The everyday politics of India’s “land wars” in rural eastern India

The large-scale transfer of land from rural communities to private corporationshas become a defining feature of India’s development trajectory. These landtransfers have given rise to a multitude of new “land wars” as dispossessed groupshave struggled to retain their land. Yet while much has been written about thepolitical economy of development that underpins this new form of dispossession,the ways in which those threatened with dispossession have sought to mobilizehave to a lesser extent been subject to close ethnographic scrutiny. This articleargues that an “everyday politics” perspective can enhance our understanding ofIndia’s new land wars, using a case from Singur as the starting point. The agendais twofold. I show how everyday life domains and sociopolitical relations pertainingto caste, class, gender, and party political loyalty were crucial to the makingof the Singur movement and its politics. Second, by analyzing the movement inprocessual terms, I show how struggles over land can be home to a multitude ofpolitical meanings and aspirations as participants seek to use new political forumsto resculpt everyday sociopolitical relations.