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Dynamics of Asian Development
Anthony P. D’Costa
Achin Chakraborty Editors
Changing
Contexts and
Shifting Roles of
the Indian State
New Perspectives on Development
Dynamics
Series Editor
Anthony P. D’Costa, College of Business, The University of Alabama, Huntsville,
AL, USA
Editorial Board
Tony Addison, UNU-WIDER, Helsinki, Finland
Amiya Bagchi, Institute of Development Studies Kolkata, Kolkata, India
Amrita Chhachhi, Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam,
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Akira Goto, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS), Tokyo, Japan
Barbara Harriss-White, Oxford University, Oxford, UK
Keun Lee, Department of Economics, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea
(Republic of)
R. Nagaraj, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India
Rene E. Ofreneo, Center for Labor Justice, University of Philippines, Quezon,
Philippines
Rajah Rasiah, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Ma Rong, Peking University, Beijing, China
Ashwani Saith, Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam,
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Gita Sen, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, India
Andrew Walter, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
Christine Wong, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
The series situates contemporary development processes and outcomes in Asia in a
global context. State intervention as well as neoliberal policies have created unusual
economic and social development opportunities. There are also serious setbacks for
marginalized communities, workers, the environment, and social justice. The rise of
China, India, and new dynamism of South Korea, Indonesia, and Vietnam in East
and South East Asia have given a new meaning to Asian development dynamics.
Japan’s energetic ties with India and Vietnam, Korea joining the OECD’s
Development Assistance Committee, and China and India’s investments and
foreign aid in Africa and Latin America are some of the new processes of
development whose impact transcends the vast Asian region. Globalization
compounds uneven development, affecting macroeconomic stability, internal and
international migration, class and caste dynamics, gender relations, regional parity,
education and health, agriculture and rural employment, informal sector, innovation
possibilities, and equity. Thus the series views development studies as an
unfinished agenda of economic, social, political, cultural interactions, and possible
transformations in a fluid policy and global contexts. The editor, with the assistance
of a distinguished group of development scholars from Asia and elsewhere
specializing in a variety of disciplinary and thematic areas, welcomes proposals that
critically assess the above-mentioned wide-ranging developing issues facing Asian
societies. With Asia’s contemporary transformation, the series promotes the
understanding of Asia’s influence on the prospects of development elsewhere. The
editor encourages interdisciplinary, heterodox approaches within the social
sciences, and comparative work with solid theoretically informed empirical
research. Critical development policy debates in Asia and regional governance
issues that have a bearing on development outcomes are also sought.
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/13342

Anthony P. D’Costa Achin Chakraborty
•
Editors
Changing Contexts
and Shifting Roles
of the Indian State
New Perspectives on Development
Dynamics
123
Editors
Anthony P. D’Costa Achin Chakraborty
College of Business Director and Professor of Economics
The University of Alabama Institute of Development Studies Kolkata
Huntsville, AL, USA Kolkata, India
ISSN 2198-9923 ISSN 2198-9931 (electronic)

ISBN 978-981-13-6890-5 ISBN 978-981-13-6891-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6891-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019932823
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
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The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
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This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721,
Singapore
Preface and Acknowledgements
This volume is based on a conference organized in Kolkata by the Australia India

Institute, University of Melbourne, and the Institute of Development Studies
Kolkata in December 2015. The title of the conference was Instruments of
Intervention: Capitalist Development and the Remolding of the Indian State. The
aim was to tackle three broad threads, without foreclosing others. They are the
changing nature of the relationship between state and capital, the mediating role of
society in influencing developmental outcomes, to analyze the seemingly contra-
dictory roles of the state in undertaking major state-sponsored social programs, and
opening up greater spaces for the market, and to examine the dynamic relationship
between the state and the form of democracy under changing political regimes.
These three threads are present in this volume. Of the sixteen papers presented in
the conference, we have selected ten and added an elaborate introduction to set the
terms of the debate. The chapters while theoretically informed are empirically
grounded, thereby providing considerable evidence that abstract theorizing of the
state often departs from their actual workings. This is inevitable when the state is
disaggregated into various levels at which it operates, the multiple societal pres-
sures to which it must respond, especially in a democratic context when political
regimes change, the inability of the state to completely ignore the weakest members
of the society, driven lately by the rights-based movements, and the capacity of the
state in a highly heterogeneous society such as India’s and its fractious dominant
classes. The volume is a novel precisely because it takes off from the rich theorizing
of the state based on the effectiveness of the East Asian experiences to demonstrate
that the workings of the Indian state rest on the parameters that are not found in the
smaller East Asian states, partly due to the lack of embeddedness as theorized, but
mostly due to a different vector of social and political variables. Consequently,
readers of the volume will intellectually benefit from the new perspectives on the
role of the state offered by this recasting of the Indian state in terms of the actual
forms of intervention today.
We elaborate on how the Indian state offers new perspectives as its role shifts
and the contexts in which it operates change. This material with further elaborations
and revisions has been included in a lengthy introduction to the volume. Without
v
vi Preface and Acknowledgements
giving away the story, we do want to emphasize that the Indian state is many things
at same time. A neat and clean understanding of the Indian state, especially with
respect to the conventional domains of “development,” is not possible since there
are new areas such as digital technologies and securitization and financialization of
development that have been also embraced by the state. Hence, even an instru-
mentalist view of the state is suspect because it is not clear exactly where the state is
going to or what drives many of the development policies even if the wider context
of development has within limits become a neoliberal one. In fact, some of the
chapters on the workings of the state demonstrate that the Indian state is really not
neoliberal. But this is not the place to debate this. Readers are expected to arrive at
their own conclusions through this volume.
This is the second volume on contemporary India that Anthony D’Costa initiated
at the University of Melbourne. The first volume, also based on a conference in
2014, sponsored by the Faculty of Arts, the Australia India Institute at the
University of Melbourne; the Institute of Development Studies Kolkata; and the
Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, was co-edited by two editors and pub-
lished in 2017 by Oxford University Press as The Land Question in India: State,
Dispossession, and Capitalist Transition. As with any collaborative project, we are
indebted to a number of institutions and individuals. First, we would like to
acknowledge the financial support received from the Australia India Institute,
University of Melbourne, and the Institute of Development Studies Kolkata
(IDSK). Second, there were several individuals who helped out with the logistics
of the conference. In Melbourne, the staff of the Australia India Institute did a
marvelous job in organizing the travel of conference participants from both India
and abroad to Kolkata. We thank the staff of IDSK, especially Sanchari Guha
Samanta who managed a number of organizational aspects of the conference. Third,
we would also like to thank not only our contributors but also those who presented
their papers but could not be included for one reason or another. They are Aditya
Nigam, Sushil Khanna, Tannen Neil Lincoln, and Niloshree Bhattacharya. Finally,
we would like to thank Samir Kumar Das, Manabi Majumdar, Prasanta Ray, Ratan
Khasnabis, Subhanil Chowdhury, and Rajesh Bhattacharya for chairing various
sessions and the many attendees and discussants who participated in the conference,
indicating that Kolkata still remains an intellectual hub of ideas that govern our
everyday lives.
Bandel, Hooghly, India Anthony P. D’Costa

Kolkata, India Achin Chakraborty
May 2018
Contents
1 Changing Contexts, Shifting Roles, and the Recasting of the Role

of the Indian State: An Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Anthony P. D’Costa and Achin Chakraborty
Part I Theorizing the State’s Changing Role in a Changing Context

2 From Passive Beneficiary to ‘Rights Claimant’: What Difference
Does It Make? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Achin Chakraborty
3 Emerging Regimes of Market Citizenship: The Politics of Social
Policy in Contemporary India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Priya Chacko
4 An Examination of Indian State in the Post-planning Period . . . . . 57
Anjan Chakrabarti and Soumik Sarkar
Part II Shifting Roles of the State

5 Including the Excluded: Inclusive Economic Growth in India
After 2004 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Matthew McCartney
6 Social Protection and the State in India: The Challenge
of Extracting Accountability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Salim Lakha
7 Compressed Capitalism and a Critical Reading of the State’s
Employment Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Anthony P. D’Costa
8 Distinctively Dysfunctional: ‘State Capitalism 2.0’ and the Indian
Power Sector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Elizabeth Chatterjee
vii
viii Contents
Part III State and Contested Forms of Governance

9 Re-reading the ‘Auto-revolution’ in India with a Labour Lens:
Shifting Roles and Positions of State, Industry and Workers . . . . . 175
Babu P. Remesh
10 Engaging Rural Indian Interventions: Constructing Local
Governance Through Resource Access and Authority . . . . . . . . . . 191
Siddharth Sareen
11 Penetrative or Embracive? Exploring State, Surveillance
and Democracy in India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
P. Arun
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Editors and Contributors
About the Editors
Anthony P. D’Costa is Eminent Scholar in Global Studies and Professor of

Economics at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Previously he was the Chair
and Professor of Contemporary Indian Studies and the Development Studies
Program at the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of
Melbourne. He was also affiliated with the University’s Australia India Institute
for three years. During 2008–13, he was the Research Director and
A. P. Moller-Maersk Professor of Indian Studies, Asia Research Centre at the
Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. He was also with the University of
Washington for 18 years. He has written extensively on the political economy of
steel, auto, and IT industries covering themes of capitalism and globalization,
economic and social development, business dynamics and innovations, and
industrial restructuring. Currently his work focuses on employment challenges in
late industrializing India and is working on a new framework called “compressed
capitalism”. His recent books are After-Development Dynamics: South Korea’s
Contemporary Engagement with Asia (edited, OUP, 2015), International Mobility,
Global Capitalism, and Changing Structures of Accumulation: Transforming the
Japan-India IT Relationship (Routledge, 2016), and The Land Question in India:
State, Dispossession, and Capitalist Transition (coedited, OUP, 2017). He has
published in World Development, Journal of Development Studies, Journal of
International Development, Review of International Political Economy, Economic
and Political Weekly, Asian Business and Management, Industrial and Corporate
Change, Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, and Critical Asian
Studies, among others. He has been a fellow of the American Institute of Indian
Studies, Fulbright-Hays, Korea Foundation, Social Science Research Council, UN
World Institute of Development Economics Research, Helsinki; Abe (Japan
Foundation), and the East West Center in Honolulu.
ix
x Editors and Contributors
Achin Chakraborty is Professor of Economics and Director of the Institute of

Development Studies in Kolkata, India. He obtained his PhD from the University of
California at Riverside, USA, in 1995. His areas of research interest include welfare
economics, microeconomic issues in development economics, human development,
health economics, environmental economics, and methodology of economics. He
was earlier a faculty with the Centre for Development Studies in Kerala. He has
published widely in journals such as Economic Theory, Social Indicators Research,
Journal of Quantitative Economics, Environment and Development Economics,
Economic and Political Weekly, and others. He has co-edited with Anthony
D’Costa the recently published book The Land Question in India: State,
Dispossession and Capitalist Transition (OUP, 2017).
Contributors
P. Arun is Research Scholar in Department of Political Science, University of

Hyderabad. His primary areas of research interest are privacy and surveillance. His
research examines politics over personal data and how technology-led surveillance
strategies are used as a response for prevention of corruption, crime and terrorism,
and assesses the implications of law, privacy, and social control.
Priya Chacko is Senior Lecturer of International Politics in the Department of
Politics and International Studies at the University of Adelaide. She is the author of
Indian Foreign Policy: The politics of postcolonial identity from 1947 to 2004
(Routledge, 2012) and the editor of New Regional Geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific
(Routledge, 2016). She has also published numerous articles in journals such as
Modern Asian Studies, European Journal of International Relations, Review of
International Studies and Journal of Contemporary Asia. Her current research
projects focus on the economics-security nexus in India, the United States and
China and the intersection of populism, neoliberalism and nationalism in India.
Anjan Chakrabarti is Professor of Economics, University of Calcutta. His
research interest spans the areas of Marxian Economics, Development Economics,
Indian Economics and Political Philosophy. He has published and edited 8 books
and has over 50 articles in academic journals and edited books. His latest book is
The Indian Economy in Transition: Globalization, Capitalism and Development
(with Anup Dhar and Byasdeb Dasgupta) from Cambridge University Press.
Elizabeth Chatterjee is Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Political
Science at the University of Chicago. She was previously a Fellow of All Souls
College, Oxford. Her work has appeared in World Development, Contemporary
South Asia, and the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, among other venues. Her
research interests include the transformations of the contemporary state, environ-
mental and energy governance, and the politics of climate targets.
Editors and Contributors xi
Salim Lakha is Honorary Senior Fellow in the School of Social and Political
Sciences at the University of Melbourne. He was formerly the Coordinator of
Development Studies Program at Melbourne University, and in 2011 a Visiting
Senior Research Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of
Singapore. His work focuses on India covering social protection, decentralization,
governance and development, international migration, and transnational identities.
He is currently engaged in a collaborative research project that examines the role of
social audit as an accountability tool under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural
Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). Dr. Lakha has published several
jointly authored papers on social accountability and the implementation of
MGNREGS.
Matthew McCartney is Director of the South Asia Programme in the Department
of Area Studies, and an Associate Professor in the Political Economy and Human
Development of India at Oxford University. From 2003 to 2011, he lectured in
Economic Development of South Asia at the SOAS University of London. Matthew
spent two years (1998–2000) in Zambia working in the Ministry of Finance under
an ODI Fellowship (Overseas Development Institute, London) and has taught in
South Korea, India, Pakistan, Denmark, and Japan, and worked with UNDP,
USAid, World Bank and the EU in Zambia, Botswana, Bangladesh, Georgia, Egypt
and Bosnia. His research looks at the political economy of macroeconomics in
India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, in particular economic growth, investment and the
role of the state.
Babu P. Remesh is Professor at the School of Development Studies, Ambedkar
University in Delhi. His research interests include: informal sector and livelihood
issues; industrial structure and labour in the automotive sector; social security;
labour in plantations; labour in BPOs/call centres, work/workers in media;
rural/industrial labour relations; new patterns of internal migration and social
exclusion of migrants. He has also been actively working on various research
methodologies—qualitative, quantitative and interdisciplinary.
Siddharth Sareen is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for Climate and
Energy Transformation and the Department of Geography at the University of
Bergen. He holds a double PhD in Development Studies and Forest and Nature
Management. He has published actively on themes of resource politics and energy
governance, in journals such as Energy Research and Social Science, The Journal
of Development Studies, Forum for Development Studies, South Asia
Multidisciplinary Academic Journal, and co-edited a special section in South Asia:
Journal of South Asian Studies. Besides extensive work on resource conflict in
Central-Eastern India, he has undertaken research on the political economy of
electricity distribution in Western India and currently leads a project on energy
transitions and the governance of solar energy uptake in Portugal.
xii Editors and Contributors
Soumik Sarkar is pursuing a PhD in Economics from the University of Calcutta and
working as an Economist for the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Kolkata. His
research interests include political economy and Indian economics. He has also worked
as a research assistant in two Indian Council of Social Science Research sponsored
projects and was one of the translators of First Boyder Desh by Amartya Sen.
Acronyms
AAY Antyodaya Anna Yojana

ACMA Automotive Component Manufacturers Association
ADB Asian Development Bank
AFC Asian Financial Crisis
APL Above the poverty line
ASI Annual Survey of Industries
BJP Bharatiya Janata Party
BPL Below the poverty line
BSP Bahujan Samaj Party
CII Confederation of Indian Industry
CMP Common minimum program
CMS Central Monitoring System
CNG Compressed natural gas
CPSE Central Public Sector Enterprise
CyAT Cyber Appellate Tribunal
DFI Development finance institution
DIPP Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion
DPEP District Primary Education Programme
FCI Food Cooperation of India
FDI Foreign direct investment
FICCI Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry
FRA Forest Rights Act
FYP Five-Year Plan
GDP Gross domestic product
GFC Global financial crisis
GOI Government of India
GPs Gram panchayats
HDI Human Development Index
HLC High-Level Committee
HRM Human resource management
xiii
xiv Acronyms
ICDS Integrated Child Development Services

ICT Information and communications technology
IFIs International financial institutions
IPP Independent power producer
IRDP Integrated Rural Development Program
ISI Import substitution industrialisation
ISP Internet service provider
IT Information technology
ITA Information Technology Act, 2000/2008
ITR Indian Telegraph Rules, 1951
JV Joint Venture
LARR Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition,
Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act
MDMs Mid-day meals
MGNREGS Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme
MII Make in India
MKSS Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan
MNC Multinational corporation
MNREGA Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act
MUDRA Micro Units Development and Refinance Agency
MUL Maruti Udyog Limited
NAC National Advisory Council
NASSCOM National Association of Software and Services Companies
NATGRID National Intelligence Grid
NCEUS National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector
NCMP National Common Minimum Programme
NCPRI National Campaign for People’s Right to Information
NCR National Capital Region
NDA National Democratic Alliance
NeGP National e-Governance Plan
NETRA Network Traffic Analysis
NFSA National Food Security Act
NGO Non-Governmental Organisation
NIAI National Identification Authority of India Bill
NMAC National Media Analytics Centre
NPM New Public Management
NREGA National Rural Employment Guarantee Act
NRHM National Rural Health Mission
NSS National Sample Survey
NTP National Telecom Policy
NTPC National Thermal Power Corporation
OBCs Other Backward Classes
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
OEM Original equipment manufacturer
PAN Permanent Account Number
Acronyms xv
PCP Petty Commodity Producer sector

PDS Public distribution system
PSD Public service delivery
PESA Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act
PIL Public interest litigation
PMO Prime Minister’s Office
PMP Phased Manufacturing Programme
POTA Prevention of Terrorism Act
PUCL People’s Union for Civil Liberties
PUP Paschimanchal Unnayan Parshad
QR Quantitative restriction
RSS Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
RTE Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act
RTI Right to Information
SC Scheduled Caste
SEB State Electricity Board
SEZ Special economic zone
SIAM Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers
SME Small and medium enterprises
SPI Social Protection Index
ST Scheduled Tribe
TA Telegraph Act, 1886
TR Telegraph Rules, 1956
TSP Telecommunications service provider
UAPA Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act
UID Unique identification
UIDAI Unique Identification Authority of India
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
UP Uttar Pradesh
UPA United Progressive Alliance
US PL 480 US Public Law 480
USD United States dollar
UUP Uttarbanga Unnayan Parshad
VEC Village Education Committee
VMCs Vigilance and Monitoring Committees
WTO World Trade Organization
Chapter 1
Changing Contexts, Shifting Roles,
and the Recasting of the Role
of the Indian State: An Introduction
Anthony P. D’Costa and Achin Chakraborty
Abstract The objective of this introductory chapter is to theoretically and empiri-

cally tackle four interrelated themes that examine the various facets of the contem-
porary Indian state. Rather than simply assessing the deviations of the Indian state
from the generalized abstractions of a developmental state, this chapter shows the
actual functioning of the state at multiple levels, often in a disaggregated way. These
themes are to identify some of the reasons for the changing role of the state, includ-
ing first, the shifting contexts such as the reconfigured state–business relationship;
second, the mediating role of society in distributive politics, especially in terms of
rights-based movements or pressures from below; third, the seemingly contradictory
role of the state in undertaking major public social programmes and simultaneously
opening up of greater spaces for the market; and fourth, the dynamic relationship
between the state and the form of democratic governance under changing political
regimes. The chapter discusses some of the reasons for the changing role of the state
in favour of markets as well as the introduction of certain social welfare programmes.
In practice, the maturing of civil society facilitates the swing towards human capa-
bilities and away from fetishized economic growth. At the same time, the growing
power of the capitalist classes in liberalizing India suggests state cutbacks and inten-
sified contestations over resources and thus limits to how much the state can actually
redistribute. The chapter shows in various ways and at multiple levels what the con-
temporary Indian state has been doing and identifies some of the reasons for that
mode of intervention, including responding to rights-based movements. Section four
discusses how the Indian state can be recast, while the final section introduces the
chapters in this volume.
Keywords Developmental state · India · Distributive politics · Democratic

governance · Rights-based movements
A. P. D’Costa (B)
University of Alabama, Huntsville, USA
e-mail: promothesdcosta@gmail.com
A. Chakraborty
Director and Professor of Economics, Institute of Development Studies Kolkata (IDSK),
Kolkata, India
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 1

A. P. D’Costa and A. Chakraborty (eds.), Changing Contexts and Shifting Roles
of the Indian State, Dynamics of Asian Development,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6891-2_1
2 A. P. D’Costa and A. Chakraborty
1.1 Introduction
Over the past few decades, the role of the state in the process of development has
undergone perceptible changes. With the successful development of East Asian coun-
tries, especially South Korea, the positive interventionist role of states rather than
unbridled market forces is attributed to their social and economic transformation
(Amsden 1989; Wade 1990; Evans 1995). This observation, on which most scholars
by and large agree, gave rise to the general characterization of such states as “develop-
mental states”. Consequently, most scholars have attempted to theorize developmen-
tal states as a concept and thus its generalizability rather than assess the workings
of the state in terms of experiences and the mobilization of a certain set of state
apparatuses during a specific historical conjuncture.
Paradoxically, in the meantime, the concept of development and its relationship to
society has undergone significant changes, thereby rendering the role of the develop-
mental state quite ambiguous in contemporary times. Not only has the developmental
state abdicated its traditional pursuit of industrialization as an economic and social
transformation strategy, it has also moved in parallel to expand human capabilities
(a la Amartya Sen). It is clear that the normative ground has shifted from economic
development through state directed industrialization to human capability building
relying on economic development as an instrument rather than a goal in itself.
In the last couple of decades, there has been recognition of certain positive
rights by the Indian state with the ostensible aim of ensuring access to welfare
benefits and basic public services. India of course is no exception. In Latin America,
there has been a “rights turn” whereby the state has become more engaged with
socio-economic rights that effectively has “recast the citizenship-state relationship”
(Grugel and Riggirozzi 2018: 537). We do not go this far to make a similar claim
for India, given other developments in the state–business relationship but we do
acknowledge that there is greater engagement in social matters even as the state is
no longer playing a developmental role. It should come as no surprise that the ruling
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2004 general elections could not impress the
voting public with its “shining India” (a reference to high growth rates) since so many
were untouched (D’Costa 2005), prompting the incoming Congress-led coalition
government to enact several rights-based legislations that had already accumulated
political mileage. The introduction of pro-market and pro-business reforms, on the
one hand, and an explicit recognition of the rights of citizens to certain public ser-
vices, on the other, could be seen as a “double movement” for social protection—a
la Polany—against the liberalizing capitalist state. Alternatively, the structural
interpretation of this double movement suggests that to legitimize postcolonial cap-
italism, the state is attempting to reverse the effects of primitive accumulation such
as large-scale dispossession, displacement, and destitution and softening an already
charged social crisis of economic exclusion in India (Sanyal 2007; Chatterjee 2008).
Theoretically informed, the objective of this volume is to broadly and empirically
tackle four interrelated themes that examine the various facets of the contemporary
Indian state. We follow this line of investigation as it allows us to capture the actual
1 Changing Contexts, Shifting Roles, and the Recasting … 3
functioning of the state at multiple levels, often in a disaggregated way, rather than
simply assessing the deviations of the Indian state from the generalized abstrac-
tions of a developmental state. These themes are to identify some of the reasons
for the changing role of the state, including first, the shifting contexts such as the
reconfigured state–business relationship; second, the mediating role of society in dis-
tributive politics, especially in terms of rights-based movements or pressures from
below; third, the seemingly contradictory role of the state in undertaking major public
social programmes and simultaneously opening up of greater spaces for the market;
and fourth, the dynamic relationship between the state and the form of democratic
governance under changing political regimes.
The chapter is divided into three main sections. In section two, we discuss some
of the reasons for the changing role of the state in favour of markets as well as the
introduction of certain social welfare programmes. In this discussion, the maturing
of civil society is viewed as an important developmental outcome that facilitates
the swing towards human capabilities and away from fetishized economic growth.
This is as much as a tacit admission of the inability of economic growth to lift all
boats as it is a reflection of the sorry material condition of India’s excluded. At the
same time, the growing power of the capitalist classes in liberalizing India suggests
state cutbacks and intensified contestations over resources and thus limits to how
much the state can actually redistribute. Given the varying performance of the state
at different levels in a complex political terrain, we shy away from characterizing the
Indian state with a singular attribute. Instead, in section three, we show in various
ways and at multiple levels what the contemporary Indian state has been doing and
identify some of the reasons for that mode of intervention, including responding to
rights-based movements. Section four discusses how the Indian state can be recast,
while the final section introduces the chapters in this volume.
1.2 Growth, Welfare, and the Shifting Role of the State
In addition to the double movement of the state to protect those losing out from
economic liberalization or the attempt to reverse the effects of primitive accumulation
to stem a political crisis, the state for more mundane reasons has been compelled to
reinvent itself. For example, at a basic level, the “exhaustion” of import substitution
industrialization, the growing significance of sound macroeconomic policies in open
and integrated economies, and the ideological shift in preferences for market-driven
economic governance (with the collapse of the former Soviet Union and Eastern
European economies) are some of the well-known reasons. To that, one must also
add the growing maturity of the capitalist classes in many of these state-led economies
such as India, Brazil, and South Korea (D’Costa 2000, 2014),1 the search by global
1 This is one outcome, which is not recognized well by scholars of the state. The maturity of capitalist
classes under state tutelage suggests that state intervention has not been a dismal failure as is often
painted to be.
business for neoliberal policy environments for realizing their returns on capital,
thereby reinforcing the reduction in the scope of the state’s economic and social role
(Lange 2015: 11), and a deliberate pro-business tilt of the Indian state (Kohli 2009).
Reinvention of the state in favour of markets logically implies a reduced role of
the state in the economy and in the social sphere. Yet, we also find that the Indian
state has consciously moved in the direction of social welfare, albeit not radically
since it has not abandoned the big investment-heavy economic growth programme or
launched any major redistributive programmes. Instead, the expectation is that growth
with “inclusive” development, a euphemism for trickle-down economics with a few
large targeted programmes for the poor will be politically expedient in the current
climate of a receding state and heightened mobility of capital. Curiously, despite the
state’s efforts since the economic reforms of the 1990s in enacting and implementing
several welfare types of schemes for low income and marginalized populations, the
state has been also admonished for allegedly retreating from its welfare-oriented
interventions. In fact, this is not surprising since the prognosis for sharing growth
in India is unfavourable due to the weak capacity of the state to redistribute (Kohli
2012: 195–196).
This contradictory role of the state between pursuing economic growth and welfare
goals is evidenced by the heated debates between Jagdish Bhagwati and Amartya
Sen (summarized in Bhattacharya 2013). They suggest that certain basic conditions
of life must be provided to the people, either indirectly through growth or directly
through targeted programmes, irrespective of the abstract issues of efficiency, and
Pareto optimality. In practice, the political class can neither ignore the dispossessed
nor have democratic politics not deliver the basic minimum for survival, even if the
dominant policy discourse among the elites in India revolves around the importance
of economic growth. In this vein, albeit in the context of “political society”, Chatterjee
(2008) argues that in an enlightened democratic India the state cannot abandon those
who fall through the cracks of capitalism, and therefore, some welfare measures must
be provided to those who are excluded from development. As alluded to earlier,
structurally speaking this is also a minimal response to avoid social and political
catastrophe arising from massive exclusionary outcomes.
Irrespective of the reasons for the shift in the role of the state from economic
growth to human capabilities (through asset creation and choice of work engendered
by social welfare measures), the intellectual puzzle remains since the state has also
distanced itself from the conventional forms of engagement with the economy such
as production by the public sector and an active industrial policy. By deregulat-
ing the economy, the Indian state has de facto made more room to allow for freer
play of market forces. Analytically, there are really two shifts: one from state-led
development to more market-based outcomes, and the other, within market-based
development a shift towards welfare, tempering some of the fallout from market-
based outcomes. Given such movements, how is one to assess the role of the state in
development? Has “globalization” fundamentally changed the character of states in
the Global South that were earlier seen as pursuing “statist” development strategies
with less than spectacular results? Consequently, does it mean the irrelevance of the
“developmental state”, a concept that emerged from the experiences of East Asian
states? How should we frame contemporary states such as India’s if we are to analyse
and assess their changing role that no longer reflects the past?
It is of course debatable if the Indian state has really introduced pro-market
reforms, given that piecemeal and ad hoc reforms achieved thus far favour selec-
tive businesses rather than creating a level playing field for all business (Kohli 2009:
144–163). The Indian market reforms have transformed the state–business relation-
ship from one of hostility to one not of partnership for the common good but one
of business freedom and cronyism. Thus, businesses such as those in the IT indus-
try have risen from their technological and commercial acumen and serendipitous
articulation with the world economy in a liberalizing economy, while others in the
power and minerals sector have benefited from favours obtained from the state (Venu
2016). This is of course not a developmental state as rightly argued by Kohli (2009:
175–176). However, cosying up to big business to generate economic growth, even
if successful, does not make it developmental as Kohli unwittingly imputes (2009:
147). After all, the very success of the quintessential South Korean developmental
state has dialectically led to big business dominance, which has created a highly divi-
sive society (Nam and D’Costa 2015). For our purposes, the concept of the classic
developmental state is no longer applicable due to both open economies and demo-
cratic politics. Therefore, it is necessary to move away from the developmental state
(enjoying substantial relative autonomy)—economic growth frame of reference and
instead focus on why and how the Indian state is engaged in promoting individual
well-being and capabilities in the context of a liberal economic environment.
1.3 Changing Contexts, Rights, and New Roles
Explaining why the role of the Indian state has moved towards markets has been
addressed generally as well as specifically for India. For example, Biersteker (1992)
attributes the “triumph” of neoclassical economics and global convergence in policy
thinking in bringing about a transformation in state–market relations. Others point
to stagflation and rising government deficits (or “fiscal crisis” of the state, O’Connor
(1973)) in the USA as a turning point for and culminating in the Reagan–Thatcher
ideological swing of a reduced role of the state (Marchak 1993). For the Indian case,
the shifting role has been due to the sheer exhaustion of state-led import substitution
industrialization effort (Nayyar 1994), slow growth due to declining public invest-
ments (Bardhan 1999), microeconomic inefficiencies due to unnecessary regulations
(Bhagwati 1992), changes in middle class expectations due to demonstration effects
arising from rapid East Asian economic transformation (D’Costa 2005), maturity
of Indian capitalists and the rise of new entrepreneurs, who are now capable of
competing in the world economy (Mazumdar 2012; D’Costa 2000, 2013), and the
acceptance and conviction of the necessity of market reforms by leading bureaucrats
(Mukherjee 2013).
Evans (1995) had provided a nomenclature of states based on their instrumental-
ist roles, namely custodian, midwife, husbandry, and demiurge. These roles varied
from regulating, birthing new enterprises, nurturing entrepreneurship, and engaging

in production, respectively. None of these multifaceted roles of the state was specif-
ically designed for welfare. However, a custodian and a demiurge role of the Indian
state presupposed indirectly social welfare by regulating and controlling investment
and production. The Indian state lacked substantive capacity to intervene generally
due to a fractured society (see D’Costa in this volume). With economic reforms,
the state’s distributive capacity, ceteris paribus, has been even more limited due to
state–business alliance for growth and thus pro-business policies (Kohli 2012: 195).
Nevertheless, the gradual mobilization of a “civil” society due to creeping empower-
ment through internalization and assimilation of “democracy” among the masses, the
growing awareness of rights, and the institutionalization of rights through legislations
has also created “pressures from below”. Motivated by democratic expectations, the
implication of such political development on any state would be to compel some
distributive measures such as those necessitated by “political society”. But the epis-
temological impact on the developmental state as conventionally understood would
be drastic since by definition it would no longer be singularly focused on growth and
industrialization of the catch-up variety and instead be subject to the compulsions of
societal demands.
In a more recent piece, Evans and Heller (2015) explore the “more recent trans-
formations of the developmental state” (2015: 2). They take the notion of the devel-
opmental state further to suggest that economic growth and changes in the material
basis of the society lead to a different kind of politics of the state, including the
possibility of deepening of democratic politics. Buried in this transformation of the
state is a reorientation of goals from growth to welfare (such as promoting human
capabilities) of an erstwhile developmental state. There are several questions that
emerge from this reconfiguration of the state. Are welfare programmes an automatic
result of a successful developmental state?2 What kind of a state does it become when
it takes on a distributive role as opposed to the growth-oriented role? Assuming state
capacity to be no longer the same, presumed less under the influence of capital, what
might be the politics of distribution?
The fact that the Indian state has introduced a number of welfare-like measures
such as employment programme, the land act, right to education, right to informa-
tion, and others suggest that there is more to them than just state benevolence. These
are the fruits of politics pushed from below by the civil society (see Evans and Heller
2015). Of course, politics from below can arise from dissimilar contexts. For exam-
ple, in Latin America there have been “politics of welfare” following on the heels of
a leftward turn in a neoliberal context (Grugel and Riggirozzi 2018). Another exam-
ple is the successful accumulation by South Korea that led to a shift in the power
structure, away from the state to big business. At the same time, democratization,
since the late 1980s by removing the raw authoritarianism, has empowered civil soci-
2A Kuznets type of argument would imply that once the basic material standards have been met
non-economic aspects of well-being, such as inequality, could be addressed by the state. But these
are mechanistic postulations and ignore the realm of politics. It would be imprudent to expect the
state to share growth when capital has been freed to accumulate even more, unless of course capital
itself fears its own success because its expanded reproduction is under severe strain.
ety to demand greater social welfare services that commensurate with Korea’s high
income (D’Costa 2018). The Indian situation is different from that of Latin America
and South Korea. Comparatively, an impoverished society no doubt but unlike Korea
India already enjoyed specific democratic rights and aspirations, while unlike Latin
America India’s ruling parties have been mostly centrist with occasional interven-
tions in social programmes due to electoral compulsions. Democratic aspirations
implied some welfare engagement of the Indian state. This meant that even if the
state was hamstrung to mobilize resources for redistribution it was still subject to the
continuous pressures from below by an increasingly politicized and maturing civil
society, especially when recent economic growth has been largely exclusionary.
There are two issues regarding the transformation of the developmental state
towards greater welfare role. The first is that there is nothing inevitable with civil
society in a maturing, post-developmental state. Civil society could remain weak
even if the blatant authoritarian forms of economic governance disappear and a more
democratic abertura is introduced. India of course has had neither a developmental
nor an authoritarian state. It has always been a political democracy, caveats of state
capture and patronage politics notwithstanding. Yet, it too introduced various forms
of deregulation akin to developmental states, which reduced the role of the state in
economic affairs. The second issue is that while a developmental state works with
domestic business to pursue the national goal of escaping from economic backward-
ness, in effect over time and predictably so, it strengthens the power of domestic
capitalists. Witness the successful accumulation experienced by Korean chaebols
(conglomerates), which are today dominant players in a politically open Korean
society. The juxtaposition of successful accumulation under authoritarianism and
democratic opening leading to a captured state by chaebols is not surprising. The
financial clout of big business and the increasing financial dependence of political
parties and their leaders on campaign funds suggests the growing political influ-
ence of big business on ruling parties, a feature of most liberal democracies that
do not have strong election campaign spending limits or even if they do they are
circumvented. India is no different. Hence, any redistributive measures under such
political constraints can come about if the industrial/working classes are able to play
a vanguard role and/or there is substantial political pressure from below from a wide
coalition of highly mobilized civil society actors.
Today in India big business is in cahoots with the state under a deregulated envi-
ronment. Yet, it is in this environment that the Indian state has been also pursuing
specific forms of social welfare measures, partly a top-down approach but also as
a response to deeper civil society activism. The demand for and the acceptance of
certain rights by the civil society and the state, respectively, have accommodated a
plethora of social demands. These pressures from below (Nagaraj 2012: 11) over
time have allowed the Indian civil society, the judiciary, and political movements to
extract greater accountability of the state in discharging its constitutional obligations.
The state has been more forcefully engaged through both legal channels and political
demonstrations. Thus, the state’s more enlightened acceptance of the importance of
translating India’s constitutional freedoms into tangible rights has contributed posi-
tively to social welfare. These include but are not limited to the right to information,
the right to free and compulsory education, and the right to food.
Rights of course do not necessarily translate to human capabilities, an area in
which the Indian state has abysmally failed (Evans and Heller 2015) due to the
state’s incapacity to redistribute (Kohli 2012). Yet the state is intervening in social
spheres through the dialectics of rights-based movements by politically compelling
the meeting of constitutional obligations of the state to society. Thus, the state’s
decentralized and transparent rural employment programme has given many rural
residents added freedom to expand their human capabilities (Dasgupta 2012). The
rural welfare programme through asset creation, extra income generation, reduction
in personal debt, and not having to migrate to the cities in lean times has contributed to
individual well-being and capabilities. Similarly, the 2013 Land Act represents state
intervention in the process of land acquisition for facilitating economic development
without completely abandoning land owners who are subject to dispossession and
loss of livelihoods (D’Costa and Chakraborty 2017). We of course do not see these
acts as a means to wholesale sharing of benefits of economic growth. On the con-
trary, we see them as ongoing contestations between the state, society, and dominant
economic interests in a deregulated environment. The Indian state for its own legiti-
macy is caught between growth and welfare, providing a modicum of redistributive
measures without abandoning the former.
In an interesting twist to the changing role of the state towards welfare, we also find
that the state in its quest for security and development is relying heavily on emerging
information and communication technologies. On the one hand, there is surveillance
by the state to monitor, surveil and control large areas of society, and on the other,
the state relies on these technologies to deliver public services and entitlements to
the people. The most visible link of the “surveillance” state with development and
welfare lies in the extensive use of personal data by the state for delivery of wel-
fare services and entitlements to the people. At present, social security has become
the most dominant discourse, which these days are often equated to national secu-
rity and terrorism. Consequently, people are directed to interlace themselves with
state biometric registration so as to avail of their rights, otherwise, they risk facing
exclusion, denial of subsidies, and so on. The Unique Identification (UID) number
associated with Aadhaar contains both biometric and demographic data and allows
bona fide holders of the card to access services, both private and public that requires
proof of identity. Setting aside the surveillance role of the state for the moment, it is
apparent that the Indian state is committed to delivering public services transparently
and without leakages. At the same time, the temptation to misuse such technologies
for data mining by resorting to an elastic definition of security behind new layers of
opaque institutional agencies and legal procedures is also an emergent role of the
state.
These contradictory roles of the state in its myriad forms whether cosying up to
big business and launching rights-based legislations or using technologies to monitor
and deliver public welfare services, it is difficult to assign it a specific function
let alone call it “developmental”. Simply stated, the state does multiple things at
different times and whose set of actions is, as one scholar puts it, a “profoundly
contradictory phenomenon,” (Pedersen 1992: 631). The different parts of the state, at
different levels, motivated by contradictory objectives and controlled by and subject
to varied societal influences, including state capture and pressures from below defy
any particular nomenclature.
Since the emergence of “new institutional economics” in the 1980s, points of
emphasis notwithstanding, there is a common understanding of the role of the state.
The state in this view is expected to provide a framework of law and order, institutions
for enforcement of contracts, and other such institutions that are considered neces-
sary prerequisites for market transactions and provide incentives for private invest-
ment and enterprise. Following this perspective, Acemoglu and Robinson (2012)
make a distinction between “inclusive” and “exclusive” economic institutions. They
argue that long-term economic growth is only feasible in the context of “inclusive
economic institutions”, by which they mean a set of institutional arrangements that
support the enforcement of property rights, guarantee law and order, support contract
enforcement, allow new businesses and activities to enter and existing activities to
be destroyed, and support the functioning of markets for goods, labour, and capital.
Accordingly, “extractive economic institutions” are associated with rent creation and
extraction, and hence, the logical normative implication would be for the state to get
rid of all extractive economic institutions and to put in place more and more inclusive
institutions.
The problem with this reasoning is that it can be shown that rents are often nec-
essary for a balance of political power or preservation of a political equilibrium. If
that is indeed the case, insistence on first-best rules to eliminate rents may have unin-
tended political consequences which could be counterproductive for development
and distributive justice. Thus, a further reading of the state catering to Chatterjee’s
(2008) “political society” by way of welfare measures could be viewed as both rents
acting as a payoff to maintain political order and ensure state legitimacy, and a
redistributive mechanism, albeit nominal, at the same time. Therefore, removal of
welfare schemes on grounds of fiscal discipline and economic efficiency is not an
option that the Indian state can easily exercise. Instead, it must accommodate redis-
tributive programmes even as it adopts business-friendly policies for accumulation
and growth.
1.4 Recasting the Indian State Today
In this volume, we, therefore, do not attempt to characterize the Indian state in
one way or another or identify a singular view of the state. Instead, the chapters
collectively focus on what the contemporary Indian state does and does not do, the
different ways it intervenes and responds to societal pressures, the different levels at
which it operates, and identify some of the reasons for that mode of intervention. A
major theme that runs across all the chapters is the shifting contexts and changing
role of the state, which at the minimum suggest ongoing reconfigurations of public
and private spaces and consequently the changing direction, depth, and effectiveness
of state intervention in the economy and society. While we do not theorize why the
role of the state has changed (but see Chakrabarti and Sarkar, in this volume), it is
evident that structural changes in the Indian economy (D’Costa 2005), ideological
shifts (Mukherjee 2013), and social differentiation (D’Costa 2012) are some of the
macro-political economy contextual reasons for this change. However, the shift in
the role of the state is not just a matter of moving from statism to market reforms
or business-friendly policies, which is now a familiar story, it is also a move, if not
away from economic development in parallel fashion, towards social welfare. Here,
a different set of factors is likely to be at play.
Intuitively, the abdication of the state from the economy suggests a reduced wel-
fare role, but the Indian evidence shows that there are in practice several forms of
state intervention in favour of the disadvantaged. The reasons for this shift are many,
but the centrality of Indian redistributive politics is key to understanding this change,
which has been driven by substantial decentralization of the state, greater information
availability, and the rise of the underrepresented social groups and regional parties
(Jaffrelot 2003). Since the 1970s, the social fatigue with lacklustre growth and the
persistence of poverty has contributed to a pronounced political demand for redis-
tributive justice, which in the scheme of electoral politics has led to not only populist
policies for sharing economic growth but also to a genuine deepening of democracy
through rights-based legislations brought about by pressures from below.
Legislations of course are no guarantee of effectiveness of policy. The ability
to implement policies, projects, and programmes are dependent on the capacity of
the state, which in turn is dependent on the internal organization of the state, the
ideological glue that ties the different arms and levels of the state, and the degree
of accountability for the performance of the state. The “overdeveloped” state (Alavi
1972) relative to the economy is no guarantor of effectiveness of intervention. Given
the scale of the Indian state and the federated system of which it is a part of, it
is inevitable that the performance of the state will be uneven by regions and by
programs. Hence, this volume is not about the “failures and successes” of the Indian
state in attaining developmental goals, even though an evaluative concern cannot be
entirely avoided by the contributors while undertaking a political economy enquiry
(Lakha, McCartney, D’Costa, Remesh, in this volume). Instead what we present are
the multiple roles of the state and the contradictions therein (Arun, Chakrabarti and
Sarkar, in this volume), with some disaggregation of the state at the local provincial
levels (Sareen, in this volume). In some instances, specific economic sectors such
as grid electricity the contradictions reveal themselves as “dysfunctionality” of the
state (Chatterjee, in this volume). Her analysis offers a complex layering of both
liberalization and statism in the power sector, thereby blurring the boundaries of the
state and the private sector.
Some of the contributors point to the relative success of the state in the provi-
sioning of employment to rural households, an intervention far removed from the
traditional growth concerns of the state, while others indicate a failure of the state as
witnessed in the power sector or local level community development. As the Indian
state finds itself in the vortex of global and national capitalisms, its ability to maintain
employment security is weakened (Remesh, in this volume), while its capacity to
intervene effectively in critical areas such as employment creation is also highly con-
strained (D’Costa, in this volume). These limitations are as much due to the state’s
innate incapacity to intervene as they are due to the shift in the balance of power
between state and business and global forces beyond its control. The sheer scale of
the social transformation problem is overwhelming, given that over a million new
workers enter the Indian labour force every month, a magnitude that would challenge
any state anywhere.
While there are excellent scholarly books on India’s development experience
written primarily with an evaluative concern (Drèze and Sen 2013), relatively few
have been written with an analytical political economy orientation that views the
role of the state as iterative, interactive, dialectically in motion, accommodating, and
subject to capture and autonomy, all rolled into one. In the latter perspective, the
important questions are not whether the state (read government) or the market is the
best institution to deliver the “good’” of development but around the deep factors
that jointly shape the nature of the changing economy and the state. For example,
how does one explain the state pursuing both economic reforms and social rights
at the same time or the shift from a regulatory state to one that reconstructs market
citizenship through neoliberal reforms (Chako, in this volume)?
Chako argues that what is emerging is “market citizenship” within a regulatory
state, which unlike the social citizenship of the post-war welfare and development-
oriented states, seeks to enable participation and inclusion within rather than against
the capitalist market economy. This is similar to “market governance”, which is a
form of social discipline to adjust to market realities (Grugel and Riggirozzi 2018:
529). However, the welfare turn in Latin America has been seen as a genuine form
of inclusion. The distinction between the two regimes in India lies, according to
Chako, in what she calls “social democratic market citizenship” of the United Pro-
gressive Alliance (UPA) and “virtual market citizenship” that characterizes National
Democratic Alliance (NDA) II. UPA after coming to power for the second time in
2004, alluded to earlier, attempted to legislate claims for social citizenship, while the
second NDA government formed in 2014 continues to grapple with social policies
related to food security, employment guarantee and land rights, even as it projects
an economically muscular India.
In a parallel fashion, Chakraborty (in this volume) observes alternating move-
ments between a normative discourse that takes rights as something to be legislated
by the state to render the delivery of public services more effective (focused on
“targets” and “beneficiaries”) and the political process that eventually leads to the
state accommodating the rights language in its policy discourse. Starting from a brief
account of the series of events that culminated in such legislations as the Right to
Information Act (2005), MNREGA (2005), Right of Children to Free and Com-
pulsory Education Act (2009), and much contested Food Security Act (2013), he
argues that the subsequent emaciation of the rights language in policy discourse with
the change of regime in India vindicates the view that, in modern Indian politics,
democratic struggle for positive rights does not turn out to be the dominant mode.
The perception of disadvantage continues to be expressed in terms of identity-based
collectivities rather than interest-based ones.
The influencing factors for the changing role of the state principally lie in the
realm of politics, where the political contestation and the underlying social contracts
between the state, business, and various social groups are played out (Chakrabarti and
Sarkar, in this volume). For example, rights-based campaigns mobilizing account-
ability and political participation in an era of deregulation pushing the state towards
social and welfare policies are clearly a matter of politics. “Inclusive” develop-
ment results from the struggle over “class” and “need” processes. Need fulfilment,
in their formulation, cannot be seen in isolation from the class processes embed-
ded in production and appropriation of surplus value. What gets defined as social
needs, how much of the social surplus must be released for these social needs-related
programmes, who gets what portion for the projected social needs, and how these
distributional issues affect the “fundamental” and “subsumed” class processes—are
all questions that need to be answered by analysing the class processes and struggles
and possible conflicts that go with them.
Politics notwithstanding, McCartney (this volume) argues on the basis of evi-
dence of the changes in development indicators that the growth process has been
more inclusive in the more recent period. He identifies MNREGA (employment)
programme and its relatively better implementation, compared to various poverty
alleviation programmes of earlier days, as one of the key instruments for change.
While acknowledging the role of civil society activism and the dissemination of infor-
mation through an active social media, McCartney delves into the changing nature
of national politics in India. He identifies it as a kind of “two-party system” where
each of the two coalitions of parties gradually converges to a more stable form. This
gradual stabilization of two coalitions, according to him, could be characterized as
a shift from “roving” to “settled” bandits, a la Olson (1993). He argues that a leader
with a reasonable expectation of surviving in office will have an incentive to pursue
long-term goals.
The success of social programmes is as much as an outcome of political stability
as it is accountability of public services programmes, which could also result from
pressures from below. For example, the success of MNREGA, the largest public
works programme with over 58 million beneficiaries, is circumscribed by account-
ability (Dasgupta 2012). Where there has been elite domination of the institutions
of local governance in some states, the process of social audit has been subverted,
thus leading to the uneven implementation of the programme. Lakha (in this vol-
ume) compares his observations from a field survey conducted in Andhra Pradesh
with the findings from various studies on MNREGA implementation in Karnataka.
He argues that in Andhra Pradesh the pressure to conduct social audit came from
the top but through collaboration with civil society groups the village-level auditors
were trained to conduct social audits. In this instance, the state government freed the
programme from elite capture, leading to its relative success compared to the Kar-
nataka state experience. The indifferent state administration in Karnataka driven by
middle class/caste concerns failed to make a mark in implementation of MNREGA.
In other words, the so-called capacity of the state to ensure social protection is also
contingent on the political control and containment of the interests of the elite, some-
thing that most successful developmental states shared. Here of course, we have a
federated structure in which the local state empowered the village-level officials to
ensure successful implementation of the centrally funded employment programme.
The transformation of the Indian state as manifested in a market-based citizenship
has been brought about partly by the top-down approach to welfare schemes and
partly by pressures from below. The extent of the success of such schemes has
been subject to varying capacity of the state, albeit at local levels, to carry out public
projects and deliver public services. However, as D’Costa (in this volume) shows that
despite the massive rural employment programme alluded to above, at the macro-
level, the Indian state is hamstrung in its ability to generate meaningful jobs for its
workforce. For all the market reforms undertaken to encourage and attract domestic
and foreign investments, including the most recent “Make in India” scheme, India’s
employment deficit each year remains massive let alone the backlog of workers
seeking jobs.
The state unable to foster an employment-generating economy with pressures
from below has been compelled to advocate rural employment programmes, given
that much of the rural workforce has not been included in India’s recent high-growth
process. The ongoing process of primitive accumulation (Chatterjee 2017) and job-
less growth under compressed capitalism (D’Costa 2017, 2016), which subjects the
Indian economy to the same global competitive and technological forces generates a
daunting employment challenge. With increased mobility and the heightened power
of capital, workers are on the defensive as the number of secure and decent jobs
is diluted with increased hiring of temporary, part-time, and contract workers (see
Barnes 2018 for the Indian auto industry). The contemporary employment challenge
of course cannot be decoupled from India’s structural legacies inherited from the
past nor can it be seen as independent of the contemporary forms of high-skill, albeit
low-volume labour demand as in the export-oriented IT services and automobile
production. Consequently, the Indian state can partially accommodate the fallout
of primitive accumulation by encouraging rural residents to seek employment in the
countryside, while pushing for urban employment growth through investment efforts.
Neither response is adequate to create plentiful decent paying jobs.
The unanticipated intervention in social welfare measures suggests as if the Indian
state has offset pressures to pursue a pro-business stance. On the contrary, and this
is part of the puzzle, the Indian state has adopted pro-business policies even as it has
intervened in specific social areas. The evidence for this is not difficult to obtain.
Using the automobile industry as a specific instance, Babu (Chap. 9) shows how
the role of the state has changed from interventionist to hands-off pro-business pol-
icy under an expanding auto industry. Liberalization and market reforms since the
1980s and 1990s provided the impetus for growth of the industry. However, with com-
plete liberalization of the auto industry, several multinational auto companies entered
India, mostly through joint ventures with Indian firms. While the sector enjoys the
benefits of generous tax concessions and healthy growth, there has been frequent
industrial unrest in the automotive sector, which has been compounded by the state’s
hands-off policy, as opposed to a mediating role, in industrial disputes. Auto manu-
facturers have aggressively sought to weaken workers through their anti-unionization
posture and creating a highly segmented workforce. They have mobilized more and
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streets and lanes and piazzas obstructed with broken furniture of every sort;
vilely smelling currents of black filth, and pools and lakelets of the same;
and—mercy on us!—corpses everywhere in the quieter squares—corpses of
wretches who had crawled there to die; corpses reeking in the sunlight;
corpses that even the clouds of horrid vultures refused to put a talon in.
“Such was Santiago. I had come for copy, and I soon had enough of it.
“ ‘Let’s get out of this, bo’s’n. Can’t we spend the night up yonder
among the hills and palm trees?’
“ ‘Yes,’ the good fellow answered, cheerily. ‘And luckily the wind’s
about a N.N.E.’
“We didn’t leave the city empty-handed, though. One hotel was doing a
roaring trade, and when we found ourselves, an hour before sunset, high up
among the woods, we had enough of the good things of this life to have
stood a five days’ siege.
“Perhaps we didn’t make a hearty supper! Oh no, sailor-men never eat
and drink!
“We had some wine anyhow, for our stomachs’ sake, let me say, and to
eliminate the perfume of sweet Santiago, which seemed still to hang around
us.
“The sunset was ineffably beautiful, the clouds and the bay were
streaked with the colours of tropical birds; of those very birds that sang
their evening songs above us, while the breeze sighed through the foliage.
“Twilight does not last long here, however, but a big round moon rose
slowly over the hills, and there would be neither darkness nor danger to-
night.
“ ‘I say, bo’s’n,’ I cried, ‘you were in the Merrimac with gallant Hobson.
Tell us your version. Have another cigar, and another glass of wine. Keeps
away infection, you know.’
“The bo’s’n needed no second bidding. He had a bo’s’n’s nip—four
fingers high—and the wine was brandy too.
“ ‘Ahem! Yes, I was in the Merrimac, and so was Jack Hardy, here.’
“ ‘Well,’ I cried, ‘I am in luck. Wait, bo’s’n, till I light up. Now, then,
heave round, my friend. Sure you’re not thirsty?’
“ ‘No, sirree. I feel that last little tot in my eye like. Ever seen Hobson?
Well, you’ll like ’im when you does. You’ve seen a yacht, spick and span,
new, that can rip through a stormy sea, hang or move like a Mother Carey’s
chicken, and do ’most anything. That’s him. That’s Hobson. Bless you, sir,
the old men didn’t like the youngster’s brave proposal at first. They pooh-
poohed it, as ye might say. Even Schley himself laughed a little, as, in his
fatherly way, he put a hand on young Hobson’s shoulder. I was as close to
’em, sir, as I am to Jack here. “Admiral Cervera,” he says, “is in yonder
right enough. Only wish the beggar would come out. He’s bottled.”
“ ‘“Ay, admiral,” says Hobbie, as we calls him for fond like, “and I want
to cork the bottle. Give me that old collier the Merrimac, and, with a few
volunteers, I’ll take her in and sink her right across the narrow neck, ’twixt
Canores and Estrella Points, and——”
“ ‘“And where will you and your men be then?” says Schley.
“ ‘“I’ll give you my word of honour, sir, I’ll go to heaven, almost
cheerfully, as soon’s we bottle up the dirty Don! Besides, sir,” he says,
“why smash that fine fleet up, when it would make so grand an addition to
the American Navy?”
“ ‘Yes; and it were that very argerment, I guess, that carried the pint, wi’
the captains in council assembled. Volunteers! Ay, in course; half the navy
would have volunteered to steam to certain death with young Hobson. It
was the forlornest o’ hopes ever led.
“ ‘Look you, see, sir.’ The bo’s’n paused a minute to draw with his knife
a rough sketch of Santiago bay and city on the ground.
“ ‘That’s my map, like, o’ the place lying down yonder beneath us in the
moonlight. Them things there at sea is the fleet—our fleet. You’ll have to
take Cervera’s for granted, but one of his ships lay here, you see, to guard
the entrance. The crosses is the batteries, and they did blaze and batter us
that awful night!’
“The bo’s’n paused a moment, and laid his hand affectionately on Jack
Hardy’s shoulder.
“ ‘Me and my young pal here,’ he continued, ‘had known one another
for months afore then. There was something about the lad that made me like
him. See’d him throw his extra garments one day and go like thunder for
big Nat Dowlais, ’cause he’d kicked the ship’s cat. Ay, and welted him well,
too. I took to talkin’ more to Jack after that. But I couldn’t get down deep
enough to the boy’s heart. There was something under the surface; I could
tell that. Jack was no ordinary bit o’ ship’s junk. Bless you, sir, there’s
hundreds o’ gentlemen’s sons before the mast—but they’re not all like Jack
Hardy. Jack was more like a stage sailor than anything else. Everything he
put on was so darned natty—his hands so white and soft, though his face
and neck was brown. Then he talked American like a book. Played the
piano, too, like a freak, and was often in the ward-room in consequence.
And blowed if I didn’t hear the master-at-arms—bloomin’ old brass-bound
Jimmy Legs—more’n once call him “sir.”
“ ‘Well, the Merrimac was ’long-side and ready. Incloodin’ Lieutenant
Hobson himself, eight of us were chosen for this deed o’ danger. Torpedoes
were arranged in the hold. Hobson would stand by the helmsman, Hobson
would touch the button and sink her, and, at a word, we should leap into the
sea and swim for the dinghy towin’ astern, for this was our only hope o’
salvation.
“ ‘Jack, here, had stood by my side among the volunteers, but the poor
lad was passed over. Don’t nudge me, Jackie lad; I’m goin’ to tell the truth,
the whole bloomin’ truth, and nothin’ but—so there! I’ll never forget, sir,
the look o’ disappointment on the lad’s face just then. Some time after, I
found him for’ard with his back to the ship and his face to the sea. He
looked smartly up, but I could see by the starlight there were tears on his
face.
“ ‘He said nothing, but walked away impatient like, and I saw him no
more for a time.’
“The bo’s’n leaned towards me now, and his eyes sparkled in the
moonlight. He touched my knee with his horny palm.
“ ‘We steamed away,’ he said, in a hoarse half-whisper—steamed into
the darkness and away from the flag-ship. Not a sound for a time save the
hollow dump o’ the screw and the swirl o’ the seethin’ seas!
“ ‘In silence we steamed—it might have been for half an hour, but it
seemed like an age—an age of blackness and terror. Nothing was nateral
like. The ship was a death-ship, the figures agin the bulwarks yonder were
spectres. I would have given worlds to have heard but a word, a laugh, a
cough even!
“ ‘I said there were eight of us! By the sky above us yonder, sir, there
were nine!
“ ‘I guessed at once who the ninth was, and I shuddered a bit when I
thought of brave, foolish Hardy here. For never a stroke could he swim, and
his coming with us to-night was sheer madness—nay, more, it looked like
suicide.
“ ‘Soon after Jack slid slowly up towards me, and his left arm clutched
my right as I clutch yours now. Every one of us, sir, was stripped to the
waist. Every one wore a lifebelt save Jack Hardy. He was a stowaway, and
not in it.
“ ‘“Oh, boy,” I said, speaking in a whisper, “why have you done this?”
“ ‘“Hush!” he answered. “My time is mebbe short, mate, and you’ve
always been my friend. So listen. Something tells me you’ll be saved, but I
am here to die. I want you to bear a message to my parents—to my mother
especially. Her address you’ll find in my ditty-box. But go to see her, Sam,
when the war is over. Far away west my people live in opulence, and I’m an
only son. Father taunted me with cowardice, and I ran away and came to
sea. Tell father I forgave him. Tell mother——” Ah, sir, just here the lad
broke down. He’s only a boy. “Tell mother,” he sobbed, “how her Jack died
for his country. Tell her I felt she’d forgiven me—that will please her—that
my every dream was of home and her, that——”
“ ‘“A boat on the weather-bow,” cried a man to Hobson. “Shall we fire?”
“ ‘“No,” cried Hobson; “never a shot.”
“ ‘It had been a picket. We heard her officer shout in Spanish to give
way with a will, and she disappeared up into the darkness of the channel we
were now entering.
“ ‘The end was coming; the end was very near, and we all knew it.’
* * * * *
“While the bo’s’n had been telling his story, young Hardy sat silent, but
he spoke now almost for the first time.
“ ‘A moment, sir. The bo’s’n won’t tell you, but I must. He tore off his
lifebelt, and fastened it around me. He swore I must wear it or he would
fling it into the sea. That’s all!’
“ ‘Well, sir,’ continued the bo’s’n, ‘the awful silence was speedily
broken. They had seen us only as a dark mass, black as the rocks that
towered above us. Then their fire opened. We’ll never be under such a fire
again as that, sir, and live. Shells burst above us, around us, shells riddled
our hull, and raked our spar-deck, and crushed into our deck-house.
Fragments and splinters flew about in all directions. I think most of us were
flat on our faces just then, and I lay beside Jackie here holding his hand. No
tremor there, though! No signs of fear! And the fire poured into us from
three sides, sir, from the batteries of Socappa on the left, from Morro on the
right, and from a warship ahead.
“ ‘Speak of thunder. Pah! thunder isn’t in it with such a devil’s din as
this, and lightning ’gainst those gun-gleams would have been like the glint
of a farthing candle!
“ ‘Then we saw brave Hobson’s figure—unearthly tall it looked. No
voice could be heard, only his arms waved us to the bulwarks.
“ ‘Next second it seemed we were all in the water, as a roar louder than
the artillery shook the sky, shook the hills, and silenced even the batteries.
“ ‘The ship was sinking beside us! We were all but drawn into the
whirlpool, but I held Jack’s hand and toughly towed him off.
“ ‘But the dinghy was gone, and the rudder too, and the Merrimac sank,
not across, but along the channel. So our forlorn hope had been led in vain.
The Spanish fleet was bottled still, but not corked, sir.’
“He paused for a moment.
“ ‘Ah, sir, no one there would ever forget that night, nor the hours we
passed under a tilted grating that God in His mercy had put it into some
one’s head to attach by a rope to the ship. We could just get under this
catamaran and hold on to the spars above.
“ ‘Hour after hour of darkness went by. Boats passed and repassed, and
we could hear the men talking. Had they known there were nine heads
under that grating, short would have been our shrift, sir.
“ ‘And all these hours we hardly spoke. We almost feared to breathe
aloud.
“ ‘More than once I thought that Jackie here was dead or dying, but I
whispered cheering words to him. More than once I trembled as my feet
were touched by slimy sharks. How they did not tear me down I cannot tell
you. Seems to me, sir, ’twere a ’tarposition o’ Providence like.
“ ‘But daylight came at last, and Cervera’s own boat and Cervera
himself.
“ ‘Hobson’s voice was feeble enough now, but he managed to hail her.
“ ‘“Por Dios!” we heard the white-haired admiral cry. “Do the dead talk
to us?”
“ ‘But we were saved, and taken to the Spanish ship. Yes, sir, treated
with every kindness, made prisoners, but released at long, long last, even
before sweet Santeehager fell.
“ ‘Well, that’s my yarn, sir, and it’s all as true as the stars above us.’
“ ‘And Jack Hardy here,’ I ventured to ask, ‘was he reprimanded?’
“ ‘Tried by drum-head he was, sir. Condemned to death for desertion,
and pardoned all in one sentence.’ ”
“ ‘Ah, sir,’ the brave bo’s’n added, ‘I’ll bet my boots that Jack Hardy is a
midshipman before this cruel war is over. Thank ye, sir, I don’t mind if I do;
and I’ll give ye a toast, too—
“ ‘“May the Stars and Stripes we love so well,

With Britain’s flag entwine,
And we’re goin’ to give the world—fits,
When the two brave fleets combine.“ ‘“
* * * * *
The Walrus sailed on and on around the great Antarctic continent, but
never saw her consort till once more the two ships met safe and sound at
Kerguelen Isle.
END OF BOOK II
BOOK III
ON THE GREAT ANTARCTIC

CONTINENT
CHAPTER I
A STRANGE DISCOVERY—SHEELAH AND TAFFY
“She is bound to be,” said Captain Mayne Brace, a day or two before the
good ship Walrus reached Kerguelen. “Bound to be, Mr. Armstrong. She is
the better craft of the two, you know.”
He was talking to Ingomar and Walter, one evening in October, while
they all sat together in the cosy saloon, not a mile away from the stove.
Ingomar and Brace were smoking the pipe of peace, and sipping their
coffee (which they placed, to keep warm, on top of the stove), between each
longdrawn sip. Walter was reading one of Scott’s novels, or trying to, for he
was listening to the conversation all the same. Charlie was missing to-night.
I rather think he would have been found, if any one had cared to look for
him, forward in the galley, listening to the men’s yarns, or playing a
hornpipe to please them.
“Well, yes, she is bound to be, in the natural course of events, because,
as you say, she has faster sailing qualities, and all that; but——”
“Ah!” interrupted Mayne Brace, with a smile, and another hearty pull at
his coffee; “we must not think of the ‘might be,’ or the ‘may be.’ Else we’d
go on thinking and get nervous, and end in believing, that because we did
not meet the Sea Elephant somewhere to the east of Dougherty Islands, she
has been taken aback in a squall, and gone down stern foremost, with all
hands. Or that she had, at the very least, broken her screw.”
“Steward!”
“Ay, ay, sir!”
“Put more coals on the fire.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And just replenish our cups of coffee. Fresh ground, isn’t it?”
“That it be, sir.
“Dumpty always roasts it himself, and I grinds it. A main good hand
Dumpty is, sir, at roasting coffee. A little morsel of lard in the bottom of the
pan to keep the beans from burning, a good clear fire, and keep them
moving and moving; and there you be, sir.”
“Steward!”
“Sir to you again, sir.”
“Ever anybody ask you for a recipe for roasting coffee?”
“Milk and sugar, sir?”
The milk was another invention of the steward. It was a fresh gull’s egg,
beaten and mixed with hot water, and sweetened with pure preserved milk.
On the whole, everybody did his best on board the old Walrus.
The men forward to-night were very jolly, for, being so near to the end
of their exceedingly long voyage, the captain had spliced the main brace,
that is, he had added one modest glass of rum to their nightly allowance. I
don’t believe in rum myself, but when one is writing a sea story, one must
adhere to the truth. The man who does not face realities and the naked truth,
is like the fabled ostrich that hid its head in the sand when danger
approached.
The men drank “sweethearts and wives,” or “wives and sweethearts,” in
the real good old British fashion. The married men, you know, drank “wives
and sweethearts.” The bachelors, and they were nearly all of that
persuasion, put the “sweethearts” to the front.
They had mixed the grog with a good deal of hot water and sugar to
make it last. But they toasted each other also; and it was, “Here’s to you,
Jack;” or, “Here’s to you, Bill,” or Tom or Joe, as the case might be. And
“We’ve been shipmates now more’n a year, and never a word atween us,
bar a sea-boot now and then.”
And they toasted “The Captain.” “And he is a good fellow,” was the
remark of one sailor, “though a stickler for duty.”
“Ah! Well, Sconce, dooty is dooty all the world. Stick by that, and we’ll
all do well.”
“Dooty,” said another, “is the needle wot points to the Pole, and the Pole
is Heaven itself.”
“Very good sentiment for you, Jack. Here’s to dooty!”
“Now, sir”—this to Charlie—“touch her up, sir. Give us ‘Homeward
Bound,’ and we’ll all chime in, from Dumpty downwards, to the nipper wot
tends the dogs.”
“Homeward Bound” was given with glee; but, of course, it was only a
make-believe, because there wasn’t much home life about Kerguelen.
They sighted the island after passing McDonald and Heard Isles.
Charlie again. He had been determined to be first to see land.
Before the entrance to the creek or natural harbour, where the men and
animals were, is a spit of rocky land, a rugged kind of breakwater, and had
the Sea Elephant been the first inside, her top-masts would have shown
over this.
But here was never a ship’s mast to be seen.
On the shore, high up on a braeside, was an outlook, and the Walrus’s
people saw both American and British ensigns dipped to welcome the
Walrus.
The Walrus returned the salute.
Then flags of all kinds were set in motion, and the signalmen on board
and on shore were very busy indeed, for a time.
“Yes, all was well, now,” said the signalman on shore, “but two dogs
dead, and one Innuit. Sea Elephant had never been seen.”
The anchor was hardly let go when the officer’s boat was alongside, and
he was heartily welcomed down below to exchange experiences.
He and his men had been very busy all the time, and they were ably
assisted and supported by the kindly Yak-Yaks. He spoke in the very
highest terms of Slap-dash, the chief. In the dreary days of winter, when the
island was deep in snow, snow-shoe expeditions were got up; but sleighing,
especially with the bears, who were better suited to the rough work, was
preferred. The Yak-Yak died of inflammation. One dog fell over a cliff and
was killed at once. The other was found dead. Both were buried side by
side, and cairns mark their resting-place. “There is a cairn also,” said Slator,
“on the poor Yak-Yak. I think we nearly all dropped some tears at his
grave.”
I suppose they did, reader, for in the loneliness of such a place as this the
heart is sometimes very near the throat. Sunshine brings mirth and
happiness, gloom depresses, and there is always a certain amount of sadness
in even the songs of northern nations, such as Iceland, Scotland, and
Norway.
Both Charlie and Walt had some doubt as to how the Yak-Yak dogs
would receive them again. But, accompanied by Ingomar, they boldly
marched some distance into the interior, to the kennels. It was the afternoon
of what had been a glorious day, and they had doffed their fur caps and
coats.
The bears were not at home just then. Both bears and dogs, indeed, had
gone away to roam the wilds nearly every day, but the Bruins, with the
dogs, always came shambling or trotting back at eventide, to sleep and to
eat.
They were away then at this moment, and Slap-dash proposed that, with
the Newfoundlands and pet collie, they should all march forth to meet them.
Strangely enough, they had a rendezvous on a hill-top, where most of
them met every night, and from this a beaten track to the camp.
To-day several of the dogs were already at the place of meeting, several
were straggling up from seawards, and in front (for no dog was permitted to
walk behind him) was Gruff, with his well-beloved wife Growley.
When within about seventy yards of the place, where Ingomar and the
boys were standing, both stopped short and sniffed the air. Then Growley
gave vent to a half-choked roar of rage, that shook the hills—well, if it
didn’t shake the hills, it shook the hearts of Charlie and Walt.
“Strangers!” Growley seemed to shout. “I’ll tear ’em limb from limb!”
Gruff rounded on her at once, and promptly knocked her down.
Then Gruff came trotting on, and Nora and Nick and the collie ran off to
meet them, our heroes following.
That was a pas de joie, a joy-dance, if ever there was a joy-dance in this
world; and those sceptical creatures, who would class dogs and our other
dumb friends as mere automata, would have been converted on the spot to
the dear old doctrine, that animals have souls, had they but seen that dance.
It was too absurdly intrinsically droll for description. The other two
bears, Grumpey and Meg, came up and joined, and presently all the rest of
the bonnie dogs.
They went round and round our heroes in a hairy hurricane; they
pretended to worry each other, they barked and roared, and grumbled and
growled, till the boys’ sides were sore with laughing.
Surely such a scene of merriment was never before witnessed, and when
all had quietened down somewhat, they went amicably back to the kennels.
This is not one of Grimms’ fairy tales, mind, rather is it a fairy tale of
science and natural history, and these, readers mine, are all true.
* * * * *
A whole week passed away, but still no Sea Elephant.
Captain Mayne Brace had taken in more coals, and his arrangements
were all complete, so he was becoming impatient; but at long last the ship
hove in sight over the horizon, and the union was complete.
On comparing logs, it was found that they must have passed each other
at night, and had been probably within ten nautical miles of each other.
The bigger ship had taken many observations, and done a much quicker
voyage. But, knowing that he could be at Kerguelen much sooner than the
Walrus, a happy thought had occurred to Captain Bell. He would run up to
the Cape of Good Hope and endeavour to get a cargo of coals.
Although the war was raging, he succeeded, and now these were landed
in case of emergency, each ship just taking enough for the grand new cruise.
I need hardly say that the meeting between Curtis and Ingomar was most
cordial.
A grand ball was given on shore on the night of re-union.
Sailors are not sailors unless they can have a bit of fun.
It was a ball of a somewhat heterogeneous description, for men waltzed
with men, though Slap-dash did some really graceful movements with Gruff
and the other bears as partners. There were no ladies, you see, but all the
more freedom and merriment.
Yet, stay; I must qualify this statement. The Eskimos, Yaks, Innuits,
Teelies, or any other name you choose to give them, are droll creatures.
They all dress alike in skins, and their faces are all about the same shape.
Now the very day before the Walrus and Sea Elephant sailed, all being
then on board, except a change of men who were to remain at Kerguelen for
observation duty, Slap-dash came up and saluted Captain Bell.
“Four of my rascals,” he said, “want to speak to you directly.”
Then the four “rascals” were led up and threw themselves on their faces
before Captain Bell as if they had been worshipping the sun.
“Get up, get up,” said Bell, “and speak like men.”
They arose at once and stood before him, and two took a step in advance
of the other two.
“We not all men-people, sir,” said one.
“We not all men-people,” said the other.
Captain Bell began to frown.
“Dis ees my ole woman-people,” said the first speaker.
“Dis ees my ole mudder-people,” said the other.
“Slap-dash,” cried Bell, “did you know this?”
“Not befo’ dis morning, sah; no, no.”
Captain Bell was puzzled and silent. He addressed Ross, the officer who
had been left in charge at Kerguelen.
“No, sir,” said this gentleman; “I don’t see how we can send them on
shore. We can’t want the whole four. They will pine and die if separated.
That would be a dead certainty.”
“Very dead,” said Bell, smiling.
“Besides, though no one suspected their sex, that one called Sheelah is
an excellent cook, and both are capital nurses. We were sick sometimes. We
had green fever in winter, and certain I am that they nursed us back to life.”
The carpenter was next called for.
“Carpenter,” said Bell, “a small screen berth will be wanted below in
some corner, a kind of l-l-ladies’ cabin. Do ye hear?”
“Well, sir, I do hear, because I’m not deaf; but I don’t understand.”
“Then just do as you are told, Mr. Inglis.”
“Certainly, sir, certainly.”
So a little privacy was obtained for Sheelah and Taffy, and, as it turned
out afterwards, no one was the loser for the “women-people” being on
board.
Do coming events throw their shadows before?
Perhaps they do. Anyhow, when the two ships looked their last on
Kerguelen—the last for a long time, at all events—there was more silence
on board than is usual with sailors going off to sea.
They knew the dangers they were going to encounter, but they were all
quite acclimatized to the rigorous Antarctic climate by this time, and there
was not a man on board, British or American, who was not prepared to do
his best. Which of us can do more?
CHAPTER II
A FIGHT BETWEEN MEN AND ICE
The Sea Elephant’s cruise around the great Antarctic continent, and all her
captain and bold men did, and said and saw, would make a book in itself.
That may one day see the light, as well as the adventures of the men left
behind at Kerguelen.
We must now follow our heroes into a country as widely different in
every way as Scotland or England is from the moon.
Now, having been a boy myself, not so very long ago—apparently—and
being still a boy at heart, I know that boys do not as a rule care for
geography. That is because it is taught in a stupidly, awkward way at
schools, a method being adopted which is devoid of all interest. But never
mind, I do wish you for once in a way to take a look at the map here
presented to you. The ships were off south and east from Kerguelen Isle,
and the first port to be struck was Termination Land. It was not to be the
termination of their cruise, however, by a very long way.
Would you be surprised to learn that there are two poles in the south, and
two in the north, the magnetic and real poles.
The real axis, the hub of our “terral” wheel, is the one we have to deal
with.
Here all meridians may be supposed to meet at a point.
There would in reality be no more south for a man standing at this pole.
Let him look in which ever way he liked, to Africa, to South America, or
New Zealand; it would all be north, north, north. No east, no west, just
north.
The Sea Elephant and her sister, the Walrus, were not to be run into any
danger along the coast of Wilkes’ Land, which marvellous line of shore
may be said to stretch from Termination Land and Island, right away to
Ringgold’s Knoll, far, far east. It is, or is supposed to be, the longest stretch
of coast land in, or any way around, the Antarctic. There is no mistake
about this being land, nor that it is indented with bays and gulphs, just as
the west coast of Scotland or Norway is; and these indentations may really
divide the continent in places.
I only want to give you some rough idea of this land coast. Had you then
been able to sail along it many thousands of years ago—and you would
have had to be up very early indeed to do so—before there was any ice here
at all, when the shores were green and forest-clad, the sight you would have
witnessed would have been a very beautiful one indeed! Hills and vales and
mountain land, and probably in the farther interior, vast sierras, the woods
teeming with strange animals; and strange birds would have been there, too,
sailing over the forests, or floating on blue seas, alive with myriads of fish
of various species, many now lost and gone, others still extant because they
have migrated.
But now, though the same formation of surface and contour of hills may
remain, they are all, all snow-clad, and protected seawards by a barrier, or
barriers of ice, of every description, which few mariners would care to
negotiate.
* * * * *
The weather continued favourable, but there were many days of darkness
and gloom; and after Termination Land had been reached, it was not
considered advisable—strong and well fortified though the ships were—to
be among the ice when the shadows of great clouds enveloped the land, or
when storms were threatened. But when the sun shone, and the ice was
open, then they boldly ventured to push their way through, either under
steam, or under sail.
Ice like this closes very suddenly, and if the captain of an exploring ship
is not very clever, he may get caught, and a week’s imprisonment counts
against a ship when making a voyage.
Sailing in a pack like this, a vessel to a landsman would seem to be in a
very dangerous position.
She may be, though no one on board appears to think so. The ice is here,
the ice is there, the ice is all around; flat bergs, like what you meet in the
north; pancake ice, lakes of slush, and those terrible masses, or square
mountains of land-ice—a characteristic feature of this country—with caved
perpendicular sides, striated on the horizontal, or, if they have been melted
by the sun at one side, oblique, and glittering gorgeously blue, green, or
paley white, in the sun’s rays.
But all, big or small, covered with snow, so that their very whiteness
dazzles the eyes. But at this season there were birds everywhere, and seals
of many species. The penguins, I need hardly add, were a very curious
sight, as they stood or staggered about on the low flat bergs. Our heroes saw
some sea-elephants, though I believe these, as a rule, are far more common
to the south of Tierra Del Fuego.
One day, when the ships were pretty close together, and well in through
the ice, the sky cleared far too quickly to please Captain Mayne Brace. He
knew at once that John Frost would have them in his clutches, if they did
not soon beat a retreat.
So he signalled to his consort, and both vessels quickly had their heads
turned to the north.
They might have found themselves clear in a few hours had it not
suddenly come on to blow from the cold and icy south.
The ice began to pack.
Steam was got up with the greatest despatch, and nearly all sail taken in.
Luckily there was no swell, else there would have been pressure enough to
have thrown both vessels on their beam-ends on a floe.
The Sea Elephant was leading, and by-and-by the Walrus managed to
creep right into her wake. This was an advantage for a time. A south wind,
even with a clear sky, would naturally open the ice, but there was some
demon current working underneath that they could not account for; and
while they were still two miles from clear and open water, they found
themselves rapidly becoming part and parcel of the pack.
Break the ice, did you say? I should smile. You may get steam
machinery to smash bay-ice, or splinter pancake, but not your solid, heavy
pieces. Oh no! So men who have inventions of this sort should sell them to
farmers at home to break up their mill dams in winter.
Then came a battle ’twixt men and ice. Men with their cunning, ice with
its force of movement, slow but sure.
Both ships got closer together, the Sea Elephant leading, all hands that
could be spared from both ships, over the side in front of the foremost.
Armed with great poles, they moved the bergs on every side.
It was bitterly cold work, and the pieces moved but slowly.
Under all the pressure of steam she could produce without risk, aided by
the men over the side, the Sea Elephant forged her way slowly, fathom by
fathom, indeed, but after a time that to our heroes seemed interminable, her
jib-boom hung over the black water.[D]
Then came the scramble to get inboard, and though their fingers were
about as hard as boards, and some had frozen faces, in less than ten minutes
all hands were once more on their respective decks.
Sail was once more set, fires were banked—save the coals they must—
and away they went, right merrily, to the east again, the wind well on the
starboard beam.
Although the men had raised a cheer when the ships were quite out of
that ugly pack, there was no fear in any breast.
“Would there have been much danger if we had been beset in there,
uncle?” Charlie ventured to ask the captain, at supper.
“A fig for the danger, boy. We’ll never be out of that, but we came to
find the South Pole, or get somewhere near it.”
Ingomar smiled.
“Well, then, Hans, we have come to make a big record.”
“That will beat all creation, captain.”
“Yes, beat all creation, and it would have been misfortune, to say the
least of it, to have got beset. That’s all. Yes, thanks, steward, I’ll have
another slice.”
* * * * *
The two ships stood steadily onwards now, day after day, sailing
whenever they could, steaming only when obliged to, for the economy of
coal had to be studied, and that, too, most carefully.
Captain Bell, of the Sea Elephant, came now to be recognized as head of
the expedition, though on every occasion that was deemed important a
council was called and the opinions of all officers taken.
He was now always called The Admiral, but not to his face. He was
none too fond of fine titles.
And the Sea Elephant was called the Flag Ship, for short.
One day, when in the neighbourhood of the Knoll, the Admiral signalled
to the Walrus, that as they would soon round Wilkes’ Land and stand down
south, it would be best for all hands to bend their cold-weather gear.
In shore English that would signify, give out the supplies of winter
clothing.
As it turned out, this was very excellent advice indeed.
The Eskimos had their supply first and foremost, and this they had made
themselves, under the supervision of Slap-dash, and from seal-skins with
the hair on.
Slap-dash assured Captain Bell that there was nothing so good for
keeping out the cold, and his words turned out to be true. Most, however, of
the sailors and their officers still stuck to flannel and fur.
Both Charlie and Walter had a very great desire to see the inside of a real
ice-cave. These caves look like archways, or the openings into tunnels, and
are formed by the dash of the waves on huge bergs of land-ice, or even in
the sides of the ice-barrier itself.
They had their desire fulfilled one day, while the ships lay almost
motionless on the dark water.
There wasn’t a breath of wind, nor was there any fog. And the surveyors
were engaged very busily indeed, in taking soundings, and bringing up
specimens of the mud or clay at the bottom for examination.
Fires were banked, but the ships were at no great distance from a lofty
ice-wall, at the foot of which were several caves.
They rowed on shore at sunset.
And the appearance of that sunset was in itself a sight to behold!
The sun was sinking slowly down to the north of west, and in a cloudless
sky. It seemed a larger sun than our young heroes had ever yet beheld, and
cast its reflection on the heaving waves ’twixt boat and horizon, in a very
remarkable way; for although the sheen was bright, it was not dazzling. Nor
was the sun itself. But nearer to the spot where our heroes stood, on the
field of level ice betwixt them and the ice-caves, were many shades of opal
and pearl.
“We must be moving,” said Ingomar, “at last, boys, or we will not get
home to-night.”
“Oh!” cried Walter, “I wouldn’t mind staying here all night to look at the
sky.”
“Nor I,” said Charlie. “I’d like to sleep in the snow. Nothing could harm
us except the frost, and we should be in our sleeping-bags, so that couldn’t
hurt much.”
“There are no snakes here, anyhow.” This from “wise Walter,” as Charlie
sometimes called him chaffingly.
“No, Walt; and no burglars, either.”
There was one thing to be said for the dogs, Nick and Nora and Wallace.
They had long ago fully made up their minds to enjoy themselves to the
fullest extent, whenever they had the chance.
They were tearing round and round on the ice-floe at this moment,
wriggling and jumping and playing at leap-frog, while Nick would pause
every moment to fill his mouth with snow and fling it over his neighbour’s
shoulders.
The boys must have just one more look at that sky before they entered
the ice-cave.
Lo! what a change. The sun was all but down, and sea and sky had
changed to orange, deep and charming. The very snow was orange.
But judge of their disappointment when they entered the first cave and
found that all was pitch dark.
CHAPTER III
THE BEAUTY AND MARVELS OF AN ICE-CAVE
“Oh, what a shame!” cried Walt, impatiently. “We did expect to see
something real splendid.”
Ingomar laughed.
“You are snow-blind, boys, just for the moment. If you’d come when I
told you, when the sun was still above the horizon, you would have had a
daylight view.
“The sun can’t be expected to stay for you. He has to rise and shine on
other seas, if not on other lands.”
But when their eyes became more accustomed to the twilight, they could
see that they were in a vast vaulted cave, solid ice and snow beneath them,
and strange uncanny shapes sparkling in the semi-darkness beyond.
Three men had accompanied Ingomar and the boys, and one was
carrying a bag.
“Be cautious how you move, lads, else one of you may go through into
the sea, and never be seen again.”
“But the ice feels very strong.”
“Yes; it is perhaps a foot thick, and that is strong enough for anything.
But there are ‘pussy-holes’ here and there, up through which seals crawl to
sleep, and on these the ice is very thin.”
Just as he spoke, there was a sudden and angry roar heard ahead of them,
where something black and big reared itself, and two fierce eyes glared at
the intruders.
The boys clutched each other in superstitious fear, and stepped quickly
back.
It was only a large seal, however, but so quickly did it retreat that
Ingomar had not the slightest idea what species it was.
I may say for the seals here in the Antarctic, which number four or five
species, that though in the breeding season they have certain habitats, after
that happy time is over they are free to wander where they please, and often
turn up in strange places. It is the same with Arctic seals.
An eared seal, whose fur has been much sought after, is now, I think,
almost extinct, owing to the murderous greed of the sealer. I think it would
be well if there were a close season for all species. But this is a digression.
Let us return to the cave.
The somewhat mysterious bag carried into the cave was now opened,
and Ingomar, bending down, extracted some of what he termed theatrical
properties therefrom.
Next moment, on the touch of a button, the whole of this cave was filled
with dazzling light.
What a sight!
“Oh—h—h!”
That was all our boys could say for a moment or two.
No stalactite cave probably ever rivalled the beauty of this.
And here were stalactites, too, in the form of depending icicles, dozens,
scores, hundreds of them, and, seen by the electric light, they emitted all the
colours of the rainbow.
They walked cautiously on and on a long way into the bowels of this
mighty cavern, watching the floor for pussy-holes.
No one could even guess where the seal had gone.
“Well,” said Charlie, as they came at last to the end of the ocean-
hollowed cave, “I should really have expected to find mermaids here.”
“Now,” said Ingomar, “one more transformation scene, or perhaps two,
and then the pantomime is over.”
As he spoke he touched a spring, and, wonderful to say, the cave was
illuminated with brightest crimson, then with orange and red again. So on to
the pure white light, and in this they found their way to the mouth of the
cave, and made their exit and presently their way to the boats.
“We’ve seen a sight,” said Ingomar, “that is surely worth coming to the
Antarctic to look upon.”
“Yes,” said Charlie, thoughtfully.
“Oh,” cried Walt, “will you do it again some time?”
Ingomar laughed.
“It all depends,” he said.

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Changing Contexts and Shifting Roles

of the Indian State New Perspectives on

Growth Disparities and Inclusive Development in India

Antisemitism Before and Since the Holocaust: Altered

The Land Question in India : State, Dispossession, and

Indian Philosophy and Meditation Perspectives on

Contemporary Publics: Shifting Boundaries in New Media,

The Changing Language Roles and Linguistic Identities

Indian Perspectives on Consciousness Language and Self

An Applied Perspective on Indian Ethics P. K. Mohapatra

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/13342

ISSN 2198-9923 ISSN 2198-9931 (electronic)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019932823

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019

This volume is based on a conference organized in Kolkata by the Australia India

Bandel, Hooghly, India Anthony P. D’Costa

1 Changing Contexts, Shifting Roles, and the Recasting of the Role

Part I Theorizing the State’s Changing Role in a Changing Context

Part II Shifting Roles of the State

Part III State and Contested Forms of Governance

About the Editors

Anthony P. D’Costa is Eminent Scholar in Global Studies and Professor of

Achin Chakraborty is Professor of Economics and Director of the Institute of

P. Arun is Research Scholar in Department of Political Science, University of

AAY Antyodaya Anna Yojana

ICDS Integrated Child Development Services

PCP Petty Commodity Producer sector

Anthony P. D’Costa and Achin Chakraborty

Abstract The objective of this introductory chapter is to theoretically and empiri-

Keywords Developmental state · India · Distributive politics · Democratic

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 1

1.2 Growth, Welfare, and the Shifting Role of the State

1.3 Changing Contexts, Rights, and New Roles

from regulating, birthing new enterprises, nurturing entrepreneurship, and engaging

1.4 Recasting the Indian State Today

“ ‘“May the Stars and Stripes we love so well,

ON THE GREAT ANTARCTIC

A STRANGE DISCOVERY—SHEELAH AND TAFFY

A FIGHT BETWEEN MEN AND ICE

THE BEAUTY AND MARVELS OF AN ICE-CAVE

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