The Contrasting Footprint of Labour and Capital in Post‐colonial India

ABSTRACT India's struggle for independence held the promise of an end to poverty and redemption from the communal‐cum‐class‐based inequality which had kept the peasant economy backward. But the planned substitution of the agrarian‐rural fabric for an industrial‐urban way of life failed to mater...

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Published in:Development and change Vol. 55; no. 4; pp. 533 - 559
Main Author: Breman, Jan
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Oxford Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.07.2024
Subjects:
20th century
Autocracy
Brokerage
Capitalism
Civil rights
Collective action
Colonialism
Democracy
Deregulation
Economic depression
Employment
Equality
Global economy
Governance
Income inequality
Independence
Inequality
Labor
Nation states
Neoliberalism
Occupations
Poverty
Proletarianization
Redemption
Stakeholders
Statism
Urbanism
Wages & salaries
Welfare
Workforce
India
ISSN:0012-155X, 1467-7660
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:ABSTRACT India's struggle for independence held the promise of an end to poverty and redemption from the communal‐cum‐class‐based inequality which had kept the peasant economy backward. But the planned substitution of the agrarian‐rural fabric for an industrial‐urban way of life failed to materialize. Casualization and contractualization of waged work indicated that labour had become thoroughly commodified in a state of ongoing footlooseness. It was a proletarianization which did not allow for the collective action precondition to raise and settle the social question. The onslaught of neoliberal capitalism in the last quarter of the 20th century ended the brokerage of the nation state to secure the interests of labour next to those of capital. Less than 10 per cent of the workforce has continued to enjoy formalized occupational engagement, mainly in the downgraded public economy. Corporate capital in collusion with statist autocracy has not only effectuated the deregulation of employment but also abandoned the legal code of formality. The outcome is a state of lawlessness for the people at the bottom of the pile. Besides big business, politics and governance are identified in this reconfiguration as stakeholders in a brutal regime of informality, erosive of equality, democracy, welfare and civil rights.
Bibliography:Development and Change
A shortened version of this article was delivered as a Keynote address at the conference ‘India's Development Experience: Analytical Perspectives’, organized by the Department of Economics, Miranda House, University of Delhi, India (22–23 February 2024). The author would like to thank the Editorial Board of
for their constructive comments and for giving him the opportunity to expand the original keynote address.
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ISSN:0012-155X
1467-7660
DOI:10.1111/dech.12845