In the Name of the Public: The Middle Classes and the State in Liberalizing India
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Publicado
27-03-2023
Leela Fernandes
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2224-0884
Resumo
This article analyzes the political dynamics of middle class claims of representativeness of the public interest in contemporary India. Drawing on research in the post-liberalization period, the article examines the ways in which the “publicness” of the middle classes produces a distinctive relationship between this social group and state power. In the process, the middle classes both become a vehicle for the exercise of state power and are able to benefit from this relationship. Middle class claims on the public interest allow this social group to shape governmental responses and policies. This allows this social group to gain indirect access to state power and access to material resources. An analysis of the publicness of the middle classes is critical for an understanding of the nature of socioeconomic inequality. The article draws on a case study of urban governance and water resources in contemporary India and is based on qualitative research and fieldwork.
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References
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Krishna, A., & Bajpai, D. (2015). Layers in globalising society and the new middle class in India: trends, distribution and prospects. Economic and Political Weekly, 50(5), 69-77.
Kumar, S. (2012). Clean Air; Dirty Logic? In R. Desai & R. Sanyal (Eds.), Urbanising citizenship: contested spaces in Indian cities (pp. 135-60). Delhi, London and Thousand Oaks, California: Sage.
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Löpez-Pedreros, R., & Weinstein, B., (Eds.) (2012). The Making of the Middle Class: Toward a Transnational History. Durham: Duke University Press.
Ludden, D. E. (1979). Patronage and Irrigation in Tamil Nadu: A Long-Term View. Indian Economic and Social History Review, 16(3), 347-365
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Misra, B. B. (1961). The Indian middle classes: their growth in modern times. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Mohanty, P. K. (2016). Financing cities in India: municipal reforms, fiscal accountability and urban infrastructure. New Delhi: Sage.
Nagaraj, R. (2015). Can the public sector revive the economy?: Review of the evidence and a policy suggestion. Economic and Political Weekly L (5 January 31), 41-46.
Nagaraj, R. (2017). Public sector employment: what has changed? In R. Nagaraj & S. Motiram (Eds.), Political Economy of Contemporary India (pp. 157-178). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Owensby, B. (1999). Intimate Ironies: Modernity and the Making of Middle Class Lives in Brazil. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Pradhan, K. C. (2012). Unacknowledged urbanisation: the new census towns of India. Working Paper #2, New Delhi: Center for Policy Research.
Punjabi, B., & Johnson, C. (2018). The politics of rural-urban water conflict in India: untapping the power of institutional reform. World Development, 120, 182-192.
Radhakrishnan, S. (2011). Appropriately Indian: gender and culture in a new transnational class. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Rudolph, L., & Rudolph, S. (1987). In pursuit of Lakshmi: The political economy of the Indian state. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Saldhana, L., & Rao, B. (2015). Karnataka: Cauvery in Death Throes. In R. Iyer (Ed.), Living Rivers, Dying Rivers (pp. 293-313). New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Sarkar, T. (2001). Hindu wife, Hindu nation: community, religion, and cultural nationalism. London: Hurst.
Stivens, M. (1998). Sex, Gender and the Making of the New Malay Middle Classes. In K. Sen and M. Stivens (Eds.), Gender and Power in Affluent Asia, 86-126. New York: Routledge.
Sumich, J. (2018). The Middle Class in Mozambique: The State and the Politics of Transformation in Southern Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tiwari, P., & Nair, R. (2011). Transforming Water Utilities. In Infrastructure Development Finance Company (Eds.), India Infrastructure Report (pp. 240-259). New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
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World Bank (2011). Trends in private sector participation in the Indian water sector: a critical review. Water and Sanitation Program No. 66526: New Delhi.
Anand, N. (2017). Hydraulic city: water and the infrastructures of citizenship in Mumbai. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Aslany, M. (2019). The middle class, its Size, and urban-rural variations. Contemporary South Asia, 27(2), 196-213.
Ballabh, V. (Ed.) (2008). Governance of Water: Institutional Alternatives and Political Economy. New Delhi: Sage.
Bardhan, P. (1984). The political economy of development in India. London: Oxford University Press.
Bardhan, P. (2001). Sharing the spoils: group equity, development and democracy. In A. Kohli (Ed.), The success of India’s democracy (pp. 226-241). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Baviskar, A. (2020). Uncivil city: ecology, equity and the commons in Delhi. New Delhi: Sage Publications.
Bear, L., & Mathur, N. (2015). Remaking the public good: a new anthropology of bureaucracy. Cambridge Journal of Anthropology, 33(1), 18-34.
Brenner, N. (2004). New state spaces: urban governance and the rescaling of statehood. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Butterworth, J., Ducrot, R., Faysse, N., & Janakarajan, S. (Eds.) (2007). Peri-urban water conflicts: supporting dialogue and negotiation. The Netherlands: IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre.
Chatterjee, P. (1989). Colonialism, nationalism, and colonized women: the contest in India. American Ethnologist, 16(4), 622-633.
Coelho, K., & Raman, N. (2013). From the frying pan to the floodplain: negotiating land, water, and fire in Chennai’s development. In A. Rademacher & K. Sivaramakrishnan (Eds.), Ecologies of urbanism in India: metropolitan civility and sustainability (pp. 145-168). Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Cullet, P. (2009). Water law, poverty, and development: water sector reforms in India. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
D’Costa, A. (2010). A New India?: Critical Reflections in the Long Twentieth Century. New York: Anthem Press.
Dasgupta, S. (2015). BITS of belonging: information technology, water, and neoliberal governance in India. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Dejung, Ch., Motadel, D., & Osterhammel, J. (Eds.) (2019). The Global Bourgeoisie: The Rise of the Middle Classes in the Age of Empire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Dobbs, R., & Sankhem, S. (2010). Comparing urbanization in China and India. Open access version: https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/urbanization/comparing-urbanization-in-china-and-india.
Dubash, N. K. 2002. Tubewell Capitalism: Groundwater Development and Agrarian Change in Gujarat. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Fernandes, L. (2006). India’s new middle class: democratic politics in an era of economic reform. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Fernandes, L. (2022). Governing water in India: inequality, reform and the state. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Open access version: https://uw.manifoldapp.org/projects/governing-water-in-india.
Foster, V., Pattanayak, S., & Prokopy, L. (2003). Do current water subsidies reach the poor? Water Tariffs & Subsidies in South Asia, April 2003, 1-10. Open access version: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/17260/349610Current0water0WaterTariffs.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.
Frankel, F. (2015). India’s green revolution: economic gains and political costs. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Gandy, M. (2008). Landscapes of Disaster: Water, Modernity and Urban Fragmentation in Mumbai. Environment and Planning A, 40, 108-130.
Ganguly-Scrase, R., & Scrase, T. (2009). Globalization and the middle classes in India: the social and cultural impact of neo-liberal feforms. London: Routledge.
Goldman, M., & Narayan, D. (2019). Water Crisis through the Analytic of Urban Transformation: An Analysis of Bangalore’s Hydrosocial Regimes. Water International, 44(2), 95-114.
Haynes, D. (1991). Rhetoric and ritual in colonial India: the shaping of a public culture in Surat City, 1852-1928. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Janakarajan, S., Butterworth, J., Moriarty, P., & Batchelor, C. (2007). Strengthened city, marginalised peri-urban villages: stakeholder dialogues for inclusive urbanisation in Chennai, India. In J. Butterworth, R. Ducrot, N. Faysse, & S. Janakarajan (Eds.), Peri-urban water conflicts: supporting dialogue and negotiation (pp. 51-74). The Netherlands: IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre.
Janakarajan, S. (2004). A Snake in the Grass! Unequal Power, Unequal Contracts and Unexplained Conflicts: Facilitating Negotiations over Water Conflicts in Peri-urban Catchments. Paper presented at Conference on Market Development of Water & Waste Technologies Through Environmental Economics. Open access version: www.irc.nl/negowat.
Jeffrey, C. (2010). Youth, Class and the Politics of Waiting in India. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Joshi, S. (2001). Fractured modernity: making of a middle class in colonial North India. New York: Oxford University Press.
Joy, K. J., Gupta, B., Paranjape, S., Goude, V., & Vispute, S. (2008). Water conflicts in India: a million revolts in the making. New Delhi: Routledge.
Krishna, A., & Bajpai, D. (2015). Layers in globalising society and the new middle class in India: trends, distribution and prospects. Economic and Political Weekly, 50(5), 69-77.
Kumar, S. (2012). Clean Air; Dirty Logic? In R. Desai & R. Sanyal (Eds.), Urbanising citizenship: contested spaces in Indian cities (pp. 135-60). Delhi, London and Thousand Oaks, California: Sage.
Lipset, S. M. (1963). Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics. New York: Anchor.
Löpez-Pedreros, R., & Weinstein, B., (Eds.) (2012). The Making of the Middle Class: Toward a Transnational History. Durham: Duke University Press.
Ludden, D. E. (1979). Patronage and Irrigation in Tamil Nadu: A Long-Term View. Indian Economic and Social History Review, 16(3), 347-365
McKenzie, D., & Ray, I. (2009). Urban water supply in India: status, reform option and possible lessons. Water Policy, 11(4), 442-460.
Misra, B. B. (1961). The Indian middle classes: their growth in modern times. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Mohanty, P. K. (2016). Financing cities in India: municipal reforms, fiscal accountability and urban infrastructure. New Delhi: Sage.
Nagaraj, R. (2015). Can the public sector revive the economy?: Review of the evidence and a policy suggestion. Economic and Political Weekly L (5 January 31), 41-46.
Nagaraj, R. (2017). Public sector employment: what has changed? In R. Nagaraj & S. Motiram (Eds.), Political Economy of Contemporary India (pp. 157-178). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Owensby, B. (1999). Intimate Ironies: Modernity and the Making of Middle Class Lives in Brazil. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Pradhan, K. C. (2012). Unacknowledged urbanisation: the new census towns of India. Working Paper #2, New Delhi: Center for Policy Research.
Punjabi, B., & Johnson, C. (2018). The politics of rural-urban water conflict in India: untapping the power of institutional reform. World Development, 120, 182-192.
Radhakrishnan, S. (2011). Appropriately Indian: gender and culture in a new transnational class. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Rudolph, L., & Rudolph, S. (1987). In pursuit of Lakshmi: The political economy of the Indian state. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Saldhana, L., & Rao, B. (2015). Karnataka: Cauvery in Death Throes. In R. Iyer (Ed.), Living Rivers, Dying Rivers (pp. 293-313). New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Sarkar, T. (2001). Hindu wife, Hindu nation: community, religion, and cultural nationalism. London: Hurst.
Stivens, M. (1998). Sex, Gender and the Making of the New Malay Middle Classes. In K. Sen and M. Stivens (Eds.), Gender and Power in Affluent Asia, 86-126. New York: Routledge.
Sumich, J. (2018). The Middle Class in Mozambique: The State and the Politics of Transformation in Southern Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tiwari, P., & Nair, R. (2011). Transforming Water Utilities. In Infrastructure Development Finance Company (Eds.), India Infrastructure Report (pp. 240-259). New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
United Nations (2022). Envisaging the Future of Cities: World Cities Report 2022, https://unhabitat.org/sites/default/files/2022/06/wcr_2022.pdf.
World Bank (2011). Trends in private sector participation in the Indian water sector: a critical review. Water and Sanitation Program No. 66526: New Delhi.
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