State, social policy and subaltern citizens in adivasi India

Bibliographic Data

ID4524786
AuthorsR C Sudheesh (0000-0001-7468-4175, London School of Economics and Political Science, corresponding author), Sudheesh Ramapurath Chemmencheri (London School of Economics and Political Science, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume19
Issue3-4
Pages436-449
Publication date2015-04-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueCitizenship Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1362-1025 • E-ISSN: 1469-3593
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13621025.2015.1006579
OpenAlexW1939891715
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited48

This paper argues that social policies work towards the subject-making of subaltern citizens by defining the grammar of state–subaltern relationship. The Forest Rights Act of India (2006) defines the state–adivasi relationship through a two-way process: claim-making by the indigenes for forest rights, and reduction of the discourse by the state into a politics of recognition without redistribution. While adivasis have employed their agency in wresting social policies from the state through protracted struggles, they are also made subjects of the state as they go about the Forest Rights Act procedure. The paper further points out that adivasi struggles and the organisations representing them constitute a distinct adivasi society contra the middle-class civil society. Though the spirit of the Act envisages substantive redistribution, the state institutions and the monitoring Non-Governmental Organisations have yet to adopt redistribution as a core narrative

Agency (philosophy · Citizenship · Civil society · Narrative · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Redistribution (election · Social science · Sociology · State (computer science · Subaltern · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Gender Studies · Law · Social and Economic Development in India

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