Development Policies and Democratic Disruptions: Predicaments of the Marxist Left

This paper argues that development policies operate in Indian democracy at the interstices of two largely different yet interconnected worlds – of technical formulation and political formations. The Indian Left found dramatic success in its land reform policies as it travelled between the two by combining its programmatic goals with pragmatic governance, and – by contrast – failed miserably to overcome popular protest against acquiring farmland when it was driven by a top-down bid for industrialisation. Populist disruptions, strategically negotiated with, play a far more productive role in India’s democracy than ordinarily acknowledged in effecting a political scrutiny of state policies for economic development – however sound and desirable.