On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 4:25 PM, Anivar Aravind <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:
> Leftist Babel in Kerala > > Posted by: *jdevika* | 20 August 2008 > Let me first quote from Devika: *the left's achievements after this did not touch upon redistribution of productive resources to the agricultural working classes. Indeed, we have seen the expansion of mass welfare — mass housing, fixing minimum wages, making available welfare pensions through welfare funds for unorganised sector workers, and so on.We have also seen the welfare system's indirect acknowledgement of the rise of the consumer-citizen in Kerala — for instance, in the state-run Maveli stores.....* *The PPC introduced the liberal promise by which the poor were to be integrated into the market as small entreprenuers with plenty of state support through the new institutions of local self-government– in training, credit, subsidies, infrastructure, and markets.This was to be matched with an expansion of 'minimum entitlements' — especially housing and water supply............* *whether the demand for productive land is the same as the presently available sure-fire medicine for poverty alleviation, the minimum entitlement, or whether productive land should be made into the new minimum entitlement.......* *from Ambedkar to Amartya Sen dragged in* *I think a significantly valid critique of the developmental agenda of the mainstream Left entrenched in the quagmire of neoliberalism and bygone conservativism of Trade unionism is enabled by Devika. Amartya Sen's "entitlement and capability" approach still governs minimalist welfarisit developmental pursuit of the Left towards the poor and the landless counter-weighed on the another side with pursuits of neo-liberal capital accumulation. Left consistently has promoted discussion of development evacuating the politics in several ways like 1. As sure shot pragmatic poverty allievation projects and empowerment including Kudumabsree. 2. NGOization of pressing developmental concerns through the methods of empirical classification and designing of polices 3. Any politicization of the poverty issue is encountered with scathing reference that such politicizations are the handiwork of people with "no responibilites" . In this circumstance, let me here at length quote Kalyan Sanyal from his work "Rethinking Capitalist Development: Primitive accumulation, Governmentality and Post-colonial capitalism" (routledge, 2007). This work is very significant in many dimensions as it interrogates the very subject of Development Economics. This work is discussed at length by Partha Chaterjee in his new epw article. Leaving aside the other major as well as core concern of the work, I intend to focus on the Sanyal's critique of Sen model. This is quite significant to the policy initiatives of previous and present periods of LDF govt. " The limitation of development economics was that its exclusive focus on the question of growth had turned the means to end in itself, keeping the real ends out of sight.... Sen presents two crucial concepts, "entitlements and capability" that provide a new space of development he defines....What entitlement refers to the commodity bundle a person can command, capability refers to what the person can do... development now means the expansion of the set of capabilities and entitlements of target group. .,...task of the development practitioners is to "design efficient" policies that will produce well-being of the poor at the minimum cost in terms of resources..... Thus is Sen's analysis, development as the space of governmentality is further crystallized and consolidated; it is space where target groups are to be identfied and addressed in terms of the technolgies of goverenance. The point that needs to be stressed here is that the poor posited by the discourse as the target of the policy is an empirical category identifiable in terms of empirically observable characteristics. S/he is one without access to an arbitrarily and exogenously consumption basket as in the basic needs approach; or one who does not have the capabilities necessary for functioning in society, as in the capability approach. Thus the developmental target is first set and then the poor is indentified and marked as the member of the population group in terms of his/her empirically observable deficiencies. This poor as a target of policy is very different from the one who inhabited the space of underdevelopment in the earlier conceptualization of the dual economy in terms of the traditional modern division. There the traditional economy was depicted in terms of an inner logic of its own, a logic that constituted its inner essence and the inhabitants of that economy were described in terms of that essence. But Governmentality dispenses with the necessity of theoretically defining the poor; it constitutes him as an empirical category on which the techniques of governance can be applied".... And Kalayan Sanyal critiquing this approach demonstrates how ..."the (welfarist) discourse once again distances development from the world of politics by ridding the question of poverty of its political dimension. It posits the realm of poverty as distinct and separate from the realm of accumulation, and claims that improving the conditions of the population groups inhabiting the former realm is only a matter of designing appropriate public policies." .... Thus the discourse subverts the possibility of locating poverty in a politically contested terrain by displacing the entire question onto the the "politically neutral" terrain of governmentality..." (page 176-180) * > ** > > http://kafila.org/2008/08/20/leftist-babel-in-kerala/ > > There is still the eerie silence here about the land struggle at Chengara, > but we are nearly deaf from listening to talk, talk, and more talk about the > redistribution of surplus land to landless dalit people. Everyone, from > Karat to Pinarayi Vijayan to VS, to even that undaunted champion of liberal > 'minimum entitlements' welfarism, T.M. Thomas Isaac, is talking of > redistributing surplus land to landless dalits (adivasis, according to > some,or landless 'poor' according to others, 'poor' according to yet > others…).; > > That seems rather odd.Talking with some minor CPM intellectual-* > bhikshaamdehis* the other day (who are of course still patiently waiting > for 'more and accurate information') I could see a sense of wounded > innocence. "Don't forget," one of them told me,"it is the CPM that > campaigned for redistribution of surplus land." What they do not want to > acknowledge — in the very specific present, of course — was that this > promise was never fulfilled. Indeed, the so-called 'class agenda'of the > dominant left was more or less treated as over in the early 1970s.. > > The early 1990s saw the first moves towards 'engaged citizenship'a la > Robert Putnam, the first glimmerings of 'state-centric civil society' in the > mass literacy campaigns when the 'people's science movement', the Kerala > Sastra Sahitya Parishat, mobilsed a large number of volunteer-teachers.The > People's Planning Campaign of the mid-1990s was the culmination of this > gradual shift towards Kerala's own version of the 'Third Way', which however > pretended — or hoped and prayed — that the question of the redistribution of > productive land to landless dalit people was buried and forgotten > > The trick didn't work. The demand for productive resources continued to be > raised from outside the domain of formal politics, from within oppositional > civil society, by adivasi and dalit people — and not as a 'class issue'. > Since the new millenium, Kerala has seen powerful land struggles by adivasis > and dalits for land, and indeed, the CPM had to deal with this reality.The > CPM's strategy against the Adivasi Gotra Sabha, for instance, has been to > acknowledge the demand minimally, and then see it to it that only tribal > people who support the CPM gain the minimal access to land.Similarly, when > widows' associations began to form outside the political parties, the CPM > created its own organisation for widows — who are indeed a sizeable number > in Kerala — and again, the demands were significantly reduced, minimised. > The CPM makes sure that the tribals and widows do not ever grow out of their > status as governmental categories into full-fledged, vocal interest > groups.Chengara, however, presents a tougher task.The CPM does not want > another Nandigram, whatever the Pathanamthitta District Secretary may > claim.How the CPM tackles this issue is worth watching, though — they have > opened the gambit by talking again of redistributing surplus land. > I, however, call the present round of statements by leading CPM leaders > 'noise' because there are too many notes and tones clashing, in fact nothing > can be heard at all. On the one hand, there is the the desperate > reaffirmation of the promise to redistribute surplus land — is clearly an > effort to reclaim it as a 'class issue' and hence legitimately owned by the > CPM. On the other hand, there are statements which seem to say that the > class issue is after all a caste issue and vice-versa and in any case, 'poor > people' are at the centre.There is another set of statements which mix up > the demand for land by the protestors from Chengara with the debate around > the desirability of'second [round]land reforms'–as if the first was ever > completed.Here no one is sure whether the 'second land reforms' is > pro-Chengara land struggle or anti-land mafia, or both.Or > > A regular political babel, is all I can say, with everyone . As old-timers > say in Malayalam, 'all the world and all of change is Maaya'! True for the > present in Kerala, at least. > > Posted in Government <http://wordpress.com/tag/government/>, > Identities<http://wordpress.com/tag/identities/>, > Left watch <http://wordpress.com/tag/left-watch/>, > Politics<http://wordpress.com/tag/politics/>, > Violence/Conflict <http://wordpress.com/tag/violenceconflict/> | Tags: > Chengara <http://wordpress.com/tag/chengara/>, > CPM<http://wordpress.com/tag/cpm/>, > land reforms <http://wordpress.com/tag/land-reforms/>, surplus > land<http://wordpress.com/tag/surplus-land/> > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
