Political Processes in India I: State, Economy and Development, Globalisation, Identity Politics and Social Movements

Unit 8 turns from formal institutions (Unit 7) to the informal, ongoing processes that actually animate Indian politics — the state's own changing relationship to the economy, globalisation's domestic reverberations, the identities (religion, caste, region, language) that structure political mobilisation, and the movements built around them.

1. State, economy and development

The nature of the Indian state has been read differently across decades: a 'developmental state' actively directing industrialisation through planning in the Nehruvian decades; increasingly, from the 1970s-80s, a 'soft state' (Gunnar Myrdal's term) unable to enforce its own rules and captured by rent-seeking interests; and post-1991 a more market-conforming state retreating from direct production toward regulation. The Development Planning model — the Planning Commission (1950-2014, replaced by NITI Aayog) issuing successive Five Year Plans, following the Mahalanobis strategy of prioritising heavy, capital-goods industry (the Second Plan) on the theory that this alone builds durable long-run growth capacity — gave way, after the 1991 balance-of-payments crisis, to the New Economic Policy: liberalisation (delicensing industry), privatisation (reducing the public sector's footprint) and globalisation (opening to trade and foreign investment), collectively 'LPG' reforms that remain the single most consequential turning point in independent India's political economy. Growth and human development have since been read as an uneven, contested pairing — critics (Amartya Sen, Jean Drèze) arguing GDP growth alone has not translated proportionately into health, education and nutrition outcomes, a debate that keeps this unit's economic-policy material squarely political rather than merely technical.

2. The process of globalisation: social and economic implications

  • Economic implications — foreign direct and portfolio investment inflows, an internationally integrated services and IT sector (a distinctively Indian pattern of leapfrogging manufacturing-led growth), sharper exposure to global commodity-price and capital-flow volatility, and intensified regional inequality as globalisation's benefits have concentrated disproportionately in already-advanced states and urban centres.
  • Social implications — a new consumerist urban middle class with global cultural reference points; simultaneously, anxieties about cultural homogenisation and loss of local livelihoods (small-scale industry and agriculture facing global competition) have fed both left-wing anti-globalisation movements and right-wing cultural-nationalist reassertion, making globalisation's politics genuinely two-sided rather than a single, uncontested consensus.

3. Identity politics: religion, tribe, caste, region, language

Five axes of identity mobilisation
AxisPolitical expression
ReligionCommunal mobilisation and majority/minority political framing coexist with the constitutional secularism established in Unit 7; contested episodes (the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, debates over a uniform civil code) recur as central fault lines.
TribeAdivasi political assertion around land, forest rights (the Forest Rights Act, 2006) and autonomy, including demands for separate statehood (Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh) achieved partly through such mobilisation.
CasteThe Mandal Commission's 1990 implementation (27% OBC reservation) transformed caste from a social into an explicit electoral category nationally, producing durable OBC-based party formations in several states.
RegionSub-national and regional-party assertion (Dravidian parties in Tamil Nadu, Telangana's statehood movement) over perceived neglect by a Delhi-centred national politics.
LanguageThe States Reorganisation Act (1956, on linguistic lines, following the Fazl Ali Commission) and periodic anti-Hindi agitation (Tamil Nadu, 1965) show language as a durable axis of both state-formation and continuing political contestation.

4. Social movements: Dalit, tribal, women, farmers, labour

  • Dalit movements — from Ambedkar's own organisational and political mobilisation (the Republican Party of India) through the Dalit Panthers (1972, Maharashtra, taking its name and militant posture directly from the US Black Panthers) to the electoral consolidation represented by the Bahujan Samaj Party, spanning anti-untouchability, land, and dignity-based assertion.
  • Tribal movements — Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh statehood movements, and continuing resistance to displacement by mining and large dams (the Narmada Bachao Andolan, though also a broader environmental/human-rights movement, drew heavily on tribal and rural displacement concerns).
  • Women's movements — from social-reform-era campaigns (Savitribai Phule, Pandita Ramabai, met in Unit 3) through the post-independence anti-dowry and anti-rape mobilisations of the 1970s-80s to contemporary campaigns on workplace safety (Vishaka Guidelines, 1997, later the 2013 POSH Act), political representation (the still-pending Women's Reservation debate, partially addressed by the 2023 Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam), and Me Too-era mobilisation.
  • Farmers' and labour movements — the Bharatiya Kisan Union-led farmer mobilisations from the 1980s (Mahendra Singh Tikait) to the 2020-21 farm-laws protests (leading to the three farm laws' repeal, 2021), and organised labour's own long history of strikes and union mobilisation (the Bombay textile strike, 1982, among the largest ever) — both increasingly navigating a changing, more informalised and globally-exposed economy.

Key takeaways

  • The Indian state moved from a Nehruvian developmental/planning role through a 'soft state' (Myrdal) critique to a post-1991 LPG (liberalisation, privatisation, globalisation) reform state, with growth-versus-human-development remaining a live, contested debate.
  • Globalisation's economic implications (FDI, services-led growth, regional inequality) and social implications (new middle class, cultural anxieties feeding both left and right mobilisation) are genuinely two-sided.
  • Religion, tribe, caste, region and language each structure distinctive political mobilisation — Mandal's 1990 implementation and the 1956 linguistic States Reorganisation being the two most consequential turning points.
  • Dalit (Ambedkar to Dalit Panthers to BSP), tribal (Jharkhand/Chhattisgarh, Narmada Bachao Andolan), women's (Vishaka to POSH to Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam) and farmers'/labour movements (2020-21 farm-law protests, Bombay textile strike) span decades of continuous mobilisation.
  • The 2020-21 farm-laws protests led to the repeal of all three laws in 2021, a rare instance of sustained movement pressure directly reversing enacted national legislation.

Practice questions (8)

Attempt each one before opening the answer. Every explanation names the tempting wrong option as well as the right one, because that is where marks are lost.

  1. Gunnar Myrdal's term for a state unable to enforce its own rules and captured by rent-seeking interests is:

    1. The soft state
    2. The developmental state
    3. The overdeveloped state
    4. The welfare state
    Show answer

    Answer: A — The soft state

    Myrdal's 'soft state' is this specific critique; the 'overdeveloped state' is Alavi's post-colonial state concept from Unit 4, a different theory entirely.

  2. The New Economic Policy of 1991 is collectively known by the acronym:

    1. LPG (liberalisation, privatisation, globalisation)
    2. NAM
    3. SAGAR
    4. MAD
    Show answer

    Answer: A — LPG (liberalisation, privatisation, globalisation)

    LPG is the 1991 reforms' own standard shorthand; the other acronyms belong to non-alignment, India's maritime initiative, and mutually assured destruction respectively.

  3. The Mahalanobis strategy behind India's Second Five Year Plan prioritised:

    1. Heavy, capital-goods industry
    2. Services and IT exports
    3. Privatisation of public-sector units
    4. Foreign portfolio investment
    Show answer

    Answer: A — Heavy, capital-goods industry

    The Mahalanobis model specifically prioritised heavy industry as the base for durable growth; the other options describe post-1991 liberalisation-era priorities instead.

  4. The Mandal Commission's implementation in 1990, granting 27% OBC reservation, is significant chiefly because it:

    1. Transformed caste into an explicit national electoral category
    2. Created the Election Commission
    3. Repealed the farm laws
    4. Established the GST Council
    Show answer

    Answer: A — Transformed caste into an explicit national electoral category

    Mandal's 1990 implementation is specifically caste's transformation into explicit national electoral politics; the other options are unrelated events from other chapters.

  5. The States Reorganisation Act (1956) reorganised Indian states chiefly on the basis of:

    1. Linguistic lines
    2. Religious composition
    3. Caste demographics
    4. Colonial-era provincial boundaries alone
    Show answer

    Answer: A — Linguistic lines

    The Fazl Ali Commission's recommendation, implemented in 1956, reorganised states along linguistic lines — the most consequential redrawing of internal boundaries in independent India.

  6. The Dalit Panthers (1972, Maharashtra) took their name and militant posture directly from:

    1. The US Black Panthers
    2. The Bahujan Samaj Party
    3. The Republican Party of India
    4. The Narmada Bachao Andolan
    Show answer

    Answer: A — The US Black Panthers

    The Dalit Panthers explicitly modelled themselves on the US Black Panthers' name and militancy; the other options are related but distinct Dalit or social-movement organisations.

  7. The Vishaka Guidelines (1997), later codified in the 2013 POSH Act, addressed:

    1. Sexual harassment at the workplace
    2. Farmers' minimum support price
    3. Linguistic reorganisation of states
    4. Tribal forest rights
    Show answer

    Answer: A — Sexual harassment at the workplace

    Vishaka and the POSH Act are specifically workplace-sexual-harassment law; the other options belong to farmers' movements, the 1956 reorganisation, and tribal-rights legislation respectively.

  8. The 2020-21 farm-laws protests led by farmer organisations resulted in:

    1. The repeal of all three farm laws in 2021
    2. The Mandal Commission's implementation
    3. The 1956 States Reorganisation
    4. The Bombay textile strike
    Show answer

    Answer: A — The repeal of all three farm laws in 2021

    The 2020-21 protests directly resulted in the repeal of the three farm laws in 2021, a rare instance of sustained movement pressure reversing enacted national legislation.