Identity politics has widened representation for the marginalised groups in democracies, while neoliberalism has deepened inequality. This volume finds answers to the paradox of widening representation and worsening inequality especially in India exploring the themes of development and identity in recent times.
Inspired by Ceasar Basu’s works as a political thinker and teacher, this volume weaves in economic concerns with the socio-cultural aspects of identity and contends that representation is not sufficient. Further, it highlights the importance of reinstating redistribution to serve both democracy and development. It looks at neoliberal policies and how they maximise negative liberty by focussing on the individual thereby obliterating the question of the social location of individuals. The contributors to this volume investigate these issues through the lens of religion, gender, caste, and raise interdisciplinary questions concerning ecological conditions of labour, the institution of democracy and capitalist regimes, linkages among multiple sectors of the Indian economy, devaluation of women’s work in the care economy, material distribution of resources, and liberty and civil rights. This book creates a much-needed conversation between the study of development through the economic perspective and the cultural or political sociology perspective.
It will be of interest to students and researchers of politics especially identity politics, economics, sociology and social justice, development studies, and social geography.
Identity politics has widened representation for the marginalised groups in democracies, while neoliberalism has deepened inequality. This volume finds answers to the paradox of widening representation and worsening inequality especially in India exploring the themes of development and identity in recent times.
PART I Democracy
1. Recognition or Redistribution? Marxism and the
National Question
2. Democracy, Subaltern Social Class and the Rise of
Neoliberal Era
3. Is Recognition an End in Itself? The Case of New State
Formation in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand PART II Development and Inequality
4. The Political Economy of Social Reproduction and Capital Accumulation in
Post-independent India
5. Neoliberalism and Womens Work: A Study of the
Informal Economy in India
6. Does Inequality Augment Employment Growth?
Revisiting Marx, Kalecki and Kaldor in the Indian Context
7. The Informal
Sector in India: Neo-dualism and Dual Policy Response PART III Natural
Resource and Development
8. For Food and Livelihood: Rethinking the Role of
Agriculture in Indias Capitalist Development
9. Climate Change and Livestock
Holding: Inequalities in Adaptation and the Need for Localised Policies
10.
Right to Water, Privatisation and the Issue of Efficiency
11. Agriculture as
a Source of Livelihood in Urban and Peri-Urban Areas: A Case of India after
2000 PART IV Identity Politics and Democracy
12. Muslims in New India: Some
Preliminary Observations
13. Understanding the Postcolonial: Native versus
Settlers and Brahmin versus Dalit
14. Mool-Niwasis or Khilonjias?
Indigeneity, Hindutva and the Quest for Scheduled Tribe Status by Adivasis in
Assam
Sejuti Das Gupta is an Associate professor at the Michigan State University, USA. She has also taught at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India. Her research is interdisciplinary and based on primary data and aims to contribute towards combining theory and practice for a better understanding in social science. Her most recent publication is called, Class, Politics and Agrarian Policies in Post-liberalisation India (2024).
Shouvik Chakraborty is an Assistant Research Professor at the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA. He specializes in environmental and energy economics, climate finance, job creation, and macroeconomics and is committed to addressing the urgent challenges posed by climate change. His recent research projects include analyzing the employment effects of President Biden's initiatives in green energy, manufacturing, and infrastructure in the United States.
Taposik Banerjee teaches Economics at the School of Liberal Studies, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar University Delhi, India. His research interests include social choice, law and economics and network theory. His recently published work is Characterization of a k-th best element rationalizable choice function with full domain, in the journal, Theory and Decision.