‘Keeping the state away’: democracy, politics, and the state in India's Jharkhand

Abstract

This article explores why in India's Jharkhand, Mundas, often depicted as poor tribals, participate in elections to keep the state away, seeing it as foreign, dangerous, and juxtaposing its self‐interested and divisive politics with a sacral polity, the parha. Munda disengagement with the state results from a complex combination of their contrasting the state with the sacral polity, historical experience of exploitation by state officers, and social relations with rural elites who, seeking to maintain dominance, reproduce Munda imaginings. The article thus draws attention to multiple co‐existing notions of politics and the importance of a local political economy in the social production of cultural imaginings of the state.

Morality, Corruption and the State: Insights from Jharkhand, Eastern India

“…In recent years the state has been seen as becoming increasingly sophisticated in its ability to exploit adivasis and this was evident in its most recent camouflage as Block Officers who were seen to disguise their destructive capacity in a language of 'acting Morality, Corruption and the State 305 in the interest of the poor' (see Shah, 2007). As such, adivasis rarely showed interest in ration cards, which would enable them to access government-subsidised provisions, and in being on 'Below Poverty Line' (BPL) lists for state development schemes.…”

“…I describe this moral economy in further detail elsewhere (Shah, 2007) and here outline the main arguments. Exemplary of the way in which those at the margins of state power are often complicit in reifying the state (Taussig, 1992:132), adivasis constructed the state as an abstraction, as inherently and irredeemably beyond the moral pale, and not in their common good.…”

State, social policy and subaltern citizens in adivasi India

“…Nilsen 2013), geography (cf. Corbridge 2002), anthropology (Furer-Haimendorf 1977;Shah 2007) and political science (cf. Suykens 2009).…”

À quelle Nation se vouer ? Les représentations diversifiées de l’État au Sud Kanara, Inde

“…Ces enquêtes montrent que le domaine de l'État englobe des formes et des processus d'organisation très variés, tels les lois, les écoles, les routes, la fiscalité, qui renvoient à des processus étatiques dont les acteurs poursuivent des intérêts souvent contradictoires. Il s'agit ensuite d'analyser les images de l'État qui s'expriment dans les représentations et dans des registres de discours différents (Aretxaga, 2003 ;Shah, 2007). Selon ce type d'approche, l'État figure surtout comme une figure construite, donc idéologique (Abrams, 1988 ;Aretxaga, op.…”

“…Autrement dit, le rituel légitime à la fois les affinités que le candidat entretient avec le bhuta et le soutien qu'il apporte du même coup à la tradition régionale imprégnée par l'idée d'une justice alternative et divine. L'effort que font les anciens chefs pour contrôler les revendications régionalistes implique, en effet, une relation particulière à l'État, où ces notables peuvent, s'ils sont élus, monopoliser le lien entre la population locale et les autorités (Shah, 2007).…”