ABSTRACT
To illustrate our theory of primitive accumulation, we now proceed to present two case studies of primitive accumulation in India. They are chosen to reveal, what we call, the assorted forms of primitive accumulation, from its more classical array to a somewhat non-classical mode – a micro and perhaps mundane mode; from its more explicit, overt and obvious version to its more surreptitious, silent and secret form. We analyse the more classical form of primitive accumulation through an
exemplification of the idea of the special economic zone (SEZ) in India. We show how a wholesome transformation involving expropriation and dispossession of forms of life – forms of life within world of the third – is being processed through SEZ. This is a way of implanting deep into world of the third land the machinations, norms and philosophy of the camp of (global) capital; and all this is done on the pretext of forwarding the development march of India; forwarding it in the image of the capitalist industrial West as also China, in its post-Mao incarnation. The defence of SEZ is that it will open the floodgates for productive capital, ushering in the process an increase in income, quality employment and generally producing a higher standard of living; and those who would not benefit directly would benefit indirectly in the long run through ‘trickle down’ from the creamy top. This, however, is not the full story; this is one story; a story from a particular perspective. SEZ helps bring to the fore a combination of displacement, expropriation-exploitation, inequity and enslavement as a way of constructing a ‘colony’ – a colony within independent nation-states – a colony for capitalist expansion and also for the deepening of the capitalist mode – where the capitalist mode(l) is premised on the nodal signifiers (point de capiton) – ‘private capitalist surplus value appropriation’ and the ‘market form of capitalist commodity tuned to the global’ (Chakrabarti et al. 2009). The other pertinent point in this context is that of ‘social barriers’ set up by world of the third resistance to SEZ; such
resistance is affecting the progress and also the form of primitive accumulation. Along with producing the much coveted ‘separation’ of world of the third subjects from their previous objective conditions of existence, the mechanisms to control the disfranchised and indeed the very process of primitive accumulation too are being impacted, not only within the SEZ areas but also beyond. In the course of this description, we highlight the particularity of the trajectory of primitive accumulation in India and show how that particularity is partly due to the uneven trajectory of the transition process, not least because of resistances. While the trajectory of primitive accumulation in a SEZ-like scenario is
recorded and recognized, there are also unrecognized and unrecorded forms of primitive accumulation. Our second study concerns this non-classical form of primitive accumulation. We have already elucidated that forceful dislocation of forms of life initiated through development projects is not the only form of dislocation. The logic of growth through industrialization driven by the setting up and expansion of ‘modern’ capitalist enterprises may create a moment of dislocation in which the economic livelihood is dismantled even as the populace of world of the third retains their living space. Resultantly, the change in the given condition of economic livelihood via its overdetermined and contradictory effects on other processes could produce a severe disruption of life within world of the third. This is an instance of a non-classical form of primitive accumulation stemming from the process of separation from one or many of the objective conditions of existence that re-produce world of the third economy and society. In this case, an alteration in the objective condition of existence of world of the third disrupts and could even dismantle their forms of life without the SEZ kind of explicit use of RDAs. To exemplify the above phenomenon, we put forward the case study of
Plachimada, a village in the Pallakad district of Kerala. Here, Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Private Ltd (HCCBPL), a global capitalist enterprise, has set up a factory that produces coke. The received logic of development would consider the setting up of such a global capitalist enterprise in an otherwise ‘third world’ backwater as progressive as it allows global capital and its circuits to prise open territories hitherto outside the purview of the modern industrial economy. We would like to show how this seemingly ‘progressive’ step could create a situation of dislocation à la separation from one or more objective conditions of existence of world of the third societies, here quality water, producing in the end a severe disruption of the forms of life and even their possible dismemberment. Because in the hegemonic approach to development, dislocation for all practical purposes is reduced to physical displacement, the question of compensation or of resettlement does not arise in this case. This is tantamount to non-recognition of a certain form of dislocation.
The association of primitive accumulation with coercive violence in the form of RDAs can also be read as a failure of sanctioned violence. Sanctioned
violence is defined as a scenario where the consent of one agent produces a subspace ‘that brings forth effects in it turning over against him leaving little room for his further consent’ (Chaudhury et al. 2000: 92). The generation of consent concerns the production of the subject of development, which, of course, falls within the realm of IDAs. An example is that of a segment of world of the third who would consent to the setting up of a modern capitalist unit in their vicinity, a contract that sanctions the subsequent extraction of resources by the enterprise that may even destroy the forms of life therein (say by depleting the groundwater level, spreading toxic substances, etc.). Sanctioned violence here takes the form of sanctioned dislocation. The subjects of world of the third may somewhat paradoxically give consent (to dislocation/violence); they might give consent for a number of reasons such as, say, for what they think to be a better standard of living (with better jobs, with better education, with better health, etc.) within the ‘camp of global capital’; such as, say, for what they perceive to be the glitter within the ‘circuits of global capital’; such as, say, for the dazzle of global capital that unfolds along its border – the plush shopping mall, the six-lane highway, the soaring sensex. What happens thereafter, that is the theft and plunder, of course goes well beyond what they asked for and is not contained in the contract. It is evident that, for the consent to be generated in the first place, sanctioned violence must involve the moment of persuasion through IDAs. Indeed, and this is quite common, those who surrender to the persuasion and hence to sanctioned violence may clash with forces who refuse to concede and be persuaded in the first instance (such clashes are becoming a feature in space marked for SEZs in India). This also tells us that world of the third is potentially a fragmented space in which different subject positions are produced, and these could and often do clash with one another. In the last chapter, we saw that primitive accumulation telescopes the
sovereign moment involving the coercive use of the state and of law, and also the moment of normativization. Displaced into the development space through RDAs and IDAs as regimes of coercion and persuasion, respectively, moments of explicit violence and sanctioned violence converge and implode within the process of primitive accumulation. This is particularly the case where the resistance or the ‘social barrier’ to the moment of ‘separation’ is particularly strong and/or the potentially disfranchised people have other means such as voting rights to register their protest. Whether ‘separation’ will be subjected to exclusively RDAs or a combination of RDAs and IDAs depends partly on the historical trajectory of ‘resistance’. Consequently, the histories of primitive accumulation in so-called third world spaces, such as in China, India, Latin America and Africa, while being subjected to the same rhetorical loop of third world-ism, have taken many forms depending on the specific mix of RDAs and IDAs. Our focus is on Indiawhere, in recent times, the magnitude of social resistance
to ‘separation’ has gradually made ideological interventions important. While ‘separation’ itself involves a dose of RDAs, this is no longer a sufficient
