Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Engaging Rural Indian Interventions: Constructing Local Governance Through Resource Access and Authority

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Changing Contexts and Shifting Roles of the Indian State

Part of the book series: Dynamics of Asian Development ((DAD))

Abstract

In this chapter, Siddharth Sareen disaggregates the workings of the state at the village level. He interprets how a macro-level context of capitalist development is shaping the state in India’s rural forestland by contextualising multiple instruments of intervention within Jharkhand ’s village life. Deconstructing three instances of access to and authority over resources, he posits that despite poorly functioning local government, aspirations at the grassroots level drive engagement with governmental interventions. These included attempts to acquire title deeds over traditionally claimed land by villagers; a traditional village-cluster or pir’s internal conflict concerning regulation of wood access by a village-level institution; and extortion by a Maoist insurgent group from a corrupt local contractor under an anti-insurgency scheme. Informed by fieldwork with West Singhbhum district’s Ho communities, Sareen theorises the state through the interplay of local governance, democracy and resource access, showing how marginalised groups’ local engagement with the state constitutes a frustrating relationship. Calling for enabling interventions’ positive outcomes for such populations, this chapter makes sense of the conundrum of villagers’ involvement with a largely dysfunctional state at the local level.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 149.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 199.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    A total of 60 districts across India were funded 55 crore rupees (nine million dollars) each during 2010–12 under the ‘Integrated Action Plan for Selected Tribal and Backward Districts’: this anti-insurgency, pro-development intervention has since been extended to 88 districts till 2017 in the form of ‘Additional Central Assistance for Left Wing Extremism Affected Districts’.

References

  • Agrawal, A., & Ribot, J. (1999). Accountability in decentralization: A framework with South Asian and West African cases. The Journal of Developing Areas, 33(4), 473–502.

    Google Scholar 

  • Areeparampil, M. (1992). Forest Andolan in Singhbhum. In S. Narayan (Ed.), Jharkhand movement: Origin and evolution. New Delhi: Inter-India Publication.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baruah, S. (2007). Durable disorder: Understanding the politics of Northeast India. In Durable disorder: Understanding the politics of Northeast India (pp. 1–28). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof.

  • Bierschenk, T., & Olivier de Sardan, J.-P. (2011). Powers in the village: Rural Benin between democratisation and decentralisation. Africa, 73(02), 145–173. https://doi.org/10.3366/afr.2003.73.2.145.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blundo, G. (2006). Dealing with the local state: The informal privatization of street-level bureaucracies in Senegal. Development and Change, 37(4), 799–819. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7660.2006.00502.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cleaver, F. (2002). Reinventing institutions: Bricolage and the social embeddedness of natural resource management. Journal of European Development Research, 14(2), 11–20.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Corbridge, S. (2002). The continuing struggle for India’s Jharkhand: Democracy, decentralisation and the politics of names and numbers. Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, 40(3), 55–71. https://doi.org/10.1080/713999595.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Corbridge, S., Jewitt, S., & Kumar, S. (2004). Jharkhand: Environment, development, ethnicity. Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Corbridge, S., Williams, G., Srivastava, M., & Veron, R. (2003). Making social science matter—I: How the local state works in rural Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal. Economic & Political Weekly, 38(24), 2377–2389.

    Google Scholar 

  • Damodaran, V. (2006). The politics of marginality and the construction of indigeneity in Chotanagpur. Postcolonial Studies, 9(2), 179–196. https://doi.org/10.1080/13688790600657843.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Evans, P., & Heller, P. (2013). Human development, state transformation, and the politics of the developmental state. In S. Leibfried, E. Huber, M. Lange, J. D. Levy, & J. D. Stephens (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Transformations of the State. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199691586.013.37.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Gaventa, J. (2004). Towards participatory governance: assessing the transformative possibilities. In S. Hickey & G. Mohan (Eds.), Participation—From tyranny to transformation: Exploring new approaches to participation and development (pp. 25–41). London & New York: Zed Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Government of India. (1992). The Constitution (73rd Amendment) Act, 1992. New Delhi.

    Google Scholar 

  • Government of India. (1996). Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996. New Delhi.

    Google Scholar 

  • Government of India. (2007). Scheduled tribes and other traditional forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006. New Delhi.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grindle, M. S. (2007). Going local: Decentralization, democratization, and the promise of good governance. Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ingram, V., Ros-Tonen, M. A. F., & Dietz, T. (2015). A fine mess: Bricolaged forest governance in Cameroon. International Journal of the Commons, 9(1), 41–64.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jewitt, S. (2008). Political ecology of Jharkhand conflicts. Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 49(1), 68–82. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8373.2008.00361.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, C. (2003). Decentralisation in India: Poverty, politics and Panchayati Raj (No. 199).

    Google Scholar 

  • Pasquale, B. (2014). can inclusive institutional reform reduce political violence? Field evidence on village Governance and conflict in India. http://www.mpsanet.org/Portals/0/Pasquale.pdf.

  • Paty, C. K. (2007). Forest, government, and tribe. New Delhi: Concept Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prakash, A. (2001). Jharkhand: Politics of development and identity. New Delhi: Orient Longman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ribot, J. (2004). Waiting for Democracy: The politics of choice in natural resource decentralization. Washington, D.C. https://doi.org/10.2307/1148781.

  • Ribot, J. C. (2011). Choice, recognition and the democracy effects of decentralization (No. 5). Visby.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sarangi, T. K. (2014). Legalising rights through implementation of Forest Rights Act 2006: A critical review on Odisha and Jharkhand. CESS Working Paper 126. Hyderabad: Centre for Economic and Social Studies.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sareen, S. (2016). Seeing development as security: Constructing top-down authority and inequitable access in Jharkhand. South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal, 13. http://samaj.revues.org/4146.

  • Sareen, S. (2017). Who governs local access in Jharkhand? Mechanisms of access to government services. Forum for Development Studies, 44(2), 249–274.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sareen, S., & Nathan, I. (2017). Under what conditions can local government nurture indigenous people’s democratic practice? A case study of two ho village assemblies in Jharkhand. The Journal of Development Studies (in press). https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2017.1329523.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sareen, S., & Oskarsson, P. (2017). Enduring discourses and everyday contestation: Introduction to special section on discourse and resource conflict in extractive zones of India. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 40(4), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1080/00856401.2017.1380749.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shah, A. (2009). Morality, corruption and the state: Insights from Jharkhand, Eastern India. The Journal of Development Studies, 45(3), 295–313. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220380802600866.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shah, Alpa. (2013). The agrarian question in a Maoist Guerrilla Zone: Land, labour and capital in the forests and hills of Jharkhand, India. Journal of Agrarian Change, 13(3), 424–450. https://doi.org/10.1111/joac.12027.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sikor, T., & Lund, C. (2009). Access and property: A question of power and authority. Development and Change, 40(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7660.2009.01503.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Springate-Baginski, O., Sarin, M., & Reddy, M. G. (2012). Resisting rights: Forest bureaucracy and the tenure transition in India. Small-scale Forestry, 12(1), 107–124.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stuligross, D. (2008). Resources, representation, and authority in Jharkhand, India. Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 49(1), 83–97. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8373.2008.00362.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sundar, N. (2009). Insurgency, counter-insurgency, and democracy in central India. Legal Grounds: Natural Resources, Identity and the Law in Jharkhand (pp. 149–168). New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tillin, L. (2011). Questioning borders: Social movements, political parties and the creation of new states in India. Pacific Affairs, 84(1), 67–87.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Törnquist, O. (2000). Dynamics of Indonesian democratisation. Third World Quarterly, 21(3), 383–424.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vasan, S. (2005). In the name of law: Legality, illegality and practice in Jharkhand forests. Economic & Political Weekly, 40(41), 4447–4450.

    Google Scholar 

  • Véron, R., Williams, G., Corbridge, S., & Srivastava, M. (2006). Decentralized corruption or corrupt decentralization? Community monitoring of poverty-alleviation schemes in eastern India. World Development, 34(11), 1922–1941. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2005.11.024.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Welzel, C., & Inglehart, R. (2008). The role of ordinary people in democratization. Journal of Democracy, 19(1), 126–140. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2008.0009.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • World Bank. (2007). Jharkhand: Addressing the challenges of inclusive development. Washington D.C.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yin, R. K. (2003). Case study research design and methods third edition. Applied social research methods series, 5.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The author gratefully acknowledges support from the Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctoral Programme on Forest and Nature for Society, a University of Copenhagen faculty scholarship and a University of Melbourne workshop travel grant which enabled fieldwork and writing for this chapter, as well as the inputs of the editors and workshop participants. He is also grateful for guidance from Iben Nathan and Christian Lund.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

    Siddharth Sareen

Authors
  1. Siddharth Sareen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Siddharth Sareen .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. College of Business, The University of Alabama, Huntsville, AL, USA

    Anthony P. D’Costa

  2. Director and Professor of Economics, Institute of Development Studies Kolkata, Kolkata, India

    Achin Chakraborty

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Sareen, S. (2019). Engaging Rural Indian Interventions: Constructing Local Governance Through Resource Access and Authority. In: D’Costa, A., Chakraborty, A. (eds) Changing Contexts and Shifting Roles of the Indian State. Dynamics of Asian Development. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6891-2_10

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation