• header Image

Theorising the Indian State

Home/ Theorising The Indian State
Course Type Course Code No. Of Credits
Discipline Elective SLG2LP215 4

Course coordinator and team- Pooja Satyogi

  1. Does the course connect to, build on or overlap with any other courses offered in AUD?

This course is unique and does not overlap with other courses or curriculum in AUD. It offers a distinctive focus on Indian politics and surveys the major traditions of political theorization of the Indian state since Independence, with particular emphasis on developmental planning and state formation. The course engages the liberal modernization paradigm, which envisioned that India’s social contradictions could be addressed through state-directed development. It examines how constitutional democracy and universal suffrage have impacted democratic practice.

 

  1. Specific requirements on the part of students who can be admitted to this course: (Pre requisites; prior knowledge level; any others – please specify)

No requirement

 

  1. No. of students to be admitted (with justification if lower than usual cohort size is proposed):

As per AUD rules

 

  1. Course scheduling: (summer/winter course; semester-long course; half-semester course; workshop mode; seminar mode; any other – please specify)

Semester-long course

 

  1. Proposed date of launch:

2018

 

  1. How does the course link with the vision of AUD?

This course builds on Dr. B. R. Ambedkar’s ideals by foregrounding the political, economic, and social structures that shape democratic life in India—structures that Ambedkar analysed with exceptional clarity. At its core, the course treats the Indian state not as a neutral arbiter but as an institution deeply shaped by questions of legitimacy, rights, and social hierarchy, echoing Ambedkar’s insistence that political democracy must rest on social and economic democracy. By tracing citizenship, development planning, and the evolution of state power, the course examines the very mechanisms through which Ambedkar sought to secure equality—constitutionalism, redistribution, representation, and institutional accountability.

 

  1. How does the course link with the specific programme(s) where it is being offered?

 

This course aligns closely with a School of Legal and Socio-Political Studies because it treats the Indian state as a legal, political, and social institution whose authority is constituted through constitutional design, governance practices, and struggles over rights. By tracing how legitimacy, citizenship, development, and sovereignty evolve across India’s postcolonial history, the course equips students to understand how law operates not only as doctrine but as a site of power, exclusion, and contestation. Modules on modernization, Marxist critiques, liberalisation, and contemporary governance foreground how legal frameworks intersect with political economy, caste relations, and state violence. The focus on land, dispossession, welfare, and policing directly connects legal processes to lived experiences and social hierarchies. As a result, the course fosters interdisciplinary analysis—linking legal reasoning with political theory, history, and sociology—preparing students to critically examine the role of law within broader structures of governance and democratic life.

 

  1. Course Details:

 

    1. Summary: This course offers a historically grounded and theoretically informed exploration of political thought, state formation, and governance in modern and contemporary India. Beginning with conceptual debates on the nature of the Indian state and the evolution of planning as a political project, the course traces how ideas of welfare, development, citizenship, and empowerment have shaped state practices since independence.

 

Through an engagement with modernization theory, Marxist scholarship, and political economy debates, students examine how scholars across decades interpreted the political crises, social transformations, and ideological contestations of their times—from caste and democratic mobilisation to the Emergency, peasant radicalism, and the rise of far-right tendencies. The course then moves into the era of liberalisation, analysing shifting state–business relations, the crisis of governability, the politics of inequality, and the tension between market logics and democratic aspirations.

 

Finally, the course interrogates contemporary configurations of power around religion, caste, secularism, sovereignty, violence, and dispossession. Readings on land struggles, accumulation, and alternative political imaginaries (such as Bolivia’s development model) allow students to critically grapple with the possibilities and limits of democratic governance in present-day India. Across modules, the course foregrounds how political ideas, institutions, social groups, and economic structures continually reshape each other.

 

  1. Objectives:

By the end of the course, students will:

 

  • Understand major theoretical frameworks used to analyse the Indian state, including constitutionalism, political economy, modernization theory, and Marxist critiques.
  • Trace the historical evolution of state planning and development discourse and how these were co-constituted with political visions of welfare, empowerment, and citizenship.
  • Examine key debates of the 1960s–1990s—including caste and modernity, revolutionary potential, emergency-era politics, and the transition to liberalisation.
  • Analyse the shifting relationship between state, market, and democracy from the postcolonial period through economic reforms and beyond.
  • Critically assess contemporary debates on sovereignty, violence, religion, caste, and dispossession, and their implications for democratic practice.
  • Evaluate the role of social groups—peasants, caste groups, business elites, bureaucratic actors—in shaping political outcomes and policy orientations across different historical periods.
  • Develop analytical skills to interpret scholarly arguments in relation to historical context, showing how academic writing responds to and illuminates political transformations.
  • Cultivate the ability to connect theoretical debates with empirical political processes, including land struggles, neoliberal reforms, and shifts in citizenship and state-society relations.

 

  1. Expected Learning Outcomes:

After successfully completing the course, students will be able to:

  • Identify and explain key conceptual debates about the Indian state, including legitimacy, sovereignty, welfare, and developmentalism.
  • Compare and contrast different theoretical traditions—modernization, Marxian, political economy, and postcolonial critiques—and articulate their implications for understanding Indian politics.
  • Analyse historical periods (1950s–1990s) in terms of their dominant political concerns, such as caste, agrarian radicalism, state authoritarianism, economic reforms, and governability crises.
  • Critically evaluate the political consequences of liberalisation, including changing state–business relations, inequality, and challenges to democratic accountability.
  • Interpret contemporary forms of state violence, dispossession, and struggles over land, demonstrating an understanding of how they relate to broader political-economic transformations.
  • Assess the changing nature of sovereignty in India, especially the emergence of multiple, competing, and overlapping loci of authority.
  • Engage with debates on secularism, communal politics, caste democracy, and citizen rights, situating them within larger arguments about India’s democratic trajectory.
  • Synthesize readings across disciplines to produce informed, contextually grounded arguments in written or oral form, showing the ability to connect theory, history, and contemporary politics.

 

d. Overall structure:

Course Outline

 

Syllabus with List of Readings

 

 

Module 1: Political Foundations of Governance and Planning in India

 

 

 

Together, the readings in this module provide a layered understanding of the Indian state's early formation, its evolving political rationalities, and the tensions inherent in its developmental ambitions. Upendra Baxi highlights how the Constitution served not only as a legal foundation but also as a mechanism through which legitimacy was accumulated in a deeply unequal society, shaping the nature of state power after independence. Partha Chatterjee’s account situates the Indian state within broader debates on political authority, emphasizing its hybrid character—simultaneously modern and postcolonial—and the ways in which it mediates competing social claims. Stuart Corbridge extends this analysis by tracing the political economy of development, showing how strategies of growth and redistribution have continually been shaped by class interests, institutional constraints, and regional disparities. Niraja Gopal Jayal foregrounds the evolution of citizenship, arguing that inclusion and exclusion have been central to how Indians experience the state, with rights often refracted through social hierarchies. Complementing these perspectives, Gyanesh Kudaisya’s examination of planning in the 1950s reveals how early developmental efforts were framed by optimism yet constrained by administrative capacity, political negotiation, and the competing imperatives of nation-building. Taken together, these works illuminate the complex interplay between legitimacy, citizenship, development, and planning in shaping the Indian state’s trajectory.

Weeks 1-2

Baxi, Upendra. 1997. “Accumulation and Legitimacy: The Indian Constitution and State Formation.” M. P. Singh and S. S. Chaube (eds.) In Indian Constitution: A Review, 13–27. New Delhi: Har-Anand Publications

 

Chatterjee, Partha. 2010. “The State”. In Jayal, Niraja Gopal and Pratap Bhanu Mehta (eds). The Oxford companion to politics in India. Oxford University Press, 2010.

 

Corbridge, Stuart. 2010. “The political economy of development in India since independence.” In Paul R. Brass (ed). Routledge Handbook of South Asian Politics: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal, 318-36:  Routledge

 

Jayal, Niraja Gopal. 2013.  “Introduction”. In Citizenship and its discontents: An Indian history, 1-27. Harvard University Press.

 

Kudaisya, Gyanesh. 2017. “Planning Endeavours”. In India in the 1950s, 145-177. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

 

.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Module 2: India, Modernization Debates and the Marxist Critique of Developmental Path

 

 

This module marks the point at which the course begins to organize academic writings historically, examining how scholars interpreted the political issues of their own moments. In the work of the Rudolphs and Kothari, caste and its role in modern Indian politics emerge as central concerns. Working within modernization theory, these scholars were not suggesting that caste would fade away; rather, they examined how caste and politics were mutually reshaping one another to produce a specifically Indian form of modernity. The debate, therefore, was never about an ideal of a caste-less society.

The 1970s were a period of intense upheaval in India, and it is striking that scholars approaching the period from a Marxist perspective identified “revolutionary potential” in the peasantry (as argued by Gough and Sharma), while others warned of a possible far-right turn in Indian politics (as suggested by Bhattacharya). Set against the backdrop of the Emergency and the Green Revolution, these seemingly contradictory tendencies not only coexisted but may have reinforced one another. India, viewed as an “intermediate regime” still uncertain of its democratic trajectory, appeared capable of moving in markedly different directions.

 

Week 3

Modernization Debates

Rudolph, Lloyd I. and Susanne H. Rudolph. 1967 (1969). The Modernity of Tradition: Political Development in India, 1-17; 103-154. Bombay: Orient Longman.

Kothari, Rajni. 1970. “Social Infrastructure”. Politics in India, 229-255. New Delhi: Orient Longman.

Weeks 4 and 5                                                                                                 

 1970s

Gough, Kathleen. 1973. “Imperialism and Revolutionary Potential in South Asia”. In Kathleen Gough and Hari K. Sharma (eds) Imperialism and Revolution in South Asia, 3-42. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Bhattacharya. Jyotibhushan. 1975. “Fascism: A developing Trend in India”. In Mathew K. Kurian (ed). India—State and Society: A Marxian Approach, 256-272. Madras: Orient Longman

Sharma. Hari. P. 1973. “The Green Revolution in India: Prelude to a Red One?”. In Kathleen Gough and Hari K. Sharma (eds) Imperialism and Revolution in South Asia, 77-102. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Raj. K. N. 1973. “The Politics and Economics of Intermediate Regimes”. Economic and Political Weekly, 8 (27): 1189-98

Frank. Andre Gunder. 1977. “Emergence of Permanent Emergency in India”. Economic and Political Weekly, 12(11): 463-475

 

 

Module 3: Big business, strong state and the advent of  liberalisation

 

 

During the 1980s, political stability at the national level allowed Indira Gandhi’s government, and those that followed, to move decisively in favour of big business. Scholars note that as the state expanded into more localized or vernacular arenas, tensions deepened between higher-level bureaucrats and lower-level state officials (as discussed by Kaviraj, Frankel, and Kohli), producing a crisis of governability.

In the 1990s, analysts such as Nayyar and Bardhan questioned the appropriateness of economic reforms for India, arguing that market-driven policies inherently exclude those lacking necessary entitlements—entitlements that are themselves shaped by deep structural inequalities. Democratic politics, by contrast, is based on inclusion. For these scholars, the 1991 reforms did not emerge from, nor necessarily support, the institutional foundations of political democracy. Bardhan further contends that the growing importance of state governments has shifted political power toward intermediate and lower castes. This shift challenges the earlier model of economically insulated decision-making, raising doubts about how the market-oriented framework introduced in the 1990s aligns with concerns about equity and group rights.

Weeks 6-7: 1980s

Kothari. Rajni. 1988. State against Democracy. In Search of Humane Governance, 88-117; 232-254; 271-288. Delhi: Ajanta

Rudolph, Lloyd I. and Susanne H. Rudolph. 1987. “Demand Polity and Command Polity”. In In pursuit of Lakshmi: The political economy of the Indian state. University of Chicago Press: 211-220

 

Kaviraj. Sudipta. 1984. ‘On the Crisis of Political Institutions in India’. Contributions to Indian Sociology, 18 (2): 223-43.

Kaviraj, Sudipta. 2011[1987]. ‘A Critique of the Passive Revolution’. In Partha Chatterjee (ed.) State and Politics in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press: 45-88

                                                                                                                                  

Week 8: 1990s

Bardhan, Pranab. 1996. In Niraja Gopal Jayal (ed.) Democracy in India, 397-414. Oxford University Press.

Brass, Paul. 2000.  “The strong state and the fear of disorder.” In Frankel, Francine, Zoya Hasan, Rajeev Bhargava, and Balveer Arora (eds) Transforming India: social and political dynamics of democracy: 60-88.

 

Kohli, Atul. 1992. Democracy and Discontent: India’s Growing Crisis of Governability, 3-35; 37-61; 238-267; 303-338. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; New Delhi: Foundation Books:

 

Additional Readings:

Kochanek, Stanley A. 1996. “Liberalisation and business lobbying in India.” Journal of Commonwealth & Comparative Politics 34 (3): 155-173.

 

Nayyar, Deepak. 1996. In Niraja Gopal Jayal (ed.) Democracy in India, 361-397. Oxford University Press.

 

 

Module 4 : Politics and Governance in Contemporary India

 

The first part of this module revisits Yogendra Yadav’s well-known formulation of the three M’s—Mandir, Market, and Mandal—in explaining India’s second democratic upsurge. Building on these persistent themes, the course introduces a fourth dimension: the problem of violence and the nature of state sovereignty. Banerjee’s analysis shifts from viewing sovereignty in the colonial period as a singular, external authority to examining the contemporary situation, where sovereignty is dispersed across multiple, competing centers—each capable of producing violence. Her argument that these “multiple sovereignties encounter one another as externalities, that is, as interactions without sociability” reframes how we understand the widespread presence of violence today.

At the same time, issues of the state and political economy—deeply entwined with violence, appropriation, and dispossession—are most vividly expressed in struggles over land. The course concludes by considering not a predetermined trajectory but the possibility of alternative models, such as Bolivia’s path, marked by its complete break from IMF and World Bank influence.

 

Weeks 9-10

Banerjee, Prathama. 2017. “State (and) Violence”. Seminar Magazine, March, Issue 691.

Guru, Gopal. 2011. “Liberal democracy in India and the Dalit critique.” Social Research 78 (1): course 99-122.

 

Mukherji, Rahul. 2014. “Citizen Concern in New India”. In Political Economy of Reforms in India, 101-156. Oxford University Press.

Vanaik. Achin. 2017. “Religion, Modernity, Secularization”. In The Rise of Hindu Authoritarianism: Secular Claims, Communal Realities, 100-162 (epub pagination). Verso                     

 

Weeks 11-12

Banerjee-Guha, S., 2013. Accumulation and dispossession: Contradictions of growth and development in contemporary India. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 36(2), pp.165-179.

 

Nielsen, Kenneth Bo, and Alf Gunvald Nilsen. 2017. “Law-struggles, law-making and the politics of hegemony in Neoliberal India: Towards a critical perspective on the 2013 Land Acquisition Act.” In Anthony P. D' Costa and Achin Chakraborty, eds. 2017. The land question in India: State, dispossession, and capitalist transition, 129-150 New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

 

Menon, Nivedita. 2016. “Women's Rights to Land and the Challenge of the Commons”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmlF1GkPp_c

Patnaik, Prabhat. 2007. “In the aftermath of Nandigram.” Economic and Political Weekly 42 (21): 1893-1895.

 

Samaddar, Ranabir. 2009. “Primitive accumulation and some aspects of work and life in India.” Economic and Political Weekly 44 (18): 33-42.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Top