Resource Extraction and Rentier State in the Making of Everyday Exclusion

• In Event: Indigenous Challenges to the State: Organization and Policy Opposition

Abstract

An abundance of natural resources is significant for the development of any country or region. However, it is striking to learn that many times resource abundance has played havoc for a country and community. The aspect of the rentier state shows that the main political-economic impacts of resource dependence rest on how the state handles windfall resource rent. Moreover the nexus between powerful politicians, ruling elites, bureaucrats and the dominant section of community control resources for rent-seeking. This study is located in the North Karanpura region- a resource-rich tribal-dominated region in Jharkhand, India and the mining region of Raigarh in Chattisgarh, India which produces a very significant amount of coal to feed the burgeoning needs of the energy sector. The finding shows that various forms of exclusion practised by different state institutions and local politics are the historical challenges for a developmental state. Tribal communities resisted the different forms of violence and exclusion by dominant communities and state against their expanding control of land, forest and natural resources. Today state often uses insurgent groups for negotiations and securing resources for energy generation. State rentier role and social injustice are in everyday practice where insurgent and dominant section can classify as agencies of ‘rentier capitalism'. This research follows the theoretical line of the ‘micro-politics', ‘developmental state' and ‘Rent-seeking'. Through ethnographic fieldwork carried out between 2015 and 2019 at Karanpura in Jharkhand and Korba- Raigarh in Chattisgarh, India this research will investigate the State-Society relationship, everyday exclusion of tribal communities and the state rentier role in its development practices. This research will also explore the fragmentation of society among tribal and other groups that lead to extremist movements to gain control and extract rents from resources. This research will be a contribution in ‘Resource politics’ and political economy theorization, and will critically examine the role of rentier agencies, its collaboration with the state that violates social justice to tribal communities in everyday life. Keywords: Rentier State, Developmental State, Everyday Exclusion, Political Economy.

Author

• Nikas Kindo, Tata Institute of Social Sciences