Abstract
In this article, I claim that demographic engineering scholarship cannot adequately explain the production of demographic engineering practices because they suffer from two classic limitations of state theory: (1) assuming the political elite to be the sole producers of the state practices, and (2) treating the state as an actor. Following the latest theoretical insights on the complex ontology of the state, I claim that we can overcome these limitations of the current demographic engineering scholarship by focusing on interactions between political and bureaucratic actors involved with the demographic engineering policy. I use this insight to examine the population control policy of the Indian state during the Emergency period (1975–1977). My main finding is that the strategies of federal bureaucrats to reproduce their authority over the regional bureaucrats, lowered by political elite dynamics during the Emergency period, enabled the street-level bureaucrats to adopt coercive strategies for achieving their unrealistically high sterilization targets. My study contributes to the studies on demographic engineering, state theory, and the Emergency period in India by highlighting the significance of studying interactions among the political and bureaucratic actors in producing state practices, including but not limited to demographic engineering.
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Notes
In addition to these tools, the state employs census classifications like race, gender, caste, and religion to control the country's demographic makeup. For a detailed discussion on the usage of the census as a tool for demographic engineering, see Bailey et al. 2011; Loveman 2021; Loveman and Muniz 2007.
According to the Chinese policy, women needed to regularly undergo gynecological checks to control their reproductive mechanisms. During these examinations, the authorities checked for unwanted pregnancies and terminated them if they were not approved. For a detailed discussion, see Greenhalgh 2008; McElroy and Yang 2000; Rosenzweig and Zhang 2009; White 2015.
More recently, there has been increasing attention given to the role of experts such as demographers in influencing state policymaking about demographic engineering. For a detailed discussion on the influence of demographers in formulating a state's demographic engineering policies, see Connelly 2006a; Merchant 2021.
The street-level bureaucrats comprised the lowest-ranking state actors such as health care workers, police constables, teachers, government contractors, train ticket checkers, and many others who directly interacted with the masses. For a detailed discussion on the significance of street-level bureaucrats in implementing state policies, see Brodkin and Marston 2013; Lipsky 2010.
For details on this episode of Mrs. Gandhi's political life, see Dhar 2001, 257–259.
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Singh, S. Re-Thinking Demographic Engineering Practices: New Insights from the Case of the Indian Emergency State (1975–77). Qual Sociol 47, 95–121 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-024-09558-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-024-09558-w