Zed Books Power and Contestation: India since 1989 (Global History of the Present)

1989 marks the unraveling of India's 'Nehruvian Consensus' around the idea of a modern, secular nation with a self-reliant economy. Caste and religion have come to play major roles in national politics. Global economic integration has led to conflict between the state and dispossessed people, but processes of globalization have also enabled new spaces for political assertion, such as around sexuality. Older challenges to the idea of India continue from movements in Kashmir and the North-East, while Maoist insurgency has deepened its bases. In a world of American Empire, India as a nuclear power has abandoned non-alignment, a shift that is contested by voices within. 'Power and Contestation' shows that the turbulence and turmoil of this period are signs of India's continued vibrancy and democracy. The book is an ideal introduction to the complex internal histories and external power relations of a major global player for the new century. Review 'This is a sophisticated yet accessible survey of contemporary Indian politics and society. It will be an excellent textbook and a handy reference work to a complex field of study' Faisal Devji, New School University 'This book approaches the daunting task of analyzing the contradictory, diverse, and divergent history of India since 1989 with uncommon intelligence. To its great merit, Power and Contestation addresses the multiple trends in Indian politics while also offering a coherent and sustained argument about the principal driving forces. To manage to accomplish all this while maintaining a perspective at once local and global is no mean feat.' Gyan Prakash, Princeton University 'Menon and Nigam provide us a much-needed, readily accessible, deeply informed, and critically sophisticated insiders' analysis of political reality in India during its rapid rise to global stardom as a neo-liberal icon of economic success.' David Ludden, New York University 'This book, written by two academics who are also campaigners, offers the best survey of recent Indian history that I have seen.' Barry Pavier, International Socialism 'A great introduction to the complex contradictions that make up contemporary India .. A critical, insightful, and yet accessible description of India's present history ... Brilliant analysis ... A forceful book.' Labour/Le Travail About the Author Nivedita Menon is Reader in the Department of Political Science at the University of Delhi. Aditya Nigam is currently a Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in Delhi. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Power and Contestation India since 1989 By Nivedita Menon, Aditya Nigam Fernwood Publishing and Zed Books Ltd Copyright © 2007 Nivedita Menon and Aditya Nigam All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-84277-814-2 Contents Acknowledgments, vi, Abbreviations, vii, Timeline, x, India at a glance, xiii, Map, xiv, Introduction: a genealogy of the 1990s, 1, 1 The recalcitrance of caste, 15, 2 Politics of Hindutva and the minorities, 36, 3 Globalization I: accumulation by dispossession, 61, 4 Globalization II: new economies of desire, 83, 5 Old Left, New Left, 103, 6 When was the nation?, 135, 7 India in the world, 166, Conclusion: a heterogeneous present, 176, Notes, 182, Bibliography, 193, Index, 209, CHAPTER 1 The recalcitrance of caste The "backward castes" in power The period since the mid- to late 1980s has seen a dramatic collapse of old political formations and parties, which had dominated politics in the Nehruvian era. Even the movements of that period, right up to the mid-1970s, were largely movements around economic issues and questions of corruption, black-marketeering, hoarding, and food shortages. Through the decade of the 1980s, there was a gradual erosion of the Nehruvian secular-nationalist imagination, and one of the factors responsible for it was the "re-emergence" of caste in public discourse. The watershed, i