have the capacity to merge with each other rapidly, and with more intensity. Hence, by exploring the relationships between social movements across borders and the cross-border features within movements, we can understand the pattern of movement emergence and movement progression. Review questions

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15 Genealogies of Queer Activism Around the Globe Banhishikha Ghosh

Learning Objectives After reading this chapter, you will be able to

• • • •

Visualise the contemporary dynamics of global queer movements; Designate the connotations analogous to it; Delineate the diverse directions in which the movement is developing; Locate contemporary growth of queer activism across the globe, including India; • Explain the basic perspectives that have emerged to explain it; • Cogitate on the horizontal and vertical parallels in the global queer movement.

Introduction In the last few decades, there have been extraordinary transformations and expansions of queer activism across the globe. In numerous countries, within both the Global North and the Global South, new legal and judicial developments enfranchising the rights of queer communities have been put into action. Such developments were a result of the sustained efforts of activists, civil society organisations, and advocacy networks. These actors have employed diverse and manifold repertoires and have collaborated over the decades across local, regional, national, and international platforms. It is significant to consider that queer activism across different global contexts came in waves. The initial waves were primarily focused on essential rights for queer communities. However, contemporary activism has a more nuanced and inclusive stance, as it acknowledges the intersecting identities and experiences of diverse sexual and gendered selves