From Militant Particularism to Anti‐neoliberalism? The Anti‐Enron Movement in India

Abstract

The memorandum of understanding between Enron and the Maharashtra State Electricity Board, signed on 20 June 1992, set in motion the Dabhol Power Project, the largest corporate-led venture in Indian history. But even while the project was gaining official clearance, it attracted considerable local opposition on environmental and livelihood related grounds. Additionally, the fact that Enron was awarded the contract by the Congress Party led state government of Maharashtra, in the absence of procedural transparency and open bidding, entangled the project in deep controversy. This paper, based on fieldwork, examines opposition to the Dabhol Power Project. I particularly focus on the relevance of militant particularism, and the importance of counter-hegemony of the working class and/or the subaltern counter-public in the context of multi-scaled manifestations of neoliberal power.

Passive revolution: A church‐military partnership in the Philippines

“…However, due to the many structural impediments to civil action, embedded in the social landscape and existing at multiple scales, many in the clergy and laity now see diocese‐level organizations as the proper scale of community action and a necessary addition to the BEC discourse. This reads well with literature on rescaling, specifically the manner by which alliances and relationships among the subaltern, rooted in common predicament, are empowered by vertical complexity, thus reducing asymmetrical power differentials between dominant and subordinate groups (Ahmed, ). Challenging recent calls in geography for a flat ontology (Marston et al ., ), this study reconfirms the importance of socio‐spatial analysis in understanding contestation, demonstrating that social outcomes are both scale produced and scale producing (Miller, ).…”

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“…A whole range of issues have received scholarly attention including: land, labour and migrant struggles (Davies and Isakjee, 2015;Harrison and Lloyd, 2012;Mackenzie et al, 2003;Ahmed, 2012;Jenkins, 2014;Correia, 2008;Lewis et al, 2015); climate activism, anti-globalisation and radical protest movements (Montagna, 2006;Chatterton, 2010;Lopez, 2013;Wainwright and Kim, 2003; Lessard-Lachance and Norcliffe, 2013; Routledge 2015; Pusey et al, 2012;Russell, 2014;Sundberg, 2007;Halvorsen, 2015;Nordås and Gleditsch, 2007); and, anti-gentrification struggles especially…”

“…In recent years we have been impressed by the growing range of work in geography that continues to build nuanced and complex understandings of the shortcomings of humanity’s present condition. A whole range of issues have received scholarly attention including land, labour and migrant struggles (Davies and Isakjee, 2015; Harrison and Lloyd, 2012; Mackenzie and Dalby, 2003; Ahmed, 2012; Jenkins, 2014; Correia, 2008; Lewis et al, 2015); climate activism, anti-globalisation and radical protest movements (Montagna, 2006; Chatterton, 2010; López, 2013; Wainwright and Kim, 2003; Lessard-Lachance and Norcliffe, 2013; Routledge, 2015; Pusey et al, 2012; Russell, 2014; Sundberg, 2007; Halvorsen, 2015; Nordås and Gleditsch, 2007); and, anti-gentrification struggles, especially around ‘the right to stay put’ (Wallace, 2014; Shaw and Hagemans, 2015; Newman and Wyly, 2006).…”

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“…The MSEB also had a 15 percent stake in the project. Although the project was gaining official clearance, considerable local opposition was attracted, on various ideological, economic, political, and environmental grounds (Ahmed 2012). Until 1991, the India power industry had been almost completely nationalized, and the fact that Enron was awarded the contract by the Congress Party-led state government of Maharashtra, in the absence of procedural transparency and open bidding, entangled the project in deep controversy.…”