People's Car

India is witnessing a unique moment in populism, with sentiments divided between economic reforms that promise fast industrialization and protests that thwart such industrialization. This book offers an ethnographic study of divergent local responses to the proposed construction of a Tata Motors factory in eastern India that would have produced the Nano, the so-called people's car. Initial excitement was followed by long protests among the villagers whose agricultural land was being acquired for the project. After these protests secured the relocation of the factory, further demonstrations followed, sometimes involving the same participants, seeking to bring the factory back.
People's Car explores this ambivalence concerning industrialization, asking why long drawn resistances against corporate industrialization coexist with political rhetoric and slogans promoting fast-paced industrialization. Majumder argues that such contradictory rhetoric and promises target divided sentiments in rural India where land is incommensurable with money and a site specially marked by desire for middle caste small landowners aspiring to futures beyond agriculture.
Previous studies of industrialization have generally focused on either demands for development or populist critiques. Moving beyond romantic cliches about urban/rural divisions, People's Car offers a single analytical and ethnographic framework demonstrating how pro- and anti-industrialization forces feed off each other.

“Sarasij Majumder's new ethnography, People's Car , does what anthropology does best: he shows (not tells) how populism works... Anthropologists, South Asia scholars, and readers interested in class, labor, gender and village life will greatly benefit from Majumder's attention to the rural not as object, but as process.”

Amid a glut of work on the urban global South, it is refreshing to read a book that strives to think the contemporary dynamics of development and agrarian change ethnographically. The book convincingly argues that the romanticized portrayals of either the communitarian peasant (commonplace in activist portrayals) or the irrational peasant (commonplace in policy circles and certain quarters of disciplinary economics) miss the point. Land, Majumder argues, is a vessel of personhood and unrequited desires. Attentive to the conflicted sentiments and desires of its peasant informants, the book refreshingly refuses to toe a clear ideological line. This well-crafted, clearly written book poses important questions of broad relevance to contemporary India and beyond. -- Vinay Gidwani, University of Minnesota
People’s Car offers an extraordinarily valuable take on a major movement against the acquisition of land for development, in the case of a Tata Motors car factory. The factory becomes the alibi for nuanced interrogations, both material and theoretical, of resistance, anthropology, economics, political economies, rural-scapes and the very nature and idea of land. -- Geeta Patel, University of Virginia
Sarasij Majumder’s new ethnography, People’s Car, does what anthropology does best: he shows (not tells) how populism works... Anthropologists, South Asia scholars, and readers interested in class, labor, gender and village life will greatly benefit from Majumder’s attention to the rural not as object, but as process. Political and Legal Anthropology Review
Majumder’s book deserves to be read by everybody interested in the present of West Bengal as history; so that, above all, one may not mistake snake oils of the past for elixirs of the future.---Indraneel Dasgupta, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, Economic and Political Weekly

Sarasij Majumder is Associate Professor and Director of India Studies at the University of Houston.

"Amid a glut of work on the urban global South, it is refreshing to read a book that strives to think the contemporary dynamics of development and agrarian change ethnographically. Land, Majumder argues, is a vessel of personhood and unrequited desires. Attentive to the conflicted sentiments and desires of his peasant informants, he refreshingly refuses to toe a clear ideological line. This well-crafted, clearly written book poses important questions of broad relevance to contemporary India and beyond."--Vinay Gidwani, University of Minnesota " People's Car offers an extraordinarily valuable take on a major movement against the acquisition of land for development, in the case of a Tata Motors car factory. The factory becomes the alibi for nuanced interrogations, both material and theoretical, of resistance, anthropology, economics, political economies, rural-scapes and the very nature and idea of land."--Geeta Patel, University of Virginia India is witnessing a unique moment in populism, with sentiments divided between economic reforms that promise fast industrialization and protests that thwart such industrialization. This book offers an ethnographic study of divergent local responses to the proposed construction of a Tata Motors factory in eastern India that would have produced the Nano, the so-called people's car. Initial excitement was followed by long protests among the villagers whose agricultural land was being acquired for the project. After these protests secured the relocation of the factory, further demonstrations followed, sometimes involving the same participants, seeking to bring the factory back. People's Car explores this ambivalence concerning industrialization, asking why long drawn resistances against corporate industrialization coexist with political rhetoric and slogans promoting fast-paced industrialization. Majumder argues that such contradictory rhetoric and promises target divided sentiments in rural India where land is incommensurable with money and a site specially marked by desire for middle caste small landowners aspiring to futures beyond agriculture. Previous studies of industrialization have generally focused on either demands for development or populist critiques. Moving beyond romantic clich

India is witnessing a unique moment in populism, with sentiments divided between economic reforms that promise fast industrialization and protests that thwart such industrialization. This book offers an ethnographic study of divergent local responses to the proposed construction of a Tata Motors factory in eastern India that would have produced the Nano, the so-called people's car. Initial excitement was followed by long protests against the factory, and then, after its relocation, by further demonstrations seeking to bring it back. Taking this ambivalence as a way past romantic clich

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