Politics and agrarian policies in post-liberalisation India - Book talk with Dr Sejuti Das Gupta

Class, Politics and Agrarian Policies in Post-liberalisation India

India entered a new political and economic phase in 1991 with adoption of the structural adjustment programme. Several studies since have tended to focus on global and national factors to understand ongoing political processes in the country. With cultural nationalism and symbolic politics holding the media attention, the significant transformation of India’s political economy and the changing political settlement has been under researched despite their contribution to victory of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2014 elections.

The book argues that the period after liberalisation cannot be regarded as a continuous period as far as its political economy is concerned. In fact, an assessment of the political settlement operating in states of Chhattisgarh, Gujarat and Karnataka bring back role of subnational actors, particularly classes in shaping policies which in turn shape classes, and this undergoes a big change after 2004. Hence a new phase begins from here which contributes to the victory of BJP in 2014. A peculiar combination of dominant class and state relation emerge in these three states which play a decisive role in how agrarian policies and politics have advanced since. 

About the speaker

Dr Sejuti Das Gupta is an assistant professor in the Comparative Cultures and Politics field. She completed her doctoral studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. She received the Felix Scholarship to conduct her doctoral research in Development Studies. Her book Class, Politics and Agrarian Policies in Post-liberalisation India has been published by Cambridge University Press in 2019. Her areas of interest are capitalism, colonialism, agrarian political economy, public policy, class-caste and state-society interactions. 

This South Asia Research Institute book talk is co-hosted with the Resources, Environment and Development Program, in the ANU Crawford School of Public Policy. 

Refreshments from 4-4.30pm
Lecture from 4.30 -5.30pm

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