Mantenimiento de redes y artefactos

As stated by Dreze and Sen (1999), it is true that famines or large scale starvation deaths in post-independent India have been averted; however, a major problem of malnutrition amongst a large section of population persists to date.

In fact, the concept of „starvation deaths‟ became a contested term in post-colonial India, with some arguing that starvation should be seen as the end point of a larger process of political, social and economic marginalisation and that it would be incorrect to call labour- intensive employment, which provided exchange entitlements, adequate responses to starvation or any post-disaster situations (Rangaswami, 1985). Thus, in this analysis, the impacts of famine and other disasters which lead to food scarcities in households are considered a result of broader socio-economic-political processes which create conditions of impoverishment and make such impoverished people vulnerable to the effects of these disasters. It is these root causes of marginalisation from more development that need to be tackled. One can see that although the current context differs hugely from colonial days,

147 such an analysis has overt similarities with the political economy critique of famines in British India made by Naoroji and later by Gandhi, and as indicated in the debates within the British Parliament. (See the chapter Rights and governmentality: famine response in colonial India): these also raised questions about the root causes of poverty, famines and disasters.

The analysis as advocated by Rangaswami (1985), and more recently by Sen (2004) requires that the disaster response needs to go beyond the prevention of starvation deaths during or after famine or any disasters (Sen, 2004). A much deeper developmental agenda is needed to be put in place as a wider strategy to deal with poverty, impoverishment and the resulting food scarcities after disasters: as also noted in the researched villages. Civil society groups in India have attempted to broaden and deepen this developmental agenda by pressurising the state to bring a right to education, a right to livelihood, a right to health, and a right to food within the ambit of state response. They also attempted to make the state itself more transparent and accountable, through campaigns such as the right to information and the social audit; and achieved a measure of success62. Further issues such as land reform and an equitable distribution of lands are also raised for the purpose of creating a wider socio-economic condition of relative equality for all sections of the population. In the following subsection, I analyse the local socio-economic-political processes of marginalisation and recovery through the lens of access to eroded and deposited lands by the River Ghagra, land being a major resource in rural areas.

5.5.1 Jike lathi kuhra tike chari kuvra (the one whose stick is stronger will get the

land)

This rural proverb was recited to me a number of times by people across all social groups, when I asked about how and when they might regain their lands, when they have been eroded and later deposited by the river. In the field area, the deposition by the river is called “pataan” while the erosion by the river is called “kataan”. The proverb sums up eloquently the land dynamics in the area.

Chand, aged 35, is a carpenter belonging to an intermediate gudiya caste group and now living on the embankment after the erosion of his house and lands in his native village. It

62 _{The civil society action has led to government enacting progressive acts for universalisation of education,}

148 has been almost eight years since he lost his land through erosion by the Ghagra. Chand: states

“my land is under pataan but is far away from here. But jabar [powerful] people have sown on those deposited lands. I will not get this land till it is measured by the government. Till the tehsildar, patwari, lekhpaal [all local government officials with the revenue department] do not measure the deposited land and tell me that this is your field, I won‟t get my land back. If I go on my own, I am threatened and told “your land is not here”. It is the jabar people who are sowing and ploughing the deposited lands”. (Chand, September 2008)

This was a common narrative of persons who had lost their lands through the erosion by the River Ghagra and had neither regained it nor really hoped to regain it when it did get deposited in the near future. Thus land conflict was an important outcome of erosion and deposition by the river.

The “Jabar” people in this case, were considered those who were rich and also those who had the muscle power to stay in the area termed as „reta‟ or „kondhri‟, where constant erosion and deposition or kataan and pataan of the river take place. The reta is often described as a dangerous area to live, as it is constantly under the threat of being washed away in floods and erosion. Much of the eroded lands belonging to the scheduled and intermediate caste groups in the researched villages were gained by them in the first place about 40-50 years ago under the land reform acts carried out in Uttar Pradesh. My own field discussions suggest that land reforms were a mixed success in the field area, as many of the households belonging to the scheduled caste and intermediate groups reported receiving land titles through land reforms and becoming marginal63 farmers in the process. On the other hand, narratives from the field also suggest that not all surplus land or tenancy land was distributed amongst the poor through land reforms. The limited gains from the land reforms, are now being reversed as those who had gained lands are now becoming landless. Further, in many cases, even those belonging to the landed upper-caste groups have become landless or marginal farmers due to river erosion, with their lands not yet deposited. Thus those belonging to the scheduled and intermediate caste groups and some also to the earlier landed upper-caste groups are now impoverished due to kataan. Many

63 _{The NABARD (National Agricultural Bank and Rural Development) of India uses following}

classifications for landless, marginal, middle and large land holders: less than one hectare (marginal); one to two hectares (small) and more than two hectares as (large) farmers. I will follow this classification in my use of the terminology through this thesis ( See Shenoi, P. V. (2005) Managerial Strategy for Agricultural

Development in the early 21st century. Mumbai: National Agricultural Banking And Rural Development

[Online]. Available at: http://nabard.org/fileupload/DataBank/OccasionalPapers/OC%2035.pdf (Accessed: 7th june 2010).

149 such households had to come and live on the Belha- Behroli embankment built by the government as they had no other place to stay and to conduct their livelihoods.

A transect walk through the reta and discussions with groups of people staying in the reta showed an intricate pattern of negotiations that influential persons from the mainland villages entered into with those staying in the reta. The people living on the reta were identified mainly as purviyas, (designating people from other parts of Uttar Pradesh who had come to stay in the reta some generations ago) and occupied vacant lands under constant kataan and pataan of the river in these areas. Also, such lands were available at a much low price than other lands in the markets. Others who lived on reta areas were mainly ahirs64. One of the strategies followed by influential households, who lived on the mainland but controlled lands in reta, was by capturing these deposited lands by measuring and drawing boundaries of their own on deposited lands. Many developed an understanding with the settled purviyas in reta by giving them this self-measured land on a share-cropping basis. In this way, some influential households were able to negotiate control over deposited lands through purviyas. A few households which belonged to the scheduled caste or intermediate caste groups which cultivated in reta used the backing of powerful patrons, as their main negotiating strategy. Ramesh, aged 30 and belonging to an intermediate gudiya caste, is living in reta and cultivating deposited lands, while the rest of his family is living on the embankment. He has the backing of an influential patron from the neighbouring village who was summoned to do measurements of the deposited lands. Ramesh remarks:

“Patwari hardly comes in to do measurements here. What happens is that some village leader will be summoned and told, “brother, you know the area”. Then he will delineate these lands by measuring them and instructing us – go this way, go that way. Somebody who is a thakur or a brahman may be given more lands than they had earlier. What can you do? If you say anything, you will be beaten up”. (Ramesh, November 2008)

Nevertheless, this strategy of summoning a powerful person as an arbitrator is a means of accessing deposited land for persons like Ramesh, who now can cultivate it as his own without interference from other people.

Senior officials within the revenue department are aware of land conflicts, but said that they intervene and do measurements “when they receive a complaint from those whose

64

Ahirs traditionally keep cattle as their main livelihood resource and the parts of reta which are covered with grass are considered suitable for keeping cattle.

150 lands are taken away wrongly by the powerful people” (Senior Official, Tehsil Mehsi, November 2008). All this generally means that poor people who may not have the power or resources to complain and have lost their lands in kataan may never get their lands back, unless they are able to mobilise the backing of a powerful patron. This explains why Chand and many others are sceptical about ever again getting back their lost land in kataan.

To sum up, in reta or villages affected by floods and kataan, the state apparatus has not yet penetrated enough to secure justice for the poor and those generally excluded from development processes in particular.65

5.6 Summing up

Constitutional measures to further gender and caste equalities, disaster relief responses, and safety net safeguards and, in addition civil society actions and campaigns, such as the right to food and work, have made significant interventions at the macro-level in furthering equity, and at the micro level in cushioning the impacts of floods. Although minimal, the government-supported social protection and safety net programmes are considered to be important by the poor and by those excluded from general development processes. They also stave off starvation deaths and in that sense are geared towards maintaining bare life only. Thus the homo sacer is reproduced through the minimalist entitlements by the Indian Government, which keeps sections of populations between a state of well being and bare living after disasters. Collins argues that a “progress in disaster reduction” needs to be gauged “in terms of people‟s transition from vulnerability to wellbeing” (Collins, 2009, p. 250). To the extent that well being eludes a large sections of population after disaster suggests that the right to development and the right to transparent governance, are important issues which continue to affect flood recovery and risk reduction processes.

Further, poorer and excluded groups are not fully able to gain access to the basic state entitlements – namely the social protection and safety programmes – due to reasons such as the entrenched gender, class and caste structures of the moral economy which influence the way in which state entitlements and rights are produced and played out. Notions of honour and shame play an important role. Local notions of entitlement and rights such as bhav-vyavhar, which rely on a reciprocal obligation between persons who are otherwise

65 _{The fourth Citizens report, by Centre for Science (1990), New Delhi titled “Living with floods” too reports}

land grabbing by dominant or landed classes resulting in land conflicts in Bihar in diara lands which are eroded and deposited by Kosi River.

151 placed at socio-economically unequal levels, and operate through a patron-client relation, are mobilised to cope with flood and erosion effects. In this way bhav-vyavhar is used as a negotiating strategy by the poorer and otherwise excluded persons to access government entitlements, and act as a subaltern political strategy to deal with the effects of local political economy and thus to gain access to the benefits system. Similarly, the example of land conflict in reta areas also shows the operation of local political economy processes and the way power and powerlessness is mediated and managed by the poorer and excluded groups after floods and erosion, given that the state administration is not able to deliver justice in reta areas. Here too, these subaltern groups use negotiating strategies with the influential persons to gain access to lands in reta areas.

In sum, the chapter has analysed how statist notions of rights, moral economy, subaltern politics and their intersection with each-other affects the production of rights. From the perspective of rights, the chapter further shows how a homo sacer, as a person living between a condition of well-being and bare-living, is produced by minimalist state interventions following disasters. It also shows how the politics for rights by civil society groups has questioned the production of this homo sacer by seeking to expand the purview of the social protection and safety programmes by the Indian Government. Lastly, the chapter also shows how the local subaltern politics for rights interact with the effects of the local political economy, and with moral economy structures, to contribute to a production of rights that affect coping. In other words, the social vulnerability approach with its emphasis on a political economy and gender analysis needs to be complemented with another set of analyses that bring in a perspective on how rights are produced in coping with disasters. Together they potentially offer a better analytical grid for understanding the effects of disasters and for the alignment of strategies that will further the disaster risk reduction processes in disasters.

152

Chapter 6

Disasters, Social Nature and the Subaltern

6.1 Introduction

One of the issues discussed by the last chapter was the way the local political economy processes in the researched villages and reta areas influenced disaster outcomes, in terms of differential impacts and coping strategies mediated due to differential experiences of power and powerlessness. This chapter engages with these local political economy processes and experiences from the perspective of political ecology, given that flooding and meandering of the River Ghagra and the government‟s technical response to floods and erosion in the researched villages and reta areas also create their own politics of nature.

This chapter further shows that a political ecology approach (a variant of the social vulnerability approach as discussed in the theoretical framework) to disaster that looks at the way in which social ecologies are formed and distributed through geographies of power is not enough to fully understand the impacts of disaster. The chapter shows how the socio- political constructions of nature and disasters which ascribe notions of rights and responsibilities to society and nature shape people‟s approaches to disasters and also have implications for disaster risk reduction strategies. It also evaluates people‟s choices or critiques of the technocratic approaches to disaster risk reduction by the government in relation to, and the extent to which they resonate with, the ethics proposed by the eco- centric approaches (Leopold, 1970; Naess, 1989; Merchant, 1992; Pepper, 1996).

To do this I start by discussing the concept of “social nature” and use it to analyse the socio-political representations of floods and erosion and ask what sort of a nature- people relation is constructed through them. I further analyse the ethical/normative underpinnings posed by the local and subaltern representations of disasters, and society-nature relationship and suggest that a disaster risk reduction paradigm needs to critically engage with the subaltern sensibilities that sometimes treat disasters as not so negative happenings, and as opportunities for change: an issue highlighted by Rosenthal‟s (1998) analysis which

153 treats disasters as complex processes. The analysis in this chapter suggests that disasters and disaster risk reduction strategies need to be understood as discursive practices. As such disasters and disaster risk reduction strategies legitimize or question certain social claims. This analysis also draws on „the subaltern‟ as a fluid notion. While on one hand, the subaltern constitutes the otherwise exploited and excluded in the context of the social relations at stake, in this chapter the subaltern also becomes a local generalised voice which questions certain hegemonic representations of nature, society and disasters generally informed by a technocratic world view of nature and society.

The chapter shows that to treat disasters as discursive practices is to bring in a critical reflexivity in the way in which disasters and risk reduction is approached, albeit informed by the social vulnerability approach, that includes a complexity analysis or a political ecology critique. It thus argues that what is needed is a continued search for a building of a society which critically engages with “social nature” by an epistemological reframing of an understanding of disaster, and which understands disaster risk reduction as a non-linear complex process committed to building ethical futures.

6.2 Disasters and social nature: