Abstract
For the success of any democratic nation, it is necessary that the participation of citizens is promoted at the political, social, and economic levels. In Cultivating Democracy: Politics and Citizenship in Agrarian India, Mukulika Banerjee analyzes the relationship between formal political institutions and everyday citizenship at the rural level. By means of an ethnographic approach, she attempts to show how people in Indian villages, where adult illiteracy and poverty are high, imagine democracy and its processes. She argues that to explore a wider habitus within which electoral participation is situated, we need to focus not only on the duration of elections but also between them (p. 3). The study focuses on the villages of Madanpur and Chisti, in West Bengal, and on four identified events over 15 years, 1998–2013, which constitute the author’s extended case study method (p. 9).
Banerjee’s study of these two villages in West Bengal examines the micro-politics of the daily life of villagers and how they build active engagement with the macro-politics of the state and nation. She has conducted the study by the selection of four sensitive events in this agrarian society in West Bengal, namely scandal, harvest, sacrifice, and election. These are presented in four different chapters. The question is: How have these events provided a new form of social imagination to citizens and effective participation in India’s democracy? The author seeks to align how have they enabled the social imagination and micro-level participation of citizens with these events. Nonetheless, there are recurrent analytical weaknesses in the argument.
Scandal is presented as the first of the major events and as an example of how non-electoral events can be critical in shaping democratic subjectivity. Scandal is meant to reveal something fundamental about the nature of political activity itself and its role in creating social solidarity (p. 85). However, in this chapter on scandal, an attempt has been made to attribute importance to the role of communist comrades and their influence. However, this is not borne out in the analysis, for there was no direct involvement of comrades in the scandal presented, their role having been only to bring about reconciliation. Moreover, contrary to the author’s suggestion, the consequences of the scandal can only be seen in the respective villages, not in the whole of West Bengal, nor can they be linked to the entire communist government.
The analysis of harvest, together with the congregational prayer meetings in the evening, suggests an ideal scenario to evaluate the potential for cooperation and the nature of their human project of social life (p. 109). Banerjee combines rituals such as Milad and Qurbani (sacrifice) with community participation and the notion of republic. The author argues that the
Milad gatherings therefore created an altered sociality in village life through which ties of the kinship and loyalty could be mobilized to balance the mere divisive tensions caused by the land reforms, party politics or scandals and were thus important in keeping a sense of community intact. (p. 114)
There is no doubt that Milad and sacrifice increase mutual brotherhood, but this brotherhood does not last long. Due to the land reforms that took place after the “Operation Barga,” there was in fact a situation of conflict between the Sheikh and the Sayed. Therefore, the cooperation and active citizenship discussed in this book are not only transient but also specific to an event.
Banerjee presents citizens’ participation, cooperation, and social democracy in a new republican form with different events based on Charles Taylor’s concept of “social imagination” and Ambedkar’s concept of republican active citizenship. She writes, “[T]he Language of republican citizenship is an intensely social concept and therefore requires a study of not simply the conceptual but also the ethnographic method” (p. 187). Therefore, there is a new kind of social imagination among the people regarding the role of comrades in the scandal, cooperation during the harvest, meeting and discussion of each and every class, caste during the sacrifice (Qurbani), and the participation of rural people in the election. The author has tried to draw a similar analogy between cultivation of paddy and cultivation of democracy. She argues that at the time of harvest, instead of conflict between the castes, cooperation should be seen because it requires a lot of labor. Yet female agricultural labor, which is an important contributor to paddy cultivation in Bengal, especially at harvest, and which receives lower wages compared to men, is not addressed in the book. Thus, an analytical link is again missing, this time in relation to female agricultural labor.
Banerjee tries to connect sacrifice with moral community and equitable society. The occasion of Eid, when people stand in line together against caste–class difference to offer prayers, demonstrates equality and goodwill. With regard to an electoral democracy, the long line of people on the Election Day resembles the long line of Eid, where citizens show complete equality and harmony. The author further argues that “[t]he sacrifice by a few families resulted into a feast in every house in the village, thus establishing a connection between sacrifice and moral responsibility to share with those who were willing to receive thereby creating a moral community” (p. 139). However, overtime it has been observed that festivals such as Eid and Qurbani have failed to create equality and moral community among Hindus and Muslims. Because, gradually, the low-caste Hindus (such as Dom and Bagdis) began to bar the sacrifice and Eid, then turned to worshiping Goddess Saraswati, taking forward community consciousness. Thereafter, there was a weakening of Hindu and Muslim harmony, which was taken advantage of by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2019 election. The book begins with the electoral success of the BJP in 2019, especially in Bengal, and the Babri Masjid demolition and its impact on rural societies in Bengal. But the success of the BJP has been discussed very briefly in the book, which leaves the reader disappointed. The book, therefore, lacks a detailed discussion of what changed in the rural societies of Bengal after the Trinamool Congress came into power.
Both Ambedkar and Nehru appear to be denying the republic the value of the village because of the role of castes in Indian village society. But Banerjee employs Ambedkar’s model of republican active citizenship, by which Ambedkar himself saw the concept of social democracy as synonymous with the success of democracy. While accepting that concept, she also accepts the concept of village republic. She argues that the success of democracy is not only determined by establishing institutions, or on the basis of electoral victory, but also requires constant vigilance, patience, and hard work. Apart from this, non-institutional activities such as gossip, Eid, and harvesting and collective activities at the time of harvesting and festival are also the secrets of the success of the democratic republic.
In this book, Banerjee looks at the idea of cultivation from two different perspectives. First, she attempts to explain the agrarian ethic associated with the cultivation of crops as a dominant activity, despite the advent of new-mercantile business (p. 19). Cultivation is situated in the context of institutional change brought about by land reforms, which created an unprecedented rebalancing of hierarchies among castes and classes and, in turn, generated ideas about the division of labor and cooperation (p. 19). Thus, she examines the affinity between the altered scenario and democratic values. Second, an attempt is made to explain the activity of cultivation in a broad and comprehensive sense, which includes nurture, patience, vigilance, and hope. So these democratic values are the fundamental elements of cultivating democracy.
There are some shortcomings in the way that cooperation and social imagination have been presented in this book through the four events (scandal, harvest, sacrifice, and election). Due to change in technology related to the mechanization of harvesting, the perception of cooperation of labor has changed. The perception of cooperation has further changed in the rural society due to the effect of communalism. The way the rural society has been polarized on religious grounds is something that should have been more fully explored. Finally, it is important to note that the author presents a new approach in drawing the analogy between cultivation and democracy, with which readers should familiarize themselves.