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The Contrasting Footprint of Labour and Capital in Post‐colonial India

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  • Jan Breman

Abstract

India's struggle for independence held the promise of an end to poverty and redemption from the communal‐cum‐class‐based inequality which had kept the peasant economy backward. But the planned substitution of the agrarian‐rural fabric for an industrial‐urban way of life failed to materialize. Casualization and contractualization of waged work indicated that labour had become thoroughly commodified in a state of ongoing footlooseness. It was a proletarianization which did not allow for the collective action precondition to raise and settle the social question. The onslaught of neoliberal capitalism in the last quarter of the 20th century ended the brokerage of the nation state to secure the interests of labour next to those of capital. Less than 10 per cent of the workforce has continued to enjoy formalized occupational engagement, mainly in the downgraded public economy. Corporate capital in collusion with statist autocracy has not only effectuated the deregulation of employment but also abandoned the legal code of formality. The outcome is a state of lawlessness for the people at the bottom of the pile. Besides big business, politics and governance are identified in this reconfiguration as stakeholders in a brutal regime of informality, erosive of equality, democracy, welfare and civil rights.

Suggested Citation

  • Jan Breman, 2024. "The Contrasting Footprint of Labour and Capital in Post‐colonial India," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 55(4), pages 533-559, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:devchg:v:55:y:2024:i:4:p:533-559
    DOI: 10.1111/dech.12845
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Amrita Chhachhi & Jan Breman & Marcel Linden, 2014. "Informalizing the Economy: The Return of the Social Question at a Global Level," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 45(5), pages 920-940, September.
    2. Breman, Jan, 2013. "At Work in the Informal Economy of India: A Perspective from the Bottom Up," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198090342.
    3. Jan Breman, 2020. "The Pandemic in India and Its Impact on Footloose Labour," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 63(4), pages 901-919, December.
    4. Angus Deaton & Valerie Kozel, 2005. "Data and Dogma: The Great Indian Poverty Debate," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 20(2), pages 177-199.
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