(유)The Anti-politics Machine in India

Vasudha Chhotray

 

The Anti-politics Machine in India: State, Decentralization and Participatory Watershed Development

(Anthem South Asian Studies, 2011)

 

 

 About This Book

'Vasudha Chhotray has written an intelligent, incisive and sometimes witty account of the politics of anti-politics in contemporary India.  Her important book shows us that bureaucratic development is never anti-political, however anodyne many of its formulations have become; rather, is political in particular ways and with important social consequences.' —Stuart Corbridge, Professor of Development Studies, London School of Economics and Political Science

 

'This is a fascinating account of how “development as anti-politics machine” actually plays out in practice… To weave this understanding through detailed empirical cases of actual development interventions and governance reforms, as based on a thorough primary research effort, is an admirable act of synthesis. Last but not least, the text is very well-written, with complex theoretical ideas, processes and events all clearly articulated.' —Samuel Hickey, Senior Lecturer, IDPM, University of Manchester

 

'This is an ambitious book that examines why the idea that development should be non-political continues to have a broad appeal, while tracking the political entanglements of development interventions through a comparative, empirical analysis. The focus on India’s national development regime is a welcome balance to studies of transnational interventions.' —Tania Murray Li, Professor and Canada Research Chair in the Political-Economy and Culture of Asia-Pacific, University of Toronto

This book assesses the validity of ‘anti-politics’ critiques of development, first popularised by James Ferguson, in the peculiar context of India. Ferguson’s memorable metaphor of development as an Anti-Politics Machine – that serves to entrench state power and depoliticize development – continues to appeal to those cynical of the widespread tendency of development discourses to treat various issues apolitically. The book examines this problem in India, a country where development planners after independence adopted a scientific stance and claimed to distance themselves from mass politics, but also one where the groundswell of democratic political mobilization has been considerable in recent decades. In a country with an extremely differentiated landscape of authority and diverse politics, what does it mean for the state to undertake a project (or indeed, projects) of depoliticization; for as scholars inspired by Foucault and Gramsci have variously agreed, depoliticization is a tentative project where outcomes are far from certain. The book examines these questions within the new context provided by decentralization, the potential of which to reorganize relationships amongst different levels of the state greatly complicates the very pursuit of depoliticization as a coherent state practice. It looks at these issues through a highly technocratic state watershed development programme in India that has witnessed key transformations towards participation in recent years.

Readership: This book will appeal to readers interested in the Indian state and politics and critical development theory.

 

http://www.anthempress.com/the-anti-politics-machine-in-india

 

 

Vasudha Chhotray, "The Anti-politics Machine in India: State, Decentralization and Participatory Watershed Development", The Journal of Development Studies Volume 43, Issue 6, 2007, pp.1037-1056.

 

Abstract

This article investigates the rationale and implications of creating non-elected community-based bodies for India's national watershed development programme in 1994. A discourse of depoliticisation is in use to justify the creation of ‘apolitical’ watershed committees in contrast to ‘political’ panchayats, ostensibly unsuitable for participatory development for their embodiment of political contestation and vested interests. The discourse masks conflicts between key actors in India's development process and is highly malleable, acquiring pertinent meanings in specific contexts. Case-study evidence from two project villages in a south Indian district shows that the attempt to depoliticise this programme of panchayat politics fails, but sets up the ground for depoliticisation of another sort, by distancing watershed project spaces from pro-poor progressive politics.

 

 

 

 

THE ANTI-POLITICS MACHINE REVISITED(인도사례).pdf

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