New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2012. xvi, 249 pp. (Tables, figures, map.) US$47.00, cloth. ISBN 0-19-807693-2.
Nikita Sud’s Liberalization, Hindu Nationalism and the State uses a mix of ethnographic and documentary data to give a distinctive account of politics in modern Gujarat. In particular the book shows how the state in Gujarat is implicated in the process of economic liberalization and how the same state was involved in the rise to political prominence of the Hindu nationalist movement in Gujarat.
Sud reflects on the historical antecedents of economic liberalization and Hindu nationalism in Gujarat. Economic development in the region was given a spur by the circumstances in which the state of Gujarat was formed. The state of Bombay was divided in 1960 after much rancour, so that linguistic states could be formed, with Maharashtra keeping the prosperous city of Bombay. The new state of Gujarat promoted industrial and agricultural development to compensate for this loss. A range of cooperatives thrived, among other things providing support for dairy farmers and creating a base from which a number of entrepreneurs made their way into politics. Sud also identifies a conservative trend in state politics which is reflected in longstanding interest in Hindu nationalist causes. This conservatism is encouraged by the economic strength of the land-owning Patidar caste group and the largely unchallenged social privileges of the upper castes. Congress attempted, but ultimately failed, to assemble a coalition from among a majority comprised of backward castes, Dalits, Adivasis and Muslims. A key moment that confirmed the political strength of the privileged was the 1985 riots against the reservation policies of the state government. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) became prominent in the 1990s after it opposed reservations and promoted Hindu causes that appeared to transcend caste divisions. The BJP won both the 1995 and 1998 state assembly elections but it was troubled by internal divisions. It was only after Narendra Modi was appointed Chief Minister in 2001 that the party settled into power. Modi’s position was strengthened in 2002 by the “vitriolic backlash against the Godhra train carnage that left 59 Hindu activists burnt to death and triggered mass violence against Muslims” (35). The account of the 2002 violence given later in the book is placed in historical context and shows how the ability of the state in Gujarat to mediate between religious groups has been severely degraded as the governing party has used public institutions for its own purposes.
The political economy analysis contained in Liberalization, Hindu Nationalism and the State uses the case of land policy to illustrate how the state in Gujarat has positioned itself in relation to economic liberalisation. A number of measures introduced since the early 1990s are examined that show how land policy has come to reflect the interests of the powerful, and in particular the corporate sector. The picture is a complex one, and the struggles to achieve a liberalized land policy are narrated in some detail. The central government, for example, has not endorsed all of the policies preferred by the state government. What becomes clear is that the Government of Gujarat has been guided by the preferences of favoured businesses as much as by neo-liberal ideology. The commitment to economic liberalism is shown to be selective, with large companies fixing electricity prices in their favour (at the expense of the public purse) and land given to large businesses at throw-away prices. The partiality to individual businesses is shown by the lengthy case in chapter 4 detailing how the Government of Gujarat acted as a partisan advocate, helping one company acquire land in an environmentally protected area. In the final chapter the conventional wisdom, which predicts the state will recede as liberal economic ideology becomes more influential, is challenged. Instead Sud argues that a relatively effective state has made both economic liberalization and political illiberalism possible. The state has thus been reinvented from a formation that was committed, even if unevenly, to statist development and secularism to an ensemble of institutions that lean heavily towards business and the ideology of Hindutva. Sud makes clear that the transformation has not been absolute, and that national institutions and some actors within Gujarat have resisted the ambitions of the governing regime.
In addition to the theoretical analysis of the contemporary state the book includes much of empirical interest. Sud shows the modern Indian state did inculcate normative assumptions among at least some of its citizens. One interviewee admitted guiltily to having evaded land ceiling regulations. Another commented that in the 1970s a secular ban on displaying religious images in government offices would be quite normal, whereas it would now be termed an “anti-Hindu Act” (156). The commentary on Narendra Modi’s leadership is very informative, revealing that he does not have solid support within the state unit of his own party (35–42). With growing interest in the study of state politics in India this is a timely volume. This book will also inform debates about the politics of Hindu nationalism more generally, as well as speaking to wider literature on the economic role of the state.
Andrew Wyatt
University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom
pp. 168-169