“Surplus Humanity” and the Margins of Legality - Chapman University

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36 Chapman Law Review [Vol. 14:1
C. The Neoliberal Reordering
In this general context, India took a turn to neoliberal
restructuring in the early 1990s, ushering in an era of
―liberalisation-privatisation-globalisation,‖ 233 marking ―a fundamental
transformation of India‘s economic strategy.‖ 234 It was
envisaged that the economy ―would be transformed in its basic
orientation in a matter of a few years.‖ 235 This entailed rapidly
instituted deregulation, privatization, curtailment of food subsidies,
cost recovery of public services, and liberalization of
trade. 236 Indian markets were opened up to an influx of capital,
goods, and services. Foreign capital investment soared, as did
the stock market and the real estate market. High, though
doubtful, growth rates, based largely on performance of the
service sector were sustained. 237 A thorough empirical study
finds that these rates of growth are not associated with
liberalization of the domestic economy and international trade,
but are a case of sustained growth that began a decade earlier. 238
This presents ―an important counterexample to the dominant
orthodoxy.‖ 239 In addition, accelerated remittances by skilled and
unskilled labor buoyed foreign exchange reserves.
With the neoliberal turn in public policies, corporate capital
assumed political and moral sway over the social formation. This
hegemony was deployed to influence governmental decisions ―not
through electoral mobilisation of political parties and movements
but largely through the bureaucratic-managerial class, the
increasingly influential print and visual media, and the judiciary
and other independent regulatory bodies.‖ 240 The bureaucraticmanagerial
class now stands subordinated to corporate capital. 241
The latter is now in a position to set the terms of the political
field to which other social groups are constrained to respond.
233 Mary E. John & Satish Deshpande, Theorising the Present: Problems and
Possibilities, 43 ECON. & POL. WKLY. 83, 84 (2008). See also Kamal Nayan Kabra, Indian
Planning and Liberalisation, 31 ECON. & POL. WKLY. 2740, 2740–41 (1996); Kuldeep
Mathur, Neo-liberal Agenda and Study of Institutions, 1 REV. OF DEV. & CHANGE 167, 175
(1996).
234 Ashutosh Varshney, Mass Politics or Elite Politics? India‘s Economic Reforms in
Comparative Perspective, in INDIA IN THE ERA OF ECONOMIC REFORMS 222, 230 (Jeffrey D.
Sachs et al. eds., 1999).
235 Jeffrey Sachs et al., Introduction, in INDIA IN THE ERA OF ECONOMIC REFORMS,
supra note 234, at 1, 13.
236 Id. at 13–16.
237 Prabhat Patnaik, The Meaning of Contemporary Globalization, in CONTESTED
TRANSFORMATIONS, supra note 35, at 7.
238 MCCARTNEY, supra note 203, at 236.
239 Id. at 235.
240 Partha Chatterjee, Democracy and Economic Transformation in India, 43 ECON. &
POL. WKLY. 53, 57 (2008).
241 Id. at 57–58.