A Handbook on Contemporary India

Surinder S Jodhka

ith a total of 37 chapters (apart from the editors introduction and conclusion) and an equal number of contributors, this is a massive volume of more than 900 pages. It is an updated English translation of the book rst published in French in 2006. The contributors are all French scholars who work on India and, in a sense, the book presents the contemporary French perspectives on Indian society. The collection was perhaps meant for a French audience, as an introduction to the different aspects and dimensions of contemporary India as it has evolved over the last 60 years. However, it is more than a primer for beginners. Almost all the chapters are written in the style of scholarly social science research papers. The range of subjects covered in the book is rather extensive, from the processes of social, political and economic change to the history and social organisation of Indias armed forces and the dynamics of Indias contemporary theatre and music. As the editor rightly points out in the opening pages of his introduction, the western understanding of India has for long been drawn from the classical orientalist imagination about the region, which tends to present it as a land of frozen time with large population, poverty and religious superstitions. Even scholarly writings on India during the early decades after Independence reinforced this static and depressing view of India. Over the last two decades, the world has begun to look at India differently. High growth rates experienced by the Indian economy, its growing service industry and the endless supply of technically trained human power have made the west reimagine India as a rapidly growing economy and an emerging power. However, the reality of India is not conned to economic growth rates and

book review
India since 1950: Society, Politics, Economy and Culture edited by Christophe Jaffrelot (New Delhi: Yatra Books), 2012; pp xix+914, Rs 995.

call centres. Its economy, society, culture and politics are changing in complex and contradictory ways. The main strength of this book lies in its ability to capture these complexities. Though China has indeed been doing much better in terms of growth rates, India has its own strong points. It also has a very different mode of change. Unlike China, the editor underlines, India has not been a land of revolution, of sudden changes. Indias revolutions have been silent and incremental within a democratic framework. Little by little the Indian democracy makes room for new layers of society. Overview of Political System The rst four chapters of the book, written by the editor himself, present an overview of the evolution of the Indian political system over the last six decades. Nehru, who took over the command of the country after its independence, initiated many changes in the social and economic structure of the country. However, the Congress Party under his leadership also accommodated the conservative notables. It is this, sociology of the Congress that, in a sense, explains the nature of change and policy of the Indian state during the early decades after Independence. For example, though land reforms and several other important changes were initiated, these did not produce any radical transformation in the rural/agrarian power structure or the caste system. The Congress Party and Indian politics witnessed a shift after the death of Nehru. The dominant tendencies during the 1970s and 1980s were marked by
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populist politics, authoritarianism of Indira Gandhi and a gradual consolidation of right-wing parties. However, the major shift in Indian politics came with the introduction of economic liberalisation during the early 1990s. At around the same time, India also witnessed a gradual democratisation with the rise of backward castes and dalits on the political landscape of the country. The social/caste prole of the Indian political elite started changing signicantly. For example, while in 1952, as many as 64% of MPs from the Hindi belt were from the traditional upper castes, their numbers declined to around 25% by 1999. In a later section, the book discusses the evolution and dynamics of Indias federal structure. Apart from a discussion on the rise of regional and castebased political parties and contentions around the question of national language, the book also has chapters on the more serious challenges that the country had to deal with, such as the rise of powerful identity movements in the peripheral regions, the Khalistan movement in Punjab, the ethnic question in Assam and other parts of north-east India and the escalation of violence in Kashmir and the politics around it. The chapters on economic change present Indias story of development with focus on the reforms, starting with the 1980s. However, the section also has an interesting chapter on the sustainability of Indias development model. It raises serious questions about the viability of the classical model of economic growth as it was experienced in the western countries for a country like India. The current political establishment does not seem to realise this and expects to take India forward primarily through the classical model of growth with focus on industrialisation and urbanisation. The author of the chapter identies six challenges that a country like India will have to confront if it wishes to grow as the west did. These challenges are: water scarcity; energy crunch; pollution and climate change; agricultural crisis; widening wealth gap; and social friction and political instability.
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Another section of the book looks at the evolution of Indias foreign policy and its shift from the non-alignment of the 1950s to the present. The nuclear tests conducted by the BJP-led government in 1998 was a reection of the changing ambitions of India, its desire to go beyond the status of a regional power and to be noticed by rest of the world as an emerging actor at the global level. India also has one of the most powerful military establishments, numerically the second largest in the world today. However, the distinctive feature of India is that despite its strength, the military institutions in India have always been subordinate to the civil authorities. Another substantial section of the book deals with social processes and the dynamics of caste, class and communities in contemporary India. The chapters in this section deal with Indias demographics, rural social change, labour, caste and untouchability and the scheduled tribes. This section also has chapters on the political sociology of religious communities, ranging from the transformations within Hinduism to the minority status of Muslims and Christians. On Rural India The chapter on rural India has some very interesting observations, which in a sense, sum up a lot of arguments presented in different chapters. Talking about the two complementary paths of rural development that India followed after Independence, viz institutional reforms and capital and the technological approach, the author concludes that the results achieved in each case have been both impressive and disappointing (emphasis added). This can be easily said not just about the entire experience of Indias development planning but also about its democratic politics and processes of social transformation. The subsequent chapters in the section on the subjects of caste and untouchability demonstrate this quite well. For example, while democratic politics has provided dalits with representation in the power structure, the frequency and scale of caste-based atrocities continue to be signicant. Something similar could be said about the world of tribal peoples. However, the experience
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of the scheduled tribes during the post-Independence period has been more complex and less understood. For example, the popular representation of tribes as being isolated is not really true. Though the extent of regional diversity among them is very real, they also have several common issues. For example, one of the common issues that agitate the tribal communities all over has been the alienation of their land and their rights over forest produce and the mineral resources of their land. Similarly, chapters on Muslims and Christians identify and discuss their specic experience of being minorities and cultural communities. The fourth and nal section of the book is on the dynamics of Indian culture covering media and arts. This section has nine chapters which discuss subjects such as paintings, cinema, television, press and literature. They deal with the patterns of their organisation and the changing practices in each of these areas of cultural expression. Speculation on the Future In the concluding chapter, the editor attempts to speculate on Indias future. He seems certain that India is indeed one of the most promising emerging countries, which has been quite successful in combining democracy with the market economy. This would provide it long-term stability as a political system. Economically also India will keep advancing and by the year 2025, the editor predicts, India would be third largest economy in terms of its total GDP even though its per

capita income will be far from impressive. However, India also faces daunting challenges. The rst and foremost, given the fact that Indias population is likely to keep growing for another four decades and, given the state of Indian agriculture, the country is going to face the challenge of food security. Similarly, Indias infrastructure continues to be poor and the challenge of meeting the growing demands of energy and other such requirements is likely to remain less than satisfactory. At the social and political levels, India will have to deal with growing disparities, vertically and horizontally. Though its leaders are aware of these challenges and the potential sources of trouble, the response does not seem to satisfy the editor, and for good reasons. As mentioned at the beginning, this book seems to have been put together with the purpose of providing an academically-rich introduction to the social and economic life in India to those who know little about it. One is impressed by the quality of different chapters. Though they are in some sense introductory in nature, almost all of them are wellresearched and well-written. However, one wonders about the value of putting so much together into a single volume. Perhaps it would have been much better if it were published in three or four different volumes.
Surinder S Jodhka (ssjodhka@yahoo.com) is with the Department of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

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The breathtakingly rapid economic growth in China since 1978 has attracted world-wide attention. But the condition of more than 350 million workers is abysmal, especially that of the migrants among them. Why do the migrants put up with so much hardship in the urban factories? Has post-reform China forsaken the earlier goal of socialist equality? What has been the contribution of rural industries to regional development, alleviation of poverty and spatial inequality, and in relieving the grim employment situation? How has the meltdown in the global economy in the second half of 2008 affected the domestic economy? What of the current leaderships call for a harmonious society? Does it signal an important course correction? A collection of essays from the Economic & Political Weekly seeks to find tentative answers to these questions, and more.

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