As part of the Interrogating Development Series, the Department of International Development is hosting a book talk on 'Class, politics, and agrarian policies in post-liberalisation India' by Dr Sejuti Das Gupta. 

This is an in-person event. The talk will be followed by a drinks reception.

About the book

Has there been a shift in agrarian policies in India since liberalisation? What has been the impact of these policies on new class formation and consolidation of existing ones? Did proprietary classes with close relations to the state influence the formulation of these policies? Do class–state relations have to be uniform across nations under globalisation?

Studying post-liberalisation India, this book answers these questions by scrutinising the tenets of agrarian policies of three Indian states – Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, and Karnataka. In doing so, it analyses the political economy of agricultural policy and the class–state relations operating in the country concluding that class and its relation to the state have come to occupy a defining role in the politics of new India. This edition has an all-new introduction and conclusion that considers the farmer movements in 2020-21 and how that impacts agrarian class structure and role of the state.

Learn more about the book.

About the speaker

Dr Sejuti Das Gupta

Sejuti Das Gupta is an assistant professor in the Comparative Cultures and Politics in the James Madison College, Michigan State University. She completed her doctoral studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, as a Felix scholar. Her areas of interest are capitalism, colonialism, agrarian political economy, public policy, class-caste and state-society interactions.

Trained in political science, she shifted to Development Studies to conduct interdisciplinary research. She is trained in empirical research. Her core interest is to contribute towards combining theory and practice for a better understanding of social science. She has worked at the grassroots in India on issues of mining, land acquisition and displacement.

She completed her master’s and M. Phil from Jawaharlal Nehru University in Political Studies in 2008. Her current research focus is the impact of COVID on women and their work in Lansing. She was recently awarded a Regional Economic Initiative grant to conduct research on the pandemic’s effect on women’s work in Michigan on a formal-informal continuum.