Economic & Political Weekly EPW september 28, 2013 vol xlviii no 39

35
book reviewS
Liberalisation, Hindu Nationalism and the
State: A Biography of Gujarat by Nikita Sud
(New Delhi: OUP), 2012; pp xvii + 249, Rs 695.
Gujarat and Its Protean State
Sanjeevini Badigar
G
ujarat has been much in the
news in the past decade where
economic growth and commu-
nal violence have been pitted against
each other as being typical or represent-
ative of the state. Nikita Suds brilliant
book, which examines the t rajectories
of economic liberalisation and Hindu
nationalism, seeks to challenge such
notions about Gujarat, which she ar-
gues deserves more than being boxed
into single, unimaginative categories
(p 184). Presented as a Bio graphy of
Gujarat, the book is a rich empirical
acco unt that examines the trajectory
of economic liberalisation and Hindu
natio nalism over time to portray a
c omplex picture of a protean state,
eluding denitive pronouncements
of possibilities in ideas, action and
p olitics (p 184).
Emphasis on History
The book begins with an analysis of the
political milieu that emerged during
the national movement and the forma-
tion of the state that sets the context for
the forthcoming chapters. What comes
acr oss as the most engaging part of the
book and where it, in my opinion, begins
to make its valuable contribution to ex-
isting scholarship is Section 1 that exam-
ines Gujarats trajectory of development.
While Gujarats economic gro wth in
r ecent times has often been credited
to the governance of Chief Minister
Narendra Modi, these chapters trace the
historical antecedents of todays eco-
nomic growth and the states develop-
ment strategy since its inception. The
author traces Gujarats trajectory of de-
velopment through detailed empirical
data to argue that Gujarats develop-
ment story, like its politics, is embedded
in caste and class where the powerful
elite cornered most of the benets of de-
velopment while the poor have been a
residual category throughout.
Although these analyses of the histori-
cal antecedents of Gujarats focus on de-
velopment (Yagnik and Sheth 2005) and
of the states role in development stra-
tegy (Kohli 2012) have been made in ear-
lier works and acknowledged by Sud,
her work brings much analytical visibi-
lity through an actual case study of an
enterprise under the pseudonym Kar-
khana in Chapter 4. The case study of
land acquisition for a major cem ent cor-
poration Karkhana demonstrates how
various elements in the state at different
points in time manoeuvre through the
states own policies and legislations to
actually promote and ensure the success
of private players, thereby reiterating
the point made in the earlier chapter
about todays state-led business-friendly
liberalisation in Gujarat.
Land Policy in Gujarat
Another noteworthy contribution of the
book is in Chapter 3, which analyses pol-
icies on land that have played an impor-
tant role in the project of state-led devel-
opment. It traces shifts in the develop-
mental strategy that began with land
r eform that sought to give land to the
tiller and its subsequent dilution by the
powerful upper-caste elite, to its policies
today that favour liberalisation through
simplication of land policies for big
businesses. Policies related to land are
used to demonstrate a narrowing of pos-
sibilities of Stateness, described earlier
as a narrowing of what the state is will-
ing to be and do (p 9), from aspiring
for productivity and social justice in an
era of land to the tiller, to eschewing
policies of redistribution and focusing
instead on high growth.
How does this state, whose resources
were largely controlled by the political
elite of upper-caste savarnas, manage to
maintain its legitimacy when it openly
allies with the strategic but narrow citi-
zenry of big business elite? Sud asks this
important question before moving on to
the next section on Hindu nationalism to
ag off what seems to be the core argu-
ment of the book. The state in Gujarat
rather than having a broad-based, egali-
tarian economic agenda has chosen to
ally with drivers of privatised economic
growth, viz, the national and inter-
national big business elite, while for
populist measures, it pursues a majori-
tarian-Hindu-nationalist agenda that
gains legitimacy, both socially and cul-
turally through the route of security
and protection for the chosen sections of
the population (p 114).
In keeping with the books exploratory
approach, the author develops this argu-
ment of the states strategy by briey
alluding to stateness rather than devel-
oping the theoretical implications of
legitimacy. The expansion of the states
presence in ethno-politics she argues,
represents a broadening of possibilities
of stateness to balance the constriction
that is evident in economic and develop-
mental spheres (p 11). Although the
con cept of stateness seems to be a key
aspect in the analytical structure of the
book, it is not further developed other
than in a footnote (p 16 note 5).
Hindu Parivar
The next section examines Hindu
nationalism, beginning with its emer-
gence and its consolidation in modern-
day Gujarat. To trace the path to Hindu
communalism the author begins with
19th century reformist movements, re-
vivalist movements and traces the devel-
opment of groupings over time that form
what is today the Sangh parivar or the
family of the Sangh. In examining the
relationship between secularism, Hindu
nationalism and the state, the book ex-
amines major riots in the state in the
post-Independence period. Sud argues
that even though secularism is the
avowed constitutional ideal, in practice
BOOK REVIEW
september 28, 2013 vol xlviii no 39 EPW Economic & Political Weekly
36
in 1969 and subsequently through major
instances of communal violence in the
1980s, 1990s and in 2002, state ofcials
did not exercise their constitutional obli-
gation neutrally thus leading to an in-
creasing de-secularisation in the state
that reached its nadir in 2002.
Falling Short
The chapter however concludes that the
state in Gujarat did not come across as
unambiguously secular even before
2002 and that the governments support
for the cultural-nationalist agenda has
been constrained by alternative norms
and pressures thereafter it cannot be
said that the state in Gujarat represents
the quintessential Hindu-rashtra today.
The earlier chapters in the book do
a rrive at the conclusion that there has
been a shift in political economy from an
era of land to the tiller to land for liber-
alisation (p 113). However, the author
somehow desists from stating the same
with respect to communal violence,
d espite highlighting shifts in the com-
munalisation of the state, particularly,
since the 1980s that reached its lowest
point in 2002. After presenting empirical
evidence for the erosion of the principle
of neutrality and the penetration of
right-wing forces in the bureaucracy, the
authors conclusion against what she
describes as generalisations and deter-
ministic pronouncements of paradigm
shifts and political juggernauts (p 184)
comes as a surprise for a number
of reasons.
The alternative norms and pressures
that have served to constrain the state,
which otherwise had a popular man-
date, have come largely from outside the
state and even outside the country. It
was due to the larger political milieu in
Gujarat that the government in power at
the time of the 2002 violence has been
re-elected emphatically and where, by
the a uthors own account, vast swathes
of bureaucracy, police and the public
ser vice providers in sectors such as
health and education demonstrate con-
vergence with the agenda of Hindu su-
premacist nation state (p 196) and not
to mention the not-so-uncommon sign-
boards that declare places as Hindu
rashtra, that activists and lawyers have
had to use such expressions. Although
their voices found little resonance in the
political apparatus within Gujarat, the
sustained campaign of civil-society
groups and the media did, however,
succeed in bringing to light human-
rights violations and the threat of im-
minent miscarriage of justice that led
to the national and international public
outcry. Depositions of victims and activ-
ists before the commission appointed by
the state government to inquire into the
v iolence, the Nanavati-Shah Commis-
sion of Inquiry,
1
proved ineffectual and
the initiatives undertaken by the com-
mission to investigate the actions of the
state came primarily due to pressures
from outside the state (Khetan 2011;
J affrelot 2012).
Reminders of alternative possibilities
of stateness (p 12) have come up not so
much due to the multidimensional
nature of the state in Gujarat but due to
the sustained campaign by civil-society
groups, the unprecedented intervention
of the Supreme Court and constitutional
bodies at the national level. The instances
of alternative pressures within the state
to the majoritarian agenda follo wed
by the government are very few and far
between to constitute a challenge,
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BOOK REVIEW
Economic & Political Weekly EPW september 28, 2013 vol xlviii no 39
37
a lthough, they do give hope for alterna-
tive outcomes.
The Protean State
This book can be located among other
works of scholarship that have ques-
tioned unitary understandings of the
state. It does provide a historically nu-
anced and comprehensive view of the
many aspects of the entity called the
state as it emerges from a protean
make up of ideas, institutional practices
and politics (p 193), but despite provid-
ing much empirical evidence, stops
short of describing the project of Hindu
nationalism as successful in the state.
However, to say that the state is not a
unitary entity but a multi-hued lattice
and a protean, amorphous entity need
not occlude the possibility of the domi-
nance of certain trends in it. For in-
stance, in another volume, which sought
to portray the amorphous character of
the everyday state, it was argued that
despite the fact that the state in India
has tried to adhere to the constitutional
ideal of secularism to maintain the
myth of neutrality through spectacles
such as inquiry commissions, mohalla
committees, etc, it continues to have
evident majoritarian biases (Hansen
2000: 31-67). Such a conclusion does not
necessarily foreclose the possibility of
other trends emerging in the future.
The presentation of data and argu-
ments in the book put forth a compelling
account of how economic liberalism and
political illiberalism have gone hand in
hand in Gujarat. The book must be cred-
ited for questioning the popular thesis,
especially among aid agencies, which
club liberalisation of the economy with
liberalism in politics. In the book liberal-
isation and Hindu nationalism have been
presented in their independent trajecto-
ries. However, regarding the points of
their conjunction, the open analytical
framework (p 190) in the book, which
uses an amalgamation of arguments
from existing scholarship, sheds little
light beyond how it plays out in practice,
illustrated albeit through rich empirical
data. Among typographical errors, the
number of lives lost in the 1969 riots has
erroneously been printed as 30,000
(p 137), while according to ofcial reprots
(Report of Commission of Inquiry 1970:
211) and expert estimates (Shah 1970),
around 1,000 people lost their lives; and
note 14 on p 185 should read as See note
2 in Introduction instead of note 3.
In sum it must be said that Nikita Suds
book is a well-researched, fresh and com-
prehensive account that promises to
b ecome a much-referred book, not just
for the issues of economic liberalisation
and Hindu nationalism in Gujarat, but
also for those interested in the nature of
the state.
Sanjeevini Badigar (sanjeevinibadigar@
gmail.com) is at the Department of Civics and
Politics, University of Mumbai.
Note
1 The Government of Gujarat appointed the
Godhra Inquiry Commission on 6 March
2002, whose primary mandate included the
investigation of the circumstances surround-
ing the Godhra incident. The report was pre-
sented in 2007 by Justice G T Nanavati and
Justice K G Shah who was later replaced by
Justice Akshay Mehta.
References
Hansen, Thomas Blom (2000): Governance and
Myths of State in Mumbai in C J Fuller and
Veronique Benei (ed.), The Everyday State and
Society in Modern India (New Delhi: Social
Science Press).
Jaffrelot, Christoffe (2012): Gujarat 2002: What
Justice for the Victims?, Economic & Political
Weekly, 47(8).
Khetan, Ashish (2011): The Godhra Verdict, Burn
after Reading, Tehelka, 5 March.
Kohli, Atul (2012): Poverty Amid Plenty in the New
India (New Delhi: Cambridge University Press).
Report of the Commission of Inquiry (1970): Chap-
ter XVIII, Ahmedabad Communal Disturbances
(1969) (Ahmedabad: Government of Gujarat).
Shah, Ghanshyam (1970): Communal Riots in
Gujarat: Reports of a Preliminiary Investiga-
tion, Economic & Political Weekly, 5(3/5).
Yagnik, Achyutand and Suchitra Sheth (2005):
Shaping of Modern Gujarat: Plurality, Hindutva
and Beyond (New Delhi: Penguin).