Changing Nature And Character Of The Indian State In The Post Liberalization Era;
State's Responses Towards The People's Movements In Koodankulam And Jaitapur

By Ajmal Khan A.T

29 April, 2016
Countercurrents.org

The nature and character of the Indian state has been getting much attention in context of economic liberalization and Globalisation. The evolution from a colonial state for more than hundred years and later to an established liberal democratic state which offered welfare for the maximum possible number of thousand of people who did not have means to meet their two ends. Nehruvian imagination of liberal socialism and state led development started gripping up for quite a while, however after about more than half a century of being a neo- colonial state, Indian state envisaged for a rapid liberalization of economy and integration to the rest of the global market economy. This led massive development projects and pogrammes coming in the various regions of the country which not only displaced vulnerable and local population but also cut down them from their life and livelihoods. This article is looking at the two prominent social movements which are emerged in two different contexts against setting up nuclear reactors, and try to make sense of the changing nature and charterer of the Indian state.

State has been at the center of discourses from the time when national states emerged to the modern world. Every state is a biodiversity of socio-economic, political and other formations. Theorization around the Indian state has also attracted scholarship in political sciences and other disciplines from the early inception of the Indian state. The growth from being a colonial state for more than a century and then having an established democratic state with a written constitution and a federal form of government which promised welfare for the millions of Indians who does not have food to eat and cloth to wear and shelter to stay1, without no radical or fundamental changes either in economy or society. It has been more than six decades now since this transfer of power has taken place, over these years the state's nature and character have changed according to the changes on the other socio-economic and political and international dynamics. The nature and character of the Indian state has been deliberated in the literature extensively. Largely, the literature on Indian state has shown two trends of looking at it, first the state as a system and then state as an idea, accordingly the literature can be categorized into these. There are three sets of scholars who understand the character of the state through the study of state systems. The first group are the scholars who took a state-centric view. Kohli (1987) Bardhan (1987) Vanaik (1990) Rudolphs (1987) and Varshney (1995) all see the state as having a sort of autonomous existence, albeit also constrained by dominant interests of various types. The second set of scholars study the state system from the society-centric perspective, this perspective seeks to analyses and reflect on the crisis in the Indian state. One of the prominent one in this category is Kohli (1990) who sees the crisis in the centralization and monopolization of political parties and state institutions by political elite thereby undermining essential features of liberal democracy, prominent others in this tradition are Saberwal (1996) Roy (2006) and Khilnani (1998). The third set is the section who looked at state system as anthropologically which largely documented the local interaction between the state's different forms and the people Gupta (1995) is one of the prominent in the tradition. There are other number of approaches, academics as well as political activist who have looked at the Indian state and interpreted the nature and character of the Indian state. While few approaches to look at the nature of Indian state that are most important here are liberal democracy approach which emphasis on the institution and processes as the key to understanding the state and political power where as the Marxist theorist’s state political economy is the vital factor, they have also looked at the class character of the state as well as the relations of production that is dominant in the economy and society within. The literature on the nature and characteristic of the Indian state is as wast as well as very strongly contested area, while the constitution of India declares that Indian is as a sovereign socialist democratic republic, further it also envisages the directive principles of state policy which paved the guidelines for the policy formulations in order to have a just distribution of the resource within the country. However the nature of Indian state has been described by semi- colonial, bourgeoisie, semi feudal and semi colonial state, Bhramanic, Hindu, Comprador bourgeoisie, patriarchal and much more according to the schools of thought and the authors. However one should not get into the trap of not capturing the real nature and character of the state for the purpose that is ahead to also establish the changes that have taken place over the period of time. In the recent history economic liberalization has been of the very strong economic and socio-political force around which debates on how the state's role has been changing is deliberated and debated upon.

Nature and character of the Indian state

To understand the nature of the contemporary Indian state, its also important to look the state from its historical evolution from the pre-colonial, colonial period and then come to the post colonial or the neo-colonial Indian state. European capitalism had fully penetrated to India once the whole Indian subcontinent became under the rule of British and other European powers, by primitive accumulation and formation of the capitalist production relations was one the characteristic of this phase2. The surplus that was extracted from India was invested outside India thus capitalism did not get much acceleration to grow during this period, however after the first world war there were examples of significant domestic developments, the Indian capitalist class started growing and they had its gestation in a laboratory of economic change, peculiar to itself imposed by colonial power (Satyamurthy 1994). The capitalist development in India was a later development in comparison with the other advanced capitalist countries, while they struggled against the imperialism for control over the domestic market for which they negotiated for the transfer of power without much disturbances in the structural linkages that were existed. Later, after the great depression and other crises faced by British imperialism also paved way for the growth of the domestic capitalism in India. While they were initially supporting the freedom movement but later Indian capitalist acquired great say within the movement by getting closer to the movement looking at the prospectus of post colonial country which will industrialize by the planned development that will benefit for their domestic growth. Finlay this coalition translated during 1944 as Bombay plan which envisaged for doubling per capita income in fifteen years, one of the striking feature of the plan was the acceptance of state ownership and management without any radical changes in the relations of production. There is much better analysis on the post colonial states in the third world in relation to the world capitalist system, even after independence ex-colonies continued to be periphery of capitalist world system (Amin 1977) the native bourgeoisie of these peripheral capitalist countries was structurally implicated in the process of mutual re enforcement between international specialization and unequal international exchange. There is also argument of subordinate peripheral capitalism in the post independence India (Hamza 1980) later the discourses on the mode of production and dominant mode of production opened critical question about the nature of Indian state. While Utsa Patnaik argued that the specificity of the colonial system marked it off from the capitalist mode of production of the core countries. However, the British imperialism have preserved as well as destroyed the conditions of India's pre capitalist economies it accelerated as well as retarded the development of capitalism in India3. Hamza alavi argues that, the imperial capital brought about a internal dis articulation of India's pre colonial pre capitalist economy and external articulation of it into a world wide structure of imperialism. However, there was also argument of a more power full state with indigenous bourgeoisies with more autonomy from the foreign capital where two dominant class got prominence in the social formation such as agrarian bourgeoisies or rich farmers capitalist farmer class and industrial bourgeoisies supported by big capital4. The analysis on the class structure in India later comes from Bardhan who argues that, the industrial class as the principal beneficiaries of the state policies in India, much of what was implemented during this period was with support of this class such as the policy of import substituting industrialization, trade restrictions which will provide a protected domestic market. He argues that, the state should be seen as an autonomous actor, and go on saying the “state has accumulated powers of direct ownership and control of the economy to an extent unparalleled in Indian history both in the spheres of circulation and of production directly manufacturing much of the capital goods owning more than 60 per cent of all productive capital in Industrial sector” however, the autonomy of the state that he argues as is reflected more often in the regulatory role than the developmental role, he goes on saying” the plurality of these constraints and the complexity of the their mutual interaction in a noisy open polity have generated pressure which have seriously interfered with the accumulation and management functions of the public economy. As the consequences the autonomy of Indian state is reflected more often in its regulatory(and hence patronage dispensing) than the development role”(Bardhan 1984). However, the state control was primarily meant to create conditions for rapid development of capitalism and to prevent the excessive concentration and monopoly of economic power, the policy perspectives that India followed after the independence also validates this. The economic planning, especially the five year plans tried for an economic development where public sector was assigned a central role. However, Indian economy went though huge crises and turbulence during the three decades of the planning period. In the late 1950s a situation was created where foreign agencies and governments could control the economy directly out of foreign exchange crisis and other issues that economy was undergoing, this primarily created opportunity for IMF to come in there policy prescriptions to the economy paved the initial foundation stone of liberalization, further the emergency during Indira Gandhi regime in 1970s was designed to further favor Indian and foreign monopoly capital without solving the structural problems in the country. Later, the open policies in 1980s witnessed the major steps which altered the political economy of Indian state like, de-regulation of industries, decontrol of prices, liberalization of imports, tax reductions, reducing the welfare and social spendings and increased in deficit spendings. This is also the time India started being more integrated to the world capitalist system and responding to the fluctuations that were taking place in the world capitalist system.

Indian State under the liberalization

Indian economy and society have witnessed for the large scale liberalization, privatization as part of the Globalisation policies which was started to adopt in the late 1980's and then accelerated during the 1990's. The most important policy changes that were adopted by the Indian state were most of the public sector undertakings were sold to the private players, licensing was liberalized for the industries, actively encouraging foreign direct investments in across the sectors, free flow of goods, services, technology, labor and capital was encouraged and promoted across the borders, environmental and other clearances were liberalized, Special Economic Zones and private economic arias were being set up, large multi national corporations were given land and other exemptions to operate not even considering the entitlements of the Indigenous and other local populations. One of the most important change that this period attracted was projecting national development of the countries purely in terms of GDP, the Gross Domestic Product of the country for which a new bread of economist have also helped. Now, this made far reaching consequences to the Indian economy, society and polity alike. Last three decades where the decades of liberalization where state slowly withdrawn from its basic services like health, education and free market takes up the traditional roles which were suppose to be carried out by the state, state's economic policies started to get influenced hugely by the international institutions like IMF and World Bank to which states are depended to on various ways. There are contestation about how the nature and character of the Indian state is changing after the liberalization, what is need to be looked at is how the political, economic entity shows the trend over a period of time as the result of various policy and other steps which were adopted in India as part of the liberalization project. One of the traditional argument (Susan 1996) about the state in the post liberalization era is of the shrinking role of state, the vacuum left by this shrinking role of state is taken over by the non state actors, especially national and multi national corporations, international organizations, subnational groups, non governmental organizations and other activist groups. However, there is also a section which argue of the increasing importance and the centrality of the state, Anne marine argues that, the state is not disappearing its only disaggregating into its component institutions5, the liberalization has been rather enabling process for the states where a open economy marked by free trade and capital mobility, markets are most effectively managed by rules based regimes undergirded by sovereign power. The arrival of the market is not the withdrawal of the state but beginning of altering the roles of the state. When we come to the Indian story, “from Independence in 1947 till 1991, the state occupied the so called ‘commanding heights of the economy’, boldly claiming that only it could shoulder the burdens of the country’s development challenges. In the end, an earnestly activist state intervention in the economy not only meant that the central officialdom controlled economic interactions at all levels through a pervasive system of regulations, bureaucratic controls, subsidies and administrative fiats, it also meant a severely restricted role for markets and private enterprise6.” even after the liberalization times the state has not hollowed out but rather adapted to the exigencies of Globalisation or more closely, to global capitalism. Bardhan put it as cynics may even argue that the retreat of the state, implied by economic reform, is now more acceptable to the upper classes and castes, not only because the regulatory and interventionist State has become too burdensome for the Indian economy, but also because these classes and castes are now losing their control over state power in the face of the emerging hordes of lower castes, and thus opting for greener pastures in the private sector (and abroad)7, the complex nature of the emerging powers and loosing out of the traditional dominance that propertied class has been one of the striking feature that as he emphasis on. At the same time Kohli by using the case studies of other countries from the developing world suggests that, from 1980 the Indian state decisively moved in a ‘cohesive-capitalist direction’. That is, as the failure of the Nehruvian statist model of development (characterized by massive state intervention and import-substitution industrialization) became evident, the state elites became more open to pro-market ideas. In turn as both the central and sub-national or state-level governments’ ‘pro-business policies’ began to generate respectable growth rates throughout the 1990s, the business classes became more trusting of the Indian state. Thus, to Kohli, economic Globalisation has pushed the Indian state into adopting a much narrower ruling framework¡ªturned it, in fact, into a ‘cohesive democratic-capitalist state8’ and the new role for the state is to enforce fiscal discipline and to ensure the transparency in the market, however how far state is capable for this is again has to be further inquired and seen. Ashutosh varshney put a perspective that, while the elite class made benefit out of the liberalization policies and the toiling masses of the country feels that this particular class shared the fruits of the liberalization.

These liberalization policies of course brought very strong discontents among the people of India, especially from those whose land and livelihoods were taken away, they mobilized themselves against land grabs of the state, big development projects, displacements, privatization and other measures which were suppressed largely by the respective states using extreme repressive measures. This led the emergence of thousands of people's movements across the country demanding the basic rights of the communities and local people, movements were contextual to the regions and issue based across the country. Here, I would like to see two people's movements which emerged in two different contexts, however not entirely different from each other, these two are also not an immediate after math popular movements of liberalization, however has much to do with the liberalization policies that were adopted.

Kudankulam and Jaitapure struggles

People's struggle against Kudankulam nuclear power plant in the state of Tamil Nadu and protest struggles against the nuclear power plant in Jaitapure in the state of Maharashtra have been creating head lines for the repressive responses from the various state authorities from the beginning of these two plants. Kudankulam nuclear power project has a long history of about two decade starting from 1988 when the Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and the Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi signed the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project deal. This triggered discontent among the local people who realized about the possible discharge of the hot water into sea which will threaten their livelihoods directly, they mobilized against the plan to set up the reactor. People from the three districts of Tirunelveli, Kanyakumari and Tuticorin organized a massive rally at Tirunelveli in 1988. In May 1989, around 10,000 people assembled to protest against the plant under the banner of the National Fish Workers’ Union (NFWU) however, the power changes in Russia and political turmoils after Rajiv Gandhi's assassination then the project plan was slow until there was one more agreement between India and Russia during 1997, then Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) acquired land for the project and for a township near by promising jobs and other opportunities of growth for the locals, but those were not materialized. Despite the resistance from the people government went ahead constructing the reactor. Another momentum of a consolidated struggle against the plant started in 2001 when the People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE) was established to fight against the plant. Local people, fisher men, women and children stood strongly against the plant, few died and despite those, the plant finally got commissioned and started its activities. In Kudankulam from the beginning of the struggle onwards the state of Tamil Nadu has used very strong repressive measures to stop the peace full protest against the plant not even considering the basic demands of the protesters. Air force, paramilitary and all other agencies were used to stop the resistance against the plant until the commissioning, however the resistances continued. There are nuclear martyrs in Kudankulam, people who were killed by police, the first one was Ignatius (19) in May 1989, while he was in a peace full rally police had fired and he was killed, the second was during 2012 when police fired to a solidarity protest near by Tuticorin, 44 year old Anthony John and few days later the surveillance planes of the Indian Coast Guard, that have been flying only a few meters above the ground over the heads of protesters engaged in Jal Satyagraha (Sea-based Civil Disobedience), led to 38 year old Sahayam falling off the bridge that he was standing on. He was announced dead shortly after being admitted to the nearby Nagercoil hospital. Government have always preferred to use the police, paramilitary and the coast guard over dialogue to deal with the protest of unarmed civilians in all ways possible through land, air and water. Inside the village, police men went a step further to hurt people’s sentiments and provoke them by desecrating the statue of Mother Mary in St Lourdes Matha Church, which has been the epicenter of the protests. The testimonials from the people revel the actual responses created against the people.

“We watched in horror as the plane approached us. Sahayam was standing on the shore. Terrified by the way the plane came so close, he fell down. Initially, we thought that he had just fallen unconscious but it was too late. He had died of shock”, cries his sister Chellamma. A tear gas shell directly hit 43-year-old Selsan. “A few minutes after the protest began, a tear gas shell was thrown towards me. The shell burst as it hit me, burning the skin and peeling it off. I was admitted to a private hospital in Nagercoil and could not talk for over two days. The doctors have told me that the stitches would be removed after 10 days. My medical expenses have come to Rs 60,000 so far9”,

Police had registered different charges against the people and the movement from the initial days onwards including waging war against state. During the last waves in 2012, 2013 the Koodankulam police have registered Section 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting with deadly weapon), 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty), 121(A) (conspiring to overawe, by means of criminal force or the show of criminal force, the central government or any state government), 395 (dacoity), 307 (attempt to murder) r/w 149 IPC (unlawful assembly) and Section 3 of TNPPDL Act (Tamil Nadu Public Property Damage Act) (causing damage to public property), 431 (damaging road, bridge, river, channel, etc) (Senthalir 2012). The people who booked on these charges include, the children from Koodankulam who have been booked under Sections 147, 148, 353, 121, 124, 129(b) (sings, recites or utters any obscene song, ballad or words, in or near any public place), 307 IPC r/w 149 IOC and Section 4 of Endangered Species Act and Section 3 of TNPPDL Act. Further, nearly 62 people, most of them from Koodankulam, were arrested during the protest on 10 September. They have been on relay fast several times since the protest began. It is not just the Idinthakarai village with a population of more than 12,000 which was protesting against the commissioning of the Koodankulam plant; more than 500 villages across the coastal districts had joined the struggle (Senthalir 2012). Despite the nature of resistance in Kudankulam were peace full state has suppressed it in all possible manner, in violating the procedures the reactor has became a reality today.

Jaitapur Nuclear Power Park (JNPP) is a nuclear power plant that is in construction in the Raigad region of Maharashtra in the Ratnagiri district if started working, it will be one of the biggest nuclear power plant in the world. Jaitapur plan is comparatively new, it was announced by the NPCL and Department of atomic energy in 2005 about setting up a nuclear plan in Jaitapur, The Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) and the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) in collaboration with Areva (French nuclear reactor designing company) are managing the plan. They have planned to install six European Pressurized Reactors (EPRs) with a capacity of producing 1650 MeV of electricity each. The plant will directly affect Madban, Niveli, Karel, Mithgavane and Varliwada villages other arias of the district and the livelihood of the people. Jaitapure is located on the Western Ghats, its one of the biological hot spot which is also very sensitive to the seismic activity. When the plant was announced, locals, fisher folks, different political parties and activist started voicing against the plant considering all these vulnerability. In Jaitapure people have started resisting the land grab and opposing the proposed nuclear power plant from the initial times, they started agitations and demonstrations demanding that the power plant should not be constructed, they were also suppressed by the different agencies of state, leaders were arrested and those who were not ready to give their land was forcefully taken over. Jaitapure have also shown waves of protest and people's mobilizations against the plant, which came out very heavily many a times. Irfan Qazi an activist and leading campaigner was died in accident in suspicious circumstances in 2010 December which again fueled the resistances. Qazi was hit by a police officers Sumo and died immediately. In another incident when police fired against the protesters in 2011 April Tabrez Sayekar, a local was killed and several others were seriously injured which again burned the protests. Though the five Gram Panchayats in the affected area have unanimously passed a resolutions against the project, different agencies of state and central governments repressed the local resistances time to time, they arrested peaceful protesters and imposed charges including attempt to murder and wage war against the state. The government has Lathicharged protesters, promulgated Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC, relating to unlawful assembly) and Section 37(3) (1) of the Bombay Police Act (prohibiting different kinds of assembly), slapped cases on the agitators, including for attempt to murder, and intimidated the local people against expressing their anger. A number of leaders of the Konkan Bachao Samiti, the Konkan Vinashkari Prakalp Virodhi Samiti and the Janahit Seva Samiti have been arrested or simply prevented from entering the district. The 70-year-old former judge of the Mumbai High Court, B G Kolse-Patil, was jailed for defying prohibitory orders while former Supreme Court judge P B Sawant and retired chief of Naval Staff Admiral L Ram- das were prohibited from entering the district (EPW 2011). There are many local organizations under which the series of demonstrations and protest including hunger strikes took place, organisations like Janahit Seva Samiti, Madban (People’s Welfare Committee, Madban), Konkan Bachao Samiti (Save Konkan Committee) and Konkan Vinashkari Prakalp Virodhi Samiti (Konkan Committee against Destructive Projects). However the Jaitapure movement also got strong supports from the other civil society groups in India, a solidarity march was also organized by different organizations which was also suppressed by the police and many of them were also arrested in different places. Despite of all of this, the construction and other activities at the location are in full swing for the plant.

What is interesting here is to note that, the nature in which state systems have responded to the discontent at Kudankulam and Jaitapure. In the both examples the people who are voicing their dissent are those who lost land, livelihoods, scared about their futures, who lost lives of the dear once, people whose life will be seriously affected and other groups that support them, civil society organizations, NGOs and political parties. When the state itself is the negotiator at Kodankulam and facilitator for NPCL and Areva in Jaitapure for the construction of nuclear plants. Indian state do have history of turning against its own people across the country directly or indirectly. The democratically elected governments and its mechanisms have turned against the very people and their interest is not a post liberalization phenomenon, however liberalization and its impacts have increased these kinds of responses from the indigenous and other local populations and its taking place on a daily basis. To quote the leader of People Against Nuclear Energy in KudanKualm S. P Udayakumar “To put it all in a nutshell, this is a classic David-Goliath fight between the citizens of India and the powerful government supported by the rich capitalists, MNCs, imperial powers and the global mafia. They promise FDI, nuclear power, development, atom bombs, security and superpower status¡KBut we fight for our children and grandchildren, our animals and birds, our land, water, sea, air and the skies.” S.P Udayakumar (leader of Kudankulam struggle). State is becoming more strong in terms of using repressive measures against the discontents from the people as far as most of the people's movements in India are concerned, Kudankulam and Jaitapure are two different examples where state becomes the security agent for both the public and private corporations and agencies. It strongly repressed the discontents that is coming from the people. The needs are requirements of the private capital and the interests of the private players are met with even killing and charging seditions to the most vulnerable sections within the country.

Ajmal Khan A.T is an activist and PhD candidate at the School of Development Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.

Notes

1
. The first address of Jawaharlal Nehru to the nation as first prime minister of the country, he stated that the priority of the state will be to feed, provide dress and shelter for the millions of Indians who does not have that.
2 . See Levkovsky, Capitalism in India( Delhi.1966) and The Indian capitalist class; a historical survey (New Delhi.1999).
3 . See Paresh chattopadhyaya, Some trends in India's economic development, Gough and Sharma edt, 27.p.
4 . Achin Vanaik, The pain full transition; Bourgeois democracy in India-1990.
5 . Anne Marie Slaughter, Governing the global economy through the government networks.
6 . Shalendra, A Political Economy of the Indian State in the Era of Globalisation: A Review , 2009.
7 . Pranab Bardhan, 1987, First Edition, 4th Reprint, 2003 The Political Economy of Development in India, Fourth Impression, New Delhi, Oxford University Press.
8 . As mentioned by Shalendra, A Political Economy of the Indian State in the Era of Globalisation: A Review , 2009.
9 . Taken from Senthalir, S. (2012). Violence against the Non-violent Struggle of Koodankulam. Economic and Political Weekly, 47(39).

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