Hailing the State: Indian Democracy Between Elections

In Hailing the State, Lisa Mitchell explores the methods of collective assembly that people in India use to hold elected officials and government administrators accountable, demand inclusion in decision making, and stage informal referendums. Mitchell traces the colonial and postcolonial lineages of collective forms of assembly, in which-rather than rejecting state authority-participants mobilize with expectations that officials will uphold the law and fulfill electoral promises. She shows how assembly, which ranges from sit-ins, hunger strikes, and demands for meetings with officials to massive general strikes and road and rail blockades, is fundamental to the functioning of democracy in India. These techniques are particularly useful for historically marginalized groups and others whose voices may not be easily heard. Moving beyond an exclusive focus on electoral processes, Mitchell argues that to understand democracy-both in India and beyond-we must also pay attention to what occurs between elections, thereby revising understanding of what is possible for democratic action around the world.

Table of Contents:
A Note on Transliteration and Spelling  ix Acknowledgments  xi Introduction. Hailing the State: Collective Assembly, Democracy, and Representation  1 Part I. Seeking Audience 1. Sit-In Demonstrations and Hunger Strikes: From Dharna as Door-Sitting to Dharna Chowk  43 2. Seeking Audience: Refusals to Listen, “Style,” and the Politics of Recognition  67 3. Collective Assembly and the “Roar of the People”: Corporeal Forms of “Making Known” and the Deliberative Turn  94 4. The General Strike: Collective Action at the Other End of the Commodity Chain  122 Part II. The Criminal and the Political 5. Alarm Chain Pulling: The Criminal and the Political in the Writing of History  151 6. Rail and Road Blockades: Illiberal or Participatory Democracy?  168 7. Rallies, Processions and Yātrās: Ticketless Travel and the Journey to “Political Arrival”  197 Conclusion. Of Human Chains and Guinness Records: Attention, Recognition, and the Fate of Democracy amidst Changing Mediascapes  216 Notes  225 Bibliography  265 Index  287

About the Author :
Lisa Mitchell is Professor of History and Anthropology in the Department of South Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Language, Emotion, and Politics in South India: The Making of a Mother Tongue.

Review :
"In redefining democratic practice to include collective assembly, Mitchell weaves an intricate picture of how people understand themselves as democratic citizens. Deftly combining approaches from anthropology, history, and political theory, she brings alive the mosaic of actions that they employ in what she terms “hailing the state.” She draws on very rich archival and ethnographic material to tell us the ways in which people have and continue to hail the state." - Lipika Kamra (Review of Politics) “Mitchell weaves an intricate picture of how people understand themselves as democratic citizens. Deftly combining approaches from anthropology, history, and political theory, she brings alive the mosaic of actions that they employ in what she terms ‘hailing the state.’” - Lipika Kamra (Review of Politics) "A critical intervention in socio-political thought." - Chinmaya Lal Thakur (Contemporary South Asia) “Michell’s book is historically rich, ethnographically grounded, and theoretically innovative. Her intervention is at once timely and cautionary for Indian democracy, as it highlights and situates the stakes of political recognizability for marginalized populations. Readers interested in political anthropology and history and subaltern and South Asian studies will no doubt find this book insightful.”   - Roderick Wijunamai (Exertions)