Organization at the margins: Subaltern resistance of Singur

Abstract

Based on fieldwork and subaltern studies as a theoretical framework, this article engages organizational discourses of farmers in Singur, India. Opposing their land grab by the state for a corporate project, the farmers join the global struggle against land acquisition by subaltern communities, a prominent feature of the neoliberal economy. My conversations with the farmers reveal that discourses of violence and non-violence informed their organization of struggle. Further, their organization of resistance emerges as a self-organization, demonstrates the interplay of agency and structure, and follows an ethico-political ideology to challenge the imperial power produced by state-corporate nexus. In particular, cultural value frames of ahimsa (non-violence) and dharma (moral) guide their organizational principles centered on ethical considerations, justice and human dignity. This research brings forth the counter-hegemonic potential of the Singur resistance and suggests its possibilities to contribute to the process of change in the neoliberal economy. Ultimately, the peasant discourses decentralize the ways we think of the world in terms of its forms of organization and its social life in the neoliberal political order, and offer social imaginaries of a politically just society.