State, social policy and subaltern citizens in adivasi India

Chemmencheri Ramapurath, Sudheesh (2015) State, social policy and subaltern citizens in adivasi India. Citizenship Studies, 19 (3-4). pp. 436-449. ISSN 1362-1025

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Abstract

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

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ccst20
Additional Information:	© 2015 Taylor & Francis
Divisions:	Social Policy
Subjects:	J Political Science > JA Political science (General) J Political Science > JQ Political institutions Asia, Africa, Australia, Pacific
Date Deposited:	27 May 2015 09:07
Last Modified:	14 Sep 2024 06:47
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/62100

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