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Challenging the state by reproducing its principles. The demand for “Gorkhaland” between regional autonomy and the national belonging
Full text linkContrary to assumptions about the dualist relationship between region and nation, I propose to understand both as simultaneously emerging. An analysis of the rhetoric of the “Gorkhaland” movement that demands a separate union state in India to be carved out of West Bengal demonstrates that although the movement challenges the distribution of power over territory, it does so by using a “pan-Indian grammar,” to borrow Baruah’s terminology. This is reflected in imaginative geographies that endow the demanded territory with meaning and render it an ethno-scape, while at the same time presenting it as a viable part of an imagined Indian nation. The Gorkhas attempt to bridge the gap between the “national” and the “regional” and challenge dominant identity ascriptions. In doing so, they stress their multiple belongings and affiliations. In this process the Indian nation is produced at various levels of society
Challenging the state by reproducing its principles the demand for "Gorkhaland" between regional autonomy and the national belonging
No full textTowards an alternative Indian tea economy: Examples of producer cooperatives from Darjeeling
No full textTowards an alternative Indian tea economy: Examples of producer cooperatives from Darjeeling
No full textLegitimization through patronage? Strategies for political control beyond ethno-regional claims in Darjeeling, India
No full textThis paper asks how contending political leaders legitimize their authority in a competitive authoritarian regime. It contends that ‘legitimization through patronage’ is an important means of convincing the public of the rightfulness of a leader’s authority when ‘ideology-based normative legitimacy’ is declining and the formal electoral route is not available. Drawing on an understanding of legitimacy that accounts for leaders’ strategies and public receptions, the paper seeks to explore the moral norms and values on the basis of which followers evaluate leaders’ performance. Drawing on anthropological studies of patronage in South Asia not only helps to transcend an exclusively instrumental understanding of patronage by stressing its moral dimension but also complements comparative politics’ focus on the national level by studying the everyday processes through which political leaders’ legitimacy is locally constructed and contested in patronage relations. Evidence from Darjeeling in northern West Bengal/India (where the State’s preferential treatment of a regional party claiming leadership of a movement for regional autonomy has contributed to the establishment of a dominant party regime) highlights patronage’s potential as a legitimating strategy – but it also reveals its practical limits. While the establishment of resource monopolies over developmental funding helped leaders of the ruling party to ‘‘feed’’ their support networks and foster reputations as selfless ‘‘social workers’’, differing bases for the evaluation of leaders, the growing expectations of followers, and dependence on external patronage resources limited the long-term success of patronage as a legitimating strategy. This, in turn, enabled the State to curtail demands for autonomy by controlling regional elite construction
‘Breaking Bad’ or being good? Moral conflict and political conduct in Darjeeling/India
No full textThis paper explores the effects of moral pluralism and moral conflict on political conduct and subjectivities. Challenging cultural relativist and monist positions, but going beyond a solely pragmatist reading of South Asian politics, it displays how actors navigate between conflicting roles, domains, commitments, and values. These contradictions, I argue, have a structuring effect on politics. This is not only because attempts to juggle different moral values guide political conduct, but also because moral evaluations of leaders are one constituting element of political legitimacy. I explore these effects through a case study from Darjeeling, India, where a movement for
regional autonomy demanding ‘virtuous’ dedication from leaders and followers seems to pose a counterpoint to a perceivably ‘dirty’ party politics. The case shows that there is not one overarching value guiding political conduct, but that different priorities gain or lose importance over time. Far from being passive subjects forced to comply with immoral politicians, some decide to live up to their personally held principles
Trajectories of Hybrid Governance: Legitimacy, Order and Leadership in India
No full textThis article analyses the relationships between legitimacy, leadership and stability of hybrid orders in spaces of contested state authority. Complementing studies on public authority, the analysis builds on the observation that hybrid orders are often violent and unstable. The article goes beyond the one-sided views of legitimacy that focus on the legitimating registers of non-state governing authorities and which ignore for the most part the perceptions and evaluations of such strategies by the governed. It does so by conceptualizing legitimacy as a relational property, which emerges between governing authorities and the governed. Drawing on a case study from Darjeeling in West Bengal, India (where hybrid order appears in the domains of development and security), this article finds that non-state leaders tend to withdraw from hybrid agreements in order to regain legitimacy and trust when confronted with threats to their regional dominance. The stability of hybrid orders is not only dependent on the abilities of competing authorities to adapt to changing and conflicting normative and factual demands of their constituents, but is also an outcome of the struggle over the normative and moral bases of such evaluations
Fairtrade translated. Power relations in the global production network of certified Darjeeling tea,Wie Fairtrade übersetzt wird: Machtbeziehungen im globalen Produktionsnetzwerk von zertifiziertem Darjeeling-Tee
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