Long read: Partha Chatterjee’s new book will change the way we study Indian politics

Yogendra Yadav is a psephologist turned politician. In this piece, we dwell not on his politics but on his elegant review of a very good book by Partha Chatterjee (no, not the TMC politician but the political scientist and anthropologist who now teaches at Columbia University). For those who don’t know who Partha Chatterjee is, Mr Yadav provides an introduction:

“Chatterjee, the historian of ideas, had alerted us to the derivative aspects of our nationalist thought. Chatterjee, the ghost writer for Charvak, had busted the myths the Indian nation likes to tell about itself. Chatterjee, the subaltern studies scholar, had drawn our attention to the mechanisms of governmentality through which the people are controlled by the state. Chatterjee, the anthropologist of power, noted how the people resist these moves by snatching piecemeal concessions from the rulers and how populist rulers in turn respond to regain control. These writings have made Chatterjee into an academic superstar. His arguments have been a staple diet for students of South Asian history and politics.”

Mr Yadav then turn to Mr Chatterjee’s new book, “For a Just Republic: The People of India and the State” which he says will “change the way we study Indian politics since Independence”.

Why so?

Here in Mr Yadav’s words is the crux of Mr Chatterjee’s new book: “Chatterjee’s….starting point is…a rejection of the idea that India is following the European trajectory of developing into a modern individualist society, a capitalist economy and a liberal democratic state. Instead, what we have in post-colonial India is a bifurcation of political reality, between the state and the people…On the one hand, we have a formal state apparatus that builds on the legal-administrative frame of the colonial state…This liberal constitutional form of representative government seeks to secure the rule of the dominant capitalist class through coercion and dispensing welfare benefits to its subjects. “Nation-state” is Chatterjee’s name for this layer that is at once culturally thin but increasingly powerful in terms of its regulatory and coercive capacity.

Beneath this formal layer, on the other hand, we have the ground reality that refuses to play by the given script. This reality is anchored differently in different regions of India and varies by its unique caste, class and gender configuration. It shapes very different imaginations of Indian nationhood in different parts of the country — with deep regional memories and only a shallow shared history of the nation. When the fiction of liberal governance hits this ground, it has to reckon with and make exceptions for social groups and communities of poor and disadvantaged people. The logic of rule-based governance has to give way to populist politics with a focus on short-term welfare and inventing an enemy. The dream of capitalist democracy has to confront the reality of a vast population in the informal sector that is redundant for capitalism but essential for political legitimacy. Chatterjee calls this ground reality “people-nation”.”

If you buy into this mental model of India then says Mr Yadav how you will dispense policy prescriptions will be very different from what has historically been done in India. To be specific:

“The way forward, then, is to institutionalise and deepen the logic of people-nation. This would mean moving towards a just federation that acknowledges all its parts as equal, makes arrangements to counterbalance the dominance of one region and the Hindi language and evolves unique measures for each region to allow for its special requirements. This would also entail an acceptance of coalition as the most appropriate form of political power at the Centre with due acknowledgment of the role of regional parties…

What, then, is to be done? Chatterjee suggests a threefold shift in deploying our political energies. First, we should shift our attention from the national to the linguistic regions. Accordingly, our focus must shift from all-India campaigns conducted in English and national media to the regional languages. And the focus of economic policies should shift to the mobilisation of small and middle enterprises in the regions. Second, our obsession with law as an instrument for social transformation should give way to social reform that seeks to change the culturally entrenched popular beliefs. And finally, he has a suggestion for “civil society”: Don’t displace or replicate politics, just focus on improving the integrity of public institutions.”

In another review of the book for The Wire, Nivedita Menon provides another layer of understanding of why this is an important book:

“The book does a deep dive …. to produce its larger argument. This argument is for a “change of scale to focus on regional and local caste-class formations and their gender component”. This means coalition politics as the “normal condition of government at the centre”, civil society to insist on the right of public institutions to govern themselves, and a more equal and meaningful federal process”

As India gets ready the confront the fireball that is delimitation, something tells us that over the next few years Partha Chatterjee’s new book will become a “go to resource” for our politicians and policymakers.

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