India's Unfree Workforce

India's Unfree Workforce PDF Author: Jan Breman
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195698466
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 399

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Book Description
Contributed articles presented in two workshops organized mainly by Institute of Human Development and French Institute of Pondicherry in 2006 and 2007.

India's Unfree Workforce

India's Unfree Workforce PDF Author: Jan Breman
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195698466
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 399

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Book Description
Contributed articles presented in two workshops organized mainly by Institute of Human Development and French Institute of Pondicherry in 2006 and 2007.

The Underbelly of the Indian Boom

The Underbelly of the Indian Boom PDF Author: Stuart Corbridge
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317610458
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
As India emerges as a major economic power, producing dollar billionaires rising at the rate of 17 per year, more than 800 million Indians eke out a living on less than two dollars a day. This book takes the reader to the underbelly of the Indian boom, an India that is not shining but is struggling to survive. From the Indo-Soviet Bhilai Steel Plant in Chhattisgarh, where an aristocracy of labour is increasingly being replaced by a more vulnerable contract labour force, we move to the banks of the Hoogly River. Here, Norwegian shipping companies exploit a precarious labour force that is as vulnerable to the vagaries of global finance and its crisis as the elderly, especially women and wage-workers, who live in the slums of Chennai. Also in Tamil Nadu, but this time in Tiruppur, we find that the garment and textile industries boom has nurtured new regimes of debt bondage among industrial workers. Though public concern about the vulnerability in which poor people find themselves has resulted in new nation-wide schemes framed in the language of rights, we find in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh that the practical workings of these schemes are dependent on the regional political systems in which they are enmeshed. We end in the belly of the Maoist-inspired Naxalite insurgency, denounced by the Indian government as the country’s greatest security challenge, where the poor are being mobilised to rise against the injustices of the Indian state. This book was originally published as a special issue of Economy and Society.

Capitalist Development in India's Informal Economy

Capitalist Development in India's Informal Economy PDF Author: Elisabetta Basile
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135039585
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
This book explores the economy and society of Provincial India in the post-Green Revolution period. It argues that the low 'quality' of capital development in India's villages and small towns is the joint outcome of the informal economic organisation, that is strongly biased in favour of capital, and of the complex stratification of the workforce along class and caste lines. Focusing on the processes of growth induced by the introduction of the high-yield varieties in agriculture, the book demonstrates that a low-road pattern of capitalist development has been emerging in provincial India: firms compete over price and not over efficiency, with a constant pressure to reduce costs, in particular labour costs. The book shows that low-skilled employment prevails and low wages and poor working conditions are widespread. Based on original empirical research, the book makes a valuable contribution to the debate on varieties of capitalism, in particular of the Global South. It is of interest to academics working in the fields of Development Studies, Political Economy and South Asian Studies.

Indian Capitalism in Development

Indian Capitalism in Development PDF Author: Barbara Harriss-White
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317673972
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
Recognising the different ways that capitalism is theorised, this book explores various aspects of contemporary capitalism in India. Using field research at a local level to engage with larger issues, it raises questions about the varieties and processes of capitalism, and about the different roles played by the state. With its focus on India, the book demonstrates the continuing relevance of the comparative political economy of development for the analysis of contemporary capitalism. Beginning with an exploration of capitalism in agriculture and rural development, it goes on to discuss rural labour, small town entrepreneurs, and technical change and competition in rural and urban manufacturing, highlighting the relationships between agricultural and non-agricultural firms and employment. An analysis of processes of commodification and their interaction with uncommodified areas of the economy makes use of the ‘knowledge economy’ as a case study. Other chapters look at the political economy of energy as a driver of accumulation in contradiction with both capital and labour, and at how the political economy of policy processes regulating energy highlights the fragmentary nature of the Indian state. Finally, a chapter on the processes and agencies involved in the export of wealth argues that this plays a crucial role in concealing the exploitation of labour in India. Bringing together scholars who have engaged with classical political economy to advance the understanding of contemporary capitalism in South Asia, and distinctive in its use of an interdisciplinary political economy approach, the book will be of interest to students and scholars of South Asian Politics, Political Economy and Development Studies.

Bonded Labour and Debt in the Indian Ocean World

Bonded Labour and Debt in the Indian Ocean World PDF Author: Gwyn Campbell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317320085
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
This volume of essays contains case studies of debt bondage covering the impact of an expanding globalized economy, increased commercialization, colonial and post-colonial societies, and emerging economies.

Labor on the Fringes of Empire

Labor on the Fringes of Empire PDF Author: Alessandro Stanziani
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319703927
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 343

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Book Description
After the abolition of slavery in the Indian Ocean and Africa, the world of labor remained unequal, exploitative, and violent, straddling a fine line between freedom and unfreedom. This book explains why. Unseating the Atlantic paradigm of bondage and drawing from a rich array of colonial, estate, plantation and judicial archives, Alessandro Stanziani investigates the evolution of labor relationships on the Indian subcontinent, the Indian Ocean and Africa, with case studies on Assam, the Mascarene Islands and the French Congo. He finds surprising relationships between African and Indian abolition movements and European labor practices, inviting readers to think in terms of trans-oceanic connections rather than simple oppositions. Above all, he considers how the meaning and practices of freedom in the colonial world differed profoundly from those in the mainland. Arguing for a multi-centered view of imperial dynamics, Labor on the Fringes of Empire is a pioneering global history of nineteenth-century labor.

The Comparative Political Economy of Development

The Comparative Political Economy of Development PDF Author: Barbara Harriss-White
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135171947
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
Illustrates the enduring relevance and vitality of the comparative political economy of development approach and presents the relation between theory and empirical material in an interactive way. This title offers an explanation of what is happening in the continent of Africa and the sub-continent of South Asia.

Wage Earners in India 1500–1900

Wage Earners in India 1500–1900 PDF Author: Lucassen, Jan
Publisher: SAGE Publishing India
ISBN: 9354793649
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description
The study of wage levels and the purchasing power of wages is often viewed as a specialized academic topic of little concern to the wider public. This is far from being the case, as this book demonstrates. The study of wages opens up vistas of the daily life of the working people, of their standards of living and, therefore, addresses questions of larger economic developments and unequal power relationships in a region. Wage Earners in India 1500–1900: Regional Approaches in an International Context brings together several scholars—young and veteran—to study new data and reinterpret older data from a fresh methodological perspective to locate India within global economic systems more effectively. This book • identifies previously unused and unpublished material for the study of wages • underlines the importance of wages as a source of income for Indians from early times • demonstrates the trends in wages over the period under review • stresses the need to take women into account for the reconstruction of household income

Labour, state and society in rural India

Labour, state and society in rural India PDF Author: Jonathan Pattenden
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1784996408
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Behind India's high recent growth rates lies a story of societal conflict that is scarcely talked about. Across its villages and production sites, state institutions and civil society organisations, the dominant and less well-off sections of society are engaged in antagonistic relations that determine the material conditions of one quarter of the world's 'poor'. Increasingly mobile and often with several jobs in multiple locations, India's 'classes of labour' are highly segmented but far from passive in the face of ongoing exploitation and domination. Drawing on over a decade of fieldwork in rural South India, the book uses a 'class-relational' approach to analyse continuity and change in processes of accumulation, exploitation and domination. By focusing on the three interrelated arenas of labour relations, the state and civil society, it explores how improvements can be made in the conditions of labourers working 'at the margins' of global production networks, primarily as agricultural labourers and construction workers. Elements of social policy can improve the poor's material conditions and expand their political space where such ends are actively pursued by labouring class organisations. More fundamental change, though, requires stronger organisation of the informal workers who make up the majority of India's population.

Precarious Labour and Informal Economy

Precarious Labour and Informal Economy PDF Author: Smita Yadav
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319779710
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
An empirical account of one of India’s largest indigenous populations, this book tells the story of the Gonds—who currently face displacement and governmental control of the region’s forests, which has crippled their economy. Rather than protesting and calling for state intervention, the Gonds have turned toward an informal economy: they not only engage with flexible forms of work, but also bargain for higher wages and experience agency and autonomy. Smita Yadav conceives of this withdrawal from the state in favour of precarious forms of work as an expression of anarchy by this marginalized population. Even as she provides rich detail of the Gonds’ unusual working lives, which integrate work, labour, and debt practices with ideologies of family and society, Yadav illustrates the strength required to maintain dignity when a welfare state has failed.