Development, Democracy, Governmentality and Popular Politics

Ranabir Samaddar of Calcutta Research Group explains how studying governmental processes in a developmental and post-colonial democracy such as India means focusing on the inter-relations between democracy, development ,and governance. Democratic governance means governing the tensions, conflicts, and the collective claim-making that developmental processes and a developmental regime provoke in a democracy. The acute question to pose is upon whom will fall the frightening power implied in a world-embracing economic and technical organization. This question can by no means be dismissed in the belief that everything would then function automatically, that things would administer themselves, and that a government by people over people would be superfluous because human beings would then be absolutely free. Together development and democracy form the new political theology for India in this age of globalization. On top of this, globalization is exacerbating conflicts within these societies and polities, and disparities between sections of population.